Action Packed Surprises All Round
Action, adventure, and rogue children are the themes for the month
Hello!
Dayle here!
As I began drafting this newsletter I had to vacate from the living room to my study because the toddler of the house decided to use a shirt and a pair of pants as nunchucks. Ever been whipped in the face with a shirt? I have. Not so much painful as it is annoying. Look, serves me right for letting him watch Thor: Ragnarok, which in my opinion is one of the better movies from the Marvel Avengers franchise.
Sometimes, even the sweetest most sensitive of children can turn on you, go rogue, Hulk out, and when the time strikes treat you like a cushion-y meat and bone bag ripe for climbing on, wrestling, jumping off, and booting whilst trying to get comfy on the lounge.
I remember being like that as a kid. Wriggling about all over the place, randomly flinging around cushions, doing head-stands on the lounge, playing ‘the floor is lava’ before that was even a thing. Though in my day, my siblings/cousins and I pretended the floor was crocodile-infested waters.
As parents, my husband and I are fairly stern and structured, most of the time, and we’re doing our best to help the small monster human learn about the rules of appropriate play.
Like, yes we can play sword fights in the backyard, but no, you can’t pick up that broom and bring it inside the house and start swinging.
It’s a house of constant and never-ending learning and trying to see what works. Kinda like how I approach most things in life, including writing.
So, it’s no surprise that the clothes as nunchucks experience was one of those moments where, though not entirely appropriate (but pretty funny to watch), offered inspiration. I had a thought that it would be a funny addition for an action scene that occurs in one of my writing projects. Now all I have to do is figure out how one of the characters ends up with the clothing in the first place. Maybe they’re shirtless, maybe there’s a pile of clothes in the room, maybe it’s in a yard where clothes are hanging on a line.
The possibilities are endless.
And that there lies one of my favourite learnings about writing. You might feel that it’s hard to write anything original, as if all types of stories that could possibly exist have already been told.
Perhaps. But what I like to think is this: stories are like chairs.
Someone, probably a google-able figure, first designed and built a chair. They thought of a backrest (or it was backless), a seat, four or three legs. We’ve all used a chair, for sitting, climbing, for standing on to reach things (I am short so this applies), and most importantly for rest. But each time a new chair is designed, built and tested out, it’s different. Different materials are used, and different patterns are carved into wood or steel. You have high chairs and low chairs, luxurious ones or cheaper ones. Chairs for the living room, chairs for dining, chairs for working.
Before I sound any more like a Dr. Seuss book, I’ll finish up.
It may feel like there are no ‘new’ stories to be told, but there are new ways in which you can tell a story, through voice, style, or the events that happen to the character — big or small. For instance, clothes for nunchucks. It’s the extra flourishes, the moments we as writers know or experience ourselves that make it unique to us, that makes the story ours yet still relatable to others.
And with that, I go, not just because I could write about this phenomena all day and shouldn’t, but because the boy-Hulk found me in the study and to no surprise brought along his shirt and pants nunchucks to continue our battle.
Check Out Some of the Latest Stories
Wait, That’s Me by Erica Marta Ball — Straight from Erica’s Medium ‘About’ page: ‘I’m a word nerd in many forms, from reading to writing to digging a good font. I was a public librarian for 20 years and loved spending my days connecting with people from all walks of life …’ Read more here.
Wait, That’s Me plants readers straight into the shoes of the narrator. We loved Erica’s unique style in storytelling and the way she experimented with stream of consciousness.
E Block by Melissa-Jane Nguyen — Melissa-Jane is a writer, editor, and co-curator of SBR, who loves to sit down with a good cuppa and watch the tennis when she’s not working on all things writerly or running around after the two kiddies and woofers of the house.
E Block is a sweet and endearing short story about fresh and lived love. It was inspired by AWC’s Furious Fiction monthly writing competition. Check out previous Furious Fiction winners/long and short listers, along with each previous month’s prompt if you’re ever looking for a quick creativity boost.
Writing Tip of the Month
Ever tried to write an action scene about something you actually know nothing about and wonder if you’re hitting the mark?
We have!
