Tag: fiction

App Review: Text Adventure

Posted on by Ndrw

Many years ago, before we had fancy graphics and things, computer games were entirely text based. Scenes would be described and the player would navigate his way through the story by typing in basic commands such as ‘walk east’ or ‘open door’.

It was a simpler time. Harder games, but a simpler time. And if you long for the glory days of graphics-free interactive stories then let me introduce you to Text Fiction by Onyxbits.

This Z-machine interpreter for Android brings text based interactive stories straight to your phone, beautifully drawing together the simplicity of old fashioned text adventures with the crisp, modern layout of bubble-style text messaging. It’s not a single text based game, but ‘an interpreter for interactive fiction stories’ with a library of a whopping 183* different interactive stories to choose from, including the Z-machine’s crowning glory: Zork.

I have very few negative things to say about this app. It’s a thing of sheer beauty.

When you open the app, the first thing you will see is the library of stories you have on your device. Adding new stories is a piece of cake. You will notice on the library screen that there are three icons along the top: a little downward pointing arrow, a little collection of squares with a cross in the middle and three parallel dots. Tapping on the downward arrow will take you to the online story library where you can browse and download any of 183 text adventures by various authors, most of which are in the public domain and are therefore completely free. Once you’ve downloaded a story, you can then import it into Text Fiction by clicking the middle icon and choosing which story/stories you want to import. It’s a cinch to do. Even an educated idiot like me can do it in about two minutes flat (unless of course you find yourself completely overwhelmed by indecision in the face of so many free stories, all at your fingertips).

Want a new game
Choose new game
Import new game
Done!

It also goes without saying that deleting a story from your library is as simple as clicking the little bin icon beside the story you’re finished with. Simple, simple, simple. Everything about this app is just so darn simple and intuitive.

Screenshot_2018-08-06-09-58-47.pngNowhere is this truer than with the actual gameplay itself. The screen is set up like a bubble-based messaging app, similar to most modern apps for text messaging. Information appears in bubbles from the left and you ‘reply’ in the same way you would if you were texting, by typing simple commands such as ‘walk north’ or ‘pick up key’. If even that all seems too much like hard work, there is a simple icon-based menu at the bottom allowing you to quickly issue basic verbs. You can also tap on certain key words in the text itself (directions for example) to instantly add that word to the command box, thus minimising the length of time you spend battling with your phone’s positive precocious postcard predictive text.

The app is also highly customisable for accessibility. There are a variety of colour themes to choose from (with strange names like Alice and Jason; you’ll just have to use trial and error to find your favourite I’m afraid) and you can also change the font and font size. There is also a ‘text to speech’ option which, according to Onyxbit’s website, makes the app ‘easy to handle for blind and visually impaired users’. This works okay, but I think it would’ve been nice to include audio input, as well as output, for users with especially poor eyesight. As it is, the blind and visually impaired user can easily hear the story (in fact, the ‘text to speech’ is a little bit on the shouty side) but there is no help to be had when it comes to inputting commands. Audio input, or even the ability to increase the size of the verb icons, would have probably been helpful in this regard.

In terms of how well the app runs, I have very few complaints. It goes easy on the battery and takes up very little of your phone’s memory. It’s fast, smooth, responsive and best of all, ad free! The app itself seems to be completely bug-free as far as I can tell; however I have experienced a bug with one game in particular (I don’t know if any others have this or not) where every time I tried to play the game, the app would crash and I’d get an ‘unfortunately Text Fiction has stopped’ message. I don’t know whether this is a fault with the game or with the app itself, however I have not found any other bugs like this with any of the other games I’ve played (note: I’ve only played 4 of the 183 games available) so I’m inclined to blame it on the game.

Oh one more thing: this app is completely free so you’ve got nothing to lose. Give it a go! I’m certain you’ll love it.

My rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

FOOTNOTES:

*Correct at time of publication.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post. Be sure to leave us a wee comment if you enjoyed it and don’t forget to ‘like’ this post and follow us so you never miss another post. You can also follow Penstricken on Twitter and like Penstricken on Facebook, if that’s what pickles your onions.

Until next time!

ARE YOU AN AUTHOR?

I’m looking for authors (especially, but not limited to, new and/or indie authors) whose work I can feature here on Penstricken over the coming year. It will simply take the form of a quick Q&A about yourself and your work via private message or e-mail and, of course, a link to where we can all get a copy of your work.

I’m open to interviewing authors of almost any kind of story, provided your work is complete, original and of course, fictional. I will not consider individual short stories/micro-fictions, however I am happy to feature published anthologies or entire blog-sites of micro-fiction, provided you are the sole author.

If you’re interested, or want to know more, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter.

Pants, Plants and Plans: A Beginner’s Guide

Posted on by Ndrw

If you’re the sort of person who spends a lot of time reading up on story writing, you’ve probably heard myself or other writing bloggers talk about the differences between planners, pantsers and plantsers. It’s a spectrum we writers are all spread out across, separating those on the one extreme who plan everything before they write from those who pants their way through their story (that is, they write ‘by the seat of their pants’, making up the story as they go along with absolutely no forward planning whatsoever). And of course, slap bang in the middle of the spectrum, we have Plantsers (because it’s a combination of the words ‘planner’ and ‘pantser’, see?).

We all naturally gravitate to one side or another on this spectrum. However that doesn’t mean we can’t choose to plan, pant or plant even if it doesn’t come naturally to us. After all, we might be tempted to think that one method is inherently better than the others, and that we should try this.

We might even be right. For my money, I think there are some situations where planning is more appropriate and others where pantsing is more appropriate. I’m not going to tell you categorically that any one method is better than another* but there are pros and cons to each. If you’re struggling with whatever method comes naturally to you, it may be time to try a different approach. And so, what follows is my own short and ill-informed concise analysis of each approach, comparing pros and cons as evenly as I can.

