Category Archives: Rory C. Keel

5 Ways to Start Writing and Stay Writing

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5 Ways to Start Writing and Stay Writing.

by Rory C. Keel

Break it down

Don’t focus on the whole story or book. Concentrate on  writing one scene or segment at a time.

Apply Layers

First, write down facts. Next write surrounding details about the facts. And then write about the feelings of the facts, yours and those surrounding time of the facts.

Mine tidbits

Expand the small things that happen in life. Remembering a feeling you once had or the way someone acted can create scenarios for you to write about or incorporate into your writing.

Discover Defining moments

Explore life-changing moments. Did you have a point in your life that changed you? What happened? How did you feel? What different actions did you take from that point forward? Use this information to understand the characters you write about.

Expose Rebel Jewels

Did you ever go against the mainstream? What was the outcome good or Bad? Use the moments in life when you had a little rebel in you and transfer the actions, feelings and results into your writing. Yes you may change the names to protect the innocent!

Roryckeel.com

7 Ways to Avoid Lawsuits in Writing

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7 Ways to Avoid Lawsuits in Writing

By Rory C. Keel

 

When writing a biography, autobiography or memoir writers often worry about being sued for libel, slander or defamation. And since we don’t live life stranded on an island, our stories often include writing about other people that surround us. The truth is anyone can sue for anything even if it’s not justified. This can cost you, the writer, money.

Here are 7 ways to lessen your chances of a lawsuit.

  1. Don’t write about shady doctors and lawyers
  2. Write the truth about events, actions and conversations. Don’t exaggerate or lie except to change the identity of an individual.
  3. When disguising someone’s identity, make it difficult for someone to guess the individual.
  4. Don’t write about ex-lovers for revenge.
  5. Don’t accuse someone of a criminal act unless he or she has already been convicted. Otherwise only describe actual behavior and words, things that you can verify that were done or said in your presence. Remind your reader that this is your recollection and not a statement of fact.
  6. Don’t attribute a mental or physical disease to someone without having evidence that you can prove. Instead dramatize the person’s actual behavior from your point of view.
  7. Don’t accuse someone of being incompetent or dishonest in his or her job, a member of a cult or being a prostitute. Your best bet is to show their behavior as you observed them and describe your feelings assuring the reader of your opinion.

With these helpful hints, you can still have your First Amendment rights of free speech and confidence to write your stories with less chance of being sued.

Roryckeel.com

Memoir Exercise

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Memoir Exercise

By Rory C. Keel 

If you write memoir, here’s one exercise that will jog your memory and help you start your writing.

Answer each of the following questions in one paragraph or less.

1. Describe the story the world you grew up in told you that you should become?

What message did your parents, class, society or environment in which you grew up suggest you should be?

2. What was the story of who you should become that you told yourself?

What dream did you have for yourself?

3. What is the story life has told you now, of who you are?

Where are you at in life at this stage?

Now compare your answers to all three questions, is who you are today, the same as what you were told you would be?

Using these questions, you can build a framework to develop the story of your life.

Roryckeel.com

Memoir Exercise

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Memoir Exercise

By Rory C. Keel 

If you write memoir, here’s one exercise that will jog your memory and help you start your writing.

Answer each of the following questions in one paragraph or less.

1. Describe the story the world you grew up in told you that you should become?

What message did your parents, class, society or environment in which you grew up suggest you should be?

2. What was the story of who you should become that you told yourself?

 

What dream did you have for yourself?

3. What is the story life has told you now, of who you are?

Where are you at in life at this stage?

Now compare your answers to all three questions, is who you are today, the same as what you were told you would be?

Using these questions, you can build a framework to develop the story of your life.

Roryckeel.com

Beginning, Middle and End – WHAT A RIDE!

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A story has a beginning, middle and an end.

Make a brief outline answering these questions to create a story skeleton to build upon.

  1. The Beginning: What event happens to person, that creates a problem or a need?
  2. The Middle: What struggle does the character face in solving the problem or the need?
  3. The End: How is this person changed and what have they learned as a result of the struggle?

