Comicality

"Sneak Away 4" The weird thing is that I couldn’t seem to get it all out of my head. I was frozen in place, overtaken with a stunned silence. The look of Adler’s sexy face as he tilted his head back and closed his eyes...the bite of his bottom lip...the sensual throbbing of his warm shaft beneath my foot as heated splashes of his precious juices flooded into his underwear. I wish I could have tasted it. Fresh and hot...right from the tap. I wanted to feel those aggressive thumps and

Agreed! Sometimes I have a story in my head, and it's so close to me that I forget what I wrote out for readers and what was just floating around as thoughts to use for other parts of the story. It throws my continuity off sometimes.

I hope you guys had a safe and happy holiday season this year! My mom and I took a bit easy this year. I mean, I love my family something awful...but they outnumber us to the point where we feel like Spartans in "300" sometimes. Like...a break was seriously needed. Anyway, I spent yesterday and will spend a few more hours tonight answering emails! When I get to about 200 or so, I'll release them all abd they'll be heading your way. Some of them might be from a few weeks ago when I was in my unholy writing frenzy...so if you get something from, like...Thanksgiving or something, it's because I didn't get a chance to answer them until now. So sorry for that, but you might get some of those emails tonight. K? I'll keep my fingers crossed! And I'll try to answer more next week as well! Start off the new year with a few hugs and giggles! Stories start again this weekend! So I'll seezya then! MWAH! Take care! And stay beautiful, Shackers!

Importance Of Continuity Believe it or not...well, you probably do...hehehe, I used to be MUCH worse about story continuity in my own work! I mean, as hard as I tried, it was always a difficult task trying to keep everything all together the way I really wanted to. And that was while I was working with handwritten NOTES to help guide me and keep me on track. (Keep an eye out for my article on personal story notes soon!) But that’s one of the traps of trying to keep all of your story’s details in your head, and attempting to keep writing from beginning to end. Let me tell you…it doesn’t really work like that for most writers. And that’s even if you’re just working on ONE story, much less a variety of different tales of fiction all at once. No matter how much truth there is to the story, or how close the characters may be to your heart and soul...the idea that you can write an entire story of any real length and remember all the details without the occasional slip up here and there, is pretty much unfathomable. If any of you guys know how to do it, please share your magic trick with the group! Because I had to resort to taking enough notes constantly to know where I left off, where it came from, and where I was going with it. I was starting to think that I was going to give myself a full blown brain aneurysm trying to keep everything catalogued in my head somewhere so I’d be able to draw from it when I needed it. Hehehe, but no such luck! I forget to do stuff in my own life sometimes! It’s even harder to remember what’s going on with well over one hundred fictional characters on top of it all. But I can’t stress how important it is to do just that when you’re writing your work out and presenting it in front of you audience. Because the truth is….it can be really confusing for them at best, and extremely annoying at worst. So we all need to make the concept of story continuity a priority at all costs. I really do believe that everything an author writes should have some kind of ‘flow’ to it in order for it to really work. That’s my opinion, as it just makes for a better reading experience for me. It should be smooth, it should have a certain level of natural momentum, and it should be engaging in a way where it doesn’t feel as though you’re reading words on a page or a screen instead of being a virtual part of the story. When readers get caught up in the flow of what you’re writing, the words almost seem to disappear completely, and their imaginations are left to roam free, creating all of the sights and sounds and feelings in their hearts and minds that you worked so hard to develop with your storytelling ability. You hold them captive in your fictional world. That’s the absolute best feeling in the world. Well, that and sex! However...when your continuity falls off or goes astray...you create stumbling blocks in that natural flow, and it immediately crashes the immersion of the story itself. As I believe that I’ve said once in the past...the immersion is everything in your fiction. It will forgive all technical and mechanical mistakes, even spelling errors (as long as they’re not TOO excessive) because they just want to pass over it and get back to the story. So these perception stumbling blocks are guaranteed to ruin that experience, and often much faster than you would assume that they ever could. Continuity errors are the absolute worst one of those stumbling blocks that could put a stranglehold on your story. Especially if you continue on with them or that change for any length of time. It can be a very jarring experience for your readers...and not at all in a good way. It’s almost like telling an outright LIE, you know...and then you build the second half of that story off of that same lie...which does terrible things for the beginning of that particular story. Remember...problems like this force your readers to stop, and readjust and re-imagine your story from scratch. And while they’re doing that...they might be losing interest. Sad, but true. Screw up your continuity, and you could end up causing you story and its fanbase to collapse in a single chapter. Hehehe, so I suggest you try to avoid that. It’s no reason to panic...just try to fix these issues out in your editing process before releasing it to the public. If you have a good Beta reader on your side...even better! They might be able to catch these things that you might not notice while you’re lost in ‘writer mode’. Listen to their advice. They’re there to help you out. Stay focused. And if you post or publish with these mistakes included before you’re able to catch them...then you might just have to take a big loss on that, and fess up to your mistake while you keep moving forward. There’s really not much else that you can do. ‘Fix it in post’, as the movie folks say. The easiest part of going back to correcting continuity errors is simply a name change or change in spelling. Something that I have been absolutely HORRIBLE about in some cases, until recently, now that I’m trying to fix everything up for the ebooks! I can’t even tell you why. It’s like my brain sees things one thing on one day, but it sees something else completely different the next day. This something that I’ve really been working on when I’m writing, and I definitely look for in my ebook versions so I can