Author Archives: Margaret Fieland

Sherwood

This month’s round robin is to write a short story, flash fiction, or use an
excerpt from one of your books. As a long time Robin Hood fan, I am delighted to bring you the following story:

Sherwood

There are some couples you never expect to split up, and Maid Marian and Robin Hood were one of them.

“Don’t you think,” Marian asked Robin one May morning, “that the two of us are more a habit than anything else?”

“What do you mean?” Robin replied, but Marian noticed he wouldn’t look her in the eye, instead staring at a spider spinning a web. “Aren’t you happy here? We’re doing useful work, robbing the rich and giving to the poor.”

“It’s illegal work.” Marian eyed the dirt floor of their hut, pushing aside the rotten leaves and chicken bones with one foot.

“Don’t you think the poor deserve a champion?” Robin stroked his black beard and brushed a pile of ashes off a three legged stool before sitting down.

“You could go into politics, you know, and champion them that way.” Marian picked a bug out of her red hair and crushed it between thumb and forefinger.

“Bah, politics. That’s worse than highway robbery.” Robin rose and stomped out of the hut, leaving Marian to sweep out the leaves and bones.

“Haven’t you ever wondered how much of the money we take from the rich actually gets to the poor?” Marian asked one evening a few days later as they were sitting around the fire dividing the latest take, with Robin as usual giving himself the lion’s share.

“No, why?” Robin poked a stick at a passing lizard.

“Less than half of what we take in gets to the poor. The rest is overhead.”

Robin tossed the stick away. “We have to eat, and anyway it’s our only source of revenue.”

“Oh, never mind.” Marian shook her head in frustration, then rose, dusting some dead grass from the back of her gown before stomping off.

One evening a week or two later Marian approached Friar Tuck. “Father, I’m afraid that my relationship with Robin is getting stale.”

Friar Tuck brushed a few leaves off a convenient tree stump and sat down. “Stale, how?”

“I think we’re getting tired of each other. Both of us.”

“So?”

“So I want more than a dirt floor. I want better than burnt venison for supper. I want stone walls, neighbors, markets, a proper kitchen. I want a bath more than once a year.” Marian thought for a minute. “Maybe even once every three months. And I’m uneasy about the robbery. It feels wrong.”

“It appears that your decision is made.”

“It appears so.” Marian sighed and brushed some ants from her skirt, noting as she did so that it had acquired a few new rips and smelled distinctly of mold.

The next day Marian broke the news to Robin. “I’m moving to Nottingham. Do you want to come?” Marian thought it churlish not to ask.

Robin stared at the ground for a minute or two. “I think not, but perhaps you could come back from time to time to help with the housework and the cooking.”

“Men!” Marian fumed as she packed her things and rode her horse to town.

The first person she encountered was the sheriff.

The sheriff stopped and smiled up at Marian, brushing a shock of wavy fair hair out of his eyes. “I’m surprised to see you here.”

“Yes, well, I’m moving back to Nottingham. Do you know of a house for rent?” Marian dismounted, tying her horse to a convenient post.

The sheriff looked Marian over from head to foot. “I might. There’s an in-law suite available at my place.”

“Won’t your wife object?”

“I have no wife,” the sheriff admitted, tugging at his blond beard.

Marian grinned. “Really. In that case, how much rent do you require?”

The sheriff raised one eyebrow. “How much can you afford?”

Marian looked at the ground. “A bit. The last rich folks we robbed were pretty wealthy.”

“I’ll forget you said that. Is Robin joining you?”

“No, but he wants me to come back once a week to help with the chores. He’ll pay me.”

The sheriff frowned. “Out of ill gotten gains.”

“Those are the only ones he has. Besides, I need the money.”

“I suppose I’ll have to overlook it then.” The sheriff sighed and led the way back to his home.

Marian hung back a bit as they approached the thick oak front door. “Won’t this be improper?”

“Mistress Abbott, my housekeeper, will act as chaperon. Assuming we need one.” The sheriff’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled.

Marian blushed and followed him into the house.

After a week or two, Marian started spending the evenings in the solar talking with the sheriff.

“Just why did you decide to move to town?” the sheriff asked one evening at the end of June.

Marian shifted on the bench, pulling her shawl across her chest. “Sometimes relationships don’t last. It was long overdue, really.”

The sheriff smiled down at his shoes. “Was it? In that case, perhaps you would care to walk out with me this Sunday.”

