The Emotional Battle

[Jose~]

! YOU ARE GONNA KILL ME OF WANTENESS!


I want more

~Jose

[JediKaren]

lol one post a day....that's if work allows me to do so. Sometimes things get too busy and I get too tired, but thank you for reading it.

[psidan]

I just read it all.
Well you've got me hooked.

[leethal]

been here for a long time. patience, grasshopper

[JediKaren]

Mwahahahahahah Now you are all mine!

*starts thinking up the next chapter*

[JediKaren]

“I was shocked, with my thoughts racing to see an old Jedi standing, holding my arm in the middle of the town square. I was dying to know why she was, how long she had lived here, who had trained her, and how she managed to avoid the Empire and its thorough searches to root out all the Jedi that still remained.

She smiled and slipped an arm underneath my, if to pretend she was an old, helpless lady, relying on her strong, grown up grandson to walk her down the streets to her little apartment. The apartment appeared to be a shabby, falling apart with the thin white wash peeling off, a nearly abandon shack, suggesting the idea she was broke poor and hardly worth the trouble to give her a second look, unless you were a desperate thief. I was wrong in unconsciously accepting this idea. Inside, the building was much larger then the look from the front and much richer. The walls were paint a deep, rich green, the carpet was thick and expensive, and the tables were hand carved, decorated with objects, obvious transported from other, far off planets.

The strange, small, seemingly fragile lady took me into the elaborate kitchen, and sat me down with a plate of food. She began her tale as I ate. Her master had been knighted during the Clone Wars, shortly before order 66 had been given, destroying everything she knew. It was by the will of the Force, did she manage, during a mission, to escape from the injustice mass killing of the Jedi. For several years she laid low, running from one planet to the next, as the Empire invaded the galaxy, taking control of all local governments. She found herself amongst the lowest of beings, learning the trick of living from seedy criminals, and trading heavily on the black market. Her Jedi training had little use in a universe that had no time or care for the Jedi and their powers. She found herself one day, many years into the dark rule of the Sith, stealing from some old lady, to gain a handful of credits. She was staring greedily at the credits in her hand, when she heard the distance, but distinct voice of her former master, scolding her for decending to a level that the Jedi were suppose to fight against. In that moment she realized she had forsaken all her training and the meaning of the Jedi and swore to turn herself around and bring back some good into her life and the life of others. Using the network of lowlife, she found a pocket of resisters and underground, undercover police. She slowly joined their numbers, showing she was above the life of crime, and used the Force in subtle ways that helped the group. Being a Jedi meant being a leader, and this was true with her. She did not only do her job, but also unit and strengthen the group, earning her trust and dedication. She revealed her true identity, bringing a mixture of emotions from the rebels, but when they had time to think, they realized having a Jedi was a good thing.

She was the leader of the group for years and years, until she could no longer physically be part of them. She grew tired of her life and her body was aging far too fast for her life style. The group came to notice this and arranged for her to live comfortably, but anonymous on my home planet. She gratefully accepted the offer and lived for a few years on my planet before she spotted me. She instantly recognized me to be Force sensitive, but on this hostile planet and my strained family, it was better to leave me alone and not attract attention to either one of us. It was painful for her to watch me be bullied and picked on a regular basis, but still there was nothing she could do. It was proud day when she saw Luke Sykwalker so boldly appear with a lightsaber at his belt, saving me. She knew nothing of him, but the fact the Jedi could once again walk freely and without fear, made her complete and at peace for the first time in over thirty years.

I had finished my meal and she had finished her tale of her past, answering my many questions. Her name it turned out was Liviani and she would not give out any last name for me to research. She knew of my mission and even of Luke’s academy on Yavin 4. She saw me struggle to awkwardly try to gain support for the new Jedi order and knew there was no future in my direct path. Liviani offered to show me how to raise an unground group and how that would lead to helping out the planet. I was astounded by her generosity and humble accepted her offer.

Her plan took time and much tiring work, but within six months I had the stable beginning of a group dedicated at fighting crime, promoting peace, and changing the way the official law enforcers viewed their job. During this time I was learning a lot about the old Jedi order and what I was raising. In exchange of her stories, I supplied her with the history of Luke Skywalker and what few Jedi he had found. She was somewhat happy to learn a few of the Jedi had managed to live and she was even more pleased to find out many of the Force sensitive families had not been wiped out.

The town within a few years began to change as the children were being taught by example of the newly formed group I had started. The crime rate had dropped an evident amount. The attitude of the people was less hostile and people were more willing to help each other rather than spread harmful rumors. It was when these changes were obvious to the common towns person, did I let the group work out in the open for all to see. At first everyone was nervous about the situation, but the town saw the benefits and the group learned to listen to the town’s requests. Talk spread and soon we were asked by the planet’s government to from a world wide network of our small group and to spread the idea of peace. I was honored and Liviani was proud as could be. I worked with the government for another two years. The group did quite well and is still around today. The reason why I left was due to the death of Liviani. She died of old age, being the few of her generation of Jedi to do so. Her death touched me enough that I could no longer live on the planet and returned back to Luke’s academy for another direction to take”

Mirmo was forced to stop his tale due to a heavily and long fit of cough coming from me. He patiently waited for me to stop, handing me a glass of water, and some medicine to take. I begged him to continue the story, wanting to know every detail up to the point I came to the temple, but he insisted that I get some rest and he get some food. I sighed, lying back in my bed, knowing I would just have to wait a while for the rest of his tale.

[Brilenus]

Nice story on that one as well. Wish I could write that well, but I guess you have had quite a bit of practice compared to me.

Keep on posting these when you have time please.

[Jose~]

Once again, AWESOME!
Hopefully you can squeeze in more than one =D

I would love to read this for hours.

Good job Karen


~Jose

[leethal]

lol don't rush art man!

[psidan]

Keep it coming.

[Jose~]

woops posted on my rl's account under my name om accident. =P

Well I wasn't rushing men, I said hopefully meaning IF its possible.

I no pinch.


~Jose

[JediKaren]

lol I can hardly get myself to type one chapter at a time! Gee, you all should try this and see how hard it is.

[psidan]

I'm thinking of but i keep procrastinating over and over again.
Yeah.. I will sometime when I improve my writing skills.

[JediKaren]

Mirmo came back in the evening after I had a few hours of sleep with a tray. He gave me a bowl of steaming hot broth, a tall cup of tea, and some medicine.

“I want the soup and the tea gone the time I am done with the rest of the story. No arguments.”

I silently laughed at him. He was starting to know me well enough to forestall any complaining, whining, and excuses from me. I wasn’t a bit soup eater and had no appetite, but the broth tasted something like chicken noodle, so I slowly blew on a spoonful of the stuff and then sipped it even slower. I watched over my spoon Mirmo settle in my desk chair, leaning back into the back support, and remember where he left off.

“The Jedi temple had not much changed after my five years of absent. Another generation of Jedi knights made recently been forged by the hands of Master Skywalker. I was given time to recover from my journey, morning for the grandmother like Liviani, and then asked to report back what I had accomplished. Luke and the first made knights were pleased, even impressed by my work on my home planet. Luke suggested that I should go off and search for an apprentice, but I polite refused. I was only twenty five at the time, which meant I was still young, full of energy, and not interested in taking the responsibility of another person, not to mention teaching them what little I knew. Luke did not argue with my judgment, but asked me to accompany a just made knight in his search for more students. When I asked why me, Luke said I knew more about the galaxy and how the people viewed the Jedi. I had more experience dealing with the coldness many people gave me and could offer support to the new knight. I thought about what Master Skywalker said and agreed with his logic. The galaxy was still a rough place for the new Jedi order.

The Jedi Knight that I was traveling with was named Jos. He was your age and with your spirit. He was a bit too much restless and reckless for my tastes, willing to dare too much, and overly confidently about his status as a Jedi. He felt that the moment he stepped out on the planet, he would be greeted with formal sayings and treated with utter respect. I said nothing about his flaws, knowing society would correct him. We flew a small ship, with minimum weapons on board, needed to defend ourselves, to show we did not mean harm to anyone. We picked the planet Naboo. We chose that planet for it’s reputation of being out of the way and very peaceful.

We had no real idea of how to find a potential Jedi. All new Jedi were having problems seeking out students. We hoped that if we stayed long enough around the biggest and most known city, called Theed, we would luck out and find someone showing signs of being Force sensitive. Although our method worked, later in my adventures and missions, I would find out one can not rely on luck, or really chance, alone. It is better to consult the Force and read the subtle messages of its way.

It was on our third day of staying in the city did we come across a potential. Like all cities, big groups of people living together can attract many kinds of people such as the glorious rich, the slim of the poor, the strict business leaders, and the street performs. There were many street performs and out of the them was a strange circus tent set up in the corner of a busy street. There was a decent size crowd gathered around the tent. At the opening of the pavilion, was a teenage girl, probably sixteen, dressed in a colorful robe, back straight, eyes glazed over, obviously the center of attention. Jos and I quietly made our way to the edge of the crowd to learn what the fuss was. The girl claimed to be a magician, able to read the fortunes of anyone willing to pay her five credits. I instantly saw through this as another fake reader, taking advantage of the ignorance in people. I was ready to walk away when Jos held me back and had me wait out the girl’s talk. The crowd had mixed feelings about the genuineness of her claim.

