Posts Tagged ‘writing’

The Latest Idea: Dybbuks

Posted: September 26, 2012 in ideas, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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Leah’le, a character from the 1937 film “The Dybbuk”, who was possessed by the titular spirit. Based on the play of the same name by S. Ansky

Well, it seems I have a lot of creepy stuff on the mind lately: evil dolls; succubi; and now dybbuks. Anyone want to put down bets on what will be the subject for the next short story?

Anywho, I saw The Possession a while back (wrote a positive review of it) and just now I finished watching The Unborn (one of those movies that I enjoy but the critics just seem to hate). Both have to do with dybbuks, which if you are unfamiliar with, are spirits that were once the souls of humans but, according to Jewish mysticism, were barred from Heaven or turned away from God and became monsters that possess human beings, looking for a second chance at life.

Both these films got me thinking about dybbuks, and now I want to write my own story about a dybbuk (or maybe more than one; who knows?). Of course, it won’t be like The Possession or The Unborn, which follow the typical possession-exorcism story. Instead, I’ll probably try to make the dybbuk seem like a hero instead of a villain, and maybe I’ll mix in some British folklore while I’m at it (I’m not saying what or how, but I will say it involves dogs).

i’m not sure what sort of story I want to tell yet, but I’ll see what I can come up with. I just hope that I don’t accidentally summon something by thinking about it too hard like I did when I was researching succubi!

Getting Back Into Snake

Posted: September 24, 2012 in ideas, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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Remember when I said that after I finished that short story for class, I would jump right back into the exploits of my mafia-hunting serial killer the Snake? Well, it took me a day or so to get around to the first chapter (I had classes and homework, I wanted a chance to sit down and read a couple graphic novels, and then there was that errand downtown I had to run today, but why am I boring you with that?). I took a look at the opening I’d written and I was like, “You know, this sounded so cool when I first wrote it, but now it just seems kind of…extaneous and unnecessary.” So I cut out and rewrote the opening…and a bunch of other stuff. It was like I was taking the gristle off a slab of meat.

No, wait. It was like I was taking the fat out of fresh milk. Not as elegant a metaphor, but it’s a bit more original, and I give you all permission to use it after I’ve just used it.

So now on to the rest of the chapters, all thirty-three of them. I plan on doing some more backstory on some of the more major characters, plus making the Snake much more empaphetic, because honestly, when we finally meet him face-to-face (sort of; he wears a mask) in chapters three and four, he’s more sinister and scary, and not at all the kind of guy you want to root for. I also want to include the media’s portrayal of the Snake, make him like some sort of symbol for what the police could be doing with a nearly untouchable organized crime family, because if there’s one thing that can rile law enforcement up, it’s when journalists poke at police work (no offense meant for journalists who actually cover police stories and criticize them for whatever they may or may not have done).

All this in addition to the usual stuff that comes with editing. After that I’ll get into the outline and see what I can fix up. Maybe I’ll include some brushes with death and a new ending where the Snake not only faces off with the mafia family he’s sworn to destroy, but with the police officer and FBI profiler who’ve sworn to bring him in. There will be blood, betrayal, some literally deadly fights, love, character growth, and possibly an explosion or two.

I’ll also add in chapters where we see the underworld social order changing, because when you have a serial killer who’s killing your group’s members and getting away with it, you know others, both mafia and possibly otherwise, will try it too.

We’ll see what we get, but from the description I’ve just given, and the outline I’ve already written, it’s looking like a whole new novel. Hopefully it’ll be a better one too.

The First Draft Is Done, Thank God!!!

Posted: September 23, 2012 in Progress Report, short story, Writing
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First draft of what, you may ask? Well, I’ll tell you: remember that short story I had to write for my fiction-writing class that was taking forever and a half to get done? Well, I just finished the first draft for it and let me tell you, that piece of work was a piece of work! Sixteen pages, nearly fifty-four hundred words, and more literary-style writing than I’m used to.

