Naming Characters

I keep seeing the topic of names come up, so I thought I would add my two cents. Just some tips that I’ve picked up myself along the way. Also I’m totally stumped as to what else I could write about. Vacation was great but now my brain is still working on refocusing on writing.

Different Kinds of Arcs

I really enjoyed a recent blog series from K.M. Weiland about story arcs that go beyond the traditional hero story, and I wanted to share links in case someone reading this blog hasn’t seen those. They’re a lot of fun to read and provide some really interesting information.

Prompt #21: Impostor

Quick explanation: A few Christmases back I was given a “Writer Emergency Pack” deck of cards. This included a set of prompts. So I’m going to go through and follow them, to the best of my ability. Some of these will end up being parts of my works in progress, others will be standalone stories, depending entirely on my mood.

Let me know what you think of it!

This is Prompt #21: Someone is not who he seems. Perhaps it’s an ally — or maybe it’s the hero.

Made It!

(Fair warning, I wrote the title of this blog post in the middle of the week when my progress was going well but by no means was I guaranteed a win. So we’ll see in a minute how well this aged.)

Can’t Talk

No time! Must write. Catch you in August

My Book Isn’t Working and That’s Okay

I am not going to ever let anyone see the first draft of the novella that I am currently writing. One possibility is that I will never do anything with it, and it will therefore need to stay in there forever, or else I will drastically polish and change this book, and make it better. Either way, the only way someone is going to see it is by subterfuge and trickery. And that is okay. It’s all part of the process.

Dheran Claes: Antagonist

I needed a villain for the book I’m writing. It took me a good while to find someone who would work. And then it took me a while to figure out what kind of relative he was (I’ll explain below). The hardest part, however, was giving him a better motivation to be the villainous antagonist than “he’s a power hungry jerk.”

Prompt Connections

World Anvil Summer Camp is in full swing, with the second set of 10 prompts already been dropped. I’ve made it to a copper badge (that’s ten prompts finished), and it’s revealing some fun and surprising things about my world. There’s already a few fun discoveries that have been made, as well as a few walls.

Why I Need to Outline, Mostly

There are all kinds of different ways to write a book. In fact, there are as many ways as there are authors. Within that, there are certain systems that different writers can copy and imitate to make their lives easier, so they don’t have to make their own way from scratch. Within that, I think the two most common systems are the plotter versus the pantser, which I’ve also heard called architect versus gardener. And I am very much operating more effectively as a writer when I’m being a plotter.

So Now I Have a New Culture

I have this world that I’ve been building. It’s fun, and has a lot of my favorite kinds of complexities in it. There are three sentient species existing (and coexisting, for the most part) in the same space. One of those species has two distinct cultures in the area, one more nomadic, and the other living in the deep chasms and underground caverns of the area. According to the prompt that I am filling for World Anvil’s Summer Camp, there is now a third culture vying for my attention.