make sure that I can keep everything consistent. Like I said, I didn’t even realize that I was flipping and flopping back and forth with the spelling of my own characters’ names until I went back to edit the story for the third or fourth time. And I cringed every single time. Lesson learned! For example, the main character in my story “My Only Escape” (https://gayauthors.org/story/comicality/myonlyescape). Sometimes I was spelling it ‘Zach’ with an ‘H’...and other times, I was spelling it with a ‘K’, which is what I had originally intended. So I made sure to go through all of the books in the entire completed ebook series to have everything line up like it should. Also, there was a character that I created in the “Shelter” prequel, “Rotting Apples” (https://gayauthors.org/story/comicality/rottingapples/) who later whows up in the main story of “Shelter” (https://gayauthors.org/story/comicality/shelter/) and his name kept changing from ‘Stephen’ to ‘Steven’, and that’s still something that I have to fix as of right now on the site to keep from embarrassing myself even further. I really REALLY hate doing that! It’s such an amateur mistake, but sometimes, it’s just unavoidable. The idea is to catch it in the editing process before anybody else gets to see it. Hehehe, obviously, I didn’t! So, I suck for that! Sorry. But I’d like to think that I’m getting better at looking for these kinds of mishaps! That might seem like such a minor thing and an easy fix...but it counts. Why? Because it’s interrupting the natural flow of my story, and it’s a stain on my brand as an attentive author who’s always trying to put his best foot forward. Do you see it? Can feel it? That stumble can toss even the most invested reader out of my carefully crafted world and sends them crashing back down to Earth again. I don’t want that. Now….let’s move onto something a bit more detrimental a story’s continuity. And that is the plot and intimate details of the story itself. This is where an author can really cause a significant amount of damage to what they’re doing. Where your only choices are to completely re-edit everything out, try to find a way to weave the differences together in a way that explain what happened...or to totally ‘cheat’ and pretend it never happened at all. Hehehe, to anyone who’s read all of my stories, then you’ll already know that I’m guilty of doing all three! So you make your own choices where you feel you need to...but here has been my pseudo-expert experience so far. When I started my very first story on the site, “New Kid In School” (https://gayauthors.org/story/comicality/newkidinschool), I was much younger and a complete novice at writing these kinds of stories. Or anything even remotely gay, to be honest. My only way of trying to openly express myself in that way came from following the Nifty Archives’ blueprint to get started...and I made my main characters really YOUNG. When I started, Randy and Ryan were only thirteen years old. And as I continued to write on (I never really expected my very first story to go anywhere after that first chapter) they were aged up to high school age, and then Ryan was taking driving lessons...meaning that they were now sixteen at least. Unfortunately, it was too late to go back and correct that error on Nifty, even if I fixed it on my own site. But they were still supposed to be new boyfriends, so I couldn’t just magically say that they had been together for three whole years and the gap in time had just whizzed by without anybody noticing. Not their friends or their parents or anything. So that huge time gap still exists in the story and probably always will until I turn it into an ebook series and start all over from scratch. It’s a continuity error that makes me cringe every time I think about it. And anybody reading it is going to know the glaring difference between the earlier chapters and the later chapters. That continuity in my storytelling is just going to have to remain forever broken until I start all over again. You know? Shame, shame, shame. There have been other mistakes where I’ve accidentally called a character by the wrong name and didn’t catch it in editing. Where blue eyes turn brown or hazel. There was a time in “A Class By Himself” (https://gayauthors.org/story/comicality/aclassbyhimself) where in an earlier chapter, Derrick couldn’t afford to just ‘go out and buy a new laptop’ which put him at a severe disadvantage from the other students in his class...but in a later chapter he was getting emails or texts from his boyfriend Tanner without explaining how he was able to suddenly afford the equipment to be able to do that. There is an entire treasure trove of mistakes and inconsistencies in my work that I’ve really had to work hard to not draw attention to and hope that I can somehow keep writing and moving the story forward from when I discovered the continuity mishap in the first place. I just wish I was able to catch it ahead of time. I was lucky enough to get a second chance to make a first impression with my work by painstakingly going through my stories and correcting these mistakes before releasing them as ebooks, where they’ve found a whole new life with a much better and mature and experienced version than what I originally released anywhere else online. (https://imagine-magazine.org/store/comicality/) So...like, in the original “Gone From Daylight”, I had a group of people go off to speak in private on a rooftop one night. One of those characters was named, ‘Doc’, who I wanted to be there because of his knowledge and studies of what was going on. But, he’s in a wheelchair...so how did he get to the rooftop? In the original version, I wasn’t thinking about that. I just wanted him there in the scene. In the ebook version, I created an entire scene of an old elevator with my main character and his boyfriend getting him to the top of that building. And that part of the story make much more sense now, and doesn’t act as a stumbling block to anybody enjoying the natural flow of the story and don’t have to stop and readjust to question what’s going on and why. Now that I’m able to look back and act on that whole ‘hindsight is 20/20’ principle...I can smooth out all of the rough edges and work towards creating a work of fiction that makes sense. And one that won’t confuse my readers with continuity errors. Don’t end up with the kind of regrets that I have from not being more careful when I started. You have a chance to get it right the first time, and put that best foot forward with confidence and advice that will save you from some of those pitfalls that I had to experience by getting it wrong. K? That’s it for now! Go out there and show the world what you’ve got! Just make sure that you keep your story focused and as void of those continuity wormholes as you possibly can. They’re easy to fall into, and very hard to get out of! So skip that part of you writer’s journey at all costs. Seezya soon! Happy writing! And stay beautiful!