Anyway, the working title of this story is Doll’s Game (no, this is not the short story about the creepy doll) and I’ll probably get around to editing it in a few weeks, before it’s due. In the meantime, I’d like to get back into Snake, make some adjustments to some of the work already done and go over the outline to see if there is anything I can improve upon for the latter half of the story. I’d also like to read some books I’ve been meaning to get to, but with the amount of classes and homework I do, do you think it’s possible? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Speaking of homework, I’ve got to get some done, so I’ll talk to all of you later. Bye!

Making An E-Book Doesn’t Sound So Hard Now

Posted: September 19, 2012 in Living and Life, Novel, Reflections, Writing
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I’ve always considered myself someone who’s not very good with computers beyond the Internet, Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, and the basic Excel spreadsheet. However, today in class, I realized that might not really be the case:

In my documentary class, we’re making documentaries in various forms on the Macs in our classroom. What are those documentaries about, you might be asking yourself? Well, they’re about us, each and every one of us in the class, and how we go about creating various works of literary greatness. I’ve already completed one project, using GarageBand to make an audio essay, and got an A on that. The project we’re working on now is a short video that we will create using Zoom cameras and iMovie, and to prepare we’re learning all the ins and outs of iMovie by creating short practice videos.

Now, normally I’m a little leery about using new programs and I usually need someone to hold my hand throughout most of the learning process. However today I was able to create a short, two-minute video commemorating the one-year anniversary of the Occupy protests with an old film clip of 1950s fashionable wear, several pictures of the Occupy protests, and a song by Bing Cosby. It wasn’t half-bad, and I was able to use a few special effects we hadn’t covered yet in class because I had the gall to check out the homework for today before class. Let me tell you, the sense of pride I felt by the end of the class was immense, and I could not wait to make the short film about my writing process (expect it to have a certain factor of creepy).

So this got me thinking. When I do consider going the self-publishing route (something I consider a lot, especially after I hear back from an agent or publisher saying they’re not interested in my work), I usually think the best way to get started would be by creating an e-book. And when I think of that, I usually consider using a service to create the e-book, because I’m not exactly a Bill Gates or Steve Jobs when it comes to technology.

But today I was able to use iMovie, and before that GarageBand, something that before the start of the semester I thought impossible for me. If I can learn to use those programs, then what’s to stop me from making the e-book myself on my laptop or on a school Mac and then upload it onto Amazon for a cheap $2.99 download price tag? Not only would it probably be cheaper and give me more control over my work, but it would show how serious I am about being a writer, that I would learn to use scary programs and ask for help with them just to get my work out there.

So if I do go the self-publishing route with my novels, you can expect that I’l try to do all the work myself in making the e-book (a regular book is a whole other story though, and much more expensive, so let me think on it before I come to any conclusions or decisions). And if you have any tips, let me know. I’d love your advice and help.

The Names Coincidence

Posted: September 18, 2012 in Reflections, Writing
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I wrote a post not too long ago about the strange coincidence of how the main character of my short story, “Aasif”, has a name that means “apologies” or “forgiveness”. And for those of us who have blogs on WordPress, we might’ve seen the article from Kimberly Packard, “What’s In A Name?” on Freshly Pressed, where she discusses the importance of the names we give characters in our stories (link’s right here if you haven’t read it yet: http://kimberlypackard.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/whats-in-a-name/).

And just now, I found out the name of the main character of the short story I’m writing for my fiction class, Renee, is French for “rebirth” or “born again”, which makes odd sense for a girl trying to establish a new identity for herself after being kept prisoner in a basement most of her young life. I just chose the name because I’ve always thought the name “Renee” carried with it a connotation of strength, like “I don’t care what happens to me, I’m going to get through it!”

I also just checked the name of my main character Zahara Bakur from my novel Reborn City: Bakur is from Abu Bakr, father-in-law to the Prophet Muhammad, one of Muhammad’s earliest followers, and according to the Sunni tradition, the first caliph after Muhammad’s death. I already knew all that from my research into Islam, but I was happy to learn that Zahara’s name means “shining” in Arabic. It makes sense, as Zahara is the main character, and she does “shine” the way for some of the other main characters throughout the Reborn City trilogy. But still, I had no idea when I named her that her name would be so suitable to her!

It’s just weird to me, how I choose these characters’ names based on some aspect or other of the name, and yet there’s a whole other meaning to the same names that I didn’t know about. I’m almost tempted to start looking through every other character I’ve created in the past couple of years just to see if any names have any cool significance I’m not aware of.

