June 18. Talk about a time fiction shocked you.
Well, there was the time that my apprentice left a lightning glyph on my copy of Antigone ...
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Klepsis
@Klepsis@indieauthors.social
mastodon 4.7.3R. A. Klepsis, author and Wizard Extraordinaire, spends most of his time at his residence outside of Ilium, where he writes and tends his collection of tiny monsters. He insists that the stories that blame him for inciting the Dragon Wars are very much exaggerated.
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Joined March 15, 2024
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May 24. What do you need in order to finish your current WIP?
I need things around my house to stop breaking.
June 29. Is writing a lonely endeavor for you?
I feel like it should be, but my experience has been that I write more and better when I'm around other writers on a regular basis.
June 13. C&R: Share your biggest writing habit (good or bad).
When I'm being an effective writer, it is because I make time to do it every day.
Everyone: Do you do this too? If not, would you adopt it?
June 20. What of your immediate surroundings enter your work? The seasons, music, dreams?
My house, my garden, my pets. It's my world.
June 21. What do you listen to while you write? (music, silence, a crowded café?)
At some personal risk, I used some modern recording equipment to capture the song of a colony of sirens that lives off of our coast. I find it very soothing and relaxing and can get me in the zone for more reflective or romantic sections. Not very good for action, however.
May 8. What experience can you identify as having made you the writer you are today?
It was probably that dragon. Gave me something to write about.
#WritersCoffeeClub
May 7. Do readers need to understand a character's motivations to understand the story?
So, I'm thinking of one book in particular, that was written in close 1st person, and yet the author concealed some pretty key facts about the protagonist until the very end. I felt like the author pulled a fast one on me, and didn't enjoy the experience.
#Writing #Reading
June 19. What’s your opinion on writing which seeks to imitate a cinematic style?
I've always thought that Nabokov was one of the first to do this. I think it works, usually.
May 20. If not your current genre, what genre would you write?
Most likely I would be composing impenetrable treatises on the theory of magic.
But I'd like to try some Speculative/Science Fiction.
May 18. With whom do you wish you could share your work but can't?
I feel that my old mentor would be delighted to read his grand adventures related in book form.
May 17. If you work exclusively digitally, could you work by hand? (Or vice-versa!)
I really should try writing digitally. It seems to offer a lot of advantages over the pen and paper method I'm used to, particularly for editing.
Of course, I would still have to hand copy the manuscript to deliver it to my publisher, who sadly has not yet adopted the use of arcananet for their business.
25. Share a late-stage change you made to a work.
For my last book, I added an entire sub-plot during editing so I could introduce a new character that will be important in the next book.
And, of course, there was an earlier book that I retitled just before publishing.
June 23. Walk us through how you build a story.
First I try to talk to as many of the people — and other things — that were involved as I can find. Next, I fill up a stack of note cards with all the events, including who was there, and try to figure out a POV for each one. Sometimes I will try to line up all those scenes with some sort of "beat sheet," or if that's hopeless I just try to figure out where the story is. Usually out of that process I cut scenes that don't fit, and sometimes I find that I need other scenes to fill a gap. In those cases, I either need to go and track down the principals again, or maybe just make something up.
May 5. Have you ever taken inspiration from something which could have but didn't happen?
I invented plausible but entirely fictional backstories for a few characters. These inspired how I related their reactions to real events.
May 22. How well would your current WIP work as a play?
Too many set changes.
#WritersCoffeeClub
May 9. Call & Response: Share the first line of your current WIP.
“Listen here, young lady. I was doing undercover work in schools since before you were born!”
Everyone: How enticed are you?
#Writing #WIP
If you are finishing some food, do you eat it right from the container?
June 17. How colourful is your writing?
There is color here and there, but I probably don't use it as often as I should.
May 21. What targets do you set for yourself? To what frequency?
When I'm actually writing, I'll set a per day or per week word goal. For editing, I have a scene-by-scene plan of what needs to be changed.
Lifting Daisies
#FitnessTVShowsOrCartoons
#HashTagGames
May 19. How would changing genre change your current WIP's plot?
The biggest change would be to make it horror. The characters would have to take a lot longer to figure out what is going on, and I'm not sure how I would do that without making them stupid.
@QuasiTemporal do you find that fantasy is more or less limiting than Science Fiction as a genre? #ScribesAndMakers #TTMD
May 6. Talk about something you've written which you expected would (or expect will) divide readers.
I thought _Lair of Tellenioc_ might split the readership due to a morally ambiguous protagonist and sympathetic antagonist. Turns out, though, that everyone just loves the sidekick.
- Have your characters ever visited other planets, asteroids, or stars? #Writephant
They spent some time on the Astral Plane, including sailing a ship to the Astral Moon.
@RedRobyn@mastodon.nz how about bananas?
Replying to
@Aethelstan@mas.to @lilithsaintcrow@raggedfeathers.com apparently, you do. But at least you get a new card every day.
Replying to
@willelm@indieauthors.social another mycelium-based story? Those seem to be popping up like mushrooms lately.
- What is your space hill to die on regarding real life or fiction? #writephant
Balance the energy budget first!!!
Replying to
@ljwrites@writeout.ink @dilmandila@mograph.social @writingbooks@fedigroups.social @bookstodon@fedigroups.social I found the older POV had the experience of loss, being responsible for others, and being less hurried that I read you calling out in the other work. Perhaps I was not quite understanding what you were pointing out.
Replying to
@golgaloth@writing.exchange one of my characters has being lucky as a character trait. He sort of relies on it frequently.
#Writing
- If you were to write a story set in space, what is the first thing that comes to mind for an idea? #Writephant
Put it actually in space — not on a strange planet, not on a spaceship.
Characters must be native space dwellers.
#WritersCoffeeClub
May 1: Workers' Day — What can we do to support and protect other writers, not only now, but in the future as well?
I think buying books as directly as possible, giving as little as possible to extractive platforms.
Second would be supporting libraries.
#Writing #ActivistAuthors
#WritersCoffeeClub
April 25: Share your current biggest creative frustration.
Having a hard time getting the enemies to stop sniping at each other and start loving.
#Writing #WritingCommunity
Replying to
@QuasiTemporal it is English derived from Latin, which in some contexts means "spray" but usually means "rod" or "branch"
#WritersCoffeeClub
April 29: Share the best sentence you wrote this month.
"Orcs are just regular people with funny teeth."
#Writing
Whether you are celebrating #WinterSolstice or #SummerSolstice, a book makes a great gift for that special being in your life.
Replying to
Replying to
@lowqualityfacts@mstdn.social if it isn't roomy enough, just wait. You'll start to shrink before too long
Replying to
@Aoi_X_Kaizaki@mastodon.social if you started with Arc-0 I would know you write software