A
Weapon's Journey
by
Frank Martin
Genre:
SciFi
Living
in poverty with his abusive father, Adam Judson never considered
himself special. Not even when the authoritative American government
abducted him to be part of its secretive weapons program. But
becoming a highly-trained child soldier was just the start of Adam's
journey. After being condemned to undergo the program's most brutal
procedure, Adam became a super human of unimaginable power. Now he
faces the burden of deciding if his newfound abilities make him a god
or just another weapon.
Frank is a comic
writer and author that is not as crazy as his work makes him out to
be...seriously.
Since his writing
career began he's had multiple short stories published in horror
anthologies by both Burning Willow Press and Stitched Smile
Publications. Frank has also had comic shorts appear in the
"fluff noir" anthology series Torsobear and the
all-ages horror anthology Cthulhu is Hard to Spell.
Frank also wrote and
produced the comic anthology series Modern Testament, which featured
a wide ensemble of artists throughout its four volumes. Frank's
novels include the YA sci-fi thriller Predestiny published by
Crossroads Press and the zombie horror Mountain Sickness published by
Severed Press.
Frank currently
lives in New York with his wife and three kids.
GUEST POST
I
follow a fair number of writers and creators on social media and
noticed some of them discuss their creative process a lot more than I
do. I'm fairly reluctant to talk about the fundamentals of
storytelling and the various projects I have in development (mainly
because I have no idea what the hell I'm doing, anyway), but I feel
it's healthy to step out of my comfort zone every once in a while. So
here we go.
One
of the first things they teach you about creative writing is that
there are five basic elements of a story: characterization, setting,
plot, theme, and tone (these can vary depending on how big of an
alcoholic your instructor is). A story can not exist without any of
them. You can try to remove setting by placing the characters in a
void...but then the setting becomes the void. You can try to remove
plot by just having everyone standing around doing nothing...then the
plot becomes them standing around doing nothing. You can try to
remove characterization...well, you get the idea.
To
construct a story you have to make a decision about what one of those
elements will be and then build up from there. I like to think of a
story as a tower and all of these elements are your building blocks
to create it. The bottom block is the most important as it will
answer the question "why." Why is this story important to
tell? Why do you want to tell it?
Personally,
I believe the most important aspect of a story is theme. It is the
central tenant to which every other element can rally around. It
gives my story a purpose. A punch. That said, it doesn't have to be.
There are plenty of stories that don't start with a theme at all.
Comedies, for example, are more interested in tone, as they want to
set up a good laugh. Romance novels might be more focused on
characterization, as they want to see their protagonist fall in love
or triumph over a heartbreak. Sometimes setting is the most important
factor, such as in a period piece or a story built around a
particular event.
Now
even though this first block might be the most important, it is also
probably the easiest to develop. Because it's your "why",
the work is already done for you. It's your driving force behind
wanting to develop a project. The trick to a good story are the
blocks that come after. The ones you have to creatively mold in order
to flesh out your tale. And it's not just what you're choosing to put
in those blocks that matter. It's also the order in which you stack
them in. Since each block is built upon the last, if you realize too
late that one of those blocks was a bad choice, then the others that
came after it will also be affected.
This
process is supposed to be fun. Writing is a crazy endeavor. People
isolate themselves for vast periods of time while staring at a
screen, banging on a keyboard, and wrestling with their own thoughts.
But we do it because it's enjoyable! The minute this painful process
starts to become...you know...actually painful...then stop, change
out a couple blocks, and see what fits better. Maybe the setting
should be in space instead of the Wild West. Maybe it should be a
horror instead of an adventure. Maybe the main character should be a
boy instead of a girl. Or you could just do what I do whenever a
story doesn't seem to be working: add zombies.
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