Author Archives: Rick Cook Jr

Characters and the Necessity of Growth

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One of the things that I struggle with as a writer is creating interesting characters that have all the hallmarks of a real person, but also can grow and change to create a satisfying character arc that feels natural to the story I’m telling. I imagine I’m not alone when I say that.

Some people like to be reductive about this and simply say “just write real people”, but the answer is never that simple. Real people don’t work in most fiction because fiction isn’t about real people. Fiction is artifice of reality. It has structure where reality doesn’t. It has archetypes and tropes and plot elements and a hundred other things that help define a fictional story. Continue reading →

The Wings Take Shape – Part Eleven

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It’s Tuesday and you know by now that means it’s time for another entry in the serial novella The Wings Take Shape!

If you’re new to the story, head to Part One and start from the beginning!

Previously on Wings, Captain Renee Mollen and her Winged Riders sought the village of Panagin’s Toll, Sadie the Skinchanger’s home. They found Sadie in a redwood den outside of town, much like the cadshee before her.

Jon, struggling against the Skinchanger form of Stalker and her ability to wrest control of her mind and body, tried to Change back to a human once he tracked down Renee and her Wings. Stalker had been cordial leading up to the moment he attempted to become human again, and she discovered that Sadie was a creature of smoke and oil. She roared and took control of him once more, fleeing into the forest intent on ending the creature of shadow and smoke once and for all. She called it the deceiver, a thief.

_____

The Wings Take Shape

Part Eleven – Abomination

by Rick Cook Jr

The entire village huddled beneath the redwood’s roots. Sadie’s den was much homier than the cadshee’s from several years back, but it was still under the earth and the people were scared.

Marie didn’t like it. She hated it, in fact. Renee conferred with Sadie somewhere out of sight while Marie and Regina took care of the soldiers and civilians. They rested peacefully for the first time in days. Wounds were cleaned and bandages changed. Stories told. The Winged Riders, having been at the capital when it was falling, had much to tell the citizenry of Panagin’s Toll. Continue reading →

Breaking the Author – Week Fifteen

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It’s April 17th, 2016. Fifteen weeks have come and gone for 2016, so let’s talk about our progress!

My goals for Second Quarter of 2016 (April-June) are as follows:

  • Finish Shapes 1 Editing and Self-Publish It
  • Finish Writing Game Year 1 Editing and Release It For Free
  • Finish Writing Game Year 2
  • Finish Shapes 2 Writing
  • Plot Shapes 3 for Third Quarter Posting
  • Write Four Short Stories
  • Submit Three Short Stories
  • Finish Gridfall Editing and Begin Submitting to Agents
  • Maintain the blog

So a quick rundown of what I accomplished towards these goals: Continue reading →

Description Description Description

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It’s Thursday, and that means time to ramble.

What’s in a description? When you’re writing a scene, sometimes you want to get all the details down. What’s the room look like? What’s it smell like? Who’s in the room, and what do THEY look and smell like? What are they doing from second to second? Who simpers playfully and who remarks with anger? What are they wearing? Is it important to know what they’re wearing?  Continue reading →

The Wings Take Shape – Part Ten

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It’s Tuesday and the ongoing adventures of the Winged Riders continues with Part Ten!

If you’re new to the story, head to Part One and start from the beginning!

Last time on The Wings Take Shape, the Skinchanger Jon struggled with the form known as Stalker, a cougar. When taking the form to protect his squad from a night raid, he lost control and Stalker killed their Scout, Thomas Irons. He managed to control Stalker long enough to flee, leaving the Winged Riders to be captured.

Captain Renee Mollen and her Winged Riders escaped and fled to Sadie Sawyer Paige, looking for any advantage they could find, and her Smokeshifting ability was a big one. She found Sadie and learned that Jon may be lost to Stalker.

Meanwhile, Jon fought the will of Stalker, sometimes losing control of his body and his mind, sometimes gaining it back and forcing her will to his. He fought her when she suggested he kill innocent children just to feed, and fled back into the forest, intent on finding Renee and the others so he could shed his form and ask forgiveness.

On to Part Ten!

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The Wings Take Shape

Part Ten – Conflicting Thoughts

by Rick Cook Jr.

Stalker, Jon thought. He was in the Red Forest, creeping along, following the trail of Renee and the Winged Riders. His companion was silent.

Stalker, he prodded again. I know you can hear me talking.

Stalker bristled. You choose interesting words for what we do.

