What elements make for a believable character? What can writers add that aids in the complete and utter suspension of disbelief? Lots of thing come to mind like quirks, back stories, associations, inner thoughts, tribulations - and the list goes on and on. However, something many authors have done with beloved recurring characters is to give them hobbies. Certainly Sherlock Holmes had several and varied 'pursuits'. Agatha Christie had Miss Marple constantly knitting. Let's try rounding out
I hope everyone had a happy and safe Halloween. Did you get lots of Trick-or-Treaters or did you hide from the ghosts and goblins that were prowling around the streets? For those who are in a place who practice Daylight Savings Time, did you remember to set your clocks back an hour before you went to bed?
We started out the week with the CSR Discussion Day. Cia asked a few of the authors for this month some Halloween related questions. The answers got really interesting and are definitely wo
Before we get into this week's prompts, first a reminder. This sunday marks the end of daylight savings, so if you're in an area that does the whole daylight savings thing, don't forget that you will need to set your clock's back one hour prior to going to bed (if you go to bed before 2 am!). Now, let's see what comicfan has for us this week!
Prompt 366 – Creative Tag – List of Words Use the following words in a story – corn, hay bale, scarecrow, tractor, and skinned knee.
Prompt 367 – C
Well, I'm running a bit late today. As always, Tuesday is a great day to look over what is available in our Premium Section as a thank you to those who help support the site and keep it running. One of the stories available to subscribers is the 3rd book in the Waiting For The Sign Trilogy, "Hard Knocks" by Dkstories.
Hard Knocks
by
Dkstories
“Life is full of Hard Knocks, kid, it’s how you deal with them that makes the difference.” Kevin always imagined that his f
It's a Halloween week feature for those who like to get into the season! I hope these anthology stories got you in the mood this month. Did you read the stories and poem? Did you have a favorite? Change your mind on some of the featured spookies?
To kick off today's discussion, I asked the authors to answer a few questions about their stories and Halloween!
Ghosts: The Harpsichordist by Carl Holiday Why did you use ghosts as a character in your story/poem? Why did I use a ghost (actually
Hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend so far. Monday will be here before we know it, but before that happens, lets take a look at what happened this week in the GA News Blog, cause there's been quite a bit to look back at.
Due to last weeks takeover of the blog due to an issue with story ratings, Cia did a re-run on Monday of her review of the Signature Author Background story, Joined by Blood. If you haven't read the story, why not pop by the blog and see if it might interest you. If yo
Rest in Peace
It recently came to our attention that long time member and Classic Author, Jack Scribe passed away earlier this year. Jack joined Gay Authors in June 2006 and since then has posted 19 stories, including the popular Splash Trilogy as well as the Las Vegas Trilogy. Not only was he a popular author on-site, but many members considered him a friend. He will be greatly missed. Rest in Peace, Jack.
I hope everyone has had a great week up until this point and that everyone has a wonderful weekend as well. Friday has once again graced us with it's presence and with it we have two more prompts from the prompt guru, Comicfan. As always, we're also sharing a previous prompt response. Don't forget, if either of these prompts trigger a response from you, share it in the prompt forum and maybe you'll see yours featured next week!
Prompt 364 – Creative Tag – First Line “That is the last time I
In honor of this month's creepy critters theme, we featured Renee Stevens' story, Joined by Blood, with our October Signature Background. Who doesn't like vampires, right? If you like your vampires bad... this story has them! If you like your vampires good... this story has them! But figuring out which is which...? Maybe not so easy! If you haven't read it yet, you really should, but first, read this interview with Renee where you can learn some more about
Interview: Renee Stevens on
Joine
We missed last week, but we're back! Tuesday is a great day to look over what is available in our Premium Section as a thank you to those who help support the site and keep it running. There are so many great stories that can be found in the Premium section of GayAuthors, one of which is "Binding" by Lugh. If you're interested in purchasing a premium subscription, you can find even more information at the end of this blog post.
Binding
by
Lugh
Vega-5 is the place w
Wow, what a week! This week was supposed to be Signature Week, but due to the situation regarding Google Adsense, Signature Week was put on pause and moved to next week. As a reminder of what I'm talking about, on Monday, our Signature review was taken over part way through the day to feature an important site notice regarding ratings being given to stories. GayAuthors was dinged by Google Adsense for a story that was rated as Everyone but had content that was considered to be unacceptable on pa
It's that time of week again, time for the weekly prompts! Before I give the prompts, I want to remind everyone that if your prompt response contains ANY adult material, your entire prompt collection MUST be rated as "Mature". If you need more information on the different story ratings, you can find the information in this weeks earlier blog post or in the help section. Now, onto the prompts!
Prompt 362 – Creative Tag – List of Words Use the following in story – candy corn, pumpkin, black ca
It's a rerun! Due to the sudden alert of stories being rated incorrectly and Google being a PiTA, (read more here) we preempted a lot of the blog last week. So, to be fair, Renee gets her feature day back again!
Something a little different this week for the review for Renee Steven's featured story, cause I like being different, lol. Most of the time a reader would be the one to do the review, but this time, I'm going to do it. I had the great pleasure to be a beta reader/editor for this st
We are fully into the month of October and lots has happened this past week here at the GA News Blog
We started off the week with Cia presenting us with a bit different of a CSR this month. October is the Seasonal Spooktacular where we are featuring 5 different Anthologies to get us in the mood for Halloween at the end of the month. We have Vampires, Witches, Were-Creature, Mutants and Ghosts oh my!!
