Inspiration Part 17 - Shopping Malls

Welcome back,

The holidays are here, and this time of year has many different meanings to many different people. No matter what your beliefs are, however, there is one thing that we all experience this time of year in North America; holiday shopping!

           The idea for this inspiration post struck me as I was navigating my way through the crowds during Black Friday. Shopping malls and centers play a very important role in today’s society, as they are not only an important place of business, but also serve as a social gathering place for many. Furthermore, these places of commerce take on an entire new life during the holidays, as people flock to them in order to be prepared for their holiday festivities.

           With this in mind, I decided to make Shopping Malls the focus on this month's inspiration article. We will explore different aspects of these establishments, such as their architecture and contents, and see how they can play a role in fiction.

           To begin, let us take a look at the architecture of shopping malls. These buildings come in many different styles and formats, but some traits are recurrent among most of them. Their similarities include large hallways and high ceilings to facilitate clientele circulation. Store front will line each side of these passageways. Most will also have large gathering areas allowing people to sit and eat, more commonly known as food courts.

           Of course these buildings would serve no purpose if they did not have stores! Shopping malls contain a variety of different stores in order to cater to their customers. This is convenient for shoppers (and writers looking for inspiration), who might be looking for anything from clothes, groceries, books or more. There are also many different restaurants where customers to rest and take a bite to eat which.

           This covers all the areas that are accessible by the general public, but have you ever thought of what you couldn’t see? As an ex-security guard, I can tell you there is a totally different world behind those stores. Service corridors allowing employees to have access to storage areas, underground parking, mechanical rooms housing machinery which power the building and offices for administrative staff. It is something to take into account when trying to flesh out one of these buildings in a narrative.

           Finally, we have the social aspect of shopping malls. How many of us have gone to shopping malls as teenagers just to hang out with friends? How many times have we seen older generations socializing at the food court or simply walking down the hallways? And aren<t we all guilty of doing the occasional window shopping? Shopping malls are a favorite stomping ground for many, as it has a lot to offer; comfort, accessibility, entertainment and much more.

As you can see, a trip to the mall can be beneficial for any writer. Maybe you are searching for references on the layout of a shopping center for a particular fight scene between superheroes. Or perhaps the mall is the main environment of your story, and you need to get a better idea of the layout, good examples are Mallrats - 1995, Paul Blart Mall Cop - 2009, or Dawn of the Dead - both 1978 and 2004.

As you can see, a trip to a shopping mall can be beneficial to a writer looking for inspiration. I hope you enjoyed this month's inspiration post and that I encouraged you to go out there and experience it for yourself.

Until next time.

Cheers,

Patrick Osborne

**Please note that most of the photos below were taken from free stock images sites such as StockSnap.com, or were found doing a public domain search via Google.**

Current Progress Part 23

Welcome back!

It’s that time of year again! The holidays are quickly approaching, and we find ourselves running around like crazy in order to get ready for all the festivities. Though this year will require some adjusting, I’m still looking forward to buying presents, putting up decorations, and planning my time off.

That being said, I am working on some seasonal themed articles for this month to help bring in the holiday cheer! Hope you like them.

   

As I write this post, I can’t help but feel a little impressed with myself. That is because this month’s Current Update marks the end of my second year working on this blog. Though keeping up with regular updates may have been challenging at times, I’m glad to see my hard work paying off.

However, I have mixed feelings when taking a look back at last December’s post. My current progress is entirely different than what I had imagined back then. Twelve months ago, I was hoping to have a rough draft of my story done, but the farthest I have gotten is my prologue. In reality, I have yet to complete my location and character sheets. The road ahead is still a long one, but I plan on still forging on, until my story is told.

Speaking of my story, I did manage to get some progress done this past month. I have completed the character sheet of Vivian Winters, the resident arcane specialist that will be helping my protagonist. With her completed, I have moved on to another key character, Lindsay Reed. Lindsay will be playing the role of the protagonist's love interest and driving motivational force, so she will require a lot of attention.

Due to my current living situation, most of my writing time has been focused on my work or taken up by other responsibilities. I have really tried to settle down and dedicate some time to writing, but right now I have trouble focusing and need time to get my head straight. This means I haven’t been able to dedicate as much time to Missing Worlds Media as I would like. I believe at this point they may want to wait until my life gets a little more stable before assigning any new projects to me.

They did release a new lore update featuring a villain group this month, you can check it out on their Kickstarter page here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/1739807


And another:


http://cityoftitans.com/forum/world-titans

            That is all for this update, cause like I said, I am short on time, and have to get working on the other articles for this month. Before I go, I would like to wish you all a safe and happy holidays. Be with the ones you love, and cherish the moments you have together.

            Thank you all for dropping by, your continued support is truly appreciated, especially now when I need it most. My journey is not done.

Until next time.

Cheers,

Patrick Osborne

Inspiration Part 13 - Comic Book Conventions

Welcome back!

           I got the idea for this month’s inspiration post after having spent a weekend at the Ottawa Comic Con back in May. While representing Library and Archives Canada (LAC) at the con, it was my responsibility to talk to people about whom LAC is and what we do. This gave me the opportunity to meet many enthusiastic people and see a lot of interesting things.

           It was at this point that I realised just how much inspiration can be found at a Comic Book Convention. I figured there was enough content to cover to make an inspiration post out of it. So I created the following article using pictures from various conventions I went to over the last few years.

