Panakin's Note: Well, this was late, but the next chapter is at 573 words, already has a list written up that Fyre needs to copy and paste into it...Maybe an update tomorrow? Can't tell. Fyre's working a Day Camp all this week, but the last two chapters are done, and the others all have lists ready. Who knows what will happen?
On a side note, I'm hungry. Don't know what that had to do with anything, but I'm hungry.

Chapter 13: The Creepy Forest
AKA: Writing ACTION and CLIFFHANGERS!

July 14th, 2012. 1:19 AM
"There is no place I'd rather be than on a surfboard out a sea. Catch a wave in the ocean blue and if I had one wish come true I'd surf 'til the sun sets beyond the horizon."

Fyre Elaine was well aware she was insane. If she wasn't, then she wouldn't have followed the Villainous Princess Azula into a creepy dark forest alone and without a flashlight. But, she was, so she did.

"Where are we?" Fyre asked, eyes wide as she looked around. She jumped slightly as an owl screeched at her, and she stumbled over a branch broken on the ground. She gasped, reaching forward to grab Azula as she fell. Luckily, the princess had her feet firmly planted on the ground, so the two didn't collapse to the ground.

Azula rolled her eyes. "We're right by the arcade. You're the one who showed me this place, whack-a-doodle," the princess hissed, crossing her arms over her chest as Fyre struggled to regain her footing. The non-firebending girl looked at her friend with a cheesy grin.

"Ohhhh yeah." Fyre closed her eyes as she smiled, attempting to look like an emoticon. Seeing as Azula didn't get it, Fyre got pushed to the ground. "Hey!" Fyre shouted, sitting up and glaring at her favorite character. "Well that was a bit abrupt."

"Abrupt?" Azula asked, narrowing her eyes as she turned on the girl. So you lead me into a forest, ask me where we are, fall over, and then act like an idiot, and I' the one being abrupt?" She asked, throwing her hands up in the air.

Fyre shrugged. "Don't judge me. I'm very bi-polar. Plus, I like the word 'Abrupt'."

"What does that even mean?" Azula yelled.

"HEEEEEEEY!" A voice screamed into the forest, echoing against each of the trees and frightening several birds. "Where are you peeps?" Fyre now recognized the voice. It belonged to Jiao-Jie, who must've just gotten out of an eating spree at Chick-Fil-A. This became more apparent as she came into view, ketchup on her face and a bag of waffle-fries in her hand.

Fyre waved to her friend. "Hey, Jiao-Jie! I see you had a good time! Did you bring me anything? PLEASE?" Fyre was now less than one inch from her friend's face.

"Sorry, Fyre. But I did find your twin stuck in an elevator!" Jiao-Jie pointed over behind her to Panakin, who was currently twitching while singing 'Set Fire to the Rain' under her breath, and Katara, who was slapping her forehead.

Toph wandered up behind Katara, frowning. "And she totally forgets to mention that I metalbended it to get them out. The guy behind the counter was totally amazed. I think he was also scared. The police may be after us."

"Nothing I'm not used to," Fyre shrugged. Katara raised an eyebrow at her, before remembering the whole kidnapping and all.

Jiao-Jie shrugged. "Yeah, yeah, that was cool and all, but the guy was so scared that he threw a box of bouncy balls at us," She said, nearly jumping up and down with excitement. "I even got a few. Look!"

She threw a bouncy ball at Panakin, which hit the fourteen-year-old in the face. Panakin jumped up with a yelp, grabbing the ball and instantly sending it flying right into Fyre's chest. Fyre growled and turned on her sister with wild eyes. Panakin put her hands up in defense. "Sorry. Instinct."

Suddenly, Katara screamed, pointing behind Fyre and her twin. All of the girls turned on their heels to face whatever had made Katara scream. The others screamed, as well, when they saw the pair of yellow, glowing eyes staring at them from the top of a tree.

