Month: December 2015

Writing Kick@$$ Action Scenes–Hook! Cross! T.K.O.

From Kristen Lamb’s blog by the guest blogger Alex Limberg. Great advice for action scenes!

Kristen Lamb's Blog

Gladiators

It might remind you of the movie Groundhog Day: Yes, it’s true, Alex Limberg is here with us once again. Like all that glitter that fell off your Christmas decorations? Can’t get rid of him. To mix things up a bit, Alex is assisting me through the holiday season. Also, his free ebook “44 Key Questions” to test your story will help you with creating intriguing stories. This time he puts on his action hat and shares a clever recipe to write your readers’ socks off with action scenes. Let’s get right to it.

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BOOM! CRASH! BANG!

It’s Batman chasing Superman through James Bond’s porcelain collection. Broken glass, bones and promises everywhere.

But here’s the problem: It reads like an academic lecture about 17th century German philosophy.

If the style can’t convey your action in an edgy and dramatic way, even the most wicked scene structure won’t help…

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A Dog for the Holidays

Reblogged from Tricia Drammeh. Please consider carefully if you plan to adopt. It’s a life long commitment.

All I Have to Say

tasha tree

I’ve seen a hundred commercials and advertisements that feature a wriggling little puppy in a Christmas stocking. Or an idyllic scene where the parents tell their young offspring “oh, look, there’s one more present” before retrieving an adorable, floppy eared canine that melts the heart. We all want to make our children’s dreams come true. And what child doesn’t want a cute puppy for Christmas? It’s heartwarming to think of all the animals given homes for the holidays, but what about those who are abandoned at an animal shelter months later? What about dogs like my Tasha?

Last night, I was looking through Tasha’s adoption paperwork, trying to see if her real date of birth was listed. I found something else that brought tears to my ears and ripped out my heart. Tasha had been abandoned at the animal shelter at Christmastime. I don’t know what Tasha’s early life was like or how she…

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How to Sneak In Any Amount of Information & Maintain the Fictive Dream

Yes, once again re-blogging from Kristen Lamb. She posts things writers need to know. Her blog is a great resource and since I’m frantically finishing this second novel… I offer this as fantastic advice! Thank you Kristen Lamb and Alex Limburg.

Kristen Lamb's Blog

Image via Flickr Creative Commons, courtesy of Mike Licht Image via Flickr Creative Commons, courtesy of Mike Licht

As an editor I have some pretty standard red flags I look for, but a REALLY common blunder is the dreaded information dump. Some genres are more prone to this than others. Science fiction and fantasy can be particularly vulnerable. How DO you keep the pace of the story and still relay about the prophecy, the starship, the dragons and the dragons prophesied to have starships?

It’s tough.

Once again we have Alex Limberg guest posting with us. And if you’re already tired of him? Suck it up, Buttercup, because I LIKE HIM. He’s helping me through the holiday season so I can dig out of the pile of work that buried me when I got the flu.

So Alex is here to share ways to help fold in information so that you (the author) don’t inadvertently shatter the fictive dream…

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