The Pros of Acting Things Out in Your Bathroom

Or your bedroom. Or any room of the house that you can act or shout things out loud without too much concern from your parents/the rest of your family.

This is one method that I will endorse to the ends of the earth. I’ve always had an interest in acting, personally. Not as in I want to go to Hollywood or star on Broadway, but more I really enjoy taking Drama classes at school and I was in the school play once. I played Theseus in A Midsummer’s Night Dream. Had a beard. It fell off during our finally performance. That was a tricky situation. I nearly had a heart attack on stage, but just kept on acting until the Rude Mechanicals entered and stole the spot light to fix it.

But my escapade on stage are not why you’re reading this.

I have always believed that acting is a great way to help improve your writing. More specifically scenes than your writing as a whole, but still very beneficial. To act well, you really have to put yourself into the character’s mind. You have to try to think like them and feel what they’re feeling, and that’s really the best way to be able to write them. There’s just something different about acting or speaking their roles to yourself though. It makes the more real than if you’re just thinking of dialogue in your head.

It’s also a great way to figure something out if you’re not sure how you want a particular scene to go. Sometimes when I’m writing a scene I’ll just go upstairs to my bedroom and start acting the scene out with myself. Or sometimes I’ll explain the situation to my little sister and she’ll help me come up with something for it. Sometimes it doesn’t work and I don’t use anything that I came up with while I was acting it out. Then again, sometimes I end up getting hit with the perfect line and I have to run downstairs and type it up as quickly as I can.

I usually do this in my bedroom before I go to bed, or while I’m taking a shower, or as I’m washing my hands. It’ll sometimes happen while I’m sitting at my computer, but I find it works slightly better if you’re up on you're in a different setting. I would also suggest going somewhere where’s it’s not going to disturb too many people (or convince too many of the witnesses that you’re crazy. I made the mistake of doing something like this in my AP English the other day… staring at a wall talking in a Russian accent… yeah…).

Now, you do not have to do it the way that I do. Margaret likes to pace in giant circles making faces with music playing loudly. I think silence and sitting still helps better. It’s one of those methods that works better if you’ve tailored it to your own preferences and see what helps you out the best.

And the best part is it often helps with Writers Block too!

Have you ever tried this before? How had it helped you in the past?

Music Playlist

Now, let us not confuse this post with Music and Playlists. This is a different post, though it is almost directly related to it. After writing that post, I decided that it would be a really good idea to, instead of giving you guys vague ideas about what to listen to while write, to give you an actual example of what Margaret and I like to listen to. So I created a Youtube channel and created one!

Music Playlist by Amanda and Margaret Vinshire

As of right now, the playlist contains these songs:

Explosions in the Sky- Birth and Death of the Day

Davin Laz- Cristofori's Dream

Hanz Zimmer- Up is Down

Hurt- Silver Linging

Jon Mclaughlin- So Close

Jason Walker- Echo

Coldplay- Viva la Vida

Snow Patrol- Chasing Cars

Snow Patrol- Set Fire to the Third Bar

Nick Lachey- Whats Left Of Me

Monary- Travelling by Ambulance

30 Seconds to Mars- This is War

Vienna Teng- Anna Rose

Hanz Zimmer- Time

Linking Park- Castle of Glass

Typler Ward, Lindsey Stirling, Chester See- Daylight

David Lanz- Faces of the Forest

Ellie and Landon Austin- Safe and Sound

Rob Thomas- Little Wonders

Taylor Swift- Haunted

John Mayer- Dreaming With a Broken Heart

Mulan's Decision

Vienna Teng- Antebellum

Lindsey Stirling and Pentatonix- Radioactive

Regina Spektor- The Call

Withing Temptation- Memories

Withing Tempation- Angles

Narnia Battle Theme

John Powell- Forbidden Friendship

Piano Guys- Moonlight

They are NOT in any particular order. Quite frankly, they're just in the order that they're on my favorites list.

