Wait, you did what? With who? WHERE??

This month's Ramble topic is about Getting to Know Your Hero/Heroine, (not heroin, that's a whole different subject...)

If you're writing a story, there's a pretty good chance you have characters in it. Even if your tale is composed entirely of inanimate objects, there's going to be some personality, some history, some purpose to those objects. So how do you make them believable people? How do you portray them in a way that will make your readers not only understand them, but care about them?

Starring:
There are several ways I go about this in my own writing. One way I find effective is to picture my story as a movie that I'm watching in my head, and then try to decide which actor/actress would play the role of that character. Then I develop my own character as played by... Robert Duvall, or Al Pacino, or whoever fits what I'm writing. Now, typically I don't base my characters after the Hollywood stars themselves, (unless I'm writing a contemporary story about drug addicts and alcoholics.) Instead, I pick a role they have played in a movie I've seen and loosely base my character on the character from that film. I say loosely because I don't want to straight up steal someone else's character... more like I just suck the soul of them and create my own monster.

Thanks for Taking the Time:
Another great way to create and get to know your characters is to interview them. As the creator of their world, you're already imagining your characters in all sorts of situations, scenes, and relationships. It shouldn't be too much harder to imagine them sitting in a chair across from you answering a list of interview questions such as:

• What's your name? Do you have a middle name? A nickname? Where did your nickname come from?
• Where are you from? What was it like growing up there? Do you have any favorite stories from your childhood?
• Do you have any secrets? Any that you're willing to share?
• How did you end up where you are today? Do you like your life, are you satisfied? What would you change, given the chance?
• What are you looking for in life, in relationships, in employment? What are your inner dreams and deepest fears?

You get the idea. Now, chances are, 90% of the answers you get from your characters will not end up in the story. At least, not directly. But now you have more than just the cardboard cutout of a person. You have a fully fleshed-out, living, breathing human being with fears, hopes, a past, a future, etc. (Side Note; I recently learned that "etc" really stands for: End of Thinking Capacity, hehe) So even if you don't use most of the answers from you interview, you've created the information so that, as you're chugging along in your tale, if a detail suddenly pops up about your character, say someone wants to know his/her middle name, you've already learned that fact in your interview and can more readily plug it into the story and move on.

That Was Supposed to be Me?
Another way you can create believable characters is to base them--again, loosely--on people you know. This is the easiest, and I think most common, way for new writers. After all, they say, "Write what you know" and who do you know better than your friends and family?

However, this is dangerous ground to trod. You may think you're portraying someone you love in the best light possible, but the fact is, you can never truly know someone else's inner thoughts, feelings, motivations. You may think you got the details right, only to find that your loved one doesn't see themselves that way and is offended at their portrayal.

So, two suggestions if you're going to model characters after people you know: Don't tell them, and don't ask permission. If you tell them, they may be offended at what you wrote. If you ask them first, they may then try to take over your writing and say things like, "I wouldn't react that way" or "Man, it would be so much cooler if I..." The bottom line is, this is your story, and these are your characters. Don't let someone else try to control what your characters are doing. Your plot will suffer for it every time.

So what if someone recognizes himself in your story? Simply say, "Wow, I'm glad you found that character so believable that you could relate to them."

In his book, "Character and Viewpoint", Orson Scott Card warns against using loved ones as character models and talks about how to create characters who've done things that you don't know anything about, such as murdering someone. He says:

"There is one person you can always interview, however, who will tell you much more of the truth than others ever will--yourself. You can imagine what it would take to get you to behave in a certain way. 

So what if you've never murdered somebody? Haven't you ever been blindingly angry? Haven't you ever longed for cold revenge? You've felt all the emotions, all the motives. All you have to do is imagine those feelings and needs being even stronger, or imagine you inhibition against violence being even weaker."

As the author, you need to know your characters. Be they people, animals, spirits, rocks, or whatever your story needs, there should not be a single person in existence who knows more about them than you . After all, they're going to change the very world you've created for them. Take the time to get to know them.

Finding Your Muse

The Ramble Topic for this month is Finding Your Muse. That's easy, I got mine right here:

Ok, I don't think that's the Muse we're supposed to be talking about. (Though, for the record, I am going to this concert)

I've heard many professional writers say the most annoying question they get asked is "Where do you get your ideas?". Now, I'm no professional, not yet, but even I've been asked this question more than once. So, where do I get my ideas? The simple answer is: Anywhere and everywhere.

