#romancewonders — Public Fediverse posts

#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 2 Nbr 16 — How do you feel about flashbacks? Do you use them? /Guess./

I was looking through my October Pages file where I keep all the writing prompts I've answered, amazed at my current output. 16,000 words so far this month. Then I thought back to November of last year...

I'd spent almost a month noodgying my open source Linuxy friend in /Missourah/ about creating an online presence. He had been talking about this thing called "Masto... Don? For all I knew, it had tusks. Actually, he had been noodgying me, so... finally... I said, "Let's do this."

He talked about "instances" and things that went swoosh over my head, but I tried. Every time I picked one sounding creative or authorial, I got, /Sorry, we're not accepting new accounts now./ Eventually, he invited me to his favorite instance. With a name like "Eldritch" and lots of French speakers, it sounded fun and appropriate for an SF writer. I still got all sorts of confused, but people saw I was a newbie and were helpful, and that was nice. I quickly learned about following people, using hashtags people followed, and followed those hashtags. I started telling about my life as a (somewhat autistic) writer, and what it felt like to burn out and come back.

Eventually, I stumbled into hashtags like #WritingWonders and #RomanceWonders, then new ones like #PennedPossibilities and #WritersCoffeeClub, not to mention #Writever which is costing me on average two hours a day, attempting to write new 800 word stories—31 of them.

Today, I can barely remember my life without Mastodon. I've learned so much, felt so supported, and gotten my short writing so together. I don't wanna ever go back.

#BoostingIsSharing
#CommentingIsCool

#fiction #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writing #writer #writers #author #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon
#RSdiscussion #Mastodon #fediverse

@michaelthomet
There are interesting prompts on this hash tag: #TimeTravelAuthors

#RomanceWonders is currently dormant, but it might come back next February. Certainly fun things to read if you filter for it.

#WritingWonders 4.18 — Does your MC have a love interest? (#RomanceWonders special edition.)

In the story currently under revision: Two intimate. (Impending wedding, partly political, partly about sharing both, lots of confusion.) A third who had a crush on her, who declared unambiguously he's ready to play. But, because the MC's good friend needed it, she pushed him at her. What followed caused even more confusion. And a fourth, who was a nerdy childhood friend, a bff really, whom she thought had abandoned her but had been pushed away by her guardian. Her memory of him continually bothered her all these years as a fabulated paradigm of masculinity. Now that she's reconciled with him, she's definitely interested. Lots of longing.

So, yes. All this happening over a period of 72 hours, and a couple hours a week later.

What fun to write!

#fiction #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writing #writer #writers #author #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon

#BoostingIsSharing
#CommentingIsCool

#WritingWonders 3.29 — How do you envision your book’s cover? If published, how does it differ from that?

I have a commercially published paperback that speaks to this, and I'm pretty sure I wrote about it already. With plenty of great action scenes and dozens of potential hero shots, I got a wookiee and a Vogue model on the cover instead of a Sheep-dog post-human and a Japanese teenager. Star Wars was still a thing. A bit of whitewashing? Go figure.

It sold out the first printing. That's the point, of course: Cover art is advertising.

When commissioning my own cover art, it's not all a bed of roses, either. In the current story, my MC leaves the hospital still in pjs, for reasons. When she shows up at His Highness's suite (lover #2) with her entourage, he's startled. He'd last seen her healing both lover #1 and her assassin, whom she'd stabbed, then saw her collapse from septic shock from a previous wound. Everyone had expected her to die. When she lamely hugs His Highness and steps back, he pushes her back to the wall in the classic pose, and he kisses her deeply. That's the image I wanted for the cover.

Didn't happen!

The cover artist, whom I really admire, balked. We compromised. Nose to nose. No, the story isn't a bodice ripper. My MC, normally the aggressor in all things is learning she need not always lead to obtain a desirable outcome.

The romantic part of this story was discussed in #romanceWonders.

#fiction #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writing #writer #writers #author #writingcommunity #romancebooks

#BoostingIsSharing
#CommentingIsCool

#RomanceWonders for February 19: Start with MC & design a partner or start with 2 and make them fall...

Start with a boy and a girl separated by events who will come together and defeat the 'bad guy'.

Then...write a scene where the boy shoots a tiger, and then a guy falls out of a tree and breaks his leg, and the boy magically fixes it, and suddenly they’re looking into each other’s eyes....oh, er, sorry kid, so *that's* your story?

Time to find the girl a different partner...

#pantser

#RomanceWonders for February 19: Start with a character & design a partner to fit, or start with two characters & figure out how to make them fall in love?

It depends on the book. In book 1, the two characters were crafted to fit a plot idea and each other, then the hero of book 2 existed from book 1 and I had to figure out who could love him and be what he needed. For my current WIP, book 3, both characters existed as best friends before I realized they belonged together.

#RockIconReady

#RomanceWonders Feb 18 HEA or what?