Marian blushed. “That would be nice.”

A month later the sheriff proposed to Marian. She hesitated for a minute and then said, “Think how Robin’s going to feel.”

“He had his chance. He didn’t even try to move to town with you.”

“It would have been awkward. Besides, I didn’t really push him very hard.”

“There you are then,” the sheriff said, and Marian threw her arms around him.

After several minutes, when they could both breathe again, the sheriff asked, “Do you suppose he’d agree to give you away? After all, the two of you go back a long way. It might give him closure.”

“I’ll ask when I go out to clean this Thursday.”

“And do tell him that he’ll have to find someone else to do his housekeeping. I don’t want you going out there once we’re married. It won’t do for a sheriff’s wife to be working for a robber.”

Marian smoothed her skirt. “Oh, very well.”

Marian approached Robin that very Thursday. “The sheriff and I are getting married. We wondered if you would give me away. You know, for old time’s sake.”

Robin frowned. “Are you sure this isn’t a ploy to get me to town so he can arrest me?”

“No, he really wants you to do it. We both do. But I can’t come here and clean any more. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Not clean? But …” Robin sputtered.

Marian brushed some cobwebs out of her hair. “Things change. How about the wedding?”

Robin picked up his bow. “I’ll come, but I won’t give you away, and that’s that.”

Marian watched Robin stalk off into the forest. “Men!” Then she mounted her horse and rode home.

“He took it badly,” said Marian to the sheriff as she walked in the door.

“Well, what do you expect? At least he agreed to come to the wedding. We don’t want any hard feelings.”

It wasn’t long after the wedding that Marian discovered she was pregnant. “If it’s a boy, I’d like to name him Robin. Would that be all right?”

“Robin?” The sheriff raised his eyebrows.

“It’s a nice name.”

The sheriff took Marian in his arms and kissed her. “If it will make you happy, then we will. ”

A few months after baby Rob was born, Robin started coming into town once or twice a week. He would visit with Marian and the sheriff for a few minutes and then go about his business. After a few weeks of this, the sheriff asked, “What do you think Robin is doing coming here so often? It’s making me uneasy.”

“I have no idea.” Marian pushed a few strands of red hair off her face.

The sheriff stared into Marian’s blue eyes. “Oh, never mind.”

The Sheriff disliked having a robber in the family, even one as apparently well-intentioned as Robin, and he wanted to know what Robin was up to, so one Tuesday as Robin was saying goodbye to Marian, the sheriff pulled him aside. “Robin, there have been quite a few robberies on the road to London. That wouldn’t be you, would it?”

Robin frowned. “No, it’s not me. In fact, I’m getting tired of robbery as a profession but I don’t know what else to do to support myself. It’s all I’ve done since I was a boy.”

The sheriff pulled at his blond beard and look down at his feet. “You could go into law enforcement.”

Robin’s brown eyes opened wide. “What do you mean?”

“I could hire you as my deputy. Then, when an opening for a sheriff in one of the neighboring towns comes up, I could recommend you.”

“I can’t abandon the Merry Men. They count on me.”

The sheriff considered the gray streaks in Robin’s dark hair. “You know, these damp mornings must be hard on your knees and back. Surely there’s someone younger who can take over. Young Will, perhaps.” Robin’s face turned red, and the sheriff added quickly, “Think about it.”

Robin stomped out, slamming the door as he left.

When three weeks went by without a visit from Robin, Marian started to worry. “What did you two talk about the last time Robin was here?”

“Oh, nothing. I just mentioned he might think of retiring from the robbery business. Did you notice how stiff he was when he got up from the bench?”

Marian twisted a strand of hair around her finger. “Perhaps I should go visit him.”

“No, no, think of the baby. You might get sick or hurt.”

That Friday, just when Marian had decided to defy her husband and go visit Robin in Sherwood Forest, Young Will knocked on their door. “Marian, Robin’s very sick. He’s got a fever and he’s ranting and raving. I’ve got him outside on the donkey.”

“What happened?” Marian asked as Will and the sheriff carried Robin into the second-best guest room.

“He got soaked in that thunderstorm last Sunday and spent the whole day in wet clothes. Besides, the roof of his hut is leaking…” Will’s voice trailed off.

Marian patted Young Will on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, we’ll look after him.”

A week later, when Robin was better, the sheriff approached him again. “Have you thought about that job offer? Your lifestyle isn’t exactly conducive to good health and long life, you know.”