Now, I know that doesn't really narrow it down, so I'll explain. The ideas for my stories most often start with the question, "What if...?" It can strike any time of day, during any activity, in any place. No matter what I'm doing, something will catch my attention, and my mind will ask, "Well, what if...". And suddenly I have a seed for a new story. I'd say upwards of 90% of these What If's go unanswered. There are just too many for me to fully flesh out into solid story ideas. Besides, not all of them are worth exploring. But every now and then, a spark of an idea will ignite in my tiny, chaotic mind and will begin to spread like a wildfire. At some point, the fire will become large enough that my conscious brain will take note and start exploring the possibilities; creating characters, developing plot, assigning setting, etc. That's when the real fun begins.

For example, I was playing Halo 3 ODST a few years back (great game, my favorite campaign story of the entire series, for anyone who's interested). I was trying to complete the level very quickly, and at one point, I climbed into a 4-wheel drive vehicle (known as a warthog) and drove as fast as I could through a narrow canyon past all of the enemies without bothering to fight them. As I swung wide around an approaching enemy tank, with several infantry units shooting at my passing vehicle, I thought to myself, this is kind of cool, traveling as fast as I can and hoping that I don't get blown up before I make it out. Then the question popped into my mind, What if there was a high speed train on an alien planet that ran between two settlements through a canyon infested with deadly creatures, and the train had to keep up its top speed or the creatures could land on it and tear it apart?

Thus my short story, "Riding the Titanium Bullet" was born.

Another time I proofread a story for a friend. It was a good idea fairly well written, but the ending fell flat. In trying to help my friend I suggested an alternate ending that I thought would be much cooler and would fit the story better. Unfortunately, though he liked the idea, my friend said that was not the type of story he was trying to tell and dismissed the suggestion. No big deal. However, I couldn't get that ending out of my head. The idea pestered me to the point that I actually asked my friend if he would mind if I wrote a story similar to his but with my ending. He had no problem with that, however, before I started writing, my subconscious mind struck again(!) and asked the question, What if, rather than the ending, my idea was actually the beginning of the story? The  more I thought that through, the more I liked it. So in the end, I wrote a story that takes place a thousand years after the original ending I came up with, but was directly influenced by the events of that ending.

And my story, "Adam" was created.

Sadly, neither of these have been published, but they do serve a point here. Ideas can come from anywhere. The next time you're struggling to find the kernel of a story, or you're just struck by something interesting, an idea or an image, stop and ask yourself "What if...?".

Just be sure to have a notebook handy.

PseudoPod Flash Horror Finals

I'm updating this post to reflect the current status of the contest. As the previous post said, I entered two stories into PsuedoPod's Flash contest. Horror stories, 500 words or less. I don't typically write horror, and telling a story in 500 words, a complete story, is very difficult. So I decided to accept the challenge.

The contest started out with 153 entries, broken up into fourteen groups of eleven stories each. Over the last two months, the groups were released on the Escape Artists forums one at a time, and the participants were given a few weeks to vote for their three favorite stories in each group. The top stories were moved on to the semi-finals round, where there were six groups of seven. The entries were then whittled down to the final eighteen stories, all in one final round of voting. The top three will be published in audio format on PsuedoPod in the near future.

Both of my stories made it to the semi-finals. Sadly, one of them, "Umbra" came in last in its semi-final group and is now out of the contest. However, I am thrilled to be able to say that my second story has made it into the finals!

The rules of the contest forbid me from revealing which story is mine, but I am allowed to point people who are interested in supporting either me, or the contest, to the forums with instructions on how to participate. From there I can only hope that my stories are the ones you end up voting for.

So, for those who like horror stories, and want to (hopefully) support my writing, here are some basic instructions:

First, go to forum.escapeartists.net. From there you will see a place to login or register for the forums. You'll have to register in order to access the contest, but it's a simple registration, all they want is a username, email, and password. Once you've submitted your info, you'll receive a verification email. Follow the link in the email to complete your registration.

Once you're logged in, scroll down until you find the category "The Arcade". Beneath this category is a subcategory entitled, "Contests" with a child forum called, "Flash Contest III - PseudoPod". Click on this link.

