Timothy's Thoughts

P lans change. When I was in college, I had a vision for the future. I would graduate, get a job in St. Louis, start attending a big church, fall in love, get married and live happily ever after in a big house. It didn’t quite turn out that way. I did graduate, but I didn’t move to St. Louis. I didn’t start attending a big church, though it seemed big to me at first. I did fall in love, eventually, but we didn’t get married and I haven’t a clue where she is now. I don’t live in a big house, but its big enough for me. A man’s heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps. Proverbs 16:9 My dad studied botany. His plans were to work for the US Forest Service after he got out of college. But God called him to preach and he ended up pastoring a church and working in fire protection at a diaper factory. I don’t know much about the US Forest Service, but I’m pretty sure it would be difficult to work for them and pastor a church at the same time. When I was younger, I hoped God wou...

E ditor’s Note: Today’s post is the first entry in Lieutenant Gamble’s Personal Log. After abandoning the best starship in the fleet for fear that it would explode, Lieutenant Gamble finds himself stranded on a planet with seven other people. The planet was once thriving, but now it has either been evacuated or the population has been killed due to a type of plague. The eight of them must find a cure or a way off the planet, or they will suffer the same fate 31 days after their arrival. (Reading Time: 8 Minutes) Lt. Gamble’s Personal Log (30 D.T.D): It’s a terrible thing knowing when you’re going to die. I used to imagine that it would be nice to know, you could do all the exciting things in life without having to fear dying. I really wished I could have known that when I joined the military and received my orders to board a starship going out into deep space. The war had just started and Mom was sure that the ship would explode as soon as it went into battle. I assured her that there...

R achelle Gardner’s post yesterday was about book videos. Do we need them? Do we not? Do they sell books? Do they not? The fact is that we don’t know how much we need them and how many books they sell, if any. That hasn’t stopped us from doing other things, such as handing out bookmarks, or book signings or blogging, but book videos are getting a lot of discussion. The real problem is that they are expensive. Even if we do it on a shoestring budget, book videos require an investment of time, but when we get the publisher involved, the cost of a book video starts at around $3,000 and a well produced one could run into tens of thousands of dollars. Is it worth it and what’s the point? Let’s step back and take a look at the big picture. Most readers don’t spend their days watching book videos, so even if we have one, that fact alone isn’t going to push our book sales up. It is a little like killer bees. One bee sting probably won’t kill you. Two bee stings probably won’t kill you. You ma...

Y esterday, I mentioned that the antagonist and the villain aren’t the same thing. Today, I would like to export that in more depth. In our example yesterday, I talked about the villain in a comic book. In a situation like that, the villain is very often the same thing as the antagonist, but when we move out into different kinds of stories, we find that the antagonist may not be the villain at all.   When we think of the villain, we think of one character. Lex Luther, for example, might be the villain in a Superman comic. But when we consider the antagonist of a story, we find that though it may be one person, it may also be several people. In one chapter, it may be one person. In the next chapter, it may be the another. In yet another chapter, it may be the weather. They all work together to keep out protagonist from his goal, whatever that might be.

I ’ve heard that some actors prefer playing the villain to playing the lead character. I won’t go into why they prefer that role, but as writers it might do us good to pay attention to this. So many times, it seems like we give the most attention to the protagonist, but I would like to suggest that the most important character in any story is the antagonist or the villain. For our purposes here, we need not go into the finer points of the differences between an antagonist and a villain and we’ll simply focus on the villain, though I suspect those finer points are part of the reason we don’t more readily see the antagonist as the most important. To demonstrate my claim, let’s consider a simple comic book story in which we have a Superhero and a Super Villain. In this story, the villain is bent on taking over the world. He has commandeered a fleet of ships and is on his way to Washington D. C. Our hero discovers his plot, swoops in and saves the day. Now, let’s look at the next issue of ...

I n my day job, I work in an engineering environment. Surrounding me on a daily basis is a bunch of really bright guys. There are some women, but mostly guys. A lot of the time, an engineer will be working on a project, just trying to get it done, but keep in mind that these are bright guys. Someone will come up with an idea. It may be something that can be implemented right away, or it may be something that requires some research. Inspiration strikes and someone decides that he would like to go investigate something, rather than doing what he is doing. Well, the company sets aside some money for that, but that money is limited. While it’s good to pursue fresh ideas, there are too many of them to let everyone do whatever he wants, no matter how good his intentions. There are similarities between this and the publishing industry. For an engineering company, there is usually some group of people who decide which ideas are worth pursuing and which aren’t. Those that show the most promise ...

E ditor’s Note: Being a little pressed for time and having nothing else for Fiction Friday, I sat down with Sara to see where it would take me. Sara: Don’t stare at me like that. Timothy Fish: I didn’t realized I was staring. Sara: You’re just sitting over there running your finger around the top of your coffee cup, like you expect me to say something. Timothy Fish: That’s sort of the idea. Sara: Then what do you want me to say? Timothy Fish: I don’t know. I think I’m out of words. I was hoping you would say something. Sara: I can’t really say anything if you don’t say it first. Timothy Fish: True. Sara: Maybe I should start putting words in your mouth. Timothy Fish: That would never work. Sara: I bet it would. Here goes… Timothy Fish: Sara is the most wonderful person in the whole world. And she’s really pretty too. Sara: See? I told you it would work. Timothy Fish: I think that’s about enough of that. Say goodbye, Sara. Sara: Goodbye, Sara. Timothy Fish: Cute.