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Angry TsuYa Letting KoGuRai Have It

Ah, TsuYa.

I’m very glad that I went back in this version of the revision and worked at establishing more of a foundation for his character. He’s always a lot of fun to write once I get into his mindspace. I’ve added yet another chapter to the revision on the Dreigiau website — this one dealing with TsuYa’s justification and thought processes after he’s taken his father’s scythe and claimed leadership over Nefol. I had some help brainstorming this one with Syn — I knew I wanted another TsuYa chapter, just didn’t know what way to approach it. She helped give me a few ideas for this and I think it turned out nicely… especially when I could weave in XaNi’s character a bit more, like so: 

Before he could ponder the problem further, a knock sounded at his door. TsuYa froze, starting at it, unaccustomed to the sound. Very few people came to his room, after all. It was something that would probably begin to change with his new-found position.

“Yes?” he called, trying to make his voice as official as possible.

“Sir, may I enter?” a quiet, female voice asked from the other side.

“Yes,” TsuYa answered, feeling somehow less regal in repeating the same word twice.

The door swung inward smoothly, XaNi’s shape sliding through the door frame. The room felt somehow darker with her presence, and the strange gleam that lit her eyes back in the Council room still shown. Though TsuYa wasn’t afraid of very much, he couldn’t help but feel a little uncomfortable at being alone in the same room with her.

“Is there something I can help you with?” he asked, hoping to get to the point and get her out of his chambers quickly.

“Actually,” she stepped forward with a confident stride, “I came to offer my help to you.”

“I see,” he answered, trying to stand his ground. “I appreciate the offer, but I think I have things under control.”

“Oh really?” XaNi leaned forward, breaking every last rule of personal space for him.

TsuYa didn’t know if that was supposed be appealing to him, but it wasn’t. It just creeped him out all the more. He asked curtly, “Do you think I don’t?”

She seemed to feed off of his uncertainty, her smile spreading, “What I see is the young and handsome son of ZenToYa… who has just taken his first step into leadership and may feel a bit over his head. Am I right?”

“Are you trying to flatter me?” he grit his teeth, eyes narrowing in return.

“You are a tough one, aren’t you? I understand why you were chosen,” XaNi took a merciful step away. As if testing him.

“I don’t trust a word you say,” TsuYa told her bluntly. “Your father may have served my father as a member of the original Nefolian Council. But you’ve given your services to KoGuRai ever since. You and KoGuRai’s groupies are the first people I’m removing from power once I get the chance.”

Her eyes stole up to his face, a momentarily flicker of irritation smouldering within. Quickly, she replaced it with a more humble expression, “Why do you think I’m here? I want to offer my allegiance to you.”

“You’re here because you got tangled up with a loser,” he huffed under his breath. “And now you don’t want to face the consequences of your choices.”

“I can prove my loyalty,” XaNi said quickly. “I know what you seek.”

“And what’s that?” TsuYa planted a hand on his hip.

“AsaHi,” she leveled her gaze on him again.

I really felt that I nailed TsuYa here — we got to see his insecurities, his pride, his ambitions, his daddy-worship issues and the way he fights to justify that what he’s doing is the right thing. Never does he stop to consider he might be being used (his pride won’t let him see the manipulation). Neither does he see that XaNi’s intentions aren’t loyalty to him… rather loyalty to Zerom’s will — which is to bring home AsaHi. And not for nice reasons. Oh, and I saw it as an opportunity to slip in a cameo of another character who has never appeared in Dreigiau, but did exist back during that time. ^_~

Book 1, Chapter 11 is a revision of an older chapter, where Zemi first appears to protect AsaHi from Nefolian Apprentices. It all clicked with me during these revisions, and I’ve changed the Nefolians to be XaNi (who was instructed to find AsaHi in Chapter 10) and her men. This allowed me to weave in more foreshadowing about the Ghost Clan, who will be seen in full force an upcoming chapter pretty soon. Somehow, it’s a bit more pleasing to me that XaNi’s folks get Zemi’s boot to the head than Nefolian Apprentices.

While the ending didn’t change that much, I did clean up the dialogue some to make it flow better. I also looked up self-defense moves to ensure that what AsaHi does in response to the man who was going to grab her made sense. She started to run away earlier on in this version, which seemed the natural thing to do.

Now that this final new chapter is complete, I’ll be able to start focusing more on revisions of existing chapters rather than writing new fill-in materials. I have one or two more new chapters in mind, but that’ll be further on down the line. For now, I’m going to be following AsaHi’s meeting with Zemi for a while. Enjoy!

