Stephen Drivick's Blog - Posts Tagged "a-to-z-challenge"
Anthology
This is my first entry for the Blogging from A to Z April 2014 challenge. Today we look at the letter A-Anthology
Short stories are a lot of fun. They don't sell very well unless your Stephen King, but they are still a lot of fun.
Last Halloween, I wrote a short story about giant bugs taking over the Earth. Twelve (12) brave souls ponied up .99 to read it. I was stoked! If you want to check it out bugs is available where all ebooks are sold. Be kind if you review it!
A few months later, a call came out from KBoards.com for short story submissions. The stories would be collected and put in an anthology (there's your A), and published. The money from the sales would go to charity.
Feeling flush with excitement, I penned off a silly story about a woman who turned into a snow monster and ate her boyfriend. I didn't think it had a chance of making the final cut, but to my surprise it made it into the book.
Well, now there's another anthology of short stories and again it's going to charity. Since they didn't stop me on my first story, I wrote another. It was a fairly simple tale about the President of the United States at the beginning of a zombie apocalypse. Thinking it couldn't happen twice, I was surprised again when it made the cut despite being 1000 words over the limit! Awesome and cool.
So like I said, short stories can be fun both to write and to read. I think I'm going to do both - read some and write a few.
If you would like to pick up a few short stories to read. here are the links to the anthologies on Amazon:
Something to Read on the Ride - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G9I8K5E
Something for the Journey - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HGF827K
Something to Take on the Trip - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JD41Z3K
And just for the heck of it, here's bugs - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IBRL666
Short stories are a lot of fun. They don't sell very well unless your Stephen King, but they are still a lot of fun.
Last Halloween, I wrote a short story about giant bugs taking over the Earth. Twelve (12) brave souls ponied up .99 to read it. I was stoked! If you want to check it out bugs is available where all ebooks are sold. Be kind if you review it!
A few months later, a call came out from KBoards.com for short story submissions. The stories would be collected and put in an anthology (there's your A), and published. The money from the sales would go to charity.
Feeling flush with excitement, I penned off a silly story about a woman who turned into a snow monster and ate her boyfriend. I didn't think it had a chance of making the final cut, but to my surprise it made it into the book.
Well, now there's another anthology of short stories and again it's going to charity. Since they didn't stop me on my first story, I wrote another. It was a fairly simple tale about the President of the United States at the beginning of a zombie apocalypse. Thinking it couldn't happen twice, I was surprised again when it made the cut despite being 1000 words over the limit! Awesome and cool.
So like I said, short stories can be fun both to write and to read. I think I'm going to do both - read some and write a few.
If you would like to pick up a few short stories to read. here are the links to the anthologies on Amazon:
Something to Read on the Ride - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G9I8K5E
Something for the Journey - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HGF827K
Something to Take on the Trip - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JD41Z3K
And just for the heck of it, here's bugs - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IBRL666
Baseball Bats
This is my second entry for the Blogging from A to Z April 2014 challenge. Today we look at the letter B-Baseball Bat
When I was writing Sometimes We Ran, I wanted to give my female main character, Claire, a signature weapon to dispatch the bad guy zombies. It would be her go-to way to carve through a crowd of walking corpses.
Claire is small in stature, and she needed something that anyone could use. I thought of a knife, but that brought the zombies in too close. A small gun was a possibility, but my other main character used a firearm and I wanted something different. I tossed out machetes and other assorted blades because I couldn't picture Claire swinging a sword, and it had been done: See Walking Dead and other zombie movies.
My mind drifted. I started looking around the room. My eyes fell on a wooden baseball bat in the corner. Claire had her weapon.
I changed it to aluminum. Claire has now been wielding the mighty baseball bat in two novels.
Come to think of it, a baseball bat would be a very effective zombie deterrent. It's simple to use, you can probably find a bat everywhere you look, and it makes you look like a total zombie-killing badass.:) It also gives Claire a neat character trait. I have to confess, I don't know if a baseball bat would cave in a skull. I don't know if someone of Claire's diminutive size could even use a bat effectively. Still, I think it works in the story and no one has called me on it yet.:)
So if a real zombie apocalypse happens, the first thing I'm doing is finding the nearest sporting goods store. I'm adding a bat to my arsenal. Claire would approve.:)
When I was writing Sometimes We Ran, I wanted to give my female main character, Claire, a signature weapon to dispatch the bad guy zombies. It would be her go-to way to carve through a crowd of walking corpses.
Claire is small in stature, and she needed something that anyone could use. I thought of a knife, but that brought the zombies in too close. A small gun was a possibility, but my other main character used a firearm and I wanted something different. I tossed out machetes and other assorted blades because I couldn't picture Claire swinging a sword, and it had been done: See Walking Dead and other zombie movies.
My mind drifted. I started looking around the room. My eyes fell on a wooden baseball bat in the corner. Claire had her weapon.
I changed it to aluminum. Claire has now been wielding the mighty baseball bat in two novels.
Come to think of it, a baseball bat would be a very effective zombie deterrent. It's simple to use, you can probably find a bat everywhere you look, and it makes you look like a total zombie-killing badass.:) It also gives Claire a neat character trait. I have to confess, I don't know if a baseball bat would cave in a skull. I don't know if someone of Claire's diminutive size could even use a bat effectively. Still, I think it works in the story and no one has called me on it yet.:)
So if a real zombie apocalypse happens, the first thing I'm doing is finding the nearest sporting goods store. I'm adding a bat to my arsenal. Claire would approve.:)
Claire
This is my third entry for the Blogging from A to Z April 2014 challenge. Today we look at the letter C-Claire.
