(no subject)

( Deutsch )

A small bit of vocab today to keep in the habit and because I still need to finish the questions from the reading earlier. And then tomorrow, a big bit of vocab and then grammar, finally. And then I'll figure out something.

I also realized that I forgot to put up a worldbuilding exercise last week. Oops. Have two!

3. Create your antagonist characters
As with your protagonist, your antagonist(s) can tell you a lot about the world you're making. Write a paragraph about your antagonist.




4. Study your conflict
There's an old idea that the core plot of most works can be narrowed down to person vs person, person vs outside world, or person vs self. It's true. At the very least, it's true that the core conflict in a story can usually be boiled down to A vs B.

Write down your A vs B at the top of a page. This is your focus of your novel, your core conflict, what drives the action and the plot. Han, Luke, and Leia vs the Empire. The Fellowship of the Ring vs Sauron and his minions. Malcolm Reynolds vs everyone else in the gorram universe. Now go down the page and write down some basic questions, and you already have the who and the what, hopefully, but if you haven't, write that down as well. If it's character vs an outside force, what is the outside force? When: Is this story taking place over a few days or over several years? How is the conflict manifested, subtly in many smaller conflicts or blatantly? Where do the conflicts manifest? And if your scope is small, this will be a very easy question. If your scope is larger, you'll need to describe some locales, cities, towns, countrysides. A sentence or two will do for each.

At the bottom of the page, write a paragraph of up to seven sentences describing the why. Why is this conflict happening? What brought these things into conflict? Is it contrariness, is it an aspect of the protagonist character that forces conflict, is the protagonist seeking it out or did conflict drag the protagonist out of bed kicking and screaming? This all will go into summary information.

That second one can have an example put up for it if anyone wants; actually, both of those can. Are people enjoying these/finding them useful? I hope I hope. :)

(no subject)

( 日本語 )

Note to self: Yes, you will need to grind the vocab by the time you're done with the book; you're about hitting the instant saturation ceiling or whatever you're going to call it.

So, apparently Jeffrey Dean Morgan is in the running to play a "suave Jewish-American man who builds [a] hotel and makes unusual friends and powerful enemies along the way." Apart from the fact that the article writer felt the need to specify Jewish-American, which makes me think there's going to be some frightening anvils with Stars of David on them, I'm trying to picture JDM in a yarmulke or speaking any kind of Hebrew. It comes out sounding a little like possessed!John Winchester speaking Hebrew. This disturbs me.

So it goes. I watched the series finale of Babylon 5 the other night, which, predictably, left me bawling. I don't know if it's the actors or the writing or just the story overall, that ending always leaves me in tears. And wanting to watch it again, which is never the best idea. Instead I think I will watch Castle and see if the kiss actually happens.

Big Bangs are gearing up. I need to finish taking my notes on that. I need to get my dumb ass in gear and start pounding through Long Road, ugh. Speaking of Jeffrey Dean Morgan. I need to do a lot of things, starting with writing and editing work. Fortunately, I seem to have figured out a writing schedule routine that works better for me when I'm doing editing work, so. I think I'll get to doing that, and stop blathering at you all. While I still have brain cells left. And chinese food. Mmm.