How to Learn or Teach Story Writing

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How to Teach Story Writing

(You can’t)

You learn/teach writing the same way you learn to write with a pencil. Think back to your first days at school and to how you learned to print with a pencil. Your teacher would draw a letter or letters of the alphabet on the chalk board and you would draw the letters with a pencil the size of a two by four on paper that was the color of tree back and felt about as smooth. Think back, as hard as you tried you could never (at least at first) exactly copy the teacher’s style. In the end you developed your own style, your own flourishes, your own way of printing by copying.

Think about it. This is the way you learn to write a novel, short story, or trilogy. You read what others have written and then you write like them. You don’t copy. It takes more effort to copy someone than to write your way. If you copy you have to keep turning off the writer inside you and write like the person you’re copying. That takes much more work.

To write like your favorite author you have to analyze how they write. Have you every analyzed the way your favorite author writes?

Here’s a quick analysis to run. Take a great action scene out of a work by your favorite author and list all the verbs she uses. It’s a simple analysis to count the number of verbs. How many times are the verbs repeated? How many letters are in the verbs (are they short or long words) (if it’s action scene they should be short). Are they high brow words? Now try to write something and use the verb mix your favorite author uses.

Analyze the names of characters. Do they have hidden meanings? Are they common names? Are they over the top names? Is there a color theme to the names (did the author play the game of Clue a lot)?

Learning to write a story is a lot work. Hard work. Work you are going to have to do. You are going to have to read lots of books. That what many famous writers tell beginning writers to do. You got to read, and not just in your genre. Then you are going to have to work, go back over what you just read and analyze what you read. It will take a while, but you’re going to find that the analysis fun

You are not going to find out how to write by reading some blog post, or watching some You Tube video. You are going to have to read, analyze, and write. It’s all work and it’s all the greatest job in the world. Now get writing.

Stay strong, write on.    Professor Hyram Voltage

Teaser for my book The Deamon Boat, the education of a steampunk spy

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Teaser = An advertisement that offers something free in order to arouse customers’ interest

Comments on this work are welcome.

The Daemon Boat
(The Education of a Steampunk Spy)

