Posts Tagged ‘editing’

A Summary of My Twisted Imagination

Posted: March 31, 2013 in ideas, Reflections, Writing
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This morning I woke up with a memory and an idea: I remembered one time I let a friend of mine, whom I knew would not steal any of my ideas, look at the list of ideas for novels and other assorted creative endeavors. This was midway through high school and I’d probably just started the first draft of Reborn City. He sent it back to me with one note: Interesting.  A lot of ideas using magic here.

That was several years ago, like I said, and that Ideas List couldn’t have had more than 15 ideas on it at the time. Now it’s at 51 ideas and counting, and I thought I’d take inventory again. I went over the ideas, and I found some interesting numbers here. I share them with you now because they give insight into not only the sort of stories I like to write and create, but also gives an idea of who I am, and what my imagination gives birth to.

I’ll list these ideas, occasionally giving some information on why I gave these stats, and then I’ll tell you what I think of all these sorts of story ideas. You’re welcome to draw your own conclusions as well and tell me what you think. Also, please excuse the randomness of some of these stats. I listed them as they came to me. Also be aware that several of these ideas cross over with each other in terms of elements, such as serial killers crossing over with demons, science gone wrong featuring monsters, and so on and so forth.

Number of stories dealing with the supernatural: 29
–Number with ghosts: 6
–Number with monsters/demons: 26
–Number with magic: 24
–Number featuring God(s): 9

Trust me, plenty of stories featuring this sort of creepy stuff.

Number of science fiction stories: 9
–Number with science gone wrong as the main theme/driving force: 7

Number of crime/thriller stories: 17

Number featuring human antagonists: 33
–Number featuring serial killers/rapists/etc.: 25

Number of stories with strong female protagonists: 25

Number of ideas that aren’t for novels: 13
–Number of films: 3
–Number of TV shows: 2
–Number of comic books/mangas: 7
–Number of video games: 1

Number of ideas that are suitable for younger audiences: 1

As I said, I’d provide a little feedback on some of the numbers listed above. The first I’d like to draw your attention to is that most of my science-fiction ideas feature science gone wrong. Why? Maybe it’s got something to do with the fact that I sometimes wonder that our society, which is getting more technologically dependent with every passing day is going to find itself in a lot of trouble because of how much we rely on our technology. Although none of these stories feature Terminator-like elements, where the tech actually rises up to get us, I do think the stories do illustrate just how dangerous technology can be if we let it be the center of our existences, and shows just how paranoid I am about that happening. It may also explain why I always wait to try out new technology and social media until everybody else is using it. Makes it safer, I guess, at least in my strange mind.

Also, why did I emphasize stories with strong female protagonists? Because even in the year 2013, there are many novels/TV shows/movies/whatever where the female characters just fill a postition, often times to draw in male readers. And there are plenty of times when the female characters could be replaced by male characters and there wouldn’t be much change to the overall story. Imagine for one second that Hermione Granger from Harry Potter was a boy. How much would it change? The Ron/Hermione subplot would be taken out, but beyond that, there’d still be a smarty-pants character helping Harry figure out important stuff that’ll save his life later. Perhaps the readership, particularly the female readership, would be less, but it might still be a popular story.

Imagine how different this story would be if Katniss were a normal girl or if she were even a bad-ass boy? Not too fun to think about, is it?

So I write a lot of stories where female protagonists are like Katniss Everdeen: they’re indispensable to the plot. Change their gender or make them more meek or in a more traditional role, and you have by far a much less interesting story. Katniss is so popular not because she has two dreamy guys after her affections, but because she’s a kick-ass female with sharp-shooting skills and the determination to fight against a very corrupt system. All without showing off her boobs and butt as well. She’s something female readers want to be, and something male readers can fall for because of how different she is. So many of my female characters become like that, indispensable and not allowed to change or they would change the story for the worse.

By the way, I think that part of me that likes those characters might be due to my childhood, where I had a lot of women and girls around me all the time and where I had a lot of strong female role models in my life, including but not limited to my mother. In addition, a lot of the shows I watched when I was younger involved strong female main characters, most notably Sailor Moon (not afraid to put that out there, by the way). It’s no wonder i have so many strong female characters.