Robin shook his head. “I couldn’t possibly work for you. Suppose I had to arrest one of the Merry Men!”

“A good point. We’ll have to think of something else.”

There was still the problem of Robin’s profession, so the following week Robin and the sheriff went to the inn to have a pint or two of ale and consider Robin’s options. They barely finished their first when Harold, the innkeeper, approached their table.

He put his large hand on Robin’s shoulder. Robin’s eyes darted from side to side.

“I hear you and my daughter Leticia have been keeping company.”

Robin’s suntanned skin turned pale. “Maybe once or twice. Well, maybe a few more times. She’s not, you know, expecting, is she?”

Harold thumped Robin on the back, nearly sending him into his pint of beer. “I know you’re going to do the right thing by Letty.” Robin swallowed a few times and then nodded.

The sheriff grinned and raised his pint. “Well, there’s the problem of your new profession solved. Harold has always said that Letty’s husband would take over the inn.”

Robin married Leticia and their daughter was born six months later. Robin entertains visitors with tales of his former exploits. Business is booming and little Mary Anne is the apple of her father’s eye. She and Baby Rob are becoming the best of friends.

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Anne Stenhouse http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
Victoria Chatham http://www.victoriachatham.com
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com/blog
Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-29F
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/
Margaret Fieland https://margaretfieland.wordpress.com
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobincourtright.com

Check out the posts of my fellow bloggers:

Double Star by Robert A. Heinlein

4 Replies

I am a way-back RAH fan — I selected “Farmer in the Sky” for my tenth birthday — and “Double Star,” a novel about an out-of-work actor who is tapped to impersonate a well-known political figure, is one I have read and re-read. It is written in the first person by the main character, Larry Smith, or, as he is known professionally,The Great Lorenzo. Here is the opening line, one of my all-time favorite novel openings:

“If a man walks in dressed like a hick and acting as if he owned the place, he’s a spaceman.”

And from later in the book, where a character has sold out the main character, is another favorite quote:

“I answered with a single squeaking polysyllabic in High Martian, a sentence meaning, ‘Proper conduct demands that one of us leave!’ But it means far more than that, as it is a challenge which usually ends in someone’s nest being notified of a demise.”

Heinlein is still popular, with many, many editions of each of his works available on Amazon and yes, a lot of his books available in the science fiction section of your local bookstore.

The master is creaky in spots but he’s held up remarkably well, and he’s still as entertaining as ever. And I was struck by the extent to which Heinlein was a visionary with respect to future science and future everyday life. To cite one example of many, the main character in another of his novels, “Between Planets” answers his personal phone in the opening pages. When I read it, I remember thinking, “A personal phone? it will never happen.” , I was wrong, and Heinlein, who was trained as an engineer and had an insatiable curiosity about this, and just about everything else, was right.

Double Star https://www.amazon.com/Double-Star-Robert-Heinlein-ebook/dp/B016TSE6OW

Margaret Fieland https://margaretfieland.wordpress.com
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Anne Stenhouse http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/
Dr. Bob Rich
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobincourtright.com

Dr. Bob Rich: https://wp.me/p3Xihq-282

A Barrel of Laughs

5 Replies

Topic: How easy or difficult do you find including humor in your
writing and/or have you ever incorporated a true life humorous event in
your own life or the life of someone you know in a book you were
writing?

I love to include humor in my writing. Often it’s only a couple of lines, like the ones from a scene in a comedy club from Rob’s Rebellion

“No worries, Charlie.” Senator Cromwell reached for Suzy’s hand and held it. “When do you go on?”

“Right after the goons who are up now. You never heard such lame jokes.”

“I have heard them, and that’s the trouble,” Senator Nakai mumbled.

As far as I can recall, I have never included an incident that happened to me or to someone else I know in my fiction. My poetry, however, is another story. A lot of it is funny, rhymed, or both, and a lot is inspired by incidents in my own life. And even when whatever inspired the poem is serious, the poem itself is not.

I wrote the poem below, which appeared in Village Square when I was taking an online grammar course. The course material was the kind of material that causes students to tear their hair out, but the poem is sheer fun. It’s written as rhymed free verse and contains only a couple of made-up words <grin>

Phrasical Subordination

The main clause of the sentence names the thing you mainly do
but it can have subordinates and more than just a few,
and realize that subordinates can have subordinates, too.
Oh, a sentence needs a subject and a verb.

