Renee Stevens

I hope everyone is having a great week! It's time for this weeks prompts, supplied by our prompt guru, Comicfan. Just a reminder, and for those who haven't worked with the prompts before: prompt responses under 1,000 words must be posted as part of a collection. Hopefully you'll find something in this weeks prompts to spark an idea and get you writing! Prompt 568 - Creative Tag – First line You’ve got to tell me everything! Prompt 569 – Creative Tag – The Garden The winter snow is covering the ground in thick dirty layers. It seems everywhere you go people are waiting for the snow to melt and spring to arrive. As you walk through the woods near your house, you slip on the ice, roll down an embankment and into the garden of your neighbor. No matter which way you turn you see beautiful flowers, thick grass, and butterflies. How can this be? We had three takers for Prompt 566 Caz Pedroso I sit here, on the porch, thinking, thinking. Floating on the breeze I can hear our song… Hudson Bartholomew “Cup of coffee, please?” Cam reached into his battered knapsack to pull out his wallet. “Sure. How do you like it?” The guy behind the bodega counter was about as typical a New Yorker as he could get. Big guy with a tattoo sleeve on one arm, scruffy face under a Mets baseball cap, and an accent so thick it took Cam’s brain a second to translate. “Just black. Thanks.” Comicfan Tony had gotten up before the sun had even risen. It was the first day of his vacation and he didn’t want to waste it. He tossed a change of clothes into his old knapsack and figured he would hike across the city, maybe climb some of the hills overlooking the water. He wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted to do yet. He slipped on his hiking boots, slipped his keys and wallet into his knapsack, and marched out of the house. The early morning fog clung to him like a damp second skin. He was determined that the weather wouldn’t stop him.

