Ellis Morning – Page 8 – Ellis Morning's Blog

The Arc: Character Change Tracking

March 2, 2015 Ellis Morning Comments 0 Comment

(Image credit: Imagebase.net) When you create a character, you start with a collection of attributes. Then a story happens- and if it’s a complicated story, it affects the character. Their attributes change, for better or worse. Actually, there are two types of character change you may track as a writer, depending on how much upfront planning you like to do. There’s the anticipated character arc you plot out before getting started, and then there are the unanticipated changes that come…

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Writers Use Character Sheets, Too: Tracking The Present State

February 23, 2015 Ellis Morning Comments 0 Comment

You may need a few… hundred of these… Anyone familiar with pen-and-paper roleplaying games (RPGs) has spent a few hours, and plowed through a few packs of cookies and soda, to set up character sheets. Character sheets define the starting state of a character, and allow a player to track how that state changes throughout the roleplaying campaign. Most character sheets are daunting to the first-time player, because there’s so much to track. What does the character look like? What…

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Create Tension With Obstacles

February 16, 2015 Ellis Morning Comments 0 Comment

What is tension, exactly? Tension is the heightening of stakes in some way. I like to think of it as a dangling carrot in front of the protagonist. You never want to give them the carrot right away. They should reach, and strain, and work- even suffer- for it. Meanwhile, the audience watches with bated breath, and ideally roots for the protagonist to triumph. Obstacles must stand between the protagonist and what they want. If there are no obstacles, it’s…

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The Ups And Downs Of Deadlines

February 9, 2015 Ellis Morning Comments 0 Comment

I mentioned word count goals a while back, the advantages and disadvantages of working with them. Now I’ll do the same with another go-to progress and motivation method: deadlines. Deadlines Are Great Deadlines can help you break down a huge, impossible-seeming goal- like novel-writing- into manageable chunks, and provide a timeframe for getting it done. They also give you that kick in the rear you need to stop procrastinating and start writing. We tend to prioritize tasks with due dates…

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Create What YOU Love

February 2, 2015 Ellis Morning Comments 0 Comment

I learned something neat this week about the song Mother, by Danzig. If you don’t remember it, take a moment to refresh yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgSn0SbQJQI When Glenn Danzig released this song in 1988, it didn’t get much attention. It wasn’t until 6 years later that the song became a hit. In a 1994 interview, Danzig had this to say regarding Mother: It was the song I always wanted to write. … But I never wrote that song to make it a…

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Successfully Rewriting Existing Scenes When Expanding An Outline

January 26, 2015 Ellis Morning Comments 0 Comment

We’ll need a bigger, better palm tree! There are tons of degrees of rewrites: the little tweaks here and there; the nuke-it-from-orbit, scorched-earth policy; and everything in between. The sort of rewrites I’m conducting right now are part of a larger effort to expand the outline of a manuscript, all the way from A to Z. New scenes get inserted, old scenes that no longer fit get removed. There are also plenty of previously written scenes that still fit into…

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How to Successfully Delete A Scene

January 19, 2015 Ellis Morning Comments 0 Comment

Kill it with fire! (Image credit: Imagebase.net) Is there a particular scene you’re having a really hard time with? Do you dread writing it, and just can’t come up with a way to make it more significant or fun for yourself? Or have you toughed through it, but reading it over makes you cringe? Then have you thought about deleting that sucker outright? This scene might be taking up unnecessary space in your story outline. Maybe you can gloss over…

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2015 Comfort Zone Challenge

January 12, 2015 Ellis Morning Comments 0 Comment

Between my German longsword and .22 revolver, I’ll be ready for the next zombie apocalypse. We all need nudges out of our comfort zone sometimes. Trying new things, talking to new people, pushing ourselves to achieve stuff we’ve never done before- all of these help us become more interesting people. And interesting people have great stories to tell- which also makes them better writers! So here’s my call to action: choose at least one new thing to try this year…

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“One Crisis At A Time!” Using Priority to Differentiate Heroes

January 5, 2015 Ellis Morning Comments 0 Comment

Does anyone else remember Swat Kats? I love this cartoon. Razor and T-Bone are heroes with a souped-up fighter jet, hearts of gold, and a common goal: protecting MegaKat City from villains. However, they sometimes disagree on how to go about it. Razor’s more cautious, strategic, and sensitive. T-Bone’s the stubborn tough-guy who relies on muscle and insane piloting stunts. So it’s not surprising that they come up with different ideas for handling a situation, or disagree on what their…

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2014 Year-End Summary, 2015 Goals

December 29, 2014 Ellis Morning Comments 0 Comment

Before closing out another year, it’s good to take stock of what got done, and what the year ahead will look like. Then next year, we can giggle at how off-base all my hopes and predictions were :) The biggest accomplishment this year was saying so-long to my full-time job, and taking up writing as my new full-time (and then some) pursuit. I mostly already talked about stuff I did in 2014 here, at the six-month anniversary of said leap….

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