A subordinate’s connected by some word up to the main
by kinds of words that form a sort of phrasicallic chain,
like what, and where and who and which that more that tax my brain.
Oh, a sentence needs a subject and a verb.

See, relative pronounic phrases modify a noun.
If the noun is missing, then grammarians will frown,
Give it a noun to modify and you can go to town.
Oh, a sentence needs a subject and a verb.

If you need to pick a that or need to pick a which
you’ll need a method to decide where you can make the switch,
If you can drop the phrase, well then the which is not a glitch.
Oh, a sentence needs a subject and a verb.

A subordinate conjunction starts adverbialic phrase.
It modifies the verb in ways that surely will amaze.
If it starts the sentence, then a comma is displayed.
Oh, a sentence needs a subject and a verb.

Whom denotes an object, it’s the object of the do.
If your phrase requires an object, then the whom’s the one for you.
If you need a subject, well, you must then pick the who.
Oh, a sentence needs a subject and a verb.

A noun dependent clause is used just like the noun to bring
an object or a subject or a relativic thing
by words like what or, where or how, to add a bit of zing.
Oh, a sentence needs a subject and a verb.

I hope this little ditty helps to clarify your mind.
It’s helping me to classify the phrasicallic kind
in a way that’s maybe just a bit less of a grind.
Oh, a sentence needs a subject and a verb.

Do check out the posts of my fellow bloggers:

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-1Tb
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Anne Stenhouse http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
Margaret Fieland https://margaretfieland.wordpress.com
A.J. Maguire http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Victoria Chatham http://www.victoriachatham.com
Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com

Does the Stork bring me plots?

5 Replies

Aleyne Desert

This month’s topic: Topic: In designing your plots what do you rely on most: personal
experience, imagination, or research?

I’ve been giving this a lot of thought in the weeks since we decided on this topic, trying to tease out just where my plot ideas came from. In order to keep this investigation to a reasonable size < grin> I decided to concentrate on the four science fiction novels in my Novels of Aleyne series.

As in all science fiction, the world in which the novels take place came from my imagination, but it came from both the Plot Fairy and my own personal experience. The novels take place on a military base. The main characters in two of the novels, Brad from Broken Bonds and Rob from Rob’s Rebellion are army officers. The main characters of the other two, Keth from Relocated and Martin from Geek Games, are adolescent boys. The setting I used is an army base a desert environment. In Broken Bonds, the legal system takes on a major role, as does computer hacking in Geek Games. Many of the important secondary characters in the series are either army officers, writers, artists, or musicians. These are all elements with which I am personally familiar or which I was able to research in order to get enough information to fill out the plot.

First, the desert and the army. My father, an attorney, served in World War II and entertained my sister and me with many stories when we were growing up. My father was a Judge Advocate General — basically, the army equivalent of a district attorney. He told a story about a Black sergeant who was prosecuted for going AWOL to a bar that was 100 yards off the base. None of the White officers who were with him were brought up on charges. This story haunted me, and a secondary character, Johnny Dragon, is a Black sergeant who is imprisoned by the military for the same charge and who befriends Brad, my main character.

My middle son also spent eight years in the army where he served as a captain in military intelligence. He spent two tours of duty in Iraq. I shamelessly picked his brains when I was writing Rob’s Rebellion because military procedure plays an important role.

Among the other subjects I researched in the course of writing the series were Native American mythology (Brad’s ancestry is Native American), yoga and meditation, the procedures used when someone is charged with a crime, the International Court, glass blowing and ceramics.

I can’t help feeling that in spite of the major roll imagination plays in my plot building, it is shored up by my research and my personal experience.

Margaret Fieland https://margaretfieland.wordpress.com
Victoria Chatham http://www.victoriachatham.com
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-1dm
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Anne Stenhouse http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobincourtright.com

Love and Sex

2 Replies

The topic for this month’s round robin is an opinion on love, sex, and relationships in books. What seems acceptable? Is it necessary in a story? And what goes too far?

Every book and every character is different, and each situation is unique. In terms of how explicit (or not) I’m willing to be about sex, I’m willing to open the door only as far as necessary to advance the plot.

In my novel Geek Games, character is fourteen, gay, and develops an attraction to another by a couple of years older. I faced deciding not only how far I wanted to go in terms of the plot, but also how what I wrote intersected with my publisher’s guidelines.