Hey All! I hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far. Today we're going to look at a writing tip provided to me by Cole Matthews. Cole has put together a bit of a primer on a way to build character. As he told me, it's something that he's always reminding himself of and he was hoping that by sharing his thoughts that it would help other authors out as well. Thank you, Cole! If you have any advice that you would like to share with the GA authors, send me a PM! Builds Character Cole Matthews So, you’ve got an idea. You even have the beginnings of a main character and a hilarious best friend/sidekick. You have started writing about how your protagonist feels about things and views the world. You are kicking into high gear and then you hit your first speed bump. Your character is alone in the world. The point of your story is to convey how a young gay man navigates the difficult shoals of a changing world and a kaleidoscopic life. Yet, you are stymied by these details, and creating the annoying back story. For example, you need a difficult past, a troubled childhood, parents who don’t understand him, and a hostile environment. Right? This is what we must get past in order to discover the many crannies and crevices of our character’s deep personal history. Quickly, almost without effort, you create a distant, absent family, no room for siblings or cousins or even grandparents. You have a best friend/sidekick who gets your character, but haven’t taken the time to flesh out the rest of his world. You cobble together the most likely antagonist to act as a foil for your intrepid main character. Obviously, she/he’s a bully who hates/scorns/ignores gay people as a matter of course. You invent the perfect love interest, and now your novel is practically writing itself. Done. Well, not really well done, but you get the picture. Consider this, we are not just the internal aspects of our being. Human beings are a myriad of roles juxtaposed against a series of situations. Everyday. Several times a day. Unless we’ve sailed alone into the sunset or moved to a remote cabin in the woods and are writing our manifesto on an antique Underwood typewriter on hand-made paper created from soaking woodchips in spring water and pressing the pulp into sheets and drying on racks in the sun, we interact with others and these actions define us. You get the picture, or at least my first stab at it. Look at your day. You get up and pour a bowl of cereal. Your roommate is already eating his toaster treats and looking at his phone. He’s bleary-eyed from last night’s late night at the bar. He’s grumpy and you’re sick of hearing about his stupid love life which he is screwing up because he can’t commit to the love of his life. You are a good roommate though so you chat and say goodbye because, well, that’s what roommates do. You check your phone on the way to work. It’s your mother. She left a message about your sister’s birthday party. Your sister’s lazy, good-for-nothing, boyfriend is planning it, but needs help finding a cake. Apparently, he’s too stoned to Google a bakery or find a grocery store or buy a stupid ice cream cake at the local Dairy Princess. Regardless, you call your mother back and tell her you’ll help. After all, you’re a good son and an even better brother. When you get to work, your boss has sent you a nasty email about performance. Instead of finishing that boring market research project, you blew it off. You get cracking at it right away. You’re a good employee, generally, so you work diligently at it. In the meantime, your co-worker stops by to complain about the way her boss is treating her. You listen and nod and speak encouragingly about how things will get better. Let’s face it, you’re a team player and you really want to help make her feel better. You look up at the clock when she leaves your cubicle, and it’s 10:30 am already. Today you’re meeting your best friend for lunch so he can talk about his upcoming wedding to that girl you set him up with. You’ve known Stephen for ten years now and he’s so happy you can hear the enthusiasm in his voice in your memory. You’re thrilled he’s found someone. If only… [End scene]. Note, I haven’t talked about how he feels about things, how the light from the morning sun glinted off the windshield of his car and blinded him revealing his empty life, or even about how he feels like a cog in this immense machine which we call the world. Nope. I used the ensemble cast of his life to build character. We know him through his roles and his relationships with others. This is one way to build character, through the actions and interactions with other people. Think of all we know about him without any descriptions whatsoever. He thinks of himself as a good person who tries hard to fulfill expectations others may have. He works hard and tries to be a nice person. He’s operating by rote for the most part. His life is empty, but that’s by implication. You feel some empathy for him because you have experienced days, and episodes, like his. Instead of stock-in-trade characters who become static furniture to your main character, these characters have motivations, hopes, fears, and dreams of their own. None of them are paper dolls with premade, tabbed clothing to press over their two-dimensional bodies. In fact, this makes your main character even more complex and richer because he’s showing character while dealing with their issues. Take care to consider your cast and the richer their stories are, the richer your main character is. Does he snap at another co-worker, his rival, which begins a conflict neither can control? Is this how his antagonist comes into being? Be creative and think deeply. Not every antagonist is a homophobic, religious fanatic with sadistic tendencies. In fact, most aren’t. Developing a well-rounded antagonist is just as important as creating the supporting cast. In fact, a good foil can make Protagony look even better. Our guy, Protagony, and the other guy, Antagony, are bucking for the same promotion. They don’t get along, at all. Antagony is a jerk who cheats on his girlfriend with his wife. [Yes, I love the cheating inversion for effect.] However, he is good at his job. He loves his two kids. His mother has cancer, which she is fighting and winning. Antagony runs in marathons to support this cause. That’s not all. He stole our main character’s idea for a new promotional idea and is passing it off as his own. Protagony needs to figure out how to prove it’s his baby. The problem is, Antagony is really good looking and everyone likes him. In fact, Protagony hates him in part because he’s so attracted to him. He tries to hate him, fails, and then remembers about the stolen idea, and writhes in frustration. The truly memorable and interesting antagonists are complete human beings. When their humanity is compared to their monstrous actions, we are intrigued. How can Antagony live with himself after stealing his co-worker’s idea? Doesn’t his cheating nature show what a horrible person he is, or is there something else there? Let’s explore. Antagony’s wife cheated on him, but doesn’t want a divorce. He tried to make the marriage work, but she’s cold and distant. Their marriage is a farce kept alive by the children. Antagony has his work and that’s all that seems to be working in his life. His mother is sick. His kids are having trouble in school due to the family issues they don’t even understand. The idea he stole will give him a much-needed promotion, and even more importantly, a boost of self-confidence in his life. He’s even persuaded himself he really did come up with the idea. He’s convinced himself that Protagony tried to steal it from him. The rat bastard. This makes both characters more interesting and gives them motivations, perspectives, and even character traits which will color and flavor their interactions. To summarize: Build a better main character by using the supporting cast and antagonist to flesh him out. Give them back stories which align with the main character. Let them have motivations and their own tales. Don’t be afraid to sprinkle both good and bad traits since we don’t know people with all good or even all bad tendencies. Craft the story using these other characters to help, hinder, advise, trip, and otherwise baffle or enlighten the main character. Don’t be afraid of using an antagonist to refine your character and challenge, but make them whole and not cookie cutter. Using characters to fill up your main character will make a more interesting and richer storyline. That’s my advice to new writers and to myself as well. Trust me, I have to remind myself about this all the time. It’s another device to consider using.

Only two of us know..... Hehehehe. *Jumps up and down waving my hands* I know, I know!!!! *Giggles and runs away*

Well... it doesn't really matter which story you were talking about, lol... because they were all sent to me to post

Well, I can't answer as to who wrote what just yet, but I will say that yep, it was sent to someone else to post..... ME!

