[Introducing characters]

I think it depends heavily on the audience you want to write this for: like mainstream, men’s adventure, YA, or capital ‘L’ literature. I know the romance genres I read wouldn’t put the emphasis on her appearance instead of her experiences and agency.  Dwelling on her appearance/not his is a concern of adolescent lack of confidence.  I know my brother (a human) didn’t settle into his appearance until nearly twenty.  Men’s adventure would glowingly dwell on her bust size regardless of her skill.  Literature might bait and switch by having her be trans or aggressively asexual.  YA would make it a lesson that there is no lack in the hero or curse in the different sizes for the three women.

Unless there’s a particular reason why being a busty elf adds to the story, that being an important aspect of her personality would be off-putting.  Mine has changed as I rolled through lifestages, but I doubt and hope whatever size it was, was not even in the top ten things that people think is important about me.  (I allow exceptions for medical like back damage or professionals like actors)  There might even be an element of fairness, if the women are to be described for eyecandy viewpoints, describe the men as well.  Like the Mandolorean actor looks real good under that beskar.  Not sure if I explained it right, but comparing bust sizes would probably get me to ditch the story if nothing else softened the bad taste. Good luck!

[NaNo 2020?]

Hard to believe it’s been almost a year since NaNo 2019.  They’ve already announced officially that no in-person writing sessions will be held this year due to the beer bug. We’ve got only a little over a month to clear the decks and do any outlining before the 1^st.

As an avid pantser whose prep usually consists of a sentence or two outline, I can usually work on other projects up to about October 29^th.  A couple of years back the NaNo people admitted the importance of fanfic for writers by adding it as a category.  Last year, they expanded the type of writing for your ‘novel’ to include short story collections.  (my Nano last year ended up being a dozen stories, which let me switch to a new plot when my muse went on strike)

I’m probably going to do the short story collection again, but I still have not decided if it will be SW fanfic or originals.for selfpub.

With the loosening of the challenge, who’s thinking about doing that novel-length body this November?

[non villain bad guy]

He sure reads like a villain to use magic to make them malleable AND do his homework.  How is this magic effect on the women different than date-rape drugs?  (Researching how those work on victims might help for his building it in setting a magical method and would be hard to detect by forensics.  How would Quincy know a piece of random junk mail on the counter had a spell on it?

[Elvin buildings]

Hmm, I suppose the first question is how tall your elves are and how big is a normal-sized apple tree?  If elves are small kinds of fey and normal-sized apple tree would have enough ‘lifeforce’ or energy’ to be believable. (Yes, with magic all things can happen but suspension of disbelief is smoother if there is a kind of boundary or limits to it).  Apple trees are pretty scrawny trunks compared to other trees like ashes and oaks, let alone behemoths like the sequoia.  Maple trees could be a year round source of a sweet nog.

What kind of walls will shelter people from the rain or sleet?  Solid wood would require tiny homes/rooms due to the narrower trunks and greater breaking in storms of fruiting trees.  Solid magic walls could shift with weather and needs but could have all the issues with wooden midieval row homes with fire, crowding/space limits, and high upkeep. 

I lean toward a hybrid where the branches weave together to a degree with magic to make enclosed spaces and the walls are fibrous like fiberglass.  The tree would bend and move more loosely air passing through more.  A willow would be ideal for a nesting branch home.

I’d rather use magic for fire protection (gives the tree some benefit for letting people modify it) than everything for the homes...

[Fanfic Pocket Archive app - scraping stories from AO3]

As of March 21^st, when everyone is home and bored, my stories have not been pulled down! (the about page is no longer clickable either)

[Fanfic Pocket Archive app - scraping stories from AO3]

it still shows for me for Android

 

note 15 million downloaded from this site?

[AFF Halloween Party 2019!]

Hmm, my timing is off again, having some RL agency issues presently.  I’m a firm maybe, likely after the 1^st.

[Looking for new terms.]

Seconding using terms from World of Darkness (werewolf the apocolypse,and vampire the masquerade) at least for ideas. Those systems also provide alternates, like their darker are Sabbat. Since you are doing normal and darker variant, that might get to be a lot of custom vocab, is the lifestage that different dark or light to require separate names?.

I saw a recommendation for fantasy writers to limit your custom words to one page.  The words may be second nature to you, but readers get annoyed if they have to flip back and forth (had comments in a critique group too on this, and mine were greek derived)

For elder vamps of a coven, I’ve also seen Sire (also used in Buffy/Angel, which is more well-known than WoD) 

I’m personally not sure I could take Latinate terms for ‘wolves or vamps seriously. Not everything old and respected is roman, and taking these names from another language might make it fresh.  Alpha/beta/omega is already used in so many non-shifter stories, using it is a two-edged sword. [And to switch genres, do the latin-sounding Sith lords’ names in Star Wars make you laugh like me? Sidious is intimidating, Vader is germanic father which is strange for Palpatine to give him, and Tyranus is asking for scatological mocking.  Sith names just keep getting less intimidating: Lumis is especially humor inducing: look out for Lord Light!]  If I wanted a diferent flavor. I’d go old english or really ancient like Egypt or Asia.

