Posts Tagged ‘fantasy author’
Tuesday, February 21st, 2012
Heads down in a three-quarters completed draft, I’m also coaching an author preparing for the same creative battle: making story and characters come alive by force of will and your imagination alone. My first comment to her–it’s going to get crunchy. Don’t expect a cake walk. In fact if it’s not an all-out battle, you’re not challenging yourself enough.
That’s right. We write uneven and clunky and, yes, crunchy stuff when we’re slogging through the draft. And for most of us, even those of us who’ve published novels into the double digits, it gets harder the more stories we challenge, not easier. That’s the way it works. The more you learn about story, the more you decide to do with it, the less intuitive it can sometimes be to create what appears to be an effortless journey to the reader.
Several things cause the anxiety and mind-numbing tangents we encounter when we draft: (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, brainstorming, character arc, creativity & inspiration, digital publishing, Elements of Fiction Writing, fantasy author, fiction, fiction writer, plotting, publishing, writer, writer resource, writing, writing articles, writing coach, writing craft, writing resources, writing workshops
Posted in How We Write | 6 Comments »
Friday, February 17th, 2012
In addition to editing/reading other author’s manuscripts this month, I’m in the throws of drafting a new book of my own. Eeek! Writing into the ether isn’t my happy place. So I free-write with a plan. Huh? you say. Yep, I plan my characters and as many plot turning points as possible before I start. How? I’m so glad you asked…
My half-day workshops focus on my theory that if you know what you intend to accomplish with a character and/or story arc BEFORE you write a scene, you’ve got a much better chance of actually producing a successful experience for the reader once you’re done. And if you know what you want the reader to feel and take away from an entire chapter or a whole section of your novel, before you begin stringing scenes together, you’ll be aware of that plan as you write and your subconscious and instincts will help you not write yourself or your characters into corners you can’t plot out of once you’re there.
Having a goal in mind doesn’t mean you’re forcing yourself to follow only one path to your story goal, (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, brainstorming, character arc, creativity & inspiration, digital publishing, Elements of Fiction Writing, fantasy author, fiction, fiction writer, plotting, publishing, writer, writer resource, writing, writing articles, writing coach, writing craft, writing resources, writing workshops
Posted in How We Write | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 14th, 2012
Everyone, welcome “Dr. C” back to the Dream Theories club house! You’re gonna like her “real world” take on dream inages, to go along with my more metaphysical ramblings ;o)
*********
Dream Imagery: “Where did that come from?”
Dream imagery has both straightforward and random aspects to it. I know Anna has covered some of this in earlier posts from a layperson perspective, so I’m here to give you the skinny from a psychological professional who deals with it on a weekly basis. First, I’m going to review some major theories of dream imagery and interpretation using a case study familiar to us all:
Client Name: Ebenezer Scrooge
Age: 70-ish (adjusted for modern life expectancy, etc.)
Occupation: Banker and Curmudgeon
Presenting Problem: Very vivid nightmares, particularly around the holidays.
“You don’t believe in me,” observed the Ghost.
“I don’t,” said Scrooge.
“What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?”
“I don’t know,” said Scrooge.
“Why do you doubt your senses?”
“Because,” said Scrooge, “a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”
- “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, 1843
When clients tell me about their dreams, a common statement is, “I have no idea where that image came from!” (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, creativity & inspiration, dream emotion, Dream Theories, dreams, fantasy, fantasy author, Legacy Series, parapsychology, Tallulah Falls
Posted in Dream Theories | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 8th, 2012
Most every writer’s heard of scene and sequel. Jack Bickham’s Elements of Fiction Writing is some of the best instruction on novel structure out there. But he, and I today, aren’t merely talking about plot. The key is to apply structure principles to your characters every step of the way. Because, as Robert McKee tells us, plot IS character.
I’ve studied with both these masters. Bickham, in addition to devouring his books, I bought a workshop series from and wish I’d had the chance to hear him in person before his death. McKee, who isn’t dead but some who attended the three-day scriptwriting seminar attended most likely wished him so, was worth the money and travel expense ten times over, given what I walked away from his course better understanding about the real source of good writing.
It’s character.All the plot rules, setting rules, structure rules, symbol rules, and any other thing that someone’s tried to make you think is most important to story, is actually about CHARACTER. Because your story is about character. Each scene and its sequel, each element and act and conflict and motivation… It’s all about character.