Before you can actually view the entries, you have to quickly prove that you are not a spambot, so click on the forum called, "Questions, Comments, Concerns?" and on the right hand side, click "Reply" and add a simple comment such as, "Hello"; anything just to enter a post. Once that's done you'll automatically be granted access to the contest groups, which will appear above the Contest Rules group.

From there, read the entries and vote for your top three in each group. You're welcome to read all of the entries through the first fourteen groups, but the voting is already concluded on those as are the semi-finals. At the bottom of the list you'll find the "Final Round" post. My story is in there, along with the other seventeen finalists. Keep in mind, this is a horror contest, so some of the stories might make some people a bit squeamish, but honestly, most of the stories are not too graphic or terribly disturbing.

Voting for the Final Round closes the morning of May 9, 2013.

Thank you to everyone who chooses to participate in the contest and for your willingness to support me and my writing. I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I have. Have fun!

What I Learned at LTUE 31

If your first question is, "What the heck is LTUE?", then maybe you need to start out at our group blog: www.writersramble.com. That saves me from the redundancy of explaining it twice.

LTUE this year was fantastic. Even after four years of attending this conference, I'm still learning new things about writing, publishing, storytelling, sci-fi and fantasy in general, and networking. I got to chat with and learn from several of my writing mentors such as Tracy Hickman, David Wolverton/Farland, Eric James Stone, and Brad R. Torgersen. I met several new authors like, Dan Willis and Eric Swedin. And I got to hang out with my writing group friends and make new friends as well.

I attended some very interesting panels on things such as What You Need to Know About Writing Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Space Travel without Warp Drive, and How to Write Humor without Slapstick. I intend to post articles in the coming weeks and months about each of the subjects I learned from at LTUE, but decided to start off by sharing what I learned from a panel called: Everything I Need to Know About Writing I Learned From The Matrix, by J. Scott Savage.

I love the Matrix. It's arguably one of the best science fiction stories of all time. Just the original, mind you. The sequels are arguably some of the worst sequels of all time. But the original story is brilliant. On this panel, Scott Savage broke down what makes this story so great, not by breaking down each scene or beat, but by looking at the structure of the tale and how it captures our hearts and minds.

The first thing that Scott talked about was starting your story with a conflict. Most new writers today don't follow this concept. They want to show their protagonist in everyday life to give us a sense of what's normal before the conflict arises, or they want to build up the world before they introduce their characters, or they want to give us a history lesson to "properly" frame the tale. This is inevitably boring for the reader. The author may find it fascinating because they spent so much time creating this world, but we, the readers, just don't care.
 
You start with conflict to draw the reader in. If your story isn't built to begin with your protagonist in conflict, then put someone else in conflict first. The Matrix starts with Trinity getting cornered by the police. There is a quick fight scene, a chase between Trinity and the Agents, and it ends with Agent Smith smashing the phone booth Trinity was just in with a dump truck, though she mysteriously escapes. This creates intrigue. This hooks the reader. And this all takes place before we ever meet Neo.

As mentioned above, you may have an encyclopedia of backstory and world history that you've developed for your story. Don't tell it all right up front. I know you may be anxious to get it out, but the more you can hold back from the reader, the more intrigue you will create. The best way to withhold this information is to keep your characters busy, keep them constantly moving forward so there is no time for them to sit back and study the situation. They have to learn on the fly and thus so will your readers.

Success and Failure cycles are very important to a story. The best way to make your protagonist's successes emotionally powerful, and therefore the story emotionally powerful, is to first make them fail. A lot. Over and over. The more they fail, the more we root for them. And it creates believability. Most people don't succeed the first time. If you're a writer, you already know what I'm talking about. And some people never succeed. Make the reader accept the possibility that the hero might fail. It keeps the reader on guard and makes your story unpredictable. 

Take every opportunity to increase the tension in your story. The more tense it can be, the better. Scott gave a list of six ways to ratchet up your tension:

1. Isolation: Isolate your character physically, emotionally, or psychologically, so they feel alone in some way. At the end of The Matrix Neo gets cut off from everyone else when Agent Smith shoots the phone line just after Trinity escapes.
2. Disorientation: Put your character in a situation they are not familiar with. Your character needs to discover the world around them. No one in the story is less familiar with the Matrix than Neo, even the little kids at the Oracle's place.
3. Misdirection: Get the character to focus on something other than what is really going to happen. Ask yourself, What do I want the reader to see, and what do I want them to miss? The Oracle tells Neo he's not The One, so he (and we) don't think he is until Morpheus tells him the Oracle was telling him, "...exactly what [he] needed to hear."
4. Bigger Obstacles: Give the character an impossible obstacle, then make it stronger, or increased in numbers. Neo is told that fighting one Agent is akin to suicide. Then at the end, he faces three.
5. Time Limits: An artificial time limit can increase the tension greatly. This doesn't necessarily mean a ticking bomb. Neo has to get back to the Nebuchadnezzar before the Sentries tear it apart.