[How soon is too soon?]

Ah, you’ve stumbled on to the great mystery of fiction with any relationship, because there is no true answer. It depends on the writer’s intentions and the specific characters. You seem to have already done some thought, and THAT fits these characters, Another story may have a different answer.

Try not to worry about how it will seem to others, the first person you need to please is yourself.  (And a writer can do either extreme if set up right)

[Getting started]

Start in the action. That will tell you what needs to be in the start. I started one NaNo in the middle of the escape from a prison and decided it was better to do the worldbuilding in later flashbacks,   Memory lane trips are kinda boring starts to me as there’s little tension or relevance to current action.  You need to hook the reader and they don’t have any investment in a flashback until they have met and feel for the character… GL!

[what do you call it?]

I heard that commune as a term existed before the soviets.

[Plagiarism stopper?]

I admit I do download stories I like. Not because I have the slightest interest in copying them, but to read/reread/group a series together. I have intermittent connection issues and computer issues, so reading them live can be a problem.  I can group stories into bookshelf folders for heat or tropes or themes or pairings. No site lets me set up indexed story lists in a convenient useful way.

That doesn’t even touch the sadness I feel when an author has pulled a story I loved for whatever reason and I can never reread it again… even if it was incomplete.  The first fanfic I really liked, I lost the bookmark and the author was ill and I only have faint memories over a dozen years old. A friend showed it to me so I don’t even know which site it was on. So I DL my favorites for later, like the worn paperbacks in my room.

I have plenty of my own ideas and no interest in being a plague.

[narrated story or read a story?]

I’ve done it purely a few times, but I find it awkward.  I think it’s been done well most often with detective stories, though one of my favorites is the epistolary Sorcery and Cecilia. I rarely write it up as a log or diary, so my last may be a Captain’s log from Isabella(DA)

Tho, thinking about it, I actually lean in that direction as most of my writing is rotating 1^st person… sort of a perfect personal mental story/log, loaded with “I’s.” My readers get only the interpretation of the POV which is unreliable and may not consciously notice some things.  They are telling their story to someone without any real need to censor. I really like when you see the same scene from different views- but not interspersed or omniscient.

A lot of older stories, esp romances open up with diary/journal entries before new stuff. I think this is very useful for serial writing since it will be days to months between chapters. The original Trek used that to regain story momentum after a commercial break.

[Exhaustion and Writing]

Sad when RL is determined to take away some kinds of fun… have a sand tart.

[Exhaustion and Writing]

Heh, these were ideas for boredom and block. Exhaustion from NaNo and holidays were part of it for me not lack of ideas. I have files of ideas and inspirations, and about 6 that want attention right now, and an original on hiatus until the new year. (I really don't read outside my current fandom, like I won't touch lotr or any anime)

I had to skip the whole period of that collection was in the works as we had a major illness in the house   and what time I had went to a college-level writing class and the anthology I’m in that just released.  Some projects you just have to let pass. I’m trying to wean myself off fanfic into originals for publication, probably my new year's resolution.

[Exhaustion and Writing]

Is it a particular topic or fandom? My worst block on stories come when I’m trying to force a story and refusing to work on something else. I feel bad for stuck stories, but getting mad makes it worse. Most often I break block by working on a new story, often silly/satire. I have to be careful that these side stories don’t take a life of their own as I have too many active stories.  I get really stuck when I think I SHOULD work on my more meaningful big stories and then I get stuck across the board. My muse just gets bored, frustrated, and doesn’t like being told what it should do by planning.  Right now I’m doing cleanup on all the drafts I did for NaNo and one plot bunny sticking Vader in something like Quantum Leap (no Al) taht is running short and fast.

Write anything, even a blog journal, to get the words moving...

[Exhaustion and Writing]

Dunno about you all, but even aside from the hectic tasks to prepare for the holidays, I’m just tired of writing. I have plenty of things I want or need to be writing (I’m six weeks behind in a writing class) but I can’t seem to concentrate for more than an hour or so on writing. Nodding off  is the first symptom.  I usually get some done on the actual days of the holidays as we just have a quiet meal, our big feast is the 24^th and then we relax.

Are you managing to get anything done right now, or are  you in a hiatus?

[How do you go about developing a story idea?]

 I don’t often use photos to help my stories. The images I have in my mind’s eye are usually not close enough to a real image to help the story, they frustrate. A  photo can be both too close and too far and this cognitive dissonance is like chalk on a backboard. Most canon characters and events in fanfiction have plenty of images.

