This week: Upstaged! Edited by: Legerdemain  
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Being Upstaged
Hollywood has a saying "don't act with babies or animals". They're just so cute, no one will notice the actor. I can imagine it would be frustrating to deliver the perfect line and the audience not hearing it because they're all cooing over a baby raccoon. Babies can't help that they're cute; they're made that way so parents don't leave them in the woods someplace. And their crying supposedly stimulates caretaking in adults around them. (I think the truth is closer to stimulating the urge to smother that crying.) Baby animals are too dang cute too...it's all the fluffiness.
When writing your stories, remember to keep your antagonist and protagonist as the main characters. It's good to have interesting peripheral characters, but don't let them upstage your main characters unless whatever they're doing is crucial to moving your plot along. A rich and diverse stage of characters makes for a good read, but if your reader is not sure whom the bad guy is, or who is going to save the day, that's disappointing. Your reader still needs to understand what the main conflict is and at least have some inkling of what direction your plot is headed.
Even your most evil character, probably not so fluffy and a lot scarier, needs to be kept trim and secure in his evilness. If you let him grab hold of your plot, you might not get it back. And that my friends, means a whole lot of edit when you realize the plot took an unexpected turn. We know he eats maggoty meat, we created him, but the reader doesn't need to know if it isn't necessary to the story.
Keep an eye on your fluffies, they might go rabid and take over.
This month's question: This month's question: Have you had a secondary character run off with your plot line?
How do you solve that in your writing?
Answer below  Editors love feedback! 
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Excerpt: "Grrrh!" said the ogre.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"Grrh!" said the ogre.
"You have a lousy vocabulary," said Isabel. "My teacher says Vocabulary is important because--"
Excerpt: Milton was not a handsome child, but if people ever took the time to disregard first appearances and looked into that one green eye, they would see that he was special, bright and intelligent-exceptional
| |  | Invalid Item
This item number is not valid.
#2134079 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: Seeing his reflection in the water, he sighed, who was he kidding, "cute," fit, and though he may be a stallion, he would never be part of the Elf Queen's honor guard, and no self-respecting mare would ever have him for a mate. In truth, he was just a fluffy pink freak.
| |  | What Makes You Hic (E)
When Audrey gets the hiccups, Dot and Lotta look for ways to get rid of them.
#2229336 by Sara  |
Excerpt: “Hic!”
Dot’s eyes widened as she heard the sound, while Lotta winced as well. Audrey sat up, looking a bit surprised as she blinked.
“Uh, what just happened?” Audrey wanted to know.
Excerpt: Oscar the Otter's eyes opened wide when he gazed upon the garden. What in the world could it be? He stood on his hind quarters, sniffing the air, and thought, These are giant green heads all in a row.
Excerpt: "Are the humans ready for deployment?" The ship's engineer asked, using telepathy. Although speaking to colony workers, the engineer refused to commuicate verbally. Speech was for lower ranks and animals.
Excerpt: Magdalena stalked down the sidewalk barely seeing the flashes of yellow and red leaves as they skittered along beside her carried by the wind. Her hair writhed in the gusts giving her a Gorgon-like appearance and her dress fluttered madly around her ankles, as it molded itself to the curves of her back. She was as angry as the weather, her brows brought together in an intimidating frown.
Excerpt: "How do babies come out of the belly?"
Here I am dumbfounded, wondering why at six years old this question is in need of an answer.
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This month's question: This month's question: Have you had a secondary character run off with your plot line?
How do you solve that in your writing?
Answer below Editors love feedback!
Last month's "Action/Adventure Newsletter (July 7, 2021)" question: Do you create a bank for listing emotions and feelings?
Annette  : I don't have a list or bank of words to describe emotions or feelings. When I write my first draft, I try to use the words that come to mind in the moment. Once I have that first draft down, I will let the story grow on me and decide later if any of the words need changing.
Grin 'n Bear It! : I haven't created a bank of emotions and feelings, but I think this is an excellent idea. An accompanying list of behaviors that show these emotions would be a good reference too. I did create a bank of names and their meanings as an aid in naming characters; for some reason, I find naming characters challenging. Thanks again for an excellent NL and your featuring my flash fiction piece in your picks. Always a pleasant surprise.
Quick-Quill  : No I don't block out character emotions. I have a list of emotions I use.
Elfin Dragon-finally published  : I've never thought about creating a bank for emotions and feelings. But then I suppose my poetry is a really good depository for all those emotions and feelings.
Crow : Yes, but I'm overdrawn at the moment.
elephantsealer : No, creating a bank for listing emotions and feelings is a difficult thing to achieve. In the first place, emotions and feelings are not that easy to face. However, there is a way to face emotions and feelings; and that is, face them and do whatever is necessary to find ways to bring them to the core. Emotions and feelings are things that move a story.
Happy to write : No, I don't think so but maybe we all do in some ways without really knowing it.
Dragonfly : I don't have to create a bank, there are plenty of emotions and feelings running through every aspect of my being. Plenty to pull from when I'm looking to write something down. I think what helps me in writing is the practice practice practice of writing those different feeling/emotions down in various parts of my stories. It's one thing to have/feel them, it's another to write them so someone else can feel them.
Anna Marie Carlson : I am a sensitive person; I cry when a movie is sad, and I cry happy tears when a movie has a happy ending to it. I can detect the emotions from an actor or actress when the part is played out well.
Thanks to everyone for your replies! Your responses are much appreciated!
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Action/Adventure: August 04, 2021 Issue [#10913]
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