Writing – Marked Up

Impulsive Anger

I’ve finally figured out what irritates me so much about Cultivation books: The cultivators spend so much time, effort, and pain doing all sorts of complicated techniques to grow stronger, but as soon they feel insulted – legitimately or not – all that discipline flies out the window and they fly into an impulsive rage.Continue reading “Impulsive Anger”

Justification

Humans are really good at justifying themselves – especially to their own self. We all do it. The one that drives me nuts is “if I don’t kill this guy, my kid will suffer.” That’s all well and good when “this guy” is a knife-wielding maniac attacking your kid. It’s more than a bit differentContinue reading “Justification”

Obstacles

A story is basically a description of how the intrepid hero overcomes the obstacles between him and his goal. I have not been explicitly writing down the obstacles. That shall change. In my OutlineThingy document, I have the cross-chapter arcs and the chapter goals. I have not written down the obstacle. I will now toContinue reading “Obstacles”

Integration

I haven’t been writing of late because I’m trying to figure out what happens in book two because it affects how book one ends – and I’m getting close. The biggest problem is that I’ve apocalpysed Earth and granted people superpowers, but governments do not go quietly. For every intrepid werewolf, there are fifty superpoweredContinue reading “Integration”

Redemption Interrupted

This is an interesting story arc: The usual redemption arc continues until redemption. Getting halfway there and going off the rails back to the original personality is probably far more common in real life, but it’s very unusual in fiction. I haven’t gotten to the “Ends badly” step, yet, but I’ve read the April seriesContinue reading “Redemption Interrupted”

The Fenris Effect

Not the self-fulfilling prophecy part. I’m not sure if my universe will have prophecy/divination or not, yet, but I really don’t like it. Dune did a good job with it, so it is possible. I just don’t like the idea of it. It makes the future and free will weird. I’m talking about the “I’mContinue reading “The Fenris Effect”

Specific and Particular 2

Yet another “two”. They may not be AI indicators. The most recent book I read used “particular” a lot. Perhaps it’s regional? British maybe? There were also a few “sorted” as in “resolved/straightened out”. Americans don’t say that. There were enough Archmage Reborn that they caught my attention, but I didn’t make explicit note ofContinue reading “Specific and Particular 2”

Intra-Chapter Breaks 2

See! There’s always a second one. This is an example of what I’m doing: Using a small image as the intra-chapter break. The question is: Do I have the same background problem? That’s from the PC Kindle Reader (which gets worse with every release). I have the theme set to Sepia. It’s obvious the backgroundContinue reading “Intra-Chapter Breaks 2”

Drawing a Line

But where? The problem with non-standard fonts is that the data must be put somewhere. What’s the data? Who knows? That could be a rendered bitmap or the entire font. Where is somewhere? Who knows? That could be embedded in the book itself or it could be a reference to AWS data, which makes theContinue reading “Drawing a Line”

Magic is Hard

Marcy has already noticed this. The specific problem now is momentum. I’ve made the decision that magic manifests wherever the caster wants it to (and can “reach”). This is dandy if you want to fry someone with plasma. It’s less dandy with things that need momentum. For Marcy, that would be something such as anContinue reading “Magic is Hard”