Recent content by Letharg

When it comes to my love for fantasy, video games were definitely one of the early influences as many of you have mentioned and, among them, Oblivion stands out. However the Belgariad series will always have a special place in my heart, so much so that I will never reread it for fear of ruining...

Hi! I've chosen NaNoWriMo as a motivator to get back into writing after a way too long writing hiatus. So I'm keeping my goals as modest as possible as to not force myself. Last time, writing got to become a chore, killing any fun I'd felt from it. So this time I'm aiming to keep the passion in...

For me it would be extremely plausible as long as the character is not a hardened killer. Acting in self defence one's adrenaline will be pumping like mad and the mind would go into fight or flight behaviour meaning you would take actions you would never take in other situations. Were you then...

You say that the horror scenes are well paced and feel good but feels almost arbitrarily dropped into the remaining narrative. If the pacing isn't right for the entire story try to examine why that is. For instance, are all the scenes you've written really necessary, do they contribute to the...

Just powering through seems to be working, at least to some extent. I've not been getting much time for writing lately but when I have I've tried to ignore the problem. Still my brain seems geared towards present but at least past does not feel as clunky anymore. At least I'm doing a lot of...

Damn, I really hope this problem won't plague me for months. It's driven me far enough towards insanity as it stands now. I'm usually good at reprogramming my brain but right now it just refuses to remember how to form a flowing prose in past. I can write normal past tense just fine, but not...

Hi fellow scribes! I've run in to an extremely annoying problem. I've been influenced by the books I'm currently reading enough that I can no longer write in past tense. You see the thing is that I've been reading a book written in present tense and also listening to an audiobook in...

1826 words today! Not bad considering the amount of workload I have at the moment but still lagging behind because yesterday yielded zero words. At least the weekend seems to be quite free so I might be able to squeeze some 3000 words out on Saturday and Sunday!

So, I guess the top advice is "Don't do it" closely followed by "If you have to do it, do your research". I should have guessed that there are no easy ways out. Thanks for the advice, I'll be checking those links. I'll also determine a home state for my character and focus on that. Also...

Yeah, I won't fall into that trap. I'm mostly looking for a few words beside profanities (he will use those too, believe me) that could indicate that he's from the south. Maybe there's something that is a typical statement for the southern part of America? Just something everyone associates with...

Hi fellow scribes! In my current WIP I have a criminal character which I need to find a voice for. This is a non PoV so it's not too important to get it perfect but I am looking for a few variations of language that I can have him use. Some background: He's from the southern parts of...

For me, writing a compelling and life like character is all about knowing their background. I don't sketch out their personality so much as I figure out what's happened to them before the events started. I like my characters to come fully formed, with an interesting background and events that...

One novel that immediately pops to mind is Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch, second in the Gentlemen Bastard series. As I remember it, different type of games play a major role in the beginning of the book and are described to quite some detail. Besides the series is actually very good so...

I'm thinking that you need to hint for the reader that the Queen is important before she shows up. I would feel a bit cheated if some important character just turns up out of the blue without having any significance at all before. It might work with what ThinkerX is suggesting but also I would...

I write on a Asus Zenbook ux305 and I'm wholly satisfied. Works well both when used resting on my knees (bus, train), standing, or sitting at a desk. No touchscreen but light to carry, stiff metal chassis, great response from keyboard with spaced keys that allows for easy typing and a great...