He snarled at a pack of wolves and they backed away from their hunt.

We can’t keep fighting for control like this.

Continue reading →

Breaking the Author – Week Fourteen

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It’s April 10th, 2016. It’s time to throw an update full of words at you!

My goals for Second Quarter of 2016 (April-June) are as follows:

  • Finish Shapes 1 Editing and Self-Publish It
  • Finish Writing Game Year 1 Editing and Release It For Free
  • Finish Writing Game Year 2
  • Finish Shapes 2 Writing
  • Plot Shapes 3 for Third Quarter Posting
  • Write Four Short Stories
  • Submit Three Short Stories
  • Finish Gridfall Editing and Begin Submitting to Agents
  • Maintain the blog

Continue reading →

Should You Limit Yourself to One Genre?

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It’s Thursday here at Panning For Clouds and that means I’m gonna ramble on about something that’s been stuck in my head for a while, that is probably in some way related to writing, editing, or publishing.

You ready for this?

So as the article’s title suggests, there’s often this THING in the publishing world that you hear about. “We want to publish your detective novels, not your sci fi novels.” “You should only write fantasy because it’s the thing people like the most.” “We have no interest in publishing out of genre.”

Now, granted, I would love to have that problem, because it means I have landed a successful story somewhere. But the point is that it’s a commonly held belief in the publishing industry and elsewhere that authors should be writing in one genre because of a variety of reasons. Continue reading →

The Wings Take Shape – Part Nine

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If you’ve been impatiently waiting to find out what happened to Jon, well, this is your Tuesday! It’s time for the next part of my serial novella The Wings Take Shape!

If you’re new to the story, head to Part One and start from the beginning!

Previously, the last known Winged Riders and free soldiers of an empire under siege were taken captive. Jon turned into a cougar using his Skinchanging ability, killed with reckless abandon, and fled into the night.

The other Winged Riders, under Captain Renee Mollen, managed to escape and head for Jon’s aunt, Sadie, also a Skinchanger and something a little more than that these days. On the way there, wild cougars attacked and Jon came to their rescue, but he couldn’t Skinchange back to a human and fled into the night once more.

Renee tracked down Sadie in the hollow root-system of an old redwood, much like the cadshee had lived in before during their earlier trials against the monster.

Now we head back a ways and find out just what happened with Jon while he was Changed into Stalker, the Cougar.

_____

The Wings Take Shape

Part Nine – Stalker

by Rick Cook Jr.

Jon was losing the fight. The struggle with Stalker had begun the moment he panicked and turned into her. Bodies fell, and he wasn’t in control. He’d always sensed something different about her. Something wild and untamed. Where the others were merely forms to take, Stalker always felt like a different voice in his head.

And she was angry at being so contained.

He fought back against her when she tore open Scout Irons’s throat, forced her to flee into the Bloody Wood.

The taste of Thomas’s blood down his throat was victory. It was pleasing. It haunted his steps. He couldn’t go back to them. Not now they knew what he was. After what he’d done. Continue reading →

Breaking the Author – Week Thirteen

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It’s April 3rd, 2016. I said it last week and I’ll say it again, Let’s do that update thing I do!

My goals for the thirteenth week of the year were as follows:

  • Write Shapes 2 Part 9
  • Write Week 4 for Writing Game Year 2
  • Continue broad edits on Writing Game Year 1
  • Finish line edits on Shapes 1 *
  • Maintain the blog
  • Submit a short story
  • Write a short story

Didn’t manage to submit or write a short story this week. Too much going on and I’m trying to focus in on that editing thing a bit more. Continue reading →

Media Medley – March 2016

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And now, for your entertainment pleasure, it’s time for the month-end media roundup!

Actually, we’re not doing that. It was kind of lacking in substance and it took a long amount of time to do without a lot of payoff.

So instead I’m going to break down my FAVORITE thing from each type of media I consumed over the month of March.

Let’s get to it!

Movie

I didn’t watch a ton of movies during March (I rarely do these days, it seems), but I did see Batman v. Superman (it was garbage), I watched Deadpool for a second time (still glorious), and I watched a movie called Slow Learners from Netflix. It stars Adam Palley and Sarah Burns, both of whom you recognize on sight. I’m not sure I’d call Slow Learners my favorite movie that I watched in March (at least new movie I watched in March), but it definitely had some funny moments despite being a completely typical indie rom-com. Continue reading →