Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1

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ChunkyC

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Plan Six from Outer Space

Plot: Disguised as Television Executives, aliens intent on taking over the Earth start something called "Reality TV."
Chapter One

Flypt adjusted his implants. “This doesn't feel right.”

“None of this feels right,” Blypt bugled, “but you have a mission.”

Flypt kept fondling his new breasts. “After eight-hundred light years stuck in the ship, now I have to spend the next six months in a ... what did they call it?”

“A house.”

“Right. With a group of smelly humans. Great idea.”

“You were in stasis, so quit honking.” Blypt sighed, a sensation he still found strange. “Look, it took me forever to become head of programming at CBS, this is the best chance we have of taking over the Earth. Besides, you look good as a human female.”

-----------------------------------------

Last line:

Flypt couldn't hide his disappointment at being voted off Big Brother so early, but they could always subjugate the humans next season.
 
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Bufty

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Next time, I'll think twice before I respond to one of Uncle Jim's innocent looking questions.

Plan Nine - Due to the failure of Plans one through Eight, decide to wrap the stupid planet up in cling film, then orbit for a month.

PLAN NINE

Kommander Krop hurled the message pad at the starcruiser’s navigation screen, from which a blue-and-white sphere stared back like an albino eye. “Earth. What the hell do we want with this galactic garbage, anyway?”

“Kommander,” said the waiting comunications officer, “The link—”

“Bloody idiot! I’ve already tried eight of his damned useless plans.”

The two-way wall speakers crackled. The communications officer shrugged.

Krop winced.

“Krop, I will temporarily ignore that last remark. Plan Nine is under transmission. You have thirty days to make it a success, or else.... Contact me only to report the invasion fleet can descend unopposed.”


Last line – Krop bowed and exited, closing the door behind him – cling film had its uses.
 
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Nangleator

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I feel all weird being the only one with a human POV in the first 100 words, but I cut out chapters 1 through 3 and started with 4.
 

Nangleator

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That's the difference. Laughs.

The original movie was poorly made, and now universally derided. We all wanted to jump on the bandwagon of making funny alternatives. I started with a funny story, then decided it would be a better writing exercise for myself if I tried to write it like I meant to have it published.

No laughs in mine, then. At least not in this sample.
 

Ken Schneider

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Plan Eight-

Aliens develop a tasty but deadly formula that they will skillfully market to stores on earth to poison the population.


"I hardly agree,"said Professor Rellim. He grabbed the beaker out of Dr. Dub’s hand and walked back to his work station.
"Too bland I tell you, they’ll never be fooled by that concoction," Dub said.
The lab door slid open with a squealing whoosh, and in walked Captain Srooc. He wrinkled his nose as the pungent odor in the room raced up his nostrils, and pinched his nose with one finger and thumb. He looked around at several bubbling vats of brown goo.
"Is the formula ready?" he asked in a nasally tone.

Last line:
"We've started a war."
 
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Theo Neel

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Laughs

Different strokes, Nangleator. A lot harder for me to write funny stuff. So comedy was a better exercise here. My stuff is usually darkly twisted.

Kind of enjoyed the opp to switch gears and swing a funny bone. Learned just as much by trying not to write seriously.

Still did the same amount of research. One of the character's name is Pima (obvious homage to cotton theme) while the other's is "Gossypium," the Latin name for the cotton plant. Had fun looking up funky techno-babble words; looking for words that most people won't recognize as real words. A hyoplastron, for example, is a turtle's underbelly, and an oxalidaceae is a kind of herb.

You mean my plot isn't publishable? ;) Think I might take that up as a challenge. Might be a good exercise to get me to do something that's not (too) twisted and strange.
 

James D. Macdonald

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Theo Neel said:
Think I might take that up as a challenge.

Oh, definitely do.

The point of this little exercise:

The three hardest things in getting started with a novel are:

a) Coming up with an idea
b) Knowing where you're going with it
c) The first page

So, what have we done? Provided an idea. Come up with a last line (where we're going), and written the first page (in standard manuscript format, page one is about 100 words).

Guys, next time you sit down to start a story (and that's this afternoon, right? What are long weekends for?), think of how easy it was to get an idea and get started with a goal in view.

It's true that by the time you reach "THE END" that the climax may have morphed a long way from your original vision, but knowing what the goal post looks like is a big plus when you're kicking off.

Go, do.

(Oh, and I take the blame for making my example story funny. I wonder what would have happened if I'd made my example horror?)
 
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Bufty

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Thank you, UJ.
 

Ken Schneider

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Hope we aren't done with this one. I'm six hundred words deep, already.

And Jim, I'd like to start something new, but I haven't finished my other WIP. I'm afraid I'd leave it for the rush of starting a new work.

Strike the above. I worked through most of the night to finish my current WIP. I was close anyway, and pushed through. YIPPEEEE!

Ken

Now I have this silly problem.
I've written historical Romance Ms
Mystery thriller MS.
Fantasy romance MS.
Children's story MS.
Mystery-PI- short story series.
Am I genre hopping? I'd say so with the exception of the romantic element in two of the three.

Oh well, I'm writing.
 
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ProsperitySue

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Plan Seven from Outer Space

I didn't get the email alert of new posts and the assignment...here's the exciting adventure of

Plan Seven from Outer Space:

Aliens infiltrate
America's Homeland Security and create color-coded alerts to cause confusion. Plan fails when aliens decide to just blend in, discovering they fit in more with this agency than on home planet.

With an evil chuckle, Zork pressed the send button. He was known across the Pleiades as a master of diffusion and deception, a rare trait for his home planet, Analia.

