Lynn Blackmar's Blog, page 21

The Idea Game – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 1

Ideas por doquier by Juan Buchelli, flickr.com, CC attribution license

At every convention, through email, and in writers’ communities, one question gets asked more than any other – how do you get ideas?

I have no trouble with developing ideas, just finding the time to actually use them. My idea file has maybe 100+ unused ideas for novels and stories.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be exploring idea generation and brainstorming. I hope you will find it useful not just for writing, but for any creative endeavor.

Write it down!

The most important thing you can do is write down your ideas when you have them.

Planning a place to keep your ideas should be your first step in coming up with ideas, not your last. You might find you have more ideas than you realize once you start to write them down.

The second most important thing is to write everything down, no matter how small you think it might be. Don’t worry if your idea isn’t good enough right now. Sometimes they will spur something big, or you can blend them with other ideas to create something more compelling.

Investigate Your Options

Examine your daily habits. When do you have your best ideas? What could you use to capture those ideas? You may have to experiment and adjust to find the solution that you remember to use when an idea strikes.

Are you never far away from your phone or computer? Try Scrivener, Google Drive, Microsoft Office, Evernote, or plain ole email. Make sure you back up everything with Dropbox or another cloud storage. A lot of people I know really like Workflowy. I’ve even played with PiratePads and JCink forums.

Do you write longhand? Try a nice hardbound journal, Moleskine notebook, or even a school composition notebook. Find one small enough to carry around easily. Get a nice pen and make it a special experience to record your ideas.

Or you could try index cards. Keep a few index cards in your purse or pocket, and keep them in an indexed box. You could even cut them in halves or in thirds and keep them in your wallet or business card holder.

What will you use?

My life is very technology-driven, and I loathe writing longhand. I will forget to use a paper journal. Since I use Scrivener for the writing process, it’s natural to also use it as my story file, as it helps me keeps all the ideas organized into categories and lengths. For example, I have genre categories like science fiction and action adventure, but I also have subcategories for novels and short stories. It’s not a perfect categorization system, but it works for me well enough. I have it set to automatically back up my Scrivener files to Dropbox at every save. Most tricks about using Scrivener I learned from Youtube videos.

When I have an idea away from home, I throw it on a Google drive document or my private Jcink forum so I can retrieve it when I get home. Sometimes I just email it to myself.

Cover Your Bases

I learned quickly that there are some places where ideas flow like crazy, but accessing my usual tools is difficult. Those main spots are in the shower, when I’m tucked into bed, and when I’m driving.

Here are my solutions:

Shower/Bath – Aqua Notes Waterproof Notepad

I love this notepad and pencil set, and use it all the time, not just for writing ideas, but also to remember to do lists and grocery items. Haven’t really come up with a better solution. Perhaps you are talented enough to write in a regular journal while wet, but I just perpetuate smeared sogginess.

In bed – Hardbound journal and light up pen

Usually I don’t want to turn on the lights to write everything down, so I solved this with a LED Pen. A small book light would work well, too. I do have to remember to check it once in awhile, because sometimes I don’t remember writing things down the night before.

Driving in the car – Siri to email

I try not to do anything too distracting while driving, but I have sent myself emails using Siri now that I have an iPhone 5. In the past, I have used a small digital recorder.

Coming Up

Next week, I’ll give you the heart of finding ideas. After that we’ll discuss some other methods and how to brainstorm them all to the fullest.

Until then, your homework is to find somewhere to start writing everything down so you can preserve all your great ideas!

Related Posts:

Humanity in Tragedy, or What I Learned from Arrow
The Pixar Theory by Jon Negroni
Writing the End: How it should have ended

Original article: The Idea Game – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 1.

If you would like to receive freebies, discounts, and updates about new books, sign up for my newsletter at the top right of my website.

An Update on Catalyst

I have a bit of sad news. Catalyst will have to undergo a lengthy revision before it’s ready. I think the changes will really make it a much better book, and I’ve been working hard to make it the best I can.

Currently, I am rewriting the first four chapters of the book from a completely different scenario, and I like it much better than the earlier drafts.

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What Am I Reading?

Original article: An Update on Catalyst.

If you would like to receive freebies, discounts, and updates about new books, sign up for my newsletter at the top right of my website.