It has been a very busy week here at Gay Authors. While the site upgrade has been completed, the staff is still working on all the little bugs that can happen with such a major switch. Please be patient, and if you find what you believe to be a bug, PLEASE check to see if it's already been reported and answered. We have a bug report thread specifically for reporting bugs. Some questions are being asked repeatedly and the staff is doing their best to answer, so help us by checking to see if your question has already been answered. The new forum software has some great new options, but with the good comes the bad. Please remember that some of the options that were in the old software are not available/possible in the new software and these things are not something that Gay Authors can change. Here's a couple of the most asked questions and their answer. Q: Can you please restore the ability to delete notifications. A: No. While the old software allowed this ability, the new software does not. That aspect of the notification is not something we control and we cannot change it. Q: When I try to change notification settings, the option is grayed out and says "The administrator has disabled this option from being toggled." A: It is something that we are aware of, but unfortunately it is not something we have been able to fix at this time. Q: My list of friends has disappeared. A: "Friends" has been replaced with "Followers". To add a member to your list of people you follow, simply go to their profile and click the "Follow Member" button next to the member's name. These are just a few of the questions that we keep getting. We know that there are a lot of questions with the new system, but once again, please read through the bug thread to see if your question has already been answered. Also, when reporting what you think is a bug, please include the following information so that we can try to replicate the problem: What area of the site were you using (Stories, Forum, Blogs, Gallery, etc)? Specifically what were you attempting to do (post a topic, edit a story, etc)? Tell us if you succeeded, if you succeeded with an error, or if the result was not what you expected. Tell us if the error is repeatable - did you try again, and did it work? Provide links if you have them: Please link to the story, forum topic, or specific post if you can. Please provide a screenshot if you have one, by attaching it using the image button in the toolbar. We also need some information about your system: - Your hardware platform (Mac, PC, iPad, Surface, iPhone, Android, etc) - Your operating system, including the version number if you know it (Mac, WIndows, Linux, IOS, Android, etc) - Your browser and version (Internet Explorer, Edge, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, etc) - Did you have any ad-blocking software or pop-up blocker running, and was it active at the time? Now, let's take a look at what happened this week in the various GA News Blogs! Anthology Announcements: ***NOTE: All Deadlines are for submission to the Anthology Proof Team 2017 Spring Anthology: Jagged Edges / Unintended Consequences - Due April 30th, 2017 2017 Fall Anthology: The Fall Out / Secret Spaces - Due November 15th, 2017 Premium Updates: Dreams of a Father by dkstories; Book 2 of Dreams of Humanity *Premium* Negative Splits by Cia *Premium* Signature Updates: Dribbles by Cia Fanfic by Comicality; Book 0 of Fanfic Lame Duck by Cynus Mine! by Cia Sumeru by Dolores Esteban The Best Year by Krista The Castaway Hotel: Next Generation Book 2 by Bill W; Book 11 of The Castaway Hotel Promising Updates: A Man in a Room, and other poems by AC Benus; Book 6 of Verse Buy One, Get Two and Three... by Caz Pedroso Innocent Sacrifice by Sasha Distan; Book 8 of The Best Circle of Hell Stories Morningstar: The Malaise by Headstall Prompts 2017 by Caz Pedroso; Book 4 of Prompt's Ripped by craftingmom Walls by Carlos Hazday; Book 6 of CJ

Have you been inwardly guessing which April Fools Contest entries were written by which author. With the voting for the contest over, it's time for the GA members to try and guess who wrote what! The "reveal" will occur on April 1st, so try and get your guesses in before then. The only prize for this game is bragging rights, if you guess more right then anyone else. Remember, only one story was allowed per author. Author List MacGreg Puppilull W_L Valkyrie Parker Owens Aditus jfalkon J.HunterDunn Cole Matthews AC Benus Story List Happy Birthday! Outwitted Served Cold Fool's Gold Suffer No Fools Fool Me Once The Real Me Getting Caught Downhearted Chasing Jayce Happy Guessing!!!!!

Remind me when you send it in and I'll do my best to get you a proofreader that hasn't already read the other two.

Challenging yourself is always a good thing. Plotting can have it's place, but sometimes you just need to get the story out and not stress the little details

Glad to hear you got it done and will get it into the proof team early. I know yours is a longer piece, so getting it in early is a good thing

Yep, you have just over a month to get it done! But I'm sure you can get it done in time.