https://gayauthors.org/story/comicality/savagemoon06-thenewbreed A new chapter is up and ready to go, folks! And welcome to your Xmas break, youngsters! Be safe, and have fun! Be sure to check it out! And let me know what you think when you get a chance!

"Savage Moon: The New Breed 43" “Little pig, little pig...let me in.” Cyrus grinned wickedly as he stepped out in front of the others. No hesitation. No fear. No protection needed from the rest of the pack. It was obvious that he knew that. “You are way out of line here...baby pup.” I was frozen in my position, my sensitive ears picking up the sounds of my brethren’s approaching footsteps. I could now smell their scent being carried on the soft nightly wind, but it was my deep c

Character Combos As many of you guys already know...I absolutely LOVE to work with ensemble casts in my own work! It gives me so much freedom and extra room to build characters up (or tear them down) without having to resort to long bouts of exposition to do it. I’ve always thought that the true identity of a character was more impactful by centering on their positive or negative interactions with the other characters in my stories then just talking about them, second-hand. It says soooo much more than simply telling the audience that ‘this is who character is. And you should just believe me because I said so.’ That’s not really effective in my mind. I’m always like, “Show me!” Why should I just believe the writer because that’s who they need them to be in order for the plot to work? It’s not enough to simply say, ‘because I said so.’ I want to see your claims about this fictional person in action. I want to not only see your assumptions of this character worked into your story, but I want to see how it bounces off of other personalities in your fiction and find it’s own special niche spot among the rest of your characters. Who are they, and why are they a part of your story? Now, if you write gay teen romance...you really only need to include a protagonist and a love interest to work with. And that can be a beautiful thing if you focus on the love and relationship between those two people. Maybe you add a friend here and there, or a parent if you feel it’s necessary...but the story is really about the bonding of your two main characters. And that’s awesome. You ‘stayed in the pocket’ with your focus and told the tale that you wanted to tell. Great! Thumbs up for that. However...if you ever look back at your own work and find yourself doing more ‘telling’ than ‘showing’...you may want to see if there are places in your writing where you can add a few scenes or examples of the very suggestions that you made considering one character or another. When describing a certain character, whether it be in your story, or just in your notes beforehand...you should always always always be asking yourself why? This guy is a badass? Why? This guy always makes me laugh? Why? He’s such a sweetheart, or he’s so angry, or he’s such a pest? Why? Don’t explain it to me...show me the evidence, and let me come to my own conclusion about it all. Allow me, as a reader, to be a part of building my perception of this character and take it to heart. You know? It makes a difference. Trust me. I speak from experience, despite having to learn it the hard way in the beginning. The beauty of having an ensemble cast when I’m writing is knowing that I have multiple avenues to expose and explore these characters by showing my readers how they act and react in certain situations or interact with other characters with different personalities in my story. And character combos have become a BIG part of everything that I write for that very reason. I don’t want to narrate from an omnipotent position and tell the readers how to feel about a certain character ahead of time. I want them to be a part of the experience when it comes to developing their feelings and personal investments in the characters that I create. And sometimes that comes from the simple act of seeing them in action with other people. You know what I mean? Character combinations are very easy to put together once you ease up on your complete and total control over your fictional characters’ lives and just let them exist with one another as you know them. The key is to concentrate on their individual personas, and allow them to blossom and display themselves through their actions and dialogue as the story progresses forward. Separate them! When you create a character for your story, make sure that there’s a real reason for them to be there. And USE that reason to your advantage! Even if it happens to be a side character. This is where the power comes from when it comes to character combos. A combination of personalities and abilities all coming together at once. Sometimes peacefully...sometimes not so much! But the idea is very simple. As they say...”Teamwork makes the dream work!” Which basically means that everybody has something to offer in terms of a cohesive storyline. As I’ve said before, if you have a character in your work that can easily be taken out without affecting the story in any major way...then he/she doesn’t belong there. It’s fluff. It’s like having cotton candy for dinner. It’s not satisfying or fulfilling at all. Lose it. Always keep this principle in mind while you’re writing. If you have a protagonist with an obligatory best friend, a teen with an oblivious parent with no impact on the story, or a boss at work with no real effect on your protagonist...then lose them. If you can or have no future plans for them, that is. The thing about character combos is the idea that you can get an ensemble cast of characters together all at once, but they all have a special skill, or knowledge, or a unique mindset, that will come in handy in the major scheme of things. Something that no one else on your fictional ‘team’ can do, or do the same way, than the character that you’ve picked for that particular task. THAT is exciting! That’s what people love to see! Hehehe! I want you to watch this clip from “Wakanda Forever” that displays a lot of what I’m talking about here. Now, all three of these characters have the exact same goal in the long run, but they are still acting in ways that sort of conflict with one another, which I thought was BRILLIANT! Here, you have a young college student whose a tech genius who has been hiding out, so when the cops show up for a surprise raid, she just wants to burn the evidence and fly out of there so she can’t be caught! And looks like she’s having a blast doing it! Hahaha! Meanwhile, you’ve got Shuri...the defiant and reckless princess, who immediately wants to go after her. BUT, she’s being heavily guarded by the Queen’s own General Okeye, who’s only priority is to protect the princess and get her out of there at all costs! No matter what! So, our college student, Ri Ri, flys off, and Shuri sneaks behind the car to basically lock the female general in the car and turns on the computer remote controls to spin her off in the opposite direction to get her out of the way! (Something she had obviously planned for beforehand, just in case) Leaving Shuri to jump on a motorcycle and chase after her target without being restricted or worried about her safety. Something the general would NEVER allow if she had known ahead of time. Conflicting methods, but all trying to reach the same goal by using their specific gifts to make this happen. Gifts that can finally match one another when they work together. There is so much GENIUS in how this scene was put together...but more on that after you watch it... The thing about the previous clip is all about the switch off. One is young and naive but highly intelligent, one is extremely smart but reckless, and one is dedicated and loyal to the throne...but can be easily tricked if the warrior lets down her guard. Strengths and weaknesses are all on display here when put it into the proper context, and it says something that’s very simple. ‘Everybody has something to do here.’ This is a character combo. It gives importance and interest to everyone in your story, and this is crucial when it comes to keeping your story tight and concentrated, because you’re not wasting time trying to find a purpose for one of your other characters in critical situations. If they’re there, show us why. What are they bringing to the table? What particular skill set or bit of knowledge are they adding to this particular scene? Again...think about what their strengths are, and what their weaknesses are...and how can they work together to fill some of those holes where they might be lacking. In the story, “New Kid In School” (https://gayauthors.org/story/comicality/newkidinschool) I have a cute couple that just want to be together, but I also have someone else who wants to separate them and take one of the boys for himself. But I have another character that knows all of this boy’s sneaky tricks and deceptions who can step in and fend him off with the insults and sarcastic remarks needed to keep him at bay while our couple remains solid. He’s the character that can fill in that spot of weakness or inexperience for our favorite boyfriends...and that’s why he’s there. (Sorry if that’s vague, but I was trying to avoid spoilers) He has a reason to be there. There is something that he can do, that he can know, or that he can see and anticipate...that the other two can’t. So I focus on his special skill with this story, and he’s obviously bringing something unique to the table. And this makes for a more interesting character who’s there just for the sake of trading dialogue or being a random plot device. He’s woven into the very fabric of what is going on there, and readers will connect to him because they will clearly understand why he’s needed in this part of the story. In the “Savage Moon” story, every single member of the wolf pack has a specific role to play. In the story “S-K-Y-L-I-G-H-T”, everyone has a different personality and a different collection of attributes that might help them all survive. Same with “Shelter”. By having everyone be a part of the solution, or even a part of causing more problems, not only do you connect your audience to them as individuals, but it keeps you away from Mary/Gary Sue characters who can seemingly do everything all on their own without any help from anybody. That erases tension and can sometimes make for a boring main character. Spread the problem out a little bit, and let a few of them show your readers what they can do. Sorry to bash and batter you guys with Marvel stuff as much as I do...but I grew up reading comic books, and they taught me how to handle character, action, drama, plot, etc. It’s how I learned to write at all. Hehehe, so sue me! This clip is from the first “Avengers” movie. Just watch this scene. You’ve got your team leader who’s capable of quickly putting a plan together, you’ve got a tech genius who can fly and guide the enemy in the right direction, you’ve got a couple of spies/assassins who can help to save civilians in harm’s way, you’ve got the muscle, you’ve got the muscle...each and every single person on this team has a skill that is specific to them and them alone. Nobody feels left out. Nobody feels wasted. They’ve all got a killer hand to play, and this is exactly what I’m talking about when it comes to your own projects! Develop your characters earlier on in the story, and when it comes time for them to put their advantages to use...it means something special, and it sets them apart from your other characters. For example, in “Raiders Of The Lost Ark”, the first time we meet her, she’s drinking a guy nearly twice her size under the table! That’s more than just a random scene, that’s character building. Because that talent of hers shows up later in the movie, and you believe it because it’s already been introduced as one of her attributes that even the main character might not be able to pull off. So she’s proven herself to be more than a worthy member of the team she’s working with. You’ll see examples of this in movies like “Mission: Impossible” or the “Oceans Eleven” remake! Get everyone involved, flaws and all. Make it work, and you’ll have an easy time of letting the story build up around them. Get it? Good! That’s it for now! I hope you guys have fun! And I’ll be back with more soon!