This is where the story is made. Imagine the process like a roller coaster. The reader’s attention is captured by the alluring promises made by the title and then they are locked into their seat at the beginning of the ride. Tension builds as the chain’s click-clack pulls them higher into the problem, and then drops them into the middle of the story where there’s no turning back. The reader struggles back and forth, and then up and down along with the characters to solve the problem. The ride then comes to an end where there is resolution showing a change created by the struggle.

Rory C. Keel

roryckeel.com

Writing Exercise

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Writing Exercise

Rory C. Keel

Our Wordsmith Critique group participated in a writing exercise in which we wrote a letter to a student. In the letter we selected a word and wrote about all aspects of that word and our surrounding community.

When you’re stuck in your writing, use this type of exercise to move your writing along.

 

Balloon

1. An airtight bag that rises and floats above the earth when filled with hot air or gas lighter than air, such as hydrogen or helium.

2. A bag of this sort with an attached car or gondola for carrying passengers or instruments.

3. A small rubber bag inflated for use chiefly as a toy or decoration.

4.  The outline enclosing the words or thoughts of a character in a cartoon, as in a comic strip.

WEBSTER’ NEW WORLD COLLEGE DICTIONARY, Fourth Edition, Page 110

Dear Brian,

Balloons are the most amazing things. They are made from many different materials such as nylon and rubber. They can be any color of the rainbow like blue, red, yellow and green. Some balloons are even Silver or Black.

When I watch a balloon rise into the air, it lifts the corners of my mouth creating a smile without even being tied to it.

A balloon can fly like a rocket when you let it go untied, zigzagging around the room before running out of air.  Clowns use them at parties to make balloon animals like a giraffe or a wiener dog.

Have you ever used them to play games with your friends? When I was a child, my brothers and I would play with them like volleyballs, hitting them to each other across the room. We would also see who could pop the most by sitting on them one at a time. At the carnival people throw darts at them winning the prizes that are hidden behind them.

One of my favorite things to do is watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on T.V. and see the giant balloons of Mickey Mouse and some of my other favorite heroes. Wow, It takes a lot of people to hold the ropes so they don’t fly away!

Science also uses balloons. A weather balloon is a balloon that carries an instrument that measures atmospheric pressure, temperature, and humidity. It can obtain wind data by being tracked by radar as it floats along the air stream. These balloons can reach an altitude of 25 miles or more.

Ocean scientists use balloons to lift heavy objects from the ocean floor such as sunken ships. Balloons are attached to the object and inflated with air, which brings it to the surface of the water.

In medical science balloons are used to open arteries to help blood flow easier. An instrument is inserted near a blocked artery and a balloon is inflated, expanding the artery to allow more blood to flow to the heart.

Balloons are sometimes used for transportation. In early years giant balloons that were driven by propellers were called Dirigibles or Zeppelin’s. They carried passengers from place to place. The military used them in early wars to carry equipment and as look out posts. Today we call them blimps, such as the Goodyear blimp we sometimes see at football games.

Hot air balloons are very popular today. A hot air balloon consists of a bag called the envelope that is capable of containing heated air. Suspended beneath is the gondola or wicker basket that carries the passengers and a source of heat, usually an open flame. The heated air inside the envelope makes it float since it has a lower density than the relatively cold air outside the envelope.

Recently, A hot air balloon event was held near my community of Canyon, Texas, in the Palo Duro Canyon, the second largest canyon in the United States.

The hot air balloons were filled at the bottom and lifted out of the 800 ft deep chasm and high into the sky.

The rim of the Palo Duro Canyon in located about 12 miles from my community, the city of Canyon, Texas. It has a population of about 13,000 people, and is the county seat of Randall County. It is located south of the city of Amarillo, Texas, in the Texas Panhandle. The city of Canyon has an average of 19 inches of rainfall annually and ranges in temperature from 74 degrees for the high to 44 degrees for an average low, and an average of 9 inches of Snow each year.

With a University like West Texas A&M University, and many things to see and do such as the play TEXAS in the Palo Duro Canyon, Buffalo Lake National Wildlife Refuge, Panhandle Plains Historical Museum, Canyon Texas is a wonderful community to live in.

roryckeel.com

Please STOP IT!

