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Recent content by Alex Beecroft

  1. Alex Beecroft

    What makes you different? And what makes you good?

    I've always believed that I was different, and had a different perspective on most things than everyone else. After all, I'm asexual and genderqueer, which ought to put me outside the norm in a couple of ways at least. But the older I get the more I'm convinced that everyone thinks they're...
  2. Alex Beecroft

    Providing Background info

    I'm aware that exposition by means of dialogue is still exposition. The point of the question is how you introduce your exposition without it looking clunky. And yes, I'm not suggesting an entire "as you know, Bob," info dump through dialogue. I'm suggesting that people talk about their lives...
  3. Alex Beecroft

    What to do when grammar gets you down.

    Don't worry too much about the grammar while you're writing the first draft. You can fix commas and adjectives and so on when the story is all written. When you've told the story and ironed out the plot holes, then you can do a later sweep with a grammar primer like Anne Stillman's...
  4. Alex Beecroft

    Providing Background info

    I'd probably do it in dialogue. "You know, when we found you in the forest that day, we never realized you were going to be such a blessing to us/pain in the ass."
  5. Alex Beecroft

    To be (the royal we) or...you get the point.

    Well, if it was 'just' a story, with no relevance to reality at all, it probably wouldn't be worth telling or reading. I think this is part of why non-writers seem to regard writers with some kind of awe - the writer's shamanistic responsibility to venture into the underworld and make sense out...
  6. Alex Beecroft

    Poem for the Dead

    This is the one I immediately think of, though anyone else who ever saw Four Weddings and a Funeral would also immediately think of it W. H. Auden: Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum...
  7. Alex Beecroft

    To be (the royal we) or...you get the point.

    *g* I remember all that. I was a rocker at the time, although to be honest prog-rock, more than anything else. You'll still catch me listening to Hawkwind at the weekends. But yes, I'm now involved in Folk, which is also good evidence for the belief that a peasants' revolt would turn out pretty...
  8. Alex Beecroft

    To be (the royal we) or...you get the point.

    It sounds a little bit too much like real life/historical fiction for my tastes. (This is not a put down - I feel the same way about Game of Thrones, and it's blatantly obvious from how many people love that that I'm the one out of step on that front.) But nevertheless it sounds like too much...
  9. Alex Beecroft

    Writing from the Female POV

    Exactly. In the 18th Century a high born man would also have rolled out of bed and then spent several hours dressing with a small army of servants to paint his face, pluck his eyebrows, apply beauty spots, style and powder his hair or help him choose his wig and outfit for the day. Society's...
  10. Alex Beecroft

    To be (the royal we) or...you get the point.

    My answer is still "yes, but it would depend on what they were doing." If they were, for example, defending their village against a dragon, that sounds interesting and I would read it. If they were using their newly discovered magic for promoting crop growth, killing their neighbours cows and...
  11. Alex Beecroft

    To be (the royal we) or...you get the point.

    It may be in my mind because I was watching Once Upon A Time last night and thinking about Snow White and the Huntsman. I'm wracking my brains now to think of any books with important queens in them at all and coming up blank except for Galadriel. (Who at least isn't evil.) Oh, Elizabeth I of...
  12. Alex Beecroft

    How to write a gay character

    If your world is an accepting one, then surely it'll come up in conversation at some point? "Did you leave someone behind?" "No, I broke up with my lover a month before this, he's married to a tailor now. You?" "My wives are looking for a younger woman to replace me right now, I bet!"
  13. Alex Beecroft

    To be (the royal we) or...you get the point.

    Queens definitely do not get enough press. I'm writing a historical fantasy set in the 18th Century at the moment. My characters will be passing through the Austro-Hungarian empire ruled by Empress Marie-Theresa and going to Russia ruled by Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. Neither of whom were the...
  14. Alex Beecroft

    Writing from the Female POV

    I'm thinking that I've gone on too long on this subject and am now just pissing people off, so I'm going to answer this one with a link and then leave the subject for other people to pick up if necessary. Tomgram: Rebecca Solnit, The Longest War | TomDispatch One of the things to think...
  15. Alex Beecroft

    To be (the royal we) or...you get the point.

    Of course, if it was interesting. Aren't there lots of "Farm boy turns out to be the chosen one" stories out there, though? In those, the farm boy generally has to leave the farm to have his adventure. Do you mean you would like to see the characters stay on the farm and never come into...
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