Planning

Strengths: Planning everything in advance saves buckets of time. If you already know exactly what is going to happen, how it’s going to happen and who it’s going to happen to, all neatly ordered into chapters and scenes, you won’t waste time writing lengthy portions of narrative you won’t use. You can also rest easy in the knowledge that your first draft won’t have too many large plot holes to sort out.

This makes it easy to work to a schedule. If you know you can knock out 1000 words a day, you can reasonably well estimate that it will take you about three months to complete a draft, especially in those first drafts, because you won’t get stuck about what to write.

Weaknesses: it’s easily the most strict approach to writing. The writer must be disciplined enough 1) not to begin writing a draft too earlier and 2) not to deviate from the plan when he does start drafting. This does not suit everybody. Many authors find it sucks the pleasure out of writing and stifles the imagination, as new ideas insist on being heard throughout the writing process.

Tips for Planning: Be disciplined. Plan everything and resist the urge to draft until you have completed all your chapter outlines, character biographies, the lot. When you finally do begin to draft, don’t deviate from the plan. Add nothing, change nothing, remove nothing. Write it exactly as you planned it. Remember, dear planner, you’re not making art. You’re constructing an intricate machine.

Pantsing

Strengths: This approach to writing allows the imagination to run wild. Most people who write stories tend to do it because they’re people who like to dream, to create and to give artist form to their flights of fancy. Pantsing lets you do just that. I often find that, while pantsing can produce a lot of excess material, some of it can even be later recycled to create a whole new story. Many of my story ideas have come from material I rejected while pantsing an earlier work.

Weaknesses: If you’re serious about writing for any reason other than as a hobby, you will probably find this approach seriously undermines your productivity and success, especially if you’re writing anything longer than a short story. Pantsing out a novel length story in a couple of months is easy in theory but it is doomed to be full of half baked themes, plot holes and other inconsistencies that will need to be fixed before they can pass over any agent or publisher’s desk. You may find yourself virtually starting from scratch when you come to do your second draft, assuming you ever reach the second draft stage.

Tips for Pantsing: Don’t get too attached to your work. A draft that has been fully pantsed will require a lot more editing than a meticulously planned draft. While killing your darlings is always good advice for any writer, pantsers will probably find themselves producing a lot more darlings (because their imagination has been given unlimited credit in the sweetie shop) that have to be killed (because their story will be full of things that simply don’t work).

Plantsing

Strengths: Plantsers have the best of both worlds. They are anchored to a plan but they are not enslaved to it. If the author wants to make changes halfway through writing their draft, or if they identify problems with their story, they can simply adjust the plan as they go along. The imagination is thereby given space to work but is also kept under a tight leash.

Weaknesses: It’s probably the hardest method to strike the correct balance with, even if you do find yourself naturally gravitating towards it. Planners know to write nothing until their story is fully planned out and pantsers don’t give a rip if their story doesn’t make sense in the first draft, but plantsers must learn to bring these two extremes together and make them work in harmony. It is difficult to create a systematic approach to plantsing and will be largely figured out by trial and error. This can be time consuming and frustrating.

Tips for Plantsing: Plantsing is not creating a plan then disregarding it, nor is it writing a draft then making a plan around it. Both of these are a waste of time. Plantsing involves blending these two seeming opposites in a way which allows you to work to your strengths, while still enjoying the benefits of both extremes. For example, you might pants out a few zero drafts to stimulate your imagination while you plan. Alternatively you might create a very loose-fitting plan (story beats for example, but no chapter outlines) and pants out your novel within the boundaries of that limited plan. You might also decide to forsake character biographies in favour of conducting several ‘interviews’ or ‘auditions’ with your characters to help you get to know them better. The possibilities are truly endless when it comes to plantsing. My best advice is to spend a little time finding an approach which works for you.

Footnotes:

*I know what you’re thinking: ‘if he’s going to be so unbiased in his approach, why has he only got pants in the featured image and nothing else?’ Well the short answer is I just couldn’t find a single picture on the internet which depicted a plan, a pair of pants and a potted plant so I had to pick one. I picked pants because pants are funnier. Sue me.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post. Be sure to leave us a wee comment if you enjoyed it and don’t forget to ‘like’ this post and follow us so you never miss another post. You can also follow Penstricken on Twitter and like Penstricken on Facebook, if that’s what tickles your toes.

Until next time!

ARE YOU AN AUTHOR?

I’m looking for authors (especially, but not limited to, new and/or indie authors) whose work I can feature here on Penstricken over the coming year. It will simply take the form of a quick Q&A about yourself and your work via private message or e-mail and, of course, a link to where we can all get a copy of your work.

I’m open to interviewing authors of almost any kind of story, provided your work is complete, original and of course, fictional. I will not consider individual short stories/micro-fictions, however I am happy to feature published anthologies or entire blog-sites of micro-fiction, provided you are the sole author.

If you’re interested, or want to know more, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter.

App Review: Goodreads Android App 2.0.2

Posted on by Ndrw

Anyone who is serious about reading is bound to come across Goodreads sooner or later. They might not like it or see the point of it, but they’ll encounter it. And if they happen to sign up for the bookworm’s social network, it won’t be long before they get emails asking them to download the Goodreads App.

Personally, I’ve used Goodreads on and off a couple of times throughout the years. It’s a handy place to read reviews on almost every book ever published and it’s quite a good place to discover new things to read. It’s also great for those people who feels the need to organise and display everything they’ve ever read on the internet like it’s some kind of virtual trophy room.

Anyway, today I got an email asking me to download the new and improved Goodreads Android App.

‘Yes, I will.’ I thought. ‘And then I’ll tell all my faithful readers exactly what I thought of it, mwahaha!’

So, first impressions: it’s much easier on the eye than it used to be. In fact, it’s much easier on the eye than the actual website itself. The home page is a clear and simple single column consisting of your name, your books (ordered into shelves and neatly compressed so that you don’t see all your books on the homepage), your friends/groups and all your updates. Everything you could possibly want to do is accessible from the sidebar menu (again, this is hidden unless you open it) and a single icon for all notifications on the top right. There is also a search bar for looking up books.