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Please STOP IT!

by Rory C. Keel

 Sentences

To end sentences use a full stop to end affirmative sentence.

Example: I go to work every day.

Orders

Use a full stop to end orders.

Example: Stop pestering the dog.

After Abbreviations

The full stop after abbreviations is optional in American English, but not usually used in British English.

Acronyms

Don’t use a full stop after acronyms.

Example: VA, USO 

Stories from A Third World Country

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Stories from A Third World Country

By Rory C. Keel

During a missionary trip to Nigeria, I observed a stark contrast in two different cultures.

On a street corner in the city of Aba, two young boys wrestled in the heat of battle. Each one flailed their arms, wielding tightened fists in order to land the most decisive and final blow. Words spewed from their lips with the intent to damage the mind and weaken the heart of the opponent. Each one kicked wildly, trying to topple the other in order to gain the advantage. An elderly gentleman slowly hobbled his way through the crowd that formed a circled arena around the two fighters. His Silver hair framed a face wrinkled by the frustrations of life and time. Bent at the shoulders, he steadied his feeble stride with a cane whittled from a branch that had fallen from a tree.

Raising the stick, he jabbed both boys to gain their attention as he yelled above the crowd, “Stop it! Stop this nonsense!”

At that moment, I became afraid for the old man.

In the American culture, this is the point where the cell phone videos of the old man poking the boys would be put on trial in the media. Newscasters on the hour, every hour, would instruct their listeners on what to believe about the situation. The parents of the boys, not knowing or uncaring about the location and activities of their children, would suddenly become violently concerned about an old man harming their sweet innocent children. Lawyers seeking riches or fame would immediately volunteer to file lawsuits on behalf of the boys. In America it would be the moment when the crowd would turn to heckle, mock and torment the one who had interrupted their gladiators. The two combatants would join forces, cursing with vile phrases to humiliate a new common enemy. They would claim self-defense and laugh as they struck him down in his feebleness.

I stood in this third world country located northeast of the Cameroon Mountains on the African continent, and watched with amazement as this event unfolded. The crowd immediately grew silent and stared at the two boys, who now glared directly into the eyes of the frail elder and said, “Yes, sir!”

And we want to Americanize everyone else!

Write interactions

What contrasts do you see in those around you? Take time to watch how people interact. Go to a mall, restaurant or park and observe different people, then write what you see and hear.

These differences will add depth to your characters.

International Standard Book Number

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International Standard Book Number

What’s the big deal about an ISBN?

What is the ISBN and why do I need one for my book?

The International Standard Book Number is most commonly known as the ISBN. It is a special numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W. H. Smith and others in 1966.

Before 2007, the ISBN consisted of 10 digits; however after January 1, 2007 every ISBN assigned is 13 digits long. An International Standard Book Number consists of 4 or 5 parts:

  1. For a 13-digit ISBN, a GS1 prefix: 978 or 979 (indicating the industry; in this case, 978 denotes book publishing)
  2. The group identifier, (language-sharing country group)
  3. The publisher code,
  4. The item number (title of the book), and
  5. A checksum character or check digit.

 

Note the different check digits in each. The part of the EAN‑13 labeled “EAN” is the Bookland country code.

The ISBN separates its parts (group, publisher, title and check digit) with either a hyphen or a space. Other than the check digit, no part of the ISBN will have a fixed number of digits.

Rory C. Keel

Writing Endorsements

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Writing Endorsements

By Rory C. Keel

Ask for endorsements from readers that enjoyed your writing. Simply say something like, “Would you provide me with a positive comment I could use as a testimonial for my book?”

Use the positive comments as headlines for your writing on your website and other promotional materials such as bookmarks and brochures.

Take note of unsolicited positive comments and remarks about your writing in e-mails and personal conversations. If individuals say something positive about your writing, ask to quote them.

Collect testimonials in a notebook and you will have them readily available when promoting your writing, stories and books.

Realize that testimonials from your readers will generate excitement and create interest in your work and draw more readers for your material.