The Journal: Some Fun, and Serious Stuff

In today’s Journal

* Some Fun
* Serious Stuff
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

A little fun this morning. See Nathan Bransford’s “How a book goes from acquisitions to bookstore shelves” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/how-a-book-goes-from-acquisitions-to-bookstore-shelves/. But be sure to see PG’s comment at the end of the OP.

And now, some serious stuff, including a serious look at how to get story ideas. Please go read “True Crime Thursday – A Small Town’s Loss of Innocence” at https://killzoneblog.com/2021/09/true-crime-thursday-a-small-towns-loss-of-innocence.html. There will be a quiz.

Okay, did you read it? I know, it’s horrible, frightening, etc. But as a writer it’s also rich with story fodder.

The article, written from the POV of a witness to the aftermath of the actual event, struck me immediately as a source of numerous story ideas:

1. Write it from various “friendly” PsOV:

a. one of the cops, male or female, ranking or line officer.
b. the assistant manager
c. another direct witness to the actual event
d. the “good Samaritan”

Of course, a story written from any of those PsOV will presume the owner of the blue pickup is a generic bad guy. But you could also write a story from the POV of the shooter. Honestly, this POV most appeals to me.

What caused him to be living in his pickup? He was “camping” in a gym parking lot so he could rent shower facilities, but what series of events, misunderstandings, etc. led to him being run off from his previous location? And before that, who was he? Had he held a job? A career? Did he have a wife and family? Was he just down on his luck, or was he a perpetual bum?

Why did he choose another gym in the same chain? (Was it the only chain in that part of the state or did he select that chain for a particular reason?)

The author of the article said management had received “complaints” about him from customers. What complaints or what sorts of complaints? Was he begging for money? Was he openly harassing customers? Or did the customers simply not like that he was camping in “their” parking lot.

Note: The names of those involved other than the initial victim have not been released as of this writing. If I were personally going to write from the POV of the shooter, I would wait to learn his name just in case it made a difference. You never know.

Actually, you could write several stories or a novel (or two) based on this event.

Talk with you again later.

Of Interest

See “27 Literary Magazines Publishing Hybrid Writing” at https://authorspublish.com/27-literary-magazines-publishing-hybrid-writing/.

See “First Page Critique: Using Setting And Action To Inject Suspense” at https://killzoneblog.com/2021/09/first-page-critique-using-setting-and-action-to-inject-suspense.html.

See “Potential predatory scholarly open‑access publishers” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/potential-predatory-scholarly-open%e2%80%91access-publishers/. See PG’s note about vanity or subsidy publishers, all of whom are predatory.

See “Home On the Moon: How to Build a Lunar Colony (Infographic)” at https://www.space.com/21588-how-moon-base-lunar-colony-works-infographic.html. For any SF writers out there. Interesting info.

See “Writing for audio made me a better writer, period” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/writing-for-audio-made-me-a-better-writer-period/. Interesting concept.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………………… 500 words

Writing of WCGN 5: Tentative Title (novel)

Day 1…… XXXX words. Total words to date…… XXXXX

Total fiction words for August……… XXXX
Total fiction words for the year………… 623282
Total nonfiction words for August… 5660
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 160880
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 784162

Calendar Year 2021 Novels to Date…………………… 13
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… 1
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 3
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 66
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31

Disclaimer: In this blog, I provide advice on writing fiction. I advocate a technique called Writing Into the Dark. To be crystal clear, WITD is not “the only way” to write, nor will I ever say it is. However, as I am the only writer who advocates WITD both publicly and regularly, I will continue to do so, among myriad other topics.

2 thoughts on “The Journal: Some Fun, and Serious Stuff”

  1. Tragic story of the shooting. Your thoughts on potential story ideas, especially the POV character were intriguing. It’s so easy to just assume an almost cardboard villain character and not write him. It might be partially out of a sense of disrespect for the victims. But the trajectory of someone who might have been a “decent” person except for x, y, z would be a fascinating trail to follow.

    • Agreed. That’s exactly how I saw it. We assume the shooter was a stereotypical bad guy. But look in the other direction: we also assume that the victim and all the others in attendance were stereotypical pillars of the community. The truth is, we know nothing about any of them. Human assumptions are strange and often ugly things. Instantly recognizing stereotypes and making assumptions are built into our DNA. Assuming stereotypes is not a bad thing, but going beyond stereotypes is what good writers are all about. It’s not a bad idea to do that every day for practice.

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