Rise of the Serpent by Celetheiel, Magic in the Air by Andy78, Midnight by Mark72
Fridays are a great day here at the GA News Blog! Not only does it signal the end of the week, but it's also time to bring you two new prompts supplied to us by the prompt guru, Comicfan. Whether you are looking for inspiration to help get over writers block or you just want to write something short and quick, the prompts are a great way to get started! Let's see what Comicfan has for us this week!
Prompt 360 – Creative Tag – First Line “Why do I even bother?”
Prompt 361 – Creative Tag –
With the completion of "No More Hiding", it was time for a new Premium Story to take it's place. M.A. Church has provided us with her story The Harvest: Taken for our Premium section and the Prologue and Chapter One started posting this past Saturday. If you don't already have a Premium Subscription, now would be a great time to get one. Not only will you get to read a great story as it posts, but you also get to help support the site!
Taken
by
M.A. Church
In 2050, h
In honor of the season, I thought this month we'd do something a little different! Anthologies are a great chance to sample authors' writing. It's also fun to see how they twist the themes into original pieces. For this October CSR, I thought I'd feature some of the creatures we often imagine lurking about the shadows.
Vampires! Pandora's Box: Rise of the Serpent by Celetheiel Description: A group of friends find more than riches when they set out to explore an abandoned house. ~ 3,050 wor
Guess what? I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack Been a busy week this week with lots of great information shared through the GA News Blog.
Monday was a surprise for Renee, as there was a conspiracy behind her back to have her story Joined By Blood as the featured background for the month of October. This story will surely get us all in the mood for Halloween only 26 days away Make sure to pop by the Blog to download the screen savers, one with a calender, one without!
On Premium Tuesday t
Hope everyone has had a great week so far and is looking forward to the weekend. What better way to start it off than with brand new prompts! If you've been feeling stuck, or maybe just want to do something a little different, maybe one of these prompts will jumpstart a new idea. Don't forget, if under 1,000 words, prompt responses that are posted in GA Stories must be posted as part of a collection.
Prompt 358 – Creative Tag – List of Words Use the following in a story – fall leaves, rain s
It's hard to believe that it's already October, and with the start of a new month, it's also time for the newest Ask An Author monthly feature, provided by Dark! Do you have a favorite author on-site? Have you had a question that you've been wanting to ask them, but haven't? If so, send it to Dark and you might just see it in an upcoming Ask An Author feature!!
Ask an Author #21
Welcome back to another quirky question and answer session with your favorite authors!
In AtA #20, we h
Want to help support Gay Authors? One way to do that is to purchase a Premium Subscription. As a Thank You, there are a fair number of stories available for Premium Subscribers to read. Each week, I'm featuring one of the Premium stories in the GA News blog. This week, I'm featuring the story "The Cassini Mission" by Rob Colton.
The Cassini Mission
by
Rob Colton
Former Union Navy scientist, Dr. Aron Adler is ordered on a rescue mission to an outer rim research colony
Well, another week has gone by and the time has come to take a look at what's happened in the GA News Blog this past week. Before we do that, I seem to recall promising an announcement of the 2015 Anthology Themes. A big thank you to the team who helped narrow down the choices as well as to everyone who voted. We have some great themes for next year and they are:
2015 Anthology Themes
Spring Anthology: Full Circle
Summer Anthology: Road Trip
Fall Anthology: Blurred Edges
So, the tables turn and the interviewer becomes the interviewee! This month the Discussion day is coming a bit early, but that's so Dark can do a live chat! Make sure you come back for the live chat at noon, Alaska time. Just cause that's not the usual zones, so that will be: Pacific 1 PM, Mountain is 2 PM, Central is 3 PM, and Eastern is 4 PM hours. On to the interview!!
Single people work more. Are you single? Yup. Been single since 2008.
Who do you like best, Jerry or Tom? That takes
It's Friday again!!! I hope that everyone has had a great week so far. It's that time again for two new prompts, supplied as always by our prompt guru, Comicfan! *Reminder: Authors are more than welcome to post their Prompt Responses in GA Stories, but please remember that flash pieces under 1k must be posted in collections, not as individual stories.*
Prompt 356 – Creative Tag – First Line “Since when do I have to tell you everything?”
Prompt 357 – Creative Tag – The Party You have been
Sign Up and get an occasional Newsletter. Fill out your profile with favorite genres and say yes to genre news to get the monthly update for your favorite genres.
Firstly, @Paladin, you are most welcome.
I think I will hold on to my two cents worth, in the hopes of getting yet more feed back from the membership. I await and watch, till later, bye.
Although I've been in the UK many times, I've never had marmite. Since it's salty, I'd likely try it in porridge. After trying it on crackers first.
Vegemite is a maybe too. I've never had it either.
As I said once in my youth when I mixed bourbon with grape soda, it might be good.
***
BTW - I did drink two, but my taste buds were quite dull at the time. It did look rather pretty when it came back up.
This word prompted me to pause for breakfast, porridge.
Since I like my porridge savory, I put odd things in it. People typically make faces when they hear my additions. This led me to consider inporridgibility. Are there things I wouldn't put in porridge? Yes, there are. Tuna for one.
What would you dear readers never put in your porridge?
Thanks @sandrewn for making one of my favourite words even more interesting. I have used it in relation to people and their behaviour and some people have used it in relation to mine.
Even so I had not come across it in Philosophy. Unfortunately I don't have access to the full article at present and will need to go through a library. The concept is that a proposition is incorrigible if it cannot be corrected; that is, it is not possible that belief in it should be found to be mistaken. Robi
Never used some form of incorrigible? I find this hard to believe. But I suppose I have an unfair advantage. I've been called incorrigible more than a few times.
Our Privacy Policy can be found here: Privacy Policy. We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue..