Maybe an unconstructive crit has a few constructive nuggets in it, and you worry you’ll miss out on those if you throw the whole thing out. Man, if it’s truly valid critique, other people will tell you the same thing without being assholes about it and you can listen to them instead.

I guess a metaphor would be, someone offers you a bucket of shit and says there’s a chunk of gold buried in the bottom. Dude, don’t go sifting through that bucket. For one thing, if it is gold, it isn’t worth it, especially when there are other people willing to give you a chunk of gold without feces all over it. More likely than not, you get to the bottom of that bucket and find out it was just bits of corn anyway.

By Megan Rosalarian on tumblr

She’s right, yoh!

Just because somebody is talking about your work, doesn’t mean they’re right. Most of them are blowing hot air eitherway, especially when it’s faceless people on the internet.

Honestly, if I had to classify Chalcara as a supernatural being it would be more “surprisingly levelheaded eldritch horror” than “goddess”.
All Worldbuilding Wednesday stuff is canon unless it isn’t, e.g. the story’s itself contradict it.  And the characters in comic aren’t aware of WbW at ALL. Do you want to ask your own question? Questionlist, rules, and place to post here.

Silent Suns features an ensemble cast. Not something I’d ever done on my own, but these characters have been developed together with John, a good friend of mine ². This resulted in one of the most important writing lessons I ever got in my short career: Every character has to be crafted for the maximum ammount of useful inter-character conflict³.

In the first book you’ve got the Pilot, the Tech, the Playboy, the Killer and the Doctor. Not many characters, are they? Both the Playboy and the Killer sleep around, but they clash about their respective attitudes towards their partners. The Killer and the Doctor clash about their choice of profession. The Pilot and the Tech about the demands of their ship and their respective definitions of feminity. The Pilot is a bit of a prude and goody-two-shoes, which nicely leads to conflict with the Playboy and the Killer. The doctor’s prim and proper, the Engineer’s rarely seen without being covered in greese and oil. The doctor feels responsible for the Pilot and the Engineer, being the oldest person on the ship, whereas the Pilot firmly believes she should be in charge.

A wonderful recipe for tasty, tasty drama small and big. And the best thing is, it arises naturally.

So what does that mean for Traces of Chaos?

I never really thought about this before, mainly because the common writing advice is “make the most interesting character the main-character” and well, Siendes has by far the most interesting character arc in ToC. And it is a good advice, really, but very, very few characters can carry a whole story on their own.  Siendes can’t. She needs support.

The Another Life storyline’s fine in that regard, just due it’s setting. It’s “Siendes among humans” afterall. Mona’s good on keeping Siendes on her toes (it’s why they married)  and Asar von Prehn, well, you’ll see. I am going to tweak some minor characters a bit, but Another Life is full of foils for my dear Des.

The main story is another matter.

Siendes needs a foil, somebody on her side she can clash with, preferable somebody she likes but who can still keep her on her toes. Siendes, unchecked, tends to be a bit of a bully.

Welp.

Maybe I can introduce Shivret earlier than planned, we’ll see. I have at least six months to think about that properly and I’m sure I’ll find a way.

Do you want to ask your own question? Questionlist, rules, and place to post here.

Faces and Facial Expressions.

• 360s facial expression references (female)
  The free not-book-to-buy version has only eight basic expressions, bu it’s still really useful to figure e.g. where the nose goes when people scream their head off.
• For the love of noses
  photo references of impressive human… noses

If any of these links isn’t active anymore, please shoot me a short email, so that I can take it down.