Writer’s Toolbox: The Plot Scenario Generator

If you’re a writer of fiction in any form and you’ve hit a creative dry-spell, are having difficulty starting a story, or already have some idea for a character, setting, theme, etc. but find yourself coming up short in actually producing a plot, check out The Plot Scenario Generator on the Archetype writing blog.  “This generator provides you with the event that gets the story rolling and a secondary conflict to keep you going!” And, of course, if you don’t like the generated plot, simply refresh the page and there’s a new one.  This site is a scaled-down, more general version of The Brainstormer.

As with any formula, this won’t work for every writer in every context.  What this site does, however, is creates a starting point for a story in medias res; and that might be the initial charge that your story needs.  If you could do with the structure of a formula, there are other tools that buttress nicely with The Plot Scenario Generator.  Anne Lamott talks about the ABDCE formula in her excellent book on writing, Bird by Bird:

“Action, Background, Development, Climax, Ending.  You begin with action that is compelling enough to draw us in, make us want to know more.  Background is where you let us see and know who these people are, how they’ve come together, what was going on before the opening of the story.  Then you develop these people, so that we learn what they care most about.  The plot—the drama, the actions, the tension—will grow out of that.  You move them along until everything comes together in the climax, after which things are different for the main characters, different in some real way.”

The Plot Scenario Generator can start you off with some action if you’re a sufficiently modern writer thoroughly encumbered by the tendency toward interiors.  However, this generator probably won’t dictate plot in a short story, but if you have already developed some characters and want to see how they tackle certain problems (i.e., plot as deepening the reader’s/writer’s understanding of character), this would be a great way to test/convey your characters in meaningful ways.  You could treat these discoveries as exercises, but I would take John Gardner’s advice and treat every text you write as a potential story rather than an exercise.

And who knows?  Maybe someday you’ll write something of worth that’s revered by critics and loved by the masses.  Something like Firecracker (1981) in which “Femme fatale martial arts expert teaches the mafia a lesson”.

Dream big, fellow traveler.

Ray Bradbury’s Advice to Writers

HAIL SEITAN! The Weird World of Homemade Wheat-Meat

Foodies (and other top-hatted, monocled, highbrow goons and goofusses), don’t like processed food, distrust “food products,” and look down on Taco Bell consumers (“I say! Look at those mindless sheeple at the local purveyor of Industrialized American-Mexican fare!”).  I kind of like food and want to make choices that indicate my mindfulness of the effects of my consumption and my love for the planet (I love it but I’m not… in love with it), so I continue my journey to find simple, delicious substitutes for meat. The implication of the term “substitute” is that it can’t stand by itself or is in some ways a lesser option, but the reason I use this terminology is because a plate should have a protein, and the protein of choice in a traditional Western diet is meat. So I seek another way.

My hope is to help encourage a “non-soy-based, non-heavily-processed, local-focused veg diet, [which] is the definition of low impact.”

So when I’m at the grocery store and I see something labeled “wheat-meat” and is supposedly both “mock duck” and “mock pork” simultaneously, I was immediately intrigued (like characters in Dracula, both entranced/repelled).  I imagine that this is some kind of vegetarian frankenproduct, but it turns out that’s really not the case if you make it yourself.

A Kirk Cameron’s depiction of the animal seitan comes from

Though it appears to be a highly processed mock-food, seitan (pronounced SAY-TAN), actually only contains two ingredients:  vital gluten flour and water.  Seitan is basically high-gluten boiled bread; it’s obviously not gluten-free.  If you don’t feel like spending time locating vital gluten flour (which you can pick up at any health food store and at some supermarket organic sections) or if you don’t want to make this recipe for whatever reason, you can find commercial seitan in Asian/international markets or in health food stores (but the mark-up on seitan is incredibly high:  12 oz of seitan will run you about $4.00 (and that was at Kroger)–however, making it only costs about a buck a pound).

Canned from an international store is the cheaper albeit more dubious option

But don’t waste your money!  Don’t eat something out of a can you can’t read! Make seitan yourself! I’ve been improving this recipe for awhile and have worked out the kinks.  You won’t have to sell your soul for this meat substitute (har, har, har).

Invite SEITAN into your household in SIX simple steps!

