Writing From Scratch #8

Are there any works in the post-apocalyptic genre with post-apocalyptic librarians? People who worked in the public library and after the Bad Thing decide to stay and keep the library clean, safe and available for anyone who needs it. People can’t remove books from the premises anymore, because they’re too precious, but you can stay as long as you want and read them or copy them out–the librarians encourage making copies, so that the information can circulate beyond the physical boundaries of the library. 

After a while it becomes an unspoken reality of the post apocalyptic society that you Just Don’t fuck with the library. You don’t fight there, you don’t steal from it, you don’t allow harm to come to librarians when they have to leave the building for supplies. 

People donate food and books and paper with no expectation of reciprocity, because the librarians don’t ask for anything when you need a place to hide or information or, fuck, to read a schlocky crime novel because you need to escape reality in some purple prose. 

Story idea: the local Academy of Magic has an Archaeology Department. They have an ongoing feud with the Necromancy Department because necromancers keep stealing bones from the archaeological lab, and archaeologists keep interrupting necromancy rites to ask the undead about their funerary rites.

The two departments also keep arguing over which one of them has the highest count of “ooops-found-an-ancient-evil-thing-and-almost-destroyed-the-world”.

Writing from Scratch #12: Compound Plots, Part 2

Compound Plots, Part 2: Parallel Plots

Parallel plots share a lot in common with subordinate plots. As with subordinate plots, parallel plots occur simultaneously – the individual problems and their solutions should be introduced and resolved at roughly the same time. However, parallel plots can be divided from each other and stand on their own, unlike with a subordinate plot which is dependent on the principle plot for its try-fail cycles.

“Parallel plots” is a bit of a misnomer. “Parallel” comes from the idea of parallelism in sentence construction because parallel plots often act as mirrors to one another or two sides of the same coin; they often work on each other indirectly to strengthen or emphasize the Thought of the story. What we don’t want to do is fall into the trap of thinking that the plots cannot intersect; although you should be able to separate them into their own stories, in a single story, they are meant to work together.

Superhero stories have parallel plots a plenty with the main character dealing with a plot-problem as their civilian identity and dealing with a different plot-problem as their superhero identity. We’ll look at one of these examples, Spiderman: Homecoming. Peter Parker is dealing with a Character plot in overcoming his lack of confidence to ask Liz out on a date; meanwhile Spiderman is dealing with an Inquiry plot involving the sale of alien tech weaponry on the streets. These do have points of overlap – they should for effective storytelling. However, if you take the Inquiry plot out of the story, you have a rom-com/coming-of-age story with a complete plot of no confidence to ask Liz out to yes confidence to ask Liz out. If you take the Character plot out of the story, you still have Spiderman investigating the origin of the alien tech weaponry.

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Writing from Scratch #5: The Inquiry Plot

The Inquiry Plot

The problem of an inquiry plot involves a question that needs answering for its solution. The classic is Whodunnit? But any who, what, where, when, why, or how style questions can provide the problem for an inquiry plot. Traditionally, try-fail cycles in an inquiry plot come in the form of following clues which can lead to more clues (or questions) or end up being red-herrings that have caused a set back in solving the riddle.

Let’s look at the classic mystery “A Night of Fright is No Delight,” Scooby Doo! Where Are You? Season 1, episode 16. (I went a little overboard on this one, but it’s just too fun!)

If you haven’t seen this classic episode, then a quick background is that the gang has been invited to spend the night in an allegedly haunted house for the chance to receive a part of an inheritance along with four other possible heirs.

The Question: Who is the Phantom Shadow?

First Clue: Cousin Simple disappears and a message from the Phantom Shadow threatens everyone in the house.

First try: the gang mocks up a fake Scooby in bed to tempt the Phantom Shadow into attacking while Scooby and Shaggy hide outside the bedroom window. Fail: No, the Shadow attacks the real Scooby and Shaggy, and they and Velma get separated from Daphne and Fred in a spooky cave under the house.

Second Clue: Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby find some footprints in the cave.

Second try: they follow the footprints in hopes they will lead to the Phantom Shadow. Fail: No, the footprints lead them to a bunch of Civil War memorabilia, and a flying Confederate uniform starts chasing them.

Third try: when they’re cornered by the flying uniform, Scooby tries to intimidate it. Fail: yes, the goose inside the uniform is intimidated and flies away, but they are no closer to discovering the identity of the Phantom Shadow.