Continue reading »]]> I’m in a flurry of uncertainty right now — between possible jobs and whatnot — but I’ve been drafting and brainstorming lots of great ideas for Dreigiau. Today, I’m releasing two new Dreigiau chapters for Book 1.

Chapter 8 is an introduction for a number of characters including the first look at KoGuRai and JouKa. It also introduces a new potential baddie, XaNi. We’ll get into more of what she is going to be doing in Dreigiau in a little while, though. I also spent more time touching on the mystery of the Awakened, to allow the reader to get used to the idea that winged people are roaming around in my world.

I have a few small changes I’ll be making to Awakened in this draft — namely, the ability for Awakened to put their wings away. This would only be available to more practiced Awakened, but would help provide new possibilities for my storylines. For one, it would explain how SaRa remained unknown for so many years in Nefol. For another, it allows me to send undercover Awakened into Gatherings and Nefol to help usher the newly Awakened to Ceiswyr. Just some ideas.

Chapter 9 focuses on TsuYa’s first descent into Zerom’s shadow. Here we see him being influenced to take up his father’s weapon, which symbolically gives him the leadership of Nefol. We also start to see hints of the Ghost Clan activity within the Nefolian Council. This time around, not all is as it seems, not even for KoGuRai. *evil*

Enjoy and feel free to leave your feedback!

Continue reading »]]> Yesterday, I discussed my idea of making Dreigiau and Runne a membership-based site. Maybe the post was so long that my actual idea got lost in the text. So I wanted to clarify stuff.

The point of the membership is to NOT charge existing Sygnus friends. This is a way to give everyone who currently reads and supports the site a way to continue to view the content for FREE. However, it restricts the general public’s ability to read the content, since the idea is to promote the upcoming ebook format.

The only thing that would change is that you’d need to type a username and password into the site before you could read all the chapters. There would never be a fee for existing readers — this is my way of ensuring that you still get all the content even though I’m trying to publish it in other avenues.

If there’s ever a fee involved to access the site, it won’t be for  you guys. I pretty much know who’s been involved all these years and will provide a long time for people to sign up for free before closing the membership upon publication. I’ll also always be able to go back and manually create free accounts for anyone who missed the sign-up period.

The signup will only require you to choose a username, password and enter an email address. It’s the same as signing up for a forum — no personal data will be required. No billing data will be required.

I hope that helps to make it more clear. The idea is, again, to continue to give the content for free while restricting who can all view the content. The alternative is much worse, in my eyes — to take the content down completely.

Continue reading »]]> This may seem long, but please read over this to get a full idea of what I’m thinking about doing!

I have some exciting news about the upcoming Dreigiau and Runne releases that I hope will be a good compromise for everyone about existing content. I don’t have anything in place just yet and will announce when changes go into effect. But here’s my path of logic on this:

I’ve announced that I am attempting to develop Dreigiau and possibly Runne into a series of self-published ebooks. Most of you know that by now.

I’m not someone who loves the idea of creating things for a profit. But I do love the idea of trying to support myself, at least partially, on my creations. The reality is, writers need to make a living, and that requires you to eventually make the choice to put a price tag on your work.

However, the one drawback is that in order to sell writing, I don’t feel like I can just leave everything up on the Dreigiau website for free. Anyone can come by and read the whole thing (even though I have a lot of edits yet to make and changes… so it won’t be the same as what I’m releasing). And once someone’s read to the end, why would they bother to actually pay money for what’s free – unless they’re just an awesome person who wants to support the author (like so many folks at Sygnus have shown they are)!

The flip side to that is… I feel miserable about taking stuff down from the site because I’m not money-minded. I’ve always offered my creations to friends and the online community for free. And I’ve seen some sadness at the talk of removing the ability to read Dreigiau – it saddens me too!

Here’s my proposal!

I’ve been looking at options on what I can do to handle this, especially in light of current or long-time Sygnus friends. People like the idea of getting a free copy of the ebook as compensation, but they express sadness at losing the commenting sections and interaction on the site. I agree!

What I’ve decided to do is make Dreigiau and Runne a membership-based site. I feel this is the answer that will work to allow existing friends access to the new and old content, as well as place a barrier where not just anyone can walk in and read it for when I decide to publish it professionally.

This also will allow me to share all the revisions that I’ve been making – so you can see the changes to the old chapters and the brand new chapters I’m working on right now! It’s no fun for me to write all this stuff if I can’t show it to you guys!

