Story Telling – Page 2

Block Breaker #3

So I’m procrastinating from prepping for writing, by writing… here we go again!

P.s. days later, and this has turned into quite a monster, highlighted this in the Ah the Corners post, it grew and grew, pulled in research, had a few bumpy changes of directions. It’s still not edited, nor even spell checked – exactly as a Block Breaker should be, but it’s 8,500 words, about ten times longer than it should be. Going to be another post, just exploring this monster. However I put it out there for those with the patient, and ability to read drivel.

Ascendant’s Fire

“Brother!” Kaalem screamed, spotting her enemy across the battlefield, she charged forwards sword gleaming in the light of fire and destruction around her as it trailed behind poised to strike.

Rylan turned to face the scream, he pulled his battleaxe from it’s recent victim, and as he moved into a ready stance he drew the battleaxe up ready to strike, his gaze looked on the threat charging across the battlefield.

The siblings meters away from clashing, were suddenly seperated by a wall of fire that swept across the carnage between them, blocking the way.

Kaalem screamed as she drew up short before the flames, just then an enemy soldier charged at her, lunging with a lance, she rolled to the left away from the flames, and as she found her feet, the sword struck out biting into the out stretched arm, causing it to recoil in pain. The soldier was hardy though, he switched the lance to his arm, and wielded it one handed. Kaalem feigned a roll to the right, and as the lance struck true to where she should have been, she plunged her blade into his eye, his body went limp, and as she withdrew the blade the body slumped to the ground twitching.

A ghostly figure drew up beside the warrior.

“You did it,” she accused him, as she cleaned the blade.

“It was not time, you’re not ready,” the figure said calmly.

Continue reading “Block Breaker #3”

Post NaNoWriMo Challenge Plans

So following NaNoWriMo this year, win or lose, I’ve decided on a challenge to continue writing and build on whatever momentum I have, (or lost during November if it doesn’t go well).

I’ve got dozens of stories in my drafts that I’ve never finished for one reason or another, I’m going to go through them and finish a couple a week during November. Some of them are years old, and the original ideas and goals have faded from my mind, so it will be interesting to see where I go with them.

So Completionist December is going to be a thing. Of course that will be followed by Editing January, where I take a run at a second draft of my NaNoWriMo story, (editing is soul crushing, so usually doesn’t happen, maybe I’ll change it up and redraft and edit last year’s NaNoWriMo instead, for similar reasons as completing all those short stories, it’ll be interesting to see where I take it). I’m not planning further than January, because while at the moment I’ve got the writing, (and blogging bug), who knows where I’ll be come February onwards.

So things to look forward to, in the meantime I’m concentrating on planning and preperations for NaNoWriMo, and Block Breakers (short stories) for practice.

Ah… the corners! Please not the corners!

So I’ve written myself into a corner. First of all, fantastic I’m doing a couple of pieces of writing just days apart, got the bug again, and it feels good, until it didn’t.

So, Block Breaker #3 I’m writing a short fantasy piece… or I’d intended it to be short, literally just a battle scene, actually pretty much one fight between siblings amidst a battle scene… and I spoilt it within a few words by separating them, and then ending the battle, alluding to a greater conflict with sorcerers. That was fine, the story takes place over a couple of battles then.

So the corner… that’s where I am now, I’ve written myself into a corner with a big dialogue piece that’s really spun the story out. Going to have to delete it and go back, shorter dialogue that just tells the essentials. Problem is, that goes against my self imposed no editing rules for Block Breakers.

So what are my options to leave the corner, and maintain my rules? Well I can have a slightly disjointed story, where in the first part I’ve gone dialogue and plan heavy, and have a time jump that skips all the stuff I’ve set up, and brings us closer to the main line of the story, think Thanos getting the power stone off screen in the Avenger’s film. Or I could play it out, go for a 15k story, rather than the 1 to 2k’s I’d originally anticipated, (really I just felt like practising writing a fight scene as a warm up for NaNoWriMo in a couple of months), and lastly I could just stop and start something else.

I think the time jump is my best option, may even try and lay the suggestions that it was an epic bit we jumped, I can always do what TV and movies do, and do a spin off story that follows that adventure later, when I need some more practice in the genre, I don’t often revisit characters. Of course, I often don’t finish stories I start, so sequels aren’t a thing for me.

