Five Mystery And Suspense Tools To Drive Your NaNoWriMo Novel Forward

Always

Burn the bridges! otherwise you come back to the same roads

Platicas de Cafe

Querida Amiga: Cuanto gusto me causo su presencia del dia de ayer. Encuentro siempre que las bondades del ser humano son mayores cuando hacen acto de presencia, y en ellos muestran su aprecio y bienaventuranza a quien los recibe. Cuantas cosas no compartimos bajo las terrulias de cafe y pan, que no fueron de licor y vino, para no exaltar nuestras emociones en impetus juveniles que comprometen mas alla de la amistad, y agradezco la prudencia y sapiencia suya, al escoger cafe y pan sobre el licor y el vino. El cafe tiene ese sabor rico, que despierta en una manana venteada, y oye el susurrar del viento mientras una buena lectura de Ana Karenina se sostiene en las manos. Y dentro de esos momentos agradables, aun recuerdo cuando tuvo a bien aproximarse, y en una parte de sus discursos dijo estar cansada de decir una y otra vez lo que no entienden otras personas. Parecia estar angustiada por lo que otros no comprendian de usted, y en mi afan de querer ayudar, si es que me lo permite, me quede pensando y realice que usted no necesita entender a las personas; solo aceptarlas como son. No hay mucho que deba agregar a este comentario por cuanto aceptar es querer a la persona como es, por cuanto no se trata de nulificar a uno para justificar al otro, y menospreciar al uno en exaltacion al otro, por cuanto hay un respeto envuelto en ambas personalidades. Espero fervientemente que estas escasas lineas le puedan servir para clarificar ideas, y admito, que es mi deseo poder ayudarle con las interrogantes que de repente encontramos en este mundo, atribulado por las interrogantes que no encontramos. Sin mas por el momento, quedo de usted.

Project and Team Management

Project and Team Management is an interesting class. No project is done, if there is no involvement of people in it. In other words, people make the projects, and the project may or not work depending on the skills, talents, and willingness of people involved in it.

That is the main purpose of this class. Every project has five main areas that a team management would seek, in order to assess where the best resources are to get the job done: People, Resources, Places, Personalities and Budgeting.

How a project management will achieve the goal of increasing a production of cars from five hundred to one thousand in a day? Can we build the same cars with the same people, with the same resources and budget?. Changes in the process means changes in management.

Welcome to team management.

A team in the company is important to achieve success. A team that “manage” all the changes in the environment from planning, execution and control.

What resources do we have? What places are available? How do we connect different places with same policies at the same time? Do we use the Internet, do we use the web to get the messages to our partners all around the globe?

If we want to produce more, who is the leader that will challenge his team to get a little further? What skills and traits does every single person have to get the project done?  What kind of leadership do we have at the other side?  Is it a shark, an owl, a turtle, a teddy bear? What about the personality? Is it a dominant personality? Is it an influence personality? Is it a steadfast personality? Is it a Compliance personality? http://www.123test.com/disc-personality-test/

In real world, how do we combine all these types of personalities in a working place?  Is it one better that the other one? Do we take advantages of every single personality to produce a meaningful and diverse team that achieve the goal of producing more? How?

Welcome to Project and Team Management, where knowledge is the key to open a world of opportunities to make things happen, and get the job done.

Just do it with knowledge. Knowledge is Project and Team Management.

  LINK: http://www.tumblr.com/dashboard

The future of communication. (via Expletive Inserted)

How To Write Friendships Pt. 2

🦢        ―        &. FRIENDSHIPS . ( steps to develop friendships )

4) Give Them A History That Shines Through.

By no means do you want them to seem like they just met each other yesterday, if your two friends have known each other for a while now. What you need to do is throw out hints that these friends have known each other for a while ― you need to make the readers curious about these two friends and their history with each other.

And even if your characters meet within the timeline of the story, sneaking in hints that these characters are learning more about each other is a great way to develop your friendship.

Here are a few ways to show that:

1) Give Them An Inside Joke.

2) Give Them A Silly, On-going Argument.

Friends aren’t always going to agree on everything and their points of conflict don’t always have to be some dramatic issue ― they can be arguing over which one is better: Star Trek or Star Wars, they can argue over whether pineapple belong on pizza or not or maybe they argue over who is the taller one.

Giving them a silly, ongoing argument will make the characters feel real and simultaneously reveal different shades of their personality. Not only that, but it also offers a window into how they handle arguments between themselves. Who is the one that gets really worked up? Who is the one who makes all the great points?

3) Utilize Nonverbal Communication.

When you can start communicating with someone without words, that's when you really know someone. For example:

Let your characters be comfortable sitting in silence with each other

Use gestures and facial expressions to convey meaning to each other

Give them an unspoken rule

One friend asks a question, the other answers with silence

They can predict what each other are going to do

5) Create A Glue.