Finally, Scott pointed out something that in all my years of attending writing conferences, workshops, lectures, and writing groups, I’d never heard. And that is the idea of Tracking Your Characters’ Decisions. The best way to show what type of people your characters are is through the decisions they make. You can spend an entire story telling your readers that someone is good, or bad. But until they see that character decide to do something good, or something bad, it’s just words. 

Cora was a good person, in every way possible. She stood for justice and fought corruption wherever she found it. Thinking about this, she smiled as she cut the rope from which dangled the whimpering Senator Daye. As the senator plunged to his death, she knew she was doing the tax payers, even the world, a great favor.

See? I can tell you all I want that Cora is a good character. But her actions speak for her as she murders the good senator. Now this is a pretty simple example, but it also speaks to another point. Both your hero and your villain need to be anxiously engaged in a noble goal. Yes, even the villain, though what may seem like a noble goal to her, such as killing a corrupt politician, may still be viewed as evil by the hero and/or the reader.

If you haven’t seen The Matrix, and even if you have, go watch it. Watch for these elements throughout. Then watch some of your other favorite Hero’s Journey style stories such as Lord of the Rings or Star Wars and see if you can pick out these same elements. I guarantee you they’re there.

Writing Groups; The Good, The Bad, and the Wary

One year ago this month I was at the writers’ conference, Life, The Universe, and Everything down in Orem, Utah, sitting in the main conference room awaiting the start of the next panel discussion, when author Dan Wells stood up and loudly asked everyone in the room who was interested in joining a writing group to raise their hand. Many of us responded, to which Dan replied, “After this panel, all of you go into the next room, meet each other, and form your writing groups.” I met most of the members of my writing group that day. A few have dropped off, and a few more have joined, but overall, the core of our group came from that meeting.

Since the idea for our group blog, The Writers Ramble, came from our writers group, we decided it would be appropriate for our first discussion to be about writing groups; what they are, how they work, what purpose they serve, and what you should be wary of.

So, why join a writing group? I heard it said once that the first draft of a story is for you, the second draft is for your readers. If you’re someone who writes simply for the enjoyment that you get out of writing, and you have no intention of ever publishing your work, then a writing group may not be necessary for you. However, if you have aspirations of publication, it’s imperative to learn how to write for others.

Now, that doesn't mean that you have to sacrifice your style or taste to please the general masses. That’s selling out. Write what you want to write. However, if you want your tale to reach a vast array of people, then you need to learn how to craft a story that will move someone’s heart, stimulate their mind, or some combination thereof. For that, it’s best to have a group of people who can read your work and give you feedback on what touched them, what bored them, what made them laugh, and what offended them.

How does it work? Our group, affectionately nicknamed the Word Vomit Writers’ Group, meets once a week to discuss stories or chapters submitted the week before by our members. These meetings can be done in many different ways. Some groups like to meet physically, others submit works to each other via email or other means. They then critique the work and send it back. Our group meets online in a Google Hangout. This works for us because we get that face-to-face time, but in the convenience of our own homes.

So what are the pros and cons of a writing group? I've put together a list of five reasons to join a writing group and three warnings.

The Good.

1.      Feedback

      The best way to improve your writing is to share it with others and gather their opinions. Based on the feedback you get, you can add or remove aspects of the story to make it a stronger piece. This doesn't mean you must change everything that someone suggests. It's your story. But if several people comment on the same issue, it would be wise for you to consider revising it.

2.      Knowledge

You can learn a lot about writing from books, blogs, school, or just practicing your writing in general. However, there is not enough time in the day for you to read every book, blog, and lecture out there on writing. By meeting regularly with a group of people also focused on learning the craft of writing, you can tap into their knowledge and learn from the books and lectures they've learned from, thus increasing your own knowledge.

