The Setting In Story

Let us put aside the characters for just a moment and look at what is the backdrop.

Backdrop:

The time frame of your story

The place of your story

The temperature of the world affecting your story

The weather

Research is something that is both important and not so much

but I find that understanding that moment in time

putting yourself in the 'timeframe' of the social graces and

the political fever.

Once you are comfortable with knowing your backdrop

you can start outlining your story line.

There should always be rocky roads that work

against you, misdirection and treachery.  All of these can be

blatantly or just under consciousness.

You have to weave history with your story but like

describing the weather you need to do it with the interactions of your characters.

The most important part of a story is the characters.

Paint them with a full palette but don't over paint them.  Don't

wear down your reader by telling them the same thing over and over

but by having your characters capable of embracing

the backdrop, embracing the dangers and rocky roads with succulent

human reactions in real time.

Know your history, know your time

know the minute details of society and then form your characters.

Writing is difficult, avoiding cliques is important but keep your backdrop

simple and concise

and your characters as rich as a triple layer chocolate cake.

Fall in love with your characters

Invite them to your screen and into your world.

barb 

Ghost Stories Within My Heart

We all cheer on the heroine

urging her to overcome adversity

so sweet...so very, very likeable

that we reach into the pages

pushing her toward success and happiness.

It is the morally reprehensible

the lack of character

the rise of your pernicious side

that should garner your sharp eye

for a story must have evil to understand good.

The antagonist

against what the protagonist must surely,

as does the rain fall, contend

a battle of sorts in heaven or on earth

rises from the depths of our living hell.

Bells chiming from the fallen church

through the graveyard

on that ultimately moonless night

there rises the bone chilling fear

everything antagonistic.

Paint your evil

with the blackest of hearts and souls

pulling the strings of dramatic breath of conflict

for he is as vital to a story

as the sweetest of heroines.

barb

Intimancy or Love?

We don't ever go there...not in our polite conversations

Not with our closest confidants

And strangers may not take it in the manner it was given

We don't ever go there because it became taboo.

Somewhere along the timeline

From the caveman who was really quite rude

To the romantic era where poetry was at the height of entertainment

We don't ever go there because of the moral box.

Love is merely a name of that which makes us happy

A word used with our unbridled pleasure

Roses growing wildly or in a row emitting aroma so sweet

That the ripe strawberry imitates with the tongue.

We don't ever go there and when it wanes with time

A thief like a black cat takes our energy

Dripping the passion along the wooden floor at night

A loss so subtle we rarely mourn.

Intimacy is the acknowledgment of a physical need

Renewal of our self-discovery of the wild creature

Who roams the earth in forgotten dreams

We don't ever go there to capture it once it is stolen.

Softly it leaks from our souls without a sound

We feel its departure but rarely fight to renew our intimacy

Our love of our physical reaction

Dies like the rose budding on the vine.

Love or Intimacy or Intimacy or Love?

Choosing one over the other is not necessary

We don't ever go there, we don't ever say "I live for Intimacy"

But you should...nothing in life renews your soul

like raw physical intimacy.

barb