Storytelling - Steven R. Southard (Poseidon's Scribe)

Home » Category Archive: Storytelling (Page 2)

Read Your Story Aloud — 10 Reasons Why

It’s vital to read your story aloud before submitting the manuscript for publication. You may consider that a waste of time, since you can read the story silently to yourself more easily, and because silent reading is the way most readers will experience your work as well.

I contend you really should take the time for reading aloud, and for making that technique one of your final editing methods. For several of the reasons below, I’m indebted to Joanna Penn.

After reading your story silently several times, reading aloud will give you the different perspective of the spoken word, enabling a more thorough edit.
You’ll find it easier to spot story inconsistencies and plot continuity problems.
With this different style of reading, you’ll find the typos and punctuation errors you skipped over earlier.
You’ll hear more readily if your story’s dialogue is realistic or forced.
The need to breathe when speaking will aid you in identifying overlong sentences.
You’ll have an improved sense of whether you’re building tension effectively.
By timing your reading, you’ll know how long the audiobook or podcast version of your story will be.
You’ll find right away if you have any tongue-twisting phrases or words that sound jarring when juxtaposed.
By saying words aloud, you’ll likely have a better notion of which ones to emphasize by italicizing.
You’ll better hear the rhythms of the words and sentences, the cadences of your story, and might identify edits to make them flow better.

You might be thinking you’ll have a friend read your story to you, or get a software program to read the text aloud, while you just listen and let the words wash over you. I advise against that and recommend you read the story with your voice, letting the words tumble from your own lips. Both speaking and listening will give you a stronger mental connection with the story than mere listening would.

If you’re one of the few writers who doesn’t regularly employ this technique, I recommend you join the majority. It will improve the quality of your stories, and that guarantee is straight from the mouth of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

August 2, 2015Poseidon's ScribePermalink

What Should I Tell Them?

What if one of my children—or later, one of my grandchildren—was to ask if she should be a writer? What should I tell her?

It would be easy to recall all the downsides and advise her to grow up to be something—anything—else. Why subject my own flesh and blood to the long hours alone, the frenzied and awful first drafts, the agony of editing, the anxiety of submission, the torture of rejection, and the years of solitary obscurity?

Why not spare her all that, since I know about it and she can benefit from my wisdom?

But then…

There is that giddy enthusiasm as a good story idea takes hold in your mind, the godlike power of creating a world and peopling it, the fun of coming up with a clever line, the thrill of getting your first (and all subsequent) acceptances, and the ecstasy of seeing your name in print. There’s all that.

Looking back on what I wish I’d known, should I tell her that stuff too? Should I tell her:

she shouldn’t expect instant success? It may happen, of course, and I’d be very proud if it did, but chances are low.
to, therefore, get and keep a day job, (or marry into wealth)?
to consider certain genres and shun others? Romance and horror sell well, but others are so-so.
to be unafraid of submitting (like I was for a long time)? Even if I told her, would it make any difference?
that rejections are no cause for distress? A rejection is not the end; it’s the beginning of new opportunities for that story and that market.

When it comes down to it, I guess all she really needs to know is whether she has an inner drive to tell a story through written words. Does she have a fire inside that will burn despite any setback, any hardship? Is her little mind filled to bursting with an idea that must get out somehow?

That’s something I don’t know, and can’t impart.

If the passion isn’t there, nothing I can say will make her a writer.

Conversely, if the passion is there, nothing I say will stop her from writing.

If you’re a writer, leave me a comment about what I should tell a child or grandchild who’s curious about becoming a writer. What did you tell your child? Because if there’s one author who’s aching to know such things, it’s—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 29, 2015Poseidon's ScribePermalink

What the Bleep?

It’s been fun, interviewing the other authors with stories in Avast, Ye Airships! Perhaps in the coming weeks, I’ll be able to interview the rest. In the meantime, I’ll resume my normal Sunday postings of writing advice, and today’s topic is profanity in prose, damning in dialogue, characters who curse.

Considerations

Before letting one or more of your fictional characters cuss, there are some thing to consider. First, does swearing fit that character? In real life, some people swear often; some reserve swear words for unusual situations; and others never utter any profanity. It can depend on a character’s background, upbringing, the character’s present company, the character’s age, the character’s feeling, and the situation.

