Cooking With Annie DoteWritten by Barbara Carr Phillips
This article is available for free reprint provided that author’s bionote is left intact and article is published complete and unaltered. If you are using this article on a website or e-book, please make sure that link in author’s bionote is live or clickable. Email notice of intent to publish is required: bcarrphillips@yahoo.com.Word Count: 679 Cooking With Annie Dote by Barbara Carr Phillips The submission deadline to an anthology is looming and I want to write an essay for it. I take a seat at my kitchen table, and begin flipping through my journals for inspiration. "What are you looking for," my husband asks. An innocent enough question. "An anecdote," I reply. "An Annie who?" he says, raising his eyebrows and casting a sideways glance at our teenage son. Our son grins and chuckles softly, knowing his dad likes to tease me about writers and their mysterious words and ways. I should have known. "Not Annie, anec, an-ec-dote," I repeat. "Something I can build on to make a story." "Uh-huh," he replies, "like a prescription or something?" "No, not like a prescription. Well . . . kind of like a prescription, insofar as it relieves dreaded symptoms resulting from staring at a blank page." He and my son sigh in unison and grab a soda from fridge. Thankfully, I'm saved-by-the-whistle. They disappear into living room to watch game, where they will discuss words and ways they can relate to, like "rebound" and "three second rule," (or is it five seconds? I don't know.) What is an anecdote? An anecdote is a short, entertaining account of an incident. Metaphorically speaking: an anecdote is life. Life that contains laughter and tears, and most importantly, an anecdote is a moment in life worth remembering. When someone says, "I had a really great day," it doesn't mean everything about day was really great. But a few moments were. A great moment makes an entire day fun. A few shining moments over a period of months can prompt us to say, "this is a great year" even though we've encountered losses, sadness, anger and all kinds of other unpleasant circumstances.
| | Understanding Plot Time FramesWritten by Gary R. Hess
When writing your story, either fiction or non, it is important to keep in mind time frame.Many writers, especially of mystery, are expanding power of pen by creating time frames which bounce from one period to next. To do this it takes concentration, a good layout, a great sense of mind and of course an astounding imagination. Some of most common plot time frames are as follows: - Present =>
- Present - Past - Present =>
- Future - Past - Present =>
When using a non-normal time frame, ie: present - past - present, it is important to keep tenses within your writing related to period.
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