Recent content by Ayaka Di'rutia

The elves of my fantasy world (whose real race name is "Unia'a", meaning "stone-weaver," and "elf" is more of a slang term, and some elven races have different names for themselves) have different ethnicities and cultures; while there's a fair share of fair-skinned elves, there's an elven...

I once started reading a book that had no introduction, and was scene-scene-scene-etc., with little to no let-up for me as a reader to digest the characters. I felt like I was dropped into the middle of a story, which middle should have actually been in the middle of the book. It was terrible...

Centaurs in my fantasy universe stand out a lot from the others. There are seven main races; six walk on two legs and have very similar organ structure, even if they appear different from the outside. My centaurs, on the other hand, have two hearts, two pairs of lungs, two stomachs, etc...

I've read some of your posts on this site (I know, I'm such a stalker), and I can understand some of your hard feelings. I once replied on a thread that had turned controversial, and I simply didn't go back to look at any replies, because I knew it would probably make me angry or hurt my...

I also enjoy listening to Two Steps From Hell. Globus, Audiomachine, and Loreena McKennitt are also helpful to me :)

Most of the time I just use "cursed" or "swore," along with a descriptive word or phrase, such as "explosively," "viciously," or "with spit flying out of her mouth." (The latter of which I can see with the character falling on her face.) Let the reader fill in what cursing and swearing might be...

I like longer, more descriptive prose that presents the characters, world, and plot in an interesting and flowing way. I don't like purple prose, though, when the author is obsessively getting off-topic trying to fit in a lot of description.

I'm pretty sure I'll be dead before I finish writing all the books I want in my major fantasy series.

I'm reading Dragonwitch by Anne Elisabeth Stengl. It's the 5th book in her Tales of Goldstone Wood series. It's not her best work so far, but I'm going to keep reading and see where it goes.

The situation you describe would certainly be an interesting plot twist. I'm not sure if it's one I would like, unless the character was able to find some sort of redemption from their past, but it would be interesting. Reminds me of the tragic irony in Oedepus. A different situation, but it...

My go-to narrative is past tense, third-person limited, although if the scene situation demands it, I'll do third-person omniscient. (This is a very rare situation.) I find third person limited to be the best way for me to present several different characters while building on them and the...

I'm with Tom on this. However, you can still have your dragons contain a special energy that can be transferred by some means, and it doesn't have to be magical means. You could really go off the wall and have it so people have to eat a dragon's scale in order to gain some of that dragon's...

I'm with Giya on her view about sex in literature. I consider it sacred as well, and it shouldn't be lightly portrayed. It just becomes porn when it's described in detail. When I include sex in my books, I may do some foreplay, and then do a fade to black sort of thing; I don't describe...

You could draw a title from a theme/themes in your story, or symbols and metaphors you may have. One series I drafted I drew part of the titles from the formal title of the main character, and then added a noun to it that represented the main objective of each of the stories. The...

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