           First off, the most obvious part of a convention are the crowds! If you are looking to get some inspiration on how to describe large gatherings of people, you have come to the right place. Comic Conventions have been known to draw people by the thousands, so be prepared to have your personal space invaded.

Mega crowds at the Montréal Comic Con.

More crowds in Montréal, with Wolverine posing for pictures.

My wife, who is not impressed by the long lines of people waiting to get in.

           Next are the vendors; people who put up kiosks to sell Pop Culture related merchandise. Comic Con vendors will have all kinds of comic book inspired paraphernalia: from movies, games, costumes, clothing and of course, comic books.

 

One of the many vendors at this year's Ottawa Comic Con.

Overview of some of the vendors at the Montréal Convention

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Original Ghostbusters merchandise. Just some of the cool stuff you could find at a Con.

Gaming dice. No nerd can go without them.

           Another common sight at Comic Conventions are Cosplayers, which has gotten so popular, that some people actually make a living off of Cosplaying. For those who don’t know, Cosplay is a shortened term for Costume Roleplay, where participants wear costumes and fashion accessories to represent a specific pop culture icon.

Poison Ivy from Batman lore.

Chewbacca from Star Wars

A Predator seen posing with Ghost Rider.

Master Chief from the Halo video game.

Captain Canuck, posing by the Library and Archives Booth.

           One of the main attractions at Comic Cons are popular props and replicas from famous movies or television shows. These objects are often displayed in a way to allow visitors to take pictures with them.

The TARDIS from Doctor Who.

The Delorean from Back to the Future.

Various costume from the Star Wars franchise.

Group of Daleks from Doctor Who.

Batmobile from the 1960’s Batman TV series.

Ecto-1 from the Ghostbusters.

The black, 1967 Chevy Impala from the Supernatural TV series.

R2-D2 and landspeeder from Star Wars.

           And finally, one of the most exciting experiences of any Comic Con, is the opportunity to meet one of your favorite icons. Actors, Artists, Creators and so on, are invited to conventions, either too speak at panels, meet their fans at the autograph stand or have their picture taken at the photograph booth.

Adam West from the Batman TV series, being escorted to his booth.

The kids meeting Norman Reedus from the Walking Dead. Great guy!

My personal favorite, Stan Lee, the creative genius from Marvel Comics.

As you can see, a trip to a Comic Convention can be beneficial to a writer looking for inspiration. I hope you enjoyed this month's inspiration post and that I encouraged you to go out there and experience it for yourself.

Until next time.

Cheers,

            Patrick Osborne


** All photos were taken by me, and are under copyright. Please ask for permission before using these photos**

Inspiration Part 8 - Christmas decorations

Welcome back!

    With Christmas vacation just around the corner, this month’s inspiration post on will focus on the holiday season!

Fun in the snow!

    There are many different aspects to the holidays and not everyone celebrates this time of the year the same way. As I mentioned before, I am working with limited number of photographs after having lost most of them due to my laptop crashing. So instead of trying to cover every aspect of Christmas I could think of, I decided to focus on a few areas.

    To begin, I want to cover one of the tastier holiday traditions: gingerbread houses. This is a somewhat new custom for me, as I had never made any gingerbread anything before meeting my wife and her children (Linda would say this was due to my severely lacking cooking skills). Granted, we buy some of those ready-made gingerbread house sets where you only need to assemble the pieces, but this has become a yearly bonding exercise at our house that we greatly enjoy (not to mention the houses never survive till Christmas, LOL).

    As you can see, my family tends to not hold back with the frosting. Another thing we like to do is use whatever is leftover from Halloween candy to use as decoration supplies. The end result is usually a diabetics worst nightmare.

Each family member has their own decorating styles; Linda is more traditional, making her house actually look like something out of a magazine. Kayla is heavy on the decorations, trying to cover every square inch with candy. Shawn will go all “Walking Dead” on his house, breaking down doors, adding red bits of candy everywhere and placing zombified gummy bears. As for me, I usually end up with a sloppy looking house, adding a ton of frosting in a vain attempt to prevent the house from falling apart.  

Next is what can be considered a key element in many households that celebrate Christmas: a Tannenbaum. I remember spending entire evenings as a child just staring at the family Christmas tree, both in amazement and excitement.

    There is something I have learned in the recent years, and that is to simply stand back and let Linda decorate the tree (HAHAHA!). My wife has a very specific manner of putting on the decorations, which border on military style precision. Some ornaments go in the front, others go in the back, and there is only enough lights once the tree is visible from space.

    One thing that might not be obvious by simply looking at these pictures, is how much of a symbol the tree has become in our household. It represents family, both from my side of the family and Linda’s, as the tree holds baubles and doodads from holidays past, uniting them all into one giant center piece.

    The final holiday tradition I want to cover is one that was made famous by “National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation”. Of course I’m talking about Christmas lights. My family hasn’t set up lights (mostly to save on hydro bills), but every year we like to drive around the neighborhood and look at other people’s set-ups. One block in particular likes to have competitions, seeing who can out do the rest.

We can see how all of this could be useful for authors working on stories taking place during the Christmas holidays. These images can be used to help describe everything from the setting (food, decorations, etc.), to characters (family, friends, etc.), to motivations (traditions, celebration, etc.).

    Writing this makes me realise just how far I’ve come over the recent years. I hope it has served as inspiration to some of you as well.

    Until next time. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

    Cheers,

    Patrick Osborne.