But for now, I’m just going to hold off. My short story’s gotten to a good stopping point, at least for this evening, so maybe tomorrow I can wrap it up. In the mean time though, anyone got any funny or interesting stories about characters they’ve given names to and the significance behind those names? I’d love to know.

Do Stories Evolve? Apparently They Do

Posted: September 18, 2012 in Progress Report, Reflections, short story, Writing
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I said a while back that while partying at a club near campus, I came up with an idea for a story that I could write for my creative writing class. Well, it’s been several weeks since then, and I’m still working on that short story. But let me tell you, it’s changed since the original idea popped into my head. It started out as a story about a girl who thinks she might be from the nineteenth century growing up in the twentieth century and being confused about her identity; then it lost the part where she actually was from the nineteenth century; and now the story, which was originally in first person, is now…well, it’s still first-person, but it’s the main character addressing someone else in the room with her.

There have also been minor changes along the way, things that do not really affect the story as much as these other changes have, but even as I’m trying to finish up the first draft, I’m finding myself amazed that a story still in the writing stages is changing so much. It started out as literary with a touch of supernatural strangeness, but the supernatural strangeness has been cut out and there’s just a literary story that’s unlike anything I’ve ever written before, mostly because I do not really care for literary with notable exceptions.

This makes me wonder about other stories I admire, and if they underwent huge changes in the midst of being written. I know Japanese manga and anime may have many plot changes as the story progresses, but that’s mostly because manga and anime for the most part are influenced by reader and viewer popularity, so a story arc might be added, changed, or cut out altogether in order to bring up the popularity of the story.

But did J.K. Rowling, who made me want to be a writer in the first place, make certain characters more or less prominent than she originally intended, or did Stephen King want to make Randall Flagg the leader of a whole cadre of demonic villains in The Stand? Did Thomas Harris originally intend for the Red Dragon to be a singer with a dark past instead of a sufferer of a cleft palate with a history of abuse and violence? And did George Lucas originally intend something more steampunk than regular science fiction when he first concieved Star Wars?

In actuality, other stories I’ve written in the past underwent huge changes (Ripple had a different ending in the first draft and Zahara Bakur of Reborn City was one of several main characters before she became the main character in my mind). But the scale of the short story I’m working on now (it’s title, for now, is Doll’s Game) is something I’ve never encountered before, so I’m wondering what this will lead to later. Is more change in store for me? Will I ever get a finished first draft? And what else do I have to discover about this story, what hidden tricks will I uncover next while writing it?

Tell me about your experiences. Did a story you wrote change a lot during the writing process? And how so? And did you like this change? Please tell me, I love to hear from others, especially those with more experience than me.

Translating “Snake” Into Russian

Posted: September 13, 2012 in Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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Chinese symbol for “snake” surrounded by a snake. Pretty cool, huh?

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve written about the Snake. Like, several weeks, at least.

Oh, for thsoe of you who don’t know, I’m working on two novels. One, a science fiction novel titled Reborn City, I’m trying to market to publishers write now. The other, a serial killer thriller called Snake, is in the middle of its first draft. Currently I’m working on chapter thirty-three of Snake, which isn’t very far in considering thrillers are notorious for having many chapters with less than ten pages per chapter.

One of the things I’m doing for Snake is that I’m also working on some Russian transliteration, as my main character speaks Russian throughout the novel. I’m working with one of my university’s Russian professors on this (and if he’s reading this, thank you so very much for your help), and he’s been a big help. It’s not always easy, though: according to my professor, getting phrases and words I’d normally use in English translated and then transliterated into Russian can be difficult, as I not only have to get across the meaning, but the intention as well. It’s like getting down on one knee and saying “I love you, will you marry me?” to a foreign girl in her native language, but you actually end up saying “love marry you” or “marriage me you” instead. The effect’s just lost.

Still, I think a pretty good job’s been done, and every bit of Russian up to chapter thirty-two has been transliterated. Hopefully when I see my professor again, I’ll have some easier phrases to translate. We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we? I know where I want to go with this story, but how I’m getting there and what happens in the meantime is still up in the air in some ways.