Yes, I asked, and I sent along a couple of scenes I was concerned about, one where they kiss and another where I wanted to show that they were doing more.

The kiss is a big deal, a turning point for my main character in terms of his feelings about himself, and thus it was important for me to describe, and, yes, the description was all right with my publisher and made it into the novel.

In the second incident, I hinted at what was happening but the action takes place off-stage. My initial draft was a bit more explicit about it, but after passing it by my publisher, I modified it. However, what was important about the second incident was the attitude of the adults about it, and not what the boys themselves were doing.

If I had written a different novel, it might have turned out that the activity was important. Would I have described it? Given my druthers, I’d rather not write about 14-year olds doing anything more than kissing. Would I, if it were important to the plot? Yes, I would.

Two boys kissing might make some readers squirm, but making my readers comfortable is not my primary aim. I want to explore my characters’ journeys. It’s not always an easy place to be.

Margaret Fieland https://margaretfieland.wordpress.com
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Victoria Chatham http://www.victoriachatham.com
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
A.J. Maguire http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Marci Baun http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/
Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-1vP
Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobincourtright.com

Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/

Character Creation

4 Replies

Creating a Character

This month’s topic: How do you develop secondary characters? Do you
even have a favorite secondary character?

I don’t develop secondary characters any differently than I develop the major ones: I imagine them moving and talking, and I write little scenes about them. I know that many authors fill out lists of characteristics about their characters, but I usually can’t answer those questions until after I’ve written most of the first draft.

I do sometimes give my characters personality tests. Myers-Briggs is a favorite of mine, not because I take it as gospel in any way, but because it is pretty quick and easy to use. Enneagrams, which I believe gives a much fuller picture of a character, is, for me, both more difficult to “administer” and more difficult to understand.

Myers-Briggs:

This test was once a popular method of typing your boss and co-workers. Your Myers-Briggs type is a four-letter code that spells out your place on each of the four axes:

E or I: Introverted or extraverted

N or S: Intuition (N) or sensing(S) N’s start with the big picture and S’s start with the details.

F or T: Feeling (F) or Thinking (T). Feelers make decisions with their hearts (think Captain Kirk) and T’s with their heads (Mr. Spock).

J or P: Judging(J) or Perceiving(P): J’s enjoy routine and P’s like surprises.

Here is a writeup of the eight preferences: https://www.knowyourtype.com/8_preferences.html

and here’s one about the sixteen types: www.khttps://www.knowyourtype.com/16_types.html

Multiple-choice Myers-Briggs test: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp

A much simpler one where you just have to pick one in each of the four categories (includes descriptions): http://www.personalitypathways.com/type_inventory.html

Another simple test: http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/mmdi/questionnaire/

Enneagram

An Enneagram is pictured as a circle with intersecting lines, and a type consists of one of the nine types, a wing type, and a variant. In spite of having taken an online course and doing some reading on Enneagrams, I still don’t have much of a ‘feel’ for the types.

Enneagram:

Official: www.enneagraminstitute.com

Chakras and enneagram information, easier (IMO) to understand http://www.eclecticenergies.com/

About the nine types: http://www.9types.com/

Free enneagram test http://www.eclecticenergies.com/enneagram/test.php

Another one http://www.9types.com/rheti/index.php

Character Creation Software

Typing Chimp has a free version available for download. It’s loads of fun, but some features are disabled: http://www.typingchimp.com/

Writers cafe http://www.writerscafe.com/

Links

Here is a link to my publisher’s website, where you will find all four of the novels mentioned above: http://museituppublishing.com/bookstore/index.php/our-authors/56-our-authors/authors-f/149-author-4764

Do check out the posts of the other participants

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Margaret Fieland https://margaretfieland.wordpress.com
Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com/blog
Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-1tC
Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
Rhobin L Courtright http://rhobinsrambles.blogspot.com/

Victoria Chatham http://www.victoriachatham.com

What got me started

3 Replies

Robin

Sat, Aug 11, 10:16 AM

This month’s topic is what started us writing:

I’ve written poetry as far back as I can remember. I kept it in a series of spiral notebooks that accumulated in my attic, wrote cards for holidays birthdays, co-workers leaving the office, and the occasional small newsletter. Along about 2005 I wrote a poem I wanted to keep, so I scrounged around online and ended up putting them in online in what would now be called a cloud.

