Celebrating Independent Authors
His hand grabbed the door handle, and he burst into the bedroom. She was lying on the bed…his eyes flew across the room and landed on her heaving bosoms.
I haven’t actually come across those exact words; it’s not a direct quote, but I have come across many, many autonomous body parts, such as: Continue reading “When body parts go travelling…”
The lowly sidekick, treated properly and bought a beer now and then, can be utilized as a very powerful writing trope or crutch or supercharger.
I’m not talking about the usual wingman, here, like Robin, Kato, Jimmy Olson, Chewbacca, or Tonto. Or comic relief roles like Tarzan’s Cheetah or Wild Bill’s Jingles. I’m talking about a second character that enables and expands the lead, becomes a necessary part or subset of the hero and allows or forces him to be more and do more.
It goes beyond even an essential, defining companion like Holmes’ Dr. Watson, who, don’t forget, is the first-person narrator of the Sherlock stories and extremely important to the narrative voice and shape of those books. Because there are possibilities deeper than that, which can possibly be of use in solving problems beyond the construction of your main character or the constellation of the principle figures, but the actual form and procedure of your story. Continue reading “Side Order of Kick: The Wind Beneath the Wingman”
In my reading, I often see questionable usage of a few related punctuation marks. I know (1) that grammar is not every writer’s strong suit and (2) the rules for grammar are more often gray rather than black and white, with lots of room for subjective variation, but a short primer on a few of the more confusing marks might be in order.
Semi-Colon
Many writers today seem to either hate or distrust the semi-colon, and that could be because they are not clear on the usage (and I won’t even go into the discussion about the spelling, with or without a space and/or dash). Cathy Speight did an IU piece on this persnickety punctuation mark a while back, but I want to talk about it along with some other marks that are sometimes confused, so I’ll recap the semi-colon here as well. Interestingly enough, in the mid-19th century there was an organization of writers in Cincinnati, Ohio called the Semi-Colon Club. Members included Harriet Beecher Stowe and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Salmon P. Chase, among others. I would guess from their choice of name for their group that they were not afraid to use the much-maligned mark. Continue reading “Those Pesky Punctuation Marks”
Your main character has fled from the office she shares with a close co-worker and friend, and has run to the boss’s office. There, in a key scene, she has emoted all over herself, revealing a deep, dark personal secret thereby. (Yes, she still has a job at the end of the scene.) Now she’s back in her own office. Her friend gets in her face and says, “For the love of Pete, would you please tell me what this is all about?”
Your main character is hesitant, but then mutters to herself, “What the heck. The whole world will know by tomorrow.”
Choose what happens next:
Got your choice? Continue reading “Lather, Rinse, Explain, Repeat: Redundancy in Writing”