One large, powerful man, shouted at her, saying she was a liar, using looks and a bit of cloth to lure the weak and stupid minds of old lady and young desperate girls. The teenage girl focused her clearing eyes on the rude man. The man laughed at her, with the crowd slowly joining in. I saw anger flash into her eyes before they cleared again and her glazed intensified. The man changed from a loud, vulgar laugh, to a senseless scream, kicking and struggling, as he rose ten centimeters off the ground. The crowd immediately stopped laughing and hushed over, some people running away in fear, others exclaiming their disbelief. Jos and I exchanged looks, agreeing we had found what we were looking for.

The man was abruptly dropped and landed with a thump. His face was a mask of fear, anger, and confusion, looking at the girl and then the crowd. He quickly left the area. The girl gave one last look, one full of anger, and promptly turned around and stomped back into her tent. With the action being over, the crowd dispensed back to the streets, leaving Jos and I free to come forward to the entrance of the tent. As I leaned to the flaps of the door, I could hear the hard sobs of the girl. Jos moved the flaps to the side, showing the young woman crying in her arms, hunched over a table with a crystal ball on top. My heart broke at the sight of her. What had this society done to her, to force her to turn to a life of telling lies in order to feed herself? Why was it that every Force sensitive I met, including myself, struggled to survived, never to be truly happy? Why did people despise our type so much as to shun us away?

Jos was the first to come over to her. She was crying so hard, she failed to hear him come in. She slightly jumped at his soft touch on her shoulder. I was touched, deeply to my core, how Jos managed to silently calm her down without the use of the Force. I came in when Jos began to introduce ourselves as Jedi. We spent the rest of the day with her, explaining what she was, why she could do telekinesis, and who we were and what we were about. The girl was utterly entranced by the idea of the Jedi and eagerly agreed to come to the temple to learn and study the way of the Jedi.

The girl turned out to be a fine Jedi and had completely changed from her previous life. The girl strangely enough wanted me to train her, but I declined her, saying she was better off with the kind Jos, who had been watching her for months during her training. I will never forget the look that girl gave me, when she knew I would not take her. The look was so shockingly strong, I decided then I would never take an apprentice.”

There was a moment of silence as I absorbed this. My poor master. He had done so much good, yet still could not do enough to satisfy everyone. I asked him what else he did during his years before training me.

“Well, that is another story for another time. You need to take your medicine and get some sleep.”

I protested, saying I wasn’t sleepy at all and really wanted to hear more.

“I am sure you would want to listen for days if it meant avoiding a shot.”

Oh no. Not a shot. I curled up into a ball, pulling the blankets around me, as if to protect myself from a needle.

“It is a sedative. It should keep your cough quiet during the night. Now, hold still”

Hold still meant keep quiet as he Force held my arm still and put the needle in. I shuddered as the drug went into my body. He rubbed my arm when he was done and waited patiently for the drug to do its job. The temptation of sleep came over me and I fell into a dreamless sleep.

[JediKaren]

How To Plan and Write a Chapter

This is not a chapter of the story, but an added bonus. Too many people claim I have a talent or some special gift for writing and I heavily disagree with this opinion. So, to prove you wrong, I am going to let you into my mind of how I came up with Mirmo’s past, of the last four chapters and tricks I use.

In order to even start the tale, I need to get into the mind of Mirmo. It is very important that when you come up with a main character that the character has some strong, well defined and used features. They can hyper a lot, or angry, or not very emotional, but you need to portray this before you go into their past. It also helps a lot if the character has several features, which makes them unpredictable to a degree and keeps the reader interested. Use a character that is based off someone you know or someone you wish you knew. Mirmo is not based off anyone I know, but more like the master I would like. Make sure the character isn’t perfect so the character can have a problem to deal with.

So, first I made myself think who Mirmo is. He is a serious, yet laid back man, who does not get angered easily, but can get emotional. He reserved around others that he doesn’t know every well. He’s very polite and formal with his talk, even around Karen, but he is willing to curse in a moment of short lived anger. He can make mistakes, and even had trouble admitting them. So the first question to ask is how would he tell a tale to Karen? Well, he would never use contractions and he would focus mostly on actions, but add in emotions, because he values emotions. He trys to leave out his opinions, or if he includes them, he notes them. He’s not very good about details, but that’s something I purposely did to keep the chapters from getting too long. Yet, if you think about it, most people never go much into details when telling a story.

