Parva leves capiunt animas

bluebird of bitterness

If you’re just an ordinary schlub who would like to sound erudite and scholarly, nothing does the trick quite like sprinkling your conversation with Latin phrases. Here are some that you’re sure to find useful in common everyday situations:

Magister Mundi sum.
I am the Master of the Universe.

Sentio aliquos togatos contra me conspirare.
I think some people in togas are plotting against me.

Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes. 
If you can read this, you’re overeducated.

Mellita, domi adsum. 
Honey, I’m home.

Totum dependeat.
Let it all hang out.

Recedite, plebes! Gero rem imperialem!
Stand aside, plebians! I am on imperial business!

Quo signo nata es?
What’s your sign?

Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
If Caesar were alive, you’d be chained to an oar.

Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could…

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WHEN THE WORDS STOP

Story Empire

Hi SEers! Denise here to talk about when a story hits some unexpected roadwork and comes grinding to a halt.

The ideas and words flow until that one day, and they don’t. It’s like riding in a convertible, watching the sunset on a warm summer evening. A cool breeze is blowing the story onto your computer screen or paper. Everything is right in your world until that one moment when you see a stop sign ahead, and everything suddenly stops.

I had this happen to me last fall. The idea came to me, and I jumped right into writing the story. Several pages in, I researched to ensure I was accurately writing about a real person. The problem was I had written an entire plot around what I assumed was correct but turned out to be false.

At that point, I had to stop and rethink the entire story. The…

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How to Use Prologues, Part 11, Prologues and Epilogues

Story Empire

Image courtesy of Tumisu via Pixabay

Hi SErs! It’s a day of Harmony here at Story Empire 🙂 Today, I’d like to talk about epilogues in relation to prologues. Here’s a link to the previous post on Recap of Tools.

What is an Epilogue?

An epilogue is like a prologue in that it adds to the main narrative. The main difference is that an epilogue comes at the end of the book rather than the beginning. So, where a prologue comes before the main story, an epilogue comes after all the other events have happened. An epilogue can jump way ahead in time or only an hour or a day or two. However, it MUST be linked to the events and characters your reader has become familiar with throughout the main story. As with a prologue, only use an epilogue if the information doesn’t fit within the main…

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Heroes and Villains part 1 – One Coin, Two Sides #amwriting

Life in the Realm of Fantasy

You have a hero.

You have a villain.

You’ve taken them through two revisions and think these characters are awesome, perfectly drawn as you intend. The overall theme of the narrative supports the plot arc, and the events are timed perfectly, so the pacing is good.

But then you discover that, while the story is engaging, your beta readers aren’t as impressed with the characters as you are.

This has been my problem in the past, and at this stage, I go to my writing group. Someone in that wonderful circle of friends will offer an opinion as to why the characters aren’t as strongly defined as I need them to be.

The problem is, it may take several drafts before my characters translate to paper the way I envision them. When creating their personnel file, I now try to give each character, hero, villain, or sidekick a theme, a…

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Creature Feature #1

Story Empire

Hi Gang. Craig with you for my first post of the new year. I was lamenting a lack of ideas for Story Empire content, when one of my colleagues suggested something about creating monsters. I might be able to milk this for a few posts if I’m lucky. It gave me several ideas.

I’m going to focus more on the creation aspect here, because I use a lot of creatures that aren’t exactly monsters. One of my recent ones is a pet character called Noodles. This guy is a combination of Rottweiler and or pitbull, combined with a snapping turtle.

His creation was simple. I haunt Pinterest every day and something appeared that sparked my imagination. You can do the same thing. Noodles had to be a water creature somehow, so I created a pond in his yard that he can spend a lot of time in. Then I made…

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Managing the Large Cast of Characters #amwriting

Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Today we begin a series on character creation. A large cast of characters can be difficult to write well. We want each character to have an evolving personality. The reader wants to know them as friends, to see them to grow in a positive or negative way as the events of the story unfold.

I try to keep the ensemble narrow in my work, limiting points of view to only one, two, or three characters at most. I keep the core cast limited to four or five, as it takes a lot of effort to show more people than that as being separate and unique.