These are my favorite "Epic Scene" songs:
Explosions in the Sky- Birth and Death of the Day

Hanz Zimmer- Time

Mulan's Decision

Lindsey Stirling and Pentatonix- Radioactive

Narnia Battle Theme

Depression/Desperation/Hopelessness ect.:

Davin Laz- Cristofori's Dream

Jason Walker- Echo

Snow Patrol- Chasing Cars

Snow Patrol- Set Fire to the Third Bar

Nick Lachey- Whats Left Of Me

Monary- Travelling by Ambulance

Ellie and Landon Austin- Safe and Sound

John Mayer- Dreaming With a Broken Heart

Regina Spektor- The Call

Withing Temptation- Memories

Withing Tempation- Angles

Fluffy Songs:

Jon Mclaughlin- So Close

Vienna Teng- Anna Rose

Typler Ward, Lindsey Stirling, Chester See- Daylight

Hopeful:

Rob Thomas- Little Wonders

David Lanz- Faces of the Forest

John Powell- Forbidden Friendship

Multiple Genre:

Hanz Zimmer- Up is Down

Hurt- Silver Linging

30 Seconds to Mars- This is War

Linking Park- Castle of Glass

Vienna Teng- Antebellum

Piano Guys- Moonlight

Writing about Late 1700s/Early 1800s. particularly dictators of the French variety:

Coldplay- Viva la Vida

As of this point in time, most of the songs on here are Amanda's writing songs, mostly because Margaret has yet to get me a list of her favorite writing songs. Once she does, I'll be sure to update it. Unfortunately we haven't really gotten the chance to talk much recently. School makes people busy which makes other people sad.

True Names- Naming Your Characters

          "What do personal names mean in this language? Do they give power over people?"          "Yes, they do. Those who speak the language have two names. The first is for everyday use and had little authority. But the second is their true name and is shared without a few trusted people. There was a time when no one concealed his true name, but this age isn't as kind. Whoever knows your true name gains enormous power over you. It's like putting your life into another person's hands. Everyone had a hidden name, but few know what it is."

~ Eragon and Brom, Eragon, by Christopher Paolini, perhaps one of the best known young authors

Names have power. And while they don't actually have (as far as we know) the same sort of power that they do in Paolini's book, you cannot deny that power. Human beings by nature like to be able to categorize and name things/people. It's one of the things that leads to cliques and gangs and bullies and yada yada but that's a topic for another day and another blog. It's one of the things my almost literal genius (seriously, I think he's only a handful of IQ points away from genius level- he's just too violent and passionate about teaching Spanish to go anywhere else than teaching) Spanish teacher repeats over and over and over and over and over and over and over. When you're making a study guide, number, box, and name.

The very act of naming something makes it more personal and easier to remember. To have named something is to have given it the power to become something real and tangible. I think we've all experienced that one idea floating in the back of our head that we can't really put to words. Or maybe it's just a concept or an image but it's not really defined. But as soon as you try to put it words, you either find out how amazing it truly is or you discover that you're muse is going crazy and needs to get a reality check (or maybe a fantasy check :) *pause for crickets chirping*).

Putting names to characters and stories is vitally important. And it has to be the right name. It has to capture their personality and their spirit and their actions. Maybe it's ironic. Maybe it's perfect. Maybe it wouldn't make sense to anyone other than the author and the character's best friend. It has to have flare, it can't be too boring, it can't be too out there unless everyone else's is, it has to be something that people can say/think, it should have some form of meaning, it should make sense (no Japanese names for a 19th century German) and it should be something that you like. If you don't like their name then... there's not really much of a point in naming them such.

However, I personally hate finding names with a passion.

I'm not quite sure why that is. Margaret loves it with a passion. Which is one of the reasons I always ask for her help when I need to name something, be it a character or my book.

I just get very easily frustrated with the whole task. There are thousands of names out there, and that's not even considering making up a name for your fantasy novel where everyone has names like "Yylts" or something. 

For the purpose of this blog, I am only going to address how to give a character a fairly typical name. I don't mean Sara's and John's and Bob's, but no "Yylts".

There are a couple of different ways that you can go about looking for a name. You can either search for a name based on meaning, which is what a lot of people do, or you can just try to find a name that fits. It depends on which is more important to you. Margaret usually searched based on meaning, I usually don't. Unless I want a certain meaning or irony, I'll just try to pick a name I think fits the character.

It is typically advisable to balance the two parts of the name out. Length wise (a short first name with a long last name or vice versa) and normality wise (normal first name, weird last name or vice versa). To quote my sister, "Don't name the poor character Alpharius Liechtenstien, or something." Massive mouthfuls are generally a bad idea.