The long and the short of it though, is this is why I’m going to be carefully plotting my NaNoWriMo entry this year, because writing yourself into a corner, or far from the plot is exactly why I don’t finish a lot of stories I start. I finished NaNoWriMo last year because I had a plan, and even though I drifted from it, I had a path to guide it back to.

But I’m going to keep going with the Block Breakers, because I feel like writing. Probably helps that for the month of September I’m keeping off other Social Media platforms – if you’re interested visit the Royal Society for Public Health , I started on the 1st September, and we’re 9 days in, and I’ve been writing more. I’m choosing not to count my blog as Social Media, (even though it technically is).

So enough rambling, I’ve got a time jump to do, and a no editing policy on Block Breakers to maintain. Hope you’ll excuse some bad writing in the middle, for what will hopefully be an exciting ending.

Block Breaker #2

Not done one in a while, but got an itch.

Middling William

by Jonathan Lawrence

I remember the day I first met William, like it was yesterday, even as the decades have flowed by, it’s one of my most vivid memories.

The strange thing is when I first met him, he didn’t leave that much of an impression immediately. He was middling everything, middling height, middling build, middling clothes – I mean everything.

“Ms Rebutem,” William said curt but polite.

“Constable,” I replied, barely noticing him among the crowd of Lookie-loos, here to see the accident. It took me several moments to realise someone had addressed me by name. I’m not crazy, or stupid, but when a tanker over turns as a police officer in London, your focus tends to be on the multitudes that come to gawp, oh don’t look at me like that, the fire brigade and ambulance were dealing with the driver.

“Excuse me, how do you know my name?” I asked him.

“It’s on your label,” he said matter of factly pointing at the velcro patch on my stab vest, it was a more dangerous world back then, “I’m William,” he was returning the gift.

“It also says Constable,” I said annoyed at the middling man, “I’m kind of busy right now.”

“You’ll be busier when that tanker explodes,” he said confidently, there was nothing middling about his voice, it was both strong and calm, easily audible over the throng of by standers, he looked at his watch, “In about one minutes give or a take a few seconds. I’d call everyone back, if I were you?”

“What?” I asked confused and still annoyed, and mildly alarmed even though in the back of my mind I was sure he was a lunatic.

Continue reading “Block Breaker #2”

The Tale of the Unreliable Narrator

Recently I’ve watched How I Met Your Mother, it wasn’t something that interested me before, but I caught some clips on YouTube, and it looked fascinating. Turns out it was a lot more fascinating that I expected, for all it’s flaws, it told stories in a unique way for television, and it might be one of my favourite uses of an unreliable narrator.

Before we begin, let me explain what How I Met Your Mother is, in short it’s an American television sit-com about the lives and loves of a group of friends as they make their way in the world… well New York, it’s told in the style of the main character recounting the adventures from 2030 in a nostalgic fashion to his children.

The wonderful thing is, as he’s explaining it to his kids, there are very obvious obfuscations and biases at play, which telegraph clearly the unreliable nature of the narrator, things like smoking weed suddenly becomes having a sandwich, but because we know he’s editing the story for his audience as he tells it, it’s safe to assume there are less obvious revisions at work.

One of the main characters is Barney, played by Neil Patrick Harris, his a womaniser, a pick up artist, and the stories told like his sexual adventures are true and successful, I think in real life though, the success rate was probably less, and the more insane pick up strategies weren’t as extreme as presented, but it’s an exaggerated portrayal of a character. That’s just one example but you get the idea.

I’ve only once used a narrator in my stories, but it’s something I’d like to try my hand at again, see if I can get it right. Technically speaking every story written in the third person is in a sense narrated, but there’s a big difference between the writer telling the story, and the voice of the narrator character telling the story. It allows you to inject bias and passion into the story, you can paint characters in more extreme and clear lights, or obfuscate certain qualities of a character out of bias. Basically you aren’t trying to describes the facts of situations, you can be more subjective.

In essence the author is always the de facto narrator, but usually we aren’t involved in the story, we’re describing the events from a perspective of the all seeing, all knowing, our biases are choosing what we show, and what we hide for later in the plot. A narrator in essence is a character telling the story, either in the first or third person, they may or may not have been involved in the story being told themselves.

I think my favourite examples are probably noir thrillers, think of your stereotypical detective story with the hard boiled private eye or policeman telling you like it is… with lots of metaphors of course:

Continue reading “The Tale of the Unreliable Narrator”

The Book Isn’t Always Mightier Than The Adaptation

The book isn’t always mightier than the adaptation… Give it a chance, find the fun and entertainment – you can always go back and enjoy the books and other media, neither is cheapened or diminished, it’s just a natural part of the story of storytelling.