That December I was reading an ezine I liked and discovered they had a poetry contest. I believe the theme was ‘sleep’, and I had a poem to fit it. Since it was handy (read online), I sent it in, and the poem was one of four runners-up., I didn’t win.

But they published all four of the finalists, and I was psyched. I joined a couple of online communities and started working on my poetry. In one of them, I ran across someone who was starting a small print poetry mag (since died, I believe). He liked and published a couple of my poems. That was early 2006. I found out about “The Muse Online Writers Conference,” (free, online virtual conference) and “attended” that October.

There I “met” Linda Barnett Johnson. Linda runs writers forum, and she insisted that her students join both fiction and poetry forums. Poetry alone was not an option.

At that point, I’d never written a word of fiction (at least, not since elementary school ), and I would have sworn I never would. However, I liked Linda, and I wanted to join the poetry forum, so I signed up. I started writing for children, as that felt less intimidating – and shorter. As a poet, I was a terse writer, and generating sufficient word count worried me. My first story ended up published online. It was a *long* time until I placed another, but thus encouraged, I continued to write both fiction and poetry.

Many years ago, a family friend lost his wife and all four of his children in a house fire. This incident had haunted me ever since, and one weekend I wrote a 5000 word book in which the main character, a nine-year-old boy, lost his mother in a house fire. I couldn’t change my friend’s outcome, but in my fictional world, I could.

I spent the next year and a half or two years whipping it into shape. Although I have (and had) a good ear for language and a solid knowledge of grammar, I knew little about structuring a story. I set out to learn about plotting, characterization, dialogue, setting, points-of-view, and, yes, more grammar. I joined a critique group and took the ICL basic course. I hung out on Writers Village University and took their free fiction course and a couple of others that proved extremely helpful. The story was accepted for publication but has not yet been published.

Fast forward to September, 2010. I am a huge science fiction fan, but I’d never written a sci fi story — I had kind of a phobia about it — so I decided I’d do Nano (National Novel Writing Month) that November, and began to plan my story.

I devoted most of my time and energy to world building, a bit to thinking about the characters, and devoted about a page to the plot. Then I started writing.

Of course, there was still editing, polishing, submitting …

And that’s how I got started writing.

Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Victoria Chatham http://www.victoriachatham.com
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-1ke
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
A.J. Maguire http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/
Margaret Fieland https://margaretfieland.wordpress.com
Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.

Chris Redding’s New Book

Beginning, ending, and what’s in between

6 Replies

How do you ensure a story has a good beginning, a satisfying ending, and good continuity in between?

Honey, if I could answer that one, I’d be on the New York Times Best Seller list, or at least my novels would be top sellers in their category onAmazon.

Ah, well.

But of course, I do take care to try to ensure a good beginning, ending, and continuity.

I am not one of those writers who outlines their novel in detail, but I do need to know the beginning, the ending, and the high points of what’s in between when I start out. Or at least, I think I do. So far I have been fairly on target about the ending, even when I don’t know how I’m going to get there. For example, in my novel Broken Bonds, (WARNING: Spoiler) the main character, Major Brad Reynolds, is accused of treason. I knew which way I wanted the case

One of my drawings of Aleyne, mountains wiith the multi-colored desert sands in the foreground

against him to go, but I had no idea, until I wrote it, how I was going to manage to do it. Fortunately, my subconscious is a better plotter than I {wry grin}.

As to the beginning, that’s trickier. I wrote a children’s chapter book (that has yet to appear) about a little boy who loses his mother in a fire. I initially started with the fire, but finally realized that the story really started in what was at the time Chapter Three where my main character’s mother is dead, his father still in the hospital, and he is going home with his grandmother. I discarded part of the first chapter of the earlier versions of Broken Bonds, too.

As for filling in the middle, since I don’t outline in detail, I have notes for the chapters I ‘know’ about and fill in the ‘blanks’ as I write. I tend to have more detailed notes a couple of chapters ahead of where I’m writing.

And when I reach the end of the first draft, I go back and revise. At that point I have an overview of the whole novel. I revise more, I believe, than someone who has a detailed outline. That’s the trade off. However, I don’t know enough about the novel to do that before I’ve written the first draft.

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Marci Baun http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/
Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
Margaret Fieland https://margaretfieland.wordpress.com
A.J. Maguire http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com

Anne de Gruchy https://annedegruchy.co.uk/category/blog/