“Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.”
He commanded the computer, and the replicator produces a hot cup of the worse smelling and tasting tea in the world
Tag: writing Page 1 of 3
TOASTMASTERS
Thank you all so very much for reading my blogs over the last weeks as I wrote this series on comic books for my Toastmasters assignment. The series is complete, but I’m sure I have more to say about comic books in the future, but I thought it might be a good idea to tell you about what Toastmasters is and my involvement in it.
How the heck did they even let me do a whole project on Comic Books?
My previous blog post was officially the last of my Comic Book series for Toastmasters, but I have one more story to tell.
While I was telling you all about my love for the Golden Age of Super Heroes, about Earth 2, the Justice Society, and the All-Star Squadron, one evening I had a dream.
Over the last week I’ve been drawing a pseudo comic book cover based on that dream.
It first began by reprinting newspaper comic strips, and then it illustrated adventure stories had previously been in pulp novels and magazines, then the detectives put on masks and a man could leap tall buildings in a single bound. It was the Golden Age of Comic Books, the Golden Age of Super Heroes.
As mentioned previously, though I had read a few other comics, the first series I was committed to reading every issue was All-Star Squadron. A book that took place during that “Golden Age.”
I would discover and read other books at that time, some Justice League of America, Brave & and the Bold which would be replaced by Batman and the Outsiders, and The New Teen Titans.
When I was young, during my Elementary School and Junior High years, I was struggling with reading. It was recommended to my parents that I should take further classes and have special tutors. One such tutor was in an after-school period on campus, while another one was off campus at a place called “The Reading Game.” These tutors helped me, but there was other help that I received that would improve my education.
It was during this period of time I first discovered comic books, as mentioned in my previous post, and I was regularly reading them… and I was reading them not just looking at the artwork (and I’ll tell you about the artwork and artists in a later post).
One day when my parents are having a ‘parent/teacher’ meeting with my special reading tutor to talk about how I was doing. They brought up the fact that I was reading comics, and asked if this was a good thing or should they take the comics away to have me read “real” books.
Hi All.
Hope everyone has had a blessed Christmas and happy holiday season.
It’s been nearly a year since my last blog post.
Did you like my interpretation of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer? He is the Shiny One.
Though I did update my Voice Over Demo Reel last month.
This post is to ‘reawaken’ my blog here and keep it going in to the new year.
I have never considered myself a comedy writer, but that isn’t to say that I don’t write comedy. Rather, I never set out to write comedy, and in so doing the comedy tends to write itself.
If any of that makes sense, I hope what follows will as well.
I am a writer of characters.
Usually, I have a rough outline of a plot, hardly a skeleton to build upon. I start with a simple idea, usually a question. I see something, or read about something, and ask “What if?” Lots of times it has to do with looking at something from a different angle.
A lot, or a few, notes go down next. But that all just sits in a pile and does nothing if there aren’t any characters to march through it and kick up the dirt. Otherwise, it’s just a garbage heap of useless words.
Just writing that paragraph gave me a simple idea. A Garbage Heap. What follows is finding the story, and the first question I ask is “What is it like working on a garbage heap?” You know, those people who take our trash to the dump, and those that sort through it. Some for recycling, and those who scrounge around the dump looking for things they can sell in order to survive. (I know old door nobs can bring a penny or two.) But the job isn’t interesting enough. So what if I changed the question: “What is life like for those who live on the garbage heap?” I think there is some drama in that, and maybe some comedy too.
(Almost forgot my blog’s topic there didn’t I?)
We’ll have to wait and see if I actually discover a story in garbage heap and expand upon it. I see a lot of drama, even depression, about the people living in lean-to huts atop or even inside the garbage mounds.
But is there comedy among that garbage and depression? If you find the right characters there are.
What if our story is about a teenage girl working along side her parents looking for scrap and selling what they can. She has a boyfriend, but when he shows up to take her on a date (what kind of date can there be on a scrap heap), she complains that he was cuter before he took a shower.
Okay, that might not be the funniest thing in the world. Like I said, I don’t write comedy. However, if I wrote this story completely out, I think our little Dust Bunny (yes, I just named the girl Dust Bunny. The boy’s name is Smudge, no, Kruntch ) would have a whole lot of funny things to say as she is clearly the only person on the garbage island that enjoys being there.
The point, if there is one, is that comedy like everything else in a story comes out of character. Creating a funny situation and dropping your characters into it doesn’t necessarily make it comedy.
Learn about your characters; find out what makes them tick, and what ticks them off. Don’t tickle them; annoy their pants off. They’ll tell you what’s funny when they start throwing mud back at you.
Maybe I will write this story sometime. Maybe set it on a garbage planet (this story is getting gout of hand). (Kruntch is out; the boy’s name is Smudge again. The letter K didn’t test well.)
Then we’ll discover if I can write comedy or not, and see if I am really worthy of being:
Kevin Paul Shaw Broden
Four Names of Professional Creativity (certainly not of comedy).
Do you have someone who’s willing to give you a good swift kick in the pants? You should.
Someone willing to tell you when you’re heading in the wrong direction, or not moving at all. Who can pull you off the couch and down into the desk chair and stand over your shoulder to make certain you start working.
They’ll remind you of what your original goals are and help you refocus on your target once more.