Anyhow.

This will require a Dreigiau site revamp – I want to spiff it up and make it something better looking and more organized. I’ll announce when membership is open, and for the time being, it will be free for everyone to join (as I assume most of the people who know about the site right now have already read it or are Sygnus friends).

Eventually, once Dreigiau goes published, I’ll probably set it up a one-time fee to access all existing and new content. This will include web access to all the existing and revised work as well as free ebook downloads in PDF and Kindle as I release them.

However, even after that point, I’ll be able to add Sygnus friends to the membership list and give them access for free. The idea is to grandfather long-time readers and supporters into this for free and still protect the content when the books go self-published.

Okay… that seems like a lot. Sorry I hope that this gives you an idea on what I’m planning to do!

Continue reading »]]> Author Commentary

TsuYa is one of those great accidental figments — he came out of no where, unplanned and refused to leave. Some of you might know the story. When originally drafting Chapter 2 of Dreigiau, I needed someone who would walk in on SoYa’s class to tell him that AsaHi was found in the Host Gate. I decided this someone needed to be grouchy about it, and when I went to write the scene, suddenly SoYa had a disgruntled little brother!

Once TsuYa was there, I decided that he might be useful as more than just a walk on character. I never really knew what I wanted to do with him, though, until the story started to unfold. The result of that was that you saw TsuYa’s downfall before you got to know much about him. I worked hard to redeem his character throughout book 2 and 3, when I really started to learn most about him. Originally, TsuYa was supposed to fall into darkness in Book 1 and never join Zemi’s people. That didn’t happen either… When I went to write TsuYa’s confrontation with Zento, the whole father-son dynamic came out, pulled at my heartstrings, and I realized I had more than just a brother-goes-bad character. I had a character with a lot of unsung potential.

Boy am I glad I followed my instincts. TsuYa went on to become one of my personal favorite figments overall — and I think many people enjoy his snark and the sparks of hidden light that lay just under  his gruff and dark exterior.

Due to all this, one of my goals in the upcoming Dreigiau re-launch is to provide more development for TsuYa’s character before he is taken by Zerom. I also want to establish his rivalry with KoGuRai (who will also be seeing more development), establish more about the political issues that are ripping apart Nefol and show TsuYa’s choices and gradual descent into Zerom’s clutches.

I plan to do this by writing a series of new chapters. The following chapter is TsuYa’s new introduction — this will become Chapter 2, the section right after AsaHi releases Zemi at the Host Gate. In the newest revision, I also established at the end of the AsaHi/Zemi chapter that Zerom has left the Host Gate in a shadow form. I thought it would be neat to reinforce this and bridge the idea by having TsuYa’s first experience with the newly-released Zerom-shadow just within the Host Gate. It makes more sense to me that Zerom had a chance to see TsuYa’s frustrations and anger and marked him as a potential useful tool for the future.

Dreigiau Chapter 2

“Can you believe the nerve of that KoGuRai?” TsuYa complained to his rhawn as he secured the reigns to a sturdy branch on the nearest tree.

The frustration in the young man’s voice and the sharpness of his tone would have set any lesser mount on edge. But this dark dappled rhawn was Steadfast, the colt of Certainty, who had been the legendary steed of ZenToYa himself. Much to his name’s credit, Steadfast was quite used to his owner’s tirades and daily grumblings, and merely flicked an ear in response before turning to graze.

“Some help you are,” TsuYa snorted through his nose as he pulled his practice weapon from the packs on the rhawn’s back. Despite his gruff words, he patted his steed’s flank and made sure all was well before heading towards the silence of the waiting Host Gate.

Silence was the one thing that helped him keep his temper in check, especially on days like this, when he had more than enough of the Council’s nonsense. He was especially sick of one member in particular — his long-time rival, KoGuRai.

He’s got it coming to him. If it wasn’t for SoYa, I would have already…

TsuYa let the practice blade whistle and slice the air, venting his frustration on the watching nothingness. Windmilling his arms, he relished the feel of stretching muscles and the control of the weight of the weapon in his fists. Then, with one measured stroke, he lashed out at the shoddy practice dummy that he had set up only days before, sweeping what passed as the bouldered head from the lop-sided body.

How’d you like that? Huh?

TsuYa named the sad creation KoGuRai, in honor of the source of his frustrations. There were, of course, fitting parallels between the two — mostly because it was a dummy, and also because of the rock-hard noggin. Though TsuYa was a stark realist and rarely gave thought to fantasies, there was something immensely satisfying about imagining KoGuRai’s shocked face in the place of the dummy’s boulder-head.

