One of my pet peeves with humans is that they deny each other agency. The “I’m not going to tell her to protect her” trope is ridiculously common in fiction and it’s not uncommon in real life. Everyone has agency. They should be allowed to make their own decisions, even (or perhaps “especially”) if IContinue reading “Agency”
Tag Archives: books
No Plot
I wondered if it would come up. It did. There is no plot in the first half of the book. This is not exactly by-design, but it’s not accidental, either. There is a “theme”, but that’s not the same thing. Our intrepid heroes don’t have a goal. They’re not intrepid heroes, yet. They’re just twoContinue reading “No Plot”
Axis Orientation
I’ve found it useful to envision human behavior as set of rotated normal curves. Pick some attribute and incorrectly assume a normal distribution of it. Now spin that curve around its peak. You get a normal “mound”. Each individual attribute is its own curve. The mound is all of them together. We’re each a pointContinue reading “Axis Orientation”
Chapter 18 Shall Submit
That’s the weekend goal. It need four scenes. Updated with what actually happened. Done. Some monster needs to be killed, hacked into bits, and the best parts brought back for dinner. That sentence, with “ZZZ” in front of it, is all there is. Most of the monsters have been mutated existing things. Maybe it’s timeContinue reading “Chapter 18 Shall Submit”
Evening Narrator Hunting
The narrator can be difficult to spot in the crepuscular gloaming. There is a point to this, two actually: To list the one’s that I’ve caught and to justify what I leave behind. I’m not necessarily “right”, but I will have a reason. …let’s get back to the lodge, eat something, then we can figureContinue reading “Evening Narrator Hunting”
LitRPG and Omniscient Narrator
Research time! My narrator talks. I _think_ this is genre standard, but I need to do some checking on when and where. The fight scenes are all 3rd person. One does not see the fights from our intrepid hero’s perspective. The narrator speaks during fights. This is standard. Bloody but unbowed, our intrepid hero doveContinue reading “LitRPG and Omniscient Narrator”
AI Slop and Buggy Whips
This one is my introspection, not my characters. The great and powerful YouTube algorithm presented LughDJ to me. I’m not a huge fan of club music, but it’s high energy. I like having the fake shirtless men dancing on the side of my screen when I look away from the text I’m writing. This isContinue reading “AI Slop and Buggy Whips”
Introspection
I swear that I have some sort of sleep disorder. I was tired last night, so I went to bed an hour early. I’m now awake; two and a half hours early. Anyway, this is not about my introspection. It’s about character introspection. Our intrepid squad (although they’re not known as that, yet) has beenContinue reading “Introspection”
Publishing Schedule
Chapters 16 and 17 are “done”. 18, 19, 20 are half-ish. The rest are a paragraph, at most. However, fighting with fonts made me wonder: When could I get this published? My plan is to have the first and second ready-to-upload done before pressing the button on #1. The third will be written before theContinue reading “Publishing Schedule”
Consider Leaving It Out?
A status update while Monday morning coffee takes effect. Somewhere in the giant mass of posts about writing, I mentioned that I often lose interest in a series around book 10. After some introspection, I realized that this is usually when the “our intrepid hero” story becomes too broad, complicated, and political. I’m finding thatContinue reading “Consider Leaving It Out?”
