Hey guys, if you find interesting writing-related articles, you can send them here. It’s a form.
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I like this. Some traditionally published authors I follow like MG fantasy author Catherine Doyle rarely talk about their personal life. I really don’t need to know everything about Catherine Doyle because what I want from her is books. The books make her, the author, valuable to me. It would be fun if she did a “five facts about me” post, but frankly, I don’t care 
I want the art 
Here’s a case where art and author are being sold together. There’s an indie author I follow who had a unique experience in Rome and turned that into a fictional story with romance. I started following her when she first joined IG and first started writing the book. So, it was interesting to hear about her personal experiences in Rome because it relates to the book and many things in the book actually happened to her. That’s a case where her and her art (the book) are being sold together in a good way, I suppose.
But I realized because they’re being sold together, she can’t divert from that easily. Her book came out last autumn, I think. She’s still talking about Rome today because now it’s stuck to her. It’s her brand. Idk if she’s ever going to write another book, but I feel like it would be hard for her to move away from Rome after she’s built up a fanbase of people expecting Rome content from her.
I think social media both helps and hurts authors
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Yes! Someone on Goodreads once said that reading is an intimate relationship between a reader and a book, not between the reader and the author, and that’s so true imho.
I think too many writers today have a fantasy about being worshiped like Jane Austen, having clubs and museums devoted to them and a fanbase that wants to know every little thing about their lives. Social media seems to have fanned the flames of rampant narcissism or something. (♯^.^ღ)
Unfortunately, those are the writers who tend to succeed since they’re always in your face, so a lot of people decide to check out their books to see what the big deal is. And because they succeed, the rest of us are told we have to do the same thing if we want to succeed, but there has to be a better way. (ノ_<、)ヾ(´▽｀)
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You could write a mahjong match that lasts 21 years in real time.
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I realized I didn’t tell you I read the entire article It took a while to get to the part about writers that I almost thought I was reading something completely different by mistake and checked the link several times XD
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@NotARussianBot Hey, thanks for the mythcreants article about magic and plot. That was interesting. The video will be coming in…idk, but it will be XD Are you subscribed? I’ve been suddenly getting a little more traction on my channel which is interesting.
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Oh yeah, @MatthewJH I finally critiqued your first two chapters. I loved that beach scene, btw.
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I might have to double check but I will be sure to supply you with more from Mythcreants. Do you want to cover videoes in the future?
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I can’t cover videos I tried all kinds of things, but videos is a bit difficult for my setup. I did think about it though. Idk if I will in the future. I think there’s more than enough articles out there.
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I was just asking, it can be distracting to cover videos if the video quality is poor.
I have seen video essays with glitching green screens, for example.
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I wish I had a setup in my room where I could make a green screen situation work, but I don’t have that kind of space So, either I suck it up and show my room, or keep being faceless.
I did figure out I could play a video and do a voice over commentary, but that means I’m playing someone’s entire video which I’m not sure YouTube will like I can’t figure out how to put my face on the screen while doing a reaction either and even if I could, I don’t have a green screen so…
Anyway, the new article you sent, from the title in the URL alone, looks interesting. I really don’t look at articles beforehand. It really is a blind reaction 
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Thank you.
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What part of what story are you working on now?
I know what some of you are doing like @Churro @Qualeshia12 and a little bit @alenatenjo but not so much others like @Akje or @JojoDahlia and some newer faces who showed up recently like @EmiliaFrost though I did get some glimpses like I get from @NatilladeCoco on my Out of Context thread. I won’t tag everyone
Come answer if you’re working on something.
I finished editing Between Roses, so to avoid looking at it as it’s at my editor’s place, I’m going to be working on a new story while editing Alive At Dawn.
It’s going to be about a dragonoid prince who has to return a stolen crown jewel to the human kingdom as the last attempt to make peace with them. Meanwhile, the human world is celebrating. All fantasy creatures have become friends…except the great dragon king who didn’t want anything to do with humans. All monsters have been killed…except the great dragon king which no one has wanted to accept as a quest because killing a dragon doesn’t give rewards other than the title “dragon killer”.
So, a band of misfits (and two unwilling souls) are going to go on the last quest of the world to kill the dragon king. Maybe they’re laughed at and shunned, and also no one believes they will succeed. Maybe some old lady writes their obituaries beforehand and one of them says, “Why don’t we see who dies first? Us or you.” and the old lady says, “I’m not THAT old!” someone chimes in “I’ll bet three rubies she goes first.” she says again, “I’m not THAT ol–” voice drowned out by someone’s off-tune trumpet?
heh
My idea is that something happens and they get separated into two parties. One party meets the dragonoid prince who saves their lives. They don’t know he’s the prince. He doesn’t know they’re on a quest to kill his father. They end up becoming friends…and then…
Who knows what will happen though because I’m a pantser
Anyway, what part of what story are you working on now? Let’s chat 
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I’m trying to hash out a new idea and painfully attempting to get this one onto paper. I’m notorious for getting stuck in the opening scene purgatory. That first chapter is always the hardest. I’m a plotter at heart but a pantser in reality. So, that being said I’ve been changing and rewriting the same opening to that cursed chapter for the last three days. I just can’t decide on anything.