Kitt makes a great point here. It's not a bad idea to give your team a heads up as to how long of piece you're doing and find out from them how much time they're going to need to do their edit. Submitting last minute can be stressful, not just for the author but for their team and the anthology proof team.

Deep and meaningful has it's place, but so does fun. I love seeing the different stories that come from these anthologies and it's great to have a good mix of types. Where it's a longer piece, I'd suggest having it in to the proof team a bit early

It can be frustrating when you don't get the response you hoped for. I'm glad to hear that you're still willing to give it a go!

Like you, I don't usually work from an outline. What surprised me, was the last time I did how quick the story went. I ended up writing a 36,000 word story in less than two weeks.

There's still plenty of time!

Sorry all, I know that we missed out on the February discussion day for the current anthology. Before we get started, a quick reminder that the deadline to get your votes in for the April Fool's Short Story Contest is 2:00 PM EST TODAY. The themes for the Spring anthology are Jagged Edges and Unintended Consequences and the deadline to get your story to the Anthology Proof Team is April 30th. So, let's get this discussion started! Feel free to answer any of the questions, all of the questions, and/or ask your own! Are you planning on participating in the 2017 Spring Anthology? Which of the two themes are you thinking about using? Have you started writing your anthology? If so, how far along are you? If you haven't already started, do you have an idea of what you want to write? Do you have your anthology planned out? Do you work from an outline or just write as you go? If you've already started, would you like to share anything about your story? If you've already submitted your story, are you planning a second story?

I am still around, just haven't been writing as much, though I hope to get back to writing more in the near future. Forging Trust is on my list of stories that I need to get finished.

And the prompts are BACK! With all the site upgrade stuff going on last week, we didn't do any prompts, but this week we're back on schedule and it's time for a couple new prompts from the prompt guru Comicfan. Just remember that to post in GA Stories, prompt responses under 1,000 words have to be posted as part of a collection. And don't forget to share a link to your prompt response in the appropriate forum thread so that it just might appear in next week's blog post. Prompt 566 – Creative Tag – List of words Use the following words in a story – broken watch, boardwalk, heavy rain, knapsack, and a cup of coffee. Prompt 567 – Creative Tag – Fire The night started out calm and peaceful. You had just finished dinner and were curling up on the couch ready to watch some TV when a bright red glow caught your eye. Turning to look out the window you see your neighbors house engulfed in flames. Rushing outside you find nearly all the houses on the block burning, including the house next door. What do you? I don't see any prompt responses posted in the thread for Prompts 564 or 565, so here's your chance to share your own past prompt responses.

Hey y'all! Hope everyone is having a great end of the week. While we didn't have the regular site blog features, this past week was a very busy one here at Gay Authors. On Friday, the site was upgraded to the current forum software, and we also upgrade to Stories 2.0. As with any major site change, there are bugs to be found and fixed and we are working on getting the kinks smoothed out. If you find what you believe to be a bug, share it with us in the Bug Collection thread. Prior to posting, please check the other posts in the thread, as well as the Site Upgraded Blog Post that is pinned on the main forum page. The blog post includes a list of many of the bugs that we are working on. The biggest thing we ask right now is to please be patient as we work to get everything running smoothly. We know that change can be difficult and we are doing our best to get everything back in working order. Now is a great time to explore the site and the new features that are available with the upgrade. Anthology Announcements: ***NOTE: All Deadlines are for submission to the Anthology Proof Team 2017 Spring Anthology: Jagged Edges / Unintended Consequences - Due April 30th, 2017 2017 Fall Anthology: The Fall Out / Secret Spaces - Due November 15th, 2017 Premium Updates: Dreams of a Father by dkstories; Book 2 of Dreams of Humanity *Premium* Negative Splits by Cia *Premium* Classic Updates: The Sky Full of Stars (an HP story) by Myr Signature Updates: Mine! by Cia Sumeru by Dolores Esteban The Castaway Hotel: Next Generation Book 2 by Bill W; Book 11 of The Castaway Hotel Veil of Shadow by Stellar; Book 2 of Aspects of Dawn Promising Updates: Buy One, Get Two and Three... by Caz Pedroso Cadet by Sasha Distan Confide/ant by Sasha Distan How I Met Him Here by carringtonrj Innocent Sacrifice by Sasha Distan; Book 8 of The Best Circle of Hell Stories Morningstar: The Malaise by Headstall Ripped by craftingmom The Gay Experience by AC Benus Walls by Carlos Hazday; Book 6 of CJ *Note* As the story update list was compiled later Sunday, if you posted a chapter on Sunday prior to the list compile, your story posting may not appear.

