Escape From The Fairy Plane (2)

A face slowly came in view above Ed. Orange hair, sad yet impish eyes, wide mouth. It couldn't be--



"Chizora!" And not the tiny waif from the ring. "Either I've shrunk or you've grown. Where's your hat?" These served as magic reservoirs on the physical plane. He sat up inside a tree house with a veined window. Vines snaked across the ceiling. A toad and a rabbit hopped about a red fiber throw rug. Ed's belt and sword lay atop a dresser, though he couldn't imagine what it held--they always wore the same outfit, unless they had copies. In Chizora's case, the gray dress was actually made of tiny blue and orange specks, which blended to gray at a distance.

"First order of business is to find out where I am. The guys must be frantic." The team's last sight of him had seen him plunging into the abyss of the Cloud Sea, whereupon Dan summoned the fairies to open a portal. Chizora was no help here, since fairy speak was so much cooing and babbling. She followed him to a quaint balcony.

Ed nearly fainted from vertigo. This was the topmost of three houses built upon each other at crazy angles, all growing form a massive stump. They had steep, red-tiled roofs over orange stone. The center one had a large wood deck sporting a clamshell fountain. At the moment, the red fairy Chiella flitted about it adding water, though Ed didn't see any kind of pail. "How's she doing that?"

Chizora couldn't answer, of course. She patted his chest to propel him toward the bed, where he was obliged to sit. From a cupboard she produced a wood bowl shaped like a walnut.

"Right. If I'm staying here, I gotta eat." But fairy food was another way to get a one-way ticket to fairyville.



He recalled some of the ingredients: hare's milk, fairy dew, bluebell petals, frog bubbles (whatever that was). Chizora was not to be denied. She dipped fingers in, then offered him the bowl.

"Okay, here goes." The stuff was bland at first, like baby cereal. Then the ingredients registered in a cascade of nutty and creamy textures. There was no earthly way to describe it. Yet Chizora thought it needed work. She corralled the toad and expressed a bubble from one nostril, which she deftly added to the mix. Ed suddenly realized what the rabbit was for.

"All righty then." He got up shakily and headed back to the balcony. "I''m really not hungry, Zora. I need to get down there and find out where I am." Dan could summon them once in twenty-four hours, but he'd make no headway over this. It was up to Ed. It must have taken all three to fly him up here. He began a careful climb down to the second cottage, where Chizora flew to await.

In the distance, a man in a top hat emerged from a forest and began making his way to them. Just now, the red fairy Chiella was flying in with a water ball. Fairies could do that, you know.

Chizora accepted it and offered it to Ed, who was clueless enough to hold out a hand. It collapsed instantly and dribbled through his fingers.

"Hilarious."

To accentuate the prank, Chizora brought upper wings around to bat  at his face.

"Looks like a lifetime of fun," Ed decided. At least until that man got here, and he'd get some information for planning his escape.

Escape From The Fairy Plane

It should have been the end of a tough mission. Team Dan hired out to retrieve an artifact from floating city B70, which hovered over the vast expanse of the Cloud Sea. As it had no exit teleport, we made use of glider suits stashed there by Red Claw amazons from Eolca, for the benefit of academy students. We'd have some explaining to do.

A dizzying glide by rusty fliers dumped us into a snowbank under frigid marble skies. After hiding the suits, we faced a long climb up to an outlaw settlement here in the southern dark realms. Hopefully we'd hire dragon transport back west.

Dan shrugged off his pack in a gust of swirling ice grit. "Gimme a hand, Ed." I held one end of the map while he scanned it. "Ironically, we're on the same latitude as Lunari." That being our island paradise. "But between there and here are those mammoth-jockey nomads at Erwis."

He probed deeper into the satchel. "Bonnie--I've been lugging around this encyclopedia? This is for survival gear!"

"You never know," huffed the blonde wizardress. "I might need a specialty spell out here."

The bro Pete chuckled. "Leave it to her to get her chops busted over a book."

"Let's get going," the sorceress Zena insisted. "I can feel that hot water now."

We detoured onto a slope near the shore when the skull mages erupted in our path. Zena blasted them with comet spells, and Bonnie hurled a pair over the edge. Dan and Pete charged in for some slicing and dicing. I got two before disaster hit: a mage raised his staff and cast the dreaded Death spell.