The concept is extremely young still and came out of a joke about writing an entirely satire piece about all of the overused tropes in YA/ new adult fantasy romance then at some point decided to add some dark romance tropes. Where a totally normal girl gets thrown into a very dramatic, and too realistic version of her favorite saucy books. Where she’s quickly realizing she doesn’t actually dig the fae in shining armor who has a…cough impressive weapon. That she is not suited for the heroine lifestyle. And 100% likes the villain a little too much instead. Which one thing led to another, I got a little too attached to certain characters…and now I’m pretty invested in turning that into a serious story not just a joke. But those may very well be the only details that haven’t changed lol.
As it currently stands the specifics are along the line of the protagonist, Eliza dies suddenly, and instead of her soul going to the afterlife she gets lost along the way and ends up in another realm as a moroi (a restless immortal spirit that’s regained a physical body and feeds off the life force of others). Scared and extremely confused she ends up crossing paths with Prince Caspian a noble fae lord who was returning from a siege. She is not amused to find out she’s fallen into her very own fantasy story. Nor is it everything the protagonists in her books make it out to be. But then again, he may be the only person willing to help her return home, or at the very least find a way to be put to rest. Until she has a run in with a mysterious necromancer with a thing for causing chaos and a reputation for being a vicious monster. He is incredibly set on making sure she doesn’t go anywhere. And potentially the only person knows how to free her.
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Is Between Roses your Alice in Wonderland book? If so, that was pretty fast! Good on you. I definitely need to write faster, but it’s so hard to focus with so many little annoyances here. (ノ_<、)ヾ(´▽｀)
As for your next book, I’m totally kicking myself that I’m not writing a dragon book myself with the sudden success of House of the Dragon and Fourth Wing. I’ve missed yet another trend. Argh. ﾍ( ´Д`)ﾉ
As for what I’m writing, it’s still my What if Jane Austen wrote Song of Achilles? book. The two main characters have just graduated from a fictionalized version of Sandhurst and have been sent on their first mission: to quell a peasant revolt near the school. I honestly have no idea how they’re going to do that. (♯^.^ღ)
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My current focus is writing at least one more short story for a contest before the deadline (July 15). The short story collection itself focuses on the adventures of a spider-lady wizard I’ve been itching to write for a while, and its been fun working with the prompts. As for her current adventure/short story, it’ll be based on a prompt where the character encounters a hellcat, so we’ll see where it goes from there.
As for the main project, its been stuck on a scene where Marta is on her “work-mandated vacation” day and figuring out what she wants to do. Her boss forced her to take a break because Marta still has a busted hand that needs healin’. Marta being Marta, of course, isn’t actually going to take a break and will very likely try to push her own murder investigation along without Diego (who is currently busy with orphanage duties as part of his payment for staying there). Re-reading the scenes before that should help with writing it, I hope. Its real close to hitting the 30k word milestone I set for myself at the start of the year too.
Also your dragon prince story sounds awesome 
totally no bias for dragons, no sir
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Depends on which story 
I’ve started editing The Lost Galaxy, have finished plotting Planet Number 9 but am yet to start, and am writing 2 parts of Queen of Darkness (one of the preludes and chapter 2).
The Lost Galaxy and Planet Number 9 are two short stories that serve as preludes and/or side adventures to Inter-Universal Protectors. Oh, spoiler warnings for if you want to read the book summaries below
The Lost Galaxy
TLG is the telling of what my characters call the “Hetsipara incident” where Amneris destroyed an entire galaxy because, and I quote, “a sun was trying to eat her”. Her Courtiers make fun of her for the incident and she always gets annoyed when they do so this is explaining why it’s so believable she’d do something like that while also showing why people might think she’s exaggerating
Planet Number 9
PN9 isn’t necessarily mentioned in the main series but it might come up later. Sumerian Mythology mixed with conspiracy theories. Amneris crash-lands on Nibiru in the middle of a war and ends up helping the “good guys” send Kurios back to the Prison in the Underworld. It’s a lot harder than it sounds and this is one of very few villains Amneris doesn’t defeat, so much so that she’s told by the “good guys” that it would be best if she never returned to that world.
