aithne | Oct. 29th, 2007

(I wrote this a while back, but found it again this morning. The challenge, for those writers among us: what ten things have you learned about writing?)

1. If your characters are incapable of surprising you, they're not real enough.

2. Details always end up mattering more than you think they will.

3. There is no such thing as enough research. Eventually, you have to stop researching and write, but you will never, ever feel as though you've done enough research.

4. It's a fatal error to stop reading while you're writing. Even if it *is* really damned tempting. (I learn this one over and over again.)

5. Infodumping is not a nice thing to do to readers. Avoid the temptation.

6. You have to tell the story that wants to be told. I didn't really set out to write two books that between them total nearly 600k words (thus rendering them probably unsaleable as a first-time author), but that was the story that wanted to be told.

7. You have to know the rules of English grammar, style, and punctuation. Only then can you break them with impunity, secure in the knowledge that your rule-breaking isn't just sloppy work but instead a way of letting your story breathe.

8. Everyone says it, but it's very true: write every day.

9. There are three friends that every writer really needs to have: one friend who loves everything you write, one who can serve as a sounding board for your ideas, and one with an editor's brain who can nitpick things for you. Treasure these friends and treat them well.

10. In the end, you are writing for an audience of one: yourself. Write the books and stories and poems you want to read.

This is the "Icon-Explaining Meme" (one of many that's been going around). Comment here and I'll pick 7 of your icons; you explain here or in your LJ what they mean to you and why you're using them.

gloriajn asked me about these!

This is my icon for Nascha, of Spiritwalkers. Nascha means owl in Navajo, so I used an owl to represent her. It turned out to be appropriate that I used a barn owl instead of a great horned owl; barn owls are silent fighters, and when taken down they slash with beak and talons. Nascha was one of those characters who didn't precisely look light a fighter, but she surely had the heart of one.
This is a screencap from 300, of the scene when Leonidas comes on a Spartan town that has been burned and its inhabitants slaughtered. Those are corpses hanging from that tree. Used when rage is really the only appropriate response.
This is Ayame, from Shadows and Silk. This is a snippet from the scroll that depicts the story of the attack on Sanjo Palace that happens suring the story; a real historical event. This young woman I found in one of the top margins; she's obviously female, and either a noblewoman or a courtesan, as she has a maid hovering by her looking anxious. In the original, she is kneeling in front of a figure who is probably male, and has either a red silk robe on or is in the middle of bleeding to death. It's left up to interpretation as to whether the young woman is about to be raped by the man, if she's his wife or mistress and she's mourning his imminent demise, or if she just killed him.

Because it's Ayame, and because Ayame is one of the most ruthless killers I've ever written, I choose to believe the latter.
I use this and several other icons for Sleepless Streets; the text comes from 1,001 things Mr. Welch can no longer do during an RPG. I tend to use this one when Martin's having an exasperated day. "Sarcastic good" is not an actual D&D alignment, though it probably ought to be.

The setting of Sleepless Streets is cheerfully anachronistic and kind of metagame-y; it's what I love about it.
Kyrith! Kyrith is a Minoan double-bladed greataxe; this picture is of an artifact found on Crete, where Guardian's Road takes place.

Kyrith belongs to Theron, the long-suffering Guardian of Porta who's the protagonist of that story.
This is Yesui, the Silent, of Shades of the Silent; she's a Mongolian sort-of-princess, one of the daughters of Ghengis Khan. She's wearing a traditional Mongolian headdress, what she would have worn if she'd ever been, you know, not out being a scout for dear old dad.

I'm very fond of Yesui and her ghosts (the "Shades" of the title). She didn't have any serious angst until the end due to her cheerful and hopeful nature; but when it hit, it hit hard.