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Writing Craft: Getting UnStuck

Getting UnStuck - Story Structure Guiding The Path It quite common, especially for Pantsers (those who write by the seat of their pants with no real outline or plan ahead of time), to get stuck in your story. At some point, we hit a roadblock, writer's block, and can't think of what the story should be next.

Story Structure Clues

This is, in part, because we don't start with the outline that the stricture Outliners do. We can't even comprehend where the story will be going in order to outline.

However, if we have an idea of the path (the skeleton of the structure), we can start to see a way through the hazy fog of the future. But even then, we can get stuck like I did last night.

I'd written my way through and just couldn't imagine what needed to happen next. I know where the next major plot point is going to be and what (generally) will happen (Destiny is caught by the FBI but Ash escapes). But it's way to early to write that in the story timeline. If I wr…
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Writing Craft: Show / Don't Tell

Lessons I've learned about writing...

In the world of creative writing, no phrase or lesson is more repeated than the famous:
Show Don't Tell What does that mean, exactly? It means don't give me a fact but show it to me. Let the actions of the character tell me he's nervous. Let the characters actions and motives be so tied to the setting, that they direct what details I get to see.


Read this:

Dr. Briar sat nervously on a hand-made leather chair with mahogany inlays. 
Now read this:

Dr. Briar sat fidgeting in a hand-made leather chair, rotating his middle finger around on the mahogany inlays. 
What's different?

Dr. Briar sat nervously on a hand-made leather chair with mahogany inlays.  Dr. Briar sat fidgeting in a hand-made leather chair, rotating his middle finger around on the mahogany inlays. 
We show him fidgeting and rotating his finger, this gives us more reason to talk about the inlays. But could this be better? Sure, there are a thousand ways to write this sent…
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Constitutional Amendment Proposition: We The People Clause

Constitutional Amendment Proposition: We The People Clause We are taking back the government... It's high time for another amendment to the constitution. There are already several great proposals, including a Convention of the States to make it happen.

As I've been thinking about it, there are several things I would like to see in an amendment. Here are a few points to consider:

1. Preserve the Original Consitution: The amendments should reinforce or clarify the intent of the original constitution, not change it. Article 1, Section 9, paragraph 5 of the US Constitution says that there shall be no direct tax (income tax, property tax, etc.). The 16th Amendment Reversed this protection, and should never have been passed.
16thPermits Congress to levy an income tax without apportioning it among the states or basing it on the United States Census.July 12, 1909February 3, 19133 years
6 months
22 days
2. Power/Control: When you give government power, it does not like to give it back or r…
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Expression...

Bob Hamp has a teaching called Freedom from Depression.
He says that a synonym for Depression it Suppression; and, an antonym is Expression.
In other words, the opposite of Depression is to allow the Expression of who you were created by God to be.
As soon as I typed that, my Knowledge of Good tried to figure out how to make that happen. I started thinking about how to find out who or what I was created to be, then force it to happen, work harder at it, go get a degree, write more, do more of whatever the right stuff is...
Wrong.
All of that thinking comes from the wrong Tree... That's the Tree of Knowledge...
It's trying harder the Knowledge of Good... 
Totally the wrong tree.
We must look to the other tree...
LIFE is sourced in The One who created us. LIFE didn't require a single good deed. LIFE was received by simply being in the presence of The One.
Adam was not made immortal, contrary to popular belief. Adam was made to require frequently the Tree of Life. As long as…
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Got LIFE?

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. Genesis 2:7
Are rocks dead? 

Consider this for a moment. A rock isn't dead, it's simply without life. It is not alive. In order for something to be dead (biologically) it must first have experienced or had the capacity to experience life. Death is not the absence of life, it is the removal of it.

Spiritually, Adam did nothing to earn life. God breathed LIFE into him. He didn't go to church, do twenty good things, or earn it in any way. He was without life, and LIFE came to him without his works involved.

How often do people say: "Well, I'm a good person..."

How does your being a good person help you get LIFE?

You see, Heaven, Hell, and Spiritual things are NOT a matter of Good vs Bad. 
And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst …
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Praying for others...

And the Lord restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Job 42:10For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers... Romans 1:9
I prayed today, really prayed, for the first time in.... years? Maybe not years. Not sure. Everything before now, that I can recall was shouting & complaining, or some form of that. This was the first time in a long time that I prayed from a place of surrender.

I've been reading Job, off and on, for several years now. Did you ever notice, in Job 42, that it was AFTER Job prayed for his friends (not himself) that God restored Job's losses?

Interesting, eh?

So, that happened.


Men (and women), when is the last time you prayed for other people? 


Darrell G. Wolfe
Storyteller | Writer | Thinker | Consultant | Multipotentialite
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A Conduit of Blessing, NOT a Reservoir

I've read the book of Job more than any other book in the Bible. I identify with him in so many ways (real or imagined).
As I re-read the closing chapters this morning, I found a theme running through beginning to end, a silver thread hidden among the tapestry of his life.
Self

There are four points through which this thread pulls most vividly:

Sacrificing out of fear for his kids, at the start (inward focus, fear of loss).Self-Admiration (I'm so innocent) throughout the book.The counter offered by Elihu > Then God (don't ascribe right-ness to yourself, but to God).Sacrifice on behalf of his friends (outward focus, gain on half of others).
Sacrificing out of fear for his kids, at the start (inward focus, fear of loss).
At the start of his story, we find a man who is self-focused. You might argue that he was focused on his kids; however, he wasn't. He was focused on not losing his kids, which is a self-focus motive. He would make sacrifices from a spirit of fear (what…
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Darrell's Reading List


Here are some books I've been reading lately:
  • Hacker: The Outlaw Chronicles (here) by Ted Dekker (Author). The story of a young Hacker girl, who went on a wild adventure into the supernatural realm beyond trying to save her mom, but saved her self too in the process.
  • Saint: A Paradise Novel (here) by Ted Dekker (Author). He's an assassin, or is he? He finds a secret to his past that unlocks supernatural abilities, at a cost.
  • For a full list of all my book suggestions, see my Amazon Store.

Other sites I follow: