Tag: Blog

The Scene

Yet more advice from a writing course this time on the scene.

The scene is a self-contained unit of story. You can write the scene by:

  • Setting
  • Character
  • Action

You can consider the book as if it were a film.

Short scenes keep people’s attention. This enables the quick switching of narrative between characters.

There is a single viewpoint for each scene – that character’s point of view. It is filtered through the thoughts and emotions of that character.

Do not switch between viewpoints in a scene – it is always through one character’s eyes.

Classically a scene has only one setting. However it can contain several settings or even a moving setting (in a plane, on-board ship and so on)

The beginning of a scene is a critical moment which you should use to capture the reader’s interest.

One technique is to begin the scene as if in the middle of something (in media res).
This could be the middle of some action (a fight?), some dialogue (an argument?) or anything which can hook the reader.

Chunks of description are a riskier way of starting a scene as it can risk boring the reader unless done well.

Description should be broken up for a more successful beginning. This could for example make use of dialogue between short pieces of description.

The aim is to grab the reader’s attention as soon as you can.

Where the scene is dark add moments of light relief.

The ending of every scene is as important as the beginning. Ideally the scene should end in such a way that the reader wants to read more.

There are different techniques to achieve this. The main character of that scene can fail attempting a goal. There could be a reversal for that character. The character may have to end one course of action and consider another.

However you choose to end the scene the reader needs to be left wondering what happens next and wanting to read on.

One method of achieving this is to hint at what is to come for example plans to achieve an outstanding goal.

The book then becomes like a series of short stories each of them linked together.

Setting the Header Image

Images are widely available on the Internet. But most of them will be copyright which precludes the use of them by a cheapskate blogger.

When I started with my blog I found a range of cartoons that I liked and enquired about the use of them. I found that the use of a cartoon on the page would cost $25.

In itself this was not a huge fee. However I had at the time huge aspirations involving creating a great deal of content. Every one of those pages I would have liked to decorate with cartoon imagery. Had this vision come to pass by now the bill would extend into many hundreds of $.

This leaves choices ranging from royalty free images to photographs supplied by friends and family.

Of course if you are artistic (I am not) you could draw your own images. That’s assuming drawing does not detract from the blogging activity of course.

When I first selected 2016 as my blog theme I noticed that across the top of the main page was a header image. To me this was the picture that every visitor would see.

This means the image has to be appealing.

I spent rather too long browsing through old photographs to find an image that I liked.

(Mostly because I am to photography what a mouse is to weight training).

After some false starts I decided to use this image:

img_7990

If it wasn’t on a Procrastination pen related theme I reasoned that it appeared studious.

It is an image from inside the Porto bookstore https://www.livrarialello.pt/en/. This is reputedly the most beautiful bookstore in the world. (Worth a visit if you can stand the crowds).

As it has been more than a year I thought that I would now take a look at changing this image for something else.

I contacted a lady called Elaine Ku from a site called http://owl-ink.com/. She had some great pen-related images, notably this one:

Photo-Aug-28-5-09-22-PM

She helpfully said I could use the image as long as I credited her for doing so. Oh and her site is worth a visit by the way.

How you change the header:

To change the header you need to be in the “My Site” part of the blog in WordPress:

1

Under “Personalize” click the button “Customize” next to “Themes”.

This gives the following options:

2

Select “Header Image”

I decided that the header for Procrastination would look better rotated. So that the pens appeared horizontal not vertical:

Photo-Aug-28-5-09-22-PM-rotated
Image courtesy of Elaine Ku at http://owl-ink.com/

Under “Current Header” select “Add New Image”:

Choose something from the Media Library or choose “Upload Files”.

Elaine’s image is on my computer so I uploaded it from there:

3

Add relevant caption information (thanking Elaine in this case). Then click on “Select and Crop”.

Select the area of the image you want to use and you will then have a preview of what the new image will look like:

4

Now that I have more than one header I have the option to select “Randomize uploaded Headers”.
This means that visitors will see one of the 2 headers I have uploaded so far. I have plans to try this with more images when I can find any suitable.

Photo by kinkate from Pexels https://www.pexels.com/photo/brown-makeup-brushes-211342/