App: minimalist layout
Website: display ALL the things!

There isn’t much in the way of new features. Just a few badly needed improvements on the old ones, making version 2.0.2 oh so much more pleasant to use than the older ones.

One of the newest features (also available on the website) is the ‘Explore’ page. ‘Try the new Explore page!’ The Goodreads blog says. ‘Browse books trending on Goodreads, new releases hot off the presses, and community-created reading lists across every genre’, it says. So I did, I tried it. It was alright. I don’t know if it’s new as much as newly packaged, but it’s still worth a look if you’re looking for something new to read. If you live in the US you can also use the Explore page to get deals on books by your favourite authors or from your ‘want to read’ shelf sent directly to your inbox.

The ‘My Books’ section has also been improved to make it somewhat more customisable. Books can now be sorted in order of title, author, average rating, number of ratings, publication year and a whole bunch of other things. As far as I can tell, doing this on the app does not in any way affect the order of your books on the website. You can also use the ‘My Books’ section to access your Kindle notes.

Another feature that has been added to the ‘My Books’ section is the ability to add additional dates for when you read a book. This is handy if you’re the sort of person who likes to re-read books. On the surface, this feature is very intuitive and easy on the eye however when I attempted to add a second set of dates for a book I had previously read, I discovered I had to add a finishing date at the same time, which was a little annoying though hardly the end of the world.

As before, the app has one major advantage/annoyance (delete as appropriate) that the website does not have: the ability to use your phone’s camera to scan a book’s bar code, and use that information to automatically add said book to your Goodreads bookshelf. If you do it that way, you even stand a fair chance of finding the correct edition of your book! Alas, even with this new and improved version of the app, it still took about a hundred attempts at holding my camera perfectly still and exactly the right distance from my book just to scan a single bar code, however when it finally did scan, it did scan accurately. You can also scan front covers, which is nice. Covers are a heck of a lot easier to capture with a camera if, like me, you’re not a photographer and you do not have arms of stone.

All in all, not a bad app. There isn’t a whole lot of new features to scream about and it’s certainly not perfect but it’s much easier on the eye than before and runs a lot more smoothly. It’s hardly blown my socks off but it’s alright.

My rating: 🌟🌟🌟

Thanks for taking the time to read this post. Be sure to leave us a wee comment if you enjoyed it and don’t forget to ‘like’ this post and follow us so you never miss another post. You can also follow Penstricken on Twitter and like Penstricken on Facebook, if that’s what blows your nose.

Until next time!

ARE YOU AN AUTHOR?

I’m looking for authors (especially, but not limited to, new and/or indie authors) whose work I can feature here on Penstricken over the coming year. It will simply take the form of a quick Q&A about yourself and your work via private message or e-mail and, of course, a link to where we can all get a copy of your work.

I’m open to interviewing authors of almost any kind of story, provided your work is complete, original and of course, fictional. I will not consider individual short stories/micro-fictions, however I am happy to feature published anthologies or entire blog-sites of micro-fiction, provided you are the sole author.

If you’re interested, or want to know more, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter.

Book Review: Ready Player One

Posted on by Ndrw
SPOILER ALERT

While every effort has been made to avoid spoilers in this post, anyone who has not read Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is hereby advised that this post may contain a few unavoidable spoilers.

‘Enchanting. Willy Wonka meets The Matrix‘ (USA Today). That’s what the little quotation says on the front cover of Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

High praise indeed. High enough to make me buy it and read it. But I know what you’re thinking: ‘did it deliver?’

The opening chapters of this novel introduce us to Wade Watts: a super-geek teenage boy living in a dystopian not-too-distant future. He’s bitter, cynical and spends most of his time hiding from his abusive aunt in the OASIS: a (seemingly endless) online virtual reality/computer game. There, he dreams of finding the ‘Easter egg‘ which the OASIS’ programmer created, promising in his will that whoever found it would gain full control of the OASIS and get all of his considerable wealth. There’s also a fairly unremarkable romantic sub-plot thrown in there for good measure (Wade meets a girl on the internet, falls in love with her though he’s never met her, she keeps him at arms length because she’s insecure about something, turns out she’s got a birth mark on her face, Wade still loves her anyway, they meet in real life after thwarting the bad guys, kissy kissy, the end).

In a word, Ready Player One is a good, fun story. Not at all bad for a debut novel. It was a little hard to suspend my disbelief at points, as he breezes through impossible odds just a little too often for my taste (I know he’s smart and I know he’s good at computer games, but come on). Don’t get me wrong though, this book is still a real page-turner. I think geeks, gamers and lovers of retro will probably find it far more enjoyable than the rest of humanity because it is bursting with gaming lingo and references to computer games, TV shows, movies and music from the 1980s, some of which may be lost on the uninitiated, though I think Cline still does a pretty good job explaining everything without too much info-dumping. No small achievement in a story of this kind.

The first-person narrative style was, for the most part, a joy to read and let us get right under the skin of Wade as all good first person narratives should. If I was being hyper-critical about the narrative voice, I would only add that it sometimes felt like Wade spent the whole novel ‘getting the hell out of Dodge’. I don’t know how often he used that expression but… it was a lot. I know people tend to use the same expressions over and over in real life but still…

Anyway, let’s talk bad guys. Innovative Online Industries (led by the unrepentant Nolan Sorrento) are a global internet service provider who are determined to seize the Easter Egg before anyone else so that they can charge people to use the OASIS and use it as an advertising space. Their methods range from the unfair to the downright brutal (blowing up houses, throwing people out of windows and so forth). Absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever as far as I could tell. If you like a bad guy you can boo and hiss at, you’ll love these guys. If you want a bad guy you can sympathise with, you’d better look elsewhere because these guys are b-b-bad to the bone: slippery, devious and with seemingly limitless resources, there is simply no low to which they will not stoop in their quest for the Egg. In spite of this, I actually quite liked them. Yeah they’re a bit two dimensional but… dang, they’re just so much fun to boo at. However, without wanting to give too much away, I will say that I was really looking forward to an epic final battle between Wade and Sorrento and I didn’t really get one. I mean, yes, there’s a battle but it was over before it started. Wade kicked butt, raced Sorrento to the Egg and… got there first. Wade wins. The end. If only Sorrento had had one more ace up his sleeve in that final scene, I would’ve been satisfied but no. He just loses.