Okay before I get lynched by fans Harry Potter/Twilight/LOTR/Hunger Games/Da Vinci Code/and just about any story with fans, moving from medium to medium requires change and its not a new phenomenon, nor is it new that people are upset by changes. I’m not here to argue that as films are better than their source material, or even good, my argument is that its only bad one for version to be incomplete without the other.

Ancient History

So, I’ve spent a long term over the years studying texts that were originally part of oral traditions, but over Millennia were converted from a spoken medium to a written medium. The transformation of the oldest stories is fascinating, and if our current culture existed then, a whole lot of people would have been stoned for some form of blasphemy in the conversion of stories as the historical game of Chinese whispers that is oral tradition.

Actually, as it happens, people have died for presenting unfaithful accounts of history and legends. So I guess modern sensibilities aren’t so modern, just less extreme and more easily reported and repeated.

The earliest known stories came from the Lascaux caves in Southern France, it is a series of images progressing through a time period, covering the rituals and the hunt of the people at the time, it’s a story. It’s worth noting that spoken language of some variety probably came about somewhere between 100,000 and 60,000 years ago, so I’d like to think the story telling was around long before someone thought to record it on a wall. Continue reading “The Book Isn’t Always Mightier Than The Adaptation”

Wait… Where’s My Story Gone?

Okay, good I’m ready!

632 words. It’s barely started. I could have sworn I’d written much more than that!

I’ve got a number of projects started recently, mostly sci-fi – and that’s cool, they’re banked ideas to come back to when the idea has settled, and you’ve got some inspiration and motivation.

So, tonight I’m ready to go – rubbing my hands in glee, classical music playing in the background, cats playing around the room, (post to come about the cat invasion), I’m ready for some sci-fi horror…

So, ready?

Yes.

Opens Word… Okay, good I’m ready!

632 words. It’s barely started. I could have sworn I’d written much more than that – I’m basically got loads of ideas for the second act, and as it turns out I’ve pretty much go the whole first act to get through. Darn.

And so instantly, I’ve lost that writing feeling. Hence why I’ve come to my much neglected blog.

But it’s fine, I can do this – tomorrow, (and Sunday obviously), it’s the 24 hours of Le Mans, which like every year for the past seven years I’ll be watching from start to finish, (minus about two to three hours where sleep is just irresistible), I can knock out a short story in that time, from act 1.

Despite the set back, I’m very much in a writing mood, so let’s get this done.

Block Breaker #1

Block breakers are short stories, random ditties for which the only real purpose is to write something, anything when Writer’s Block strikes. Quality, verbosity, fidelity, consistency – not of these words apply. Just write or die.
It fell to second engineer William Hardaway, the future of all. Never in the history of man had so much rested on one person.

“Will you do it?” Susan Ashcroft asked, she was a young lean shrewd looking woman who’s intent gaze locked onto William.

The elder man cleared his throat, and stroked the unkempt site beard that wrapped round his face. “You ask too much,” he finally said, his voice raspy and breathless betraying some excitement at the offer he was being made.

“I ask nothing, I’m just the messenger,” Susan said with mild annoyance, “You are in control for now.”

“You’re asking me to die,” William stated.

“A noble death, all of creation depends on your choice, you have control,” Susan said.

“A noble death,” William mused stroking his unkempt beard again, “Yes. I can do that.”

“Then press the button,” Susan said, “Save us all.”

Deep within the bowels of the derelict spaceship orbiting Sol, a beaten and bloody William dragged himself to the engine console.

“You can do it,” Susan encouraged him, her image flickering in the air.

“For Earth, for Humanity,” William said and then screaming against the pain he reached out with both arms and pulled the levers that would finish the core overload. Alarms rattled off.

“You need to point the engines at the Sol, quickly there isn’t much time,” Susan said urgently.

William pulled himself up further, fighting the pain, the fatigue and the darkness encroaching on his vision, he pushed further along the console and pushed a button labelled ‘port thrusters’, the ship rocked and heaved.

“Thank you,” Susan said looking down. It was the last thing William heard before he passed out.

Just a thousands miles above Sol, the space ship rotated round, and then it’s engines exploded sending a wave of energy powered by an explosion made up of exotic particles. The wave hit the Sol, the Earth’s sun. As the explosion hit the plasma it became super heated.