Middle names are of course optional. I will beg with you though, to please, never, ever, ever, ever, ever give your character more than a reasonable amount of middle names. If you're writing an Hispanic character, it would be appropriate to give her two middle names. However, there's really almost no other reason they need more than one. Especially if they're words, not names. There is almost absolutely nothing that you can do to make anyone take a character named Madame Elizabeth Raven Blood Diamond Raquel Richardson seriously. Elizabeth Richardson isn't a bad name. You add four middle names, and all respect goes out the window.


As for names that are actual words, you want to be careful. "Hope", "Raven", "Hunter", they're not automatic no-nos, they're real names. I babysit a little boy named Hunter. Adorable little red head. You just have to be very careful with them. Especially if you're trying to use them for foreshadowing.

Something that I have done in the past, is to pick someone you know from a class or church group or soccer team or something and try out a couple of their names for characters. Maybe use their middle name as a first name, or steal their last name as long as it's not too exotic/it fits your character's background. Mix and match between people. It ensures that your name is something that is actually used in the real world. As long as you're not picking a friend with a really odd name or spelling it's not even like you're stealing their name like it's an idea or anything. It's just another source to draw names from, like a baby website.

Speaking of which, if you've ever spent enough time looking on one of them for names, most baby naming websites actually have some sort of list or page for authors trying to find names for their characters. It's pretty interesting.

My favorite website is babynamer.com

Margaret really likes http://www.20000-names.com/


But you can use any of them. Google or Bing or Yahoo or whichever website you use can lead you to a lot of different ones.

They can be really good resources and they make the task of picking names for your characters so much easier.

I still hate doing it though. I hope you enjoy it more than I do.

Why You Will (Probably) Never Be As Famous As JK Rowling

Let us all take this moment to realize a hard cold fact.

None of us are probably ever going to be half as famous as JK Rowling.

Or Rick Riordan, or Stephanie Meyer, or Cassandra Clare, or Susan Collins, or any other huge contemporary authors. You're probably never going to have a movie made out of your books. You're probably never going to travel around the world on book tours. You're probably never even going to make enough money to live off of. This is even if you do manage to get published.

I'm not trying to crush dreams. I'm caught up in the same dream as the rest of you. But as much as we like to retreat into our worlds of fantasy and fiction, we do have to acknowledged the reality of the fact.

I'm not saying—just to make it clear— that I will and you won't muahahaha. No, this applies to me and Margaret just as much as it does to you. It's not because we're young; it's simply an occupational hazard of writing books.

According to information published by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), there were over 320,000 NEW book titles published in 2010 in the US alone. That's not including printing off more Harry Potters or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finns. That's new book titles. A great majority of these book titles will not do well. An even smaller percentage of those will become popular, and an even smaller percentage of that will become mainstream enough for the authors name to be recognizable. 

Here's an example that might be closer to home. Take a look around next time you go to a library or book store. Do you see how many books there are? Depending on the size of the library/book store you're at, there could be hundreds, maybe even thousands of books there. We'll forget everything that's nonfiction and wasn't originally published in the past... 20 years.

That's still a lot of books.

And of them, odds are that there are probably 20 or so that the lay man would be able to remember the author of. Those are really small odds. Becoming famous writing books is an exception, not a rule. Being able to make a good living writing books tends to be more of an exception.

Personally— as in this is my opinion— I would not want to be as famous as Rowling. I love her books, and I give her books credit for first making me want to write books myself. But think about how the rest of her life is going to go. She may be richer than the Queen, but she can essentially never write anything again. She tried and "it wasn't as good as Harry Potter". She will never be able to escape that shadow. The book that she wrote under a fake name was her attempt to escape it. She's obviously not entirely content to just rest on her laurels and I don't think I would be either.

I am going to take a moment to admit here though, that the title of this post is "Why You Will (Probably) Never Be As Famous As JK Rowling". Who knows? I doubt that she herself thought that she was ever going to be the authoress of books on the 10 Most Published Books of All Time list. Maybe you will become that one in 7 billion. 

The odds are though, as you can see from the 1/7 billion proportion... not exactly likely.

World Building 101

So, Author Forward real quick - I wrote this ages ago and let it waffle because I didn't like how it turned out. However, since I haven't posted anything in forever...I hope it does give you some aid and advice, you guys.