Character 0ne

The Porter knocked at the first class cabin door. The porter waited, standing stiffly staring at the door. The seconds dragged by. The Porter strained not to glance down the narrow hallway. It was late in the evening but being seen would complicate the mission. Glancing about and acting nervous would seal the memory of an unfamiliar porter in the memory of anyone coming down the hallway. The Porter felt the change in the floors vibrations caused by the airship’s engines straining to make some minor adjustment in course. The Porter knocked again then started to reach under the uniform shirt for the lock picks.
“Who is it?” called a muffled voice from the room.
The Porter gaped open mouth at the sound of the Courier’s voice. There had been enough drug in his drink to knock out three men. The heavily salted caviar that he had been enticed into eating would drive anyone to drink whatever was sat in front of them. The room’s occupant had drunk plenty of the drug laced wine.
The Porter called out, but not too loudly, “Porter, the tea you requested.”
The Porter could hear the sounds of the Courier shuffling to the door. The door latch clicked when the Courier released the lock.
The Courier slumped heavily onto the only chair in the tiny room as the Porter entered. The Porter noted that the bed coverings were disturbed from being laid on. The Courier’s evening clothes were rumpled and the shirt collar was open.
Quickly, the Porter poured tea into the cup on the tray. With stiff mechanical motions of a professional the Porter brought the tray up to the man sitting on the chair. The Courier snatched the cup from the tray and downed the tea. The Porter quickly poured more tea into the cup.
Was this man made of iron, thought the Porter?
The Courier inhaled more than drank half of the second cup of tea when his hands went limp. The cup fell from his fingers. The cup made a quiet bounce on the thin cotton covering of the floor. Slowly, the Courier slid off the chair and onto the floor.
Some tea had splashed on the porter’s trouser. Quickly, with a serving towel,the Porter dabbed the tea off the blue trouser leg near the white stripe. The Porter stood quietly, watching the Courier laying on the floor for two long minutes. The Porter pulled off a glove, reached down, and lifted the Courier’s hand. There was no pulse at the man’s wrist.
The Porter re-donned the glove, picked up the serving tray, and left the room quietly closing but not locking the door. The Porter marched steadily, not wanting to draw attention if seen. A dozen steps down the hallway from the Courier’s room the Porter turned abruptly and entered the cabin two door’s down from the Courier’s room.
The Spymaster sprang to his feet as the Porter entered the room. “Well,” he said.
“He’s dead,” said the Porter.
“Did you have to?”
“He was conscious, he opened the door, he saw me… I had too,” said the Porter.
The Porter pulled off her cap and ran her hand over her slicked down, short, boy-cut hair. “I didn’t touch anything as you ordered,” she said.
The Spymaster slipped out the room as the Porter rapidly pulled off the boy-styled porter uniform. She donned the wig and began layering on her dress that was laid out on the bed.
The Spymaster walked quickly and confidently down the hallway. At the courier’s room he grabbed the door handle, opened the door, then entered the room. He checked the dead man’s wrist. The hand was already cold. He frowned at how this death would complicate the mission and how ruthlessly efficient his agent was.
There were not many places to hide the plain looking leather briefcase the Courier always kept at his side. The Spymaster pulled the case out of the bedding.
Had the man been a good courier he would have stayed in the cabin with the door locked. But this courier had a weakness for a good smoke and a good drink. Smoking was only allowed on the smoking deck, a tiny open platform at the back of the command gondola. It was barely big enough for three men to stand while smoking. It was not easy to smoke standing on a platform ten thousand feet above the ground. It was made worse by the large fan blowing on you to prevent the fire suppression system from going off.
It was the Courier’s habit of having a drink after his one smoke for the day that was his downfall.
The Spymaster mused that his agent’s easy charm and wit had caused even him to relax his defenses. The Courier hadn’t stood a chance. He frowned, he was going to have to watch his agent closely, she was too good.
The Spymaster sat the briefcase on the miniscule table next to the chair the Courier had sat on. The Spymaster pulled open a set of midnight black lock picks. Even though the lock on the briefcase was excellence quality the Spymaster worked it open in under a minute with practiced motions.
The Spymaster frowned at the open case. The compartment built inside the bottom of the case was a different matter. The case, including the locks on the inside and outside of the case, were infused with triggers. Triggers that would destroy the papers in the compartment if any of them were tripped. Some of those papers were for a device code named crossbow, papers he had been ordered to obtain at all costs.
Working lock picks deep inside the dark cramped case would be asking to set off the booby trap. He had paid a Rouge Courier a  fortune for a set of keys to the inside compartment lock. More important, he purchased the sequence of key rotations to open the inside lock. The timing of the purchased of the keys had jeopardize the mission. The keys and the sequence had to be current. The sequence of key rotations changed each month. The meeting with the Rouge Courier minutes before the airship lifted off had gone wrong. The Rouge Courier thought he was so clever demanding more money at the last minute.  The Rouge Courier would have died then and there, but that would have alerted the other couriers and the Americans. Killing the Rouge Courier was a desperately needed piece of unfinished business he would have to take care of immediately after the mission. He must eliminate any and all witnesses, including anyone with information about this mission.
From an inside pocket of his jacket the Spymaster took out the key ring he purchased form the Rouge Courier. The ring held seven keys. It took several tries with different keys until one turned the lock buried inside the case.
The spymaster turned the key once to the left then to the right twice, then left. There was a loud snap. The spymaster yanked his hand out of the case but not fast enough. Flames shot out of the case. Pain engulfed the Spymaster’s hand as burning papers spewed out of the case.
In the blink of an eye the room was flooded with fire suppressant foam.
The Spymaster raced back to his room two doors down. He leaned against the inside of the door panting and clutching his hand in pain. His agent looked at him blank faced with one spooled heeled shoe dangling from her hand.

Stay strong, write on.     Professor Hyram Voltage

The Unusual Equals a Story Idea

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You never know when a story idea will hit you. Open up, look around and be on the lookout for the unusual, the odd, the interesting.

The other day I went into a store and bought an item for 99 cents. I handed the cashier lady a dollar bill. It wasn’t a 99 cent store. The cashier took out a black plastic marker pen that writes with a yellowish ink that they use for checking for counterfeit bills. She checked the one dollar bill. That is odd. Who would counterfeit a dollar bill?

I asked the cashier about checking the bill. She said they check all one dollar bills and they get a lot of counterfeit ones (pun intended).

That doesn’t make sense and that the germ of a story idea.

