Rogue Spy – Chapter 10 Sneak Peek

Hey, guys. It's Crumby again.

I've decided to enjoy my new power (it didn't take long, I know) and follow in last week footsteps, previewing Rogue Spy's next chapter (complete story: here).

It's mission time for Team B in this little snippet, and everything may not be as it seems...or is it? ;-)

Rogue Spy – Chapter 9 Sneak Peek

Hey, guys. Crumby, here.

Frea has granted me access to the blog, so I could post a sneak peek from the next chapter of Chuck vs. the Rogue Spy. Thank you, Frea.

I'm not sure when I'll post the chapter, but hopefully it will keep you interested in the meantime. ;-)

Enjoy!

Frea Interprets Vonnegut — Rule #6

Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

Hm...I’m going to be honest for a minute here: I get the feeling that this might be the rule everybody has been waiting to see me interpret. “Yay! Finally! The sadist rule! The one Frea has completely taken to heart! If there’s anybody that knows how to be sadistic to characters, it’s Frea O’Scanlin!”

Which, okay, point. But seriously, I hate being mean to my characters.

Frea Interprets Vonnegut — Rule #5

Start as close to the end as possible.

Frea Interprets Vonnegut — Rule #4

Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.

Fates 59: The Lincoln Conspiracy

This is just the first scene, which isn't very long, but it's funny, so I thought I'd pep up some Saturdays with it.

:)

Frea

Frea Interprets Vonnegut — Rule #3

Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

Frea Interprets Vonnegut — Rule #2

Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

You know what turns me off of most fiction faster than anything else?

• “Improper grammar!”
• “Didn’t do the research!”
• “Summary says ‘first story/wrote while drunk lolol!’”

...Okay, there are a lot of turn-offs for me. Improper grammar is probably my number one pet peeve (people: these are the reason beta readers exist. Seriously), but a major, major, major turn-off is unsympathetic characters. Especially unsympathetic main characters.

Frea Interprets Vonnegut — Rule #1

Hi, all. I got bored and started dissecting Kurt Vonnegut's 8 Rules. I've got them set up to post automatically throughout the week, so feel free to keep checking back and see "Frea's interpretations of a much better writer's words."

They should be...interesting. At the very least.

Something to Think About

Okay, so today I'm just posting Kurt Vonnegut's 8 rules of creative writing. I was given a handout with these on them in my senior creative writing class in college (yes, to nobody's surprise, I was a creative writing/screenwriting minor), and I randomly revisited them tonight. They're handy for every single writing situation (number 3 in particular), so I thought I'd share.

Enjoy!

Stuff That's Happening

Chuck ended and I pretty much forgot I had a blog, it looks like. I'm sorry about that. I know this blog is around for more than Chuck stuff, and it's a bit unfair of me not to update now that the show is gone. I also know not everybody is on Twitter, so they may have missed some news lately.

Let's see, what's been going on?

Two Years!

Maximus here. Frea is still on her trip right now and doesn't know I'm doing this. What is this, you may ask? Well, this is the second year anniversary of Frea's neverending story: What Fates Impose. Can you believe it's really been two years since she started writing her wonderful story? I can hardly believe it myself, mainly because that means I've known Frea for almost two years and it just doesn't seem like that.

I'm just going to take a minute and say some quick thoughts about what this story has meant to me. I'm very grateful to have met Frea and Fates was what made that possible. As much as I enjoy the story and have a deep admiration for her talent, getting to know her personally is what I enjoy most about the whole Fates experience. I've learned a lot about being an editor since I started editing for her, as well as learned a lot about writing. She's a pretty good teacher, even if she might not realize it. Most importantly, I'm just glad to be able to call her friend. That's what I value most from the whole experience. And like I said, Fates made befriending Frea possible.

