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Showing posts from July, 2021

A Brainstorm on the Villain of Renzhies: An Interview With Rezh (spoilers)

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At all hours of the day and night, I was thinking hard of what to do with Sizhirin once Rezh caught up to him. ME: What am I supposed to do? This man has done so much wrong to Rezh. Something must be done. Should they have a huge fight? REZH: No. ME: Why not? REZH: Because I hate his guts. ME: Well, what do you want to do? REZH: I just wanna beat his brains in! Crush him! Turn him to paste! ME: Couldn't you do that during your big fight? REZH: No. You'll see how it works. You know you'd like to do that to him, too. Just let your feelings go. Don't hold back. ME: So, no technical stuff at all? REZH (smiling): None. ME: I think I like it. REZH: I knew you would.

Celebrating a Finished Project

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I have re-written an entire section that I'd been working on for these last weeks. I am almost to the end of book three. When I get there, I'm going to have a celebration. I like throwing little celebrations after working through a draft, or finishing a short story. There's something lovely in it. It doesn't tell me my writing is special because I already know it is. It doesn't give me something to look forward to, because writing is not a chore for me. A celebration for a finished project is like celebrating the birth of a wonderful little child. I am celebrating its existence and the joy it gives me.

Plotting or Pantsing

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A plotter is a person who plots out their story, they outline it, they make the character arcs, and it's quite a meticulous and clean way of doing things. It also saves a lot of time. A pantser is a person who just makes it all up as they go along. A lot of times, most of the time, there's a lot of re-writing that has to be done and plot holes that have to be addressed. I started out as a pantser, but it really did take up a lot of time. One day, I decided to go the plotting way. It ended up that my pantser side was able to run freely as I plotted. I was able to go back to what I had plotted when I found a hole and just scratch a big X over what I didn't want. This saved time as opposed to going into the writing itself and having to delete hours of work. Plotting also helped me to remember what dialogue I wanted for certain parts. I also plotted inside a notebook and not on the computer. This saved my eyes some needless blue ray light. I could take my notebook anywhere I wa

New Character Arcs

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After I implemented the revamped villain, there were two characters that gained major character arcs that gave them more depth and fleshed them out. It was a natural feature that appeared. As the story goes along, the two characters develop without anything seeming forced. They also provide juicy scenes that weren't there before. This was a good thing since the two characters are major to the storyline and to the main character. The pair also will provide a nice kick near the end of the story that will relate to the villains in "Nri Kryne" and "Renzhies." I'm not going to reveal what that is at all while book 3 is under construction. The character arcs for this pair is now under construction and may take me the rest of the week to work out. Some of the things will happen near the end of the book, so I will plot those out in my notebook and save them for when I get to that point. That should be pretty quick since the portion of the book before those parts is

Villains

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I've noticed that a lot of people, especially in movies, try to outdo their previous villain, and then completely botch the job. I have decided that I'm not going to do that, as in, I'm not going to try and outdo my previous villains. I want each villain to stand on their own, have their own personalities and work with the powers and resources at their disposal. For book three's villain, I have found that he is quite different from the villains in book 1 and 2, and those two were quite different from each other. What I'm striving for is not to outdo, but to be different. Each one has a different way of being killed, of going about their business, how they plan, carry out their plans, and how they kill. All three might get into an argument on how his way is the best way. I also enjoy their backstories. I make it a point that none of them have a Disney backstory, which involves bullies. That's not the only way to become a villain or a hero. As for sympathetic, I&#