Any number of evolutionary occurrences can happen in the first draft, and the plot will often change from what was originally planned. I use a stylesheet, also known as a storyboard, to keep track of the plot and the characters.

• I update my stylesheet/storyboard…

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Metaphysical Elements In Writing – Intro

Story Empire

Hello, SE’ers! It’s the beginning of a new year and the start of a new series. I hope your year has started off strong with abundant inspiration!

I have long been a student of all things metaphysical and love putting bits and pieces of what I’ve learned and experienced over the years into stories.

For this new series, I’m going to combine my passion for storytelling and metaphysical elements by discussing in detail how to effectively and tastefully add them to fiction writing.

Image by Amy Art-Dreams from Pixabay

Metaphysical or supernatural elements in writing are not to be confused or aligned with any one religion or spiritual belief. They are Universal. I view the various metaphysical elements available to us as tools we can utilize to dive deeper into our human experience while adding a bit of magic or mysticism.

So, how does that meld with fiction writing?

First…

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Don’t Count On It – Stream Of Consciousness Saturday #SoCS

“Marjorie?” Miles called as he stepped into the bedroom. “Have you seen my-” He stopped when he saw her standing by the bed, packing a suitcase. “What’s going on?” he asked, his brow furrowed.

“What does it look like, Miles?” she replied, zipping the suitcase closed. “I’m leaving.”

“Leaving? Are you going on a trip or something? You didn’t mention one to me.”

She turned and glared at him. She held up a cell phone. “I found your little text messages, Miles. Who’s Gina? And Amanda? And Iris?”

His eyes widened and he took a step back. “Uh, I, uh…”

With a yell, she tossed his cell phone at him. He ducked it and stammered, “Marjorie, listen…”

“No Miles, you listen. I’ve had enough. For a while now, I’ve suspected something was going on, but I shrugged it off, naively believing you were working late at the office, like you claimed you had been. I should have known better. And now I’ve seen the proof, right there on your phone – the text messages, and the photos!”

Miles took a deep breath. “Marjorie, I’m sorry. I really am. There’s no excuse for what I did. But I promise…”

Majorie shook her head and grabbed the suitcase from the bed. “No, Miles,” she said, taking a step towards the door. “No promises. It’s gone on long enough. And now I’m gone.”

She stalked from the room and through the house towards the front door.

Miles called after her. “You’ll be back, Marjorie! You’ll be back!”

“Don’t count on it!” she called back, and slammed the door behind her.

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This post is part of the Stream of Consciousness Saturday post, “count on it”:

https://lindaghill.com/2023/01/20/the-friday-reminder-for-socs-jusjojan-2023-daily-prompt-jan-21st/

Time Blocking Your Writing Routine

K.M. Allan

Taking a book from an idea to a finished tome can take years, and finding the time to regularly work on said book can be just as hard as getting those sentences right.

That’s when having a writing routine is your best bet, and finding one that works for you is invaluable.

I like to use routines because if I know what I need to do; I actually do it. I understand, however, that routines don’t work for everyone. Seeing your tasks laid out in black and white can be overwhelming, and the pressure to stick to the routine can cause anxiety. To counteract this, I find it’s best to keep any writing routine as simple as possible.

For the past few years, a writing routine that’s worked for me is splitting my book writing and blog writing into separate weeks. I call the first week Writing Week (real creative…

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Writers: Why Blogging is Essential in the Era of Fragmenting Social Media. – by Anne R Allen…

Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog

I know how it is: your readers started fading from Facebook all through 2022, disgusted by invasive advertising and slimy tactics that spy on your every move. They are also fed up by those bizarre, arbitrary algorithms that send you to Facebook jail for posting a picture of your cat, but do nothing to stop the Russian propaganda in your feed.

Speaking of propaganda — nobody knows how much of your information and content will be used by the Chinese government if you post on TikTok, and recently the US has banned government workers from using it. Soon there may be a country-wide ban on the app. Even if there’s not, publishing guru Jane Friedman predicts TikTok will fade from the publishing world this year. (See the Hot Sheet, January 4th, subscription required.)

And now book people are leaving Twitter in droves, as the once-essential venue self-destructs.

These…

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