Another consideration is your audience. Some readers get turned off by too much swearing. Some will even put down the book at the first curse word. Others read right through them without being fazed.

You should also think about the level of intensity of the swear word. Yes, they have levels of offensiveness. These levels are subjective, so what’s low on your list might be higher up for others. As an example, the “c” word for vagina is usually consider much more offensive than the words “damn” or “hell.”

It’s interesting to note the categories of swear words, and what it would say about your character if she uses words from one category only. Swear words seem to be broken down by (1) body parts, actions, or emissions, (2) races, (3) genders, (4) ethnic backgrounds, (5) religions, and (6) occupations.

Consider, also, the country and time period of your story. Swear words vary considerably by nationality and over time.

Methods

If you’re going to allow a character to swear, here are some ways to make it effective in your story.

First, don’t overdo it. For most people, swear words average 0.3 – 0.7% of the words we use, though for some the frequency is 0% and for others up to 3.4%. Overuse of swear words can turn off readers, and give the impression that the author doesn’t have much to say.

Consider the deeper meaning of Lord Byron’s quote, “He knew not what to say, so he swore.” (I swore less frequently after my mother-in-law referred to that quote.) Among other things, swearing can be a sign of low intelligence.

As an alternative to using swear words, consider using regular words in a way that accomplishes the same thing. I’m not talking about silly, substitute swear words like “freaking.” I talking about using regular words in imaginative, creative ways. My Dad said his Marine Corps drill instructor could chew out the platoon for ten minutes without using a single swear word, but every Marine felt he’d been cussed out. Here is a website with some great insults using no curse words at all.

Use swear words to reveal something about the character who speaks them. You can even make certain swear words into a character’s catch phrase. That can help orient the reader as to who is speaking when there’s a long string of dialogue without tags.

Be consistent. If a character swears once, have him swear throughout, though you can change swearing frequency or words as a way to emphasize a change in other aspects of the character.

In summary, don’t be afraid to let a character use profanity, if it’s right for that character and right for your story. But don’t go overboard. I’m damned right about that. I swear, or my name’s not—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 8, 2015Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Emotional Roller-coaster

As you and the story you’re writing go through time together, do you find yourself on the same type of emotional roller-coaster as with a personal relationship? Do you feel elated by positive events and dejected by negative ones? I’ve been through the process enough to detect a repeatable pattern. Maybe it will be the same for you.

Let’s follow through as I experience the highs and lows of writing a story and getting it published. This is my relationship with a single story, so the line will overlap with other stories in various stages.

Getting a story idea is enjoyable, having it mature in my mind while I imagine the possibilities, the characters, the plotline, the settings, and some of the dramatic scenes. It’s a good feeling to go through that, because that imaginary, unwritten story is as good as it’s ever going to be. Once the reality starts and I put words down, the story never reaches the exalted heights of perfection that it achieved when just a dream.

Still, putting words down has a gratification all its own. I feel I’m making progress, producing product, assembling widgets on my keyboard / word / sentence / paragraph assembly line.

Until I get stuck with writer’s block. Here I mean the minor writer’s block I’ve described before, where I can’t get out of a plot hole, or I need a character to act contrary to his or her motivations, etc. Although temporary, this is a real downer. I don’t always experience this, (as shown by the reddish line) but there’s usually some drop-off in enthusiasm as the glow of the original idea fades a bit.

Reaching THE END of the first draft is a definite up-tic in satisfaction for me. The mad rush of getting words down is over. It’s good to know I can start the reviewing-editing-improving phase.

For simplicity, my graph only shows two drafts, but there may be more, with minor wave crests for completing each one. I get to the highest emotional state so far when I consider the story done and submit it for publication. “Here, Dear Editor, this is my newborn! Don’t you love it as much as I do?”

That emotional high fades, as they all do, while waiting for a response. Usually I’ve begun another story by then, so I get an overlap with a similar-looking graph displaced in time.

My graph depicts two paths here, one showing a rejection. Despite my earlier advice to look at rejections positively, I still find that hard to do. Rejections stink. Maybe not as much now as my first one, but still…

An acceptance of a story is a very high emotional state, especially the first time. It’s time to celebrate, indulge, and surrender to the grandeur and magnificence of me.

