Dreams

Alright, guys, it's J here. I would like to discuss dreams. No, I'm not talking about the cliche "Hopes and dreams." I'm talking about literal dreams. The weird movies you watch when you go to sleep. You know what I mean, right? Yes, you're a smart person. Brownie points all around.

Anyway. Dreams are widely known for being weird. Many people went crazy over Inception because it "portrayed dreams accurately." Well, I protest this. If Inception actually portrayed dreams accurately: DiCaprio would have morphed between an elephant and a monkey several times while his dead wife wouldn't actually kill anyone, she would just almost kill everybody but then just start laughing at the last second and disappear. Don't forget Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt would be fighting the entire movie screaming "WHAT DID YOU DO WITH BATMAN!" and even this wouldn't be an accurate portrayal of dreams. Dreams are weird people.

Now, I must assure you, I'm not here just to rip on dreams and Inception (a movie I actually really like). I am here to talk about how helpful dreams actually can be to a writer. They are so full of odd ideas that one of  them might actually be good. If you've been stuck on what to do for your next scene/book sometimes sleeping is really the best option. Even if you never use any of your dreams in your actual work, paying attention to them at least gets you creatively thinking again.

I've found a lot of inspiration from my dreams, even though I don't think I've ever actually used my dreams in my stories directly, I still ponder my dreams that get the creative juices flowing.

So, yeah. Listen to your dreams. Literally. There's a lot of good stuff that you can replay in your mind and then do what you want with it.

That's all I've got today, guys. Be sure to follow us! The more followers we have, the more likely we are to post fun stuffs.

Be sure to laugh often.
 

Nobody

J never writes posts when I tell him to. He's probably thinking something like, "It's yooooour tuuuurn."

What a jerk.

Whateves, though. Let's get down to business (to defeat the Huns, yes, I know). Today's topic:

For those of you who can't read cursive (*cough* J *cough*), this translates to:
WRITE LIKE NO ONE'S READING YOUR STINKING STUFF

Okay. Something I would love is if I could inspire people to just write. Stop worrying that it isn't perfect; stop worrying that you can't write what you want because your mom's going to read it; stop worrying about the whole editing ordeal. The moment I realized that it's okay to write bad first drafts was the moment my writing excelled. Which is why I really like today's quote.

Stop writing for a crowd. Stop trying to write a bestseller that is just like all those other bestsellers. Close the door, close Facebook, *gasp!* open your manuscript...and write like there's nothing holding you back. Because honestly, the only thing holding you back is you and the "backspace" key. I think you can get on top of this.

There are no limits to where you can take your manuscript, so go where you want to go (or where the characters take you - but that's another post).


Not that you care, but now I have that song from Mulan stuck in my head. (...DID they SEND me daughTERS...when I asked....for SONS?) Wonderful.

The humor of it all

Hey all, what’s up? It’s J here. I was just thinking about certain things that make stories compelling. You know: story, conflict, dialogue, that sort of thing. One of my favorites is humor. For me, humor is a big impact on whether or not I’ll like the book or not. I’m not saying your book has to be a comedy, I just mean that if your characters are funny, legitimately funny, they’ll be likable, guaranteed.

Now that’s kind of tricky, isn't it? There’s a big difference between movie humor and book humor. Things that could be hilarious in a movie often fall flat when read, whereas some humor that is comical in written form can just be plain lame when put on the big screen.

I try to tinker with it, see what works, what doesn't. In my experience, physical humor is not something that works. It takes too long to explain and by the time you do explain, the joke has gone on too long with little actual comedy involved. My solution? There are a couple of ways to do it. One is witty one-liners. Sarcasm is another one, especially in the case of a story written in first-person. My personal favorite, however, is arrogance. You take this and sprinkle a healthy dosage of that sarcasm on there, and you’re ordinarily un-remarkable character becomes your favorite. (Tony Stark, anybody?)

I may come up with a few finer points to say on humor in the future. No reason wasting your arsenal on the first go of it, am I right?

Take it easy, or…whatever it is you like to do.

The Idea

Hey. This is A.

An author once said, "If you wish to be a writer, write." Nerd points to whoever guesses who the author is that I'm talking about (I don't get any points because I don't remember, hence I'm not a nerd--did you even read our intros?), but the POINT is...writers write. It's that simple.

And that impossible.

I can't make this magically possible for you, seeing as I don't understand any more about writing than the next not-nerd, but what I can do is give you bits and pieces of how I make it less impossible for myself.

Step 1: the idea.

Duh. You can't write if you don't have any idea what you're writing about. No, you don't need to know everything before you start typing away (or scribbling, if you have the patience for the ol' pen and paper), but you do need to know something. You need to know different things depending on what you write (I happen to write fiction, because, as a friend told me, "Reality.Whose idea was that, anyway?"), but you will basically always need that spark of idea. You know (or do you?). That spark that starts as one idea, but then another idea catches on, and another, and another.

To write, you need ideas.

To get ideas, you need to think.

So are you thinking?