Now I can think in Mirmo’s mind and logic, but I need to think up a reason for him to tell the story. It’s been chapter and chapters, or a few months in story time, since Karen got sick and it would be a good time to tell a story to a bored and sick person. Also, there was only one chapter explaining how Mirmo got to be a Jedi, but nothing about the twelve years of being a Jedi, so there is plenty of action to tell. Truth be told, I didn’t mean for this tale to go on for three chapters, but I usually end up over planning and going into more detail.

Let’s think about the general Star Wars plot. The Emperor, in the movies, did wipe out most of the Jedi and if you read the extended universe (EU) books, they make a point to tell how a few Jedi did survive, but the Jedi had a very hard time doing so. When Luke caused the Empire to fall, the galaxy had enough on their hands to not have time to try to find any alive Jedi or care for any Force sensitives. In the real world of Earth, it is easy to see that anyone who is considered weird or unusual, gets ignored, picked on, or taken advantaged. So, I imagine that even without having to lookout for people trying to kill you because you have some power no one will talk about, you still don’t want to advertise yourself. So, trying to start an order of Jedi would be very hard indeed, as you can see for Mirmo.

Using this notion means I have an easy outline to write about: Mirmo struggling to gain respect and support for who he is. Writing about a struggle is easy. It’s a problem. It has to be thought out, plans or ideas formed, ideas to be tested and improved upon, results to be observed, and feelings about the whole process to explain. A good story will have several struggles or problems to work on all going on at the same time.

It helps me that I run a site and very much know how hard it is to start a project like starting an order, and how you have to learn to advertise to the right people, in the right manner. I made a lot of mistakes and used these mistakes to write in my story. I’ve also helped a lot of other site managers get their site up and have found a common trend that people want to boldly and rudely advertise their site. So, I used that trend with Mirmo. Another tip, if you haven’t figured out already is to use examples from your life, even if they don’t directly relate to the story. It makes writing a lot easier, for you can put details that help readers relate.

There were two ways I could of told the forth chapter in the mini tale. I could have focused on just one more tale, or explain a whole bunch of short little missions Mirmo went on. I was actually thinking of doing mostly one tale and then mentioning a few ones, but I decided I could save these other tales for another time, plus I hadn’t thought up any more stories to tell.

Now, most of you have told me that you hate cliff hangers, but what you don’t know is I hate them far more than you do. It means I have to put up with your complaints and then keep the energy that was building up, stable or reach the climax. Climaxes aren’t easy things to write if you want to impress your readers. The climax is when you want to put the most detail, the most emotion, and the most action in that part if you want to fully engage your readers. You need to be really careful about tying up all the ends, and chose words carefully to get the most impact. You also can’t have a very long climax, or the readers will get impatient. Then, after the climax, you can’t let yourself get lazy and have a quick ending. You need to leave the readers with a completed feeling, but the ending doesn’t have to be happy. I messed up a little bit, by trying to rush the completed feeling because I didn’t want to think anymore. That was a sign I should have taken a break and not tried to do in one sitting. But, this is only a draft and not meant to get published.

The last thing that a writer needs to think about is the wording. Thinking up the problem he solution, the character, the climax and ending isn’t enough to tell a good tale. You need to think what to say. You don’t need to be the best speller. That’s why there is word. If spelling was my blocker, which is was for a number of years, I would have never written this story. I have found dictionary.com to be good and synonyms tool to be my life saver. My speaking vocabulary isn’t great, but my reading vocabulary makes up for that lost. If I can think up the word and give it my shot at spelling the word, usually I’ll get it. A broad vocabulary is what made my story good. I have learned to not use the same word twice in one sentence if I can help it. I’ve learned to not use “it”, but to define what it is very clearly. Grammar is important. Learn to use commas. Don’t repeat the same type of sentence over and over. An example of a type of sentence is “She walked in, sat down, and said” Twist the sentence around like “As entered the room, she looked for a chair to explain her thoughts.” Try to stay away from using “and” a lot.

Details are everything. Always question what the character is thinking, doing, feeling, wearing, seeing, and all other senses. Don’t just say she walked into the kitchen and sat down and said – Explain what the kitchen looked like, what was in the kitchen, was something cooking, why did she come into the kitchen, who was in the kitchen and was there anything noticeable about the other person. What did she feel when she walked in and how did she emotional react to the new person. What thoughts were going through her mind? You need to answer all these things and more when you write about a simple action. You are painting a picture that only you can see. Don’t use vague words like “a lot, sort of, thing, a while, or object” These words are a sign of laziness on the writer’s part and won’t show a clear picture. The readers have to use your words to see the picture, so it is important to add as much detail as possible.

For now, that’s all I have to say about writing a chapter or a story. I hope this helps you understand the “secret” behind my success. Thanks for reading this and enjoy the rest of the story.