I discuss Moments that Matter in my CFT post this week and look at it from writing and historical perspectives amongst others. From a world building viewpoint, what are the moments that matter to you as the writer putting a fictional universe together? My thoughts are:-

1. That moment it all comes "together". The politics, the way your world is governed, how your characters react to all that finally makes sense and you write with utter conviction, knowing the parameters of your creation and testing your characters against those. (There are always rebels, though of course it does depend on your viewpoint if the rebels have a point or not!).
2. When you know your lead characters inside out. You know what makes them tick, what pressures they would be vulnerable to, what would be pivotal moments for them. That's where the stories and drama are!
3. When you can visualise your world and feel it is almost as real as this one! You know the street names, where people would go for entertainment, whether there is religious/political freedom at all. You know your world to such a degree you could be quizzed intensely over it and come up with good answers!

It pays to write a list of questions you need to know the answers to and then work those answers out. Preparation work like that will save you work later. For a long piece of work like a novel, I could not write without having some sort of "map" to assist me here.  Happy writing!

Image Credit:  Pixabay - captions on my CFT post!

Today is the longest day (at least it is from my part of the world, the UK), but in writing terms, what would this mean for your characters?

1. The longest day is taken literally and we follow the character through from getting up to going to bed.
2. The longest day is taken metaphorically and we see a character going through all kinds of trials in a relatively short time span.

Whichever route you go, the character has to have enough to do and for that to be gripping enough to make the reader want to continue with your story. Their motivations must be strong enough and we need to see what makes them keep going when most would have given up. It doesn't necessarily have to be a life or death scenario though a situation where the ability to leave is taken away from the character is always interesting and full of dramatic possibilities.

I find it more interesting though when a character could get out of a situation, you can understand why they would do so, but they continue on their current path. What drives that character? What makes them tick? Do they have any sense of failure? Who do they think they would be letting down if they did just walk away?

Definite story possibilities there!

Image Credit:  Pixabay.

I use sayings and proverbs in fiction as (a) titles and (b) themes for stories. There are so many stories that could be written on the theme of, for example, "revenge is a dish best served cold". You can also subvert that idea and "prove" the saying wrong if you wanted to do so. See proverbs and sayings as a useful resource both used directly or having your characters react against the saying you've picked.

Looking through a book of proverbs can be a great way to trigger story ideas.  It is also useful when you've written a piece to look back through it and see what theme emerges from it that you hadn't planned out. I suspect a lot of the time what you come up with here will link in with a well known saying.  Why?

Because we write from the depths of our soul and our life experiences will come into that. This will include things we read, things we have read, things we know to be true or things we know could be true.  Proverbs and sayings will have affected us subconsciously over years too.  Some of course we will have had direct experience of and so know them to be true and so could write stories on these based on our conviction they are true. Proverbs and sayings will influence how we think and therefore how we write.

... make lemonade, as the old saying goes, but how can a writer do this? Are lemons such a bad thing anyway?

From the viewpoint of developing characters, the more lemons you throw at them the better.  Well, you do want to find out what your characters are made out of, yes? You want to find out their hidden depths, yes?  Chuck them in the deep end and have fun finding out how they get themselves out of it. If they need to resort to the help of friends to get out of said horrible deep end, what did they try to do first before calling for back up? Is the back up reliable? You want plenty of tension and drama and writing these scenes should easily produce that. You can work out later on what  you want to keep for your story and what might prove to be useful background knowledge to you only.

As a writer, when all that seems to come your way are rejections, firstly bear in mind nothing worthwhile was ever easy and, secondly, most writers go through this. Even after publication in one avenue, rejections still come in. I find it useful to look at work that has been turned down and see if I can revamp it and send it out elsewhere. Usually I can and I have had work accepted by another outlet after doing this. The important thing is not to give up but it is perfectly okay to change direction with your writing. If you decide flash fiction isn't for you but the longer short story form is, then that's fine. Play to your writing strengths. It is also fine to pause from writing. I generally only do this when on holiday or ill and I use the time to catch up on reading (I always have reading to catch up on!) and that helps feed the imagination beautifully.