"Who would win in a fight? Superman or Thor?"

Ah, the age-old questions, the ones that truly matter, never seem to find an answer, do they?

Superman is copyrighted and TM DC Comics, Inc. Thor is copyrighted and TM Marvel Comics, Inc.  Their combined power terrifies me far less than the lawyers for either company.

Seriously, over the years, I've sharpened my writing skills by working on exercises that I knew might never see public scrutiny.  These included business plans, comic book scripts, television "bibles," anything that struck my fancy at the time.

At one time, I thought monologs were what led off The Tonight Show or actors read them during auditions to get a gig.  But one of my brothers-from-another-mother, Paul Barile, produced a terrific theater event that he called "The Monodogs of War."

The idea was that a writer would be paired up with an actor (although one time, that actor was me).  We would be given a subject, such as a line from President Barack Obama's inauguration speech or the Wikipedia history of the City of Chicago.  Then the actor and the writer would confer for five minutes before the latter is given 25 minutes to hand-write a three or four-minute monologue that incorporated the subject line.

Afterwards, a panel of judges would eliminate half the teams.  The wining writer/actor pairs would go at it again with a different trigger.  The panel then selected an ultimate winner while the audience selected a favorite of their own.  During the entire process, everyone drinks a lot and laughter ensues.

See?  Everyone's happy!

Not too many years ago, I wrote a story for my own amusement concerning Superman.  This tale harkened back to his earliest days when he operated more in the shadows, when everyone was afraid of him.  Thus, he did his good deeds mostly as Clark Kent.  During the course of the story, he realized that perhaps his work as a reporter could do every bit as much good as being the Man of Steel, maybe even more.

The piece had to contain four parameters:

1. No character from the DC Universe could be named.
2. It didn't have to adhere to the Three-Act Play structure (more on this in a future blog), but it did require at least one instance of external conflict.
3. This story would occur in OUR world, not strictly the four-color one of the comics.
4. It could only be around 1,000 words.


It took a few days, but I managed to hammer the story out.  The monolog helped me get into the character's head so if I had to write, say, a novel or a screenplay about Superman, I could do it more easily.  In fact, the character would now be likely to drag me along for the ride as he sculpted the plot with his reactions, not that I minded in the least.

Part of the submission process to submit to my friends at Audio Movies Club (www.audiomoviesclub.com) included writing a sentence or two about each character in the play.  This exercise not only helped the voice actors to understand your characterizations, but this also demonstrated that you had a handle on the different fictional personalities as well.

Recently, Paul put out a call for monologs for a future project and of course, I had to submit something.  So I worked up a tale of Bruce Wayne on the verge of Christmas day.  What kind of Christmas would he have?  Did he even have a normal Christmas since his parents were murdered?  As you and I would anticipate our holidays to be with loved ones and exchange presents, how might pragmatic, logical Bruce Wayne plan his personal holiday?

For a moment, I recall my seventh Christmas with my family.  I never got my eighth in the foster home.  My holidays died with my parents.  Instead of jingle bells, I now hear gunshots, my mother's screams, and the clatter of unstrung pearls striking the cold pavement, their percussion decaying in the chill of the night where my war on crime began.  On that night, at my bedside, I vowed to turn myself into a nocturnal soldier, warring on the superstitious, cowardly lot that preyed on their betters.

That boy would have his holiday.  And dammit, so will every other child in my city.

Art by Neal Adams, Batman & Ra's Al-Ghul are copyrighted and TM DC Comics, Inc.

So why write a monologue?  Aside from mastering another form of writing, which is always useful, it's a good record of a character, a snapshot of the person's mental state and history,   If you must walk away from the story, a quick re-reading will serve to place you back into the psyche of that character.  Consistency is assured.

So who's your favorite character?  Whether you are an actor studying to nail a role, a costumer who want to slide into character more easily, or a writer whose words are to make a fiction seem real, try writing a brief monolog.  Read it aloud.  Does it sound like the person you wish to bring to life?

THIS WEEK'S EXERCISE: Write up to 1,000 words in first person about your favorite fictional or historical character encountering a potentially challenging holiday situation.  For instance, how might Archie Bunker avoid Mike Stivic during National Brotherhood Week?  How would Ebeneezer Scrooge celebrate the following Christmas after meeting the Three Ghosts?  Imagine Cathy deliberating whether or not to send Heathcliff a Valentine's Day letter.

Have fun with this.  Leave comments below and tell me what you did.

He's blurry, but his eyes not only follow you around the room, but they follow you into the next room as well.

Other bits of business:

Thank you all for enduring my irregular blogging as of late as well as your compliments.  One of the reasons I'm otherwise engaged is I'm writing a book entitled Networking Made Way Too Simple that I hope to have out before the end of the year on Kindle and then in paperback form after the first of the year.  It's a painless way to master the job seeker's most potent tool.

Speaking of e-publication, check out my friend Kelly M. Edwards' first novel, Scorcher (Forces of Nature).  It's the first installment of a trilogy that's worth your attention.  So check it out here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009NOIGB4

Kelly will also be writing a guest installment of this blog in the very near future.  Be on the lookout for that!