No one can maintain a very high or very low state forever, so I do descend from the grand summit as I get through the rewrites and signing of the contract, though these are not unpleasant.

The launch of a story is another sublime pinnacle of emotional ecstasy, and that’s no hyperbole. “For all human history, readers have awaited a story like this, and today, I, yes I, grant your wish and launch this masterpiece, this seminal work of ultimate prose, so you may purchase and read it. You’re quite welcome.”

After the story is launched, you’ll get occasional uplifting moments, such as favorable reviews, or book signings, etc. These are never quite as exciting as acceptance or launching, but they’re gratifying anyway.

I’ve not gotten through all these stages with a novel yet, but I suppose a novel’s graph is longer in time, and has many more ups and downs than that of a short story.

Also, your mileage may vary such that your graph looks quite different from mine. Leave me a comment and let me know about the emotional stages of your writing experience.

Remember, when on a roller-coaster (emotional or state fair-type), it sometimes helps to raise your hands in the air and scream. Whee! Here goes—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 26, 2014Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Writing for the Very Young

As someone who’s read books to his children and (more recently) his grandchildren, I’ll offer my thoughts about books for the very young. Here I’m considering books for children who haven’t begun to speak yet.

I believe the writer and reader of such books share a profound duty, one they shouldn’t take lightly. They work together to create an experience, from a first and indelible impression to a repeated pattern that becomes an ingrained habit. Their shared purpose has several facets:

To entertain. This is not as important for this reading audience as it will be when they get older. Perhaps I could have phrased it as “To avoid boredom.”

To teach vocal communication. The child needs to understand the one-way vocal transmission of thoughts and ideas. Sure, you don’t need a book for that, but the book provides something to look at while the speaking/listening communication takes place.

To transmit the joy of human story-telling. It’s a primal human trait; we tell stories. We convey life lessons through the use of characters, which make the lessons clearer. We pass down the stories through generations, and that strengthens an understanding of ancestors and the past.

To imbue a love of books and reading. At some point the child will realize the book always opens the same way; the pages are always moved one at a time in the same order; the book doesn’t change from one reading to the next; and there must be some connection between the funny little marks and the sounds the reader is making. The child should come to see reading a book as a quiet, comforting experience.

The reader has a huge part to play in accomplishing these purposes. I think it’s important to introduce books in brief doses. Don’t even read the whole book at first. Gradually lengthen the time spent reading. In every case, you should finish before the child is ready for you to finish. In other words, don’t associate reading with boredom. Needless to say, vary your voice pitch as you read, and read with dramatic emphasis.

Enough about reading. For the writer, you have only pictures, words, and book layout to work with.

Pictures. At first, the child will know your book only through the pictures. Make them bold, colorful, and immediately obvious.

Words. The child won’t understand the written words, but will experience them by listening to them. Use short, simple words. Make use of rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, and onomatopoeia. Use words that sound good together.

Book Layout. Consider cloth or plastic pages for early books, or a thick grade of paper. Don’t put too many words on a page; make the reader keep turning pages frequently.

Another thought on book layout—as the shift to e-books continues for adults, e-books will soon appear for adults to read to small children. From what I can tell, the ones available now still have real pages to turn, and the book narrates its own story without needing an adult. I think there would be value in a sturdy e-reader able to display pictures and text, but requiring an adult to read it.

Whether you write books for little tots or read books to them, please take the task seriously. If you do it right, you’ll spark a love of reading. If you do it wrong, the child will forever consider reading boring. Thank goodness Mom and Dad did it right for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 12, 2014Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Keep Up the Pacing

Today we’ll tread through the topic of pacing in fiction. If you’d like readers to maintain interest in your stories, you might want to step along with me.

The term ‘pacing’ refers to how fast the reader is reading, and the speed at which the story’s events take place. A good writer not only controls the pace of reading, but also varies that pace throughout the story. Fast-paced scenes are followed by slow-paced ones, and then another fast scene, etc. Jamming too many fast scenes together leaves a reader overwhelmed and lessens each scene’s impact. Slow scenes that are too long or not separated by a fast intermediate scene can bore the reader.

Even within a scene, some pacing should occur. There will be slightly fast moments in a slow scene and slightly slow moments in a fast one. Pacing relates to rhythm, and it’s important to keep varying it.