And finally, there’s the fact that one of my ideas is suitable for children. Unusual for a horror writer, right? But I recently discovered some of the old cartoons I used to watch when I was younger, and one of them I relly enjoyed watching again. I hope someday to reboot that as a movie, if I should ever have the money, power and influence to be able to do that. So I list it there, with the hope that I can someday be able to create a fun little movie reboot with jokes for both kids and adults and a plot that’ll draw in any viewer.

I sometimes think my subconscious looks a little something like this. Eerie to behold, right?

So what does all this say about me? Well, without the actual list it’s difficult to pull up any sort of psychological profile about me. But I think it does give you an idea of what sort of stories I’ll put out in the future, and what you can expect from some of them. So either you are either very psyched to read my work or you’ll never pick up a Rami Ungar book as long as you live. Either way, it gives you some idea of who I am and what I like to write. And I think that’s what I want people to get from this post.

Got any questions? Feel free to ask, and I’ll make up an answer as best I can.

I’m In A Bit Of A Slump

Posted: March 31, 2013 in Novel, Reflections, short story, Writing
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You’d think I’d do something a bit more festive for my 400th post. But no, all I got is some bad news.

Truth is folks, I’m in a little bit of a slump. I have two short stories that are not coming along like I want them to, and I feel absolutely no desire to work on either of them while I’m drained. Every time I sit myself down in front of a computer with the intention of writing, I find myself instead watching crime shows online or reading or playing Angry Birds on Facebook. Not only that, but I’ve been neglecting one short story I’ve been meaning to send to some magazine or another, but when you’re a full-time student with homework and a part-time job, you sometimes don’t feel like doing the research.

What I’d rather be doing is working on novels. I’d rather write or edit them or even research them. But the only novel I’m going to write anytime soon is Reborn City’s sequel, which I won’t start on until I’ve put out RC on the Internet, and my beta reader for RC is only halfway through the novel at this point. And although I have plans for a sequel to Snake, I want to wait a little while before I even think of starting the sequel to that, and besides, my beta reader for Snake’s been busy herself, so she hasn’t had a chance to start on it yet.

So what do I do in the meantime? Work on short stories, but those are harder for me than novels. Novels I can stretch out, go deep into the character’s history and identities and personalities, do all sorts of interesting twists and turns and create a whole mythology for. Short stories are compact, usually less than 10,000 words, and we writers have to fit a whole story into that amount of space. You can see where a guy like me, who grew up on a steady diet of novels, usually novels that were part of series, might encounter problems. The joke is that the short story is the novel’s neglected younger sibling, but really, it’s the sibling that requires more skill to handle.

So I’m in a slump. I have no idea what to do at the moment, with no novels t0 write, only the occasional chapter to edit, and two short stories whom I can’t seem to fully finish. Even when I come up with new ideas for novels, which I do a lot, I can’t work on them anytime soon, so that’s not helpful.

Any suggestions would be most welcome. They could be anything from tricks or strategies to help me finish the short stories to suggestions of something else I could try doing while I wait for inspiration and chapters to edit and whatnot.

And if you feel the same as me or have felt the same as me, please let me know. It’d make me feel better.

I’m A Semicolon Addict

Posted: March 20, 2013 in Reflections, Writing
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semicolon: a grammatical tool of punctuation used to indicate two interdependent statements.

If anyone has read a good deal of my writing, they’ll know I like using the semicolon a little bit too much. I didn’t realize how much I liked using it until recently though, when my friend Matt Williams, who is editing Reborn City, pointed out how many semicolons I use and started taking them out of the stories. And then the other day, while critiquing a classmate’s short story for our creative writing class, I noticed how often she used semicolons as well, and how periods or different ways of phrasing the sentence can really affect how the sentence and the paragraphs flows.