If Dad was still here, he’d take KoGuRai out back and teach him a thing or two.

However, TsuYa’s father, ZenToYa, was not there anymore. Neither was KoGuRai’s father, JinRai. And that’s where the problems in Nefol, and TsuYa’s life, began.

No one was certain how Nefol lost two of its founding leaders within so short a span. All anyone could confirm was that JinRai went on an expedition to the Outterlands and didn’t return. When Father went to search for his old friend, he didn’t come back either. The message returned saying that ZenToYa was slain during battle with the people of the Spiral.

The stories came back in jumbled pieces from every side. Many things didn’t add up, but it was so hard to sort fact from fiction when TsuYa wasn’t there to see things for himself.

Something just doesn’t feel right about this. And I bet it all has to do with KoGuRai.

TsuYa lifted the boulder in both hands, placing it back on top of the dummy shoulders with a grumble. The only other thing that was certain was how the whole Council had fallen apart without the Founders there to guide the city. It was almost as bad as the old stories where clan bickered with clan over primal hunting grounds. Just more political. And stupid.

Father would have a fit if he knew what this has become. But what I can do? 

With KoGuRai and his lapdogs constantly trying to thwart SoYa’s succession to become the next High Guide of Nefol, it had quickly become the Rais against the Yas. While some said that SoYa’s timid nature was not fit to be the next leader, TsuYa had every intention to fight and protect his brother’s birthright from the wolves waiting in the shadows.

Another crack resounded as his practice weapon sent the boulder rolling, this time straight into the mouth of the Host Gate. TsuYa paused, looking uncertain. Though he came to the Host Gate often, it was only to practice and get away from the mess of the city. Something about the place always made him feel closer to his father, somehow – probably because his fondest memories often revolved around this place.

Though they said the voice of the Dreigiau echoed among the stone, TsuYa did not enter the cave or seek to speak with the Patron. Not the way his brother, SoYa, did. It was another thing he was sure his father wouldn’t have approved of, but TsuYa rarely had anything to say to anyone, much less the Patron Guide.

Not that Lord Dragon would waste his time to talk with me, anyhow.

Still, TsuYa was a perfectionist. The thought of leaving the dummy-head there in the mouth of the cave seemed fairly rude. So, he resolved to claim it. Quickly. Then leave.

Carefully, he crept forward, conscious of every scrape and scuffle his boots made on the stone. His green eyes fought to adjust to the growing dimness, his mouth pursed into a straight line. The boulder rolled further inside than he accounted for, and the thought of pressing deeper into the Host Gate began to weigh heavy on his shoulders.

There it is!

Finally catching sight of the stone, he scuffled forward and reached for it. As his fingers extended into the shadow, a sudden hissing wind gusted through the cavern, making his skin prickle. The darkness seemed to grow more pronounced as he watched his coat flap around his ankles.

The wind is going the wrong direction. It’s coming from inside the cave!

TsuYa took a staggered step backwards, instantly forgetting about the boulder. The air pressed from every side, feeling somehow weighted and heavy with an unnatural chill. Shadows stretched, etched across the darkness of the cave walls, and a soft hiss scraped across the stone like a heated knife.

-Tsuuuuuuuu-

For a moment, the wind seemed to speak his name. TsuYa jumped as the whisper drew close, sounding next to his ear. When he turned, he saw nothing. Just as quickly as it came, the wind vanished, sweeping away through the mouth of the cavern and fading into the normal daylight.

What was that?

His shaking hands were the only proof that anything had happened at all.

What WAS that?

But there was a more troubling question.

How did it know my name?

TsuYa let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Then gathering his wits, he began to make his way back out of the Host Gate. That’s when he realized something still didn’t feel quite right. Glancing over one shoulder, he could make out the faint outline of flickering light cast across the far wall.

Now what?

He balled one fist around the grip of his practice weapon and pivoted on his heel, facing back into the depths of the cave. If something really was happening, it was his duty as an Apprentice to inspect and report the situation to Nefol. Still, that didn’t stop his throat from tightening at the memory of the foreboding presence on the wind.

The sound of his boots on the stone was louder than he wanted it to be. The closer he crept to the central chamber, the more light he could see. Finally, the cave yawned wide before him, full of streaming light, dancing runes and unearthly illumination. TsuYa had visited the Host Gate many times in the past, but had never seen such a phenomenon, not even when Father was there.