In a series of stories by Spider Robinson the barkeep would only take one dollar bills for a drink. Yes, the stories were written a long time ago and no I don’t think you could have ever bought a cup of plain coffee at Starbucks for under three dollars. The reasoning was who would brother counterfeiting a one dollar bill. My mother always said don’t miss a payment or cheat for a small amount, if you do they will lock you in prison for life, even if it’s just a dollar. If you steal a couple of million dollars you’ll be elected to congress.

Why is there no profit in counterfeiting dollar bills? It takes a very good printing press or copy machine and very good paper to counterfeit a dollar bill. Poor people, who are the only ones I could think of who would counterfeit a dollar bill, can’t afford the copy machine or the paper. If it takes thirty cents to make a counterfeit dollar bill you are making seventy cents per each bill you pass. It will take forever to make a fortune passing counterfeit dollar bills. The penalty is the same if you’re caught passing a counterfeit dollar bill or a counterfeit hundred dollar bill. They will throw you in jail for passing a counterfeit dollar bill, it’s a federal crime. So only someone in a bind or not quite thinking right would counterfeit a dollar bill.

I read that the counterfeiter gets 50 percent of the face value for a counterfeit bill when he sells them to passers. So the passer gets only 50 cents for each bill he passes.

People who handle money all day will spot a counterfeit bill if the paper is a little bit off in color or doesn’t feel right.People who handle money all day long know the feel of a real bill, so counterfeiters have to use good paper. The news report I heard says that the most counterfeited US bill is the 100 dollar bill, but that’s over seas. That makes a little more sense. Still the risk is high of getting caught.

The story could be about someone who passes counterfeit one dollar bills and why they do it. Or about the person that makes the counterfeit one dollar bills, and why they do it. It would be set in a complicated and dangerous world. Desperate people doing desperate things on the companies super copy machine.

Stay strong, write on.        Professor Hyram Voltage

The Tools of a Writer, the Pen

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If you’re going to write great stories use great tools.

The basic tool of a writer is the pen and pencil. Warning when you use good tools be like a bank. Trust your friends but, chain your pens down. Pens have legs. They’re like little children, when your not looking they run off.
Your most basic tool is the pen. Even if you’re like me and do your heavy writing on a computer you need a good pen. A good pen is one that will start writing when you do. If you have a pen that skips or takes drawing a half dozen circle before it starts writing then get rid of it (leave it where a fellow worker or writer will pick it up). A pen that you have to fight with is a frustration and writers don’t need more frustration. I have enough independent characters to provide all the frustration I can handle.

A good pen writes a clear line in a dark solid ink color that is easy on the eyes. The ink dries quickly and doesn’t smear.

I use Polit G-2 gel pens with an extra fine (0.38) tip. The thin lines from the 0.38 tip makes the ink last. The line it makes are dark, clean and easy on the eyes. The cartridge in the pen holds lots of ink and the pen feels good to hold and use. Thicker tips like the medium and larger leave enough ink on the paper to smudge before the ink dries.
You can use any old pen you find laying around but it’s a tool. Use the best tools you can find. As a starving writer you can surf around and score pens form many places. Many businesses use pens as advertising. The more prestigious the business the better the pen. Financial businesses have the best pens. Advertise for them, give their pens legs.

I suggest you find a good reliable ball point pen and stay with it. Be aware that there is a pen out there that I accuse of false advertising. I was using one of this brand’s of pens and the pen stopped writing. The worst thing a pen can do when you need to write. The cartridge looked full of ink. You could see the black of the ink through the clear plastic barrel of the pen. Shaking the pen and soaking the end of the pen in water didn’t help. I took the cartridge out of the pen. I cut off the end of the cartridge below the ink line with a pair of wire cutters. I expected to get ink on the cutters but, when I examined the cutters there was no ink. I looked through center of the cut off piece and saw daylight even though the inside of the cartridge was black. I cut up the rest of the cartridge and it was empty. The manufacturer had painted the inside of the cartridge black, so black you could not tell if any ink had been used. They could be selling pens that were only half full of ink and you wouldn’t know it.

I don’t recommend using fountain pens. I like fountain pens but, you forget and take it on an airplane and you will find out why it’s called a fountain pen. The low air pressure inside an airplane will cause the ink to fountain and fill the pen’s cap. When you pull the cap off the pen you’re going to have ink all over the place (mainly on the best shirt you own, and I use waterproof ink that doesn’t come out). You don’t have to get on an airplane, driving from the Salton sea at 112 feet below sea level to Boulder Colorado at a mile above sea level can get you a pocket ink fountain.

