Ok But Like When Did Self-sacrifice Become Synonymous With Death? Writers Seem To Have Forgotten That

Surnames are just as important as given names. So, I compiled a list of the websites I use to find my surnames.

English Surnames

Dutch Surnames

Spanish Surnames

Scottish Surnames

German Surnames

Italian Surnames

Irish Surnames

French Surnames

Scandinavian Surnames

Welsh Surnames

Jewish Surnames

Surnames By Ethnicity

Most Common Surnames in the USA

Most Common Surnames in Great Britan

Most Common Surnames in Asia

There are many primers on how to start with Ursula K. Le Guin, all of them perfectly fine, but I haven’t seen any that just go with “Start with what’s available and easily accessible”. 

“The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” is available online, and it’s only four typewritten pages. Confession: I hadn’t read this until today. You may think, as I did, because you know the story through osmosis (as probably many people who are familiar with sci-fi do) you don’t need to read it. You would be wrong.

This website has collated stories that are available online. They all appear to be from free sources like Baen, Lightspeed, and Clarkesworld.

On Le Guin’s personal website there is a great deal of stuff: poetry (original and in translation), book excerpts, interviews, and writing advice. 

She blogged pretty extensively for many years, and there’s some lovely stuff in there. Her penultimate entry was about her cat Pard and the Time Machine. (just Ctrl + F for “pard” on the archive index. Trust me.)

Don’t let me stop you from going to the library or your online bookstore of choice to get her books, of course, but there’s plenty of stuff available that you don’t have to go very far to access.

Colmar in Alsace, France (via vsco.co)

One thing I like about Pixar films is how the happy ending isn’t always what you think it’ll be. The toys don’t go with Andy to college, Gusteau’s restaurant gets closed down, Mike and Sully get kicked out of university, Carl never gets Ellie to Paradise Falls. But they find out that what they wanted isn’t necessarily what they needed, and I really like the fact that kids get to learn that life doesn’t always turn out the way they dreamed and that’s okay.

Ways to un-stick a stuck story

Do an outline, whatever way works best. Get yourself out of the word soup and know where the story is headed.

Conflicts and obstacles. Hurt the protagonist, put things in their way, this keeps the story interesting. An easy journey makes the story boring and boring is hard to write.

Change the POV. Sometimes all it takes to untangle a knotted story is to look at it through different eyes, be it through the sidekick, the antagonist, a minor character, whatever.

Know the characters. You can’t write a story if the characters are strangers to you. Know their likes, dislikes, fears, and most importantly, their motivation. This makes the path clearer.

Fill in holes. Writing doesn’t have to be linear; you can always go back and fill in plotholes, and add content and context.

Have flashbacks, hallucinations, dream sequences or foreshadowing events. These stir the story up, deviations from the expected course add a feeling of urgency and uncertainty to the narrative.

Introduce a new mystery. If there’s something that just doesn’t add up, a big question mark, the story becomes more compelling. Beware: this can also cause you to sink further into the mire.

Take something from your protagonist. A weapon, asset, ally or loved one. Force him to operate without it, it can reinvigorate a stale story.

Twists and betrayal. Maybe someone isn’t who they say they are or the protagonist is betrayed by someone he thought he could trust. This can shake the story up and get it rolling again.

Secrets. If someone has a deep, dark secret that they’re forced to lie about, it’s a good way to stir up some fresh conflict. New lies to cover up the old ones, the secret being revealed, and all the resulting chaos.

Kill someone. Make a character death that is productive to the plot, but not “just because”. If done well, it affects all the characters, stirs up the story and gets it moving.

Ill-advised character actions. Tension is created when a character we love does something we hate. Identify the thing the readers don’t want to happen, then engineer it so it happens worse than they imagined.

Create cliff-hangers. Keep the readers’ attention by putting the characters into new problems and make them wait for you to write your way out of it. This challenge can really bring out your creativity.

Raise the stakes. Make the consequences of failure worse, make the journey harder. Suddenly the protagonist’s goal is more than he expected, or he has to make an important choice.

Make the hero active. You can’t always wait for external influences on the characters, sometimes you have to make the hero take actions himself. Not necessarily to be successful, but active and complicit in the narrative.

Different threat levels. Make the conflicts on a physical level (“I’m about to be killed by a demon”), an emotional level (“But that demon was my true love”) and a philosophical level (“If I’m forced to kill my true love before they kill me, how can love ever succeed in the face of evil?”).

Figure out an ending. If you know where the story is going to end, it helps get the ball rolling towards that end, even if it’s not the same ending that you actually end up writing.

What if? What if the hero kills the antagonist now, gets captured, or goes insane? When you write down different questions like these, the answer to how to continue the story will present itself.

Start fresh or skip ahead. Delete the last five thousand words and try again. It’s terrifying at first, but frees you up for a fresh start to find a proper path. Or you can skip the part that’s putting you on edge – forget about that fidgety crap, you can do it later – and write the next scene. Whatever was in-between will come with time.

More favourite tropes:

Character responds to legitimate and urgent concern with reassurances only tangentially related to the thing folks are worried about

Character takes advantage of others’ false assumptions about their skill-set or identity, then when caught out, defends themselves by pointing out how unreasonable those assumptions were

Character’s argument for why they couldn’t possibly have done what they’re accused of accidentally cops to a different, unrelated offence

Character caught doing something suspicious offers an explanation that makes it clear they have a completely different understanding what it is that needs justifying than the person asking the questions does

Character attempts to brazen their way out of a compromising position by pretending to be unaware of an object they’re holding in their hands

Character apparently displays great bravery in the face of overwhelming peril, only for it to become clear after the fact that they had no idea the threat existed

Character reassures others that a particular problem is nothing to worry about by pointing out another, far more urgent problem

Character reveals that they possess some skill or resource that would have allowed them to save the day at any time, but didn’t realise it was relevant until just then

Character threatens a would-be assailant with an innocuous object they insist against all appearances is actually a deadly weapon

Character brightly announces they’ve solved the problem at hand, then proceeds to reveal that they’ve completely misidentified what the problem actually is

I want more stories that explore the angst potential of unrequited platonic love.

Like:

‘You’ve always been like a brother to me but I’ve realised you only come to me when you want something’

‘My surrogate parental figure just sees me as another student/employee/lackey’

‘I raised you like my own child but you don’t even remember who I am’

And of course, the classic ‘You’re my best (and only) friend but I know I’m only one of yours’.

Art by Chelsea Blecha

reminder to myself about the process of drafting & revising:

first drafts are for making it exist

second drafts are for making it functional

third drafts are for making it effective