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How to Write Responsibly

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All writers create stories from three elements:

1. What we know and experience.
2. What we research and learn.
3. A most special ingredient: our imagination.

Stories that perfect this mixture (and toss in a few other key ingredients) can be quite delicious.

Whether we set our stories in the real-world, or in fantastical lands bearing little resemblance to this present age, all great stories simmer with an aura of truth which allows them to feel like they could actually happen. Why is it then, that when real-life gets crazy and downright implausible, we say it feels like we’re living in a story?

Writing is like Shooting Free Throws…

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We just wrapped up a time of year almost every American is aware of: March Madness. Whether you’re a fan of college hoops or not, it’s a mighty challenge to avoid hearing about the one-and-dones, Cinderella squads, busted brackets, and Final Four. I’ve been fortunate enough to witness my favorite team win one national championship, but most years the agonizing nail-biting ends somewhere around the round of sixteen remaining teams (the Sweet Sixteen, to be technical).

While watching this year’s match-up between Syracuse and Duke, a friend mentioned an article regarding SU’s center: Paschal Chukwu. Apparently, this guy was an awful free throw shooter until a coach took him aside and instructed him to attempt 100 straight free throws shots during every practice. The kicker (or, shooter)? He couldn’t stop until he hit at least 20 in a row. Chukwu’s practice paid off, and he made several clutch shots during this year’s tournament.

This got me thinking…shooting free throws is, in a bizarre way, kind of like writing. While the physical mechanics stop at holding an item made partially of rubber (if you use an old fashioned number 2 pencil, that is), the principle of practice is (should be) the same.

How to Rate Books & Movies

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For better or for worse, the film has ended. The book is complete. You know what comes next.

Step 1: Stagger out of the theater or pry yourself off the sofa.

Step 2: If the story was epic and well-executed, gush words of approval and ovation. Or, if the story was….not so much of the above, cry with disappointment and bemoan what could have been.

Step 3: Take a deep breath, and move on with life. Or…are you kidding? The world needs to hear my churning, albeit calculated thoughts!

Rid Yourself of the Wrong Writing Goals

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Look at the date this post was published. Now, without looking at your calendar (no cheating!), what happened 58 days before that?

If you guessed (or knew) that 58 days previous marked the moment 2017 bowed down and surrendered to 2018, you’d be absolutely correct. The transition from one year to the next is a time to deeply breathe in hope for improvements, for change, for new beginnings, and a time to exhale dusty what-could-have-beens. Dreams unfulfilled. Broken relationships in need of mending. Stories and novels stagnating in the brain’s bowels. On January 1st, we make solemn pacts with our soul that this year will be different.

WHAT ARE STORIES?

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I never heard the kick.

Nor the shouts of warning.

Or the woosh of the ball.

But I remember lying on my back, the breath knocked out of me, a soccer ball casually rolling away.

I was about 9 and had gone to the field to watch my uncle play pick-up soccer. Of course, a book accompanied us.

I don’t remember feeling any pain when the stray ball walloped the side of my face. But I still remember the book I immediately started reading again. Brown cover, I think. Inside, the adventurous pursuits of a young boy and girl becoming millionaires off selling toothpaste—3 cents a jar, 2 cents for material, 1 cent profit.

Their pursuits stayed with me decades later, as did the Boxcar Children and Hardy Boys before them, and four Pevensie’s, a couple of Bagginses, and countless others afterwards.

[Read more…] about WHAT ARE STORIES?

Plot and Panel: Comic Strips as a Storytelling Form

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Stories come in many forms and through many mediums –

Television shows, movies, theater, graphic novels, short stories, novels, and poetry – yet how many consider comic strips to be a storytelling technique? I certainly did not until I recently ran across two masters of the art, Charles Schultz and Bill Watterson, who nearly perfected this type of storytelling in their daily classics.

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Stories come in many forms and through many mediums –

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