Elements of Building Suspense

YouTube channel EmpoweringWriters has several videos instructing children in the basic elements of writing. Below is an example of the videos. The one below is less than ten minutes long. It’s about building suspense. (If you home school, this YouTube channel may give you ideas for lesson plans on writing.)

Summary: Use language to cue the reader that something is going to happen. The teacher calls the device “red flag words.”

Enchanted Mess

Wow. I read my Enchanted Forest story this morning and am issuing an apology. It was pretty bad. I have edited it some and updated the piece. It’s still hack. Oh, well. It is an exercise. That’s what exercises are for, right?

However, I promise myself to spend a bit more time editing before the deadline.

Last Song Prompt for July

This is the perfect summer song, so I’ll end my series of prompts based on songs with “Kokomo” by The Beach Boys. Listen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHtQ4-WBkis

I got a titillating  image in my head when listening to the song. Now I have to get the image translated to words on paper and published here. Soon.

An Enchanted Forest Ride

For those who are curious about what one does with a classical song prompt, you aren’t alone. I was curious, too. I was surprised where my imagination took me. I think I was as much influenced by the name of the Geminiani piece–La Foresta Incantata–as the music itself.

The genre of the story is a departure from anything I have written before. Is it a dream? You decide.  So here goes:

An Enchanted Forest Ride

by Fay Moore © 2012

“I’ll be back for dinner,” the master called out to his manservant, as he rode his horse across the courtyard cobblestones, heading for open field. The master saw the servant’s reflection in the rippled glass of the manor house window, in his hand the ledger that he had been reviewing with the master for several hours. The reflection looked like a man dressed in a floating sheet.

From atop his horse, the master admired the finely chiseled ears on the head of his prize stallion; ears forward, the horse attended to the direction the lord of the manor was steering him. The woods loomed ahead. As the master recalled his steward’s ghostly specter in the window reflection, his neck hairs tingled.

The owner of the equine settled deep into the curve of the leather seat, relaxing his back, pelvis and legs to float upon the saddle in tune with the motion and gait of his mount.  The tension that built up through the hours spent in accounting flowed down through his loosened frame and out the bottom of his stirrup-cradled soles, where breezes carried the bad energy off into space.

The day was magical. A cold front pushed all heat and humidity from the air. Neither man nor horse perspired as the sun beat upon their backs. Zephyrs blew both creatures’ hair, lifting and dropping tresses in waves, the same way ribbons flutter from the end of a lance.

Sensing the tempo playing in the air, man and horse began to move in union with it in a slow, deliberate canter. The rhythmical rocking of the rider crescendoed with the hoof beats of the stallion. By the time the pair entered the cutaway into the forest, they were galloping.

Once inside the shade of the forest canopy, the duo felt the air temperature drop. The freshness of the air and of the horse’s spirit urged the animal faster into a dead run. Birds flushed in droves from the bushes, but the pair ignored the feathered bursts. Dirt clods flew into the air, flung aloft by pounding hooves. The man loosened the reins to give the horse its head. Ahead in the path, a small tree was down. Horse and rider sailed effortlessly over the log in one motion, a union of body and spirit. Off to the left, a herd of deer, thrashing through the understory, scattered like a burst of fireworks. The horse dashed on.

 Ahead the lord spied a shaded opening in the trees. He felt drawn toward the space. He slowed the horse to a walk, patting the animal’s powerful neck. The exhilaration of the run caused both man and horse to breathe deeply.

In the opening, the master dismounted. The air glittered, amazing the man. He rubbed his eyes. The horse yawned. Their breath took shape and sparkled in clouds before them. Overtaken with a sudden urge to sleep, the horse folded its legs beneath itself and dropped to the soft, cool earth. It stretched out its neck and rested its jaw bone on a mound of grass. The man followed suit, sitting on the ground and leaning back against the prostrate animal. As if cast under a spell, both were soon snoozing.

Out of fallen hollowed logs and half-standing snags at the edge of the opening, or descending by spider-silk from leafy bowers in the treetops, a troupe of ragtag phantoms and sprites appeared. A shade stood by the head of the horse and a shadow by the head of the man, each casting dream dust when the sleepers’ eyelids fluttered. The others poured over the prone bodies, emptying the man’s pockets of two gold coins and gleaning half-chewed corn from between the horse’s teeth. Six tiny hands grabbed a loose thread in the man’s woven vest and pulled, unwinding the wool. A team of specters wound the thread into skeins and whisked the rolls away. When their work was done, an apparition looking like a fairy waved a wand above the sleeping pair. The magical troupe disappeared in a flash.

