Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Writing Thoughts

How do you express thoughts from a character in your story? There are different ways you could do this. You could use quotation marks, but that could be confusing to the reader since speaking is in quotation marks.....is the character thinking or speaking? Apostrophes could be used, but the most common way and the way I prefer is writing thoughts in italics. Here is an example of speaking and thinking in one paragraph of a book I am writing:

Earth calendar year 1962. Age 5.1 years: She is going to help Daddy paint the fence. “Krissy, go get the paint from the shed, here is the key,” he says. She skips down the dirt road to the shed. The door to the shed is old and worn. Daddy should paint this shed door too, she thinks to herself as she puts the key in the lock. The key goes in but will not turn.  She tries and tries again, turning and pushing the key, wiggling the doorknob and finally in frustration kicks and kicks the door. By this time, she is red-faced and angry.

All three ways are acceptable, it depends on your preference.

Teri Saya

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Monday, December 1, 2014

Those Perfect Words That Wake You in the Middle of the Night

Fleeting Words

by Teri Saya


I'm sleeping…….. 
Then my mind turns over and my eyes open to the darkness.
It all comes to me! The things I wanted to write down.
Quickly, I reach for the notepad that I keep on the nightstand.
It’s not there!
Many words are going through my head like a parade passing by.
Their perfect! Exactly what I have been wanting to write down!
I pull back the blanket and quietly get out of bed.
The words are fading! No time for slippers!
I head for the office where my laptop sits. It has fallen asleep!
Waiting for the thing to cycle itself awake, I find a pen and paper.
I begin scribbling furiously as the tail end of that beautiful word parade slips from my brain.
The computer chirps cheerily, as if to say, "ok, I'm ready!"
I open the word processor program.
And, what I have written on the paper makes no sense....
Damn! Missed it again!
I stare at the nonsensical words on the paper and decide to go back to bed.
This time I make sure there is a notepad and pen on the nightstand.
Maybe, just maybe, those fleeting words will come back to me.


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