Muse Food – Other Escape Routes
Your characters are trapped.
The doors are blocked. The windows are sealed tight. Danger is all around them.
If they don’t escape soon, they’ll die.
Look down. Is there drainage they can fit into?
Look up. Is there a ventilation shaft they can navigate?
Spaces are often designed for air and water to pass through them. These systems could be escape routes for your characters.
Or you could always give your characters a bomb of some kind and blow sh*t up.
That’s fun also.
(grins)
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Troll And Seeing Romance Where It Isn’t Shown
Spoiler Alert – This post will talk about the Netflix movie Troll and it WILL contain spoilers. If you haven’t yet watched this fun and surprisingly good monster film, you might wish to skip this post.
The Dear Wonderful Hubby and I watched Troll on a lark. We saw Troll 2 had released and figured it must have been good or enjoyable enough to warrant a sequel.
My friends, it was both. It was fun and fantastical and emotionally deep in places. The characters were interesting and well developed. The expected army guy? He had depth and humor and was extremely likable.
It was also a Norwegian film, which made it even more fun, because characters switched between languages often and fluidly. (It had English subtitles.) And the scenery was gorgeous.
Did Troll have romance?
No. Not on the screen.
As a romance reader and writer, however, I saw how romantic relationships could form between certain characters and I was pairing (and more) characters up during the entire movie.
Troll will definitely inspire some future stories from me.
(smiles)
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Muse Food – Pile Of Bricks And Arrangements
This sculpture in Taipei, Taiwan is…technically…a pile of (beautiful and unique) bricks.
(smiles)
It is how these bricks are ARRANGED that makes it a beautiful work of art.
Our stories are technically a collection of words. It is how we arrange them that makes them wonderful, that creates a story.
And we can arrange the words a gazillion different ways. This arrangement is what makes our stories unique, stories only we can tell.
Have fun, fellow word arrangers!
(grins)
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Muse Food – Fences And Barriers
These beautiful barriers were erected around an often visited historical site in Kuala Lumpur.
They communicate a few things.
The first and foremost, it IS a barrier. That means unauthorized people should keep out of the site. That’s the primary communication of a barrier or a fence.
The barriers also tell us the site managers KNOW it is a tourist destination. They KNOW visitors to the city will be disappointed that it is under construction. They KNOW these visitors will still want to be take photos.
And they value visitors to the site and to the city.
The pretty barriers relay pride in the site. The site managers care enough about the site to make it pretty.
The images are drawings, not photographs. That relays the site managers care about the arts. They didn’t send a construction worker out to take photos. They employed an artist to sketch it.
And these barriers tell everyone this construction will be happening for a while. It isn’t an overnight closure. The site will be closed for weeks, maybe months, maybe years.
The type of fence or a barrier in a story is important. It communicates much more than ‘Stay out.’ Make your choice of fence or barrier intentional.
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Muse Food – The Details Few People Notice
I recently shared this photo with you.
What you might not have noticed and I only noticed because I enlarged it on my screen is the millipede on the fallen tree trunk in the upper left hand corner of the photo.
Writers do this ALL THE TIME. Mystery Writers are especially skilled at this. They weave little details into their stories that might seem like throwaway lines, lines that don’t mean anything.
Yet they very much mean something. These details can be foreshadowing. They can hint that all is not normal in the world (The movie, The Sixth Sense, did this very well.). They can be the clue that solves the mystery.
Care about the little details. They are often the difference between a good story and a GREAT story.
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Muse Food – Kuala Lumpur Tower And Partially Obstructed Views
The Dear Wonderful Hubby took this beautiful photo of Kuala Lumpur Tower partially hidden between tree branches.
We can see some of the tower, enough to know it is a tower, but not all of it.
Overheard conversations and viewed at a distance meetings in our stories are similar. Our hero/heroine can hear some of the conversation or see some of the action but not all of it.
And these gaps in their perception, their partially obstructed view, can lead to misunderstandings, sometimes amusing reactions, and in extreme cases…murder.
(grins)
Have you ever used a ‘partially obstructed view’ in your stories?
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Muse Food – Who Is Watching?
We saw these two little ‘guys’ intently watching some action on the pier.
(smiles)
Who is watching your hero’s or heroine’s actions? Why are they watching? What will these observers do with the information they gain? How will being watched change your character’s future?
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Muse Food – Bridges And Transitions
Transition scenes are, admittedly, my least favorite scenes to write. I have to get my character from one point to the other and I’m usually in a rush to get to that second point. That’s the scene I really want to write.
But transition scenes are like bridges.
And we all know bridges can be super exciting. The bridge over a steep drop could be holding on by a flimsy and rapidly fraying strand of rope. The bridge could be guarded by a troll who demands a price the hero/heroine isn’t willing to pay. The enemy could be waiting at the end of it. A giant eagle could swoop down and carry our hero/heroine off while they are attempting to cross the bridge.
Make that transition scene interesting, my friends.
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Muse Food – Slowing It Down
When I make a soup broth, I cook the ingredients in a crockpot for 8 hours or so. It is a slow process but, stars, it is SO good.
When I’m writing a scene in which I want the reader to cry while reading it, I slow that scene down. Tremendously. I have to give the reader time to sit with their emotions, to then express them.
The story I’m telling now (the Super Secret Project) is also slowly being told. It is a BIG story and it requires a lot of words and time. And that’s okay. It is what the story needs.
Don’t be afraid to slow things down. Some masterpieces need AND deserve time.
(smiles)
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Muse Food – Hidden From Immediate View
The Dear Wonderful Hubby and I spotted this beautiful flower hidden from our immediate view by lush green leaves. We had to crouch to see it.
Is there something your main character notices that no one else does because it is hidden from immediate view or semi-concealed?
This could be their love interest’s true character or an explosive device placed by an enemy or a safe concealed behind a painting or something else.
(This happens quite often in murder mysteries. – grins)
How does that hidden something change your character’s future?
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