A moaning pall of black vapor enveloped me and tried to make off with my soul. The slippery powder saved me, only now I was sliding toward the shore. Zena shouted my name and slid toward me with arm outstretched. But over I went.

I heard Dan shout "Fairies!" as he conjured them from the ring. Three energy spears flashed past me. Nice try, Dan. E for effort. A floating squid reached tentacles for me, but I was falling too fast. A ledge resolved out of the mist, resting place of an ancient airship. The fairies linked hands and drew apart. A triangular door opened in time/space, and pink light wafted out. Were those blue trees?

I hurtled toward a meadow of burgundy grass, oriented so I'd hit it at the run. An explosion of coiled grass seeds marked my path as I plowed through the field. Quiet, serene place with fleecy clouds and a tinkling sound somewhere, borne on a perfumed breeze. So this is fairy land, I thought, blacking out.

Characters or Cutouts?

This Tuesday's writing topic is one that writers use techniques to make their characters believable.  A good writer keeps themselves out of the story.  I wonder if this is true, as I think of the great artists who did self portraits.   In a way, we writers express ourselves in every fraction of our personalities and maybe use our alter egos to make our characters act out in a certain way.  

Let’s start out with general characters.  Major characters are complex.  I start out with a character sketch and list their fundamentals.   I have a mental picture of him/ her and know their height, bodily build, behaviors, traits, feelings and their beliefs and opinions.  I also write out phrases they might say according to their personality.  

Minor characters get a little bit, but if they are supportive to the major character I also have a sketch for them too. Of course if a character has magical abilities, I add that in the list.   

For me I want the characters to act as though they were in a movie.  They are constantly playing in my mind even when I am asleep.    My goal is to make that crossover as a female writer to especially make the men characters realistic. Perhaps that is my alter ego coming out with the masculinity of my makeup.  

If characters are cardboard cutouts, the reader can tell. What is your approach?  Can you recall other literature that the characters seemed like cardboard cutouts?   Perhaps a trashy romance novel but the plot was good.  

Fairy Sight

As we approach the last curtain call, not all of us go out with fond farewells. Some seek that mystical fountain of youth; some live in denial; others speak of freezing their heads for eventual attachment to a cyborg body.

A centenarian named George is about to discover those aren't the only options. Fear of the grave can be a powerful motivator, and George has had plenty of time to plan his escape from the Grim Reaper.

Enter  now an assisted living facility called the Paxton. Its oldest resident is about to enter. . . .well, you know the rest.






On the last day of his life, George set out on his motorized chair to see the witch. His Sunday paper lay ignored like others on this wing of the Paxton; it was all lies anyway. He took the elevator to the third floor, knowing Bruna was up at this early hour. He tooted his horn outside room 312, and motored inside when she called the invite.

Bruna occupied a recliner in the dim space, a silhouette against green drapes until his eyes adjusted. She turned down the TV volume. "Happy one hundred, birthday boy. I suppose you want a youth potion. As if I could--I can't even cure these swollen ankles." She rubbed at them above ruby-sequined slippers.

"I know how you got named Bruna," he began with a slick grin. "Your dad was hoping for a Bruno. Surprise!"

"Droll, George. You came all the way up here to remind me half the population is female?"

"No, no." George offered up a cottony old-man laugh. "I need a potion."

"Ah yes." Bruna kicked down the foot rest and hobbled to the bedroom.

George followed, careful of the Christmas tree she never took down. I'd only have to put it up again, she reasoned.

She bent with a groan and pulled a shoe box out from under the sofa bed. The view outside was all sunshine and birdsong at this early hour.

George inspected the contents when she plopped down beside the box. Oval stones called "magic eggs" supposedly warded off magic. A parchment healing spell worked by placing it on the affected body part. "The translocation spell," he decided. "How does that work? I keep forgetting."

"You make it like this." Bruna closed eyes in concentration. "Boil snow and oil with two different woods for the fire. Marinate in a sheep bladder for six weeks. Add charcoal until it dries out. Grind it to a powder and pour into a pouch. Lay it on an object that comes from your destination--a place you've been to before. Picture that place while you say the incant beneath the pouch." She studied him. "What did you have in mind?"

"I thought maybe the old homestead where I grew up."

"Doesn't work that way. You'll be there, all right, and see yourself as a kid. But you'll still be old, and nobody knows you from Adam."

