Madeline Turnipseed - Author

Hello friends!  Happy Friday! Haven't gotten to check/update everything on the blog just yet.  Still a work in progress. If you recall, way way back in August, my awesome friend Leah did a guest post for me about visual novels , which was a great way to introduce you guys to some alternate forms of interactive storytelling.  I'm going to introduce you today to some other forms you may or may not have seen, because this is the format I'm exploring for my next project .  I haven't decided on one in particular, I'm still weighing my options, but it will incorporate reader choices that directly affect story consequences. Why reader choice?  Why not just tell the story? Some time last year, I was watching a Let's Play of the game Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons .  At one point, one character is burying someone he loves.  The digging of the grave is shown as a cut scene, but the player is then given control and has to drag the body of the loved one int...

Hey there! I’m Leah, also known as the person responsible for piquing Madeline’s interest in visual  novels. So much so, apparently, that she asked me to write a guest post about them. So without further  ado, here we go. What are Visual Novels? Visual novels are like choose-your-own-adventure books in video game format. The emphasis is on reading through the story from the protagonist’s point of view, occasionally making choices that influence the type of ending you get. They can be any genre, and usually include art of the characters (a.k.a. ‘sprites’) and background art, as well as background music. How did I do? Hope that was clear enough a description for you to get a basic idea. “Okay, Leah, you’ve piqued my interest, too,” you might be saying. “So what visual novels do you recommend I check out to start with?” I’m glad you asked! Here are two recommendations that immediately come to mind. 2 Short (and free!) Visual Novels to Try: Ripples W...

Happy Friday friends!  My current wordcount is 30,928.  Yep, behind. Today I'm posting the last of my extended metaphor series, and ending with my job as a metaphor for my hobby.  Does that sound a little weird to you?  Me too.  Yes, I know there's another week in November, but I'll be with my family next week, so I'm choosing them over you.  No post next week.  I think you'll live. iPharMD.net You never know what you'll have until you get there. EMT Life It's not always stupid calls,  Sometimes we get called out for things that sound stupid and we realize that it's hit the fan when we get there.  Or that we were called out for chest pain and it's really an anxiety attack or back pain or muscle spasm because of dehydration.  The point being, we have to be ready for the most serious and most un-serious at all times. Writers Write I've kind of already alluded to this this month, but it bears bending for the sake of repea...

Hey!  It's Friday.  There's supposed to be a blog post.  My current word count is 19,926.  Behind, I know. For more on the extended metaphor, today, writing is like cooking. Lifehack Quotes That's a pretty good start.  We'll go with that. It's not the ingredients, it's the skill in combination. CraftFail The Expectations vs. Reality memes have pretty well borne out this argument.  The explosion of domestic blogs and Pinterest have both set the incredibly high bar for the at-home cook.  Let's face it, we all want to be clever, and sometimes, we have to settle for storebought because of how un-clever we turned out to be. Orbit Books I kind of already made this argument in a previous post, so click through to that here . Sometimes substitutions are OK.  Sometimes they aren't. juil So, that is a chart for substituting a greek yogurt for fattier dairy products in cooking.  You see the tiny tip down at the bottom that say...

For me, anyway.  Current word count:10,011, so as long as I can get some writing done today I'll be on track! ermilia Disclaimer:  the views expressed on the sites where I get my photos for this post are not necessarily (and sometimes, definitely not) views I agree with or represent.  Be advised, the internet is awash with bro science on the gym in general and weight lifting specifically. As I discussed last week , I am a fan of extended metaphors.  This week I'm comparing writing with another one of my interests:  Weight Lifting.  Reading this post will not give you traps like Tom Hardy, but it won't make your sore either. muscle.iuhu.org I started lifting in April of 2011.  I'm 5'6" and was about 115 lb at the time.  I was hired on with an EMS service and knew that I had to be able to move patients safely.  Our service requires that we be able to lift 100 lb by ourselves, but that's being optimistic about the weight of our patie...

Happy Halloween!  To get you (and me) in the "spirit" I'll tell you a little about the inspiration for this year's costume before highlighting what you can expect throughout the month of November.  Also NaNo memes because the internet. traceywritesbooks.com This Halloween I have decided to dress up as Brighid, celtic goddess/Catholic saint.   Yes, really. purplefaerey There are a few awesome stories about her , but my favorite one is when she pulled out her own eye to avoid being told she was beautiful so that people would stop giving her grief about not getting married. Lindowyn She is associated with fire, the hearth, the forge, medicine, animal husbandry, poetry, motherhood, arts and crafts, sacred wells, spring, high places, lilies, the color white... basically if you can think of it I'm sure there's a way she relates to it.  I think she is a great muse to channel as I start on Spitfire tonight at 12:01 am, so I'll be dressed as her fo...

Happy Friday friends!  This post is about plot:  what we traditionally think of as plot, and what other options exist in the world. For starters, let's define the difference between plot and narrative structure.  Plot is (loosely) the events that happen in the story.  Narrative structure is the order readers experience the story events.  Ingrid Sundberg does a good job of differentiating the two here .  (May as well open that up in a new tab and leave it open, I'm going to be referencing her blog a lot today.   She's pretty much already done what I wanted to do with this post. ) If your public education was like mine, you were probably introduced to a figure similar to this somewhere in your English classes: Fritz Freiheit This is the standard plot that we can fit most stories into.  This describes a plot centered around conflict that follows a traditional three-act structure.  It's very popular.   In the Middle reviews a book ...

Hello, friends.  This week I'm talking about a problem every author will face at one time or another.  I'm talking about the Mary Sue. If you don't know what a Mary Sue (MS) is, I'll give you my version and then point you toward some other resources for more in-depth reading.  To me, a MS is a character, usually the main character, that is inexplicably awesome, stuff always goes right for them, and if it doesn't they are usually prophesied/fated to "win" at the end of the story.  Their enemies lose, big time.  And they get the girl/guy/unicorn/whatever.  They might be remarkably similar to the author, probably a very idealized version of her or him.  TV Tropes has a great article on the MS.   Here's one from Know Your Meme and another from Fanlore. windfalcon Curious if you have a MS in one of your stories?  There are a few online tests to run your characters through here , here , and here , plus others I'm sure.  Some of...