Queen of Darkness
QOD is the third novel in IUP.
So, the Forgotten War is “over” and there’s an uneasy peace between the Lyriumians and Terpolites. The Terpolites hate their current leader Tara because she freed the Dark King and caused a lot of lives to be lost. But now because no one has claimed the power of darkness, Terpola is falling apart. So Amneris, Tara, the Courtiers and a few friends and frenemies (Kek!), and Amneris’ brother (yes we finally get the sibling antics :joy) start searching for the new Ruler of Terpola to take on the power of darkness to save the world.
At the same time, QOD sets up the spinoff series The Photon Cycle. This is the first book in IUP where Hathor (Amneris’ daughter) takes on a main character role as she navigates her final year at the Academy and finally gets her powers (and boy does THAT cause issues because she ends up with one of the Forbidden Magics, among other things).
Also at the same time as these two storylines, we finally meet Xix (aka the Ruler Amneris and Tara are searching for) who just happens to be travelling with one of the secondary characters of books 1 and 2 (Ema) Anyway, they get dragged into the plot when Hathor is kidnapped by the bad guys and go to rescue her because Xix knows how to find the hidden world she was taken to.
FINALLY when these storylines converge, the gang heads off to stop Aurelia and Nephthys (the villains) from trying to restart the Age of Darkness that was stopped at the end of book 2. They have to go through 4 trials to reach an ancient, mythological power that only certain powers grant access to (which conveniently belong to the MCs ). Trials of the Serpent, Light-Eaters, Twin Paths and the Eternal.
This eventually leads to the prophecy mentioned at the start of the book being accomplished and we get a glimpse of one of said MCs in the past or future at the Endfires now that their fate is sealed
Oh, and Tara leaves the God Worlds with Liam so this is the last time we see those two in the entire series.
There are other revelations of course such as new family members, ancient magics, reincarnation, soul magics, glimpses of the future, the first meeting of one of the First Beings, more insight into the lore of the God Worlds, and small look at what happened in the final battle between the First Queen of Lyriumia and the First King of Terpola.
Yeah book 3 is going to take a while
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I’ve been going over chapter one and two, attempting to amend the issues you spotted. I decided to answer your main concerns, and points of interest, here in no apparent order.
Chapter One queries
When Lander replies with “Next time” it’s an example of his Israeli / Jewish (gallows) humour. Implying the next time Dov is Lander’s patient, he will leave Dov with some nice scars for Krista to admire.
Dov was a stranger to Krista and Polanski before they met at the airport, the reason for Krista’s interrogation of Dov during their car trip.* And Krista soon decides to make Dov her friend, without giving Dov a say in the matter. Despite her small stature, Krista has a forceful personality. Polanski doesn’t interfere because she knows Krista can handle herself, and Krista is quite safe with Dov…not too sure about Dov’s safety though…**
*In Israel, strangers are never strangers for long ~ The Israelis, by Donna Rosenthal.
*Israel is a social country; everyone knows everything about everyone ~ The Start-Up Nation, by Dan Senor.
**Some women are more dangerous than shotguns ~ The Godfather film.
Dov agrees to talk about his painful memories as a reward for Krista’s apology, and to reciprocate her affection (and maturity). Also, Polanski asked Dov to give Krista a mitzvah. A great favour to be repaid later. Dov doesn’t need to talk about his past with Lander, because the doctor knows everything in clinical detail (Lander repaired Dov’s rocket injuries).
Oh, Dov and Polanski don’t seem overly fussed about Freyja because there’s little left in the world to surprise them and, in mild shock of the news about Freyja, they reverted back to their special forces training: don’t think about the past, think about what to do next. Krista’s also constantly coercing Dov to be close to Freyja, and plotting for him to be pre-occupied with the girls, in the hope that Dov won’t have enough time to think about the past, and begin to doubt his decisions.*** And Krista has some other reasons too.
***I have orders to follow, thank God. That poor devil’s riding the whirlwind ~ Lawrence of Arabia film.
Chapter Two queries
Krista’s open and increasing affection towards Dov is mostly due to her Israeli culture (a very passionate and tactile society*), her deciding that Dov is “one of the good ones” and worthy of being her friend (Israelis tend to make snap decisions about strangers), and she doesn’t want Dov to stress out about his tasks with Freyja or his new life. Freyja, and the others, should often see a happy Dov.
*And may the Gods help anyone who crosses them.
The car scene ends with Freyja clambering back onto Dov’s lap, returning to the position Freyja awoke to…huddled in Dov’s lap with his arms wrapped around her…The “their” in that passage refers to Dov and Freyja.