For both couples, it has to be heading for an HFN...if only because their mean ol' writer wants to do another book, but their soft-hearted ol' writer hates being sad. And the second book's usually riddled with more darkness, isn't it?

So, you can trust me to bring the pairs together and let them have some happy. They'll need it to have any chance of weathering the coming storm.

#RomanceWonders: Feb 18 — Do you start with one character and design a partner to fit, or start with two characters and then figure out how to make them fall in love?

Three characters... Impossble situations drive the best stories.

While she finds sex worthwhile, my MC didn't understand the concept of love or that she was capable of it at the end of the previous story. Fresh from saving the world, at least the bloody first half of the job when she was prevented from running away again, she is about to be given what she least wants: responsibility. She wants to be left alone with her magic books. During the ceremony to install her to power, she's snubbed by an arrogant fellow who doesn't even notice her.

I decided I wanted to write a claustrophobic story that takes place over three tense days of romance, intrigue, and threatening war. In it, my MC starts to learn that there really is a reason why she is hired for the jobs she does. She's good at them? Unlucky? Gets underestimated? Won't stop fighting even if it means being killed? (Nearly dying is one of her tragic motifs.) To make this story happen, I decided I needed someone who could be the target of an infiltration plot. Getting the MC romantically entangled with the arrogant fellow mentioned in passing in the last story seemed like the very worst possible thing that could happen to her, so I let that happen.

Besides really limp blond hair, all I started with was that he was single, a decade older, related to the ruler of the nation, arrogant around women, and a political power broker (suspected). It became apparent as I wrote why my MC and him were compatible: they're both brutish, know how not to be, and have virtuous reasons why they fight. He's not who makes her fall in love with him, though. There are too many spoilers to describe how the second love interest came to be, but it was the infiltrator that taught her to love and caused her to fall in love with both men. Sex and identity-misunderstandings ensue, ending with her jackknife in someone's heart and much healing magic.

You can't plot these things out, trust me. It's organic. Things become obvious, and you change what you wrote previously when the good ideas bubble up. You just have to be willing to go along for the ride.

#fantasy #fiction #WritingWonders #writing #writer #author #sex #love #marriage #endoftheworld

#RomanceWonders 2/2
And then there's Vers and Reev, the main characters from a NaNo a couple of years ago. I created them from a Story Engine set of cards, and then, Like Marcus and Blake, their own personalities moved in and took over the characters. The thing with pantsing for a short deadline is that both ended up with whole backstories I never anticipated or expected, it's fantastic. 😂

#RomanceWonders 19 1/2
It depends. Technically I created Milos for Alex, but he was supposed to be antagonistic and nothing like the way he ended up. His real personality turned up and overwrote what I'd intended.
But some characters evolved side by side and waited until I wrote them (Yve and Steffan) and others I created deliberately (pop singer and indie-esque songwriter), then their own personalities moved and decided they liked each other (and became Marcus and Blake).

#RomanceWonders Day 8: Do you start with one character and then design a partner, or start with two characters then figure out how to make them fall in love?

I'm trying to remember I knew if the two of em would end up in this love/friendship state. I think I knew they'd be friends, but maybe not this deeply. They also definitely both informed how the other person ended up--I had fuzzy shapes, but as I wrote the book, (cont)

#EmpathAndAugur #Comics #makingComics #amWriting

#RomanceWonders Feb 19: Start with one, or start with two?

Normally, I start with one character and design a partner to be with them, but with Giovanni and Kilala, it was starting with two separate characters and trying to figure out how to get them to fall in love with the other.

Which is a current predicament, because I've got a number of ideas for that, but need to get to the point where any of them will work.

#RomanceWonders Feb 19: Do you start with one character and design a partner to fit, or start with two characters and then figure out how to make them fall in love?

For the MC it just comes to me, I don't design it. For secondary characters they fall in love or not on their own terms. I let the cards land where they will. Pantser.

#RomanceWonders
Do you design couples together, or bring individuals together?

Bit of both and neither? Sometimes characters just appear together, other times they show up separate and end up together somehow. I honestly wasn't even sure that Robert and Vic would get together. In fact, I'm still not really sure since I haven't actually written that all out yet.
Emily and Johann appeared separately in different ideation drafts. Then somehow I found myself developing them, which turned into developing their relationship. 🤷‍♀️ Sometimes the characters just develop on their own.

#romancewonders 19
I didn't design any of my characters in order for them to fall in love. Neither John nor Francine can say why they fell in love. It just happened. To do it any other way would seem like an arranged marriage and take away some of the magic.

Romance Wonders Day 2/19: Do you start with one character and design a partner to fit, or start with two characters and figure out how to make them fall in love?

None of the above.

As a pantser I barely even know the MC before I start, they tell me who they are as we go along, then other characters appear and maybe one of them works for a relationship.

No planning.