3.      Networking

A good friend of mine, and a member of my writing group, Jayrod Garrett, once pointed out that, though we can attend different writing conferences and workshop to meet successful authors and network with them, it is the other aspiring authors around us who will be our peers in the future as we all grow and become published. Spending our time together, helping each other to improve our craft, will help lift us all up together.

4.      Friendship

This last year, as a member of our group, I have formed some wonderful friendships that I believe will last for years to come. I've met new people through these friends, thus making more friends. And if there's one thing we can all use a little more of, no matter who we are, it's friendship.

5.      Fun

We have a blast at our meetings each week. Typically we spend the first hour—when we are supposed to be having some sort of writing activity—chatting and goofing off, sharing things we've read or seen, and just having a good time. I look forward to our meetings every week, and only some of that excitement has to do with the writing.

The Bad.

1.      Un-productivity

As I said, one reason to join a group is to learn from the other members. And if you are still a fledgling writer, with a lot to learn, it’s to your advantage to join a group of people whose skill is greater than your own. However, as you grow and learn and improve in your writing, you have to avoid groups where the other members have nothing to teach you. If you are the most skilled writer in your group by a long shot, then all you’re doing is teaching writing, not learning about it. And that’s very noble of you, but you may not be growing from it.

Currently, our group is all about the same skill level. We are learning a great deal and sharing that information, so our meetings are very productive. If this ever ceases to be the case, it will be time to consider leaving the group.

2.      Mismatched Members

When I first began searching for a writing group I was invited by someone I met at the meeting of a local chapter of a writing club to join her group. I was honored and pleased to be allowed in. The first week I was a member, I received the submissions of a few other members for review. I’m almost ashamed to say it, but I hated every piece. It’s not that the writing was bad (though few were gems), but the subject matter was so far outside of my own interests that I couldn't begin to allow myself any emotional involvement in the tales. I realized that I would not be a productive member of that group because I couldn't advise them in ways to improve a story that I held no interest in.

You need to seek out people who share common interests and probably write or read in the same genre as you. However, you should also have some variety in your group. If you all write the same stuff, you will limit yourselves on what you can learn. Our group has writers of sci-fi, high fantasy, urban fantasy, contemporary fiction, horror, and even some historical fiction. 

3.      Stagnation

As I keep saying, the great thing about writing groups is being able to learn from its members. Eventually, however, you will all have learned what each other likes, thinks, expects, etc. You will run out of ways to productively help each other. This stagnation will only hurt your writing. Either you will cease to improve in your writing, or you will begin to write specifically for the members of your group, for which your writing will suffer.

The bottom line is that a writing group can be a wonderful thing if you find the right group of people. Look for people with interests and skill levels similar to, if not greater than your own. Try to offer constructive advice on the other members’ works and be gracious in accepting criticism of your own writing. Be a productive and contributing member. And if/when you feel you are no longer gaining anything from your group, politely thank them for the time you've had together and begin the process of searching for a new group that will suit your new needs.

Passive Voice Was Used to Write This Post

One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced in my own writing, something that I struggle with in every manuscript, has been writing in the passive voice. Passive voice is often seen as lazy and amateur writing. So I decided to focus this particular post on passive voice; what it is, how it works, how to avoid it, and when it is appropriate.

To begin with, let’s talk about what passive voice is. According to the Writing Center at the University of North Carolina: “A passive construction occurs when you make the object of an action into the subject of a sentence.” If you remember your basic sentence structure lessons from elementary school, you know a sentence is typically composed of a SUBJECT (actor/doer), a VERB (or predicate) and often times an OBJECT. Allow me to illustrate using ninjas, pirates, and zombies.

Izumi’s blade sliced clean through Mitsuko.

In this sentence, Izumi’s blade is the SUBJECT, sliced is the VERB or action, and Mitsuko is the OBJECT. If this sentence was to be written using passive voice, we would take the OBJECT, Mitsuko, and place him in the position of the SUBJECT at the beginning of the sentence, like so:

Mitsuko was sliced clean through by Izumi’s blade.

This sentence says the exact same thing and yet is less direct, less interesting, and longer. Here’s another example:

 

Passive: The Cutter was knocked off course by the blusterous storm.
Active: The blusterous storm knocked the Cutter off course. 

