Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1

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Blue Sky

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forbidding signs

Did that bird just oink?

The birds are oinking here too, so I know a gander into Twilight is coming. Thanks for the soundings from your journey. I'll steel myself and dive into the used bookstore.
 

Blue Sky

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new genre not

I should have known by their Death's Head Hussar shakos (with a fictitious emblem, of course).

Girl Genius is a Ruritanian Zombie Romance! Holy smokes did I have a good laugh at that one. Ha! The Ruritanian part hit me yesterday and the zombie aspect this morning. I was enjoying the story too much to see. The word that comes about the comic is "cute." Kids can read it, but the depth is there for adults as well. Nice work, quite well done in imho.

It's great to watch author and artist skills improve and polish as you said, Jim. Suspenseful storytelling kept the ball rolling and now everything has moved up to that level. The slow-motion, time lapse photographic study of a six-and-a-half year career is such a pertinent and useful example.

The biggest thing I've learned so far about serial writing: If you goof, grab the reader and keep going. Don't look back. Works like a charm.

Lots of great stuff. The ditty I posted to show that I would certainly start a novel with dialog, my novel, and my other work are rumbling and expanding into a big something or other. Started doodling during work breaks on a pocket-sized pad that has lain dormant in my truck's center console since 1997 or so.

So that's why it was hanging around. :snoopy:

Great fun! Thanks again everybody.
 

smsarber

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I just finished a story from a challenge set forth by Uncle Jim, the original challenge was for Rushie and then Blue Sky, but I like a challenge as well.
Here's the link. The original question was about plot generators, and since there is a thread about that already I won't go into it much here except to say: A point was made that you might not care about characters in a story derived from a plot generator. Uncle Jim answered with: write the story, see if you care about your characters when you are finished (very paraphrased). I can say that I cared about my characters the moment I named them. Then they were mine. Who cares where the idea for their existence came from, they're your babies when you give them life.
 
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Blue Sky

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Actually, the general assignment was for everybody and the specific assignment was for BlueLucario. She started that thread, which until I posted, I had not read.

But if her assignment appeals to us, why not give it a whirl?

I agree with you on the generated plots and wherever else ideas come from. That's my experience too.

Every plot was used by oral storytellers long before we started using writing as we know it today. That certainly doesn't dampen my enthusiasm for reading or writing.
 

euclid

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RUBBISH!

Every plot was used by oral storytellers long before we started using writing as we know it today.

This is such a sweeping statement and I don't believe a word of it.

For example, tell me when the plot of Perfume by Patrick Susskind was used by oral storytellers before writing started.
 

smsarber

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I believe what was meant was that there are no inherently new ideas. Everything has been done before, in one way or another. DaVinci didn't have the technology for helicopters, yet he drew plans for one. Samuel Clemens wrote about time travel in the nineteenth century--would you have expected people to think of time travel in days before television and radio? Perfume, while I have no idea what that book is, surely has a plot similar to something else from the past.
 

euclid

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I believe what was meant was that there are no inherently new ideas. Everything has been done before, in one way or another. DaVinci didn't have the technology for helicopters, yet he drew plans for one. Samuel Clemens wrote about time travel in the nineteenth century--would you have expected people to think of time travel in days before television and radio? Perfume, while I have no idea what that book is, surely has a plot similar to something else from the past.

Perhaps that's what he meant, but I reject that notion too, as utterly useless, meaningless and unhelpful. I mean, you might as well say: "Oh, so your book has people in it, doing stuff? Well of course that's been done before, thousands of times."

Perfume is a story about a man in seventeenth (I think) century Europe, born into abject poverty, who has a gift with smells, becomes a master perfumer and creates the ultimate perfume. He is also a mass murderer, as a side effect of his obsession.

It's a wonderful book.

H. G. Wells wrote about time travel. So what? Does that mean that no one else can write original stuff about time travel? Poppycock!
 

smsarber

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I had left my thought unfinished somehow... Samuel Clemens wrote of time travel in the days before technology, and you might think people wouldn't think of things in those days, but it was surely thought of, and stories told about it, centuries before.
 

RJK

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Clemens took people from the 19th century to a story about the 12th century. He had them interact with fictional characters from other stories.

H.G. Wells, Took people to a speculative future, a place made from his imagination. There's a big difference.
 

Neversage

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I think that nearly--and I'll say nearly to be safe--any story can be broken into plot pieces. Important events or concepts. Each of these pieces has likely been done before. What makes it unique is which of them and how you combine to make your story.

My story is a compilation of hundreds of things, but I never intended it to be such, I just wrote about what I knew and what interested me. It's original as a whole, but each part by itself may no be so much so.
 

Blue Sky

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"He" is back briefly. Wow, we've finally come to life again. Yes, that was the meaning smsarber. Thanks.

This is such a sweeping statement and I don't believe a word of it.

Great! Groups of people with beliefs end up killing other people in proof of those beliefs. Count me out of that charade.

Perhaps that's what he meant, but I reject that notion too, as utterly useless, meaningless and unhelpful...Poppycock!