Readers want the journey. (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, brainstorming, character arc, creativity & inspiration, digital publishing, Elements of Fiction Writing, fantasy author, fiction, fiction writer, Jack Bickham, plotting, publishing, Robert McKee, scene and sequel, writer, writer resource, writing, writing articles, writing coach, writing craft, writing resources, writing workshops
Posted in How We Write | 3 Comments »
Monday, February 6th, 2012
More Dream Theories tomorrow from Dr. C, but Michio Kaku is obsessed with the application of “impossible” physics to every day life, and today in the Psychic Realm, so I am I. He has a lot to say about reverse engineering the brain to understand seemingly “out there” psychic phenomenon, the soul, consciousness and teasing apart neural pathways to one day model (artificially) how all the things we think and sense and feel and don’t fully comprehend work. I’m taking copious notes, every time I dive into one of his books, as I build a contemporary fantasy world around three new Legacy novels. And I’m sharing, ’cause I can’t seem to help myself.
I want to dive deeper into this science with my new family who are discovering they have latent, powerful psychic gifts. What could be better than to have the government’s “Center” taking apart the brain, neuron by neuron, so that computers and other technologies can simulate how empaths and the like do what they do. Imagine my love of Kaku’s books, as they talk about how possible something like this really is!
Basically modern neuro science is developing the ability to understand how the brain works, exactly the way a motor works. Which isn’t to say they’re all the way there yet. (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, contemporary fantasy, creativity & inspiration, Dark Legacy, fantasy, fantasy author, fiction, fiction writer, Legacy Series, Michio Kaku, neurons, Optogenetics, parapsychology, psychic, sci-fi, society of minds
Posted in The Psychic Realm | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012
Welcome back guest blogger “Dr. C” to Drem Theories. She’s sharing her in-house know how about the sleeping mind. Today, let’s spook our way through the confused and abnormal disruption (and potential trauma) parasomniacs endure.This is the kind of science I LOVE to play with in my contemporary psychic fantasies. Understanding more about how our brains work in sleep and out, makes me a happy geeky girl ;o) And it opens worlds of plotting happiness for even bigger and more exciting stories about worlds that play out in our minds alone. Bwahahahaha!!!
So read on, then come back to Dream Theories often to hear more of my meanderings about my personal dream research–and more from Dr. C., as she feeds my (and your) imagination about the physiology behind oursleeping brains’ most intriguing, if disturbing, patterns. If you look closely enough, even in today’s post, you’ll see the bones of the “fringe” science on which I crafted the parapsychology of my first two Legacy books. No, NOT Exploding Head Syndrome (though I don’t know HOW I missed that one!).
Don’t forget to ask Dr. C. your strange dream/sleep questions in the comments… She’s SO much fun to talk to ;o)
***
Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives. ~William Dement
Lady Macbeth: Out, damn’d spot! out, I say!—One; two: why, then ’tis time to do’t.—Hell is murky.—Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our pow’r to accompt?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? ~William Shakespeare, Macbeth
What do these two quotes have in common other than being by men named William who like to ponder the weird things people do in their sleep? It is often assumed that parasomnias, or “…unpleasant or undesirable behavioral or experiential phenomena that occur predominantly or exclusively during the sleep period,” (Mahowald & Bornemann, Principles & Practices of Sleep Medicine, 4th ed.) have their roots in some sort of psychological distress, including guilty consciences. However, the cause is more physiological than psychological.
If you’ve learned to drive a stick-shift car or been in a car with a failing transmission, you know how it stalls out or moves jerkily from one gear to another if something is off, either with the driver’s clutch timing or in the transmission itself. Remember that hypnogram from last week showing the different sleep stages? Sometimes the brain doesn’t shift smoothly from one stage to another, or it gets interrupted, and that’s when parasomnias can occur.
(more…)
Tags: dream emotion, Dream Theories, dreams, fantasy, fantasy author, Legacy Series, parapsychology, psychic
Posted in Dream Theories | 1 Comment »
Thursday, December 15th, 2011
Long silence on blog = Anna’s sick. You know that by now, right? I’ve crawled out of my cave. Let’s talk about what the famous people in our dreams mean, before I collapse again. Flu SUCKS, btw. Whine. But I digress. What does it mean when we dream about famous people and fictional characters?
Yeah, I’m going to riff on animated and over-the-top, real-life characters throughout this post. And you’re not going to see any of my recurring dream buddies. Not a chance. I believe too strongly in this topic to pull my cyber panties down and give you a microscope into my psyche!
Well, okay. I’ll give you one real dream character of my very own. But I’m not gonna tell you which one. So, enjoy the side show and try to figure out which of these images really has come out to play, during my nocturnal wanderings ;o) All votes are welcome. You won’t guess it. You’re never gonna guess it… And I’m absolutely not including political or religious “greats” in this post. I may be a sick girl, but I’m not stupid.
Okay, back to business. First of all, we can invite anyone we want to our dreams. So you have to ask yourself who you’ve brought along for the party, and why. Do you feel negative or positive about these characters?
Actually, is there just one famous person and you, or are you in a crowd of those you admire or publicly despise?Are you interacting with them, or standing back to watch. Are we talking tv/movie/entertainment famous, or dead/living politicians, writers, great thinkers, etc? Oh, and where are you all getting together for this shindig?