#writingWonders #writingCommunity #romanceWonders

[2/2]
In the story I've been talking about this week through these prompts, the situation idea was "2 people meet, twenty years after they last saw each other. She was his teacher then. He still fancies her - is she interested in him?"

It wouldn't be much of a Romance if the answer to that question was no!

#RomanceWonders

#RomanceWonders Do you start with one character and design a partner to fit, or start with two characters and then figure out how to make them fall in love?

I don't really do either - it's more of a "this could be an interesting situation to explore". Sometimes the 'situation' is a relationship between 2 or more characters, other times the romance comes along after - and in some things I write anything like that is very much in the background!
[1/2]

#RomanceWonders for February 17 and 18 (catching up!): Do they want to get married? / Do they live happily ever after?

Yes and yes. It's really hard to elaborate on this one without major spoilers, so I'll just leave it at that.

#RockIconReady

#RomanceWonders 19: design a partner to fit or work out how to get two characters to fall in love?

WIP: Fair Haven, fantasy romance

Good question! Thinking back over all my couples, I think it’s both. I create two separate characters but I do have the MC in mind as I form the love interest and vice versa. Often if one character is shaping up to be on one end of a characteristic continuum, I’ll give the other the opposite end of the continuum. Sometimes it’s a cause of friction, other times it’s a case of the whole becomes stronger than the parts (they find in each other what they need).

#RomanceWonders Feb 19: Do you start with one character and design a partner to fit, or start with two characters and then figure out how to make them fall in love?

Both Seb and Justin existed as minor characters in #ScratchTheSurface. Justin kept clamouring for his own story. He felt he'd been unfairly treated and wanted the space to prove he wasn't a total shithead.
As soon as I gave in, the things I already knew about Seb made him the perfect choice for Justin.

#WIP #Denial

#RomanceWonders Feb 19: Do you start with a character and design a partner to fit them, or start with two characters and then figure out how to make them fall in love?

#RomanceWonders day 6: Happily ever after or no?

Guys, it has been such a day. I can't even play my own game until 21:30. Jeez.

Anyway, yeah. I'm 100% happily ever after.

@cyberhuman
Thank you for giving me a space to think out my goals here.

I am coining the phrase "techno-magical" as shorthand to allude to forces in this world that can be relied upon for engineering purposes, when discussing my writing online. The characters in the story would use the word "magic" as we would, "the power to influence events by using mysterious or supernatural forces," and scoff. It's not their term.

From an authorial (meta) standpoint, to answer your question, it is a magic system that allows me to build out a modern civilization quite unlike our own, uniquely human-powered but requiring special skills, that makes concepts like electricity competitive only in limited applications. Space travel may be an example that needs it, but I've only described seeing our Earth from above in a half-dozen paragraphs in passing, so I'm not completely sure.

Despite this, it allows me to tear down our civilization and replace it with a different framework of how humans could have been, allowing me to discuss gender, racial, social, and psycho-sexual issues that can't be otherwise discussed in a modern world.

I hope to get stories in the world published late this year or early next. Tastes (drafts really) are posted on my profile and salted in my #romanceWonders and #writingWonders toots.

Sorry. Overloaded word.

#RomanceWonders: Feb 18 — Happily Ever After? Really!? (FOTFLOL)

As much as I am a storyteller, I am also an author. There must be a next story. What happens next is in my subconscious, knowable only when—like using a Ouija board—the characters take over the keyboard and words appear before my eyes.

That said, the current WIP ends with the MC either pregnant or not. I don't know! I don't know who's the father if she is pregnant. Likely depends on what will cause the most havoc. That a wedding is planned is stated in the epilogue. She is just getting her head around that she is even capable of feeling love—let alone that what people tell her is her being a good friend is actually friendship, so there will be angst and, considering her physical and magical capabilities, there will be fireworks. Both love interests do love her; I'm pretty sure about that. But I am not sure if they are totally okay with sharing her other than liking each other a lot. It will be a problem and she will learn something about herself (her favorite phrase). She sees plenty of fish in the sea, and she really likes her fish&fry.(†)

Oh yeah, don't forget she knows the countdown to the end of the world, and she was hired to fix that problem. (Spoiler: Still not fixed.)

It's very complicated.

How do you define happily ever after, again?

(†) Fish&fry is described here, if you want the non-metaphorical meaning: https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/109887035271660111

#BoostingIsSharing

#fantasy #fiction #WritingWonders #writing #writer #author #sex #love #marriage #endoftheworld

#RomanceWonders 18
Considering there's at least 6 books hanging around in the Scriv file and in my head, it's a HFN each time and, let's be honest, will probably be a HEA if they ever stop throwing random stories into my brain. I'm not going through all this trouble just for them to NOT get an HEA. What kind of romance writer would I be? (And what would it do to my sanity??)

#RomanceWonders
Happily ever after?

Both couples are squarely in the Happy For Now categories. At the end of things, everyone has their moment of rest before the next adventure comes along. Life happens, the story ends but there is always more.