You Aren’t What You Eat: Vegetable Stock

Vegetable stock has so many uses and can elevate just about anything it’s added to; it’s become essential to my kitchen setup.  It’s also really cheap to make a ton of it, so I find myself making it quite often.  I used to prepare it according to the free recipe online that has “5 Stars” (if you trust the pedestrian masses and their derivative “star system”, go ahead and use that recipe (but it’s a blunder, I say!)).  That recipe was fine until I started shopping around and trying other recipes.

I’ve adapted Mark Bittman’s recipe from his great book How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.  This is the best vegetable stock I’ve tried.  Once prepared, you can use this surprisingly hearty stock to build a soup (I’ve made everything from vegetarian chili to tortilla soup with this stock), sauce, to fortify grains like quinoa (use stock in place of water), or you can just sip it on a hot summer day (if you’re into that).

I like to make about two quarts (1/2 gallon) at any given time—you can cut this recipe in half or double it depending on how much you want to make, but bear in mind that it only takes a few more minutes of prep to double or triple this recipe.  (Storage information follows):

Cute New World: Google’s Zelda-esque Quest Maps

Google Maps launches their new 8-bit “update” version of Google Maps for April Fool’s Day.

Here’s an image of Cincinnati using the 8-bit Quest Mode :

And their adorable video on the update to 8-bit (replete with NES/any cartridge system nostalgia) :

Midcoast Interviews: Ben Dudley

Ben Dudley is the creator of the comedy shorts known as  “Life Hacks” on Youtube.  He is a writer currently about to graduate from the MFA program at University of Cincinnati, where he does standup, writes fiction, and creates videos.

I recently invaded his home and asked him questions about the foremost problems facing humanity, his comedic influences, etc.  in the name of the midcoast.

He also edited three comedic versions of the interview that are hilarious.

Ben Dudley’s Youtube channel

Fake Penguin Classics

Fake Penguin Classics is a blog devoted to subverting the Penguin Classic novel cover to hilarious effect. Check ‘em out!

Pictured below: the artist’s rendition of T. Wiseau’s The Room

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

from r/books

Frank Zappa v. Censorship

In ’85 the PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center), an organization spearheaded by Tipper Gore and a handful of wives of influential Washington types, lobbied in the senate to censor music that contained lyrical content they considered to be satanic or overtly sexual.  Utilizing the advent of the music video to enhance their rhetoric, the PMRC painted a picture of a music industry that was out of control and needed some regulation for the sake of our children.  They came up with their “Filthy Fifteen”: fifteen songs whose lyrical content contained themes of sex, violence, drug use, and the occult.  The media circus surrounding this push for censorship eventually culminated in a senate hearing in which Frank Zappa, Dee Snider, and John Denver testified.

In the hearing, Zappa is eloquent on the matter of freedom of speech, the distinction between rating films v. rating lyrical content of music, and the slippery slope of censorship before a smug, derisive senate (featuring a baby-faced Al Gore).  Here are some potent quotables from the hearing:

“The PMRC proposal is an ill-conceived piece of nonsense which fails to deliver any real benefits to children, infringes the civil liberties of people who are not children, and promises to keep the courts busy for years dealing with the interpretational and enforcemental problems inherent in the proposal’s design. It is my understanding that, in law, First Amendment issues are decided with a preference for the least restrictive alternative. In this context, the PMRC’s demands are the equivalent of treating dandruff by decapitation”

“The establishment of a rating system, voluntary or otherwise, opens the door to an endless parade of moral quality control programs based on things certain Christians do not like. What if the next bunch of Washington wives demands a large yellow ‘J’ on all material written or performed by Jews, in order to save helpless children from exposure to concealed Zionist doctrine?”

“Bad facts make bad laws, and people who write bad laws are, in my opinion, worse than songwriters who celebrate sexuality”

A few months after the senate hearing, Zappa was on CNN’s Crossfire.  In this interview, Zappa responds calmly to a livid commentator John Lofton who points out that incest wasn’t a problem in this country until about twenty years ago—this guy is a real gem (note to self: Watch Daily Show interview with John Lofton).  I like this interview for a few reasons:

1. The way the other commentators use a “shh, the adults are talking” tone with Lofton.
2. Zappa describes the plot of Van Halen’s video for “Hot for Teacher”
3. Quotes like this one:  “The biggest threat to America today is not Communism, it’s moving America toward a fascist theocracy and everything that’s happened in the Reagan administration is steering us right down that pipe.”  And the incredulity of the commentators that follows (Frank was a man ahead of his time)

And if you’ve been watching TeeVee lately, you’ll have seen good ol’ fascist theocracy rearing its mitred head again.  Zappa’s concerns about where this country was headed still carry weight some 25 years later.