Digging a little deeper, I get the impression Cline was trying to build a bit of a theme, paralleling Wade’s search for the Easter Egg with religion; or at the very least, with higher causes in general (for instance, consider the way Wade treats Anorak’s Almanac almost as if it were some kind of holy scripture). I’m not sure if this was deliberate but I think it was. It’s the only explanation I can think of for the lengthy ‘religion-is-stupid’ diatribe in chapter one, and for the devout Christian minor-character who appears just long enough for Wade to compare the Hunt for the Easter Egg to Christianity:

I never had the heart to tell her that I thought organised religion was a total crock. It was a pleasant fantasy that gave her hope and kept her going– which was exactly what the Hunt was for me.

Ernest Cline, Ready Player One, ch. 1

It’s either that or he was soapboxing. Possibly both. Either way, it was a good idea for a theme but it could’ve done with a bit of work. It kind of fizzles out without reaching any conclusion that I can see.

All in all, a great story. A little weak on a few technical points, but an enjoyable read and an enthralling adventure all the same. And yes, it is vaguely reminiscent of Willy Wonka and The Matrix.

My rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Thanks for taking the time to read this post. Be sure to leave us a wee comment if you enjoyed it and don’t forget to ‘like’ this post and follow us so you never miss another post. You can also follow Penstricken on Twitter and like Penstricken on Facebook, if that’s what blows your nose.

Until next time!

ARE YOU AN AUTHOR?

I’m looking for authors (especially, but not limited to, new and/or indie authors) whose work I can feature here on Penstricken over the coming year. It will simply take the form of a quick Q&A about yourself and your work via private message or e-mail and, of course, a link to where we can all get a copy of your work.

I’m open to interviewing authors of almost any kind of story, provided your work is complete, original and of course, fictional. I will not consider individual short stories/micro-fictions, however I am happy to feature published anthologies or entire blog-sites of micro-fiction, provided you are the sole author.

If you’re interested, or want to know more, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter.

Not Sure Where To Begin With Your Story? Try Free Writing.

Posted on by Ndrw

Fact: it is absolutely impossible to write a novel, a script, a screenplay or even a six word story without starting somewhere. There must come a point, somewhere in the journey of your life, when you put pen to paper, so to speak. Not only that, but starting must be the first thing you do. You can’t begin working halfway through the process, nor at the end. You need to start at the very beginning. It’s not just a very good place to start. It’s the only place to start.

We know this to be true and self-evident. And yet getting started is often one of the hardest parts. In fact, the whole reason this week’s post came about is because I spent the last hour and all of my blog-writing time last week being completely unable to start. So I’m writing from personal experience. Friends, let me assure you that there is a reliable way to get those juices flowing on demand: it’s called free writing.

Free writing is a time honoured prewriting technique which works by encouraging the writer to write without fear of criticism or failure for a set period of time. Of all the manifold techniques that exist for helping writers to get into the zone, this is easily the one I find the most useful.

Anyone can free write. All you do is set yourself a time limit and then write anything and everything that comes to mind as fast as you can without stopping. And when I say ‘without stopping’, I mean without stopping. You don’t stop to correct spelling or grammatical errors, nor do you stop to delete something you’ve changed your mind about. You don’t even stop to think about what to write next. You may find yourself writing nonsense. You will almost certainly be appalled by your own spelling and grammar. That’s all okay. If you’re anything like me, you will probably find your page is punctuated with little passages bemoaning how difficult it is to write: ‘yes, anyway, right, what will I write now? i don’k know, I can’t think what to write now. I’ll think of something in a minute. I hope. Maybe’.

freewrite
Here’s one I made earlier.

That’s all okay. That only means you’re doing it properly. The point of free writing is not to write something good. It’s not even necessarily about coming up with ideas for proper writing (though you often will). It’s simply about getting out of that lazy, defeated-before-you’ve-even-started zone and into the writing zone.

Want to give it a go yourself? Here’s a few tips:

Make It The Very First Thing You Do

Think about it: when do you usually write? After you’ve done other stuff, obviously. It might’ve been work, it might’ve been recreation, it might’ve been sleeping, it might’ve been shopping but one thing is certain: before you started writing, you were doing something else. And now you come to your story unmolested by writers’ block and with a head full of life-things; and all life-things are potential sources of ideas. If, on the other hand, you decide to free write only after you’ve been staring a blank page for three hours, you’ll only have a head full of writers’ block and a gnawing feeling of self-doubt. While it doesn’t matter what you write, you’ll probably find it a more rewarding and enjoyable experience if you write something other than ‘I suck at writing’ a million times over.

Keep The Time Limit Brief

How long you need will depend on your own abilities as a writer, but I find ten-fifteen minutes usually works well for me. You don’t want it to be so short you  barely have time to get started, but you also don’t want to drag it out so long that you run out of things to write. Give yourself just enough time to vomit every last drop of consciousness onto the page.

Use Typewriter or Something Similar

Remember, you are not allowed to edit at all. However, knowing this does not always remove the temptation to hit that delete key, just once. We’ve grown so accustomed to quickly correcting our spelling errors and tidying up as we go along that we don’t even realise we’re doing it. If that applies to you, grab yourself a free copy of Typewriter – Minimal Text Editor. It’s a simple ASCII text editor with absolutely no editing functionality whatsoever. The delete key does nothing. You cannot copy and paste. You can only make words appear. If you’re feeling really hardcore, there are also apps out there like Write or Die which will punish you in cruel and unusual ways for writing too slowly.

