Proof that Bigfoot is REAL! by Hilary Wagner

If you've ever watched the show, Finding Bigfoot--something I watch when I can't fall asleep, you've probably noticed the show tends to go in a loop. They interview folks who claim to have seen Bigfoot, they go searching the wilderness in a dark, mostly creepy forest setting, and then--of course--there's some mysterious howls exchanged across the landscape and knocking on wood, which apparently is something Bigfoot would do to attract, well...another Bigfoot. They never find Bigfoot. They never find irrefutable proof of Bigfoot, but man, do they believe he's out there.

I know Bigfoot is not real. In all the years people have been chasing Bigfoot, there would be scientific proof, such as remains, DNA, or heck, even pictures that weren’t blurry brown smudges! Truth is, though, I want Bigfoot to be real. I want there to be a creature out there that's stayed miraculously hidden from humans for eons. I want the Yeti to dwell in the snowy mountains of Nepal. I WANT TO BELIEVE! 

That's where we come in. As writers, we get to step in and bring our favorite "what-ifs" to life! We get to give them blood, and skin, and fur, and voices. Winged goblins, evil witches and scaled dragons take flight. Animals talk in a way we understand. Dwarves, gnomes, and fairies live in the shadowy places of forbidden forests, and we, as writers, have the honor of making the unreal very real.

This is how we know all dragons have a small soft spot on their underbelly. This how we know Santa can squeeze down even the smallest of chimneys. This is how we know house elves are bound as servants forever, unless given clothes by their owner. 

And, this is how I know I'm born to write.

I want to believe.  :)

On Fantasy, by Matthew MacNish

Technically, all fiction is fantasy, in that it is simply tales woven within our minds, about things never happened. Yet still, I've always said there must be truth and honesty in the telling, even if that isn't the same thing as a story being factual.

But that's not what I want to talk about today. Today I want to talk about Fantasy with a capital F. Fantasy in general, sure, but Middle Grade Fantasy too, as this is Project Middle Grade Mayhem, after all.

Fantasy comes in a lot of flavors. High Fantasy, Low Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery, and Grimdark, just to name a few. There's even Young Adult Fantasy, and Middle Grade Fantasy. But what does all of it have in common? Well, it's imaginative. It's escapist. It's other-worldly.

Sometimes that other world is right under our noses, like in Neil Gaiman's NEVERWHERE, and sometimes that other world is simply under our cities, like in Hilary Wagner's NIGHTSHADE CITY, but always it's something secondary to reality, something fascinating, and dreamlike, and dare I say? Poetic.

Before I go on, listen to George Martin of Game of Thrones fame talk about his love of fantasy:

See what I mean? Who wouldn't rather finish out their days in one of those fantastical lands? Sure, some of them are rife with danger, but they're also so alive with color, and passion, and verve, and beauty.

I haven't personally written any stories I would truly call fantasy (or Fantasy), at least not yet, but I've always loved to read it, and I hope to someday have the courage to try my hand at writing it. My father instilled his love of reading in me from an early age, after reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings aloud to us children. From there my elementary school teachers introduced me to Lloyd Alexander's Prydain, and Padraic Colum's King of Ireland's Son, and countless other tales of myth and magical mystery.

These stories awoke something deep within me. Not just a love of story, but a kind of sense of a safe haven in imagination. A place to go when I had a bad day, or life got me down, or something difficult occurred that I needed time to unpack. Not to say that running away from all your problems forever is the wisest way to lead your life, but sometimes a little escape can help you catch your breath again.

I'm a big fan of most of the famous Fantasy tale-spinners, the Tolkiens, the Le Guins, the Martins, the McCaffreys, but I'm really enjoying discovering what a wealth of modern Fantasy there is, especially being written "for children," and especially for Middle Grade Readers.

I have recently loved books like IRON HEARTED VIOLET, by Kelly Barnhill, and FROSTBORN, by Lou Anders, and I certainly enjoyed NIGHTSHADE CITY, KEEPER OF THE LOST CITIES, and THE GIRL WHO CIRCUMNAVIGATED FAIRYLAND IN A SHIP OF HER OWN MAKING, back when I read those titles.

What are some of your favorite Middle Grade Fantasy novels? What is one you think I should absolutely read next?

Writing Prompts for Getting Unstuck by Joanna Roddy

Photo Credit: Drew Coffman

My last post was about returning to the joy of writing--learning to play on the page and let go of the need for right answers. One of the underlying assumptions there is that you can actually show up at the page and free-write as an act of discovery. 

But I'll be the first to admit, sometimes the blank page is intimidating as heck and you just don't know how to begin. This is the time to pull some trusty tools from your belt in the form of writing prompts. Even a single starting phrase can be so helpful! Here's a roundup of some of my favorite prompts for fiction writing.

Style prompts:

1. Try it from another point of view or tense: This is pretty basic stuff, but if you're inclined to write from third person omniscient past or first person present (there are many others, but I won't go into them here), switching to another POV/ tense can give you tremendous insight into scenes and characters that you didn't have the other way. Even if you don't decide to stick with the new style, the occasional foray into a new point of view can be a wonderful exercise, keeping your writerly skills limber. 