Game of Thrones Spot the Difference

I know who I’d bet on, Mr. Martin… cheezburger.com

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Original article: Game of Thrones Spot the Difference.

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Zombies Can’t Swim

 

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Original article: Zombies Can’t Swim.

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Flying Like Superman

Fun video of flying from Superman’s perspective:

http://youtu.be/H0Ib9SwC7EI

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Original article: Flying Like Superman.

If you would like to receive freebies, discounts, and updates about new books, sign up for my newsletter at the top right of my website.

What Am I Reading?

Love this photo from Jukka Zitting! Classics and Robert Jordan’s Crown of Swords.

A couple people have asked what I’ve been reading lately, so I thought I’d share with everyone.

Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive)

This is Book 2 of the Stormlight Archive. It took me a real long time to read the first book. There’s a lot of characters to remember. I kept reading it, and was totally addicted by the end.

A Study in Silks (The Baskerville Affair)

Cute and fun. A steampunk Sherlock Holmes-inspired jaunt.

Veronica Mars – the TV series: Neptune Confidential (Kindle Worlds Novella)

I know Jason from a writer’s forum, and we were both excited about the release of Veronica Mars on Kindle Worlds. This is his fanfiction about Vinnie Van Lowe.

Heroes in the Night: Inside the Real Life Superhero Movement

I tried to read nonfiction sometimes, and this is a documentary of sorts on the real life superhero movement. Just got this, so I haven’t read very much, but seems like it will be a fun read.

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Original article: What Am I Reading?.

If you would like to receive freebies, discounts, and updates about new books, sign up for my newsletter at the top right of my website.

The Frozen Hunger Games

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Original article: The Frozen Hunger Games.

If you would like to receive freebies, discounts, and updates about new books, sign up for my newsletter at the top right of my website.

Humanity in Tragedy, or What I Learned from Arrow

Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) as Arrow

I have a confession. I’m completely addicted to the CW TV show Arrow. I’ve always been a fan of superhero stories, from Superman to Batman to the X-men. No, I don’t pick sides. I like ‘em all.

When Arrow was first announced, I was excited to see another superhero series on TV, though I wondered where they would go with it. The Green Arrow is one of my favorite characters from the comics, so I kinda had a specific idea of how I wanted to see him played. Arrow was nothing like I expected.

Constant High Action

Arrow leads off with a bang and rarely slows down. The moment you think the characters are going to get a break, something else happens. The fights are intense and well-choreographed. Characters argue and lie to each other, and some die. Plot twists galore.

I think it would be too much action, except that the action scenes all have a specific purpose to drive the plot forward. Many times you don’t find out exactly why until later. Besides driving the external storyline and making things exciting, every action scene contributes to the emotional journeys of the characters in a crucial way. Things that they take with them and use later.

It’s crazy hard to do this kind of momentum for a variety of reasons. It might not come across as believable. It’s too easy to write action scenes just to have an action scene instead of furthering the plot, getting tied down into the details of the fight and forgetting why you have the action there in the first place. And, for those of you that haven’t written action scenes, they are really hard to choreograph. Action scenes are often the slowest-going scenes I write.  Arrows pulls off constant action, but every bit of action has a larger purpose.

Felicity Smoak’s Impact on Oliver (and the series)

I have to admit that I wasn’t sure I was going to keep watching the series after the first two episodes. I do not tend to enjoy grim stories. I understand their value; I just have no fun reading or watching them.

I felt like Oliver was too serious, and he didn’t seem entirely human. His ticking bomb personality made sense with his back story, but even though had had tender moments with his mother and sister Thea, they were too bittersweet, and he remained emotionally closed. I didn’t connect to Oliver, and when I don’t connect to the main character of a story, I tend to tune out.

Then came a moment in the third episode that brought me in for the first time. Oliver went to have a laptop hacked by IT girl Felicity Smoak, and for the first time in the series, we saw behind Oliver’s mask. Oliver smiled. And not just the plastered fake smile he used with his family, pretending like nothing was wrong, but an honest, charmed, and slightly puzzled smile.

