Heroic Surprises of the Week!

For many posts now, I've been exploring several favorite inspirational blogs that keep my head in the game, that inspire me to keep going. 

This week I discovered a very interesting series of articles by K.M. Weiland.  Weiland has gleaned all kinds of interesting writing insights, Marvel movie by Marvel movie, in this series of blog posts that explore The Do’s and Don’ts of Storytelling According to Marvel. These posts are fun and information, and useful in writing your first draft or revising for the 99th time.
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For example:

1. Iron Man teaches writers to grab readers with multi-faceted characters.
2. Iron Man 2 is a study in how to use secondary characters to flesh out your protagonists. 
3. The Incredible Hulk is a study in how not to write action scenes.
4. Thor is a study in how to attack the sagging Midpoint, in which you need to create the all important scene -- arguably the most important scene in the book -- depicting the Moment of Truth.
5. Captain America is a study in how to integrate subtext into your dialogue!
6. Guardians of the Galaxy is a study in how to use backstory effectively.

And so much more! Be sure to check them out. Her website seems to be a treasure trove of interesting resources.

Just a FYI: I did a similar review of Emma Coats’ rules in her post using Pixar as the mentor text.   I also explored how one might use The Doctor – yes, that Doctor – as a mentor text in how to write historical fiction .

Another inspirational post comes from Bruce Black, and his new blog post at wordswimmer. Bruce asks, “How can I keep writing, keep exploring the world with my pen? How can I keep the process going with joy, with excitement, with hope for the discoveries to come, even when the unknown--the not knowing what comes next--feels overwhelming?”

As his poem  begins, I am reminded of our current circumstance:

How can I keep writing,

keep exploring the world

with my pen?

How can I keep the process going

with joy, with excitement, with

hope for the discoveries to come,

even when the unknown--

He ends on a note of hope:

I write just to see
what wisdom,
if any,
I will find
inside myself
to inspire my pen
to keep writing.

The best of heroes give us hope. May your writing be hopeful and heroic.

--Bobbi Miller