In the morning light, I got a good look at my new fellow survivor. Claire really was a little thing, only standing about five feet tall or so. I bet she barely weighed a hundred pounds. I wondered how she survived the initial outbreak. She looked pretty weak. She must have survived by going from one group of survivors to another. I wondered if she had any real skills at all. I hoped she wasn't completely useless, because I really didn't want to be a babysitter.
Claire walked with a purposeful stride. She held her head up high, constantly scanning the road ahead. Once in a while, she shot a nervous glance in my direction. I guess she didn't trust me either.
Claire brushed some of her hair out of her eyes, and put it behind her ear. I thought the pink color was a little weird, but she was kind of attractive. She had a nice build; not much up top, but her back porch wasn't too bad. I suddenly wished I were twenty years younger.
This is how John first describes Claire in Sometimes We Ran. From the beginning, I had a picture of Claire in my mind. I wanted her to be an opposite of the other main character, John. He was tall and armed, while Claire would be small and have no weapons except for a sharpened piece of rebar.
I knew I wanted her to be strong. One of the problems in many zombie apocalypse novels is how female characters are treated. Often they are simply leather-clad, background dwellers that whine and moan through the end of the world.
I wanted Claire to be different. Initially, she would appear weak but would prove herself to be valuable and brave. She would kill zombies and make pancakes. Just the useful skills you needed during the apocalypse.:)
In some of the prehistoric drafts of SWR Vol. 1, Claire was younger - like early high school young. I wrote a few passages of interaction between her and John, and she came off as whiny and useless. After some soul searching, I scrapped it all and made her older. I wrote some dialog with these changes, and it worked. I put a bat in her hand and Claire was born.
In the end, I like writing for Claire. She's brave, funny, and a good sidekick. Claire is the kind of person where a friendship could span decades. She's a great character with a lot of heart. A little spitfire trying to light the darkness. Very human in a inhuman world.
But don't take her size as a sign of weakness ...she's a killer with her bat.:)
In the morning light, I got a good look at my new fellow survivor. Claire really was a little thing, only standing about five feet tall or so. I bet she barely weighed a hundred pounds. I wondered how she survived the initial outbreak. She looked pretty weak. She must have survived by going from one group of survivors to another. I wondered if she had any real skills at all. I hoped she wasn't completely useless, because I really didn't want to be a babysitter.
Claire walked with a purposeful stride. She held her head up high, constantly scanning the road ahead. Once in a while, she shot a nervous glance in my direction. I guess she didn't trust me either.
Claire brushed some of her hair out of her eyes, and put it behind her ear. I thought the pink color was a little weird, but she was kind of attractive. She had a nice build; not much up top, but her back porch wasn't too bad. I suddenly wished I were twenty years younger.
This is how John first describes Claire in Sometimes We Ran. From the beginning, I had a picture of Claire in my mind. I wanted her to be an opposite of the other main character, John. He was tall and armed, while Claire would be small and have no weapons except for a sharpened piece of rebar.
I knew I wanted her to be strong. One of the problems in many zombie apocalypse novels is how female characters are treated. Often they are simply leather-clad, background dwellers that whine and moan through the end of the world.
I wanted Claire to be different. Initially, she would appear weak but would prove herself to be valuable and brave. She would kill zombies and make pancakes. Just the useful skills you needed during the apocalypse.:)
In some of the prehistoric drafts of SWR Vol. 1, Claire was younger - like early high school young. I wrote a few passages of interaction between her and John, and she came off as whiny and useless. After some soul searching, I scrapped it all and made her older. I wrote some dialog with these changes, and it worked. I put a bat in her hand and Claire was born.
In the end, I like writing for Claire. She's brave, funny, and a good sidekick. Claire is the kind of person where a friendship could span decades. She's a great character with a lot of heart. A little spitfire trying to light the darkness. Very human in a inhuman world.
But don't take her size as a sign of weakness ...she's a killer with her bat.:)
Dialogue
This is my fourth entry for the Blogging from A to Z April 2014 challenge. Today we look at the letter D-Dialogue.
I'm kind of new to this writing thing, but I find that I really like dialogue. I find it to be a nice way to move the story along and get to know your characters. They can be evil, funny, knowledgeable, snotty or all of the above. The simple interaction of two or more people can reveal a whole backstory about a person. Pretty cool.
You have to be careful. If the conversation gets long, you can lose track of who is talking. I remember during a late-night writing session, I actually lost my place while writing a long conversation and had to go back and remember who said what.:)
I guess a whole novel or short story consisting of dialogue would be a little annoying. It might make a good writing exercise. Come to think of it, a story of all dialogue might be cool. I may have to give it a try.
I'm kind of new to this writing thing, but I find that I really like dialogue. I find it to be a nice way to move the story along and get to know your characters. They can be evil, funny, knowledgeable, snotty or all of the above. The simple interaction of two or more people can reveal a whole backstory about a person. Pretty cool.
You have to be careful. If the conversation gets long, you can lose track of who is talking. I remember during a late-night writing session, I actually lost my place while writing a long conversation and had to go back and remember who said what.:)
I guess a whole novel or short story consisting of dialogue would be a little annoying. It might make a good writing exercise. Come to think of it, a story of all dialogue might be cool. I may have to give it a try.