Enjoy:

You Aren’t What You Eat: A Beginning

Given that the industrial meat complex is “one of the largest contributors to environmental degradation worldwide, and modern practices of raising animals for food contribute on a massive scale to air and water pollution, land degradation, climate change, and loss of biodiversity,” we should be mindful of what we eat.  (As a side-note, please don’t let your kids wander around the industrial meat complex; it’s kind of easy to get lost).

But with the emergence of foodstuffs with names like “Tofurky,” “Tofutti,” and the dreaded “Tofuncula”; and food movements with names like “Freeganism” and “Locavorism,” some (who identify as regular folks) are hesitant to throw themselves head-long into these presumably godless, commie, hippy-dippy lifestyles.  But there’s an obvious difference between trying to cut back on the consumption of animal products for logical reasons and taking on a cultural movement as the pillar of one’s identity (remember folks, you aren’t what you eat).

As Amurcans, we have to consume.  However we’re fortunate enough to live in the digital age—if we so choose, we can empower ourselves with the totality of human information on the internet (though more likely we will play Farmville and repost chain letters on the topics we feel strongly about on Facebook (e.g., Obama’s incessant push for the legalization of gay-bortions, how women’s health centers give us the heebie-jeebies, the tyranny of government-mandated gravy rationing, Bieber Hairstyle 2.0, etc.)).  If we aren’t sure how the proverbial sausage is made, we can Google “how do they make the sausage?” (Safe Search: On) and find out pretty easily.

Porcine seppuku is so delicious.

Therefore the “out of sight, out of mind” argument as it applies to the industrial meat complex is really just a sign of laziness or apathy.  Now let me show you some actual pictures of actual cows from an actual industrial slaughterhouse.

Ah, a joke. Delightful.

If you need to see pictures like this to be convinced that you should be mindful of the meat you consume, it’s your choice to seek out these pictures.  To use scare tactics here however would be offensive and moreover ineffective (See: How it’s working for PETA).

If you’re interested in learning more, you should see the film Food Inc for a well-rounded overview of the problems in industrial food production.

The world of meat alternatives is a weird one though, and I wish I would have had someone to help me navigate it.  I ended up spending tons of money on organic ooze and processed soy glop that still visits me in dark and dreadful dreams.  A lot of the meat substitutes you see at supermarkets are questionable in nature, so I want to help you find tasty meat alternatives.

Let me open the floor for questions:

A voice from the audience cries “What will the other guys at the office think if I bring in a veggie burger to work?!”

Another ejects “Hey! Where’d that guy get a pitchfork? I want a pitchfork!”

Calm down folks, in the same way the smoking Marlboros won’t make you John Wayne, eating tofu isn’t going to make you a hippy—you’ll still just be one of the guys.

Another voice:  “What’s your point?  Where do you fit into all of this?”

Ah, glad you asked.  In the upcoming weeks I plan to start an open series (anyone who wants to add food items/commentary to this working list, feel free) on reasonable substitutes for animal products in culinary applications.  My food philosophy is centered on taste, so I’m only going to advocate applications of meat substitutes where you’ll be hard pressed to taste a difference from the real thing or where the substitute tastes better than the original.

That’s it, there you have it.  My hope is that these posts inspire you to try new things and practice personal responsibility.

Rad Sitez: The Brainstormer

In a creative slump?

Feeling bloated and simpleminded in the midst of the darkest winter of your life?

Do you wake up every day thinking that you’re a radish?

Are you considering eyelid rejuvenation surgery?

There’s very little hope for you to solve most of these issues (, you freak); your best course of action is to bury these aspects of your life deep down.  Listen closely, you sick strange person:  these problems are insoluble–you will probably never be normal and if people knew what you thought, they wouldn’t talk to you.

However, if you’re simply in a creative slump, there’s hope in the form of a rad site (on the internet!). The Brainstormer is an ideas wheel for visual artists that uses three random elements: a description, a style, and a subject to generate specific subjects to draw (created by Andrew Bosley).  But I’ve found that it translates nicely into writing/comics or even just sittin’ and thinkin’.

Here are some of mine:  Fish out of water Tim Burton-esque superhero,  Odd couple road warrior supermarket, Conflict with a god safari dwarf (that one’s open to interpretation).