As I’ve said, the emotions of your dreams are key. They’ll point you to the better understanding you seek of why the people in your dreams do and say what they do, especially your famous guests. Dream analysis will first tell you that these characters may represent aspects of our own personalities that we either aspire to improve or long to negate.
(more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, creativity & inspiration, dream emotion, Dream Theories, dreams, fantasy, fantasy author, parapsychology
Posted in Dream Theories | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 6th, 2011
Welcome guest blogger “Dr. C” to Drem Theories. She has great sleep and dream facts and myths to share and bust for us! A PHD in clinical psychology with a specialization in sleep disorders, she’s giving us awesome insight into what’s happening to our minds and bodies as we dream. She’s also a fantasy author and has been a great “real world” resource for me as I write about dreams and parapsychology and metaphysics and all the other “brain” stuff I use as I create my contemporary fantasy worlds.
Read on for some sleep basics (types and stages and helpful hits about sleeping better yourself). You’re sure to learn something new. Ask questions, get her talking about all that she knows, heckle, or whatever else entertains you ;o) I know I’m going to!
Next week: more of my Dream Theory insights based on the research I’ve done for my Legacy series. Dr. C will be back in two weeks, with all her knowledge and confirmation that I’m a quack and that she’s the sleep expert, and that you should all be listening to her instead of me ;o)
*********
Thanks, Anna, for inviting me to do this series of guest blog posts!
People do weird things in their sleep. It’s one reason I love being a sleep psychologist – I rarely hear the same stories twice. Also, I feel I can make a huge and almost immediate difference for my patients, and I get to be a “Myth-buster” of sorts. Yes, there are lots of myths going around about sleep and dreaming, so for my first post, I wanted to take the opportunity to “bust” some common misconceptions. All of these have been said by several of my patients.
Myth #1: If I don’t remember my dreams, I must not be having any.
To address this one, we need to back up a bit and talk about some sleep basics. We have different stages of sleep from lighter to deeper, and when you go in for a sleep study, the doctors and techs can tell what stage you’re in by the kind of squiggly lines your brain is putting out on the EEG channels. There are two main types of sleep: Rapid Eye Movement sleep and non-Rapid Eye Movement sleep. We progress through non-REM to REM in cycles. Here’s a hypnogram to illustrate how we do it:
Here are the stages within types.
Non-REM sleep: (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, creativity & inspiration, Dream Theories, dreams, fantasy, fantasy author, Legacy Series
Posted in Dream Theories | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, November 29th, 2011
While we get serious about sleep science in next week’s Dream Theories, lets go fantastical about flow of energy between this dimension and others. In other words, how the “other” worlds around us mess with things in ours.
One of the cool things about researching sci-fi/fantasy novels where I get to make up my own rules, is starting with some already-defined dynamics that I get to lift from particle and quantum physics. You know, the physical laws that tell us how things move and flow, and how this type of matter interacts with that kind, and what the boundaries are, and the state of things as we know them. Then, as the writer, you get to blow things out of their defined buckets and have some fun.
Add in the parapsychological world of thought, which some of the physical laws lend themselves to if only we could bend a few known factors here and there, and we’re cooking with gas.
Apportation is one of these areas, where if you can suspend belief about how we currently think light and matter flow, and if you will accept that multiple dimensions exist on different planes within the same space, moving at different speeds so they’re typically invisible to one another, then you can arrive at the premise that someone or something from one dimension could be capable of moving objects within another. (more…)
Tags: Apportation, fantasy, fantasy author, Legacy Series, metaphysics, parapsychology, particle physics, psychic, quantum physics, Skeptic's Dictionary
Posted in The Psychic Realm | 1 Comment »
Monday, November 28th, 2011
Do falling dreams predict an incident to come? No. Well, maybe, for some of us who feel the energy of our dreams in our waking worlds. Bwahahaha… For others, you could simply be “falling” into sleep. Or, there might be deeper psychological meanings. Let’s take a look!
Do you fall or fly, surrounded by vivid imagery and wrapped up in a story line? Are you feeling anxious or soaring? These are key indicators that you’re mind’s processing how you’re feeling about something that’s happening or about to happen in your life that you’re worried about. And if you’re always falling and never hit bottom? Maybe you’re feeling out of control, with no sense that you can take charge. You’re, quite simply, taking a leap of faith.
Far from crashing into the ground meaning that you’re going to die, it can often mean that you’re ready to make the choice you’ve been avoiding. (more…)
Tags: contemporary fantasy, creativity & inspiration, dream color, dream emotion, Dream Theories, dreams, fantasy, fantasy author, Legacy Series, lucid dreaming
Posted in Dream Theories | 1 Comment »
