Can You Juggle?

I never did learn to juggle three oranges because I didn't start off the right way, learning slowly.

How can you juggle slowly? Isn't there a law of physics that all objects fall at the same rate?

Like English, there are exceptions to every rule.

Would-be jugglers learn with scarves which float and descend slowly through the air, giving the student time to learn the movements necessary to keep the scarves alternating in perfect motion. The student then moves on to larger and larger objects.

It's like that with writing--juggling different storylines or entire novels. Or reading--when you have several half read novels on your nightstand; you have to start slowly and build.

Characters should juggle--no one's life is a series of issues, one after the other in a nice, neat orderly progression, making it easy for them to deal with each situation as it arises. Sometimes things happen all at once, or are a series of events with a break in between.

In literature or real life, we're all jugglers.

Char

That's Impossible

I is for implausibility. It bothers me when I watch a movie and see one person with a stick fight off an entire army with guns. Or read a book where a character suddenly develops talents, insights, or unbelievable luck to save the day or nullify everything that happened. It ticks me off because I feel "That could never happen."

Well it does--in books, movies, and even sometimes real life (I'm thinking the 'magic bullet' of JFK's assassination that was proven but still hasn't silenced conspiracy theorists).

It may have happened, but if it seems implausible, I'm not buying it without a fight.

That's why Natalie and I took such great pains to research all the hacking, places, language, and even facts about the Secret Service for Blonde OPS. Everything is possible. (And why my browser has warnings from the FBI about being blocked...)

Even if it's not real, at least make me believe it.

Char