While I'm plugging my friends, give some love to Billie Jo Ellis, an illustrator and designer that you're going to be hearing a lot about pretty soon.  Check out her work at www.bjellisart.com and let her know Freelance Words sent you.

By the way, Kelly and Billie Jo have Facebook pages for their works.  Give 'em a LIKE and feel your karma points adjust into the positives.

I've just joined Pinterest.  I've dipped my toe in the water, but little more than that.  PLEASE feel free to friend me there, okay?

If you subscribe to this blog, it'll magically appear in your e-mailbox for your reading pleasure.  Cast your gaze towards the upper right-hand corner of this missive and make life a little easier on yourself.

Meanwhile, www.freelancewords.com exists to make your life easier through writing and publishing.  So bookmark it and check out the links.

Feel free to leave a comment below, if you wish.  Until we meet again, be good to yourself and be good to each other.

"Deadlines are deadlines."

One of my first writing gigs was the high school newspaper.  In fact, my second regular writing job was the college newspaper.  When you are assigned a story, or your pitch is accepted, one of the things you are assigned is a deadline.  There's a reason for that.

Writing for publication does no good until it's published.  And very few -- might as well call it none -- will put out their wares without a target date.  Now deadlines can be missed ... and we'll go over that a little later.

(if you aren't assigned a deadline, be nervous.  Very rarely will an editor assign a piece without a deadline unless that person wants filler for when someone else can't come through.  If you are contracted for filler, that's okay, I guess ... but your piece doesn't elicit the love it should from your editor and might get lost in the shuffle.  I submitted an article to someone I still do business with as a transcriber and he said he'd use it when he got space ... and we've never spoken of it since as if it was an experience shared in a seedy bar that we'd never mention to each other again.  So demand some love of your own and go for a deadline commitment)

Some writers love deadlines -- I'm one of them.  Given that I come from a foundation of newspaper work, it's good to have a target to complete the task or else it might never get done.  There's too many pages on Facebook to examine, too many hours of Jerry Springer to watch, too many comic books to read, so knowing that a piece has higher priority is a good thing.

Plus, the prospect of a deadline helps me to focus, almost as much as a word count.  I've been told (read: accused) that if someone asked me for the time, I'd relate the history of clock making.  Mea culpa.  Anyway, without the limitations of a word count and more importantly, a deadline, I'd prattle on endlessly, drowning you in the width and breadth of my knowledge ... whether you wanted it or not.

Also, there's something about the ticking of the deadline clock that seems to unlock the best writer in me.  I am forced to prioritize my research time and maintain my subject focus.  Also, I don't overthink the article or story, which sometimes leads to questioning my writing choices.

When you make your deadline, it also marks you as a go-to person.  Editors appreciate people who make their lives easier.  Turning in your work on -- or better yet, ahead of -- schedule shows you possess a professional attitude and a commitment to meeting your editor's goals, the primary one of which is getting the magazine (whether online or old school paper, glue, and staples) out in a timely manner.

In regular print, a whole line of people are waiting for you to submit your writing.  The editor knows he or she will require some time to edit your script, even if your prose is flawless and your research golden.  A graphics person might be waiting to lay out and design your article.  An artist might be drumming his fingers, knowing that every minute he waits is putting off other drawing assignments and waiting on you is losing him money.  The printer checks the calendar, knowing your publisher has booked time on the presses.  The publisher seethes, knowing anything that delays the publication could cost him in late printing fees.  A distributor years for your work to be delivered so he can dole out copies to book stores, supermarkets, and other outlets and hope to sell enough to justify your rack space.  The retailer wants to make money from your work and in some cases, that storeowner has already paid for your books and wants nothing more than to recoup his/her investment.

Even more than all that, a reader is waiting to take in the fruits of your creativity.  If your work is accepted by a periodical, the steady release of that magazine/newspaper gives the buyer a reason to enter a store where they might buy even more.  If the periodical doesn't hit the stands at the promised time, the buyer loses faith in the magazine and may wind up spending money on something else.  So when your publication finally hits the stands, the dough may not be budgeted for the purchase.

So it's not just you.  A whole line of people will be affected by your ability to meet a deadline.  It's not quite so critical online where many deadlines are pretty fluid.  But if it runs through a regular press, you should adhere to your promised deadline as closely as you can.  And even your work won't be immortalized in ink on dead trees, delivering your work on time, as I said earlier, shows you have the right stuff to make an editor's life easier.

And now that I've (hopefully) demonstrated how vital deadlines are, my next blog will ed-u-ma-cate you on when it's understandable to blow a deadline, how to not annoy your editor any more than you need to when you do, and why some deadlines are more rigid than others.  I'll also tell you what made me think of deadlines ... because I skipped one too.

If you have any comments on this blog, feel free to leave them below.  Or else you can drop me a note at bkmorris56@gmail.com.  So discuss, already ...