2. Experiment with another narrative voice: Stretch yourself. If you tend to be flowery, channel your inner Hemmingway and write a scene like it's a newspaper article. If you prefer to be concise, think about how to make the writing more lyrical. You might even try writing it as a poem. Try out stream-of-consciousness, satire, humor, and literary voices. You can even use an author's voice you love for inspiration. At the end of the day, your voice is your own, but trying out other styles will make you better able to find the unique sound of your characters, and you might find something that works for you that you never expected. 

Character-based prompts:

1. Rewrite a scene from another character's point of view: This does wonderful things for your character development and might reveal potential plot possibilities as you get in touch with that character's motivation.

2. Try on a character's voice: In a similar vein, write a new scene from a character's POV you haven't tried yet. This is especially nice for a character whose voice you haven't found yet, or who's coming off as one-dimensional. Try it with your villain!

3. Base a character on someone you know. If a character's voice is difficult to hear, try to "listen" to someone whose voice you're already familiar with. Build in those quirks and mannerisms that create a personality. Just make sure it's not an exact replica, lest you commit libel.

Illustration by Agata Kawa from Le Carnet Rouge
This image is on my Pinterest board for my novel's main character.

World-building prompts:

1. Go on a research quest: Set a timer for an hour and go on a wikipedia stumble. If thar be dragons in your story (Yar!), for a broad example, start at the page on dragons. Let your whimsey take you to a link from that page and then another from the next page and so on. Gain inspiration from mythology, history, science, and real-world parallels to your story. Take notes. Bookmark pages. Save images that inspire you along the way (Pinterest is great for this). If you exhaust your first stream of research, start another. When the hour is up, stop and write a short scene, setting, or character sketch from what you've discovered. Make sure you limit your time researching (you could do this sort of thing all day!) and follow it with writing. 

2. Pull a magazine or Pinterest image and write about it: Find something that strikes you, that speaks to your project or a specific character. 

3. Create a detective file: If someone were to come upon your fictional world, what is some of the evidence they would find of your story? Are there letters, emails, books, objects, bills, texts or any other physical evidence you could write down or describe? 

4. Write a letter: In a similar vein, write a letter from your hero to another character in your story. See what you find out about how they see themself, the other character, and their situation.

Photo Credit: deblund.com
One of the cards from Fiction Magic

And here are a few prompts inspired by Deb Lund, who recently spoke to my local chapter of SCBWI and is about to come out with a very cool product, a 54 card deck called Fiction Magic: Card Tricks and Tips for Writers filled with prompt phrases and a guidebook. I'll be the first in line to get one when they come out. And, no, I'm not related to Deb--I don't even know her! I just like to toot horns worth tooting. These mostly fall into the category of plot-development prompts:

1. Take something precious away from your hero: If you're relying on an object, relationship, character trait, or skill to save the day, see what happens when you take that away from your character. See what they have to do to get it back. Don't let them off easy!

2. Give more power to your villain while you hide your hero's strengths: The character and the reader need to feel that the stakes are high and the deck is stacked against them. Write a scene where your villain gets more traction. 

3. Make your hero disappoint someone: Whether they don't come through, break a promise, or shift their loyalty, see what happens when your hero makes a bad decision that hurts someone close to them. What are the relational consequences? What are the implications if that relationship stays broken? How will the hero have to alter course to repair the relationship? What will the plot consequences be because of that?

4. Consider an unlikely pairing: Think about how two opposite or unrelated characters might find their motivations to be mutually beneficial in some way. Bring them together and see what happens. Just think of some of the great examples of this in literature--Legolas and Gimli, Sherlock and Watson, Gollum and Frodo, even Hook and Tinkerbell, to name a few. 

That's a few to get you going. If you try any, I would love to hear how you get on with them. What are some prompts in your tool belt that you have found helpful? 

Do At Least Two Things At Once, by Matthew MacNish

I'm not sure the many-armed statue of Shiva is the best image to represent this post, but it's important to use open licensed images, so it's what we've got.

Anyway, today I want to discuss one of many revision techniques I use. That is, for lack of a better term: do at least two things at once. And I don't mean multi-tasking, though the photo may imply otherwise. What I mean is, while reading back through a manuscript, and revising it, one thing I try to focus on is making sure that every scene accomplishes at least two things. Here are some examples of goals that scenes can strive for:

• Furthering the reader's understanding of a character
• Furthering the reader's understanding of the world
• Describing the setting
• Foreshadowing a coming plot element
• Echoing a past plot element
• Speaking to theme
• Ramping up tension
• Purposefully slowing down (or speeding up) pace

There are dozens, if not hundreds more, and I would love to see more examples in the comments, but I'm sure this list is enough to make my point.

Of course we all know about the four rhetorical modes of discourse: exposition, argumentation, description, and narration. While argumentation isn't much used in fiction, sometimes, depending on point of view and narrative distance, two of the others can be done at once. But that's not really what I mean either.

Whatever the method may be, and certain methods work better for certain types of scenes (dialog vs. action, for example, or inner thoughts vs. description) the point is to try to make sure that every scene exists for more than one reason, and that it accomplishes at least both of those goals (hopefully more than two, but by having a rule of at least two, I find that helps me decide what to trim).

I wish I could share an example from my own work, but I've got nothing published except for some very short flash fiction/vignettes, and they don't really follow the same rules as longer stories. Hopefully this technique makes enough sense to be understood without an example, but feel free to share one if you have one (or more goals that scenes can strive for)!