#TV #MagnumPI Qs 44 Years Later: Why was Orville Wilbur "Rick" Wright not the name of the chopper pilot?
#WritersCoffeeClub May 1: OMG! What happened to your MC's parents?
The charter pilot MC from my WIP doesn't particularly care how his parents are. They didn't encourage his dream of flying, so he left home w/o telling them and joined the Air Force.
#WordWeavers May 1: Introduce your setting as if it's a character in your story.
"Say Cheese": Open since 1937, Queens-Size Pizza embraces you as you enter and feels as much or more like home than your own. The SC originally had different career plans, but took over the parlor when his father died, keeping up its nostalgic, welcoming nature. The MC certainly feels more at home there and in Queens since reconnecting w/ the SC than in her house out east on Long Island.
#10Authors5BooksEach (10 #Authors you’ve read at least 5 #Books by)
#RaymondChandler #TomClancy #SueGrafton #SJRozan #PaulLevine #JeremiahHealy #RobertCrais #RobertBParker #GregoryMcdonald #IanFleming
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 30: Are you writing to prove a point to anyone?
I'm writing to prove to myself my ideas can be poems and stories. Sometimes they can't, of course, but I have to find out.
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 29: Do you share your name with other writers?
I don't know, but there are many Gerald Sos. I bet I'm not the only writer.
#WordWeavers Apr 29: Who's feeling shame in your story? Is it justified?
The MC of my story "Say Cheese" feels shame for cheating on her husband. He cheated on her first, so it's up to readers to decide if her shame is justified. She takes the view it doesn't matter he cheated first. She should've been the better person somehow. Instead she cheated just as he did. She begins to forgive herself when the SC says he still loves her:
#WordWeavers Apr 28: Do you have an irrepressibly good-humored character? How do others react to him?
Not a character, but I like to think I'm irrepressibly good-humored, only I hide it. I don't know that anyone can muddle through all the evils in the world w/o the ability to shove them off and do one's thing anyway. That, to me, is exactly how to defeat evil, refuse to let it spread to oneself.
#PennedPossibilities 298: Do any of your characters have a disability?
A plane crash paralyzed from the waist down the mentor of the 1930s version of my charter pilot MC.
I wrote a flash fiction story, "Drive," w/ this mentor as MC. It was later translated into Finnish and reprinted in the magazine Assa.
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 28: Do you ever picture a character as someone from real life? E.g. an actor, etc.
At times in my process of imagination, yes; however, I don't describe character appearance in such detail as to reveal the ppl I use as templates. Also, while in my mind the characters look like real ppl, their personalities differ. In the end, any number of actors can play my characters.
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 27: Have you ever written a section and subconsciously plagiarized another work?
No. I'm not sure one can subconsciously plagiarize. Plagiarism is most purely defined as conscious copying or rephrasing someone else's work to pass it off as one's own. It requires too much forethought to be subconscious, though I guess one could go on autopilot and not realize one were copying others' work. This, too, seems improbably absent-minded.
#PennedPossibilities 296 — What is the best piece of advice that you as an author have ever received?
"If you want to be a writer, you have to read."
This was best for me personally b/c it was my wake-up call. W/o it, I would've gotten down to writing and not known that what I was doing had been done already. W/o reading, it would've taken much longer to see how to make my writing uniquely mine.
#WordWeavers Apr 25: Do your MCs have any luck in love?
If love means they date and are in relationships often, yes.
If love means long monogamous relationships rooted in lasting, mutual affection, no.