You may think that the ship would be the subject of this sentence, and in its current position in the passive sentence it is. But who/what is the actor/doer? The storm. The storm is performing the action—knocking— against the ship, therefore it is the subject of the sentence and the ship is the object. 

One reason to use Active rather than Passive Voice in your writing is to add strength and credulity to your words. Passive Voice is seen as soft, or weak. It is less direct and thereby less interesting. Consider:

The zombie was blasted in the face by Jackson’s shotgun.
vs.
Jackson blasted the zombie in the face with his shotgun.

Isn’t the active sentence much more direct and action oriented? In the first sentence, the zombie was acted on by Jackson. In the second, Jackson acted upon the zombie. Yes, it means the same thing, but it makes Jackson rather than the zombie the doer/actor and adds immediacy to the action that the first sentence lacks.

The active voice is also the natural voice. We as human beings tend to think, see, and speak in active voice. When we watch something happen, we see the subject acting on the object. Rarely do we view it from the object’s point of view. 

Another reason to avoid using Passive Voice is that it tends to create ambiguity and thereby confusion. 

The mindless brute was knocked suddenly from Susan before it could sink its teeth into her flesh.

See the problem here? Who/what knocked the zombie from the woman? If you were to change this into active voice, you would be forced to add a subject (actor/doer) or end up with an incomplete sentence.

 

Jackson knocked the mindless brute from Susan before it could sink its teeth into her flesh.

No more confusion. We knew who did what. Passive voice is often used this way purposely by politicians to avoid admitting to mistakes or accepting blame.

According to government sources, the virus had been created in a laboratory.

Created by whom? The government? Terrorists? High School kids? The sentence leaves the subject undefined. This is a good example of when passive voice would be used on purpose to create ambiguity and shuck blame. 

In The Elements of Style, William Strunk and EB White state that, “The habitual use of the active voice… makes for forcible writing. This is true not only in narrative concerned principally with action but in writing of any kind. Many a tame sentence of description or exposition can be made lively and emphatic by substituting a transitive in the active voice for some such perfunctory expression as there is or could be heard.”

So how do you spot passive voice in your writing? For the most part, it’s a simple matter of looking for a form of “to be” such as is, was, were, are, am, have been, has been, will be, will have been, etc. followed by a past participle, (a verb typically ending in –ed). The palace has been breached by members of the Black Claw. In this example we have a form of “to be” in “has been” and the past participle “breached”. The active version of this sentence would read: Members of the Black Claw breached the palace.

Now, this doesn’t mean that every sentence with a form of “have” or “be” in it is passive. The crew has to bury the treasure. Since the form of “to be”, which is “has” in this sentence, is not attached to a past-tense verb, it is not a passive sentence.

The best way to tell is to ask questions. Is there action in this sentence? Patient Zero’s cells were invaded and quickly overrun by the virus. Yes, the action is the invasion of the cells. So what’s at the front of the sentence, the subject or the object? Who is doing the invading? The virus. Whose cells are being invaded? Patient Zero’s. So Patient Zero is the object and the virus is the subject. The sentence should read: The virus invaded and quickly overran Patient Zero’s cells.

Another way to spot passive voice is to look for the word “by”. It won’t always be there in a passive sentence, but it is a good indicator that you should take a second look at a sentence. Anytime you say something was done by someone, that someone is obviously the actor/doer, or subject and should be at the beginning of the sentence. 

 

Passive: The ship was taken over by the crew.
Active: The crew took over the ship.

Passive: The Emperor was assassinated by the legendary, Black Panther.
Active: The legendary Black Panther assassinated the Emperor.

So, is passive voice always wrong? No. There are a few instances where using the passive voice is acceptable, even preferable. Scientific writing is one example. By removing the scientist from the report, the reader can focus on what is being taught. Then the human genome was sequenced… Doesn’t matter who did the sequencing, just that it was done. But, even in these circumstances, active voice can help avoid any ambiguity. We then sequenced the human genome…

That being said, we’re here to talk about passive voice in fictional writing. However, before we discuss these options, note that these are rare cases. Even in the examples I give, most of them could potentially be made stronger by restructuring them in active voice. 

To emphasize the object.
Isaac was killed by the zombies last night.
The important part of this sentence is that Isaac, presumably a known character, was killed. By placing him in the SUBJECT slot of the sentence, we show him as being more important than the mass of faceless zombies that ate his brains. However, as I mentioned, this may be effective, but is still seen as a weaker sentence and would probably be made more forceful in active structure; The zombies ate Isaac’s brains last night. 

