Recent content by EMoon

In what way does the character's color matter *to the character in that story*? How does the character's color matter to others in the story? (Esp. any other POV characters, but also consider the culture of your story...how important IS color in that culture?) If you're writing in "this...

My first drafts of novels are usually huge and messy...I throw *everything* into them and sort it out later. Since I don't outline (anything but essays) I don't know what the story's really going to be until a long way into it and even then I need to see the end before doing anything to the...

An aside to this conversation...I did not realize how often I vocalize or subvocalize while writing, mumbling along until something's "right" until I tried to use Dragon Naturally Speaking during an episode of hand pain. If you haven't used Dragon...it does not like the writer/speaker to be...

No matter what kind of villain you make, someone's going to find that character unbelievable. And someone's going to find that character just right. That's pretty much true of every element of your (or any writer's) writing: somebody will hate it, somebody will find it "whatever," and somebody...

A very young point-of-view character can work well in a story that includes more mature POV characters...it gets around the "too young to have much agency" thing. A good example is Cajeiri in Cherryn's FOREIGNER series, which I've been re-reading. He's a very bright, very determined, very...

Oddly enough, the most important thing about creating names is to make them easy to pronounce. By anyone. When I started asking people why they didn't read fantasy, the #1 reason was "those impossible names. I can't keep them in my head because I don't know how to say them." People can't...

Been gone from here and many other SF/F places for a few years, but I'm hoping to be around more in the future. What happened? Stuff. What stuff? You don't want to know...or, if you do, too bad. There's enough misery to go around without pulling a Marley's Ghost and detailing the chain of...

You don't have to know that. When I started what turned into my first three books, I thought I was writing a short story. 75 pages in I knew it wasn't a short story. But for once I kept going because I really wanted to know what next. Somewhere around 200 pages (I think it was--that was...

Hi, Simon. Self-doubt and procrastination are definitely writer traits, so you're on the right track. (It can help not to struggle with them, but to laugh at them--"There's my Imposter Syndrome again. Get off my shoulder, you naughty thing." Not saying that's easy...but it's something just...

Wounds in fiction should have a specific purpose for both the character and the story arc, and then be chosen to fit that need. Why does the ogre need to be wounded? To establish that the enemy is really dangerous? To establish that ogres are not too tough to be hurt? Because the group...

Obligate carnivores can survive without vegetable food, and some obligate carnivores on our world are social and intelligent (differently than humans are, but still.) Think dolphins and the more social whales, wolves, and lions. Social structure is necessary for civilization; a particular...

Funniest research question? Artificial insemination in dogs (if you want to make your vet fall over laughing when you call, ask the vet questions about your fictional animal situations.) Funniest research activities? Talking neighborhood kids into carrying around long cane poles so I could...

Armor needs to be considered in partnership with the weapons being used. Some materials are better protection against blows from blunt weapons, others are better at protection from sharp weapons made of particular materials (e.g., sharp fire-hardened pointed stick v. sharp Toledo steel rapier.)...