Daniel Johnson / is on Nostr

Education in music, but working in IT. Love singing, acting, and writing. Sci-fi, fantasy, and horror geek. He/him. Half-baked short stories at https://vocal.media/authors/daniel-johnson-h0ee040jth

Last Notes

2024-08-14 00:52:27

#PennedPossibilities 403 — Which of your characters would be nominated for best dressed?
I can’t go into detail without spoilers, but let’s just say there’s an unnamed immortal being (Dorothea just calls her “The Lady” after their first encounter) who tends to appear in an immaculate three-piece suit or tuxedo, looking more than a bit like Marlene Dietrich from the movie Morocco.
https://media.universeodon.com/media_attachments/files/112/957/629/517/761/625/original/b67202c80278cb2f.jpg

2023-09-23 03:14:49

#WordWeavers September 22. Do you purposely use symbolism in your story?
I’m using symbolism in a few places in the second draft of Bethany’s story. The one least likely to be a spoiler is using bodies of water to symbolize how things change for Bethany by the end of the story. In one of the first scenes she’s in a pool by herself, isolated and alone. In one of the final scenes, she’s swimming in an ocean surrounded by life.

2023-09-03 04:26:21

#WordWeavers September 3. MC POV: You realize that you are a book character. What do you do?
Bethany: “I knew it! I heard you talking about ‘save the cat’ outlining earlier. So when they took my dad, that was, like…the catalyst, right? The thing that sets me off into act 2?”
Me: “Crap.”
B: “And my ‘external’ goal is to find my mom, and I’ll either succeed or fail at that at the midpoint. So, a false victory or a false defeat, right? Which at this rate should be within the next few days. Hold on, I can figure this whole thing out…”
Me: “Wouldn’t it be more fun if you didn’t?”
B: “Easy for you to say sitting there safe on your sofa. Hey, who’s my B-story character, Jessie or Prudence?”

2023-08-30 17:20:05

#PennedPossibilities 56 — Write about an item that your MC owns that isn't worth much money but has great value to them.
Bethany: “See this jacket? This old, faded, off-off-white monstrosity from when they first invented denim? Technically it’s probably worth the amount of fuel it would take to incinerate it (dad’s joke, not mine), but I love it because it’s my mom’s. My dad put it on me when he was sneaking me out of…wherever I was, and I’ve had it ever since.
“It’ll be a wonderful day when I see my mom again and I can hand it back to her and hear her say, ‘No, sweetie, you keep it,’ and I’ll say, ‘Oh, no, it’s fine,’ and she’ll say, ‘I insist,’ and I’ll secretly be glad because it feels good to wear something she used to wear.”

2023-08-22 23:02:30

#WritingWonders August 22. What makes your hero feel weak?
Bethany: “Being in the dark about things. Knowledge is power right? Well, right now I feel pretty powerless.”
Voiceover: “She has more knowledge than the Library of Congress.”
B: “Whatever, voiceover! Yeah, I read a lot, but that’s not the same thing as not knowing what you are or where you came from or why your dad always peeks outside after he gets home to see if anyone followed him.”

2023-08-09 12:53:40

#PennedPossibilities 35 — Does your MC consider themselves an introvert or an extrovert?
Bethany: “Introvert. Totally.”
Me: “But you *like* talking to people.”
B: “I know, but it’s always awkward and I always end up embarrassing myself because I don’t know how to act or what to say.”
M: “You keep trying, though. Seems like you really want to be around people.”
B: “Doesn’t everyone?”
M: “Totally not an introvert.”
B: “I just looked up ‘Introvert’ in the dictionary and it says, ‘See Bethany.’”
M: “Um...”
B: “Ooo, and the entry for ‘Bethany’ says ‘See Introvert.’”
M: “Okay…”
B: “The entry for ‘Extrovert’ just says ‘Not Bethany.’”

2023-08-09 12:53:40

2023-08-02 15:22:12

#WritingWonders August 2. How much do you know about your side characters prior to the first draft?
If Bethany’s story is a foreshadowing of the way I’m going to be writing every story, I’ll be going in knowing nothing about some side characters and knowing the entire life story of others. Either way I’m likely to change them entirely once I start writing and get a feel for whether the characters work or not.
For example, Prudence Diaz started off as a mean girl trope, but that was kind of boring so she became a misanthropic student journalist whom Bethany wants to get to know, even though Pru isn’t making it easy. Jessie was just going to be a cute guy in high school Bethany hits it off with, but that was also boring, and he ended up going through several changes before ending up a [SPOILER].
Also, one of Bethany’s parents was going to be deceased, but I thought she had enough problems without laying that kind of tragedy on her.