(C) 2020, JJ Shaun I started writing my fiction right after I returned from a deployment filled with underway watch rotations and Dungeons & Dragons when not on duty. If you have ever played tabletop (pen-and-paper) D&D, you know that progress can be glacial. Six months of playing doesn’t always amount to much character development. … Continue reading DIY MFA: Plotting for the Pantser
It’s been a wild couple of weeks. With all that’s happening in the “real world,” I’ve had a difficult time concentrating on the characters tiptoeing through my imagination. But as things calmed down to a dull roar last week, I watched a scene unfold with the twins as they discovered a hidden cavern. In this … Continue reading Using Life to Create Fiction
(C) 2020, JJ Shaun Most of my ideas are set in some fantasy world or another. One notable exception is a story I wrote in college. The script I had penned for a class stayed with me over the decades. After reading It Can’t Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis, a story idea began to percolate. … Continue reading When Characters Have More to Say
(C) 2020, JJ Shaun I spend quite a bit of time trying to keep from getting bored, so I play video games. I find that they satisfy my desire to be part of a story. Television is okay, but it’s passive entertainment, as are books, to a degree. Video games let me not just follow … Continue reading Stepping Out of the Box
(C) Google Maps Now that I have my files back in place and the proper versions up and running, I’m able to get back to the twins and their predicament. I caught up with what Talbot has been up to and left the twins looking into the mouth of a cave that had an enticing … Continue reading Letting Characters Guide the Setting
(C) 2020, JJ Shaun Here it is Friday again. I spent the week getting my projects off the old computer and onto the new, and not a lot of time writing. I’ve downloaded a few of the games that have been sitting in the queue for a week or twelve and checked out a couple … Continue reading Use Experience to Build a Better Character
(C) 2020, JJ ShaunPutting game tiles together to create a unique playing field. I’ve been getting more into the heads of my characters lately. The introductory tale of this series of short stories centers on three young members of an uber-rich family. They get caught up in a set of circumstances they never, in their … Continue reading Playing to Write
The last few days I’ve been prying information out of my characters. After the initial round of talkativeness, they left while I got my notes caught up (and some of my reading). The twins came back to talk to me again last night. They let me know that they are modern kids, so I dove … Continue reading Interview with an Antagonist
(C) 2020, JJ Shaun I decided to go back and take a look at some of my old fan fiction to see how I can use those ideas as springboards into something new and improved. So, I spent the better part of the week writing the background for that concept. I had a sense of … Continue reading Idea Mash-Up
(C) 2020, JJ Shaun I try to sit down to write every day. Lately, the time I set aside to write has gotten shorter, mostly limited to keeping this blog. Don’t get me wrong, I have a ton of ideas running around my head, it’s just my motivation is minimal. I decided to look at … Continue reading Transforming the Old Into Something New
Books, games, music, and life — filtered through the mind of a writer, drummer, and philosopher who thinks too deeply about all of it. If it moves something in your chest, I'm interested.
Tavern Tales
Poetry BLOG By Edge of Humanity Magazine
New Writing Engaging with the Sacred
J.J. Shaun 