Cia

Awww, well, welcome to my neck of the country. I live in Washington too. Supposed to be a rainy year so make sure you get an umbrella... if you melt. I dunno how sugary you might be. Most out of staters think they're pretty darn meltable for a year or two until they just start walking in the rain with the rest of us. Good luck in 30 days!!

Luvs back. I'm so happy for you dear!!

Good point Graeme. I'm so used to my own style of fiction and reading preference (gotta love a good hero) that I discounted stories that showcase a more realistic main character. However, I think that the story I mentioned shows how I would relate that type of character. My main character slouches a lot, looks down and away from the more confident and outgoing 2nd lead protagonist who develops a type of mentor role. He gradually gains confidence in his actions and his speech as the story progresses to the point where he ends up saving the 2nd protagonist toward the end. I never make him into a gung ho muscle bound alpha male... but I do make him into a confident character who holds his own against the always dominant portrayed antagonist.

Love the student message. I have the same fears and issues you do at times. Once when joking, I had a person take me seriously and never say anything. I got told months later when they stewed and then blew up, if you're joking, use an emoticon next time. If you get tired of my overuse of the button, well... it's cause I fear the same you do. Sometimes my off the wall humor doesn't quite come across. There is also a 'pre-apology' in my about me section since I do it in person and didn't want that on the site. In life I have no emoticons, what can I say? Apparently people think all redheads are evil and snarky as hell. I'll make sure I take anything you say with a grain of salt.

Flaws in my plot and characters are usually more visible from the distance of time. It's hard to put a story aside but sometimes that is your best option. Working with a team is your best way to work on your skills as a writer when it comes to everything else really. You have to make sure they will be honest, even if it means telling you that you're wrong or should completely re-write the story. It can be hard to hear but they are often able to see the flaws that you cannot. I think the biggest thing I can see with your stories I am best familiar with, Hot n Cold and Sign for Me is the pacing. They're good stories, you have great characters. I think the biggest thing was how repetitive they were. You focus mainly on a lot of the small events which is fine but that makes the pacing very slow. When creating a story you need to use a steady arc in which the conflict/main theme of the story builds to the climax and the end of the story. The other problem was repeating the same conflict. Take Sign for Me. I get that the conflict is between Nemo having to choose between Dion and Miles and how his going deaf affects that and his choice but you had the same thing over and over. Nemo spends A LOT of time going back and forth on who he wants after making out with both of them. I understand he was supposed to be conflicted but I just kept wanting to snap at him, "Just pick already!". It made it so that I was annoyed with the story and the character.

Perhaps I should clarify and say no 'human' antagonists or villians. Fantasy is a bit different. No person lives their life constantly acting evil or over the top villianish. That makes them laughable and unrealistic to readers. However, when you are creating an intrinsically evil fantasy character such as a demon you have to clearly outline that they are evil to the very core. Then you have to back that up with their actions through the story. You can't introduce any mitigating circumstances or behaviors. If you do, you're contradicting your character's nature which will make it as fake as making a human being that never has a moment of kindness or doubt. There are things you can do to make your evil fantasy character still have a multi-faceted personality. Maybe they can act in a devious fashion and create harm by setting up your protagonist from behind the scenes or through someone the character should be able to trust. Then you can have another instance where the antagonist is creating outright harm and mayhem with direct violence. Both are aspects of their evil nature but showcasing it in different ways you keep them from seeming two dimensional.

Dialogue is also the only place I will accept the use of and at the start of a sentence A pet peeve of mine, you might say. Use of improper grammar in speech, when done deliberately, can highlight the personality of a character, their age, or the situationin which they find themselves. It should be used sparingly, however, as 'flavor' not the meat of the dialogue, or I am turned off as a reader. I attempt to remember that as I write myself as well.

Well... since some of the mentors are speaking to their strengths in here, I thought I would do so as well. One of the things that has annoyed me many times as I read was the way poor word choices fail to describe the character, their actions, or their speech properly. If you have a brainy character who happens to be top of their class and they say, "We don't got a hope to save ourselves." then you're obviously not keeping the character 'in character'. Another aspect of this is word choice, especially for actions. A teenager might stomp across a room or slouch but you'd expect a small child to dart or skip. An adult might stride across the room if they are a confident character or scurry if they are scared or a less dominant character. I once read a published ebook where a female character comes into a room to her remaining 2 werewolf mates after one had just been killed. She 'sauntered' into the room. Would I saunter (stroll or walk leisurely) to the remaining loves in my life when they are holding the one who died? Heck no! I'd be rushing or bursting into the room. That single word choice ruined the scene for me and made it completely unbelievable. (Yes, I know werewolves aren't real but they were in this world ) One of the biggest keys to creating dynamic characters, beyond keeping them in character and using proper word choices for their personality/age/role, is to consider 'status'. Your hero needs to be someone the reader can admire, respect, lust after.. That means giving them a higher 'status' than the characters around them. They need to have confident demeanors, strong word choices when it comes to the verbs you use to describe their actions. The villian also needs to have a high status, but never higher than the hero. However, one isn't always high status. A real person has people they turn to, moments of doubt... you need to create those small clues to the reader to show that the hero isn't always perfect, the villian isn't always a completely evil person, or it's just not believable. Even in fiction, we must work within the structure of what the reader will and will not accept. The perfect man or an unrelentingly evil villian? Boring and flat. Some examples of sharing 'status' by word choice and character behavior: "Let me go!" he shouted in anger versus "Please, let me go," he whimpered. Here, which character appears stronger, more in control? The one who is demanding release or the person who is asking to be let go? Ben strode into the room and paused a moment to meet the eyes of all four men seated at the table versus Ben hurried into the room and glanced at the four men waiting at the table. Here, who seems in control? The man striding which implies a larger step and slower walk, who his taking his time to enter and deliberately meeting the eyes of the men who are at the table or the man who is hurrying, implying he shouldn't be making the men wait, and who makes only the briefest shows of eye contact? Who would you consider more dominant in each sentence, the man coming in or the men at the table? Now, these examples don't always hold true. Some cultures don't consider eye contact to be confidence but rudeness. Some people consider shouting to be a loss of control, not an attempt to make yourself heard. You have to consider the culture of your characters and the setting when picking your words to highlight the character's status. Status also should be fluid. The characters should gain it as the story progresses, becoming stronger, more determined, more confident. Small setbacks can happen and should or the character won't be believable but overall, you should have a character that changes throughout the story. A few examples of this can be seen in my story, Double Down. When I wrote the story I was focusing on character development, 'status' in relation to the varying protagonists and the antagonist, and the word choices I used to describe their actions and interactions. Marc, the narrating character, really changes as the story progresses and he builds himself back up with the help of the other characters. Okay... so now, to your questions. Feel free to drop any in the topic here or paste in a short example if you have a character or scene you would like me to point out uses of these key elements to create more realistic characters for your stories.