You might get momentarily upset with them. After all getting kicked in the rear hurts. But the sting will fade, and it’ll be soon be forgotten as you thrown yourself back into the work that is your passion, whether it be writing the novel that’s been collecting dust, or finishing the next page of your comic book.
Or, get back to writing that blog you left hanging several weeks ago. (Who, me?)
For me, that person is my fiancée Shannon Muir who last night wanted to know what I was currently doing in my writing. I told her of all the plans for this project or that.
That’s when she gave me that strong swift kick in my pants.
She didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know, but reminded me of all I was capable of, and what I should do to get myself moving again. I had no right to complain I didn’t have enough time (that’s an easy one, I know you’ve used it too), but she gave me the kick saying that I’m only working three days a week while she works a full five days and sometimes more and is still able to find the time to write the latest installment in her WILLOWBROOK SAGA series of novels.
Shannon also gave me some guidance towards how to get myself and my books noticed and revive my existing websites to use them for the best outcome and promotion.
So with her standing over my shoulder ready to give me that next hard kick, expect to see more of my work, and more activities out there starting this week.
Thanks Shannon it only stung for a little while, I still love you.
Kevin Paul Shaw Broden
Four Names of Professional Creativity
I’ve been doing a lot of old style pulp writing recently, and had a sudden thought about characters. So I wrote down several brief character descriptions
Tell me if you recognize them, and if you thought I got them correct?
- He was raised by loving parents who taught him right from wrong; to respect others, and to help his neighbors, who ever they might be, however he could. He has moved to the big city to do just that.
- Raised by a single father, he never knew his mother. Reaching adulthood, he discovers he is heir to a distant and mysterious kingdom. He will become king if he can bring the kingdom together, even though they see him as an outsider; even as an enemy.
- Recruited for a special police force, his personality is both greatest strength and greatest weakness.
- She was raised and loved by her entire family, but when they are threatened she must turn away from them in order to save them.
- A police scientist discovers something in his lab that allows him to fight crime in ways no other cop can.
- Traumatized in childhood he struggles to prevent it from happening to others.
- Two police officers are sent undercover to a distant city. They must use their training to fight a new kind of criminal, while struggling with their personal relationship.
- Kidnapped to a new land; he must act like one of them to survive while saving them from themselves.
Kevin Paul Shaw Broden
Four Names of Professional Creativity
With CLOCKWORK GENIE already on virtual stands and book shelves, and REVENGE OF THE MASKED GHOST about to join it in the next few weeks, it’s time to start working on another novel.
The next novel, which I am planning to do a pseudo-NANOWRIMO through the month of February, will be a Young Adult fantasy which I’ve had sitting on the shelf for several years and have decided now was the time to dust it off and make it ring.
Speaking of making the story ring, can someone explain to me the use and necessity of ring tones?
In my story a cellular phone plays an important roll (does anyone call them cell phones anymore, or are they all smart phones.)I’ve been thinking about what ring tones my lead teenager would program into her phone. The more I thought about it, I began to wonder what would be the point.
Why do people have ring tones? Why purchase a song to play when someone calls?
I have had a cell phone (three or four) over the last 15 years, and have always set them to silent or vibrate. Never saw a purpose to have the ringer on.
You want to know when someone is calling you, that’s for certain, but how many of us like to hear when other peoples phones start ringing.
If we’re fast enough, we usually can answer the phone just before the third ring, so why do people want to extend those rings by turning them into songs?
Have you ever noticed that when someone has a musical ring tone, the longer it plays the harder they have in shutting it off and it usually becomes a real embarrassment?
While in the movie theater there is always that slide that comes up repeatedly to remind you to turn off the your phones, or worse that audio clip where every sound in the theater is amplified with every possible phone or noise that could be made.
Recently the Muppets did a very nice version of this before their movie.
Why is this even something we have to think about any more? People’s phones ringing loudly and long, in the theatre, middle of church, a business meeting, or dinner.
Yes, some can hear the buzzer of my phone. Usually when it vibrates through the table or desk. But it’s usually low enough it doesn’t bother anyone. But I do turn it off in the theater.
The other day I was watching a rerun episode of THE MENTALIST, and there was major mistake with the use of a cell phone. The lead of the show has just broken into someone’s home. Only a few feet inside the house, his phone rings. His phone rings. This was not done for comic effect. You’d think that if you were going to break into a house and not want anyone to know you were there, you’d turn the phone off or have it on vibrate. The Folly Department can just as easily drop in a Buzzing sound as it does a ring tone. Other than receiving important information about the B Plot, the use of the phone in the house had no purpose. A woman nearly catches our lead in the house, but not because of the ring tone.
So my question is a serious one, and is research for my novel. How many people actually have audible ring tones? How many have simple ringers, and how many have longer songs?
I’m probably going to ask my teenage niece about this. She is a Young Adult after all.
My next question to her will probably be: Do you actually use your phone, or is it mostly used for texting and facebook? I don’t want to write cliché teenagers in my story, but the phones have become an integral part of their lives.
I may have been rambling here, but in doing so I find that this is all very important to my novel. Not only are cell phones important to the story, but also so is being annoyed by the ring tones.
This has been great talking, thank you for all the help. I appreciate – RING RING – Excuse me, gotta go answer that.
(Oh, like you didn’t see that joke coming from the start of this blog.)
Kevin Paul Shaw Broden
Four Names of Professional Creativity.