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Action/Adventure: July 10, 2013 Issue [#5779]

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Action/Adventure


 This week: Where do you find your "Action"?
  Edited by: Sara♥Jean Author IconMail Icon
                             More Newsletters By This Editor  Open in new Window.

Table of Contents

1. About this Newsletter
2. A Word from our Sponsor
3. Letter from the Editor
4. Editor's Picks
5. A Word from Writing.Com
6. Ask & Answer
7. Removal instructions

About This Newsletter

I'm so excited to be your Action/Adventure Newsletter Editor this week! Please let me know if you have any feedback, or if you have any topics you'd like covered in a newsletter. I will be glad to research it for you and do my best.

*Heart* SaraJean


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Letter from the editor

Where do you find your "Action"?
We all have "Action" in our lives. What makes your life exciting? Can that be used in your stories?


Despite how the title and description sound, this is not a dirty newsletter, I swear!

One important part of writing, and one I have actually written newsletters about often, is bringing your real life into your writing. Making your writing real to you will help you make your writing real to your audiences. Where is the action and adventure you experience on a daily basis, and don't even realize it?

Just for some examples, I'll tell you some real life situations I have experienced, and how their ideas could lead to good Action/Adventure stories - at least, parts of them. It can help build the environment around the story to give it depth and believably.

1. On long road trips when having to drive only 55 miles an hour because we are towing a trailer, those people passing by going 90 miles per hour seem to be going a million miles per hour in comparison to us.

Don't forget that your main character in that super fast car isn't the only person experiencing what is going on in the book. There are so many others also experiencing it. How does that old man feel when the super fast car drives by and splashes him with muddy water? How does the little girl in the ice cream shop react to the speeding car zooming noisily by outside on the street. How do the people in the slower cars react when the fast car rushes by so fast that it rocks their own vehicle on its wheels?

2. I live in small-town Texas, so there are often rifles on racks in the trucks that park in the parking lots.

Sometimes I wonder what they do with those rifles. Oh sure, I know they are used for deer hunting and shooting coyotes (yes, we still have those), and sometimes target practicing with beer cans, but it's more fun to imagine what they could be up to. Maybe they are the good guys, sneaking around in their cowboy boots and just hoping to find a real old west outlaw behind a large bale of hay. Maybe they are the bad guys, putting on their black cowboy hats and pulling their bandanas up over their nose to go in and rob the... feed store? Well, who knows, but my imagination can run wild. Especially when the men who climb out of the trucks are in shorts and cowboy boots.

3. We drove by one of those large, holey, silver cattle haulers on the highway. Man, we must have great timing, because right as we come up to the back of it, a cow poos, and we end up with a nice big spot of poo slapping our windshield. Ew.

Very, very ew. And so, I, of course, turn my thoughts to action and adventure.

Maybe, just maybe, that cow is trying to send us a signal that it is in danger. Maybe it is even a rare talking cow secret agent, and she... well. I guess I am stretching it a bit there. How about this one.

Imagine riding the range back in the old west. Or even in the new west - cows are cows, not much has changed about them in the past several hundred years. I'm new out there, or maybe I am even city-folk of the investigator kind. Preparing for the range, I bought myself some brand new duds, including some fashionable cowboy boots with a light brown bottom, and pink up the sides. I swing my new boots out of the car in preparation to walk up to the door of the man I need to interview, and they plop right into... that's right. Cow poo. A big load of cow poo. The fancy boots I bought myself in preparation, well, they just don't cut it.

4. I am rather clumsy, especially when it comes to ice. I have found myself in all sorts of embarrassing positions on the ground after slipping, sliding, and waving my arms trying to keep my balance.

Now, imagine a chase... on ice! Both the chaser and the chasee are slipping and sliding all over the place, trying to keep their balance up and their bodies propelling forward - one to get away, and the other to catch up. Antics can even get rather hilarious, especially if one of them falls and starts scooting along on their bottom, or finds another way to move.


Now, I went the silly route with this particular newsletter, but that is likely because of my mood. It is a rather silly one. However, despite my being a goober, I believe you can see the ideas here. Part of it has to do with my rather vivid imagination, but another part is simply connecting what happens to me to the writing that could come out of my pen. Or my keyboard. Out of whatever means I decide to use to write, how's that?