Krista’s parents are both mercenaries, and she was raised among Karen’s mercenaries. Krista has countless secrets, and she’s kept all of them. Very un-Israeli though.** Dov is also good at keeping secrets, most of his third tour is classified.
**In Israel, a secret is a piece of information you tell one person at a time ~ The Israelis, by Donna Rosenthal.
Dr Lander trusts Polanski on Karen’s recommendations.
When wading through the surf, Dov is holding Freyja’s shoulder / armpit to control her balance and to act as an anchor point with minimal force. Grasping Freyja’s elbow would be too unwieldy / distracting for Freyja.
Oh, and the Israelis made bending (if not breaking) rules a national sport…Lander broke dozens of medical laws by creating Freyja, and by mending Dov’s arm…Also, most of what Karen’s mercenaries do is illegal (but necessary), so no one is going to question Krista’s drinking habit. Especially not on Shabbat eve. All is forgiven on Shabbat ~ Karen.
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I just realised I have missed or will miss several opportunities in my current batch of chapters (drafts included) to add character background or context info to my main cast, especially Krista.
Current plan to drip-feed more info about Krista to Dov and Freyja, and the readers…
Chapter 3:
When Dov awakes on the floor of Krista’s room, after an impromptu sleep-over, he will notice several framed academic awards arranged along the wall beside Krista’s bed.
Dov can’t determine what the awards are for, they’re printed in Hebrew and Cyrillic, so he assumes they’re the usual study achievements and that Krista is highly educated. A theory further supported by Krista’s (solid oak) bookcase filled with hardback editions of classical European literature and historical publications (again, Dov can only understand a few of the books’ titles). When the girls awake, Dov quickly becomes preoccupied with other issues and tasks.
Dov also noticed a dust-covered Amati violin case on top of Krista’s bookcase, but he never got a chance to talk about it…well, not in this chapter…
Chapter 4:
When Dov is volunteered to move Krista’s bookcase, in preparation for Freyja moving into Krista’s room, he could ask if Krista wants to retrieve her violin before the bookcase is shuffled over. As Dov reaches for the violin, Krista pleads for Dov not to touch it. Polanski assures Dov the violin is fine where it is. Polanski explains Krista stopped playing her violin two years ago, but it still holds considerable sentimental value. Dov decides to let the matter rest (for now), and moves the bookcase with extreme care (lest the precious violin and the memories associated with it are disturbed).
Chapter 5:
After spending the morning practicing on the mercenaries’ obstacle course, Freyja’s cybernetic brain begins to connect some dots. In the girls’ room, as Krista is measuring Freyja for new tailored clothes (with Dov’s assistance*), including some fitness attire for her Commando training (with Dov and the mercs), Freyja asks if the awards along Krista’s wall are for athletics and fighting (martial arts). Freyja can read the awards’ titles and their small print but she doesn’t understand what the titles refer to…Krav Maga, Taekwondo, Kali, it’s all French to Freyja…Krista responds that some of her awards are for martial arts, some are for athletics and gymnastics, but most are for languages and academic study (dull book stuff).
*Dov had been ‘recruited’ by Krista to help with Freyja’s measuring, as Freyja is too tall and her reach is too long for Krista to accurately measure alone…and Krista can’t resist another chance to tease and torment Dov (peculiar signals of affection and friendship)…
Freyja then asks why Krista doesn’t have any recent awards for martial arts, as Krista remains exceptionally athletic and agile (as proven on the obstacle course). Krista grudgingly admits she was banned from competitions two years ago. A senior student, Krista’s competition opponent, made a less than elegant remark about Krista’s close relationship with her brother. The unpleasant wordsmith stumbled off the mat two minutes later with a fractured eye socket, broken elbow and dislocated shoulder (torn ligaments aplenty).
Dov asks about Krista’s brother as she had not mentioned him before. Krista become dejected and replies her brother was in the Paratroopers, he fought in the last Gaza war (2014), and he didn’t return. Dov asks for her brother’s name, and Krista replies with Gur. Freyja recognises Gur is also the name of Krista’s giant ornate teddy bear. Krista comments the bear was the last gift Gur gave her.
Dov notices tears filling Krista’s eyes and snatches her up in a crushing hug (also hiding Krista’s tears from Freyja). Dov whispers an apology for upsetting Krista, and Krista claims she will punish him later (for ruining the girls’ joyful mood). Now, Dov must allow the girls to measure him, for future trips to the tailor and to test Freyja’s anatomy knowledge. And Dov cannot respond to Krista’s guidance / commentary, or her wandering tape measure.
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Working on my mcs for my new Shounen Battle Story…Joy, Blythe, and Serenity.
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