The sun was falling fast toward the horizon, and shadows were growing long. The gentleman was confounded that he had slept. What earlier seemed an enchanted space, now grew chilled. He leaped to his feet as the horse surged up from the ground. Wasting no time, he hoisted his toe into the stirrup and pulled himself up into the saddle.  Reins in hand, he spun the horse on its heels and spurred the steed. Shaking off its supernatural drowsiness, the animal plunged through the woodlands, racing for its barn.

Feeling cold, the horseman glanced down and spied his  vest was missing. Only a wisp or two of the distinctive yarns remained, caught in his belt buckle. As the dusk deepened, there was no time to sound the depths of his confusion. He bent at the waist, tucked himself as close to the body and neck of the horse as he could, and rode for the manor as if ghosts were chasing him.

Quotation for 7-28-2012

Writing a romance story? Perhaps you can find inspiration in today’s quotation:

“The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.” 

― Rumi,  The Illuminated Rumi

Same author, more inspiration on the same topic:

“I want to see you.
Know your voice.
Recognize you when you first come ’round the corner.
Sense your scent when I come into a room you’ve just left.
Know the lift of your heel, the glide of your foot.
Become familiar with the way you purse your lips then let them part, just the slightest bit, when I lean in to your space and kiss you.
I want to know the joy of how you whisper ‘more.'”

 ― Rumi

Fizzies

Who remembers Fizzies?

I used to pop the tablets into my mouth and wait for the explosion of effervescence. Crazy kid.

So what’s the point of talking about Fizzies?

Products from childhood are tied to memories. The memories are tied to experiences. Experiences are tied to feelings, images, sounds, smells, tastes, sensations.

When writing about a specific event, draw on memories of a similar occasion to vividly imagine the scene. What do you hear, smell, taste, sense? It is these sensory details that bring the scene to life and make it real for the reader.

Sometimes the silly little details — like the explosive fizz and flavor of a Fizzies tablet boiling on your tongue –ignite the reader’s own memories. Those personal sensations meld with the words of the author to conjure a vivid experience in the reader’s imagination. The stronger the link between memory in real life and the imagined scene penned on the page, the more pleasure for your reader. The setting comes alive with sensory stimulation.

The brain cannot separate emotionally charged imagination and the real thing. It reacts to both equally. That’s why intense romantic scenes arouse and woefully sad ones evoke tears. The emotions conjured are the same whether the source event is real or fictitious.

So before you create a scene, recollect your own reactions and observations surrounding a similar circumstance in your past. Then write with those feelings fresh in your mind.

Classical Song Prompt #8

From Francesco Geminiani, La Foresta Incantata

Listen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpxtLGmiUAk&feature=related

The music was written in the 1700’s. That alone may inspire an idea or two.

Using Bullet Points

Sometimes new authors question the circumstances under which a writer uses bullet points. I have borrowed an example from Zerohedge.com, a global financial news website, where the author successfully uses bullet points. It may be helpful as a template for the new writer.

Frontrunning: July 24

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/24/2012 – 07:23 Anglo Irish Bank of New York Barclays Borrowing Costs China Conference Board Eurozone Federal Reserve Federal Reserve Bank Federal Reserve Bank of New York France Germany Great Depression Greece Housing Market Insider Trading Italy Japan Netherlands Private Equity Prop Trading ratings Reuters Yen

• Greece now in “Great Depression”, PM says (Reuters)
• Geithner “Washington must act to avoid damaging economy” (Reuters)
• Moody’s warns eurozone core (FT)
• Germany Pushes Back After Moody’s Lowers Rating Outlook (Bloomberg)
• Austria’s Fekter says Greek euro exit not discussed (Reuters)
• In Greek crisis, lessons in a shrimp farm’s travails (Reuters)
• Fed’s Raskin: No government backstop for banks that do prop trading (Reuters)
• Campbell Chases Millennials With Lentils Madras Curry (Bloomberg)

Quote for July 25, 2012

Found on 400 Days ’til 40:

A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.

~ Lou Holtz

People that I Meet

About a week ago, I was reading Coco Ginger’s blog, specifically her post about her French press. In the post she referenced treating every guy she meets as a potential character in her next story.

That sentiment hit me like a sledge-hammer:  I, too, look at people I meet as candidates for characters. How dreadful. How delightful. It is a conundrum.

How about you? Are you eyeing up acquaintances, family and friends — and dreadful bosses — as novel fodder?