To de-emphasize the subject.
The captain’s head had been stuck upon a pike and left on deck.
If you don’t know who the actor/subject is, OR if you want to keep this information from the reader, you emphasize the object, in this case the captain’s head, and de-emphasize the unknown subject. Just remember that if it’s important that the reader know who the subject is, use an active form of the sentence to inform them. Old Seadog, the cook, stuck the captain’s head on a pike and left it on the deck.

If it’s irrelevant who the subject is.
The white flag was raised just after dawn on the fourth day.
We don’t know who the subject here is and we don’t need to know. Be it some peasant or the Emperor himself, the important aspect of this sentence is that the fortress surrendered. Once again, though, if it’s important that your readers know who did it, then use an active structure to tell them. The Emperor himself raised the white flag just after dawn…

Always keep in mind that these exceptions are rare. Many people can, and do argue that passive voice should never be used, ever. In reality, the use of passive voice is subjective. It’s your writing. If you think the sentence is better or more effective in passive voice, then use it. BUT, if it’s possible to restructure your sentence in active voice, 99% of the time you probably should. 

So, now it’s time to check your knowledge. I found a few online quizzes based on the passive voice. The first one is a simple yes/no style quiz in which you select whether the provided sentence is active or passive. I scored 18 out of 20 on this one, so I guess I’m learning. The second quiz is a little more difficult as it forces you to reconstruct the sentence yourself. NOTE: Not all of the sentences in his quiz are passive or need revision, so pay attention. I scored 9 out of 10 on this one.

Rather than providing a writing prompt for this post, I want to challenge you to take these quizzes and post your scores in the comments.

http://www.umsl.edu/~phillipsm/oldrills/ch30b.html

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/quizzes/passive_quiz.htm

For additional information on Passive Voice see:
http://writingcenter.unc.edu/resources/handouts-demos/citation/passive-voice
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/passive.htm
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/elements-of-style-william-strunk-jr/1100084919
http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verbs-voice.htm

Destination: Philadelphia

Travelogue

Many of you may know that I've been traveling for work a lot lately, almost weekly. I've been to several places now all across the country. It's been a unique, neat, and eye opening experience thus far. Well, prompted by the suggestion of a friend and fellow writer, Mikey Stephenson, I've decided to keep a sort of travelogue of all of my destinations, a journal of sorts of each city; the feel, look, and a few detailed places that I can refer back to in my writing for stories that may be set within these cities or just to give my fabricated cities a little more life and realism. I will post these travelogues here for any of you to read, learn from, and perhaps refer to in your own writing and I hope that you will use them.

Philadelphia.

The City of Brotherly Love

Philly is the most recent city visited in my professional travel. I will start here as it is most fresh in my memory. I will add posts later for cities past such as Boston, San Francisco, and Kiawah Island, South Carolina.

Philadelphia is known as the "City of Brotherly Love." I used to view that statement with no small amount of cynicism. I have visited Philly once before in my life when I was about 16. I don't remember much from that trip other than a few tourist spots and the prevailing feeling that everyone wanted to kill me. I'm believe now that there may have been a bit of youthful naivety influencing my judgment at the time as I was just a kid fresh out of my Utah suburb and wandering in a city the likes of which I had never before experienced.

This trip changed that view almost entirely. My hotel was about a twenty minute walk from the convention center where the event I was teleprompting for was being held. I spent six days there and walked to and from the convention center twice daily, to and from, plus the occasional tourist wanderings in my free time. I found the city itself, the overall atmosphere, to be, not exactly friendly, but welcoming; comfortable. The people on the streets didn't quite stop and engage in conversation, or even so much as look up and smile, but they didn't seem uninviting, annoyed, or mistrusting of the outsider either. It was simply a matter of having better things to do. But I did feel a sense of acceptance among the mass denizens of the city. It truly felt like a brotherhood, everyone accepting of everyone else.