All for now. Talk to you later.

Aspects of Plot Can Make A Difference

Posted: September 11, 2012 in ideas, Reflections, short story, Writing
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I have an assignment for my creative-writing class: to write a short story and then turn it in at the end of the semester. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been writing about an orphan girl who finds out she’s not who she thought she was (and for those of you who think it’s a short story I started writing in May that I thought of during meditation, this is a different story, the one I thought of while out at a club one night). For a while now, it’s been slow-going, mostly because it’s less horror/sci-fi/fantasy and more along the lines of literary writing, which I’m not too fond of.

However, today I had an idea of where the plot would go, and what the actions taken by this girl and the places she would go could symbolically mean. Like that, I felt my writer’s block dissolve, the story forming for me in my head. So throughout the day, I’ve been working on this story, passing the minimum number of words required and getting well beyond.

Other stories I am working on that have been plot problems, I’ve been thinking of ways to improve them, and today I thought of ways to fix those too. One story, one involving a psychic girl who’s life is very unlike Carrie’s, I got an idea from an acquaintance on how to make the plot better, involving the girl leaving her home for the first time in her entire life. It should be an interesting story.

And another story, involving a school shooting, I’ve been working with on and off throughout the years. However, the story never gets any better. Today, I saw how it could be fixed. It’ll be a radical change for the story, but it might just work for the better.

Even after publishing a few short stories, I’m still learning about the importance of plot, among other things. Hopefully someday, I’ll be able to teach others the things I have learned. But for now, I’ve got a girl in a short story who is not psychic in the least who needs to realize her life needs a radical change. Talk to you later.

Something I Learned Today I Wish To Share With You

Posted: September 5, 2012 in Living and Life, Reflections, short story
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Now, you’re probably thinking, “Rami’s a college student at Ohio State. What’s so important that he wants to share it with us?” If you’re not thinking that, then I’m sorry for trying to read your mind and failing miserably at it.

But back on subject: I was talking with a friend of mine and I told him my short story, Aasif (which, if you have not read, can be found at this web address: http://mobiusmagazine.com/ ) was published over the weekend. Since my friend was right by a computer, I told him the web address and gave him the name of the story.

Now my friend, who is Muslim, saw the title and said, “Did you know that ‘Aasif’ means ‘sorry’ or ‘apologies’ in Arabic?”

No, I did not. Most likely, I got the name from Aasif Mandvi, the Indian-American correspondent from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, not caring what the name meant. But strangely that name, “Aasif”, makes sense for the character, given what happens to Aasif (and if you still haven’t read the story even though I posted the link above, read it now because there’s a spoiler alert after I close these parentheses): Aasif has to kill a child. Not only that, it’s a child he knows, and the possibility of facing the child’s parents after what he’s done grieves him horribly. He’s also worried because right afterward he killed the warlord Marda’ar, and he wonders if that will have reprecussions on him and his soul.

Now, I won’t get into whether or not Aasif’s problems have solutions; I will say though that I think that everyone has done something horrible, something we wish we could take back, and like Aasif, there’s no way we can. In a way, we can emphasize with Aasif because we’ve all been in his situation before.

Any thoughts on this? Oh, and if you’ve read the story, thanks for your patronage!

Aasif is Published in Mobius Magazine!!!

Posted: September 1, 2012 in Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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Oh, happy first day of Septhember! The Buckeyes are preparing to kick Miami of Ohio’s butt, the sun is shining, and a certain little short story got published! The web address for Mobius Magazine is down below. Once you get to the website, you’ll find my short story on the left under fiction. I hope you enjoy reading it.

This story was inspired by the Kony 2012 video that came out back in April, and you can definitely see the influence there. The story itself may have taken me a week to write, but I credit the fact that I had great inspiration behind it that it didn’t take longer.

Please feel free to tell me what you think of the story. Did you like it? Hate it? Was there a particular part that stuck with you? Did you think a certain character may have been a racist caricature of some ethnic group or another? Whatever your thoughts, please leave me a comment and let me know.

So, without further ado, here’s the address for Mobius Magazine. Hope you like what you read.

http://mobiusmagazine.com/

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