https://imagine-magazine.org/ Happy 15th, you guys! A brand new issue of Image Magazine is now up and ready to go! So go and enjoy a bit of a dark Christmas, and let us all know what you think! And huge thanks to everyone who worked hard, even during the holidays, to get things together and put it up! MWAH!!! Love you all!

Is it weird that I understood every word? I don't use any of that slang at all, but I've heard it enough to make the association of what it means at his point. Crazy...

Endgame There was a time when a majority of people saw the world in black and white. Well, some still do...but, for the most part...we’ve all grown to realize that things aren’t always that simple. The days of some mad scientist doing awful things simply because he’s crazy and terrible are kind of coming to an end. There are reasons for people that do the things that they do. Sometimes they’re selfish reasons, yes...but it’s not just a matter of good and evil all the time. Everything can’t be, “This person is all good and pure of heart” and “This other person is all bad and wicked to their core”. That’s a very flat and surface level of storytelling. I mean, I’ve seen the very best of friends do some awful things where I had to tell them, “You were fucked up for that, dude.” It’s true. At the same time, I’ve seen people that I absolutely hated with every fiber of my being...being capable of incredible acts of kindness and understanding. And it’s hard to figure that out on either side, but it happens. Often at random, with no explanation at all. Go figure. The thing is...if I want to build a complete story and be able to deliver a message of understanding and meaning, the whole ‘random’ motivations thing doesn’t really carry as much weight as I want the story to have. There’s no power in that. I can’t really just have events happen without rhyme or reason. There are no more morally corrupt warriors, evil wizards, or people who are bad just for the sake of being bad. It may take some time and some digging to figure out what their trigger is or why it works...but on a deeper level, it’s in there somewhere. So, whether you expose it in the actual story right away or not...you should have one question in mind, whether it be for your protagonist or their enemy. And that question is...what’s the endgame here? What is this person trying to accomplish and why? It’s something to think about and, at some point, share with your audience so the plot feels as if it has some kind of direction to it. And that direction, just like everything else in your story, should make some kind of logical sense. Have you ever heard one of those super in depth conspiracy theories that a lot people immediately buy into and expand upon...but they have no actual endgame in mind that would accomplish much of anything? Muahahaha...I’ll raise the price of eggs at the grocery store, and then people will, ummm...have to pay more for eggs! Ok. And then what? What’s the reasoning behind that? Or, I’m going to blow up this entire country with a nuke! Annnnnd…? Go back and salvage something valuable from the wreckage about twenty or thirty years from now? Nukes do a lot of damage, it makes the area and all of its resources pretty much useless for a very long time in most cases, and a strong wind might end up blowing harmful chemicals and radiation right back at you. At least, that’s what I think happens. I’d have to do some heavy research to even figure out the benefits of something like that. What’s the endgame? While some writers try to come up with these intense and elaborate plans in order to make their protagonists or antagonists seem as if they’re really genius opponents who are always twelve steps ahead of their opponent...sometimes it just gets waaaay overdone. Sometimes, unless the antagonist is constantly trying to go up against a bunch of his or her high powered, highly intelligent, obstacles of their own...things don’t have to be quite that complicated. So don’t over play your hand, you know? I was watching the news a few months ago, where somebody was talking about how the US government was trying to kill him because he knew too many secrets. ::Snickers:: I mean...really? Trying to kill you? The most high tech, overly expensive, military force on the planet is really having that much trouble trying to take you out? What...are you Jason Bourne? John Wick? James Bond? Do you know how easy it would be for just me to kill him if I really thought it was that serious? LOL! Why would I use the entire might of the military and create a big cover up about it, when I could sprinkle rat poison on your burger the next time you go through the drive-thru at your local fast food spot? That guy watches too many movies. There are people who really do believe getting a shot will inject nanobots into their system so they can be tracked everywhere they go. “Really? Where’d you read that?” Right here on my cell phone. Like...you know there’s a tracking device on that, right? See...these endgames don’t make much sense. Nobody is spending millions of dollars to watch you run out to Walmart as a little blip on their high tech computer and come back home with some frozen hot dogs and toilet paper. They could honestly just follow you there with a dollar’s worth of gas in the car. Better yet, they can just choose not to give a shit about and go looking for somebody important, you know? These aren’t good endgame scenarios. Have you ever seen the movie, “Batman V Superman”? Check out this video, mostly the part that happens at four minutes into the video. This is actually the plan of the main villain and all that entails. Feel free to pause it and read through it all to understand how utterly convoluted and confusing it is over all. It’s actually fascinating that an evil genius could possibly ever come up with something like this...even lost in a fever dream or in the middle of a cocaine binge! What the hell…? Can you imagine having to write all of those plot points, involving all of those characters, and all of those moving parts...and still having it make any sense at all? The first thing to do is ‘simplify’. Find out what each character is trying to accomplish, why they’re motivated in that direction, and then stick to it. Get from point A to point B in the most efficient way possible. There are stories with really elaborate plans that need an entire team of specialists to pull off...but you have to learn to aim all of these things in the same direction. They