Sorry life is hard for you now. It sounds like you have some sort of end in sight though, so hang in there!!

I like this start. I was sucked in as I checked it for the mod queue and had to finish the chapter. Good job on making original and 3d characters. You have the emo guy, the jock, the oddball friend... all characters I've seen before but you do showcase them in a fashion I don't feel like they're cliche. One thing to remember, when you have different characters speaking you need to start a new paragraph with each person's comments. You have a point at the end during the math homework bit that has both Kelly and Dexter speaking in the same line.

I wanna see the photo!!! *pouts* I'm a friend... I's see you all. pm? msn? facebook? C'mon!!! Have a heart, I can't meet up with any of my GA friends but I love to hear about you guys doing so. I truly hope your 365 day plan comes to fruition!!

Awww... I's snuggle with you. I don't have the right bits but a hug is a hug right?

You had a very creative 'spirit' in your response to the prompt. I loved the background story of how and why he came into being. There was one thing that was a tad weird. With really only Magath and the spirit as the characters in the story, it seemed odd that you repeated Magath's name a lot in the chapter. I usually use names more often when I have a lot of back and forth between more than 2 characters. That was a very minor thing and mostly I was just sucked into the story of the spirit. I do wonder what is coming for Magath though... I'm assuming we get to see that in your story??

Whatever one is standard in the program I use I've never been one to muck about with that sort of thing. I don't use italics or formatting much either. I find it distracting unless absolutely necessary for the story, such as a flashback or dream.

Well deserved I'd say!!

Ahh... you're not alone here either. I'm 30, bi but married to a guy, and I still won't tell my dad about that or that I write mm fiction. At your age... no way in hell. There are other topics on the site about coming out and I think the most salient point of all of them is DON'T come out until you are safe to do so. Most 16 year olds cannot live on their own or support themselves. If you are unable to do so, you need to stay quiet. The slight chance that homophobic parents would change their mind because it was their child is not likely and the risk you take outweight the benefits of telling anyone you're gay. Your choice is quite smart, really.

Mmm... Georgia boys. Yep, love those.

Sorry, most don't like them but I'm all about the soft southern drawl. Not the sharp one or the yokel type. It's hard to really pin down because even southern accents vary from place to place but there's just something about a good slow 'Yes Ma'am' from a southern man that just... shivers... mmmm.

I will TRY just about anything to read. Unless it's Louis L'Amour style westerns. I don't like those. For me it's more the content of a story however, I will say when I have a choice, I'll go first for a paranormal romance 9 times out of 10.

Thank you! The whole scene popped in my head as soon as I said 'death by dust bunnies' during a conversation and I burst out laughing at the idea alone. The kids looked at me funny. Not as funny as the guy dead under the bed is gonna look though!! Thanks for the review!

LOL! Very interesting beginning to a story. With it being set in the 1800s, I'm sure life will be quite... different from what Justin would have been expecting. Seems like he's in for a rough ride for a bit. Poor non-believer stuck in the religious past... gives me shivers as an atheist! I think that'd be worse than the whole no indoor plumbing. Maybe.

“Who are you?” The tall guy on my porch grinned wickedly. “I am the ghost of Halloween!”He tried to go for the spooky sound effect and made some weird faces at me. I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. You two days late man. Halloween’s over, the candy is all gone and if you don’t leave I’m calling the cops and telling them a pervert is lurking outside my apartment.” I was annoyed that the threat didn’t even faze the idiot who was ringing my doorbell at eleven pm. I had work in the morning and

Sorry, I can't help it! Though I could just shut up if it means getting chapters out faster... JK I know I'd be a lesser writer if I didn't have Renee to work with and I love being a part of the team for all of my writers. Getting to talk plot and characters, having input into the worlds they create, and best of all, sneak peeks... Ahhh, heaven for me! I'll always be more of a reader than a writer and this gives me the best of both worlds.

I agree, the dichotomy of the nursery rhyme and the childhood memory versus the adult violence is quite shocking. It's also familiar with parts of my own past. That's just... wrong but written very right. You took a very traumatic scene and made it into a haunting one about the loss of innocence. When you realize that you may have to hurt family to save family...

I'll agree it's not something you can trust 100% but you can get a good sense before puberty, I think. Parents who pay attention can see that sort of thing and sometimes kids to show their preferences through innocent crushes. I had them on boys and girls as a kid. I try not to make assumptions but I have to say parents who are really involved with their kids and are open to the possibilities just might 'know' more than you think.