Things I Wished I Knew About Minor Car Accidents

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car accident, embarrassing, insurance, moving forward, over it

So…a few months ago now I was in a minor car accident. No one was hurt, and it was mainly embarrassing. But now, with a little time to give some perspective, there are a few things I wish I knew when it happened.

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Liebster Award 2018

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Blogging, liebster award 2018, questions

Thanks to Heather for nominating me! I’ll see if I can do it justice. Rules can be found here but I have never been able to make the link work so this is me guessing. (I’m also supposed to nominate people but all the people I know who are bloggers have either already been nominated, or else haven’t blogged in over a year. Sorry!)

Framed Stories

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Arabian Nights, confusing, framed narrative, literature

So I’ve been reading through the Arabian Nights. Which is a huge book, and the version I’ve been reading is apparently a fairly complete version of the ancient anthology. Also, minimal paragraph breaks so, yay! (It’s almost incomprehensible, but I’m not reading all that carefully anyway.)

Making a Good Series Finale

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antagonist, ending, fan favorite, finale, star wars rebels, talent, theme, Writing

(Last one, I promise!) In case it isn’t clear, I really enjoyed Star Wars Rebels and I think people should watch it if they like Star Wars and cartoons. It’s a fun series, and there’s a lot of things I think they did right when they told these stories. I know I said rules in the title, but it’s really more a set of observations about things that work well. Not all of them apply to all stories, and some of them might just be fun story elements for all I know.

Anyhow, here’s a few things that make a good series finale.

What Makes a Great Sequel

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characters, Clone Wars, respect, sequel, star wars rebels

Star Wars Rebels is also a sequel, and a pretty darned good one. Not so much to Star Wars I-III, but to the Clone Wars TV show. It reuses both the half hour cartoon format, and a few of the characters. And like being a prequel, there are a few things that make it a good sequel that I think can apply to other stories.

What Makes a Great Prequel

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characters, good story, prequels, star wars rebels

Finished watching the TV show Star Wars Rebels. Yes, I know it’s a kid’s cartoon. Who cares? This show is interesting in that it is both a sequel to Star Wars I-III and the Clone Wars TV show, and a prequel to Star Wars IV. Which means that there’s a lot to learn about storytelling. I’ve got three blog posts planned. This one is about its status as a prequel.

Critiques: Likes and Dislikes

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critique, reader reactions, Scribophile

I’ve gotten a fair number of critiques of my work by now, mostly thanks to the website Scribophile. Which means that I’ve got a few opinions about what I do and don’t want to see about my stories.

Some Random Thoughts

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black panther, critiques, draft 2, random, taxes are ridiculous

I couldn’t think of any topic I could write about that would take longer than a paragraph to finish, so I decided to write about all of them.

I Hit A Car

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car accident, car repairs, crying, humiliating, it's okay, prayer

I hit a car. Stop and go traffic, glanced at my phone, and bumped right into the car ahead of me. No one was hurt, and the main thing of it is how humiliating it is. 100% my fault. Just human stupidity.

I Can See the Light

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character motivations, connect the dots, old notes, triumph, work in progress, Writing

I finally have the third act of my latest WIP (work in progress) outlined. It was painful, and it has taken me months to figure out what I’m doing with this book and where I’m going with all those vague notes I made in the beginning, but it is done now. All I have to do is write it.

First, dealing with character motivations. They didn’t change, thank goodness, but they did become a lot more defined by the time I was halfway through, and so the final act needed to reflect that. I can go back and add in the things I need to make it work, but for this all I needed to do was make sure I knew what I was targeting for sure.

Next, going through old notes and reconciling with how the story has gone, because it still works. It’s still what I was aiming for, I was just super vague. Which is probably why it still works. Filling in a few gaps, making sense of some confusing digital scribbles, turning my generalized sense of an ending into something I can actually write.

Then, connecting the dots between the character arcs and the underlying political tension and the actual surface goal of the character. That’s… going to need work. And lots of going back to act one to add more hints and clues as to where it’s all going. But at least now I know how it ties together, at least in a clumsy fashion.

And then going back and outlining the little details I’m going to need to add in order to make that tension clear. I probably shouldn’t have spent all that time on outlining the details for these things, when I’ll just change it first thing when I start draft two. It was helpful, though, in that now I know where I theoretically want readers to be coming from by the time we get to the end.

Finally, making a story out of it and finding an end point that’s not 100k words in the future. All I can do for that is write it. See if it actually meshes together the way it does in my head, or if I’m just being silly.

It feels like a triumph right now, getting all that figured out. Hopefully I can take the momentum and let it carry me to the actual end of the book. Anyone else have an epiphany moment lately?