need to make sense and every action needs to have a definitive purpose with a clear and understandable motivation attached to them. What are they going to put into action, and how are they expecting it to work out the way they planned it. That’s how you develop a really awesome endgame for your story. Great examples of this would be movies like 2001’s version of “Oceans Eleven”, or “Se7en”, or even Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Total Recall”! And they have really complex plans that will take an excessive amount of planning as well as an unpredictable amount of luck to pull them off...but they still work in the terms of telling a great story. Because every part of the plan has a clearly defined endgame in mind, and as things begin to unravel and are revealed to your readers...you’re able to see how they all came into play from the very beginning. The distractions, the double cross, the heist, the secret agendas...if you want to make them a part of your story, then make sure that you’re able to focus on a singular goal and how to get away with it. Introduce, put into motion, and reveal along the way. This is how they all work in the long run. Don’t set up a bad guy who wants to take over the world. And do what with it? Govern it all at once? Rob it of untold riches? Why...you own the whole world, what would you need money for? Maybe destroy the world? Ummm...don’t you live on it too? Unless you have a motivation that’s like, “Mankind’s reign is over. We’re a cancer here and all need to be wiped out, me included.” There’s got to be a reason for your antagonist to feel this way...and that feeling had to come from somewhere in their backstory. Even if you really want your villain to just be a heartless bastard from beginning to end...that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a goal of some sort, right? Even the most ruthless and savage serial killers are aiming to satisfy some sort of sick urge or to accomplish something with the evil deeds that they commit. Find it. Concentrate on it. And use it to add a layer of depth to your character that will (hopefully) make some kind of sense. In my series, “Savage Moon”, even the pack leaders Cyrus has a dark reward that he’s trying to attain, and while I may not reveal his plan more than a little bit at a time...the audience gets it fed to them more and more until they begin to piece it together for themselves. Naturally, I wanted him to be a frightening antagonist for my main character to have to face over time, and maintain a sense of tension and conflict, and I could’ve just had him be evil incarnate for no other reason than he’s the bad guy. But that wouldn’t really make for a compelling story in my opinion. It’s flat. It’s one note. And that makes him predictable as a character...which quickly becomes boring. Unpredictability is much scarier. And that comes from knowing that he has some kind of master plan in the works...and my main character can’t figure out what it is just yet. He has to figure it out, and take my readers along for the ride. That already sounds better than the good versus bad scenario that we’re all so used to, where the good guys always win. Hehehe, do they, though? Always focus on the endgame. No matter what you’re writing. This works for fantasy, for romance, for action, for drama...it’s simply a way of you marking off a beginning point, and an end point, and making sure that you can reach them both without going too far out of your way. You have a guy at a bar that’s having an awesome conversation with the person next to him, and he’s thinking that he might want to get out of there and maybe talk for a while longer without all the noise? Well, what’s his endgame? Does he just want a friend, and it turns out that he develops feelings for him later? Is he just looking for a quick one night stand that turns into something more? Is he just being spontaneous on that particular night to see what happens? Figure out his endgame. What goal is he trying to reach, and then use that as a guide to lead your writing in that direction. Has he asked him yet? Is he nervous? Does he think the other person is out of his league? Is he out of the closet yet? Is he dealing with the aftermath of a nasty break up? All of these scenarios should be put in place to answer the question of ‘why’! What’s his motivation and why does he feel this way? Add this to your characters, no matter the genre, and they will begin to take on a much more interesting shape in the eyes of your readers. K? No bad guy is all bad. No good guy is all good. Keep that in mind, and you’ll have a much clearer vision of what it is that you have to do from beginning to end. Food for thought! I hope it helps! I’ll be back soon with more! As long as I’m gabbing, I might as well give it all away, right? Take care! Happy writing! Seezya soon!

Thanks a ton, you guys. I'm working it out and getting my line-up back together. Love you all! Ps - Hehehe, no worries, Page... "One Piece was one of my favorite series this year, by FAR! I've seen it at least three or four times now from beginning. And it makes me smile every single time!

I'm definitely having a 'kid in a candy store' moment like man of you. I haven't read most of these, but I agree that the lis is a good way to point people in the right direction. I'd be down to check some of these out when I get a chance and spread the word about them to my readers too. Could be fun!

I'm sorry, I just could NOT get better! So I sort of fell apart over the past week or so, and I'm just catching up today on emails and stuff. So sorry, you guys. It was a bad time....

I'm feeling a bit better. Sorry. It kind of hits me without warning, but I'm doing ok. Just needed a bit of medicine and rest. So that's cool. Starting on Monday, I'll start our Christmas Cutie Jukebox on the Shack's main forum! ( http://www.voy.com/15900/ ) And that's every day for the holiday season. Might as well have some fun and get our hearts in the spirit, right? Seezya then! "I AM GROOT!!!"

Oh God...I'm so sorry to hear that. That's got to be really hard to take in and deal with. If he can find the help he needs, I hope it does him some good. It's one of those things that you have to work out on your own, and it's good to have help. But outside of just being there for him in his time of need, there really isn't much else that you can do. I'm sending some positive vibes your way, and I'll wish for the best. Hang in there, bud.