Make It A Habit

You’ll probably feel a bit silly the first time you free write. Stick with it until it becomes a regular part of your prewriting routine. If nothing else, it’s a good way to signal an official ‘beginning’ to your daily writing session, like clocking in at the day job. Before long, you’ll look forward to turning on that timer every day for the easiest part of your writing session.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post. Be sure to leave us a wee comment if you enjoyed it and don’t forget to ‘like’ this post and follow us so you never miss another post. You can also follow Penstricken on Twitter and like Penstricken on Facebook, if that’s what blows your nose.

Until next time!

ARE YOU AN AUTHOR?

I’m looking for authors (especially, but not limited to, new and/or indie authors) whose work I can feature here on Penstricken over the coming year. It will simply take the form of a quick Q&A about yourself and your work via private message or e-mail and, of course, a link to where we can all get a copy of your work.

I’m open to interviewing authors of almost any kind of story, provided your work is complete, original and of course, fictional. I will not consider individual short stories/micro-fictions, however I am happy to feature published anthologies or entire blog-sites of micro-fiction, provided you are the sole author.

If you’re interested, or want to know more, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter.

6 Useful Posts on Fiction and Writing

Posted on by Ndrw

I couldn’t think of anything clever to write this week, so I decided it was time for another exciting instalment of Useful Posts on Fiction and Writing, where I share other people’s clever fiction-related posts.

The posts I’ve selected for this week are bit of a mish-mash of flash fictions, book reviews and writing tips. They only have two things in common. 1) They’re all fiction-related and 2) they are all posts that I personally found to be useful, insightful or just plain enjoyable.

So, without further ado and in no particular order:

Book 29 Review: Lost in the shadows by Eunice (an honest and enjoyable review of Lost in the Shadows by J.S. Green).

A Teaser of my Upcoming Novel by Lucie Guerre (the title kind of says it all. A short and tantalising excerpt from Lucie Guerre’s novel).

Noodle Philosophy by Freewritesnshorts (an unedited, free-written short story about a guy getting philosophical about his instant noodles. Remarkably good considering it was apparently written in under an hour and hasn’t been planned or edited in any way).

How To Come Up With Good Ideas for Your Novels by Edward Mullen (a refreshingly clinical approach to coming up with novel ideas. Arguably one of the most useful posts of it’s kind I’ve ever come across).

Blank Page by Ajourneyintome (the internet is full of semi-autobiographical flash fictions where struggling authors write about the pain of writers block and for the most part, they’re all a bit samey. Not so with this one. This 333 word flashfic is dark, imaginative and bursting with an important theme).

Book Review: The Orphan’s Wish by Myliterarymusingsblog (a straightforward and thoroughly enjoyable review of The Orphan’s Wish by Melanie Dickerson)

Thanks for taking the time to read this post. Be sure to leave us a wee comment if you enjoyed it and don’t forget to ‘like’ this post and follow us so you never miss another post. You can also follow Penstricken on Twitter and like Penstricken on Facebook, if that’s what blows your nose.

Until next time!

ARE YOU AN AUTHOR?

I’m looking for authors (especially, but not limited to, new and/or indie authors) whose work I can feature here on Penstricken over the coming year. It will simply take the form of a quick Q&A about yourself and your work via private message or e-mail and, of course, a link to where we can all get a copy of your work.

I’m open to interviewing authors of almost any kind of story, provided your work is complete, original and of course, fictional. I will not consider individual short stories/micro-fictions, however I am happy to feature published anthologies or entire blog-sites of micro-fiction, provided you are the sole author.

If you’re interested, or want to know more, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter.

Theme: The Truth Behind the Tale

Posted on by Ndrw

I once read somewhere (and I do wish I could remember where so I could give proper credit) that we story-writers are in the entertainment industry; that the primary goal of the story-writer is to entertain. While I basically agree with this statement, I think it’s also true that the best stories all have something real to say.

This is where theme comes into play. The term can be a little bit broad sometimes so just to be clear, when I talk about a story’s theme, I am referring to the meaning(s) or dare I say, the message(s) of the story. What fundamental truth(s) are you conveying in your idle fantasy? What aspects of real life are you exploring? And equally as important, how are you conveying that truth?

Let’s look at the easy(ish) bit first: identifying your theme (we’ll come back to how to convey your theme later). Themes can take many forms: it can be a moral lesson (e.g., ‘don’t do drugs, kids’), a particular idea or belief (‘the meaning of life is such-and-such’, ‘God is like this’, ‘socialism/capitalism is destructive in this way’, etc.)  or it can be a general portrait of a particular subject (friendship, poverty, religion, etc.). Depending on how you write, you may have decided on a theme before anything else (that is to say, your initial idea was something like ‘I want to write a story about domestic violence’) or the theme may have come about as a natural byproduct of your story. If it’s the latter, you might be tempted to ask yourself: ‘do I really need to identify my theme(s), since they occurred purely by happenstance after I began writing the story?’.

Answer: yes, you do. After all, whether it was your intention to write a story about lies, sex and/or murder or not, your audience will pick up on these themes if they’re there. And believe me, if you’ve written a half-decent story, there will be at least a couple of naturally occuring themes. It’s unavoidable. Has one of your characters been pursuing a love interest who doesn’t reciprocate his feelings? Then your theme is unrequited love. You may not have intended it, but it’s there, growing wild in the tulip patch that is your story. Depending on how your characters behave, it may also become a story about obsession, harassment or rejection. Therefore, since it’s almost impossible to write a good story without a theme or two popping out of the mix, it’s worthwhile identifying your theme so that you can make it work for you. Themes may be naturally occurring, but they shouldn’t be allowed to grow wild. Once you’ve identified them, you can use them to really enrich your story.

How you convey your theme is something else entirely, and will depend largely on the kind of story you’re writing, but the best advice I can give you is this: avoid sounding preachy. That’s not what people want from a story and it will certainly annoy your reader, even if they agree with you. Don’t misunderstand me, you should be bold in communicating your ideas, but there’s a way to do it and a way not to do it. The chances are your readers came to your book quite comfortable in their own opinions. If you want to change their opinions, you’ll need to do it with tact and subtly. Show them the truth by the events of your story.

