A change this way comes

This isn’t working. I’ve been writing a whole bunch these past months but Storyrules requires additional time and effort that I haven’t been able to give.

I’m going to be thinking about how I can rework this blog so that I can actually post things regularly. As it stands, when life gets busy (which is pretty darned regular) Storyrules gets ignored. So I need a blog that is sufficiently broad in focus and easy enough to update so that I don’t need to set aside at least an hour just to write a post.

This could take awhile.

Keeping it simple and honest

Whiskey is a friend
In a room with cold floors, bare walls
And compelling reasons to leave.

It keeps strange company.
The ice it mingles with tinkles against the glass,
Crying out like a child with a loose bladder .

And I listen.
And I drink.
It leaves me with nothing.
Just the small understanding
That a word of truth saves a page of bullshit.

Story Philosophies

Backstory is overlooked way too often in fiction writing. For Aleria, the alternate reality cartoon series I’m developing, it has been a major challenge to provide a reasonable foundation for every character, action, setting and plot arc. Its more than just coming up with interesting backstories for characters and places. When you’re writing fiction, you’ve got to thoroughly understand the philosophical point of view of your characters and settings. And if your fiction invents new creatures, places or things, the word to really do this justice is PURPOSE. Here is where I went today as I thought about the reality of the universe Aleria is a part of. This is entirely off-the-cuff and is merely a brainstorming tool to develop deeper plots and settings.

Who is God to these people? Who is God to the ‘gods’ of Aleria, who have created all living things on the planet Gaul? Would these gods need or seek a God? Eventually it will all perish and there should be something else. That’s what the Aquitani sought out. There should be a supreme creator. Because that’s what honest and reasoning beings seek. Why live forever though? How can I understand this perspective? There needs to be some great resting place where all living things exist forever. Doing what though? Am I restricting my understanding to a human perspective? The idea of time is crucial to this problem. What I need to do is ‘feel’ the eternal in order to understand it.

Read the rest of this entry »

In Absentia

Storyrules has gone without attention for some three fortnights and will continue to be so for the next several days. In my absence, please check out the wonderful cartooning and illustration blog Drawn!

Advantage - Me

Strip club bathroom - Night

A small, fat middle-aged man slumps on the back wall of a dirty bathroom while Kathy waits across the room to provide the services he’s already paid for. But he makes a phone call instead. Then he has Kathy lay her head on his chest and rub his feet with cold water from a dirty faucet. That’s all he wants.

Kyle V.O.: You know, It’s interesting how appearences can deceive. Not only appearences, but personalities. She came from my past - my long forgotten past - and she took hold of my thoughts with a word and a glance. I know she’s a boring waste of my time, and yet, something about her draws me to ask a question; an innocent question that I know she can’t ignore. I’m depending on her not to ignore it. Her conscience won’t let her ignore this question. Let her answer and let her open her heart to me once again. She was always easy that way. And I need someone easy right now.

Cheryl’s bedroom - Morning
A young red-head puts her clothes on while she talks on the phone.

Kyle, I got your message from last night. Can we meet tonight after work? You…the message you left really means a lot. Call me. 752-482-6829. [pause] oh, it’s cheryl. bye.

….to be continued.

A simple man’s great loss

He wakes up and reaches for her but his hands only find cold sheets. Why are they cold? There’s a breeze. He opens his eyes to look towards the window but all he sees is a dim white light. Something is covering his eyes. He reaches for it and touches soft, marred skin. A thick puss has crystallized in the corners of his eyes. He pushes the thickness aside and mistakenly brushes his cornea. He doesn’t feel a thing. A sickness starts low in his stomach as he presses with more force into his destroyed eyeballs. A scream is stifled as it attempts to escape and his stomach pain grows deeper. He scrambles to the edge of the bed and slips off. His immediate panic and loss of context only exacerbate the sickness and push it into his lungs. Struggling for breath, the blinded man slowly picks himself up to stand next to the bed. Something else has happened. It’s why the window is open. His breathing is shallow and measured as he moves hands across the bed once more. There’s no one there. He listens for her but his wheezing drowns out the silence in the room. She’s not here and she isn’t coming back. Unconsciously, he touches his ruined eyes. She’s made sure he’ll never find her. His lungs lock up in shock with the realization. He tries to pull the air in through his mouth. He vomits.

Hours later, the middle-aged man sits in a rocking chair that is too small for his bulk. The mixture of anger and sorrow is almost too hard to bear. So he sits and thinks about nothing. Just stares at the room that was hers for those twelve short years. He took her off the streets when she was just eight and gave her the care that only a real lover could give…showed her what was best for her…she fought for awhile but once he taught her how to make love she stopped fighting…until today.

He jumps up and throws the chair smashing against the wall. It’s his own fault for trusting her. She said she’d make a home-cooked meal and then give him the best sex he’d ever have. She wore him down with promises until he let her go into town for the day. With all her promises, of course she’d come back. He doesn’t remember anything after the drinks.

Writing is believing

Great stories are written by fanatical believers; by passionate people who have deep faith in an idea. Faith is magical and it is underrated.

You are almost always guaranteed to find that badly written stories are spewed from the dry minds of non-believers. They don’t care about principles or exploring important ideas in their fiction. They just want to write a story. But their mistake - which they often make with an “artsy” pretentiousness - is thinking good stories are based simply on cute plot arcs and interesting characters. Good stories come from characters, environments and plots that represent some real aspect of our condition as humans. To get at this, you have got to have faith.

—In this immortal time and place I paid homage to George Michael.—

I find it enormously important to monitor the state of my musings on an almost daily basis to ensure that I am taking enough risks to stay honest. I need to rekindle my deepest, most esoteric ruminations in order to stimulate passionate stories. Those of us who’ve closed, bound and hidden away emotional wounds and intimate experiences should tear them open and allow the body to become a vessel for their torments. Just make sure you’re in control of your hands so they can write (or type).

Music is a powerful tool for Method Writing

Music really can have the same affect on us in real life as it seems to have on characters in the movies. Except rather than allowing us to empathize in one way or the other with specific characters and their circumstances in movies, music for life spurs intention in the right direction and can literally inspire action in dull moments.

Music can spur proactivity in a positive, disruptive way that almost nothing else can. Music is subjective enough in its ability to affect us and to be interpreted that it can provide that metaphorical kick in the ass that each of us often needs for that highly unique personal form of motivation.

Let music guide your mind to dream in ways you wouldn’t normally go. Dream with your eyes wide open and with an open mind to the possibilities. This will lead you to realize the great things you can do. And we can all do great things with just the right amount of dreaming and willingness to suffer for those dreams.

For writers, that simply means visualizing the story on a musical landscape and living it out through the pen.