There was the usual compliment of homeless people, beggars sitting on the sidewalk with cardboard signs and cups asking for handouts, but they weren't pushy. They carried more of a humble air to them, a sadness even. Alas, my own personal disdain for beggars kept me from offering them any aid, financially or otherwise. Part of that may have stemmed from the abundant collection of street performers that also lined the sidewalks. Here, people still asked for handouts of change, but they worked for it to some degree by sharing with everyone around some musical talent. Be it singing, guitar, accordion, drums, or even flute, each of these performers filled their little niche of street corner with melodic songs, most of which were very well played. These people have real talent in their instruments. I found myself enjoying their music as I walked along, and even stopped to listen to a few. Unlike the standard beggar, here I can appreciate the work that these people put into learning their craft and sharing it.

One Penn Plaza 

The streets of Philadelphia are narrow. Most of them are one-way streets just wide enough for a bank of parked cars on each side of the street and a single lane down the center for one-way traffic. My hotel was in the heart of downtown Philly and the streets tended to feel a bit claustrophobic. With such narrow travel ways, banked by lines of parked cars, and towered over by skyscrapers of fifty stories or more, you can't help but feel a little boxed in. Here and there the walls open up for a park or historical location. I visited a few of these parks, including Rittenhouse Square, Washington Square (which houses the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of Washington's revolutionary war army), and of course Independence National Historic Park. Almost every park hosts at least one bronze statue of some historical figure or another from our nation's history. Every park is filled with people sitting on benches, sitting on fountains, laying on the grass, talking, laughing, eating lunch, taking pictures, many of them reading or napping in the sunlight. The parks were never at a loss for population.

George Washington's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

The Liberty Bell is housed in its own museum across the street from Independence Hall within Independence National Historic Park. It is a long museum in which you walk from one end to the other reading about the history and significance of the bell as a symbol of freedom and liberty. There are banks of photos and historical memorabilia about the bell all leading up to the Liberty Bell itself at the far end of the museum. The bell sits on a two-pronged pedestal in an open room large enough for several people to be able to walk entirely around it. It rests before a large glass wall looking across the street to Independence Hall where the bell was originally designed to hang and ring. Alas, I did not get a chance to tour Independence Hall, but did take a few photos for reference.

Independence Hall as seen from the Liberty Bell Center

The Liberty Bell

Philadelphia City Hall

Taxis are abundant in Philly, but the sidewalks are never at a loss for people either. Many of the cities denizens walk about the city during their daily business. Due to the lack of space, there are many car park garages where people leave their car in the morning and it is crammed into a garage so tightly that you can only get them out again one at a time in reverse order. Cars are parked in the morning, then the people walk everywhere else for the day, and pick up the car at night.

The last place I want to talk about as part of my Philadelphia travelogue is the Reading Terminal Market. Situated next to the Pennsylvania Convention Center, where I was working, the Reading Terminal Market is an enclosed "open air" market of sorts. Once a train shed for the Reading Railroad, (Yes, the same one as in Monopoly), the terminal was converted to a market sometime in he 1890's. The market is filled with grid-layout rows of restaurants and a variety of meat, produce, and bakery markets. I ate here for lunch almost every day of the convention. There is a huge variety of restaurants to choose from, from delis boasting famous Philly Cheesesteaks to Italian bistros and Dutch markets, a salad buffet, and even a sushi bar. The food was fantastic, and I can now attest that even an original cheesesteak, straight from the heart of Philly, is made better with bacon.

The thing I loved about the Reading Terminal Market was the throng of people. From open to close every moment of the day the aisles were packed with people shopping, out to lunch, or just sight seeing. In the center of the market is a wide section of tables like a food court, but crammed together to accommodate as many as possible; and it was never enough. People stalk the tables the same way they stall stalk people at the supermarket, watching, waiting, following anyone who even looks like they are walking toward a car to leave. In the Terminal Market, the moment you stand up from your table, taking care not to jostle the people at the table immediately next to you, someone is already moving to take your seat while motioning to the other members of their party that they have a place.

Food Court at Reader Terminal Market

Reading Terminal Market

I loved the market for its atmosphere and think it would be a great setting for a chase, a clandestine meeting, or even a comedic scene of chaos. The variety of ethnic markets and restaurants makes for a vast array of culture that can be mixed into any story for color and realism. Details such as open fruit stands and raw meat markets can add elements of everyday life into your scenes.

In all, Philadelphia was a wonderful experience rich with history, cultural variety, and everyday human life. If you get a chance to visit, take it. If you plan to set a story in Philly, or a similarly large city, take these few details and mix them in to add some spice and believability to your tale.






Philadelphia; The City of Brotherly Love.