With all that in mind, I realized how much I used the semicolon, and how I was really better off not using it as I had. So I decided to get rid of it, and to come out here and admit that I’m a semicolon addict. However, I am working on getting over this habit. For instance, during the editing of Snake I started cutting out many of my semicoloned sentences and phrases, changing them so that they were either all one sentendce or two independent sentences. And on my latest short story, which I’m naming Vile, my aim is to write the entire story without using the semicolon once. Hopefully then I’ll be able to get over this habit that my writing can do without.

Oh, and speaking of habits, here’s one writing habit I picked up recently that I’m unsure of its origin. In a few short stories I’ve written, I’ll describe something in a sentence that manages to encompass the development of something over a long period of time into a few words. For instance, when writing about a character’s relationship with his girlfriend: “They first connected over their biology projects, then over their mutual interest in Gothic literature, and then finally they connected with their bodies”. Or in Vile, the main character describing what his wife had done while he’d been dead: “She had continued to live and thrive and undergo plastic surgery that allowed her to look like a college student again.”

You see those two sentences? They encompass so much, but say it in so little. I like it, but I can’t help but feel that I picked it up recently from some author I read either over winter break or in my American Lit class. Any ideas whom I might’ve picked it up from? Because I have absolutely no idea at all!

“Old Sid” Is Finished!

Posted: March 17, 2013 in Progress Report, short story, Writing
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Well, it took me a while, but I finally did it! I finished Old Sid, the second short story I submitted to my creative writing class. For those of you unfamiliar with it, Old Sid is about a bunch of students at Ohio State University trying to delve into the truth of Old Sid, an urban legend I made up for the short story (so don’t go online trying to see if Old Sid is a real thing, because it’s only a product of my imagination). The story is narrated from the point of view of several people at once, similar to what Jeffrey Eugenides did with his first novel The Virgin Suicides.

I ended up changing a lot with this draft, and at times I purposely got easily distracted just because it was slow-going and I wanted a break. But the story’s done, and I really like how it turned out. Old Sid has his Boo Radley moment where the characters realize he’s not a legend but very human, but it’s done in such a subtle way that it’s not right in your face. I think my teacher will like it when he reads it, especially since Old Sid is in the vein of literary fiction and I’m barely able to write horror in short story form with any amount of competence.

After I get my grades for the semester and some feedback on Old Sid, I might edit it again and send it off to a literary magazine, preferably one based in Ohio or better yet in Columbus. It’ll probably have a better chance in a local magazine, since a lot of people are very familiar with Ohio State in its home state than outside it (of course). I’ll let you know if I have any luck in that department. Wish me luck.

A Welcome To My New Followers

Posted: March 17, 2013 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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I’ve noticed that I’ve been getting a lot of new followers over the past month or so, and especially during these past two weeks. So with that in mind, I’d thought I’d extend a welcome to my new followers and thank them for deciding to follow me and read my blog. And to my returning followers, welcome back and thanks for continuing to read my blog.

Also, I wanted to clarify some things for the newest readers. Occasionally on this blog, you’ll see words and phrases such as The Quiet Game, Reborn City, or Snake. These are my works-in-progress that I’ll be self-publishing hopefully within the next year or so. Each is very different from the other, and are at different stages of getting ready for publishing. I’d like to take this oppurtunity to tell you all about each of them and to let those who are already familiar with the works in question how progress is coming along.

So without further ado, here’s a look at my WIPs:

The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones

TQG cover

This is a collection of short stories I’ll be putting out soon. I wrote these short stories over winter break and the beginning of spring semester, and it’s almost ready for publication. I’m just waiting for the US Copyright Office to get me my copyright and then I’ll be ready to upload this onto the Internet. Since the Copyright Office takes about two and a half months though, we’ve still got a bit of a wait to go before it comes out. So please be patient, and in the meantime you can read the description for the book on the page “Books by Rami Ungar” or watch the trailer below:

Reborn City

This is a science fiction novel about street gangs in a post-apocalyptic future I wrote in high school and that’s being reviewed by a beta reader before I prepare it for publication. The beta reader, Matt Williams, also happens to be a published writer and blogger, so you should seriously check out his blog here: http://storiesbywilliams.com/. Currently Matt’s halfway through the novel or thereabouts, and since he finished his latest novel Pappa Zulu, he’s been able to get the chapters back to me that much faster. I can’t wait to see what results from our collaboration.

