Read + Write + Report
Home | Start a blog | About Orble | FAQ | Blogs | Writers | My Orble | Login

Fictional Worlds - February 2010

5 Great Blog Posts

February 26th 2010 12:34
Nanoedmo is almost upon us, and come Monday I will be posting the beginning of my March editing workshop. In the meantime, here are five great blog posts for you to read:

~The Definitive Guide To Choosing A Topic For Your New Blog is a post over at Skelliewag talking about what to do before you create a new blog. It's the first in a series and I suggest you read them all if you're looking into creating a new blog, or your first blog. I hope this helps you.

~Out Of Sight In My Mind is a post on Six Sentences, which is a place where writers submit six sentence stories in the hopes of having them posted. It's a lovely little thing about secrets.

~How I Know I'm A Writer is a post at SF Novelists talking about what it means to be a writer. I really enjoyed this post and have subscribed to the blog itself as well.

~Six Questions for Camille Gooderham is a post over at the Six Questions blog interviewing Camille Gooderham, editor of Every Day Fiction. Some of you might know its relative, Every Day Poets, which published my poem Haunted (clicky) early last year. The publications only pay a dollar, but it gets your name out there and they are high quality publications.

~The Horrible Editorial Blacklist is a post at Incipit Vita Nova, a blog I just discovered today. The post talks about the rarity of blacklists, and in the comments there's an excellent discussion about their existance and what gets a person on a blacklist.

I hope you enjoy the links and your weekend as well. Thanks for reading.
23
Vote
Comments (2)Comments (2) Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Short Fiction, Short Non-Fiction
   


When You Think You're Done, Something Else Comes Up

February 24th 2010 12:25
For the last few weeks, I've been working a fair bit on building the world of Tamraq, the world in which my Jihad series takes place. There is so much to create in this world, so many things to talk about. I've already got a binder that's mostly full of notes, and I'm beginning to think that I might need to get a bigger one.

I thought that I'd done enough worldbuilding to at least write the first couple of books, but after writing Phoenix Falling I realized just how much needed to be done. How much more can be added, how much more should be added. We're quickly approaching March and NaNoEdMo and I've barely got anything done in preparations for a rewrite.

But it's worth it. Even though every time I think I'm done working on a certain part of Tamraq's history something else comes up that needs to be done, I enjoy it. I enjoy every minute that I spend building this world. And I know that when I do rewrite Phoenix Falling, and when I do finish the series, that the books will be just that much better because the world is so real to me.

Consider this: Tolkien spent a decade building the world for LoTR. He built the world first, and LoTR was the story that came from that world. Consider the rich detail you find in those books, the descriptions of the landscape, little traditions, little differences in people. Anyone who has read the books will know what I'm talking about. The language of the Elves, the poetry, the songs are beautiful and well done.

Consider how well you feel you know Tolkien's world. Consider how immersed in Tolkien's world you felt when you were reading his books. His world was real to you, his story was real to you.

You'll never be Tolkien, but consider how much better your books will be if you do the work in advance. When you look at it that way, all the world building, even when it's tedious and frustrating, is entirely worth it. You want your books to be remembered-and if you make your world completely real to you, it will be real to your readers, and they'll remember that world almost as vividly as they remember this one.
22
Vote
Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Articles/Ideas/Prompts
   


Prompt: Falling In Love

February 23rd 2010 12:16
Every Tuesday is going to be prompt day here at Fictional Worlds. These prompts are simple phrases or words meant to trigger an emotional response. You can write anything you want to them. I suggest you do a freewrite, either from your point of view or from that of one of your characters. You could also write a poem or even a short story about it.

Sometimes these prompts will be more rigid exercises, like letters or diary entries. If you would like to submit a prompt that you've found useful, please email me at diannalgunn@gmail.com.

Your prompt for today is 'Falling in Love'. My own response to it is below.

Falling In Love
PoV: Aslandial

For centuries I have watched other people fall in love. I have written of lovers many times in my histories of the Isles. Important humans have a habit of doing strange things when they are in love, and changing the course of the Isles by the things they do in such a state.

I always thought that I was above love; that, like Those Who Are, I was unfeeling. I have since learned two terrible secrets. The first is that even Those Who Are have fallen in love and are capable of feeling emotions. The second is that I am the closest thing to one of Those Who Are in this universe except for Loki.