Whatever works. That's the bottom line isn't it? I'm talking about the fundamental storyline. I too used to rail at such notions, but I can see the limited number of plots. What's a body to do?

In my view, it's incredible how we spin countless fresh and original yarns over such a small set of plots. Jim's study and practice of plots shows in Land of Mist and Snow. It's a tight, taught read. But I haven't read anything similar to that book. Just means I haven't. I'm sure there is something else along those lines out there. In any case, LoMaS is an original work.

Of course we can each write original material. Homogenized we are not, unless we allow such. I'm with you euclid. I shared your view years ago. However, experience has shown me the other side of the coin.
 

euclid

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Never mind all that trivial stuff. I worked out today that, if Maestrowork stopped posting today, and I kept going at my usual rate, it would take me 30 years and 4 months to catch up with him! Of course he's showing no signs of stopping or even slowing down, so in 30 years time I will be even further behind than I am now. It's like the expanding universe!

I guess he's a supernova and I'm just a shooting star!
 
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Calla Lily

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[delurking]

I found Uncle Jim's 2002 novel The Apocalypse Door at a huge used book sale. I'm on chapter 4 now. Reading it is like my own private class in how to plot, how to write 3-D characters, how to show action, how to plant clues... I could keep going. Uncle Jim is such a darned good writer that I'm still interested, even though most of the book is in 1st, and I really, really dislike 1st.

:Hail:

ETA: And his voice is just like his voice in his posts here. :D I feel like a friend was telling me a cool story.

[relurking]
 
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euclid

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[delurking]

I found Uncle Jim's 2002 novel The Apocalypse Door at a huge used book sale. I'm on chapter 4 now. Reading it is like my own private class in how to plot, how to write 3-D characters, how to show action, how to plant clues... I could keep going. Uncle Jim is such a darned good writer that I'm still interested, even though most of the book is in 1st, and I really, really dislike 1st.

:Hail:

ETA: And his voice is just like his voice in his posts here. :D I feel like a friend was telling me a cool story.

[relurking]

What's it about? Is it SF?
And how many pages?
 

Calla Lily

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What's it about? Is it SF?
And how many pages?

I'm at work, so I can't give you page count, sorry. It's not a doorstop--maybe 250 pp?

It's about the modern-day Knights Templar, with a MC who is something like Mike Hammer, if Hammer was nicer, and a priest to boot. There's a supernatural element just starting.

So far my favorite part (SPOILER!) is the Poor Clare assassins. :D Probably because I used to be a Franciscan, although not a Poor Clare. Knew a couple, though, and they didn't dress anything like in Jim's book or carry knives and guns. :eek:
 

smcc360

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I also liked The Apocolypse Door. The moody cover hooked me, and anything with killer nuns is a win, since it reminds me of parochial school. I heard a rumor that a sequal is in the works, too.
 

Duncan J Macdonald

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I'm at work, so I can't give you page count, sorry. It's not a doorstop--maybe 250 pp?

It's about the modern-day Knights Templar, with a MC who is something like Mike Hammer, if Hammer was nicer, and a priest to boot. There's a supernatural element just starting.

So far my favorite part (SPOILER!) is the Poor Clare assassins. :D Probably because I used to be a Franciscan, although not a Poor Clare. Knew a couple, though, and they didn't dress anything like in Jim's book or carry knives and guns. :eek:
Far be it for me to flog a sibling's work (flog flog), but if you liked Apocalypse Door you're sure to love The Confessions of Peter Crossman available from Lulu via a link from Uncle Jim's very own web site (flog flog).
Just scroll down to the bottom.

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with a 'fun nun with a gun' running around.
 

smcc360

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That's great. I had no idea the sequal was out already. I'll go to the site and check it out now.
 

Duncan J Macdonald

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Lulu: That's a POD site isn't it? Don't tell me Jim has used a POD to publish!

Re-publish, actually. Confessions is a compilation of three Peter Crossman short stories that all had seen commercial publication, and their rights had been returned IAW standard contract revision clauses.

The following information is from the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Stealing God First published in Tales of the Knights Templar, ed. Katherine Kurtz; Warner Aspect, 1995.

Selling the Devil First Published in On Crusade: More Tales of the Knights Templar, (1998, Katherine Kurtz, Aspect / Warner Books, 0-446-67339-0

Sleeping Kings First Published in Crusade of Fire: Mystical Tales of the Knights Templar, (Dec 2002, Katherine Kurtz, Warner Books, 0-446-61090-9
 

Duncan J Macdonald

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That's great. I had no idea the sequal was out already. I'll go to the site and check it out now.
Not the sequel. Confessions is the three prior Crossman short stories collected into a single chap book. (flog flog)

I'm waiting for the sequel myself. There's this one scene that I've heard tell of that I really want to see in print. (And no, as far as I'm aware I don't feature in the novel at all -- that resemblance to any persons living or dead thing.)

Uncle Jim's Web Site, in case you've lost the url, is linked here.
 
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