In the same way, avoid soapboxing (yes, I just made that term up). This is when you turn your characters into a soapbox from which you casually throw out your opinions on controversial subjects, usually in the form of internal or external dialogue. e.g.:

Pro-abortion soapboxing: There was a small group of nuns standing outside the hospital, clutching pictures of the Madonna and Child. Isobel shook her head. Didn’t these outdated old crones realise that a woman has the right to make decisions about her own body?

Anti-abortion soapboxing: There was a small group of nuns standing outside the hospital, clutching pictures of the Madonna and Child. Isobel shook her head. It saddened and amazed her to think that in this day and age, there was still any need to protest what was clearly the legally sanctioned murder of unborn babies.

Soapboxing won’t only annoy your reader, it will actually undermine your story. Remember stories and characters must develop. A story never ends where it began, because the characters therein must develop (even if that ‘development’ involves a downward spiral of self-destruction). If a character’s strongly-held beliefs are relevant to the story, they ought to be challenged throughout that story (and probably, although not necessarily, altered in some way by the end). Therefore, if you begin with absolute statements (‘such-and-such is evil!‘) you’ve nowhere to go but contradiction or compromise (‘such-and-such isn’t so bad after all’ or ‘I’m not sure what I think about such-and-such now’). You could, of course, end with an absolute statement (‘Jeanie thought such-and-such was okay, but now she knew it was evil!‘) but that is a very lazy way to write. If your audience was truly drawn into Jeanie’s plight throughout the story, they’ve probably already come to the conclusion that such-and-such is evil. They don’t need you to lecture them.

If, on the other hand, your character’s opinions are not not relevant to the overall story, ask yourself why you’ve included them. There may be a legitimate reason to include them (e.g., characterisation), but if it’s nothing more than an opportunity to soapbox, chop it out. Air your controversial opinions on Twitter if you must, but don’t let it ruin your story.

Remember, your audience didn’t come here to learn your opinions. Your audience doesn’t give a rip about your opinions, even if they happen to share them. Instead, focus on telling the story. Make it as true as you can and fill it with believable, sympathetic characters to whom your reader can relate. They’ll start to understand what it’s like to be in that position and will begin to think. And that’s all you can hope to accomplish as a writer: provoke thought. You cannot force someone to believe something. You can only offer them the truth as you see it.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post. Be sure to leave us a wee comment if you enjoyed it and don’t forget to ‘like’ this post and follow us so you never miss another post. You can also follow Penstricken on Twitter and like Penstricken on Facebook, if that’s what plucks your eyebrows.

Until next time!

ARE YOU AN AUTHOR?

I’m looking for authors (especially, but not limited to, new and/or indie authors) whose work I can feature here on Penstricken over the coming year. It will simply take the form of a quick Q&A about yourself and your work via private message or e-mail and, of course, a link to where we can all get a copy of your work.

I’m open to interviewing authors of almost any kind of story, provided your work is complete, original and of course, fictional. I will not consider individual short stories/micro-fictions, however I am happy to feature published anthologies or entire blog-sites of micro-fiction, provided you are the sole author.

If you’re interested, or want to know more, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter.

Writing a Second Draft When You’re a Plantser

Posted on by Ndrw
‘But how many drafts should I write?’ … The short and somewhat glib answer is, ‘as many as it takes’

(A. Ferguson 2017, ‘How Many Drafts Should I Write?’).

About a year ago, I had this great idea for a novel which I was really excited about. In fact, I was so excited about it and the idea worked so well that I produced a first draft in virtually no time. Seriously, I’ve never known productivity like it.

Of course, it wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t supposed to be; it was only a first draft. That’s why we have second drafts. They give us an opportunity to take our original, crumby story and turn it into a good story by fixing all the problems with characters, plot, theme, world-building and all that sort of stuff, so I wasn’t worried. In fact, I was downright enthusiastic. Even before I sat down to study my first draft, my head was already bursting with ideas for how I was going to improve upon my initial effort. Oh yes, this second draft was going to be a doozy alright.

Well that was about six months ago; and let me tell you, it’s been a tough six months for writing. I haven’t even come close to finishing this second draft yet, and I now know why. It hadn’t been for a lack of trying. I’d been diligently working to wheedle out all the little problems with my story before launching in to the writing stage and, for the most part, I had been successful but… I just couldn’t seem to fix some of the problems I perceived with my magic system (I’m writing a fantasy). The one I had in my first draft worked, but I didn’t think its origin story made a lot of sense. However, whenever I tried to fix it, I found myself undermining my actual plot. It just seemed that the more I tried to fix it, the more problems I ended up creating. Sometimes I even feared that I had completely ruined my story beyond all redemption all because I couldn’t make sense of this blasted magic system (that’s why you should never delete anything pertaining to your story, no matter how useless it may seem). Let me tell you, I came up with a lot of different variations on that magic system but I was just tying myself in knots. I was accomplishing very little and growing frustrated with my wonderful novel.

It was my wife who finally reminded me: I’m a plantser. I begin with a rough plan, but it’s only when I write and let my imagination run wild that my plan starts to grow a bit of flesh and take on a life of its own. Why was it, then, that when I came to write my second draft that I felt so compelled to have a perfect plan in place before writing anything? After all, all those wonderful ideas I had for improvements in my second draft only came about as a result of having written and then re-read the first draft. And so she encouraged me to keep my original magic system for now (which worked anyway) and just write my second draft. If I’m still not satisfied when that’s done, it doesn’t matter. I can always write a second second draft (‘draft 2.1’, you might say). For the plantser (and, arguably, for all writers), redrafting is a process of refinement. You take a terrible story and make it better. You take your better story and make it quite good. You take your quite good story and make it excellent.