"Well then, how about the fairy sight?"

She recited again. "Add rose water and marigold to oil, and mix until it clears. Add buds of hollyhock, marigold, thyme, hazel, and some grass from a fairy ring. Steep it in the sun for three days." She studied him again, more closely this time. "Same deal, George--if you go into the fairy plane, you'll still be old."

"But immortal--am I right?"

"Of course. Nobody ever dies there. But why do you think fairies are invisible? If they think you can see them, they'll take you into the fairy plane, and nobody ever comes back."

"Maybe I'll see you there some day, Bruna. Gonna miss ya."

Bruna made a wan smile as she opened a tin of yellow cream. "I can't make any promises about that, not unless you find a way back and tell me what it's like. Come here." She applied the eye salve.

"Say, this is soothing. But things are a tad blurry."

"It'll pass. Go down to the park. If I was a fairy, I'd be all over it, what with the squirrels, pools, fairy houses, flowers, and whatnot."

"I'll do that. Thanks a mil, Bruna!" He turned and motored out.

Minutes passed. "Aw heck." Bruna got behind her walker and prepared to follow, tucking the tin into a pocket. "I always wondered what fairies look like."

Sheldon's Cooper's Pithy Sayings

"Sheldon Cooper here, along with my talented associate Amy. Today I want to change our format to pithy sayings. Share with us your nuggets of hometown wisdom."

"And we have a bite." Amy pushed a button. "What's your name and what's your game?"




"I'm Ed, a Hollywood producer, but I used to work in a lab. If you tell Jane Doe not to operate a centrifuge with an unbalanced load, make sure she knows you're talking about the machine."

Sheldon grinned. "Do you see what he did there? The conditional statement has been re-assigned to. . . ."

"Yes, Sheldon. I really don't think we need to dumb these down. Who's on the line next?"

"My talent," said a matronly voice, "is comparatives. I'm good at it because I'm deeper than cemetery infrastructure."

"Clever," Sheldon mused. "A cemetery necessarily has deeper infrastructure than the norm. Can we all guess why?"

Amy placed a hand on her forehead. "Sorry about that, folks. One of us is subtlety challenged. Got any more comparatives?"

"Sneakier than an elbow biter."

"Statistically valid," Amy decided. "It's like the suckers know to sneak up from behind. I get ten bites on the elbow for one everywhere else."

Sheldon frowned. "I'd love to see your source data, Amy. Anywho, next we have Gene with his 'why' game."

"Why do we never have the same  number of hot dots and buns? Why don't cowboys duck that obvious punch? Why does your pal Leonard nervously twiddle his fingers?"

"Why am I listening to this?" Sheldon pressed the next button.

A younger man. "If your last name is Chocstraw, don't name your kid Van."

"I wouldn't do that anyway," Sheldon insisted. "Van is so pedestrian. Amy and I have compiled a list of prospective names against the time that we. . . ." Both hosts went red-faced. The new caller sounded like a teenage girl.

"If you dream you're two inches tall, watch out for the cat."

"Or a mouse," Sheldon added. "A dog. A spider of sufficient size."

"There was only a cat in the video game."

"And. . . .next?" Sheldon hit another button.

An older guy. "How do you make a stuck grocery line start moving? Get in a different line. Now that one's stuck, and the first one moves right along."

"Good old Murphy's Law," Amy said. "One day we'll pin down the calculus behind it."

"Here's a cartoon caper," said a gravely voice. "How does Charlie Brown cure Lucy of yanking away the ball before he kicks it: kick the crap outta Lucy instead."

"Now that's curious logic," Sheldon said. "It would only make Lucy all the crabbier. She'd devise an even more devilish stratagem against Charlie."

"Is this guy for real. . . ."

"Subtlety," Amy reminded. "I don't know what to say, other than we're out of time."

Sheldon did the honors. "One cannot literally be out of time, as it implies being outside the time/space continuum. This is Sheldon Cooper signing off, although one cannot literally 'sign' a broadcast. . . ."

Punctuating Dialogue Correctly

https://thinkwritten.com/punctuating-dialogue/

Whatever your techniques, I'm sure I will need to review this too in every manuscript.

Learning how to punctuate dialogue is important when writing the conversations between your characters.

