  Action/Adventure
This week: Making the Impossible Possible Edited by: Legerdemain  
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Making the Impossible Possible
If someone held up a metal thing the size of a matchbook and said to me in high school "This thing holds three thousand two hundred songs and will run for 24 hours before you have to recharge it." I would have laughed them out the door. I would have told them they watch too much sci-fi channel. I would have taken my big old three pound boombox with its ten D batteries and walked out the door. But things change and now there's an iPod Nano.
This weekend, Austrian pilot and sky diver Felix Baumgartner set a world record Sunday for the highest parachute jump, safely landing after leaping from a capsule carried by a helium balloon to an altitude of 128,100 feet, some 24 miles up. "Sometimes you have to go up really high to understand how small you are," he radioed as he balanced on the narrow step outside the capsule. "I'm going home now."
Then he let go of the hand rail and stepped off the edge into space, where the air is so thin and atmospheric pressure so low that unprotected body fluids bubble and blood boils. He also broke the sound barrier during his free fall, as he had hoped, reaching a velocity of 833.9 miles an hour—about Mach 1.24—mission officials said.
The next time you're writing an adventure, or taking your character into uncharted waters, remember your dreams today could be tomorrow's possibility. Taking a "maybe" and turning it into your reality is part of the writing process. Inventing ways to get around the limitations of "current" reality is part of the adventure. Making the impossible feel believable is the challenge. Reach for the stars and Write On!
This month's question: How do you stretch the truth of reality in your writing?
Ref: Robert Lee Hotz http://on.wsj.com/T2bpOJ
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Excerpt: He suddenly felt a warming sensation on his bicep, and turned to look as the needle suspended on the robotic arm pierced the large vein that jutted from the intersection of his elbow and began drawing blood. This process was oddly silent, and whatever was drawing the thin stream of blood into the transparent tube, gave no indication of how it functioned. A few moments later, the tube went clear and the needle retracted. There was a small burning sensation as the pin exited, but there was no blood on the surface.
The needle cauterizes the wound on the way out, he recalled the doctor telling him. Ian watched with great interest as the robotic arm articulated back into the panel on the rear wall. He could only see in a few inches as there was another wall behind the first, and the robotic arm disappeared through a hole in the second wall. The panel closed immediately once the arm was clear, again soundlessly and without indication of how this process actually occurred.
| |  | Final Exam (13+)
Susan sits alone in her TCU dorm room cramming for a final exam.
#1819604 by Sean  |
Excerpt: "If only you were a prince." she said. "Then we could both be free."
Excerpt: ‘They are presents, for you,” Tichiban replied, “But they are not finished yet. I need some items from you to make them whole.” Tichiban had a thick West-Indies accent and was sometimes hard to understand but Elizabeth had gotten used to her way of speaking.
“What are they for?”
“They are special dolls. When you get angered at your parents and want them to stop what they are doing, you merely have to stick a pin in the dolls and they will be halted in their intentions.”
Excerpt: “I don’t care how sorry you are!” she screamed in my face, spittle flying from her lips. “I trusted you, Wesley! I trusted you with the most important thing in the world to me. My son. My baby boy. And you KILLED him!
| |  | Invalid Item
This item number is not valid.
#1880038 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: "That's it! That's the last straw!"
Excerpt: The name's Blond, Dick Blond, and being a private eye is the game. Occasionally there is a bit of freelancing for the government agency, who of course, will remain nameless.
| | | Invalid Item
This item number is not valid.
#1874138 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: Cardboard and child groaned as they birthed through the narrow frame. I heard him push the box down the hall towards my office.
Excerpt: Sully activated his grav-boots, lowered his visor, checked its display in the bottom right-hand corner, and then hustled out. He registered no life forms, which meant all fourteen station personnel were probably dead.
Excerpt: Jason stood in the airlock, staring at the Atmosphere Evacuation button. It was big, red and tempting. Just below it was a small warning sign that read, “Ensure suit is functioning properly before pressing.”
He let his eyes shift to a window, through which he could see the locker where his “properly functioning” suit hung, unused.
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This month's question: How do you stretch the truth of reality in your writing?
Last month's question: What elements do you use to pull your rising action to the story climax?
jack-tyler replied: I'm Jack, the author of "Invalid Item" In answer to the question, how do I pull my action to the climax, I basically use a mathmatical system. I aim for sixteen sections, section meaning a change of viewpoint or setting. Sometimes I wind up a couple over or under, but sixteen is the target. I introduce players and situations in the first four sections. In five thru eight, I present the protagonists with a problem that continues to escalate until it can no longer be ignored. Beginning with nine, they attempt to apply a solution which will either blow up in their faces or degenerate into an "unbreakable" stalemate by section twelve. In thirteen, they regroup, catch their breath, assess their strengths. In fourteen, they attempt their new solution, and in fifteen they win (as they have to, because I write a series). Sixteen is the wrap, where they rib each other, tie up the loose ends, and all that jazz, The End.
Obviously, The Botanist doesn't follow this format; it has developed during the writing of the series that it is a part of, but this is what I aim for now. I even pre-mark my notebook with sixteen sections, then start filling them in.
I'm here to learn, and to share, and if anyone is helped by this advice, I'm all in favor, but I can't shake the feeling that I'm like a magician who has shown his trick, and now everyone will say, "Oh, that's all it was. Here and we thought you were doing something clever!"
Be that as it may, you have my undying thanks for giving some extra exposure to The Botanist. That was a fun story to write, and look what it has led to! I just hope folks find it as much fun to read.
Doug Rainbow answered: I sometimes use the plot device where, almst at the end, the conflict seems to be well resolved. Then, at the very end, there is a twist that establishes that the problem still exists and presents a treat. See "Invalid Item" in my port. |
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Action/Adventure: October 17, 2012 Issue [#5316]
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