If you prefer the easily changeable laid back style of a pencil, I suggest you try a Palomino Blackwing 602. They’re expensive at almost a dollar a pencil but, they are a smooth writing pencil and they have a huge replaceable eraser. If you’re more into an engineering style of writing try a Pentel Twist-Erase in 0.9 mm lead mechanical pencil. It feel good in my hand and is rugged and durable.

If you have to have a fountain pen try a Noodlers Nib Creaper flex pen with Noodlers X Feather black ink. You can get these at The Goulet Pen Company at www.GouletPens.com. You can also call them at 804-368-0482 from 9am to 5 pm EST. The chat feature on the website works well to. Many of the 4.5 oz. bottles of Noodlers ink come with a free pen. 4.5 ounces of ink lasts a long time. Clean the pen after you buy it and before you fill it with ink. Goulet has several videos on YouTube about caring for your pens.

Write on, draw on.        Professor Hyram Voltage

 

Bumper sticker;

Hi Oh, Hi Oh, It’s off to write we go.

Writer on wheels

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I just put new wheels on my writing chair. That may not seem like a big thing to you but to be able to push back in my chair and not have a wheel lock up and jar me to a stop or not have the chair shoot off at 45 degrees from where I want it to go is great.

This chair is so old that the ball bearing had fallen out of the swivel part of two of the wheels. That and some rust made for wheels that had a mind of their own.

I can’t afford a new chair but with a little work using an electric drill motor and drill bit I got the new wheels to fit. One of these days I will replace the chair with one that has the mesh-breathable-fabric seat. I had a HermanMiller Aeron chair at the day job once but I may never be able to afford the $700.00 to $1500.00 for one of those. I will take a open mesh seat over a leather upholstered chair any day.

It’s a little thing but little things like cleaning up the writing area can improve your mood and help get writing done.

 

Write on, draw on.  Professor Hyram Voltage

Your Hard Drive is Going to Die

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It’s not if but soon. Hard drives fail, all the time, so back up your data. I’ve said it before, now go back up your data. Even new SSD (Solid State Drives) fail. If you know how SSDs work then you know they are constantly failing and that they have excellent error correcting electronics but one day they will get so bad that the error correcting can’t correct the errors.

I’ve lost data in hard drive failures. I now back up my data at least once a month. I back it up on two different USB connected hard drives. I keep the USB Hard Drives locked up and stored well away form the computer. And I keep old copies of the data. If the data on your hard drive get corrupted and you copy it onto the back up USB hard drive over the data that was there then you’ve lost the data anyway.

I also backup working files on thumb drives. It makes the files handy and if I write over a file with to many changes I can always pull an old copy off the thumb drive and start over.

At the last writers meeting we had a new guy. He’s making a graphic novel using a image program. He’s stuck, his hard drive died and he lost a lot of the old images so he has to make do with the images he has. The graphics program he uses has changed so it would be a major undertaking to make new images in the style of the old images.

I’m having trouble finding sympathy for the guy. I’ve lost data and I could not afford at the time to pay someone to get it back. Sometimes when a hard drives fail and even the best techs can’t get the data back. It’s also very expensive to recover data from a damaged hard drive.

USB thumb drives are cheap and have plenty of room for the files that you generate (you don’t need to backup everything). Even if it is a bunch of pictures there are 128 Gbyte thumb drives out there. Get two thumb drives and store them in different places. One glitch in the hard drive and you could lose all your children’s baby pictures.

There are four terabyte USB portable hard drives for sell. Stick with the two terabyte drives, I have heard that the three and four terabyte hard drives have problems. These drives are fast and hold a lot. Again get two to protect against fires and floods and store them in separate places. Think about getting a water proof and fire proof container to store them in.

On line or cloud storage is not the answer. If your files on your computer get corrupted and the computer syncs the files on the computer to the files on the cloud then the cloud stored files are damaged and no good. If a hacker gets mad at One Note or Google and develops a virus that start destroying cloud files you’re out of luck because all your files were in one place and that place got hacked.

It’s your data and it’s your responsiblity. Back it up.

 

Write on, draw on.  Professor Hyram Voltage

Find time to write

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The question that a writer dreads; How do I find time to write?

Everyone has 24 hours in a day. Writers and non-writer included.