Invoking Nostalgia Our lives, more often than not, come down to our ability to connect our current selves to our previous selves from the past. Being younger, more naive, more eager and energetic...remembering the lessons that we’ve learned, and the sometimes tragic mistakes we made that we’ve learned them from. Whenever you look at a younger photograph of yourself...you have to replay a ‘story’ in your head that will somehow cause you feel as though you and that person in the photograph are actually the same human being. (How crazy would it be if you couldn’t?) There is a myriad of different stories and and major events that has taken you from that image in the picture to the person that you see now when you look in the mirror, and the same goes for all of us. There’s just something magical about it, you know? At least to me, there is. And when I’m writing, it’s that deep sense of nostalgia that creates such a deep connection to my own content and making it work out the way that I want it to. Hopefully, it does the same for my readers as well. That’s my goal for every last story that I create, no matter what the genre or story might be as a whole. Just to make something that ‘connects’. There really are times that I wish I could go back and give my younger self some much needed advice when it came to navigating my way through the life that I was living at the time. Finding a certain sense of pride within myself, and figure out how to stop being so scared and doubtful in my own mind all the time, so that I could maybe erase some of the many MANY mistakes that I made growing up. I wish I could show myself what video games look like nowadays, or what movies I’d be able to dive into...and the idea that I’d be able to write stories online about the boys that I was going to school with at that time would probably blow my poor little MIND! LOL! Anyway, I’d like to think that it might be fun to visit that time again, just because. And despite what anybody tells you, I’m willing to bet that there is a tiny bit of that craving for their past nostalgia lurking within your audience somewhere too. A fun little tale or secret from their own personal history that they’ve been dying to tell someone else and maybe never had the opportunity to have that conversation or allow that memory to really rise up to the surface in a way where it can be shared and appreciated in the way that it was meant to be. I mean, let’s be honest...isn’t that what writing and storytelling is all about anyway? Bringing pieces of your past to life for those who take the time to sit back and listen. Everybody has a story to tell. I truly believe that. If you talk to the older members of your family...take a moment to really zoom in and listen to what they have to say. They may repeat some of the same stories over and over again, but don’t treat them with any level of discount. That’s a piece of somebody’s life. And bringing those amazing moments back to them while comparing them to some of your own is a blessing that you can’t even imagine. You just have to know how to do it with your own writing as well. You’d be amazed at how effective it is when it comes to drawing your readers in and captivating their thoughts and memories that truly engages them with your story, and adds elements of enjoyment and familiarity to every single word. Sounds vague, doesn’t it? Hehehe, it’s not. So pay attention. Let’s get our methods together and make this magic happen, shall we? It doesn’t matter how old or how young you may be...that pinch of nostalgia is still there. Most authors approach it in a favorably, but not all. There are some of us that have led difficult lives in the past, so your view of nostalgia may be viewed in a completely different way. But even that can create the kind of attachment that you’re looking to make with your audience, so don’t be afraid to use that to your advantage if that’s the direction that you want to go with it. All you have to do is trade places with the person in that picture that I mentioned earlier. Go back and submerge yourselves in the era where some of your absolute favorite memories lie. People will often latch onto things the same way that you do once you get them hooked, and it creates a feeling of familiarity that existed only in what we may look at as ‘the good old days’. Now, has the world become a completely different place in this day and age? No. Not really. Some new technologies, some new popular trends and fashions, sure...but the world is pretty much the same. What creates the illusion is the idea that you were different back then, and therefore so was your perspective of the world around you. I’m always talking about finding the core elements of your writing through emotion and motivations, and that also applies here as well. Being embarrassed, falling in love, getting angry, seeing new places, having your heart broken in two...these are feelings that almost everybody can identify in some shape or form. If you can focus on telling that story with honesty and insight...then the era that you place your story in or the ages of your characters won’t really matter all that much. A kid in the 80’s and a kid during the 2020 pandemic can share the same goosebumps over a gay love story as anyone else. A high school Froshman, a divorced manager of a computer company, and a widowed gentleman in a nursing home, all get nervous and blush when it comes to really being infatuated with someone that they care about and want to ask out on a date for the first time. The core feelings are the same, the nostalgia element exists there in a greater degree than anywhere else. However, it’s always fun to put that extra bit of polish on it by adding a fun bit of what I like to call ‘era porn’! Hehehe! And this is where the devil is in the details. It’s something that I sort of want to play around with in my writing more often. What is era porn? It’s usually something that you can add to your stories by decade, but seeing as everything is speeding up these days, even five years ago might feel like a different era altogether. For example I wrote a short story called “Special Delivery” (https://gayauthors.org/story/comicality/special-delivery/) that takes place just two years ago during the pandemic, and already that seems to have a feeling of nostalgia for a world that doesn’t really exist anymore. Thankfully. So, if you wanted to recreate that time period for your story...think about what it was like for you to grow up and go through it. What were the trends of that particular time? What did you wear? What movies or TV shows were you watching and being influenced by? Who were your friends and what were they like at that time? The further you go back, the more you’ll begin to realize how much you’ve changed since then. And with a just few mentions of certain gizmos or music that was inescapable in that era, you can create shades of the period that builds that world for your audience. Little things to make them say to themselves, “Oh yeah...I remember that!” Now, I was an 80’s kid, and starting my teens in the 90’s, so something as simple as mentioning a video rental store or an arcade is already beginning to paint a nostalgic picture that a lot of my younger readers have no idea about. Even movies like “The Ring” have my cousins looking at the TV and wondering what that noise is. Hehehe, they don’t really know what ‘static’ is...so I imagine it looks weird to them. This is why I always keep my era porn Easter eggs on the outside edges of the rest of the story, so as not to come off as cheesy or heavy handed with it, as well as confusing to those who haven’t experienced it for themselves. You don’t want to overdo it. You want the references to be present, but not overpowering. As for people close to my age or older? They see it. They remember it. Connect to it. And can now be submerged in that world all over again. Congrats! Nostalgia achieved! It’s not like we haven’t been targeted with this particular method before, while having someone write about a bunch of experiences that they had growing up in any one particular era... 0000 Whether it’s from “The Wonder Years” or the fluttering frames of the old Grindhouse movies...the idea is to place your characters, and therefore your readers, in an older time and to trigger all of the feelings and memories that comes along with them. Remember, the characters are still the ones driving the story forward and taking center stage...the nostalgia is just a polish. It adds a different palette of colors and a different flavor to your story if used correctly. It affects how they look, how they speak, how they solve problems, and what tools they have at their disposal to accomplish their goals. Maybe they don’t have cell phones yet, or they’re not as widely used or as common. No immediate Google or internet access. Maybe the politics of the era were different. Maybe seeing a twelve year old working in a factory ten hours a day without going to school isn’t all that shocking. Maybe hitch hiking was a common thing. Or maybe this is an era where being gay is not ok...or maybe even illegal. No matter what shade of nostalgia that you’re painting your vivid pictures with...all of these things matter. And you don’t want to brak the illusion by putting something in your story that doesn’t belong there or doesn’t fit. Like I said, the devil is in the details. This is something that I have to practice more myself so that I can get a natural feel for it. I will let you know what I find if I get any better at it. Hehehe! Especially since I started another story a long time ago and it has a lot to do with a video rental store, and I would love to finish it. So, instead of trying to figure out to rearrange and write that element out of it...I’m just going to go completely ‘retro’ with it and see how it turns out. You’ll have to wish me luck on that one! I hope this helps to generate some ideas for you guys. If you ever feel like you’re writing the same story over and over again, or you want to give it a little extra flare that a lot of other stories don’t have...try switching up the era and invoking some welcome nostalgia change your writing style a bit. Couldn’t hurt to try, right? Talk to you all soon! And stay beautiful!

