Marlena Harris - Urban Fantasy Writer

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National Novel Writing Month

Posted on February 14, 2020 by Marlena Harris

The National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo as it is more commonly known. is best known as a challenge in the month of November to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That is a very limited view of what it is.

The website has a forum where thousands and thousands of writers communicate and aid each other in their writing journey. You can join a online community in your area and learn about write-ins where writers from your area come together and write together. There are places to ask questions on subjects you don’t understand or are having trouble researching. If you have a question about how to say something in another language, you can put it before the community and see if someone can help you out.

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Writer Communities

Posted on February 7, 2020 by Marlena Harris

Everyone needs a place they call home. They need someone who they can count on and who can understand them and support them. Writing is considered a lonely profession by many and often times people closest to writers just don’t understand why their friend or family member would want to take up that kind of hobby. Although there are certainly people who write as a hobby, even those who make it as their profession are often seen to just be dabbling in it or use it as a stop gap until something better come along.

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Character Bank – Rival Half-Siblings

Posted on January 30, 2020 by Marlena Harris

This is the first character bank entry I have made that I am including on here. I have others that will be making an appearance over the next year and I hope you like them.

This one is inspired by a story I saw, although the situation is generic enough that it probably appears dozens of times in stories.

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Dialogue Prompt – Bowling

Posted on January 29, 2020 by Marlena Harris

This new dialogue prompt is an interesting one by Shauna Philp. I think what is most interesting is that the speaker thinks they have a choice in a situation that is clearly being run at someone else’s whim.

I think it most likely that these two or more characters involved in this prompt have known each other at least a little bit of time in order for the one of them to feel comfortable joking to the other or others about their situation.

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Pampers Name Generator?

Posted on January 29, 2020 by Marlena Harris

As with the Huggies one I did a while back in November, this one was a bit of a surprise. I guess I shouldn’t be surprise that a site dedicated to diapering the bottoms of babies would want to get your attention even before the baby is born with suggestions for names.

It’s not quite the same kind of random name generator as some of the ones before, but it’s definitely worth putting in here. It also needs to be said before I move on that you have to have an account with the site to access most of the names that it generates. From what I can see of the list without signing in, I do believe it is worth the effort of creating an account and I probably will do so at a later date.

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Dialogue Prompt – Purple Hands

Posted on January 28, 2020 by Marlena Harris

As you can tell I like The Fake Redhead‘s prompts. This one is funny. There really isn’t a lot to it and not much to say about what is there, but I will try and see what I can say.

I guess I will start with the color. Although it’s probably not relevant, purple is a color often associated with royalty. This has to do with the rarity of the material used to make a dye to make cloth and other things purple.

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Dialogue Prompt – Sarcasm

Posted on January 27, 2020 by Marlena Harris

This prompt from The Fake Redhead is a definitely one that fits under the betrayal or trust category I mentioned previously. As the first person says, it’s hard to know if this is sarcasm or not. It’s only one word, but depending on how it’s said it can convey many things.

Since the first character says they don’t know if it’s sarcasm or not, I would assume there is no eye rolling and that the word was probably said pretty straight. I also get the idea that there probably is a long history between these two. They aren’t necessarily close, but I do think they’ve known each other for quite some time.

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Writing Prompt – Retired Special Ops

Posted on January 26, 2020 by Marlena Harris

I don’t even know what to think of this one. It definitely seems like the character in this prompt is an anti-hero. As I have never been in the military, I don’t know what it’s like to return to civilian life. I am pretty sure that being bored with life is not an excuse to try and see who is a better killer between you and a hired hitman.

Personally, I haven’t the slightest clue how to access the dark web. I know it exists and that at least some of the stuff on there is stuff that probably is bad, but that’s really all I know.

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Writing Prompt – Villain’s Love

Posted on January 25, 2020 by Marlena Harris

One of the first questions that comes to mind is wondering what exactly is the villains goal. Obviously using the love interest against the hero is not uncommon, but what is the villain trying to accomplish. It’s left open to the writer, but I am curious as to what it is in the mind of the person who created the prompt.

Something thing that caught my attention about this one is that the main character is neither the hero nor the villain. They are the love interest. Can you imagine if the superhero stories we know and love were told exclusively from the point of view of the love interest. How would that change them?

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Writing Prompt – Younger Sister

Posted on January 24, 2020 by Marlena Harris

Imagine living in a world where superheroes and supervillains are real. Have you got that image in your head? Okay, good. Now, think about your siblings, especially if they are younger. If you don’t have any think about your friends and the relationship they have with their siblings, especially younger ones.

Now imagine that something happened to that younger sibling you or your friend cares so much about, that they disappeared without a trace and you don’t know what happened to them or how to find them.

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