A faint greenish hue of pleasure suffused his skin as he ran his ever so slightly scaly fingers over the brass designation of rank: Deputy Chief in Charge of Alerts, United States Department of the Office of Homeland Security.

Zork leaned back and contemplated the memo that he had just e-mailed to the media and all agencies: a listing of color codes for terrorist alerts. Red. Green. No, it’s orange! Back to green. No, I meant red!

His eyes took on an unholy gleam. Soon the backward citizens of this planet would tire of the chaos and would welcome the meticulous, rigid, unyielding reign of his home planet.

Last sentence:

Zork, having at last found a place where he truly felt at home, tossed his smashed communicator in the trash, and turned to his new life as Chief of Information Dispersion, Homeland Security.
 

SeanDSchaffer

James D. Macdonald said:
Doyle and I will be down at the "Book 'Em" event in Lebanon, NH, this Saturday.

(9:30 a.m. -- 4:30 p.m. at the Lebanon High School, 195 Hanover St.)


I hope you have fun!


Uncle Jim, I have another question for you. I have been transcribing the final version of my present completed manuscript to the word processor, and I have been hating almost every minute of it. I am pretty well burnt out on Promised World as I type this post. Part of me is thinking that my problem was that I rushed myself in the original first draft.

My question is: should I perhaps slow down on the first draft, making it more quality so far as the story content goes, instead of just going, as one person put it, "Gung Ho!" in the writing of that draft?

As you know, I've been writing a long time, BUT I have never really gained a large amount of experience in the writing field, because I have never met up with other writers in groups such as this (believe it or not, the PAMB was the first writer's anything I ever joined).

Also, I've been thinking seriously about either abandoning the typewriter altogether, or using it only for the first draft and writing subsequent drafts on the computer. What do you think I should do about this?


In the mean time, I have other projects I am aching to work on. But I feel like going over to those projects at the same time as I transcribe PW to the computer, is somehow shirking my duties at getting PW done. What should I do about that?


Thank you in advance for your answers, Uncle Jim.
 

James D. Macdonald

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Copying your first draft to the computer is a good thing. As you go, you can change things. If something seems short or rushed -- expand it. If something doesn't seem to be worth the trouble of retyping it --don't.

As to whether you should write your next novel de novo on the computer ... try it. See what happens.

You're allowed to start original writing on your next while you revise your current book.
 

allenparker

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James D. Macdonald said:
Doyle and I will be down at the "Book 'Em" event in Lebanon, NH, this Saturday.

(9:30 a.m. -- 4:30 p.m. at the Lebanon High School, 195 Hanover St.)

This is great! I hope you sell lots of books and sign lots of autographs!


I did the Book'Em in Va last year and have signed up to do it again in October of this year.

Oct 14, 2006. Waynesboro, Virginia at the High School.
 

Nangleator

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Dang it. Lebanon is just too far.

Are you not a touch typist, Sean? That would make the transcription unbearable.

Computers are very, very good for writing, and not much more cumbersome than typewriters. Less so, if you use a notebook.

I used my first word processor in the mid-70s. (!) It was a purpose-built desktop from Digital, and had many keyboard keys dedicated to certain functions like 'Delete last word,' 'Delete last paragraph' and copy, cut and paste. I even thought the 8" floppy drive was cool.
 

SeanDSchaffer

Nangleator said:
Dang it. Lebanon is just too far.

Are you not a touch typist, Sean? That would make the transcription unbearable.

Computers are very, very good for writing, and not much more cumbersome than typewriters. Less so, if you use a notebook.

I used my first word processor in the mid-70s. (!) It was a purpose-built desktop from Digital, and had many keyboard keys dedicated to certain functions like 'Delete last word,' 'Delete last paragraph' and copy, cut and paste. I even thought the 8" floppy drive was cool.


Oh, yeah, I'm a touch-typist. I have been since High School. It's just that my work is so very long, and I have to take short breaks every three or four pages because I have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in both wrists.

And I think the worst thing about all this is, the work is done. All I have to do literally is transcribe onto the computer.

I might just write my next work in its entirety on the computer. I do not know, though, because there has always been something magical to me about the sound of a typewriter and the feel of one.


A desktop built in the 70's? That must have an expensive little piece of equipment. I've always thought the 8-inch floppy drive was pretty cool too, especially since I've never had the chance to use one. I was told they were for business machines when I was in High School. I always used personal machines, like the Apple IIe.
 

Nangleator

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My dad worked for DEC, and borrowed that machine for a couple weeks. Can't imagine how much it would have cost back then.

You can probably get a scanner with OCR software for less trouble than damaging your wrists further. Then, instead of typing, you'd be feeding paper into a scanner one page at a time. A chore, but faster than typing.
 

SeanDSchaffer

Nangleator said:
My dad worked for DEC, and borrowed that machine for a couple weeks. Can't imagine how much it would have cost back then.

You can probably get a scanner with OCR software for less trouble than damaging your wrists further. Then, instead of typing, you'd be feeding paper into a scanner one page at a time. A chore, but faster than typing.


Right at the moment, I find that I enjoy typing to an extent. It's just this one project that's got me down in the dumps. Not to worry, though, as part of the reason for my being in a bad mood about this project, is the fact that Chapters 1 through, I think 3, are the longest chapters in the book. That's what makes this work so tedious. I can't break the chapters down, because of the way the story is structured, so I'll have to just keep on keeping on. But it's just the idea of seeming to go on forever at typing, bothers me. It's like the work will never end at this point.

That is what has been bothering me the most about this project.
 
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