I am in love. And my love is terrible. I have fallen in love with an Elvish woman who, no matter what she does, cannot fall in love with me in return. She belongs to the Lord of the Elves. She was smuggled on this ship so that once here she could become wed to him. They are fighting now, but even still, he would have my head before I would have even a moment with her.

But I think the fall was the most painful part. I never really believed in love at first sight, although in my histories I speak of it often because it is what the humans thought they had. I fell in love with Emilia from looking upon her beautiful face once.

It haunted me, it plagued me, it followed me around. I was hers in my mind but not in my body, and that is the way it still is. But I was not at first conscious that this was what was happening to me. I thought that the image of her face returned to my mind so frequently because I was terrified when I saw her. I feared she would come for me.

She did not come for me. I grew ill upon reaching the Guardians-hell, I was ill before that-and they told me that I must go back for her. My love is as strong as that of one of Those Who Are, they said, and I must be with her or I will only be ill.

So I returned, and the walk was long, and I was ill, and so it became twice as long. And now I am here, and I am with her, but not really with her, and I am in love.

I never thought this would happen to me.
32
Vote
Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


Phoebe: A Cat

February 22nd 2010 12:33
Seven or eight years ago, it's hard to say now, my grandmother took in my aunt&uncle's cat who didn't like other cats. Phoebe was only supposed to stay with her temporarily, but it turns out that my grandmother never found a place to send her-or maybe she just never had the heart to let go of the kitty.

For the last eight months or so, I've been living with my grandmother, which, of course, means living with Phoebe. Phoebe was a beautiful cat, black and brown with a little bit of white. She was old, she was overweight and when she was left alone too long she would get angry and poop in the doorway, we loved her just the same


[ Click here to read more ]
32
Vote
Read MoreRead More Comments (2)Comments (2) Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


Characterization Workshop: The End

February 20th 2010 12:29
Hopefully you've gotten to know your characters better over the last week and gotten used to writing in their voices. These exercises are designed to help you create real characters with distinctive voices. If these exercises have helped you, I would love to hear from you what you enjoyed about them. If you have any suggestions for characterization exercises in October, please send me an email at diannalgunn@gmail.com.

Now that you're done the workshop, go back to your character profile and fill in anything that you didn't know about your character before that you do now. If you want to send me your responses to these exercises at any time down the road, send me an email with Characterization Exercises in the subject line. If you want a critique, mention that in the email itself and I'll get back to you as quickly as possible


[ Click here to read more ]
22
Vote
Read MoreRead More Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


Day Four: Final Prompts

February 19th 2010 12:51
Today you're going to write 300-500 words per character to a prompt of your choice. You can do this as the character freewriting about the topic, or as a scene related to the topic. What you write should be first person from the character's PoV.

You may want to do more than one prompt for each of your characters. This is perfectly acceptable


[ Click here to read more ]
12
Vote
Read MoreRead More Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


Day Three: Character Interviews

February 18th 2010 12:29
Today you're going to interview each of your characters. Either you, the author, or another character who is involved with your world's media will interview them.

Some of the questions your character is asked will depend on your story, your world, and your character. You'll want to ask about hobbies, interests, and their feelings about the events of your story. Depending on what your character's story is before the book, you might ask some questions about the character's past. You might also want to ask what the character's plans for the future are


[ Click here to read more ]
12
Vote
Read MoreRead More Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


Day Two: Dear Diary

February 17th 2010 12:29
Today you're going to write a diary entry for each of your characters. This is not going to be an entry about an ordinary day, but it will be an entry about an important day in the life of your character. It should be a turning point in their life. It could be the day of a breakup, a death in the family, or the day your character found a new job or got accepted to a good school. Anything that changes your character's life in a major way.

It doesn't have to be an unpleasant event, just an important one. Make sure that you are writing from the character's PoV, and that it sounds like it's really them. This is a diary entry, so it should be in the first person, using 'I'. Each entry should be 300-500 words long


[ Click here to read more ]
12
Vote
Read MoreRead More Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


Day One: Expanded Character Profiles

February 16th 2010 12:16
Today you are going to create a profile for each of your characters. If you've already made character profiles for these characters, don't worry. These profiles are more detailed than the basic profile (link) that I asked you to complete in the October pre-Nano workshop. Fill them out to the best of your ability. If you find yourself drawing a blank on one of the areas, you know you need to pay more attention to that part of your character's life.