No, I haven't linked all the past weeks responses since at least November. I feature the responses to ONE prompt. Cia featured the responses to both prompts, but that's not the way I do things.

Oops! Sorry guys, the weekly wrap up went up before I finished it. Now, a couple of quick things before we get to this week's wrap up. During the next week, there's going to be a lot going on behind the scenes, and all of our regular site blog posts are going to be suspended until after the site upgrade. This will leave multiple opportunities for us to share information if necessary. On another front, the April Fool's Day Short Story Contest is now available for you to read. Don't forget to read them all and get your vote in to Reader1810 by the 25th. You can see a list of all the stories in yesterday's blog. March C S R Feature: Crave By Litlover This month's CSR book is Crave by Litlover. It's a novel length story, so get to reading soon so that you will be ready for the discussion day on March 27th. Site Software Update Coming Soon We've already touched on this a bit up above, but Myr joined us on Tuesday to let us know when the site upgrade will be happening and what you can expect during that time. Please read this so that you aren't surprised and remember that the next couple of weeks is going to be hectic and patience will get you further than demands. Author Promo: Valkyrie We did an author promo for Valkyrie this week where she chose three of her stories and shared some insight on how they came to be, what she liked about writing them, and something about the story that can't be garnered by reading the description. Check it out, and if you'd like to see some of your GA stories featured in a future promo, send me a PM. Prompts #564 & #565 If you need a little inspiration to get to writing, then you should check out the two new prompts. Don't forget to share your prompt responses in the appropriate thread so that it might just be featured with next week's prompts! Anthology Announcements: ***NOTE: All Deadlines are for submission to the Anthology Proof Team 2017 Spring Anthology: Jagged Edges / Unintended Consequences - Due April 30th, 2017 2017 Fall Anthology: The Fall Out / Secret Spaces - Due November 15th, 2017 Premium Updates: Dreams of a Father by dkstories; Book 2 of Dreams of Humanity *Premium* Negative Splits by Cia *Premium* Signature Updates: Mental Games by Bill W Mine! by Cia Promptings from Valhalla by Valkyrie Sumeru by Dolores Esteban The Castaway Hotel: Next Generation Book 2 by Bill W; Book 11 of The Castaway Hotel Promising Updates: Buy One, Get Two and Three... by Caz Pedroso Confide/ant by Sasha Distan Eternal Life, Limited by aditus Give Me Back My Prompts by Sasha Distan; Book 4 of GA Prompts Here Kitty, Kitty by Caz Pedroso Innocent Sacrifice by Sasha Distan; Book 8 of The Best Circle of Hell Stories Morningstar: The Malaise by Headstall Ripped by craftingmom Short Rides by Carlos Hazday Walls by Carlos Hazday; Book 6 of CJ

Once the voting is over, there will be a guessing game

It's time!!! For everyone that has been waiting, we've got 10 brand new stories for you to take a look at. After you've read all the stories, make sure to vote for your favorite. The winners will be announced on April 1st, 2017. The top three stories will receive not only the recognition, but the following prizes: 1st Place 6 month Premium access 2nd Place 3 month Premium access 3rd Place 1 Month Premium access Reminder Authors and editing/beta teams are prohibited from revealing the author behind each story. Revealing the authors' identity will disqualify the story in question. Voting Procedure We are going with a blind vote for this contest. Neither the voter, nor the staff member collecting the votes will know which author wrote which story. All stories have been posted under the author name of Anonymous Jester. The only site member/staff that knows the identity of each story's author is Renee Stevens. Reader1810 has willingly volunteered to collect votes. After you've read all 10 stories, PM the story name you'd like to vote for to Reader and use the subject April Fools Vote. Members get to vote for one story. Please wait to vote for your choice until you have read all the stories and are certain as to which story you'd like to vote for. Voting will conclude at 2:00 PM EST on March 25th, 2017. No votes will be accepted after that time. Now, onto the stories! Chasing Jayce Downhearted Fool Me Once Fool's Gold Getting Caught Happy Birthday! Outwitted Served Cold Suffer No Fools The Real Me Happy voting, and just a reminder, ALL votes should be sent to Reader1810.

Thanks, Timothy. I fixed it.