Sorry to say that I'm feeling a bit sick at the moment, but I'm so used to being ill every couple of weeks that it barely gets me down anymore. I guess it just is what it is. ::Shrugs:: BUT...I've been writing so much over the past few weeks, that I'm still close to being on schedule! So all of that hard work isn't going to waste. So check back in an hour or two for the stories to continue while I get myself back in working order. Cool? And more emails are going out tomorrow! Promise! And I love you lots! Also, hehehe, I got a Christmas pressent as a donation to the https://paypal.me/Comsie account! And that was super awesome! So thank you so much! And a couple of you asked what I might want for Christmas so they can help out! Hehehe, well...I want what I wanted from you guys EVERY Christmas! And it's free! ::Giggles:: So yeah, bring me that! LOL! Just wanted to feel silly for a little bit! Makes me feel good! Mwah! I'll be back in a day or two when I feel better...

https://gayauthors.org/story/comicality/kissofanangel/ More from Tyler and Ariel is up tonight! Have fun! And let me know what you think when you're finished!

"Kiss Of An Angel 31" What’s the point of trying to come up with something to say when it seems so pointless to do so? You know? I mean...I’m trying...and it’s pretty rad that Randy would go out of his way to walk me to lunch and try to put a smile on my face...but not even Randy’s super pretty face was going to be enough to get me to feel good about any of this stuff. Not even a little bit. The more I think about it, the more it aches on the inside. And, I don’t know...I think

https://gayauthors.org/story/comicality/gfd-children-of-sunset/ A brand new chapter is up, you guys! So enjoy, and look for more soon! ((Hugz))

"GFD: Children Of Sunset 19" “Nothin’ like the soft crackle of a warm fire to loosen you up, is there?” Colby said, his boyish smirk peeking out from the longer strands of his medium brown hair. I had to will myself to look away from him to keep from staring. It never took much to feel my innards tying themselves up in knots over him again, my head spinning until I was almost too dizzy to stay standing. “Uh huh...I suppose.” I agreed, guiding my eyes down to my feet to keep from