One way to find time to write is to squeeze every second out of the day you can. You carry a note book and pen or pencil with you every where, and use it. Your standing in line waiting. This is a great place to think up ideas for your story. You’re out of your comfort zone, you’re surrounded by unhappy people, your senses are in over drive, jot down your impressions, ideas, observations. Think hard on your story. Think about incorporating this experience into the story. How would the character handle waiting in line, jot it down.

A minute here and there adds up especially if it’s quality time thinking. But jot it down. The second someone asks you a question the idea or thought is gone with “you want paper or plastic” or “did you bring a bag”. I find walking through a doorway a great idea eraser. Now if walking through a doorway would get rid of the song that keeps running through my head. Write it down before the idea slips away.

Another way to find time to write is to work at it. I know, you didn’t want to hear that but this is the best way to find time to write.

Step 1. List the things you do during the day. It can start as a vague or broad list. The list can be as simple as eat, sleep, work and play (or family time).

a. How can you squeeze time to write out of eating? If you eat in front of the computer or TV then stop it. You are eating for the length of a show or web cast and not tasting your food. This is a good way to gain weight. Eat at a table and talk to the people at the table. They are a great source of ideas and character information.

b. How can you squeeze time to write out of sleeping. Do you watch TV in bed? Then stop. Go exercise, or write. Do you get 8 hours of sleep a night? If not try it. When I am well rested I think better and am more productive. I am on the boarder about reading in bed. Will you remember a book that you read while half asleep? If you write, you have to read but you got to read in something other than the zombie mode.

c. How can I squeeze time out of work? Don’t do it. Work at work, but do you need to take home work form work? Will it get you more pay, is everyone else doing it? You can gather stories form coworkers. These stories can end up in you writing. A coworkers daughter’s outrageous antics at school, work, or at a party, could be perfect for your next book. You can gather character traits and actions for your writing from coworkers and bosses. The second most person that is killed off in a first time murder mystery writer book is her boss. The most often character to get killed off in a first time murder mystery is based on the writer’s husband (or ex). This is from an unofficial list I made from attending a bunch of writer’s signing.

d. How can I squeeze time out of family time? Sitting on the couch watching TV with a family member is not spending time with them, it’s entertaining yourself. If you want to spend time with them talk to them, listen to them. Life is short, when you spend time with someone then spend time with them not with the TV set. Have you ever watched a show because you thought the other person wanted to watch it? Did you ask the other person if they wanted to watch the show? You could waste a whole hour and neither one of you are going to be satisfied.

If you find yourself flipping through the channels then turn off the TV and pick up your pen, pencil, or sharpy and write. You have a half hour of writing time until the next show starts maybe even an hour. If you miss a show it will be back in reruns or syndication. Then there is always binge watching of a show if you really like it. Write now, watch later. If you in a writer’s slump and you think your writing is bad, awful, or worse it is still better to write than to watch bad TV shows.

Above are some things to think about when trying to find more time to write. Still need more time then rethink your day. Does reading an email make you more money at work, make you happy, really necessary to read, then get rid of it. Unsubscribe to email newsletters that don’t improve you or your day. Blow off the emails that want you to buy something. Cut down on trips, do you need to stop at the grocery store every day after work. Make a list and shop once a week.

Everyone has the same amount of time in a day. Some write and some don’t. Use your time wisely.

 

Write on, draw on. Professor Hyram Voltage

ConDor convention and the e-publishing panel

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Attended the ConDor science fiction convention in San Diego on the weekend of March 13 through 15, 2015. I was looking for answers to getting a book published and whether I should publish it traditionally or self publish or even ebook publish. Ended up with more questions than answers.

One panel I attended was on publishing and here are some quick notes from the panel.

One panel member had taken two stock photographs and spliced them together for his cover art. He showed how it was legible in the thumbnail view while a commercially made cover was not easily readable in the thumbnail view. Commercial graphic artist don’t always get it when it come to cover visibility at a distance or when it’s a thumbnail. He also showed that the title and author’s name have to be in contrasting colors and big letters to show up in the cover thumbnail. Covers sell and the first glance a reader might get is your cover as a thumbnail at the bottom of someone else’s Amazon page.

Converting your word document to epub format is a lot of work. One tip was don’t write using tabs. Tabs will cause epub conversion programs to blow up or do strange things when they hit a tab in your file. Use search and replace to get rib of tabs. Before starting out to write your story in Microsoft Word set the preferences to indent after carriage return. Now after years of typing I have to train my hands not to hit the tab key after a carriage return. That’s years of habit to un-train.

