Writer's Block Bright Light

I like to brag about being a huge superhero geek, but this character is the superhero geek!

Leaping over plots and protagonists in a single sentence!

Seriously, he doesn't let anyone else get a word in edgewise once you mention heroes. He really bogs the story down. I need to learn to stand up to him and say, "Look! I'm the writer and you're going to behave and follow the plot! Got it? Good!"

Sally, Tyler, and Bright Light (C) SuperheroGeek13

Loki Laufeyson - The Enchantress

"I quite enjoyed writing the ambiance of this snippet.

This little fanfic idea is really starting to come together. I might just have to stop posting these tidbits and get it up on fanfiction.net or something. If only I was writing this in the proper order." -Casey

Loki slammed the door behind him and the torches lining the walls were extinguished. He stood in the dark, writhing in anger. How could Thor have kept something like this from him?

“Well,” whispered a voice. “It appears that the thunderer is not the only one with a fierce temper.”

A light ignited at the other end of the room, glowing softly with a greenish hue. The young woman that had been hidden in the darkness held the flickering flame in the palm of her hand as she walked up to the young prince.

“Amora,” Loki whispered, glancing apprehensively at the door. “How did you get into the palace?”

“As if you can’t imagine, young sorcerer,” she teased, dimming the light in her hand so that both their features were partially obscured by the darkness. “You did assign me to tell you the moment I’d found the prophecy, did you not?”

“What have you discovered?” Loki demanded, still keeping his voice at the level of a whisper.

Amora took a moment to brush her long blond hair from her face before smirking with a knowing smile. “The Jotuns know nothing of the ancient texts,” she sighed. “There is indeed a tale of a boy called Laufeyson who shall be powerful enough to bring all of Asgard to its knees.”

She paused, trying to gauge Loki’s reaction, but he kept up a mask of indifference. “Yes, I know this part of the tale,” he sighed. “I ordered you to find more.”

“Then your majesty shall not be disappointed,” she muttered. “What the Frost Giants got wrong was that this villain will not be a conqueror…he will be a destroyer.”

“What?” Loki swallowed, not even noticing that Amora had strengthened her flame so that it completely lit his face.

“Laufeyson will steal the throne from the son of Odin and the twilight of the gods will take place at last,” Amora said with relish like stage actress. “None survive, thus it is written.”

Loki waved his hand before him and Amora’s fire was extinguished, leaving them both in darkness. “Well done, enchantress,” he admitted. “Now take your leave before someone sees you.”

“As you wish, my lord,” she replied before fading away into the shadows.

A moment ago, all Loki had wanted to do was punch a hole through the nearest wall, but now his anger was subdued. What little hope he had had against his true father’s prediction was now gone. Laufey had no clue what kind of power he was trying to unleash and for that matter, neither did Loki.

With all his sorcery and all his cunning, could he ever become a threat capable of destroying the Realm Eternal?

There were a lot of unanswered questions running through his mind, but there was one thing of which he was now certain; he couldn’t remain in Asgard any longer.

Loki and Amora (C) Marvel Comics/Marvel Studios

Story (C) SuperheroGeek13

Zared and Iraja - Invasion of Privacy

"A while back, I was experimenting with this thing where a character responds to the narrative and I got some good feedback on it. Thus, I have decided that Iraja will do this whenever possible." -Casey

Zared realized that he must have been holding his breath in his anxiety and stopped. He took a deep breath, but the air was thin and it did not suffice. He gasped, but found that it still wasn’t quite enough.

“Oh, my,” mumbled a curt female voice from the adjacent hallway. “Are you alright, Zared? You look a bit pale.”

Zared hissed in a lungful of air and then cursed under his breath. He hadn’t noticed the upsurge of his sister’s magic until now and suddenly it was all around him, seeping the oxygen from the hall and invading his mind.

“I suppose I’m just that skilled,” she bragged as she stepped into view, brushing her wild blond hair from her face. “Then again, you might just be lousy at sensing magic that has nothing to do with water.”

Zared was beginning to feel dizzy, but he still had more than enough strength to stand and maybe even charge her if it became necessary.

“And then what would you do?” she scoffed. “Tackle me to the ground? Ha! I think not, little brother.”

Zared stood his ground, gathering his own magic in his mind. Even if he wasn’t a match for Iraja, the combined power of their spells would surely draw attention.

“Hiding behind father as usual,” Iraja sighed. “You know that his wrath would only be set upon me after you were dead.”

