Recent content by D.G. Laderoute

You could do what geologists do and use "lith" as a root for your name, which is taken from the Greek "lithos", which means rock. For instance, a "megalith" is a "large rock", "regolith" is "rock debris", and so on. So, maybe something like "seer-lith" for "seeing rock". Yes, I realize we're...

Really, what this all boils down to is...sure, do whatever you wish. But if your intent is to get published by the "traditional" publishing industry or widely-read by the general reading public, there are some conventions--some "shoulds"--that you ignore at the risk of not selling your work or...

Readers also care about readability. Anything that pulls them out of the story, whether it's excessive use of dialogue tags, overly "purple" or convoluted prose, big dumps of exposition, poor or awkward grammar, etc. is a potential problem for many readers (some won't mind, but others will). It...

Perhaps we can agree on "guidelines", then. I know that in my RPG writing, for example--both fiction and non-fiction, for the Legend of the Five Rings setting--the editors are pretty rigorous about much of the stuff I listed. Likewise my publisher for my own fiction. Maybe the best way to put it...

While you're right that there are no "laws" or "rules" regarding writing, there certainly are general conventions regarding things like creative writing...especially if your objective is to make it sale-able. Now, if you don't care about that, and are just writing for yourself and perhaps some...

Ultimately, you need to decide what your character wants...what motivates them. For example, Frodo wanted to destroy the Ring, while preserving his friends and those he loved. Now, what obstacles stand to prevent your character from realizing what they want. Frodo faced a whole bunch of...

When you use dialogue tags, you should almost always just use "said". The objective is to have the reader play out the conversation in their own imagination, using whatever voices, mannerisms etc. they've assigned to the character...and readers do assign these things to characters, and to your...

What you're describing is essentially a Dyson Sphere, an admittedly science-fictional mega-structure in which a star is completely (or almost completely) enclosed in an artificial sphere; the inner surface receives the star's energy, making it habitable. For example, think a sphere around our...

For me, it's an undue emphasis on a setting that is some variation on medieval/feudal (north)western Europe. This includes including races that are variations on that region's particular mythologies e.g. elves, dwarves, giants, etc. We can thank Tolkien for this (although, to be fair, he was...

Ah, the BBE (TM)...the Big Bad Evil. In my writing gig for the Legend of the Five Rings game setting, the desirability of a BBE to oppose the characters is a matter of much debate. In the original setting for the story (when its IP belonged to the original owner, a company known as AEG), the...

Dusting off my geology degrees here. Mountains are inherently unstable things. They certainly APPEAR solid and eternal, but even within the timeframe of human experience, they're not. Mountain ranges (which tend to occur along the margins of continents where they butt-up against either oceanic...

Going back to my own experience with HUMINT, to be honest, I found that the incoming info from sources was often of only marginal value, and sometimes actually less than useless. I remember a case in which two sources, both considered reliable, gave what amounted to contradictory information...

What many people forget about spies and the information they provide is that, generally, efforts are made to corroborate their information other ways. The trouble with spies is that they're people, and subject to all the things that affect people--they can be lazy, incompetent, careless...

Whatever best serves the story you're telling!

The Ojibway (Aboriginal peoples who live around the upper Great Lakes, in Canada and the U.S.) describe "Missabikong", the "Little Man of Iron" or "...of Stone". He's an obscure and elusive spirit who inhabits "grottoes and unique formations, deep chasms where there was a place suitable for...