Rival Gates's Blog, page 82

Yoda and the Magic 8 ball

Ok on an off topic. I love the Star Wars movies but I can't stand Yoda. He is totally worthless! He is the magic 8-ball of Jedi. Any time he is asked specific question he responds with, "Difficult to see it is", "Hard to tell the future is", "Clouded his destiny is". Why doesn't he just say "Ask again later?" I mean he is really useless. He trained Count Doku...good job on that one. Then he couldn't beat Doku or the Emperor whom only he was supposed to be able to stop. Yeah, I know the Emperor cheated but comeon, he's a bad guy. He gets to do that. He did train Luke and the job he did could be argued either way. He beat Vader but then he throws away his light sabre when the Emperor approaches. You lose points for that one Luke. Yoda must have missed that lesson. Ok it's out of my system now

What's in a Name?

When I am asked about my book, one of the most common questions is, "How do you come up with the names for your characters? There are so many." Oddly, creating names used to be a pet peve of mine. Then I turned it into a challenge. Admittedly, many of the names I use are ones I just liked the sound of hearing. As for the others, I use a variety of approaches. Sometimes I take two words that describe the character and blend them together. Sometimes they are words spelled backward or anagrams. What is really fun for me is that the reader would have to put some thought into discovering what method I used. It could be simple and it could be complicated. That's the beauty of writing. I can fill my story with hidden meanings. If you do not catch them...it's still a great stroy. If you do catch them, you begin to wonder if you caught them all. I want my readers to think. It is not an attempt to be cruel, but rather to give you just a little more in which to sink your teeth. There was a song I loved for years and I was singing it one day. Then a friend said, "Hey, did you ever know that it was actually about..." Whoa! Totally blew my mind. That's what I strive for with my readers.

Writing imitates life

My father was an editor. In grade school I was entering a provincial writing contest and was in search of a topic. He instructed me to, "Write about a topic on which you have some knowlege." It was the simplest advice but as was usually the case with Dad, he knew what he was talking about. I followed his advice and placed in the top ten in the province (I lived in Ontario, Canada at the time).
The best writers I find draw on personal experiences or interests for their work. I incorporated my fights in school into my book and it fit perfectly. I knew how it felt to be on both sides of a punch.
Do you find Dad's advice to be accurate?