Fast

Use a fast pace for action-packed portions of the story. Examples of emotions felt by characters in these scenes are anger, fear, energy, excitement, joy, and surprise.

Create a fast pace with short sentences and short paragraphs. Keep the writing plain, free of modifiers. Use brief and impactful verbs. There should be more dialogue, and it should be snappy. Some sentence fragments.

In other words, you’re maximizing the “white space.”

Slow

A slower pace allows the reader to catch her breath and more fully absorb what happened in the faster scenes. A relaxed tempo serves to emphasize important points, let characters to refresh and recharge after action sequences, reveal character backgrounds and motivations, and permit characters to react and reflect on moments of high drama as well as to plan for future events.

The slow paced sequences allow better expression of these character emotions: anger, fear, astonishment, awe, and disbelief. Yes, anger and fear can belong in both the fast and slow parts.

To slow down the pace, stay with more narrative and less dialogue, make use of longer sentences, and embellish the prose with descriptions. Don’t overdo any of those, however; your aim is to keep the reader interested, not bore him.

Alternating

As mentioned, my advice is to alternate the fast and slow sections. Also alternate fast and slow paragraphs, and sentences within a paragraph. Such variation avoids monotony and keeps the reader intrigued enough to stay with your story.

This isn’t the only fine blog post about pacing. You can find others here, here, here, and here. Thanks for striding along with—

Poseidon’s Scribe

August 3, 2014Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Who’s Telling This Story, Anyway?

As you plan your fiction stories, one important consideration is figuring out how they will be told. In other words, who is the narrator? You have several choices, each with benefits and drawbacks.

I’ve discussed Point of View (POV) before, but this is slightly different. Today I’m talking about Narrative Voice. Wikipedia’s article on Narrative Mode discusses POV and Narrative Voice as separate items.

You might invent your own new type of Narrative Voice, but for now, the main categories are Stream-of-Consciousness, Character Voice, Epistolary, and various Third Person voices.

Stream of Consciousness. You’re in my mind as I tell this, getting every little thought. Some connected, some not (doesn’t matter), even partial. What I’m conveying is the scattered, haphazard/fleeting nature of a human mind’s thoughts as they carom-collide-cascade around inside a skull. The advantage (good news!) is getting that intense/inside/intimate sense of one person’s—a character, or outside narrator (you choose)—perspective on the story’s events. A downside-disadvantage-drawback-(damn!) is that it can be hard to write, hard to read, hard, hard, hard to pull off well.

Character Voice. Yeah, I’m a character, but the author’s makin’ me do double duty by also tellin’ the story. You readers’ll see things through my eyes, and I’ll let you know exactly what I think about everyone else. I’m a main character, but the author coulda picked one of them spear carriers. My author also picked first person, but he mighta picked third person instead. By the way, you can trust me. But some o’ these other character voice narrators in other stories? They lie. They’re what you call ‘unreliable voice narrators’ and you gotta sort out the truth yourself. Another type you might come across is the ‘naive narrator.’ Sometimes ya get these kids tellin’ the story, or worse is, some adult whose cheese ain’t sittin’ square on top of his cracker, if you know what I mean. With Character Voice, you’re gonna feel like you’re right with me, part of the action. Still, even I can’t really be everywhere and see everything, so pick your narrator character carefully.

Epistolary Voice.

Third-Person Subjective. Jane knew her author was using her to tell his story, and she secretly resented it. All the story’s actions got to the reader through her eyes and other senses. Worse, the author was just telling the reader many of her innermost thoughts. In her story’s case, the author used Third Person Subjective – Limited in that he never strayed from Jane’s mind. She wished he had chosen Third Person Subjective – Omniscient instead, and told the story by switching into other characters’ minds every so often. It certainly didn’t help matters that this was known as the most popular and currently most common type of narration.

Third Person Objective. James saw what his author was doing. He was narrating the story by describing what James sensed, but only what James sensed. No feelings or thoughts were involved at all. James drove past a sign that said this method maintained a neutral, unbiased narrative, similar to the style used by news reporters. James said, “This technique helps the reader appreciate how reliable the narrator is, but some readers may miss the inner emotions.”