Snake

This is a thriller novel I wrote over six months from June to December 2012 and follows a serial killer in New York who is hunting members of a powerful mafia family, his reasons for doing so clouded in mystery and in murder (how’s that for a description). I recently finished the second draft and have sent off the first four chapters to a beta reader I trust. Hopefully she’ll be able to let me know what she thinks very quickly. In the meantime, there are a few excerpts of Snake on this blog, so if you get bored you can probably go looking for them and find them.

Well, that’s all I’ve got. I hope this piqued your interest in some of my work. Once again, thanks for reading and agreeing to follow my blog. It really means a lot to me. Have a nice day, and I’ll post again soon.

Rami

Snake: The Second Draft Is Finished!

Posted: March 12, 2013 in Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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Well, isn’t today full of editing pluses! I edited a chapter of my science-fiction novel Reborn City, and I just finished the second draft of my serial killer thriller Snake. I’m not going to go into word counts or anything, mostly because I’m waiting for a phrase or two to be translated into Russian so I can add it in before I add up the latest word counts. However, I will tell you that I took away a few words and I added some, and still I think this novel got a little longer!

Anyway, I’ll be calling my beta reader for Snake tomorrow, tell her that she’s got a new novel to put on her computer tomorrow. I hope she likes it. Wish me luck, and let’s hope she gets through it quick. Wish me luck and if there are any updates, I’ll let you know.

Snake: Finished Rewriting A Chapter

Posted: March 11, 2013 in Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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I had to rewrite most of Chapter 91 of Snake, which is a part of the climax of the story. Why, you ask? Because the original scenario for this chapter, and for most of the climax because of this chapter, didn’t make sense in my head when I thought about it during the three months between the first and second drafts. So I rewrote most of it while still making sure that the story ended up going where I wanted it to go, which would be a final battle on the beach near the boardwalk in one of the Russian sections of New York City.

How’s the chapter look now? Well, I added a smidge more Russian to this chapter, I managed to keep some of the elements of the story I really liked (including a chase with a produce truck), and there’s still some battle and some bloodshed. Overall, I like this chapter, though I may add some more fighting and punching and kicking and whatever when I get this chapter back from my beta reader.

Well, I’m almost done with the second draft. Perhaps tomorrow or the day after the whole second draft will be done. Oh, and before I forget, I want to tell you guys that a few posts ago I messed up on how many chapters I had left. Snake has 98 chapters, not 92. So when I said I had 27 to go, I should have said 33. My bad.

I’ll let you know when the second draft is over. Wish me luck and good night.

Snake: 65 Edited, 27 To Go

Posted: March 7, 2013 in Novel, Writing
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I think this might have been in Harry Potter. What do you think?

I always think the editing process is going to be longer than it actually is. And yet I’m already done with Part III of the thriller novel Snake, which means I’ve only got a small stretch of the novel left to edit. I could be done by the end of the weekend if I don’t let myself get too busy or too distracted (though my homework could lead to some busy-work or distraction, so that’s something to calculate in).

So far, most of the editing has been taking out unnecessary words or changing certain things grammatically so that the story flows better. Also, I’ve noticed sentences that made sense to me three months ago at the end of the first draft make no sense to me now, so I have to do a lot of rewriting when I encounter those sentences, occasionally adding to my word count.

But I’m enjoying rediscovering the story I wrote from June to Decenber 2012, and seeing how fast-paced and at certain times shocking the story can be. I’m going to try to keep this up, and rewrite the final battle scene to be more exciting and less unrealistic, at least to me. But first, I have to get through Part IV, which has sone of the longer chapters in the story (and that’s saying something, considering the longest chapters are between 8 and 10 pages).

I’ll have more updates as time goes on. Wish me luck.