And how do you, as a plantser, accomplish this? Exactly the same way you wrote your first draft. Plan it out as best you can and figure out the rest as you write. For me, the origins of my magic system were the only kink I hadn’t been able to figure out using Scapple. I’d managed to fix just about everything else. So instead of being forever held back by this one trifling point, I decided to sit down with my more-or-less complete plan and write the second draft, knowing full well that a second second draft, and perhaps even a third second draft, will be necessary.

‘But that will take ages!’ I hear you cry.

Not if you get your head down and get on with it. You can knock out a novel length piece of work in a few short months if your diligent enough about it. Spending six months banging your head against your desk and whimpering to yourself about your lousy magic system and how you’re a failure at writing: that’s a waste of time.

Learn from my failure. If you’re a plantser, then plant yourself on that seat and write your second draft with occasional reference to a half-baked second draft plan. It’s foolishness to the planners and a stumbling block to the pantsers, but for we plantsers, it’s the only way to get anything done.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post. Be sure to leave us a wee comment if you enjoyed it and don’t forget to ‘like’ this post and follow us so you never miss another post. You can also follow Penstricken on Twitter and like Penstricken on Facebook, if that’s what floats your boat.

Until next time!

ARE YOU AN AUTHOR?

I’m looking for authors (especially, but not limited to, new and/or indie authors) whose work I can feature here on Penstricken over the coming year. It will simply take the form of a quick Q&A about yourself and your work via private message or e-mail and, of course, a link to where we can all get a copy of your work.

I’m open to interviewing authors of almost any kind of story, provided your work is complete, original and of course, fictional. I will not consider individual short stories/micro-fictions, however I am happy to feature published anthologies or entire blog-sites of micro-fiction, provided you are the sole author.

If you’re interested, or want to know more, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter.

Super Snappy Speed Reviews – TV Edition (Vol. 2)

Posted on by Ndrw
SPOILER ALERT

While every effort has been made to avoid spoilers, anyone who has not seen Star Trek: Discovery, Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Hooten & The Lady, Endeavour or Doc Martin is hereby advised that this post may contain a few unavoidable spoilers.

Yes it’s another day and another instalment of Super Snappy Speed Reviews. So far we’ve reviewed books [2] [3], TV shows, films, computer games, writers’ apps and even the Star Trek movies, so this time it’s going to be all about TV shows. I’ve picked 5 TV shows entirely at random from my DVD rack/Now TV/Lovefilm/etc. accounts and reviewed them all in no more than four or five sentences.

As ever, these reviews reflect nothing but my own personal opinion. The TV shows I have selected have nothing in common, save the fact that they are all fictional stories. They are not necessarily stories of the same genre, nor are they necessarily TV shows that I particularly liked or disliked, nor are they sorted into any particular order. These reviews reflect nothing but my own impressions and opinions, reduced, powdered and decimated into a few short sentences. So without further ado…

Star Trek: Discovery

Star Trek: Discovery promised a lot more than it actually delivered. Roddenberry’s utopia has been replaced with a grim world where Starfleet personnel see nothing wrong with using living creatures to power their engines and the crew are all at each others’ throats. It’s also got far more bad language and other adult content than we’ve become used to after fifty years of Star Trek. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a top-notch TV space opera, almost as good as Star Trek… but it’s not Star Trek.

My rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman

If you’re sick of the dark and gloomy superhero films/TV shows we’ve been getting served up recently, you might want to have a look at this ’90s gem. From a story writing point of view, it focuses far more on the developing relationship between Lois Lane and Clark Kent than on any superheroing (verb: using superpowers to rescue people while wearing impossibly tight spandex) and I think that is what makes it so compelling. It’s lighthearted, cheesey in the extreme and yet not entirely without substance. Be warned, it does end on an unresolved cliffhanger.

My rating: 🌟🌟🌟

Hooten & the Lady

My wife and I were perusing Now TV one day when we stumbled across this ‘rip-off Indiana Jones meets rip-off Lara Croft’ type show. Don’t be put off by my use of the word ‘rip-off’, however. This is a thoroughly entertaining show, especially if you long for the days of feel-good adventures and light-hearted love triangles that don’t really come to anything. I should point out, however, that if you have even the most elementary knowledge of history, religion or archaeology, you might want to switch your brain off. It’s a fun show, but there’s a lot of nonsense in it.

My rating: 🌟🌟🌟

Endeavour

Prequels are often rubbish; Endeavour is not. This show balances complex mysteries (a little too complex, if I’m being critical) with a rich cast of characters that can just as easily stand alone, apart from the original Morse canon. In addition to solving mysteries that his (rather lazy and/or inept) superior officers cannot, this show focuses heavily on the formative years of the Morse character and the personal issues he faces as he develops into the character portrayed by John Thaw. It’s intense, but not overwhelmingly so. Do yourself a favour and watch it.

My rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Doc Martin

I really like this show. It balances drama, comedy and a rich cast of distinctive, well-written characters in a way few modern prime time TV shows manage. Having said that, I feel like they should’ve probably axed it after series 7 or so. The story is clearly finished now and it is beginning to feel a little bit like ITV is flogging a dead horse.

My rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Thanks for taking the time to read this post. Be sure to leave us a wee comment if you enjoyed it and don’t forget to ‘like’ this post and follow us so you never miss another post. You can also follow Penstricken on Twitter and like Penstricken on Facebook, if that’s what teles your vision.

ATTENTION AUTHORS: 

I’m hoping to do author interviews here on Penstricken over the coming year, especially with new fiction authors. If you’re interested in having your work featured on Penstricken, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter.

Until next time!

Flash Fiction: The Girl & The Car

Posted on by Ndrw

You know what? Sometimes, it’s murder coming up with a good title for your story. I wrote this little flash-fic ages ago, and although I don’t think it’s the best story I’ve ever written, I wanted to at least share it on the blog but… I just haven’t been able to come up with a decent title for it to this day; and believe me, it hasn’t been for a lack of trying. Still, it’s been sitting on my computer doing nothing for too long so for better or worse, here it is. Feel free to suggest better titles in the comments.

