Space walk. How?

Here is an issue I run into several times, how do I get a character from point A to point B. For example, how do I get a character to perform an action where the decision to perform the action is outside that character’s control and must be either dictated by an authority figure, or dictated by the times in which the story takes place.

Here is my dilema, my protagonist has just exited the docking door of a space ship just beyond the Oort cloud. How do I get my character to the rear of the ship where she must perform repairs on the engines. My options are as follows:

1. Gravity boots – These are easy, and I assume my ship is made of a material conducive to magnetism. This may just ruin a possibility in the story at a later time.
2. Tethered – This would mean that my character would tether herself at the docking door and attempt to push herself to fly towards the back of the engine. The question is, is the ship’s gravity strong enough to pull her back towards it.
3. Propulsion system – I know that this is possible, but is it realistic. I could have my character fly to the back of the ship and then tether herself there, but does that mean there are tether hoops every where.
4. Canadarm – What about a robotic arm that comes out of the ships underbelly and can literally take her anywhere around the outside of the ship that she wants. She could even go clean the windshield if she wanted. Now considering the size of my ship I think this one may be unrealistic.

I am sure there’s an answer to this. Perhaps all this time I’ve been going at this all wrong. Maybe I don’t need to describe the trip to the rear of the ship, although I do think it would add to the experience and me build my character. And also I know that traveling back to the docking door will be part of my scene. So if anyone has tips, please provide them.

Thanks

One scene at a time

It’s turning out great to be writing this novel a scene at a time.  Mind you a scene can be anywhere between 500 to 2,000 words (so far my largest scene 1,135 words) so writing is slow, but at least it’s steady.  As I move forward focusing on one scene at a time, I’m able to make improvements to my writing noticing mistakes to my previous scenes.

I try to keep going forward,not going back to previous scenes to make changes.  It’s hard, but the goal is to get the first draft done.  And I know that once I’ve written that last scene, I’ll have learned a lot about writing to be able to do a decent job on the next pass.

Writing right now is excruciatingly slow.  Once a scene is done, I need to think about what the next scene will be.   I can usually come up with the next scene, but can’t come up with a conflict.  Also I’m trying to be conscious of the types of scenes I’m writing.  Will the scene advance my story or will it introduce some new elements in the story.

During all this I’m still mulling over what my protagonist will be, I have an idea, but that’s for another post.

Laptop for writers

I think one of the reasons I’m so gong-ho this year about writing is because I have a laptop.  I can write any where with it; on my couch, in bed, on the bus or a coffee shop.  It makes it so much easier when you need to dumb your brain on paper in record time.

I realise that not everyone has or can afford a laptop.  But I have been seeing this guy on the bus with this cool gadget typing away at a million miles an hour.  The device looked weird, a full size keyword with a tiny little screen.  So today I decided to Google for laptop for writers to see what was out there that would be cheap for writers to use and ended up finding that laptop online.  It’s called a NEO by AlphaSmart.  It’s not a professional word processor by any means, but it’s great when you just want to plow forward on your writing.  I haven’t used the device so I can’t really provide first hand experience, but the way I saw that buy type, I bet it’s worth it.  Check out the specs:

• Three AA batteries
• SB cable
• rDA port for printing and sending to IrDA-enabled devices
• lphaSmart Manager software
• lphaWord Plus, AlphaQuiz, Beamer, Calculator, and Keywords SmartApplets

They also have the Dana which is a pricier version with more features.

Being aware as a writer

For the first time I am aware of my surroundings, the places I go and how I do things. For the last few weeks, I’ve been taking mental notes as to how I feel when I am somewhere else, how I touch things, what happens when I breathe. What does coffee really taste like or that aching pain in my left tooth of my upper jaw when hot food touches it.

Being aware is amazing, we as people take everything we do for granted. And I’ve been wondering how Stephen King writes those amazing scenes and describes how that little girl opens her pack or what it feels like to be stuck in the mud. It’s amazing. It’s like being a kid all over again.

Breakdown summary…so far.

So after some research, this is what I have come up with as a breakdown for a story, be it a novel, novella, short story, etc.

1. Body: The encapsulating body is the story. The story is all the elements assembled together.
2. Act: The story is, for now, broken into 3 acts, the beginning, the middle and finally the end.
3. Chapter: Each chapter is a group of scenes belonging together. But to be honest, I really don’t know how to use a chapter. This needs more research.
4. Scene: Within each chapter are scenes. Scenes essentially describe an event in time.
5. Paragraph: Finally, the last element is the paragraph.

What all the elements have in common are three things:

1. An introduction: Within each of the elements the introduction has a seperate purpose.
   1. Body: Begin the story by describing the settings, characters and essentially setting up your chess pieces on the board.
   2. Act: Not to sure of this yet.
   3. Chapter: The first scene should describe the purpose of the chapter. So far this is what I’m sticking with. if anyone has something to add, please do.
   4. Scene: Introduce the characters to the scene and their purpose.
   5. Paragraph: The topic sentence.
2. Middle: For all the elements, the middle is the meat which contains the conflicts whether physical, emotions, etc.
3. Conclusion: Finish what was started.  The conflict should be resolved.  The purpose of the story, chapter or scene must have been fulfilled.

How to write a paragraph

In all of my education, from elementary school to high school and finally college, I was never taught how to write a paragraph. Currently, I’m 5000+ words into my novel and it hit me, how do I write a paragraph. Is this paragraph you’re currently reading well written? So I decided to do some research and this is what I discovered.

Each idea should be described individually in its own paragraph.  A paragraph can be any length, but must only present that single idea.  This allows the writer to be clear when presenting their writing to the reader  And also provides the writer a method to stay focussed when writing.

Most paragraphs should contain something called a topic sentence. A topic sentence is used to encapsulate the general idea of the paragraph. Each sentence which follows within that same paragraph is used to support the topic sentence. Finally, you should end a paragraph with a concluding sentence to wrap-up your idea.

Within the context of a scene, the first paragraph should provide a summary of the scene so the reader knows the setting and what is more or less about to happen.  All paragraphs within that scene should be used to move the scene forward.  The final paragraph should tie up all the loose ends. Making sure that what was expected as described in the first paragraph has been taken care of by the last paragraph.

How to write a novel

Here’s something I ran into this morning, a couple of blog entries on how to write a novel.

http://www.deepgenre.com/wordpress/admin/craft/how-to-write-a-novel-part-1

http://www.deepgenre.com/wordpress/admin/craft/how-to-write-a-novel-part-2

These entries are easy to follow and common sense, something people seem to not have sometimes and just need that little reminder.

Story ideas

I had a story idea for my novel, it was sci-fi and it was simple, but I didn’t know how to pull off the events to make it happen and provide any good interesting reasons to make it happen. But I started writing anyway.

I love horror, so no matter what I do, my short stories always end up going that way. So as I was writing, I started playing with the story in my head to add suspense, life, emotions and horror to the story line. Now I think I finally have something.

I try not to nail down my characters or story lines at the very beginning. I think that each needs room to breathe so that I can adjust them according to my life experiences.

The way I think about this is, how do I get a family practitioner flying home to defeat a terrorist and then sit at the pilot’s chair to fly the plane. There’s way too much I don’t know. I would probably just decide the crash the plane instead. But realistically I would probably try to find someone on the plane who can fly a 747 so I wouldn’t have to explain to the reader how a doctor managed to land the plane.