Emily Betts Rickards was a guest star, only knowing that she had a small part to play for that episode. But whether it was Oliver the character, or Stephen Amell, the actor, that was charmed by Felicity Smoak the character or Emily the actress, Oliver suddenly became a real character for me in that Mona Lisa smile.

Felicity charmed me, too. She’s smart, earnest, brave, moral, capable at her job, more than a little awkward around guys (especially Oliver), but she stands her ground when she feels strongly about something. Felicity doesn’t win through strength, but through brains. She provides a complete contrast to Oliver, and on-screen, he lights up whenever she’s in the room. Oliver becomes more accessible around her, more vulnerable, and more approachable to the audience.

After that episode, an entire fandom was formed. “Olicity”, as they are now known, has a huge following on social media platforms like tumblr.

Even the most grim stories need a human element, something to which the audience can attach and sympathize to the main character or important secondary characters. Frodo had Samwise Gamgee, Harry Potter had his friends, and Katniss Everdeen had her sister.

Diggle’s Conscience

If Felicity provides compassion, John Diggle is the conscience of Team Arrow. Whenever Oliver is about to run out of the lair for the wrong reasons, Diggle cuts to the heart of the problem and redirects Oliver in a better direction.

David Ramsey, who plays John Diggle, has had some epic lines. Diggle is able to say what others cannot, and what Oliver doesn’t want to face, but he also says them in ways that are like a sucker punch to the face. He doesn’t reserve these lines for Oliver, but Felicity, Oliver’s mother Moira, and others have had doses of Diggle’s sharp and funny wisdom.

Diggle isn’t without his own vendettas. The tables turn sometimes, and it’s Oliver who keeps Diggle in line. The incidents are rare and very specific, but it gives Diggle depth, and allows him grow, too.

Oliver’s Changing Mission

One thing I’ve especially enjoyed about the series is how it reflects Oliver’s journey in the short introduction summaries. Ultimately, the story is about how Oliver changes into someone who not only cares about the welfare of others, but he does something about it on a large scale.

Oliver goes through several stages where he thinks he has his mission nailed down, and then something happens to change his mind. This happens both in the modern scenes, and the flashback scenes. While I think flashbacks work way better on TV than in fiction, they serve to frame how Oliver changes and has changed, and they are just as full of action and suspense as the modern scenes. As Oliver’s mission changed, the intro summary changed the key phrases to match his progression.

Conclusions

Oliver’s journey has not been instantaneous, but a constant stream of major events in his life which have whittled away the chaff. The things that have happened to him, mostly pretty terrible, have changed him and made him what he is. The people he surrounds himself with keep him from falling into despair and vengeance.

Oliver has changed from someone who lives in the moment to trying to save a whole city. We’ve seen a reasoned and deliberate journey of becoming for the main character. He’s gained compassion, moral direction, and the tools to accomplish his task. Team Arrow works like a team, and has gained valuable allies outside the lair.

I look forward to Oliver’s future journey in Arrow, and to finding out if Starling City really can be saved.

 

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Original article: Humanity in Tragedy, or What I Learned from Arrow.

If you would like to receive freebies, discounts, and updates about new books, sign up for my newsletter at the top right of my website.

Beautiful 2014 Geek Calendar

SciethAilm’s 2014 Geek Calendar

Artist SceithAilm painted this downloadable free amazing 2014 calendar featuring some of fandoms favorite characters, including Loki, Sherlock, Dracula, Jack Sparrow, and more!

Want a free story? Viral Legacy is free on all platforms! Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble, Itunes, Sony, Smashwords
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Original article: Beautiful 2014 Geek Calendar.

If you would like to receive freebies, discounts, and updates about new books, sign up for my newsletter at the top right of my website.

Viral Legacy Free on All Platforms

Viral Legacy is now free on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes.

I’m happy to announce that Viral Legacy has been made free on all platforms!

Paramedic James “Jig” Gage confronts his worst nightmare when he is infected by a patient with a terrifying unknown disease.

A fun 3600-word medical thriller short story with a light science fiction twist. Appropriate for ages 14 and up.

FREE!

Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble, Itunes, Sony, Smashwords

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Original article: Viral Legacy Free on All Platforms.

If you would like to receive freebies, discounts, and updates about new books, sign up for my newsletter at the top right of my website.