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Mar 9 2014

Communicating Whether or Not Something is a Shout or Question

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This is another issue that beginning writers-including I-have in the beginning. See, it’s easy to get confused about how to communicate something that seems more like a shout than a question. After learning more about the craft and how to put words together, it finally dawned on my about how to do this. So, here were go.

Ok, so your character is shouting something that could be a question too. This is a good way to write it:

“What did you do!” Talia snapped.

This is a question, but she’s yelling it at the same time. Now, in this case you have a choice between a “?” and “!” to work with. Grammatically, it’s incorrect to use both as like such: “!?” because it doesn’t make sense. So, this is where the words used in the dialogue and the particular tag solves that problem for you. By saying “Talia snapped,” it lets the reader know she was mad and allows us to trust that the reader will see in his/her head what we’re saying.

“What did you do?” Talia said (or Talia asked).

That shows how it’s a question. Note how you could use “Talia said” or “Talia asked” as your tag to get the point across.

The use of tags really helps things out, so don’t be afraid to use them.

I hope this helps.

Mar 8 2014

Star Trek 6


 

 

I just finished watching Star Trek 6, which was the final movie for the original crew. It’s so sad to look at Scotty and McCoy and know they’re dead. Leonard Nimoy has CPOD, Walter Keonig is old, as is George Takai and Nichelle Nichols. I grew up on watching them and it’ll take time for me to really accept Pine and Quinto as Kirk and Spock.

In many ways it was heartbreaking to see. What do you guys think about it?

Feb 28 2014

New Mexico State Brawl

Having been a Sports Management professional before, I found the New Mexico State brawl last night to be most disturbing. There’s no reason for teams to be in a fight, much less fans storming the court to pound on another player.

As society continues to degenerate, it’s no surprise that people are growing more and more violent. Whether it’s racially motivated, economically or otherwise, it’s become far more prevalent than it used to be. While there are many reasons for it, it’s now starting to affect sports in a negative way.

There is zero excuse for fans to storm the court and involve themselves in any altercation on the playing court. This is will eventually lead to someone getting hurt seriously or possibly killed. Both outcomes are the kind of event that sports management professionals want to avoid.

I hope the negative publicity of what happens will prevent another brawl, but I’m afraid it’ll have the opposite effect due to assholes who will want to copy it.


 

Feb 25 2014

The Return of Eugenics and Why It’s a Bad Thing

Today I read an article in Bloomberg about designer children. In this case they were combining the DNA of one man and two women to make a “superior and healthier” child. Well, the reeks of eugenics and let me explain why.

Back in the 1920’s, a movement began called ‘eugenics’ and it had a simple belief: that a superior human being could be bred. This went hand-in-hand with scientific racism, where the scientists tried to say that based off the shape of a person’s head, their skin color, etc could determine their intelligence. It was this belief, and the eugenics idea of breeding the superior person that led to the rise of the Nazis.

Thousands of people were deemed to be unfit to reproduce under eugenics and were either forcibly sterilized or coerced into doing it voluntarily. In fact, Margaret Sanger (Creator of Planned Parenthood) was a major eugenics supporter. In their minds, Asians, Blacks, Native Americans were all inferior and everything was done to prevent them from having children-all in the name of science of course.

This is why I’m bothered by this article because it’s bringing this issue back to the front again. The last time it came to the front we had the holocaust. And why was that? Because Hitler and many of his followers in the high ranks of the Nazi Party were all eugenics supporters, which lead to them killing millions of Jews. Do we want to do this again?

In the novel “A Brave New World,” this is the basis of the dystopian future. In the novel, people were separated by class depending on their DNA/Intelligence and then assigned jobs. I can see that coming out of this too.

And people wonder why I and many writers too, write dystopian futures. It’s because we’re headed towards one at warp speed and have zero intention of slowing down any either.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-25/dad-may-join-two-moms-for-disease-free-designer-babies.html

Feb 24 2014

Flashbacks

 

If there’s one thing that freaks out new writers is how to write the flashback. So many times on the forums they’re told not to write them; to avoid them at all costs. Sad thing is you need to write them sometimes so let’s briefly discuss them.

One thing to avoid is putting them as the opening scene of a novel. That is boring to an agent and that’s who you got to impress first.

From there on, don’t make it difficult to merge it into your main story. Mine are seamless in the Talia novel and are then used to make a mini-scene within a scene and then I merge it back into the main story. A couple times I start a chapter off with them and one time I have an entire chapter that is one that I use to tie the loose ends up between Talia (who is nearly immortal) and her son, who is mortal.

To put it in a nutshell, don’t tie it all up in a single way and stay away from the cliché dream sequence either. There’s tons of ways to add it to your book! Explore them all and see which one fits your style and story.

Feb 22 2014

I Feel Great Today

 

Note the lie I just made. I’d be fine if my nose wasn’t running like it was in the Boston Marathon. That’s the worse part. I can deal with the headache, sore throat and sinus issues, but the running of the nose is annoying as shit.

It tends to make me lose focus on writing because every time I get one a roll then my nose gets annoying and I have to stop and blow it. How the hell professional writers can keep it up when this stuff happens beats me. Maybe they take the time off and then catch up later. Perhaps that’s what I need to do. Especially since I’m on the last two chapters of the Talia novel.

Who knows. Hopefully, it’ll be ok.