One hundred and fifty million miles away, eight minutes at light speed, the people of the Earth celebrated as the dimness felt across the world faded and light started to stream again. It had been three months since the sun had begun to cool, and the apocalypse was nigh, but William Hardaway had saved them all.

That’s a nice little hobby you have there… Hmmm

Now I’m returning to writing, and to blogging, I thought good place to start in my new run of blogging was to attempt to explore both what storytelling is, and what it means to me, or why I do it. However, as it turns out, that’s actually much harder than it sounds. So I present to you the inconclusive answer, in time I will revisit this subject with a bit more self awareness.

In this entry in going to discuss why I write, there’ll be a disproportionate amount of randomness, segues, grandstanding, self depreciation and no doubt you’ll see the words “I don’t care what you/they/anyone thinks”, but don’t worry it’ll only be after seeking your praise.

The post will be in three parts :

What is writing/storytelling to me?
What do I get out of it?
What do I enjoy most?

Let’s begin

1. What is storytelling to me?

Storytelling is the social and cultural activity of sharing stories, often with improvisation, theatrics, or embellishment.

Wikipedia: Storytelling

It’s simple right? Storytelling is the act and at of sharing anecdotal or fictional stories. Writing is the act of committing words to a static medium.

But who wants a clinical description? No, to me storytelling it’s about exploring, experiencing, and growing these fictional worlds floating round my mind, and then finding a way to convey them to an audience.

In truth, I’m not great at that last part, that’s a confidence thing though, when I do set out to write fiction or most things, I do so with an audience in mind and intent to share it when them.

2. What do I get out of it?

One last thing about what storytelling is, is that it’s about is potential, because a great piece of writing can change the world, whether it’s big or small, whether it’s an actual effect on the real world or simply how someone experiences it – writing can do that, and everything written has with in it that potential.

Don’t believe me? Tolkien has touched the world for millions of people, he don’t just write he created while universes, with interconnected narratives, has spawned a genre, and an industry, made some people incredibly rich, and sent others to barreling through nerdvana.

Jane Austen who didn’t just define the modern romance, but how through relatable characters and comic twists, but also how social commentary could be highlighted in accessible ways.

I could go on, but we’ll get way off topic, but definitely look out for a future post about how writers can and have changed the world in some fashion.

That potential is exciting to me when I write for two reasons, firstly that I may have an idea that could reach people on the level my favourite authors have, and secondly that they a story I’m writing may change me, from learning new things like how a fusion generator works to how I approach the challenges in my life. The latter is nearly always true, the former continues to be an ambition I aspire to.

3. What do I enjoy most?

The challenge. I’m not going to pretend to be good at storytelling, I struggle for originality, I struggle for the technical things like grammar and structure, and I struggle for confidence in what I write… and that is what makes it fun. The more I write, the better I get and one day I’ll overcome the things I struggle with.

I love challenges, that’s why I like to play pool and snooker, I’m terrible at them, but those moments where I overcome my own weaknesses there is a glory – more so when there are others to offer praise, so here I am sharing my thoughts and my stories in a blog, in the hopes others will see something of merit., and say “well done”, or “thank you”.

Where is this all going? – A quick follow up

So a few weeks back I wrote a post about my changing ambitions in writing. Basically it boiled down to going from being an ‘aspiring writer’ to an ‘aspiring author’*

Which is really thrilling.

Not that I was bored just writing, just the opposite, I just wanted more excitement and challenges by pushing the envelope.

I still think just writing for fun and frolics, to relieve stress, to exercise the brain, and to exercise demons, or whatever your motive for filling blank pages with glorious words, is not only perfectly fine, but perfectly good. I’d be more than happy to continue to do that – except that I feel the need to constantly challenge myself, and sometimes just doing it for for self-gratification doesn’t give me the impetuous to really reach and stretch.

And if I’m really honest, there other motive I have is for that little snippet of fortune and glory – but the odds of achieving either are without any doubt extremely long.

“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”

– Michelangelo (the renaissance artist, not the turtle)

I’m saying this for two reasons:

One because I didn’t want anyone to think my own personal change in goal for my writing is a slight at any other goal or purpose for writing. It isn’t – it’s a personal choice.
Two, because it leads nicely into my next blog post where I evangelise both writing and NaNoWriMo.

Whatever your reasons for writing, whatever you hope to get out of it – I hope you do it and get it.

So, I hope that clears the air a bit.