Use hard page breaks between chapters not a bunch of carriage returns.

Word software puts hidden  bookmarks (almost randomly) in the document as you type. You got to clean them out. Turn on reveal bookmarks and look for bookmarks with funny character in them and delete.

You got to hyperlink your table of contents to the text in your story. It’s not that hard to do.

Another recommendation is use New Times Roman font. There plenty of people out there that will not do this and you will make your story look bad if you don’t. Try Garamond font if you just got to use something other than Times New Roman.

Your going to need blurbs for your book. At least two blurbs, one short and one long. The long blurb can be the short blurb with words add to the end of it.

You got to market your book so think about how people will find your book. Some people use blind browsing and they stumble upon you book. That’s where a good eye catching cover comes in. Other people use keywords. Make sure you have the book or story genre in the keywords and blurb. It’s OK to put the titles of your other books in the keywords.

Then there is SEO = Search Engine Optimization. They didn’t go to much into that. It’s a rapidly changing area that people are always trying to game. Don’t game your reader or they may never buy another one of your books.

Metadata should be your name, the book’s title, blurbs, and tags.

Over and over it was stressed that you got to write a good story/book. Then you got to write a lot of them. Writing a series is good, if they liked the first one they will want more. Get on Facebook and twitter and all the other social media things. (I keep hearing this but there is not enough hours in the day to that and get the writing on the book done. A lot of people say this but I can’t do it.) Then keep your social media up to date.

The key point is that word of mouth is what sells your book. Give the social media visitors something to come for not just come-ons to buy your book. In the past authors have said that pictures of their cats (dogs don’t work as well) do draw visitors.

One author showed that regular publishing (in paper) got him three to four dollars per book while epublishing got him two to two dollars and fifty cents per book and he didn’t have to warehouse a bunch of books. He still has a few paper books printed up to show people, just not thousands.

Smashwords seems to be the winner. The other epub site is harder to use.

Tips from a panelist;

1. Your first goal is to build a fan base and get your name known

2. Don’t price a short story at $9.95.

3. Make the first book free.

4. Indies have to complete on price and quality. Remember quality cost you, the author, time and money (for example; editors, beta readers and rewrites). If anyone knows of a good editor that’s not too expensive let me know. I’ll also do beta reading for you if you will beta read my stuff.

5. The sweet spot for ebook price is $2.99 to $3.99.

 

Getting a book through Smashwords and on to the WEB can be fast once it is submitted. Smashwords has to vet the book but they turn them around.

If you got graphics in your book get a pro to help publish it.

 

Write on, draw on. Professor Voltage

Writers Block and Where to Get Writing Ideas

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Here’s a quick way to beat writers block or to find new ideas for a story, novel or whatever.

Get a book of trivia and read it. Make sure the book covers the time period and location your writing about.

This is my secret and it works, try it.

Even better book is one from the Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader series. The ‘Wise Up’ volume is good source. Did you know that around 1800 the Russian prince Alexander Kurakin taught the French the concept of eating a meal in courses. The idea of the Russians teaching the French how to eat is full of conflict and a story in itself.

I remember reading Tom Sawyer and how Tom commented of how he liked eating his food all mixed together. Sounded like Mulligan stew to me but the term had not been invented back when the book was written. No worrying about the peas touching the corn with that kid.

 

Write on, draw on.  Professor Voltage

How do characters write in Steampunk

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I needed to have my character write a report.

First I had to find out what people used to write with in the time period. Once I know that, then I can take it to extremes.

Did they use fountain pens in the late 1800s? Yes, they did but people still used ink pens with metal nibs. Fountain pens costs much more and they had problems and were messy to fill. This was a period of rapid change in the pens and the inks used with them. I was not able to find out if they made and used graphite pencils during this period.  Is this where the use of pencils came to be looked down on? Ball point pens did not become popular until the 1940s.

Of course I took the easy way out and had a retro character that still used metal nibs quill pens, like the ones used by artist today.

You can spend way too much time researching things like this. You can also end up writing to much about pens instead of writing about the story.

What could a pen have to do with the story? Well the ink bottle is filled with nitroglycerin. Gives her writing a bang.

 

Write on, draw on.     Professor Voltage