Hello there fellow writers! This is Margaret of the Vinshire Sisters, and I’m sure you’re all asking ‘who?”. Yeah…so, I’m the master (mistress?) of procrastination. If there was an Olympics for it, I’d get a Gold Medal.

Except I’d drag me feet in showing up and miss the medal awarding.

So, incase you hadn’t figured it out yet, you’ll probably be seeing more of Amanda.

Let’s jump right into today’s subject – Basic World Building 101: Why You Need World Building.  World building is something that more and more authors have begun to neglect. Now, before I say anything, no you do not need Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones level of world building…but I kindly point out to take a close look at how popular those books are.

As to how I know what I’m talking about…well, I am a massive fan of world building, for your information. The current story and characters I’m working on have been running around in my head for 4 – possibly 5 – years and I’m still not done with world building. As I’m writing this, I’m working on an extensive family tree that goes back several hundred years and leads up to my main character.

I am also mildly psychotic.

But, we won’t talk about my debatable sanity today.

Now, a recent favorite of authors recently is that they don’t thoroughly explain the what’s or why’s of why something would occur in this world, or they don’t give enough background so something will make sense.

This leaves readers confused and irritated, and in my case, frothing mad.

“But!” You protest “I write fantasy/sci-fi/mad ramblings of an insane mind!”

It doesn’t matter. You still need to make some sort of rhyme or reason or sense. Just squeeing “Science!” or “Magic!” whenever something doesn’t make sense or – even worse – not explaining anything at all and throwing it out there, expecting the readers to accept it, is more likely to make them want to take the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language, and promptly beat you into unconsciousness with it.

There’s an awesome quote by that neatly sums it up like this: “The difference Between Fiction and Reality? Fiction needs to make sense.”

This is unfortunately true – sometimes it doesn’t matter if it’s happened in real life, no one’s going to believe it if you put it down in a book.

Now, I will admit that sometimes you can’t explain everything, and that’s alright: all readers, when picking up a book, will have to ‘suspend disbelief’ in order to read it…but if they ‘suspend disbelief’ so much that they can no longer read the book as a story because it’s too dang ridiculous…well, you’ve failed. Sorry. No other way to say it.

I know this seems like it should be pretty obvious guys, and almost all of you are most likely rolling your eyes, but there’s been innumerable times where I stare at a book and go like “…Whaa? Did I miss something?” and flip back several (hundred) pages, trying desperately to find something that didn’t exist in the first place.

So, summary: World Building – DO IT.

How To World Build

World building isn’t actually that complicated. Time consuming to the max? Absolutely. Hard?

No. All it requires is a few simple questions.

The simplest way to world build is to ask questions. Why, What, When, Where, and How are the most basic ones. Know how the government works, know what the culture requires, know when/why people die, know what’s socially inacceptable and acceptable, know the creatures, know the foods, know the jobs, know the history, the legends and myths, know the wars.

To sum it up neatly, know almost everything that’s different in this new world you’re creating. Know it like the back of your hand.

(This is, after all, world BUILDING. You need layers, you need depth, you need a hefty dose of reality to make it believable.)

It’s going to be difficult at first, but the questions will come easier as time goes on. Even now I ask questions about my world.

Something I also recommend though, it is – again – time consuming, is to write a guide book to the World, so you can A. Remember it, and B. See if it makes sense. Think of it like your textbook on Ancient Civilizations. Anything that would be mentioned in a standard textbook about Ancient Greece, you should know about your world.

Amanda is of the opinion that, "History is perhaps one of the best things you can come up with for your world. If you can come up with a history for your world, it will make everything a lot easier to come up with. Partly because almost everything we have in our world related back to history. Our culture, our politics, the types of jobs we do, the things we eat, the way we interact with foreigners... Pretty much everything stems from the past. It doesn't require something extensive, just a basic timeline—the major events. But it can do a lot in the long run."

And that’s pretty much how you world build. As stated before, it’s simple.

It’s also incredibly hard. And Time consuming.

And required, frankly.

So  yes, it’ll take time. Yes, it’ll take work.

But if you’re afraid of that….

Then why are you writing in the first place?

-Margaret V.

P.S. Don’t feel too bad, you guys. Even Amanda is guilty of the “Not Enough World Building” charge.