OOOOO

Ozai ran his fingers across a 'The Beatles' T-shirt. "I don't get what the big deal is about a bunch of old guys who call themselves Beatles although they are obviously humans. Or at least, I think so..." he trailed off, staring at the picture.

"Would you stop acting so weird?" Ursa asked, grabbing a nice pink shirt with a big silver belt. She examined it for a moment, before shrugging slightly and putting it in the couples' cart. "Ozai, do you think this would look good on me?" She asked, looking up. Upon seeing her husband was no longer next to her, she looked around. "Ozai?"

She caught sight of him in the entertainment section. His eyes were currently glued to a TV, which was playing 'Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back'. He tilted his head slightly, and Ursa was sure he was memorizing every last pixel. "What are you doing?" She asked.

Ozai pointed to Luke, who currently only had one hand. "Ursa...this guy looks familiar!" He declared.

Ursa groaned, slapping her forehead. She looked back at her husband, deciding to humor him. "Maybe you did a cross-over with him?" She asked, giving off a cheesy smile and raising both eyebrows. Ozai shook his head, his eyes not leaving the screen.

"No, Ursa, I know this guy from somewhere," He said, staring at Luke's severed hand. He looked down, examining his own hand, before giving off the slightest bit of a shrug. "I guess you're right. As usual..." he added, muttering under his breath.

Ursa smiled, patting her husband on the back. "Alright, I got us both a pair of clothes, and I got you something special," she ended in a sing-song tone, reaching into the shopping basket and grabbing a bottle of temporary red hair dye. "We can put this stuff on you at the arcade. I think you'd be a cute red-head."

Ozai scowled. "You think this voice would do justice to a red-head? Besides, what kind of red-head has this fantastic of a beard?" He asked, a smile crawling onto his face as he stroked his beard evilly.

Ursa looked over her husband's shoulder, pointing behind him at Obi-Wan Kenobi. "That guy," she turned to another TV, which was playing thee new Disney Show 'Motorcity'. "That guy," she said with a shrug.

Ozai's glance turned to Motorcity with large eyes. He smiled as he watched the program for a minute, before turning to his wife. "That'll be my name! I'll go by Abraham Kane! That kind of name sounds really evil...and I think I could pull it off!"

Ursa turned to watch the show for a moment, recognizing her husband's voice. She then groaned. "Froogles."

OOOOO

Azula began to laugh as she jumped down from the tree limb. "I cannot believe you guys fell for that!" She said, giggling as she made her way over to Katara, giving her a high-five. Katara and Toph were both laughing wildly, as well.

"That wasn't funny!" Panakin shouted, crossing her arms over her chest. "I thought we were about to be the victims of a horror story documentary!" She turned on Katara, who was trying to hold her laughter in. "Why are you laughing?"

"Because we've wanted to get you guys back for Mike and Bryan's intense scolding after the events of last July. We had to keep a tracker on all of us for the first six months afterwards! We were, originally, gonna kill you all in your sleep, but you guys persist on going to a creepy forest at one in the morning," Katara stated with a glare.

Fyre looked up at her horrorstruck. "Oh. My. Goober. You guys were planning that we would sleep?" She asked, mouth agape and hands on her hips. Katara slapped her forehead as Fyre shrugged.

"Too much action for one night, if you ask me," Jiao-Jie stated, leaning against a tree. "Too cliffhanger-y."

Fyre ran over and hugged Jiao-Jie. Jiao-Jie instantly shrieked, trying to kick Fyre away. "THANK YOU!" Fyre proclaimed. "I know what I need to write my next chapter on!"

Action:
FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT! But don't just say things like 'Katara kicked. Zuko firebended.' Add detail! Say 'Katara gasped sharply as she ducked down, reaching for her water skin. Upon seeing Zuko charging at her, she jumped up again, sending a kick in his direction. The impact sent Zuko stumbling backwards, giving Katara enough time to grab her water skin. Zuko scowled, before sending forward a quick jab of red-hot fire, aimed directly for Katara's head.'