Third Person Omniscient. As the sun rose, no one in the tiny town suspected their story was being told by an omniscient narrator. The narrator knew everything about everyone, including each person’s secret desires, hopes, and wishes. Alone in her ranch style home, Jane suspected that this once-popular technique would work well for epic stories with many characters and widely-dispersed action. But as James drove by Jane’s house, he wondered if the technique could be disorienting to readers, or introduce too much distance between story and reader.

There you have the various types of narrative voice. For your story, make your choice based on your experience with each technique, as well as what’s best for the story. For this blog post, your narrator has, of course, been—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 20, 2014Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Ex-Out Deus ex Machina

Strange term, that ‘Deus ex Machina.’ All it means is ‘the god from the machine’ and if your story’s got one, you probably don’t want it.

Although the concept comes to us in its Latin wording, it dates from the plays of Ancient Greece. Performed in amphitheaters, these plays sometimes featured an actor playing the part of a Greek god, who would descend into the final scene apparently from the sky by means of a crane with ropes. The ‘god’ would solve the play’s central problem by means of magical powers.

Over time, the phrase came to mean the late and unexpected introduction in a story of a character, ability, or object that seems to resolve the story’s conflict in some miraculous way.

Not Recommended
You’ll want to avoid Deus ex Machina (DEM) in your stories because it’s the mark of an amateur writer. You get positive points for burdening your protagonist with difficult dilemmas to solve. But you lose those points and more when you’ve painted your hero into a corner and you can’t get her or him out without resorting to some external savior entering the action at the end.

The presence of a DEM cheats the reader, who is expecting a story about the human condition. The reader has, therefore, invested some emotional energy in your protagonist, following that hero along through all the conflicts, both external and internal. The reader is wondering how your protagonist will prevail. To introduce a DEM, therefore, is jarring and disappointing.

Difficult to Avoid
Sometimes you’re working along with your manuscript and you find you’ve put your protagonist in such trouble that, try as you might, you can’t think of a way out. You like the story otherwise, and really don’t want to rewrite in a way that lessens the difficulty and allows your hero to win the day through innate virtues.

These are the times you might be tempted to call in the aid of a DEM. Again, for reasons noted above, it’s best not to do so. In most cases.

When It’s Right
In the hands of a master storyteller, DEMs can work in two situations I’ve discovered: (1) when the author is making a larger point, and (2) in comedies.

For example, in Edgar Allan Poe’s story, “The Pit and the Pendulum,” the French army conquers the town, enters the Inquisition, and frees the narrator from his horrible prison. But Poe is making a larger point about life and the freeing of the soul to enter heaven when the clock (pendulum) of life ceases.

In H.G. Wells’ novel, The War of the Worlds, it’s true the invading Martians are defeated by tiny bacteria. But Wells is making a statement about Britain’s encounters with cultures having primitive technology. He’s saying that, but for the microbes, even mighty Britain would have been annihilated.

In Monty Python’s movie “Life of Brian,” Brian is saved from a deadly fall by a passing alien spaceship. The DEM literary device is used here for comedic effect.

A Final Example
If you’re really, really good, go ahead and use a Deus ex Machina. Otherwise, best to avoid them. Let your characters figure their own way out of their jams.

Hmm, as I write this, I have no idea how to end this blog post.

Enter Poseidon, appearing out of nowhere.
Poseidon: “Silly mortal. Just write ‘Poseidon’s Scribe’ below your other babbling text, the way you’ve signed off every other post.”
Me: “Oh, hehe. Thanks Poseidon. You mean like this:

Poseidon’s Scribe.”

June 8, 2014Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Just Your (Writing) Style

Style is one of the five fundamental elements of fiction, along with character, plot, setting, and theme. It’s also the most difficult of the five to explain or understand.

I like to start my blog posts by defining terms, but this time I’ll let the definition of style emerge as we go. For now, I’ll say that every author writes differently, with certain identifying characteristics. In theory, if we took a sufficient random sample of any single author’s writing, we could identify the author by the style.

According to Wikipedia, the components of style include: Fiction-writing modes, Narrator, Point of View, Allegory, Symbolism, Tone, Imagery, Punctuation, Word choice, Grammar, Imagination, Cohesion, Suspension of disbelief, and Voice.