Third Clue: the goose chased them into an elevator, which they take up to Cousin Slicker’s bedroom.

Fourth Clue: all the other potential heirs have gone missing.

Fifth Clue: a creepy organ begins to play

Fourth try: the reunited gang follows the sound of the organ. Fail: Yes, they find the organ, but there is no one playing it anymore.

Sixth Clue: a music book with the words “feed the organ and watch the floor” written on it.

Fifth try: Scooby plays the organ to see if the floor does anything. Fail: No, nothing happens to the floor, and the walls start closing in on the gang.

Sixth try: Scooby plays several combinations of keys to stop the walls. Fail: Yes, the walls stop closing in, but the floor still hasn’t changed.

Seventh try: Per Velma’s insight, Scooby plays the notes F-E-E-D. Fail: Yes, the floor opens, but there is a creepy staircase leading to who knows where

Eighth try: the gang follows the trap door to find out what’s happening. Fail: yes, they find coffins that have the bodies of the potential heirs inside, but two Phantom Shadows corner the gang and Scooby faints

Nineth try: the gang runs away and shenanigans ensue. Fail: Yes, they get away, but they didn’t find out who the two Phantom Shadows are.

Seventh Clue: Shaggy touched one of the Shadows and came away with green paint on his hand.

Tenth try: Fred concocts one of his classic traps and Fred, Velma, and Daphne attempt to lure the Phantoms into it. Fail: Yes, the Phantoms’ appear, but Scooby screws up the trap.

Final try: Scooby and Shaggy make due with the screwed up trap and chase the phantoms. Solution: they finally capture the Phantom Shadows and discover they were the lawyers, Creeps and Crawls.

Prompt: write a flash fiction with an Inquiry in which the plot-problem is the question “who ate the last piece of chocolate cake?” The character, setting, genre, and stakes, as well as what is preventing them from easily answering the question is up to you. This simple plot could be the basis of a picture book or a horror story.

If you want to read more, I have over 80 posts on my website theferalcollection.com

I love the image of the princess and the pea, though I don’t love the idea of being tall making you smart, but I see the concept of what’s happening here and the stack of books is mesmerizing.

Writing from Scratch #4

The Milieu Plot

The problem of the milieu plot involves a problem of location or setting. The character is often either in a place they need/want to escape from or not in the specific place they need/want to be in. The try-fail cycles will involve traveling away from or to the location. Gulliver’s Travels, The Great Escape, and The Hobbit contain milieu plots.

The Lord of the Rings contains one very large milieu – the problem of getting the One Ring from the Shire where its been hidden for a number of years to Mordor where it can finally be destroyed. We can further break this down into smaller milieu plots. Let’s look at one: the problem of crossing the Misty Mountains. (And we’ll use the events as they occur in the movie, since more people have watched that than read the book)

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To Nap or Not to Nap

To Nap or Not to Nap

I’m literally writing this just trying to keep myself from napping. I love naps.  Like I really love naps. I used to be good at napping.  In the sense that I could power nap.  In college, I was constantly running around, so every time I could, I would grab 10 minutes and some couch space in the formal lounge of my dorm and nap.  And then off I’d go.  Sometimes, those few naps, occasionally taken…

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So sometimes I see bros on the internet talk about how women couldn’t have worn armor historically, because it was too heavy for them.

Here is a picture of me wearing armor when I was a nerdy 14-year-old girl who was about 5 feet tall and weighed less than 95 pounds. I sometimes wore it for 6 hours straight in summer heat, and I would run and turn summersaults in it for fun.

And before you start asking: this was authentic full steel plate with a padded arming doublet underneath. It weighed so much that I couldn’t carry the plastic tub it was stored in on my own. It was heavy. But once I was wearing it I just felt like I was being hugged or wrapped up in a really heavy blanket. That’s how armor works. The whole point is that the weight is distributed across your whole body, and your whole body can lift a huge amount. It has nothing to do with how strong you are or how much you can bench.

So if you think women are too weak to wear armor, you are wrong on so many levels. It does not even matter if you believe in your little misogynistic heart that all women are defined by their physical inferiority when compared to men, because you are also just wrong about how armor works. Even skinny teen girls can wear armor just fine. Everyone can wear armor.