Name


[ Click here to read more ]
12
Vote
Read MoreRead More Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


Characterization Workshop: Intro

February 15th 2010 14:08
This workshop is designed to help you get to know the important characters in your novel. You should already have a sense of who they are and what they do/what drives them after writing your first draft. Through questions and prompts, you will get to know three characters of your choosing.

If you want commentary on your responses to these exercises, either comment on the posts with your responses or email them to me at diannalgunn@gmail.com. I will respond to these emails as soon as I can, probably within three days


[ Click here to read more ]
12
Vote
Read MoreRead More Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


What I've Been Doing For the Last Year and a Half

February 12th 2010 23:45
I have two names.

One of them is the one you know, Dianna


[ Click here to read more ]
12
Vote
Read MoreRead More Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Short Non-Fiction
   


Book Review: A Scientific Romance: A Novel

February 11th 2010 12:34
Click Here to Buy

This book was recommended by my English teacher. The back cover and the inside don't really tell you anything about the book, so it's a leap of faith


[ Click here to read more ]
32
Vote
Read MoreRead More Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Articles/Ideas/Prompts
   


Honesty

February 9th 2010 12:08
Honesty

Honesty


[ Click here to read more ]
22
Vote
Read MoreRead More Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Poetry
   


5 Great Websites/Blog Posts

February 5th 2010 12:22
I've decided that every Friday I'm going to blog a list of great blog posts, websites, and/or markets. This is part of an attempt to try to regulate my writing and my blogging.

Today's list consists of three interesting blog posts and two interesting websites, in no particular order as usual


[ Click here to read more ]
23
Vote
Read MoreRead More Comments (2)Comments (2) Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


Difficulty Focusing

February 5th 2010 02:30
For the last couple of months, I've had issues focusing on my writing for any consistent period of time. There's been a lot of stuff going on in my social life and I had a lot of catching up to do for end of semester.

I haven't been as committed to this blog or to my other writing as I should have. I've let other things that aren't, in the long run, as important influence what I do with my time. In the last two months I haven't gotten much of anything done. There will be a later post to explain some of it, but it really boils down to me worrying too much about certain friends of mine, and trying to spend as much time as I could on something before I lost it


[ Click here to read more ]
13
Vote
Read MoreRead More Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Short Non-Fiction
   


Making A Workshop List

February 3rd 2010 12:06
As some of you already know, this year I want to do a workshop that lasts at least one week on my blog. These are meant to be intense, short workshops. In January I did a workshop on Organizing Your Novel, and this month I'll be doing a workshop on characterization. These workshops are designed to help writers with a first draft figure out what they want their story to look like in the next draft, and to help them figure their characters out as well.

I've come up with a theoretical list of workshops for the next year. I'm hoping for some input on what you think would be most useful. Take a look at my list and let me know what you think. Suggestions are welcome


[ Click here to read more ]
24
Vote
Read MoreRead More Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


Blogging Commitments and Terry Pratchett

February 2nd 2010 12:35
I've decided that I'm going to cut back my goal blogging frequency to 5 posts a week, Monday-Friday. This is in an attempt to reduce the pain in my wrist so that I can work on other things more.

I love writing. I love this blog. I love a lot of the things that I've written here, a lot of the things that I've said. I love reaching out to other writers. But in the end, the writing I love the most is my fiction writing, and if I have to cut back on my blogging to be able to do so comfortably, so be it


[ Click here to read more ]
35
Vote
Read MoreRead More Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Short Non-Fiction
   


More Posts
March 2010
7 Posts
February 2010
17 Posts
January 2010
26 Posts
Older Posts
532 Posts dating from August 2007
Email Subscription
Receive e-mail notifications of new posts on this blog:
[ View Blog Summary ] [ Create A New Post ]

Dianna G's Blogs

4217 Vote(s)
158 Comment(s)
105 Post(s)
Moderated by Dianna G
Copyright © 2006 2007 2008 On Topic Media PTY LTD. All Rights Reserved. Design by Vimu.com.
On Topic Media ZPages: Sydney |  Melbourne |  Brisbane |  London |  Birmingham |  Leeds     [ Advertise ] [ Contact Us ] [ Privacy Policy ]