Each item on that long list does contribute to style, but some are more important than others, and some are more characteristic of a particular story than of the author’s general manner of writing.

To me, the major characteristics of style are Tone, Word choice, and Grammar:

Tone is the attitude displayed by the writer toward the subject matter of the story.
Word choice, or diction, relates to the author’s vocabulary. Does the author stay with simple, understandable words or employ arcane words? Does the author embellish with adjectives and adverbs, or let the nouns and verbs do the work?
Grammar is all about the structure and logic of sentences. What sentence patterns and lengths does the author prefer?

Although your style may change as you mature in your writing, readers like it better when authors maintain a consistent style. Style can set you apart from all other writers; it can be the factor that keeps readers buying more of your books.

If you’re wondering how to go about creating your own style, I recommend you read the list created by author David Hood in this blog post. His eleven-item list can seem intimidating, so just focus on items 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7. I think if you learn the rules of writing, expand your vocabulary, read a great deal, experiment with different styles, and learn about literary techniques, your own style will emerge naturally.

What’s more, you shouldn’t have to work too hard to continue using your newly discovered style. It should flow from you in a natural way. Unlike your stories, which are overt acts of creative effort, your style is something that should emerge. In a sense, you’re unleashing it, not creating it. Even if it does require a little effort at first, in time it will get easier.

Perhaps you’ve gotten a better understanding of style now, that signature or fingerprint that identifies you and separates you from other writers. With any luck, readers will love your style. For now, I’ll sign off in the usual style of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 13, 2014Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Formula for Success

Have you ever written formula fiction? Is it good or bad to do so? What is it, exactly?

If your story re-uses the plot, plot devices, and stock characters of other stories, then you’ve written formula fiction. It’s different from the term genre, in that genre fiction makes use of the same setting and style as other works within the genre, but genre fiction may vary plot and characters considerably. I termed such writers formulists in a brief discussion here.

Although literary critics tend to dismiss formula fiction, there are so many published stories, it’s difficult to come up with entirely new plots and characters.

Usually there’s a good reason why a writer chooses a formula. It works! It’s a curious thing that readers enjoy reading formula fiction. They’re comfortable with the character types, and although they know how the story will come out, they follow along anyway. Readers can forgive a great deal if the author tells the story in an interesting way.

I’ll discuss plot types in a future blog post, but with formula fiction there’s no real attempt to vary from a proven plot line too much. Just re-use what’s been done before, perhaps with slight deviations in setting or style, or specific plot events.

The use of stock characters frees the writer from having to include a lot of explanation or description. After only a few words, the reader understands all there is to know. Again, it’s possible to vary a bit from the standard character type, but there’s little need.

I said it’s a curious thing that readers would enjoy formula fiction, but perhaps it’s not so mysterious. Before there was a formula, there was an enterprising writer (or oral storyteller) who conveyed the story for the first time. It struck a chord. It was successful. After that, why not just do variations on a popular and effective theme?

Examples of formula fiction include romance, horror fiction, and space opera. Each of these has withstood the test of time because each has appealing characteristics that really reach an audience, and keep on reaching generations of new readers.

In the case of romance fiction, readers enjoy the odd or awkward meeting (the ‘meet-cute’) between man and woman characters who seem opposite or ill-fitting at first, then they warm to each other, only to have a parting of the ways, and finally reunite in love at the end. An overdone plot line? Apparently not yet, since this formula sells more books than any other by far.

In horror fiction, at least the cinematic type, the audience sees a mixed-gender group of characters who are isolated in some way and face a horrible entity bent on their destruction. One by one the characters are killed until only a lone female—the so-called final girl— is left to either defeat the entity or escape. Another plot line that has not run its course.

For space opera, readers are treated to a heroic character in the distant future, somewhere in outer space, confronting a menace threatening the survival of the hero’s people. The hero strives against the evil force, and just when it appears all is lost, the hero is able to defeat the menace. This formula continues to work.

Despite what critics might say, there’s nothing wrong with formula fiction, particularly if you’d like to sell your stories. There’s plenty of room within the constraints of the formula to display your creativity as a writer. So, like a mad scientist (Mwahahaha!), go ahead and use your (fiction) formula to take over the world! Good luck, says—

Poseidon’s Scribe

January 5, 2014Poseidon's ScribePermalink