What is keeping your friends from parting ways? Without something to keep them together, your characters might grow apart. What is the glue that keeps this friendship intact? This can be a character, a goal, or the two of them are just thrown into a situation where they can't get away from each other.

One friend is the gardener of the other

The two of them must deliver a secret message to a Jedi

They both go the same extracurricular club 

They are toys who both have been captured by an evil kid who likes to torture toys

One friend can't  achieve his story goal without helping the other friend win a cart race

6) Create Meaningful Scenes.

Now that you have all the key components to an amazing friendship, it’s time to develop it through your story. Insert a few key friendship moments in your novel and show your reader the power of this relationship. 

Here are some ideas:

One friend gives the other a gift

They play a game together

They share a jacket 

They eat food together

They teach each other something

One friend gives the other a foot massage

7) Don't Make Their Relationship Perfect.

People aren’t perfect, and your friends can’t get along together all the time. But that doesn't mean you should stuff in a bunch of contrived conflict between your friendships. Instead, set up situations that will naturally occur because of who these characters are, and what they believe.

Maybe their differences get the better of them, maybe they react differently to a pivotal event in your novel, maybe one of the friend's internal demons gets the better of them, and the other friend has to call them out on it. This only results in more tension between them. This is an especially brilliant method to enhance a character arc.

Or simply make their friendship a more complex. Perhaps your two characters look out for one another, but they are always being compared to one another, and they need to overcome their deep feelings of jealousy for each other or they work well together, but one friend is keeping a lot of secrets from the other.

These complications and character differences not only add to your story, but watching these characters overcome these obstacles and still come out as friends makes your friendship feel more real, deep, and deserved.

ReThink Review: Fresh Off the Boat (eps. 1-4) - Thanks, Asian America Needed That

Writing Tips

Scene Checklist

Does your scene include everything it should?

「 note: this is for the editing stage; remember, first draft is for the writer & editing is for the reader; get it down before worrying about these things unless it is just for practice 」

✧

ACTIONS

↦ are the actions necessary?

↦ are the verbs as descriptive as possible?

↦ do the actions match the character? why did the character take those actions?

↦ are the actions clear?

DIALOGUE

↦ what is the purpose for each statement?

↦ does each statement move the story forward?

↦ are the dialogue tags as descriptive as possible?

↦ does the dialogue match the character? why did the character say those things?

EMOTIONS

↦ are each character’s emotions clearly stated or implied?

↦ are the character’s emotions justifiable?

↦ how does the character’s emotions affect their actions?

LANGUAGE

↦ are you showing or telling?

↦ does the scene have clarity & coherence?

↦ does the scene have the desired tone, mood, & voice?

PURPOSE

↦ is this scene necessary? (if removed, would the story still make sense?)

↦ are there stakes at risk in this scene? is there tension?

↦ has something changed from the beginning to the end of the scene?

↦ possible purposes: advance the plot? reveal character goal? increase tension? develop character? reveal conflict? react to conflict? explain backstory? foreshadow? build world? reinforce theme, tone, or mood?

SETTING

↦ will your reader clearly know the setting throughout the scene?

↦ room? house? city? state? country? planet? galaxy?

↦ time of day? season of year? weather?

↦ chronologically within story?

STRUCTURE

↦ is there a distinct beginning, middle, and end?

↦ is the chronological order of events clear?

↦ does the scene smoothly transition from one to another?

✧

DWIGHT SWAIN’S SCENE VS SEQUEL

↦ Swain believed scenes should repeat these sequences in order to keep the interest of the reader piqued

↦ Swain says “a scene is a unit of conflict lived through by character and reader” & “a sequel is a unit of transition that links two scenes”

↦ scene: goal, conflict, disaster

⟿ goal: character’s decision to do something for a purpose

⟿ conflict: something opposing the character’s ability to achieve goal

⟿ disaster: a disruption or turning point to keep the readers hooked

↦ sequel: reaction, dilemma, decision

⟿ reaction: character’s emotional/analytical reaction to the disaster

⟿ dilemma: what should the character do now

⟿ decision: what does the character do now

↦ does your scene have one of these three-part patterns?

DWIGHT SWAIN’S MRU

↦ MRU: motivation-reaction units

↦ these are for alternating sentences or paragraphs

↦ motivation: objective thing your character externally senses (what happens?)

↦ reaction: subjective response your character internally has (how does your character react? feeling, reflex, action, dialogue?)

↦ this is very difficult to follow, especially without practice, but it is a way to guarantee your reader’s interest & attention

Todos piensan en cambiar el mundo, pero nadie piensa en cambiarse a sí mismo.

Leo Tolstoy (via elcielosobremi)