Snake: Editing the Prologue Through Part II

Posted: March 6, 2013 in Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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Since Saturday night I’ve been working on editing Snake, my serial killer thriller that I wrote over a period of six months last year. I took a break from it after I finished the last chapter in December and worked on several other projects, including The Quiet Game, in order so that when I returned to Snake again to edit it, I could look at it with fresh eyes.

So far I’ve been happy with the eyes I’m looking at it. For example, I”m seeing some things I wrote last time that I’m not too satisfied with, particularly in terms of phrasing. I’ve had to rewrite a few sections just to make it sound right in my head. I’ve also realized how disturbing I’ve made that novel, as last night’s post proved. And I also learned how fast-paced my novel is. I mean, the novel takes palce over several weeks, but it seems to be going so fast, going from event to event to event with a rabbit-like swiftness. If you have the free time, you could probably get through Snake in a couple of days.

So far I’ve gotten through thirty-five chapters, and I’m onto Part III, which is the longest part of Snake with twenty-nine chapters. If I can get through it in the same amount of time as I did with the first thirty-five chapters, I might be done with the second draft by the end of spring break, give or take a day or two. After that, I’ll hand Snake off to my beta reader, who’ll hopefully have the time to get through all the chapters in a timely fashion.

I hope.

I’ll let you guys know as things develop. Wish me luck.

I Was Disturbed This Evening

Posted: March 5, 2013 in Novel, Progress Report, Reflections, Scary Stuff, Writing
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I was editing a chapter of Snake this evening, when the Snake is torturing his third victim for information (on what, you ask? Read the book when it comes out). At some point during this chapter, the Snake becomes incensed by something his victim says to him and retaliates in a most gruesome manner. The thing is, I didn’t remember that I’d written that part the way I’d written it, which was fast, unforeseen, and totally horrifying in its inhumanity. It disturbed me a little, and I wrote the bloody scene over the summer! (By the way, no pun intended when I say “bloody”)

This is pretty ironic, seeing as I pride myself on being immune to most scenes of horror and death in fiction. But it also points out something: if I can be disturbed by a scene I created in a story I wrote, even just a little, and I knew that scene was coming, then what would the reaction be of someone who didn’t see it coming, and isn’t as desensitized to these sort of things as I am? I get a little excited just thinking about it.

It makes me wonder if I’ll be disturbed by any other scenes I’ve written in this thriller novel of mine. There are quite a few more murder and torture scenes to go through, so the likelihood is high that I might see something and feel a little twinge of horror, disgust, or queasiness. But if I do, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. After all, I write horror stories primarily, so if even I feel a little reaction from going over and editing a scene, I think that means I’m doing something right.

It can also point to how disturbed I am as a writer and possibly as a person, the way I have a character killed or how I describe the monsters in the story or how I build up to a terrifying conclusion in a certain scene. Critics will definitely wonder if I’m depraved (always possible), if I was traumatized as a child (yes I was, I wrote a post on it last year) or if I’m trying to corrupt my readers with this vile stuff I write (objection! I seek only to share and entertain while making a little money where I can).  But hey, if Stephen King and Anne Rice and Edgar Allen Poe can write some of the same stuff and survive the scathing criticism, why can’t I?

Besides, there are certain things those same writers above wrote that I do not plan to write (if you haven’t read Stephen King’s IT, please go to the Wikipedia page and read the last sentence of the second-to-last paragraph of the section titled 1957-1958 under Plot. You’ll understand what I mean). Even I have lines I won’t cross, though sometimes they don’t seem obvious to others.

Well, I’ll continue editing Snake and seeing what I find. Hopefully I’ll be able to find some more scenes, be disturbed when it’s necessary, and touch up some scenes to be more disturbing if I think it’s needed. Hopefully I’ll be able to create a novel that will catch on and cause a wave and be praised for its disturbing/thrilling/insert-advective-here aspects. That’s the dream, at least.

In the meantime though, I have to get ready for bed. I’ve got Abnomal Pyschology class in the morning, definitely one of my favorites, and I want to be awake when we discuss treating bipolar disorder. Good night, everybody.

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