It may seem difficult to execute action scenes, particularly if you’re a writer in the adventure, fantasy, sci-fi, or even crime genres. But action doesn’t necessarily mean just high-impact situations, like fighting an enemy on a cliff or battling to survive inside a tiger-infested cage. Describing an MC running on the beach can be just as tricky, especially if you don’t usually run/haven’t ever tried to run on a beach.
Most of us haven’t been inside a gladiator arena slicing and dicing, and hacking and … whacking. We might drive or understand the general premise of driving, but racing a car through a busy city during a high speed chase? Unless it’s a part of your job or you’re a trained race car driver, you won’t know what it feels like to be in that position. We don’t know hand-to-hand combat or how to swing a sword properly either, unless we’ve researched, trained, and practiced.
Now, this isn’t to say, don’t write what you don’t know, because our imagination can certainly help us out. And it can’t be expected that busy writers head out and take on all these extra hobbies and activities just to be sure their scenes are believable and accurate.
So here’s a starting point to consider, for whatever your action scene entails — a plane about to crash, a shoot-out in a bar, super humans using their powers to fight the bad guy, chasing after your toddler because they’ve run off in the shopping centre — read other works of the same genre or at least where you know similar action elements will appear. And even better …
Watch movies or TV shows that focus on the very thing you’re trying to write about. Writing a scene with a high speed car chase? We suggest watching the Fast ’n’ Furious movies (or at least one). Is it a courtroom scene where things get tense or heated? Maybe watch A Few Good Men or Primal Fear. Hand-to-hand combat? So many possibilities to choose from there; The Long Kiss Goodnight, Kill Bill, The Mandalorian, The Fifth Element, The Matrix.
Movies aren’t just there for writers to be consumed when we need a break from the books or laptop. We’re not just mindlessly observing or being entertained by a screen. There is still something going on creatively.
We’re learning, with our minds moulded and shaped by what we see, hear, and feel.
So next time it’s your turn on movie night to pick the next flick, enjoy telling your partner or roommate that you insist on watching a certain film for story research purposes.
If further interested in the whys and hows on the topic, check out the following article, ‘Your brain on movies: Why films make us cry, flinch and cheer’.
Book Review
Across the Risen Sea by Bren MacDibble — A MG spec-fic adventure featuring crocodiles, sharks, and more.
In Across the Risen Sea we’re thrown into a future world where sea levels have risen to devastating impact. Main character Neoma lives in a small community where the residents aim to live gentle lives. Brash and daring Neoma is always getting into trouble, but when her best friend Jag is taken by strangers from a place called the Valley of the Sun, it’s Neoma who sets out to save him.
This was the exact story I needed to read as I worked away on my own story about a girl living in a rural community experiencing extreme water shortages. The stories seem at opposite ends of the spectrum but are both centred around a changing environment and figuring out to how to survive. Read more.
What’s On
Picture Book Writing Competition | Enter a picture book manuscript of no more than 500 words. No illustrations. Open theme. Cash prizes and a mentorship with Clare Hallifax (Publishing Manager at Scholastic Australia) to be won. Opens: March 8, 2021. Closes: March 3, 2021.
Write Here! Festival | 42 local and national authors to hear first-hand how writers create and publish work. Learn at writing workshops, get writing and publishing tips — March 26–28, 2021
Camp NaNoWriMo | Similar to November NaNoWriMo in that you’re working towards a goal within a month, but this time you get to set your own goal and you don’t even need to be working on a novel — you might set an editing goal, a blog post goal, or a small goal of 15,000 words for the month — April, 2021.
2021 Newcastle Short Story Award | This Hunter Writers Centre competition is open for entries (see T&C on their website), with up to $7,500 in prizes. Closes 8pm (AEDT) — April 14, 2021.
Writing Resources
Picture Book Spotlight — Run by picture book author Brian Gehrlein, this website is full of interviews and advice from agents and authors all working within the world of picture books. A wealth of information for anyone interested in learning more about the behind-the-scenes of the picture book industry.
Eric Smith — Literary Agent Eric Smith gives us an invaluable glimpse into queries that captured his attention. He breaks down those queries and tells us exactly how and why they worked so well. Smith’s blog is a must-read for anyone querying, thinking about querying, or wanting to query in the future. (If you’re not sure what a query letter is all about, here’s a bonus resource that explains everything you need to know.)
Where Else Can You Find SBR?
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“Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us.”
― Boris Pasternak
