Endings

    I am trying to write the last chapter in the book I’m revising. My crit group opined that I hadn’t tied up enough of the plot thingymabobbers. Let me just say right here, endings suck.

    So, I’m going to ask you all what kind of endings you prefer. Does the protagonist need to be happy, healthy, and satisfied with his lot? Does the antagonist need to be dead, incarcerated, or reformed? Do you need to know if the secondary characters are living productive lives as you turn the last page? These are the nagging questions I’m asking myself on behalf of my prospective readers. I just don’t know how much I want to tie up.

    Time for some ferinstances.

    Egon, the protagonist, has some feelings for this girl he met while recruiting men to help him defeat the witch, Katerina. He kissed her, he thinks about her time to time, he’s kinda got a thing for her. When last he saw Jessica she was pissed because two of her brothers were killed and one maimed while fighting Katerina. Heat of the moment, he’d just told her they were dead, she tells him she never wants to see him again. Done? Or do you need to know more in the last chapter?

    Acinom, a secondary protagonist, a winged humanoid female and the last of her kind has helped Egon become a leader and gave him tools to defeat Katerina. She’s kind of a mentor though a very unconventional one. She has been flirting with Egon throughout and the two developed a psychic connection. She is an alluring, wanton, free spirit without many boundaries and has told Egon that she and he should start a new race, half her, half him. Oh, and she’s okay with Jessica being in the mix. Haven’t seen much of her toward the end because mentors have to fade. She’ll make an appearance in the last chapter but do you need to know if Egon is going to father her babies?

    Lars, a sixteen year old boy and one of the first to join Egon. He’s a smartass and he hears the whispers of dragons. We last saw him on the back of the dragon circling above the castle. He’ll have at least a mention in the final chapter but how much do you need to know?

    I see him living in a stone cottage near a cavern high atop a cliff. Gradually, the constant whispers of the dragon drive him mad. He takes to stealing chickens and kidnaping robust middle-aged women. I won’t go into detail here but suffice it to say, mental illness is a terrible thing. But, someone else might have a different imagining of Lars’ future. Someone else might imagine him married with three kids living on a small farm. He’d have a herd of dairy goats, the dragon would keep the predators away and he’d teach his children to make yogurt. How do I end it with Lars?

    How much does the reader want? How much do I give them? How much control do I exert over the direction the story takes from here? That’s the real question isn’t it? And I haven’t a clue.

    How about you? Do you like everything wrapped up? Do you like to wrap everything up. Or do you like to let your reader’s imaginations wander willy-nilly?

Let's Write About Sex

    Hey all,

    How do you like your sex? Do you want all the slippery details or carefully worded suggestions of the action?  I like details but not everyone does. One only has to look at romance to see variation in our tastes. At one end of the spectrum the door closes and the book ends, the other, the book opens with a coffee table orgasm. What’s a writer to do?

    I say, write what you like to read. You’ll be more comfortable with it and you’ll know what to call the pieces and parts. That’s a big concern. Cock, shaft, member, manhood, himself, what do you call it? Female anatomy poses a similar problem. Your choice of names plays a big role in the tone of the scene. The nature of the scene dictates some of the choices. Hot monkey love calls for more vulgarity than the gentle bedding of a lover after a romantic candle lit dinner. Not that the scene can’t change as it progresses. Characters are only human and sometimes get carried away by the moment.

    That’s an important point. Characters ARE human. For the most part, your characters will be narrating the action. How would they describe it? Not how would they describe it to their mother? How would they describe it in their mind? What are their thoughts? How interesting would it be if your prim and proper heroine thought, “Yes, yes, shove it in, you big burly stud.” in the middle of it all. (Anyone wants to use that line, take it, it’s a gift. ;) )

    Now we’ve hit on the most important reason for writing sex; you can use it to give the reader important insight into your characters. The calculating become impetuous. The bold become timid. The reserved become wanton. Normally hidden character traits can be revealed and explored during sex. You can use those traits later to justify some unexpected action.

    You can also use sex as a motivation. Once a person has been intimate with another, their relationship changes. They can become dangerously jealous or overly protective. You can turn cowards into heroes with sex. You can pit friends and siblings against one another. You can incite murder and betrayal. You can inspire greatness, forge alliances, topple governments or conquer the universe with sex. Sex is powerful. But for it to be all that it can be, ya gotta write it.

    Long, long ago, in a coffee shop not so far away, I had a protagonist going along with a dangerous plan because he was attracted to a girl, maybe even falling in love with her. Her motivation was helping the creatures they had encountered, his was helping and protecting her. My critique partners weren’t buying it because he’d only known her a couple days. “He could die,” they said. Sex to the rescue. I wrote my first sex scene and his motivation was no longer in doubt. They’d had sex, he thought he was in love, he would go along to protect her.

    However, the scene, in the opinion of one partner, was purple, whatever that means. So I rewrote it. Made it more detail oriented and submitted it again. The critiques I got on it were very short, punctuated by pauses, and accompanied by pink faces. Exactly what I was going for. One more reason to write sex; the fun of it. I still have that scene, maybe I’ll post it in my stories tab.

Critique Groups, what's up with them?

Critique Groups what’s up with them.

Hello everybody,

    How many blogs, forum posts, articles, chapters in writing books and rants have been dedicated to critique groups? I don’t know either, but here’s one more.

    First, the four of us who inhabit this blog, plus one more, are a critique group. We meet once a week, usually on Thursday at 5:30. So, if at that time you feel a strange current in the ether, it’s just us. Not that we’re strange. Well, not all of us are strange. Okay, you got me.

    So, what’s up with crit groups? Mayhem! Irritation! Hurt feelings! Anger! Exasperation!
Critique groups have their problems but, in my opinion, they are the best tool you’ll ever find to hone your craft. Books, seminars, workshops, conferences and even college are nothing but flimsy bargain basement screwdrivers compared to a sturdy critique group crowbar. Why? Because none of them are as specific to your writing as a crit group. The others give you examples. In a crit group, your stuff is the example.
     
    If that doesn’t convince you, nothing will. Moving on. How do you make a crit group work? Well, you can write up a bunch of rules, make copies, distribute them and appoint someone sheriff. You might also make up a mission statement and recite it in unison at the start of every session. You laugh but I have met people who would love that. If you are a person who would love that, do that with other people who love that and God bless. But our group evolved in a different way.

    Long, long ago in a coffee shop not so far away Marne, Vicki, and I belonged to a crit group that had a rule or two written down. The group split. How and why is not important. What is important is that three fast friends were freed from written rule constraints. (That sentence is tongue-twister poetic.)  Bravely we walked, arm in arm, into the dark, dank night.

    Okay, if I don’t stop, this blog post will go on forever.

    Anyway, we three found other writers and brought them into our group. We had, and still have some unwritten core beliefs that some got and some didn’t. The ones that didn’t were either asked to leave or left of their own accord. Of the others, some stayed for awhile and one is still here. Eventually, one member of the old group snuck under the wire and joined us. We three are now five and have been for several years. And we all get it. And that’s the secret; find people who get it. What is it? It will vary from person to person, group to group but here is our basic IT:

    We offer positive along with the constructive. We offer solutions if we can. We give honest feedback and encourage discussion during the crit. And we do it all naked.

    Alright, I made that last one up. So, that’s it. All you have to do is let it happen and kick out the nuts.

    Oh, by the way, Marne has a publishing contract. And, I believe the rest of us aren’t far behind. We just have to put it out there like Marne.