Punctuating dialogue might not sound like a very exciting topic or a lot of fun as a writer to study – but it is very important in making sure your dialogue exchanges between characters make sense to your readers!

Good punctuation will help your readers connect to your characters and help you write a stronger book.

If you’ve done all of the work of planning an outline for your novel and worked on developing your characters, the last thing you want to do is lose readers by making common grammar mistakes!

Most dialogue sentences are made of two parts: the dialogue, which is the spoken portion of the sentence, and then the dialogue tag, which identifies the speaker.

In this example, we have the following sentence, spoken by Martha.

“I am going to the zoo,” said Martha.

The sentence which Martha speaks is the dialogue. This is the part that ends with a comma. The second part is the dialogue tag. The dialogue tag is what identifies Martha as the speaker.

Avoid Run-On Sentences – Use Multiple Sentences if Necessary

It’s easy to want to create run-on sentences. Fortunately, it is also easy to avoid them.

Below is an example of a run-on sentence in dialogue with way too much punctuation.

“I love this dress,” said Sally, “I’m going to wear it everywhere, not just to the wedding, but also to the grocery store, the library, and the pancake dinner.”

This above example has several mistakes in it. First of all, you should not put a comma after a dialogue tag. It’s best to use two separate sentences.

“I love this dress,” said Sally. “I’m going to wear it everywhere. I’m not just going to wear it to the wedding. I’m going to wear it to the grocery store, the library, and the pancake dinner.”

Do Use a Comma for Action Within the Dialogue

“I love this dress,” said Sally, carefully taking it out of the closet.

“I think it’s hideous,” said Mark, wondering why on earth she would want to wear something that reminded him of pea soup. “You do realize it’s the same color as pea soup, don’t you?”

In this instance, we DO use a comma, because it separates the dialogue tag from the action. In this case, Sally is doing a physical action as she takes the dress from the closet. Mark’s action is not a physical action. However, it still counts as a verb and an action all the same.

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Rule #6: Know How to Punctuate Dialogue in Reverse

In all of our examples so far, we’ve put the dialogue tag at the end. However, both the dialogue tag and the action can come before the dialogue. In this case, you simply end the dialogue with a period and use a comma after the dialogue tag.

Mark whispered, “I love you even if you are wearing an ugly dress.”

Looking into his eyes, Sally said, “Thank you for understanding.”

Basically, when the dialogue tag or the action comes first, you simply reverse the dialogue punctuation marks for the comma and the period.

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Rule #7: Multiple Paragraphs of Same Speaker

When you have a character who is speaking a lot, it is okay if you need to use multiple paragraphs. Simply omit the end quotation mark at the end of the first paragraph and begin the second paragraph with a quote mark.

This can sometimes be confusing to readers, but there are times when it is appropriate.

“Listen, I have a lot to say about why I love this dress.” Sally straightened her posture. “This dress was my grandmother’s dress. She wore it when she first came to this country in 1936. She had nothing – no money, no food – but she had this dress.

“That’s where I am today. I have nothing. Nothing! No job, no money, no car. I have this dress. It worked for my grandmother, maybe it will work for me, too.

“I’m wearing this dress, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

Again, sometimes it is better to break up your dialogue with different speakers or to add action – but it’s not always necessary. Largely a lot of this will depend on your own unique type of writing style, type of work you are

Additional Dialogue Punctuation Resources

Many writers can find the task of correctly punctuating their character’s dialogue to be overwhelming. Hopefully these punctuation rules for dialogue will help you improve as a writer.

Need more dialogue writing tips? Check out our article on 6 Tips for Writing Dialogue.

You may also find that a good style manual can be a great resource to have on hand as a desk reference as a writer.

Writing dialogue punctuation does not have to be difficult. With practice and a basic understanding of these rules for when to use commas, quotation marks, and periods, you can easily add dialogue to your stories confidently.

writing and what your goals are as a writer.

For my dialogue, I have a notebook.  When I hear something said, or read phrases, I put them in for future stories etc.   I also think a character sketch is good, and write out phrases that you think your character would say or react to a situation and so on.   What is your method?  I have a "lab" that happens to be social media.  Some of the most nastiest comments have made my characters stronger...haha.  Seeing various viewpoints have also enabled me to strengthen plots and so on.    Happy writing!

