Category: Archives

Character, personality, empathy, story

July 24, 2015 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives

How do you create compelling, distinct characters, convey personality, create a sense of empathy, and tell a story…with a limited number of words?

While I can’t answer that question, I know it when I see it, feel it, and thought you might enjoy this lovely example.

We not only get to know the four friends, but the narrator as well….

The Four Friends

Ernest was an elephant, a great big fellow,
Leonard was a lion with a six foot tail,
George was a goat, and his beard was yellow,
And James was a very small snail.

Leonard had a stall, and a great big strong one,
Earnest had a manger, and its walls were thick,
George found a pen, but I think it was the wrong one,
And James sat down on a brick

Earnest started trumpeting, and cracked his manger,
Leonard started roaring, and shivered his stall,
James gave a huffle of a snail in danger
And nobody heard him at all.

Earnest started trumpeting and raised such a rumpus,
Leonard started roaring and trying to kick,
James went on a journey with the goats new compass
And he reached the end of his brick.

Ernest was an elephant and very well intentioned,
Leonard was a lion with a brave new tail,
George was a goat, as I think I have mentioned,
but James was only a snail.

A. A. Milne (1882-1956)

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In My Day…

June 24, 2015 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as blue jeans, Isabel Swift, Levis

I was looking for a pair of normal jeans and not having much luck. So I went into the giant Levi shop (All Levis All The Time) filled with hope! Surely Levi would be able to deliver a pair of regular jeans.

Think again.

Fabric dark, cheap feeling, and like ever other jean product available on the market “stylishly” torn, big holes at knees or strange white blobs of wear on the legs in places that would never, naturally, get worn.

Or multiple peculiar holes all over, as if they’d been left hanging in some automatic weapons firing range and had been peppered good. Or both…

I look at the young clerk and confessed: “You know, I just feel it is my job to wear out my own jeans. It doesn’t seem right to have it contracted out to some machine or child laborer.”

He nodded sympathetically. (The customer is always right).

Yes, in my day we had active lives. We did stuff. We wore holes in our jeans without any outside help. Yep, not even from our disinterested non-helicopter parents.

Our jeans were authentic. Artisanal. Indeed the work was just about as local as you could get.

When you look at the language being used now to market and enhance our present possessions, foods and lifestyle, beneath the words, you can hear this wild, inchoate cry against the virtualness of much of our present existence: instant, effortless, convenient. But somehow insubstantial, unsatisfying.

Unearned.

Isabel Swift

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Summer Time to Write

June 10, 2015 by Marianne H. Donley in category Archives tagged as Elise Scott, Romancing the Pages, writing tips

Summer is fast approaching and many writers will have more distractions at home now that their children will be home from school. So now the task of setting writing goals, and finding quiet time to write becomes even more important.

The daily distractions of housework, errands, facebook, twitter, and other social media and more, are just some of the things vying for your attention. Add cooking, family get-togethers, and summer sunshine, and a writer has to have a will of steel. It’s no wonder writers insist on having goals, a routine, and good writing habits. Not everyone thinks a job as a romance writer is a real job. If we don’t take it seriously then no one else will. Especially if you’re always available for everything and everyone but you’re not making time to write.

So how do we do it? I like having a weekly word count goal. It offers daily flexibility but still gives me an average daily goal to reach for. I schedule my writing time in the evenings when dinner is over and everyone is settling down, the house is quiet and the distractions are few. So having weekly and monthly goals is a good way to get started and keep writing. (Even if sending my babies out into the publishing world is frightening enough to give me hives). Everyone has to find the writing time that works best for them.

But what other goals or accomplishments would you like to achieve? In a month, a year? Make a list and post them where you can see them daily. Making small goals to get started and increasing them as you reach each goal will keep you from stressing and you’ll feel pride every time you hit a goal.

What else can you do to keep writing? Do you need moral support? You’re not alone. Join a group of writer friends online and encourage each other by doing sprints, posting your word count, asking for help, or just supporting each other. There’s a world of writer’s out in virtual space and they’re anxious to meet you.

Writing Tips:

Writer’s learn by doing. So do it, WRITE! The more you write, the better your writing gets.
Never assume your writing is the best it can be. Take classes, read books, attend workshops, ask for critiques. Everything helps make you a better story teller.
Have faith, write what you love, and it will come through in your stories.
Surround yourself with like minded people. They understand what your life is like and will support you.
And last but not least, write from the heart. The stories in your head can only be written by you.

Elizabeth Scott
OCC/RWA
V.P. Programs

w/a Elise Scott
One Weekend, in”Romancing the Pages” OCC Anthology, on Amazon, Barnes & Noble eBook retailers.

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Lumpers and Splitters…

May 24, 2015 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives

As the joke goes: One: people who think there are two kinds of people, and Two: people who don’t.

Yes, exactly!

There are a myriad of kinds of people, but there are often strong dividing principals around a specific point that offer insight into choices, opinions, actions.

The classic example is that there are Lumpers and Splitters: those that habitually aggregate things (information, whatever) into piles, and label those collective piles.

Or people who see things as individual, unique elements that are distinct.

You can see the pros and cons of each. The efficiency (and inaccuracy) of Lumping. The time-consuming inefficiency (and greater accuracy) of splitting.

We all are Lumpers and Splitters in different areas of our lives.

We tend to be Splitters in areas of interest or importance to us, knowing and delighting in the myriad nuanced differences of a “thing,” be it horror movies, romance novels or football. For many, the sentence, “I don’t watch horror movies (any films)/read romance novels (books)/like football (sports)” dismisses the entire genre (or the entire medium, in a bigger Lump). Often accompanied by a dismissive, “They’re all the same.”

But to a fan, a Splitter, interest and knowledge in something transforms your world from black-and-white (yes/no) into a universe of color like in the movie The Wizard of Oz.

So for example, Lumpers might roll all scary movies into a ball of “horror” and make blanket statements about them.

But to a Splitter, there are many types of horrorâ€”per Steven King there are three: the gross-out; the unnatural; terror. But other Splitters parse it differently: supernatural/unnatural; slasher/splatter; disaster. All usually include elements of suspense, fear, mystery. And there is a truly infinite number of varieties on these themes with strong opinions and preferences for individual types.

As a fan of romances novels, I will keep myself under control, simply noting that three initial Splits could be contemporary, historical, fantasy. But each one of those then can be subdivided into suspense, paranormal, mystery, sexy, sweet, and so on. Again, with an infinite number of sub-genres, mixing and matching to please different palates.

Footballâ€”while seeming for some of us to be “all the same” (bunch of guys running up and down a patch of “turf” in matching outfits, trying to move an inanimate object in one direction or another)â€”in fact is also full of subtlety. You heard it here first! Coaches, owners, players, injuries, penalties, sanctions, criminal investigations, finances, fans and more all contribute an ever-shifting kaleidoscope of the game.

There are many circumstances where we simply have to Lump. We can’t retain, effectively present or make decisions when we consider all the complexity of a large number of things. A business presentation starts with an “Executive Summary” offering in a single paragraph, the top-line conclusions of what may be a lengthy and nuanced piece of work.

We often judge others by a single action (perhaps cheating) and label and Lump the person a cheater.

But really, their action may have been specific, isolated in a particular situation, or an area they deem gray, (low level fudging on their expense report ) whereas other areas may be scrupulously black and white (the integrity of their work, their commitment to their job).

Lump it. Split it. But don’t dump on either one….

Isabel Swift

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