Zared smiled, because even though that was true, it meant that his well-being was the only thing standing between Iraja and their father’s retribution. She couldn’t touch him, no matter what threats she made.

Iraja glared at Zared, causing a whirlwind to whip up and slam the young man against the wall. He gasped for air, the feeling of it cool and refreshing in his lungs. 

Story and Characters (C) SuperheroGeek13

Zared and Kennet - This Story takes Place in the Fall

"So this is Zared and Kennet again. I just love their interactions so much! There are other characters in this story, I promise." -Casey

The leaves of the tall white trees were a deep and rusty shade of orange. The mountains loomed just beyond the forest, dark blue against the clear blue sky. A light breeze blew through the valley, scattering leaves through the air.
Zared stood at the edge of the forest with his eyes fixed on the mountains. He was in a large clearing were the grass was unsullied by any leaves. In fact, the leaves flitted deliberately clear of the field despite the wind blowing Zared’s coat far behind him, leaving the clearing green while the rest of the valley was painted with the warm colors of autumn.
Zared closed his eyes and listened for the sound of the river flowing in the distance. He took a deep breath and then gathered his magic in his mind. As the energy built in his mind a telepathic link formed between him and the water, letting him perceive its ebb and flow as easily as if he were standing in it. Even with more than a mile between him and the river, he could have taken control of the water, but he simply wanted to watch it, to feel connected to it.
“Any monster prowling within those woods could feel your resonance,” a soft voice spoke against the breeze. “Early morning or not, you shouldn’t risk it.”
The connection to the river was lost. Zared turned his gaze back over the field and found that his elder brother was standing but a few feet behind him. The young man’s heavy coat hardly moved in the breeze and his eyes gazed unblinking towards the forest, all this making him look unnaturally unaffected by the atmosphere. Very much like the field in which they stood.
“Kennet, you shouldn’t be this close to the boarder,” Zared reproached.
“Neither should you,” he stated, walking forward to stand at Zared’s side. “Father noticed your absence. He sent Iraja to look for you.”

Story and Characters (C) SuperheroGeek13

Go with the flow

Boy have I been busy with writing lately.

I don’t know about you, but I almost always write my stories from the audience’s point of view. Not as in, I write everything while thinking about what my readers will say or how they’ll react, no, no! I mean that I put myself in the passenger seat so that I can imagine what it would be like to read this story if it were not my own. For example, I’ve been writing fanfiction for the television series Teen Titians for years now, mainly because it is so easy for me to remove myself from that. As soon as I write an opening scene for an episode, I imagine the theme song being cued up by some sort of mini cliffhanger/hook that will be resolved as soon as the song ends. Then I see an action scene where each of the Titans fights off the villain of the week both as individuals and as a team. Once the battle is resolved, we’ll follow how it affected one particular character or the lack of affect on the character. And so on, and so on, etc, etc. The story practically flows across the page by itself.

The main danger of this far removed writing strategy is getting bored. That moment when your heart’s just not in the story and you start to wonder if said story is really worth writing at all. Would I have flipped the channel on this episode if it were on TV? Would it be gathering dust on my bookshelf right now? Would I simply put if back on the shelf at the comic book store?
My first instinct here is always to close my Word Document window and head to Pinterest. But what if these thoughts on my writing are actually true? What if I find writing this story boring because it actually is just that?
I’ve found that getting up from the audience chair and back to my writing desk is actually counterproductive at this point. The thing to do is actually to treat this poor story like something that disappointed you as a reader. Because what do us fangirls and geeks of the globe do when we run across horrid writing? We critique it and say things like, “There really should have been more hints about that resolution from the start so it wouldn’t have been so random,” or, “The main problem was that we didn’t get enough time to care about the protagonist.”
Ta-da! Now you totally have the power to make those changes because you are in fact the writer!

Granted, this ability to capture the flow of a story by removing one’s self from it a bit tends to work better for fanficion than original writing. Mainly because we’ve already been the audience for that one fandom and adding to it is a piece of cake.
Writing something original means treating your story like something you just happened to randomly stumble across while flipping channels or browsing the bookstore. You give it a chance, not knowing what to expect and you’re of course very critical of something you have no reason to invest your time in yet.
Scary thought for me, since I can be really critical about new things unless they’re recommended to me by a friend.

One of these days, I’ll get things to flow without having to watch a dozen episodes of some tv show first. Until then, I guess I’ll just go with the flow. TTYL.

(P.S. I learned how to use these GIF things on my blog!)