A Writer’s Fuel I think that many of us would probably be absolutely terrified to realize how much of our lives are constantly operating on autopilot on a daily basis. Honestly. Have you ever really thought about it? Some of these automatic actions are pretty harmless. You lock your car doors when you get out to run into the store. You hold the door open for someone with their hands full of groceries. You feel the urge to say ‘bless you’ when someone sneezes, even if they’re a total stranger. There are plenty of things that you do during your daily activities that you simply, ummm...do. It’s habit, you know. You don’t think about it, it’s just following patterns of learned behavior. Or, as my grandmother used to say, “It’s what you do if you were raised right!” But what about some of those other things that you do in you lives on autopilot? Have you ever driven home from work...and not really remembered how you got there? You’ve done it so many times that the mundane nature of the task itself doesn’t take any real brain power or attention at all. BUT...while your mind is pretty much blank or not really absorbing your surroundings and what’s going on within ‘striking distance’...SOMEBODY is driving that car! Two thousand pounds or more of metal and glass, a deadly machine, traveling at speeds that could do a whole lot of damage if anything bad were to happen while you were lost in your thoughts. Luckily, our focus can snap back and forth pretty quickly when we need it to...but unless someone in front of you slams on the brakes, a cat runs out into the street, or construction forces you to take a detour...there’s a virtual ‘nobody’ driving you to and from work, day after day, and you may not even know it. Even then...accidents happen. It’s actually pretty frightening when you think about it. Well...the more ‘harmless’ part of that virtual ‘nobody’ is going to be our target of focus today... So don’t worry! Hehehe, I’m not going to traumatize you with the other side of that coin. At least not today... When I, personally, talk about a writer’s ‘fuel’...what I’m really talking about life itself. Not just distant memories, or wrongs that you wish you could right in your fiction, or a fantasy about that really hot guy that works in the mail room at your job. Life is what you’re writing about, am I right? Even if it’s fantasy, science fiction, romance, action/thriller, or horror...the one element that brings it all home to you and to your reader is its connection to real life goals, real life emotions, and real life experiences. This, in my opinion, is what creates the real connection between a writer and their readers. It’s a part of the bond that makes these stories work...and, more importantly, makes them memorable in the long run. Remember, there are a lot of people reading five to ten stories a day...minimum. Why should you stand out? By relating to them on a personal level that other writers can’t on a level that goes deeper than words and plot can provide, that’s how. The question is...especially if you’re planning to write more than one of these stories over any extended period of time...how are you supposed to come up with all of this stuff out of, literally, nowhere? Not just once, but MULTIPLE times??? And this is where you go looking for something that energize you and keep you going. It can be major events in your life...but how often do those really happen? Really. You might rely on reader comments and in depth feedback from them...but, again...that’s not always guaranteed either. Hehehe, I lot of people read your story for free, roll over in their beds, and go to sleep. So that can also be a weak source of fuel as well. What you need to do is go outside, go to work, walk the streets, visit the park, go shopping, go to church, whatever it is that you do that you love...and learn how to activate your ‘writer’s mind’ while you’re doing it. This is something that I learned to do from the very beginning when I was all young and excited and trying to come up with new ideas on an almost daily basis. I used to save money on public transportation by walking to work every day. It would take me thirty or forty minutes each way, but I was downtown Chicago, so the streets were always full of people talking and laughing and having a good time. So I would just catch bits and pieces of whatever it was that they were talking about, and sometimes that would inspire new ideas for stories, themes, dialogue, etcetera. That was my fuel. And while it may seem like it’s a bit invasive or weird at first...once you develop this instinct, it will become an automatic part of who you are, how you think, and how you absorb and express the details of your life in general. It’s an amazing tool for writing a truly engaging story, but it’s also good for how you interact with people on a social level as well. That’s something that I can promise you! The thing that you have to realize and tune into is the idea that your entire life, day after day, is a story in itself. Even the typical, autopilot, ‘nobody’ stuff that you do every day...there is fuel for a story there. Now, growing up in a major metropolitan city, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and then grow numb to the huge wealth of influences around you. There’s sooooo much stuff that I just basically shrugged my shoulders at and didn’t really pay attention to as much as I could have been, and I wish I had. Oh...there’s a fight on the train...that’s typical. Oh...somebody pulled the fire alarm in the mall...ok. Oh...look, a taxi hit a pedestrian? Shit happens, I suppose. But it wasn’t until I started writing that I really began letting all of these details soak in the way they were supposed to. And that made all the difference as brand new story after brand new story started pouring out of me on a daily basis. Now, I don’t even realize that I’m drawing energy from my surroundings and the people in my environment until I feel all anxious and inspired again. That’s the point that I think every writer should reach at some point...where it all comes as natural as breathing. And all it takes is a simple shift in your thinking. This is usually where I’d say something like, “Easier said than done.” But not this time. It really is as easily done as it is said. You just have to have to be conscious of the practice. That’s all. Congrats! You got it! Naturally, a wealth of my earliest stories were all told from my memories and a heavy sense of nostalgia, but they didn’t really grow from there until I found a way to keep tank constant full with a heavy dose of updated writer’s fuel. New trends, new feelings, new outlooks on life...these are all things that need to be current and ever changing in order for your fiction to be relatable to your audience. That means getting out of the house and constantly examining the world around you. It means seeing pretty faces at your local fast food joint. It means overhearing brief parts of fun conversations from people who pass you on the street. It means seeing someone taking pride in the garden out in front of their house and getting their hands dirty. Each and every one of these people has an interesting story to tell. Maybe even a series of interesting stories from their past. They have motivations, achievements, goals to reach, some might have tragic back stories, or hardships that they’re trying to deal with by engaging in activities and conversations that you may only catch a quick, three second, glimpse of when you walk past them. Not SOME of them...not HALF of them...but every single last ONE of them has a story behind them, creating the foundation of who thy are. And since you don’t have access to what that story might be...your creativity has now been given a free ‘jump off’ point to make one up for yourself. Voila...writer fuel. It really is as simple as flicking a switch in your brain, causing you to be more hypersensitive to what’s going on around you at all time. I know that sounds weird, but humor me for a few moments here. You’re trying to get to work, and someone cuts you off in the turning lane, and makes you miss the traffic light that would get you there on time. What’s going through your head in that moment. I’m not just talking about emotion here...you’re probably verbally cussing that fucker out with a passion at particular moment. Ok...that’s not just a random thought. That’s a part of a story right there. Your emotions are involved now. I don’t want to inspire any road rage or anything, hehehe...but think about it. If you could get yourself to a keyboard at that particular moment, without any delay, what would you write? The ‘fuel’ is right there, isn’t it? Feel it. In the moment where your emotions are the most potent, and you want to shout it out. As I always say...there’s a serious difference between having to say something, and having something to say. Unfortunately, with social media and self promotion...a lot of people go for the former. I’m not a fan. Nobody has something important to say three times a day, every day, for six months. Get off of Twitter and Facebook, hehehe! PLEASE! Speak when you’re inspired to speak. When you really have something worthy of sharing with others. Tell your story as though it matters...and as if other people really needed to hear it. Not as an ego ‘self-stroke’ where you just want attention...even when you’re not doing anything to deserve it. As shameless as I am when I have to advertise the site or the ebooks or the paypal donations (By the way, https://imagine-magazine.org/store/comicality/ and https://paypal.me/Comsie just so ya know! LOL!) I don’t just make random posts unless it’s something that truly interests me, and that I think will interest the people reading my site. I write what I feel...not just with the stories, but in everything that I do. It’s a part of who I am. I share a bit of my personal story and mood when it’s necessary, and if you’re reading or listening...that can be a part of your writer’s fuel too. This is what you need to observe and absorb in the world around you. That person that works at your bank, that lady that delivers your mail, those people standing in front of you with a shopping cart full of groceries...they all have stories to tell. Maybe the bank teller has a stain on his shirt from lunch. Where did he go? Where did it come from? Does he know it’s there? What was he thinking about? The lady that delivers your mail...does she look tired? Has she been working all day long? Is she happy? Not happy? Has she been doing this for a long time or is she still learning the ropes? The people in line ahead of you at the grocery store...what’s in their cart? Is it a bunch of frozen meals from a bachelor who can’t really cook? Is it full of soda and candy for the kids they have at home? Is it a gay couple? Is it a lot of expensive stuff...or are they trying to get by on an extremely tight budget? The world around you is full of details that can create entire stories for a writer once they learn to pay attention to what those details are feeding them. You have an infinite amount of fuel out there if you look for it. So get away from the keyboard, turn off your mobile phone, and experience as much as you can. Take a pocket notebook and a pen with you so you can jot down any spontaneous ideas that you might have along the way. I use to fill up a page a day, minimum. Granted, it was a small notebook, but I was always sucking in the world around me and looking for ways to add them to my stories. My writer fuels was always...and still is...in endless supply. If I can do it, you can do it better! Anyway, I hope this helps, you guys! Allow yourselves to draw the rest of the world in on a daily basis. Make it a habit...then make it a discipline. K? Happy writing! Seezya soon! And stay beautiful!

https://imagine-magazine.org/store/comicality/

https://gayauthors.org/subscriptions/ The last chapter of the "Smoke And Mirrors" series is up in the Premium section. Thank you guys soooo much for the comments from chapter to chapter, and for supporting the story! Love you lots! And now your ending is ready!