As always what follows is entirely my own work and has not been published anywhere else in the world, whether in print or online, nor do I expect or permit it to be. And so without further ado, I give you:

The Girl & The Car

by A. Ferguson

 

The car was mine. I found it, so it was mine.

I don’t know how it got there. I was just playing in the bushes at the bottom of the hill one day and there it was, in the clearing. It didn’t have any glass in the windows and two of the doors were missing. Also the steering wheel came off if you turned it too hard.

I couldn’t have been happier. My own car. A real one. I let Michael and Paul use it too, and sometimes I even let them drive it because it’s no fun on your own. That was okay because they knew it was mine because I found it. I didn’t tell Mum and Dad about it and I told Paul and Michael not to tell their mums and dads either. Adults have funny ideas about things like that. I knew they wouldn’t let me keep the car, even though I found it fair and square and it didn’t really go.

It was Sunday. Me and Michael were playing Batman in the car while we waited for Paul. His family went to a different church from me and Michael so we always met him after lunch. I was Batman (obviously, because it was my car) but it was Robin’s turn to drive.

When Paul arrived, he had a girl with him.

‘Girls aren’t allowed in the car!’ Michael objected. ‘Why’d you even bring her here? This is private property.’

‘Aw, c’mon Mikey, she’s my cousin!’ Paul whined. ‘Mum said I had to. It’s just for today. I swear I tried not to but they said I had to or I couldn’t come out. I swear I tried!’

‘Well, she’ll have to sit in the back!’ I decreed, thinking myself generous. I don’t know how old she was but she was younger than us. Too young. And a girl.

‘I want to drive!’ She cried with glee. ‘Please please please please, pretty, pretty please!’

‘No.’ I said. Enough was enough.

‘How not?’

‘Cause. It’s my car. Girls aren’t allowed.’

‘Come on, Haitch, let her have a go.’ Paul said. ‘It’s only for today.’

‘He’s siding with her!’ Michael jeered, gripping the wheel even though it had fallen off again.

‘I’m not! It’s just Mum said I had to or I couldn’t come out. It’s only for today. Come on!’

‘Your mum only said she had to come with you. She’s with you.’ I ruled. ‘She doesn’t even know about the car so that doesn’t count.’

‘Henry!’ Michael hissed, grabbing my arm. ‘What if she tells?’

‘I’m telling!’ The girl taunted us. ‘I’m telling, I’m telling!’

‘That was your fault!’ I said, punching Michael in the arm.

‘How’s it my fault? Paul brought her!’ He hit me back, though not hard. I guess he knew it was his fault.

‘I’m telling, I’m telling!’ The girl sang in words that didn’t rhyme. ‘Let me drive or I’m telling!’

‘Henry, just let her drive!’ Paul pleaded. ‘What’s the big deal? It’s only for one day.’

‘She’s a girl!’ I exploded. ‘And she’s too wee, she’ll tell!’

‘I’ll not tell if you let me have a go.’ She promised. I was about to argue but–

‘Alright.’ Michael said, opening the imaginary door and climbing out. ‘You can have a go, just a quick one mind! But you’d better not tell!’

Treachery!

‘That’s not how it works!’ I said, clambering across to the driver’s seat and grabbing the wheel. ‘It’s mine!’ I said, pointing to the place on the dash where I had scratched ‘HBS’ into the dashboard. That’s my initials: Henry Barrington-Smyth. ‘I found it, so it’s mine!’

‘Fine!’ The girl shouted. ‘It’s a stupid car anyway! I’ve got a better one at my bit, with proper doors and windows and everything! And it drives for real! And you’re not getting a go!’

Then she went away. Paul went after her.

‘Just let her go!’ I shouted after him. He turned to face us but kept walking backwards slowly.

‘I can’t! My mum, she said…’ He trailed off. Then he turned and ran after her.

‘Paul! Paul! Just let her go, Paul!’

He ignored me. Michael ran after him, leaving me alone in the car. I couldn’t move. It felt important to hold my ground in the car. The car was mine as long as my bottom was on the seat and my hands were on the wheel. Ahead, at the edge of the clearing, I saw Michael grab Paul by the arm to pull him back. Paul shrugged him off and shouted something at him. I don’t know what it was but his face was livid. He stormed off through the bushes, out of the clearing. Michael followed him, shouting after him but was back a few moments later. He came back to the car.

‘Henry, what if she tells?’ Michael asked again. His voice was quivering and his face was ashen.

‘She won’t tell.’ I said, fighting to ignore a hollow sensation in my stomach. ‘Paul won’t let her. She won’t tell. She was just saying that.’

* * *

Well, she told. Ten minutes later, Michael’s mum came down into our clearing where our car was parked. We were still sitting there, forcing ourselves to be Batman and Robin. Michael got such a blazing row off his mum that I didn’t know where to look. She gave me a good tongue lashing as well, then I went home and got more of the same from my own mum. I wasn’t surprised by that. Once one adult knows something, they all know it.

We never saw Paul again for weeks. He didn’t go to the same school as me and Michael and whenever we went in for him, we were told he couldn’t come out. I felt sick. What if he wasn’t talking to us any more, all because of some stupid burnt out car? Michael and me never spoke about it but I think he felt the same. Then one day Paul came in for me. Turned out his parents had just grounded him and never told us, not even when we went in for him.

We never saw the car again. In some ways, it was a relief. We went back to the clearing a while later (and I mean a long while later) but the car was gone. I don’t know where. We didn’t dare ask. It didn’t matter that it had my initials on it or that I found it. It wasn’t mine any more. I don’t think it ever had been.

THE END

Thanks for taking the time to read this post. Be sure to leave us a wee comment if you enjoyed it and don’t forget to ‘like’ this post and follow us so you never miss another post. You can also follow Penstricken on Twitter and like Penstricken on Facebook, if that’s what crashes your car.

ATTENTION AUTHORS: 

I’m hoping to do author interviews here on Penstricken over the coming year, especially with new fiction authors. If you’re interested in having your work featured on Penstricken, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter.

Until next time!