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This week: A Spoofy Learning Experience Edited by: NaNoKit  
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Spoofing something you love is an excellent writing exercise. Just look at Redshirts!
This week's Action/Adventure Newsletter is all about spoofs and sources of inspiration.
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I’m currently reading Redshirts by John Scalzi. It’s a fun book. New ensigns are assigned to the Intrepid, the flagship of the Universal Union. They soon discover some very strange things... crew members go out of their way to avoid the senior officers. None of their colleagues wants to go on an away mission; there is a lot of pressure on the new ensigns to go instead. The reason, as they find out, is the high fatality rate on these missions... and it’s never one of the senior officers who’s the victim.
I don’t want to give too much away, but those of you who have ever watched Star Trek will know what the novel was inspired by. I personally love Star Trek – especially The Next Generation and Voyager, and I have been truly amused at how the author has turned this inspiration into a creative, entertaining story.
Once upon a time, a few NaNoWriMos ago, I sat in front of a blank Word document with not a clue what to write about. I thought about Buffy the Vampire Slayer – my favourite TV show – as well as vampire novels, such as Twilight, and the whole Chosen One theme. I figured that if I couldn’t come up with anything serious, I’d have a good time writing a spoof based on the above. My main character ended up in a different reality where the things that go bump in the night are real, and she was the Guardian who had to protect the world from the Arch Nemesis (who, yes, was trapped underneath an arch and about to break free).
As I wrote the story, I began to care about my characters. I invented different monster species. I got to experiment with battle scenes – something I had never written before. It was an excellent writing exercise that turned into more than just a spoof novel. Not that long ago I found the file on my computer and I realised it’s actually not that bad. There’s something in there that I can work with in the future.
It’s probably not the best idea to write something based upon a popular novel, or show, or movie if you want to go ahead and publish it. I figure that the author of Redshirts will have done some talking with the people behind Star Trek. The audiobook is narrated by Wil Wheaton, who played Wesley Crusher on The Next Generation (all you The Big Bang Theory fans will know him as well). Without permission, you could get into legal trouble. That doesn’t mean that you can’t get some inspiration and do your own thing, or simply use it as a writing exercise like I did, and see if you end up with anything you can make your own.
Writing in any genre takes practice. That definitely goes for action/adventure, as not many of us live a life that involves car chases, battles, dragons, vampires and whatever or whoever else that are popular in the genre. That is a good thing, too, but it means that it isn’t always easy to get the details right. I sure discovered that when I wrote my first battle scenes. They become very complicated when several characters and several opponents are involved!
It is helpful, then, to see how others do it. And if we’re looking for examples, it might as well be examples that we enjoy. I’ve learned a lot from a wide variety of authors, such as Terry Pratchett, Stephen King, Michael Connolly, Raymond E. Feist, J. K. Rowling and so on. That doesn’t mean that I copy them, but they’ve provided me with good examples of what works, made me see aspects of my work that don’t work, and yes, I still spend time messing around, experimenting with pieces that will never see the light of day here on Writing.Com, but that will hopefully mean that the items I do place on here won’t be too cringe-worthy.
As writers, we absorb, we learn, we grow. Sometimes, however, we get stuck. If that happens, why not ask yourself... what about those poor redshirts? Does there always have to be a Chosen One? What if it’s a Chosen 500? Or any of those questions you might have been pondering... Here’s the opportunity to create your own solution.
Have fun!
NaNoKit
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Wishing you a week filled with inspiration,
The Action/Adventure Newsletter Team.
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Action/Adventure: January 10, 2018 Issue [#8700]
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