I don't regret it, even if she does let her status as the most(ly) benevolent overlord go to her head sometimes. :P

The Art of Ending

Endings are my weakest area of writing, not surprisingly. I have less experience with them than beginnings (which are the most fun for me) and middle-beginnings (where I find my footing and am still chugging along), and even middle-middles (where things falter as I lose my way). One of my endings actually made my mother come into my room and beat me over the head with the book. Another ending of mine still haunts me for reasons I'm still trying to determine.

Keep all of that in mind when I tell you this: endings are the second thing I come up with when I concept a story.

Wait, what?

Writing is very much a solitary activity. You can share it with everybody (which I do) and you can debate it with everybody, but at the end of the day, it's just going to be you and your notepad struggling over how to make the characters sound and feel on the page like they do in your head. You have to write your vision as you see it, not somebody else's.

Going on a trip

So I'm taking a trip this week, which means something like 20+ hours in a car (which I never mind; I love driving) and I'm a voracious reader while on road trips/really poor from this trip, so I've been chewing through ebooks lately to get my Kindle fully loaded.  I've uploaded the majority of the ebooks I've created to the Downloads page.  Among them, you can find:

• An updated version of Chuck and Sarah vs. the Bunker with a spiffy new cover. This one's got a Table of Contents and everything!
• Chuck vs. the Frontier and Chuck vs. the Sunken Treasure, also by the fabulous ninjaVanish
• That Which is Greater: New Year’s Eve by yours truly.
• Everything that has been posted of A Common Spy Problem by KateMcK.
• Two great new ebooks from the awesome author atlee! Scenes from a Wedding and Chuck vs. Unscripted Programming.
  

Anyway, there will probably be more pouring in as the week draws nearer to Wednesday. I’ve had a request for some Golden Girl. Any others?

Thanks,

Frea

R&J: Engagement in Estonia

Found this in the archives (Romeo and Juliet - Not a Date.doc for those of you wondering).  It's nothing new. I figure it takes place about six months after Chuck and Sarah's first date at the movies in Romeo and Juliet but Without Teenagers or Death...Well, Okay, Some Death.  Just a short little scenelet.

Enjoy!

Frea

Inane Chatter - 5.12-5.13 - Chuck vs. Sarah/Goodbye

Max here, letting you guys know I owe you and our minion Shoe an apology. I got this review from the lovely and talented Shoe days ago, but only now managed to get it up now. So my apologies for that. Also, this is unedited by me, so you guys are fortunate to get Shoe, raw and uncut. ;-)

Here, Shoe provides her thoughts and feelings about the controversial series finale of Chuck.* Click the link to see more.

*As Frea mentioned in her last post, we are still planning to post an mxpw vs. Frea review of the finale soon.

Where'd Frea Go Now

Hey, all,

Wanted to apologize for vanishing on the blog lately. Several people have hit me up on Twitter asking if there will be an mxpw vs. Frea going on about the final two episodes, and I'm happy to say that not only will there be one, there will be two.

In Which Frea Expresses a Bunch of Unpopular Opinions

I think I should write down my thoughts on the ending and everything right now. Warning, there's some profanity ahead.  This isn't replacing mxpw vs. Frea, either. These are just my thoughts.  After the break.

Top 10 20: CHARAH

And here it is, our final Top Ten post. That's right. We've wrapped up an entire week of happy, positive lists...and boy did that take a lot out of us. Thanks to everybody that tagged along for the ride and shared their thoughts. Today's list is special...but only because we couldn't keep it down to 10. Without further ado, we present, in descending order, our top twenty Charah moments!  See you on the other side, homies.

Top 10: Favorite Guest Characters

So Frea and I decided to list our favorite guest characters during the show's run. There will be no pictures accompaning this post. I'm doing this on my own, without the invaluable assitance of the MBO, and she told me I didn't have to tussle with Blogger's photo embedding software. So I will not. Still, I hope you guys enjoy our list and feel free to comment on what you think we got right, what we got wrong, and what we missed.

See the list after the jump!