 

There are two exceptions that come up in maybe 1 in 12 stories. A fan art can and has triggered a story or a scene. Or when I was trying to build up a cover art illustration for a story, I dug out a bunch of photo references. I went so far as to scrounge enough to pay for an illustration from an artist  who paired representational and impression in that fandom whose style I like and had open commissions. They requested refs and then backed out. The money went to another bill then.   My art skills are more photoshop than Michael Whelan. That image is very clear in my head. But only in my head.

I see enough of my scenes that I forget to include important details. So looking for photos that match that is mostly a way to use the time I could be writing.

[How do you go about developing a story idea?]

Yeah, most writers are pantsers or outliners at base.  If you have trouble with outlines you are probably a pantser. It is a continuum so there’s no hard edge. 

I think I have the most problem if I try to plan character behavior or feeling stuff ahead of time. I’ve done detailed grids and flow charts for action sections or to keep track of cast locations when multiplots are at a climax. Background and culture I don’t  plan enough, but I do record bits in a separate file/location for later reference.

My notes file makes for interesting reading in its own right. My notes mentioned someone wanting to shave someone’s beard as payback in chapter two, it finally happened in chapter 28. That wasn’t planning from before I started writing, but more like weaving in loose threads and plot hooks I left behind me. Often my Maguffins like the beard threat aren’t planned consciously, but my muse makes very good use while my ego is pleasantly surprised. One character got threatened in what I thought was a throwaway chapter ending, but is making an interesting subplot now… It’s not always ME doing the planning, but my muse. Recording the mass means I can weave the story back into itself and look much cleverer by not being totally episodic that ignores earlier changes. Continuity errors make ya look bad.

[How do you go about developing a story idea?]

Very much a pantser. I do have a general idea of the ending I’m aiming for, but if I start analyzing the desires and antagonists and obstacles too much it stifles instead of making sparkles. Only in the last week did a revisit of old character friends made the story really flow.  I work so much  better as a pantser, but that leads to bigger  issues for longer pieces.  Short ones are usually light on those qualities like theme, development, and world building so I think I’m okay.

I’m trying to figure out why my fanfic has gotten so much less spontaneous… and why my originals I’ve made so hard.  I suspect it’s because the results of two novel length pantsing ended up messes and wasted of all the time spent on them.  I desperately need an editor, but budget-wise that won’t happen anytime soon unless I win a lotto. So I muddle through as best I can with the occasional opinions. I love a good review that points out things… at least once I calm down. :p 

I get ideas from anything, and keeping them long enough to get them recorded is an issue. I break ideas into fandom/series and a bucket for original ideas.  When I finish a story i may take a day or two to relax, and then check my idea files. That is best case, sometimes a plot bunny will not let go, hence a Neverwinter sequel has displaced my NaNo projects for the moment.

Usually I have at least two active stories and one or two a semi active. (right now, active original, three active Star Wars, and a Neverwinter… NaNo has kicked my muse into high gear but not the direction I planned on) On a good week I post for two stories, on a bad one, nothing. (that is one thing about NaNo that leaves me antsy, I may not post anything that month)

Once I have the basic idea down I usually have the starting point and a major plot arc. That can usually be sumarized in a single sentence or so, no matter the final intended length.

Names, quirks, background, etc I make up as I need it. I use highlighting to mark areas to fill in and clean up later, staying a bit generic. ‘Search and replace’ is my friend. character studies killed my muse dead in 2010. There are random generators too for lots of details.

I concentrate on the story flow and love cliffhangers, and hiding the answer in plain sight where I hope it was overlooked.  Pushing and concealing answers in the story, means I prefer 1^st person for the same reason its favored by mystery writers: a fair mystery!  I don’t want characters to look incompetent in any genre by making the events too obvious.  I also don’t want the readers to get frustrated because the reader didn’t know some obscure fact like one car doesn’t come in stick shift that year, so the clues should be given to the character and reader. That is a tricky balance and sometimes I lean toward underexplaining.

One of my bigger problems is that I have too much going on in the last chapter so it ends up huge. But finishing a story is important so every one is a victory. The next big problem is editing and selling, but that’s more a publishing challenge than a writing one as I see the 1^st draft as foundation and blueprint. All the revision in the world can’t help if it wasn’t written down.

[Any NaNo people this year? (2018)]

It’s just over two weeks until this year’s NaNo (National Novel Writing Month) The goal is to finish the first draft of a story, without any prewritten prose, starting Nov 1^st and finishing Nov 30^th. There are a bunch of coupon and promos for participants and winner, but the prezzies vary year to year. Createspace used to offer physical printings if you published through them, but they were completely absorbed by Kindle this year.   The idea is that a little friendly competition helps a lot pf new writers to finish a story. outlines, character studies, prep is fine. Just no story.

Register before Halloween because the servers are usually hit hard on the start and end days. They added a fanfic category for stories last year.  I started writing during 2007 NaNo and hit the total eight times. (you submit a file, that you can scrqmbleif you think sojmeone would steak it) A lot of my big fics started during NaNo. It’s fun to see your progress graph inch up every day and see how your friends or town are doing.

They also sponsor a couple Camp NaNo sessions earlier in the year, but those can be writing, revising or some other task. I’m restarting my prison ship story after several years in a trunk. I could not figure out why it just withered away when I tried to figure out how to revise it. To keep me insanely busy I’m taking a ‘how to write a novel’ class, and hoping it will provide enough insight to strengthen the story. It’s a 32 lesson self-paced package, but this is the beta and it’s not finished. So I will have to use the later lessons more for future novels… I’m goign to try to fit a chapter of my current big fic in November too.

I also hear there is some holiday that month and I’m wondering if a frozen dinner will help.  If you want to writing buddy, I’m bucolic-scribe on that site.  I use this challenge like a booster shot for my dilligence and organization, because my output drops below 500 words a day every summer and the 2k boost usually lasts me until spring. Give it a try!

[Fan Fiction and Original Characters]

No, what was stinging about it?

[Fan Fiction and Original Characters]

3 hours ago, PenStoryTeller said:

Embrace the box.

It’s a common thing , even among pro authors to simply have a character be whatever they need the character to be to make a scene work and this can create some  narrative dissonan ce. Have you ever seen a story where a character just does something that doesn’t fit well with how they’ve been characterized Or their actuions over the course of the book don’t seem to flow from one to the other in any logical pattern? Yeah That’s what hapopenbs when a character is bent to fit the story.

The reall question is. How many OC’s do you need to add to tell an interesting story?  Or to quote a piece of whriting advice. Try to tell the story with as few characters as possible,

8

Yeah, I’ve seen too many pro writers who make a well-done character go so far off the rail for clearly meta reasons in books, TV, and games and they thought bending the char is less important than forcing the scene or plot.  That happens in fanfic as well, but I see that as less embarrassing, though still bad. I can be open to redeemed villains if they have to work at it, and tarnished heroes if they break, but the changes from canon need to be rooted in some one or multiple hints in the canon.

Most annoying to me are the ones who take things far darker without any convincing reasons for the character change beyond bending the character. Because the writer hates that box.

I think if you hate the box, why use that character at all?  OCs are better than bending the character and rejecting the box. Characters are made up of voluntary and involuntary boxes. We can tweak or grow out of our self-made boxes, but it just doesn’t happen by magic. (even in worlds with magic, there is the spell or curse that forces a change. The better writers figure a way to adjust the box without rejecting the entire box. [BTW i really like this box metaphor, because it handles OOCness well]

-- about the number of OCs for the story, that is tricky. If there is no existing character to take the story role the writer needs, I don’t see any problem. But I think OCs should be a minority percent of the cast. People read fanfic for new adventures of characters they love. I know I tend to drop from stories where majority OCs carry the story. I started writing from canons of CRPG, so the lead was almost always an OC which colorizes the story told. 

I find the bigger reason for limiting the number of characters is that the story will grow almost virally.  To make interesting characters or get canon ones to be more than tropes, you have to develop them and give them goals and some small arc. That takes a lot of time when you pass a dozen major characters, that’s how my simple Cthulu coming to attack a high fantasy city exploded to become 300k words and I nearly had an ilcer trying to wrangle it to a conclusion. My current crack derived idea is heading for 200k,  (8 POV chars 2 of those OC… 21 major chars, and 5 of those are OC) All those subplots end up detracting from your main story thread. Slices of life are good, but a good story needs a good and meaningful conclusion.

Your cast is a bigger box to treasure.

[Artfully portraying two parties of heroes while maintaining suspense]

On 8/29/2018 at 1:36 AM, InvidiaRed said:

Never count heroes out unless you have seen the bodies, Have access to said bodies and have their souls corked in a wine basement somewhere in a hidden location on another continent in a different dimension.

I’d go further than that in a lot of settings heroic recoveries have been known to proliferate. Comic book and high fantasy, even especially if you helped bury the body after the funeral… sometimes very necessary if the face character of the setting died without any meaning, or they are too crucial to the franchise. Prof X comes to mind, though all of us can name a dozen more… How familiar are the chars with that trope from myth?

[Opinions on Duotrope?]

 

It looks like it’s an index of markets, and was just mentioned in a new Writer Beware column. (for a market being delisted)  Has anyone used it? Is it worth the time? They do have school memberships. But for me, the modest cost is still a sizable piece and would have to wait for the holidays.  I will admit I’d been considering No Man’s Sky for my big gift…

But if the magazine is useful to a real person (a shock perhaps, but a writer who hangs out here qualifies) I’m more likely to give it a try. Thnx