Editor's Picks

Chapter 1- A Cure for Immortality Open in new Window. (13+)
A wanted outlaw finds herself face-to-face with an alien believed to be extinct.
#1175396 by Sara King Author IconMail Icon


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 Berna's Stand: Section 1 Open in new Window. (E)
Fantasy. Berna is different from all the other slaves... she wants to escape.
#911990 by Sindri Author IconMail Icon


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#127689 by Not Available.


 Chapter One in The Rise of the Shar Open in new Window. (13+)
The first book in the Guardian of the Gates Trilogy.
#1157185 by sgbiehler Author IconMail Icon

 
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Ask & Answer

Goodness! "Action/Adventure Newsletter (May 15, 2013)Open in new Window. had a lot of feedback! I love to see that.
For those who didn't get to see it, the newsletter talked about the value of writing an outline. Here are the responses I received, and my own replies in italics.

Absolutely! I wouldn't dream of venturing out Beyond the Rails without an outline. It's the only way to keep it all consistent, and speaking for myself, I enjoy it almost as much as the final draft. It's like rubbing the dirt off that rough stone before the jeweler takes it in hand. Great article, and great advice! ~ jack-tyler

For me, really, it has to do with a pre-write, so to speak. A brainstorming session to get my ideas out onto paper in an organized fashion before really getting down to the nitty gritty of the writing.

To me, good storytelling must always lead to 'what happens next". If it doesn't flow well then it is not going to hold the audience. When I write I imagine sitting around a campfire telling a tale and watching the faces of my friends as the story unfolds. If they are not glued to my every word than I know the flow is wrong and quickly change up. ~ billwilcox

Well, you are an amazing writer, and so that works absolutely wonderful for you! I only wish my imagination was good enough to see those around me in such a light. I'd love to know, actually, how many rewrites you do before really showing it to the world. *Smile* Your writing just seems to be perfect right out of the starting line.

I do keep an outline of sorts. Because I have ideas in my head, I write down all the ideas in order. I may or may not stick to it and I may add as the muse feels the need. I control the outline not the other way around. ~ Quick-Quill Author Icon

Exactly! It is a way to organize things. It doesn't have to be a set in stone guideline, just something to remind you of where you need to go, and in what order.

Hi Sara;

I am interested in writing documentary. Would you please tell me how can I write a good documentary. Thank you very much for your time.

Sincerely,

Zheila Author Icon

Well, unfortunately, I am not all too experienced in writing documentaries. However, I think the best advice I can give you is... pick a great topic. If you pick a topic that is interesting and amazing, then the documentary might just begin to write itself, but with your help. Documentaries can be incredibly boring, or they can draw someone in. I think it is all dependent on the topic.

I find that the vaguest of outlines gives me plenty of room to "discover" where the story wants to go. My outline says "Nehushtan becomes lord of the trolls". 2000 words later, the biggest, ugliest troll is encased in a gigantic mushroom that is squeezing him to the point where his normally sunken eyeballs are protruding from his skull.

I believe in outlines to keep the story line straight, but I don't let it inhibit the creative flow. ~ Karl Author Icon

Very nice. And I agree, outlines shouldn't inhibit the creative flow at all. Think of them as the bumpers on a bowling lane - they don't inhibit the ball from moving all about the lane, they just keep it from falling into the gutter.

I never bother with outlines. ~ BIG BAD WOLF is Merry Author Icon

Honestly, a lot of people never bother with outlines. And that is ok. Everyone is different and finds different things that work for them. I was just offering one approach.

I think this week's newsletter topic was much needed and not only in the adventure/action genre. It's a tool I utilize all the time, but find that most others I talk to don't... it's so valuable and something that everyone in every genre of writing should consider doing. *Heart* You did a wonderful job bringing this activity to light. :)

Best,
Vivian St. Crow Author Icon

Thank you so much! It was a lot of fun. I love writing these newsletters.

Outlines are so important! I usually outline 3 chapters at a time because the characters may decide to do something else and I need to be flexable with that. ~ SantaBee Author Icon

That sounds like a great approach. Go a little bit at a time to let the flow... well... flow, and it still allows you to control a bit of what is going on without the characters taking you way away from where you need to be.

For this week's newsletter, I'd love for you to write in and tell me about some of the "action" in your life, and how you might apply it to a story. Have fun with it! I'll be sure your comment makes it into the next newsletter I write in a few weeks.

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