Recent content by Mytherea

I write under a pen name 'cause my first name is difficult to spell/pronounce if you're not Welsh and my last name is common as dirt. My first initial and last name is my other persona/hat as an illustrator, so that identity's taken (also, still common as dirt). There's another fantasy writer...

I couldn't get into Red Sister, myself. I found the number of PoV shifts at the beginning a little too frenetic, and since I wasn't familiar with the world, it gave me a sort of readerly whiplash. Totally unmoored, and couldn't get attached to any of the characters since they zipped past so...

This is going to be a ridiculously long post. Thirding Svrt; not impossible, but something that requires time, effort, and dedication. And seconding Heliotrope: write lots (but I'll get back to that). First and foremost though: read. Or, rather, immerse yourself in and learn the patterns of...

Just finished a reread of The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (one of my favorites) and am now starting Uprooted by Naomi Novik (which I'm very much enjoying).

Messaged you with the title.

All right, so 'cause this thread says vent, I shall vent. Sooo, in my browsing through agents and such on querytracker, I came across a success interview and fell in love with the query. Everything about it screamed "totally up my alley." This was exactly the kind of book I'd read to absolute...

Just started The Waking Fire by Anthony Ryan. Never read any of his stuff before, so I'm hoping to avoid the "it's not like his other series" complaint that seems most prevalent on Goodreads. So far, I'm liking the merging of an almost steampunk-Victorian technological level, magic, secondary...

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. It's gone and devoured my free time. As part of the download bundle, I got the soundtrack, so it's now my working/writing music, too.

Coming in way late to this, but the big SF/F workshops are Odyssey, Clarion, Clarion West, and Viable Paradise. There are many, many smaller workshops out there though that may be way more convenient price- and location-wise. I'd been planning on applying to Odyssey if I didn't get into my MFA...

Just on tenses, if the story is in past tense, I'd say use past perfect (Laughing, he had said/he had kissed her) to establish that, until otherwise stated, the following takes place before the present. I'd say you shouldn't have to keep using the past perfect once that's established, though you...

Reading a selection of Sherlock Holmes short stories and The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley.

So. I can't tell you the why's of description or the reasons why one description works better than another--I'm not that smart--but I can give you a few exercises that might help. I'm assuming the issue you're having is describing things vividly so that they feel real, right? 1. Grab one of...

I've got a theory--or, rather, a few theories--of what might cause this, and none of 'em is based on anything like empirical evidence, so there's that. One, like Night Gardener and FifthView said, it might be that something about those themes, characters, or situations speaks to you. Maybe...

So...do you want to change it? Or does it still interest you? Or is this more of a question of why this sort of thing occurs? Just seeking clarification.

I mostly read fantasy (high fantasy, epic fantasy, urban fantasy, historical fantasy--you name it), a little science fiction (mostly space opera), a little horror, certain varieties of paranormal romance, certain varieties of mysteries (particularly historical mysteries set prior (or just prior)...