Crisis at Six Forks

What was this, a sporting goods emporium or a theme park? Bud Randolph, CEO of Six Forks Palladium, didn't like what he saw. Country tunes  set the theme elsewhere, but this corner basked in some kind of new age fairy music. An overhead bar read "Now playing: Aldebaran by Enya".

While it was true this had once been an aquatics park, no one had expected the mermaid gig to catch on like it did. The original skylight illumined a new waterfall that churned up a sparkling mist. Crowds thronged the plexiglass barrier that arced around a deep, curved lake. White paint brightened the depths, including semicircular steps emerging onto a fanciful island, where a treasure chest rested beneath a fake palm.

As Bud watched, a green mermaid with red hair surfaced to empty a bucket of coins into the chest. He caught the name "Ellie". He drew closer, noting a man with a scuba tank filming at the bottom. How much was that costing him?--not to mention all the toys. A blonde in white sailed a submarine across the lake to a waiting brunette in blue. Two pirate ships bobbed at anchor next to a pile of cannon balls. This was the "battleship" game in which two players lobbed balls to sink the opponent. Was that a turtle? No, just a realistic copy flippering along in the current.

He'd already decided to pull the plug when things got even worse. A custodian collected money for a lively video trade. Two dollars bought your phone a tour in a waterproof case. Bud edged close to a pair of black ladies who delighted at the results. Their name cards said Joyce, about seventy, and Rachel, maybe fifty.

Rachel's video followed a sedate course along waterways branching from the lake. The view flowed beneath pedestrian bridges, looked up at watery faces peering down, then passed close to a blue mermaid passing the opposite way. A funny one, this one, as her hand briefly blocked the camera.

The music changed tempo to feature "In the Amber Room by Faith and the Muse". Now the mood was somber and medieval.

Joyce's video cruised along the surface toward the waterfall, suddenly dived beneath to look straight up into a maelstrom of bubbles. A neutral-buoyancy octopus whirled past. The view skated along submerged steps toward the green mermaid, who scooped coins with a shovel. A hand reached out to smack the green rump. When the redhead turned round eyes about, blue flukes waggled in her face.

Joyce and Rachel laughed like kids, when they should be checking out grills or fishing gear.

The view next wound into a curved tunnel, surfaced inside the Mermaid Palace. Food machines and lockers lined either side of brick tiles the ladies sat on when taking a break. Until now, no one had seen this inner sanctum. The journey passed an undulating sea horse out in the lake, then surfaced in a sheeting of water. Joyce's smiling face beamed above her arm reaching down for the phone.

"Use the blue mermaid next time," Joyce advised. "That girl crazy!"

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

Binia, the blonde in white, made it her business to know all the bigwigs, and wasn't fooled by the CEO's casual Friday spiel. Seated next to the other two, she divided attention between him and a whimsical card game (2.95 at the gift shop). She didn't even notice when a small frog man with paddling legs bumped against her fin.

Sirtis, aka the blue mermaid, tossed down a pair of starfish cards. "All I needed was that other starfish, Ellie. I think you skanked me out of it."

"Whoa, missy, wash your mouth out!" Ellie retorted.

Hardly paying attention, Binia motioned to the visiting cameraman. His obscure cable channel planned a series on promotional themes like theirs. He surfaced and raised his goggles. "Al, check out the guy in jeans and sweatshirt. Did you know he's our CEO?"

"No fooling?"

"I don't like the vibes," Sirtis said. "He's not a happy caballero."

Binia conferred briefly with Al, who rose dripping, his camera still shouldered.

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

Al maneuvered through self conscious folks who didn't feel up to being filmed, confronting a surprised Randolph. Now if he could remember what Binia told him to say. "Mr Randolph, isn't it? I understand you have two stores here on the east coast, and have an eye on the midwest."

"We're kicking it around," Randolph said in careful politician mode.

"My cable channel is based out there. We're doing a series on store themes. So far, yours is the best, even if your other one doesn't yet have a theme. Think of it--a different theme for each store. You could become known for it."

Randolph looked like a man with gears spinning upstairs. "Tell you what--how'd you like to interview some of my customers?"

Like Binia said, the free advertising angle never failed. Al returned her salute. Since the skylight admitted the noon sun straight down, it was time for the trio's water dance, this time set to the pulsing Goth of Collide's "Lucky Thirteen". Apparently it was Sirtis' turn to pick a tune.