Action consists of more than just fighting! There's all sorts of Action! I know the Action stereotype is people fighting, but what do you think of when you think Adventure? Not people fighting anymore, huh? Well, Action and Adventure are sharing a fantastic marriage currently. Therefore, add some adventure!

How to do Adventure: Send 'em on a quest! Take a look at some of the Quests in the series, like Boiling Rock Rescue, Revenge for Katara's Mother, Discovering Firebending, etc. Think of an objective, a few characters you want to go, things you want to happen on the way, and anything else that might be important.

Did you know that that's part of Action? Anything you DO is action. That's the real and true definition of the word 'Action'.

Cliffhangers:

DUN, DUN, DUN! Drama! If you think you can write Drama, you can probably write a real cliffhanger!

WFS: Work from Cliché. Take a character and put them in a situation where they're hanging off the edge of a cliff at the end of your chapter. Kinda lame, huh? Okay, so change the cliff to something more interesting. And what if they're not hanging anymore? What if they fell and broke their leg by one of the train-things in Ba Sing Se? Work from there. Change up details slowly, to where it's still a cliffhanger at the end of the chapter, but not Cliché.

Remember to resolve ASAP. Even if the character hanging is not your main character, you need to resolve it at the beginning of the next chapter, or at least somewhere in the very next chapter. Otherwise, fans will riot and go mad. It happens.

Other Tips:

Two-parters are great for cliffhangers. Think about some of the two-parters in the series. Most all of them had a cliffhanger at the end of part one, and it was resolved in part two.

Remember, First Chapters, Two-parters, and Finales can be long! Keep it at least 1,000 (2,000 recommended for the before mentioned things), but no more than 10,000 (Your finale can be...but beyond that it should really be a two-parter)

1,000 word chapters too much for you? Here the deal: If you can type one word every four seconds, you can type 1,000 words in one hour. That's a type speed of 20. My personal type speed is about 55 (I found out through a really fun site called Type Racer. Google it!). That means I could type 2,750 words in one hour if I really pushed it and knew every little thing I was going to say. So subtracting about 20 from my type speed since I normally don't know word for word what I'm going to write, that goes to 35, or 1,750 words per hour. Doesn't seem like much anymore, does it?

I also wanna point out: The above paragraph is over 100 words. If you do ten of those, you'd get 1,000.

"I can't believe it," Jiao-Jie said, staring at the last tip.

Fyre smiled. "I know, right? All along I thought it would take, like, four hours to get down 1,000 words. Now, chapters aren't all that hard to write! Especially when I keep things on a weekly basis, because that's less than ten minutes a day!"

Jiao-Jie shook her head. "No, I can't believe you did all the math on that. It's summer, for crying out loud! You need to have more fun! In fact..." Jiao-Jie dug in her pocket for a moment, before pulling out a quarter. "There's a rocking arcade in there. I'm gonna go have the time of my life!"

Jiao-Jie ran off happily, and Toph decided to follow her, leaving the others behind. Katara looked over Panakin's shoulder and screamed again. Fyre rolled her eyes. "We're not falling for Azula in the tree again," she said, turning and pointing to the gold eyes in the tree.

"I'm right here," Azula muttered.

The four girls screamed.

Fyre's Note: DUN, DUN, DUN!
The song at the top is Hawaiian Roller-coaster Ride by Jump5. Catchy song, aside from the fact that I speak very little Hawaiian :D
Also, I don't own Motorcity. It's an okay show, but since Mark Hamill plays Kane in it, I watch it!
On a side note, I'm hungry. Like, really. Hey, any of you guys have an idea for a Best-friend-a-versary gift for Panakin? (Whaaaaa? We're girls. We're BFF's. We do that kind of stuff.)

NEXT CHAPTER:
The Plot Twist