As his eyes adjusted to the pulsing light, he made out a strange shape in the far room. Steeling his resolve, he stepped into the glow. Strangely enough, it appeared to part for him, almost welcoming as he moved forward.

Is that… a person?

TsuYa almost chided himself for allowing his imagination to play tricks on him. After all, no one actually came inside the Host Gate. And if they did, why would they be laying in the middle of the floor?

Yes… I think it is!

All logic lost to amazement, he realized his first instinct was right. There was someone lying within the cave. Carefully, he knelt next to the unmoving figure and rolled them over with one hand.

AsaHi?

TsuYa’s eyes widened as he instantly recognized the familiar face. She was his brother’s Promised, and one day would become SoYa’s Bonded wife. However, the fact that she was there, within the Host Gate, and certainly without permission, would cause all sorts of trouble.

Oh man… oh man!

He gripped the girl’s shoulders and shook her very gently, “AsaHi! Wake up! We need to go!”

She didn’t respond, only a limp heaviness drawing down her limbs. TsuYa tried shaking her again, and was met with the same silence. Only her shallow breath and heartbeat told him that she was still alive.

Great. This is a real fine mess.

TsuYa grumbled to himself as he reached down and scooped the girl up in his arms.

If the Council finds out she was here… if they see this magic activity…

He carried her out of the cavern towards his rhawn, legs bowed as he struggled to hold her weight against his chest. With a final heave, he hoisted AsaHi up over the back of Steadfast, then swung up behind her in the saddle.

SoYa, you better thank me for this!

Practice time and dummy were forgotten as TsuYa wheeled his steed around. His thoughts were now focused on where in Nefol to take the girl and how to get her there as unnoticed as possible.

This isn’t going to be easy. 

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New Inner Realms Map

When I first released the printed version of Dreigiau Book 1, I recreated the map of the Inner Realms. It was a neat color map that I spent a good bit of time working on, but when I went to actually publish the book, I was disappointed at how small the map printed out. So with the remake of Book 1, I decided to create a new version of the map, as seen in this post. Though the color map was attractive, I realized that I would have to put it in grayscale if I’m going to eventually reprint this book, so I went ahead and made it in black and white from the get-go.

A previous post discussed the importance of creating maps and how to approach it for your world. My maps tend to be somewhat simple in contrast with more elaborate fantasy maps. Part of that is due to the fact that the Inner Realms doesn’t have cities or established towns. The little town markers on this map indicate locations where seasonly migrations tend to gather — thus the name “Gatherings.”

For anyone who is curious, I Photoshopped this map from scratch and it didn’t take too long to do. This was created using the AWESOME free Tolkien-Style Map Brushes pack. There’s also an add-on to the pack called I Want More Mountains. Both are highly recommended for putting together some really neat looking maps, be it for your own fantasy book or just for your story reference. GIMP versions of the map brushes are available, too.

Continue reading »]]> In the previous two posts of this series, I touched on the fears writers have that may keep them from sharing their work and how to deal with the different kinds of feedback and criticism. This time around, I want to focus on answering the original question, which was how to work up the courage to display your writing to people on the Internet. Some of the replies answered along the same lines as I would.

First, I would start small. Find someone you trust to be your beta reader, someone who is going to provide you solid feedback that helps you to improve your work. If you can find more than one person and have a small group of writer support, that would be great, too.

Believe it or not, after revising my work, I feel more confident that it’s in better reading shape than before I’ve made any changes to it. Having feedback from other writers or readers helps you to polish your work. And once you’ve polished your work into something you’re proud of, it’s not so scary to post it to a larger audience later.

If you have the opportunity, try to take a writing workshop in your community or in your school. This was a mandatory part of my writing degree and it really helps to work up your confidence. It really helps to learn that most of the other people taking the class are as nervous as you are when it comes to sharing writing! Plus, the act of giving and listening to other writers’ feedback helps you to develop an eye for better self-editing and makes you a stronger writer over all.

Join or create a writer’s critique group online. This is similar to the writing workshop idea. I’ve considered founding one of these in the past, but have just lacked the time to get something like that off the ground.

Once you have a bit of confidence, try something a little larger.  Join a writer’s online forum that allows you to post and critique work or ask for help. This can be a place to step it up some by sharing your writing in a writing section of a forum for only the forum community. Once you get feedback there from multiple people, and continue honing your work, you’ll find yourself becoming less and less nervous about showing your work.

Join public RP groups if you enjoy role play online. This helps you to write and share your writing with other people and become less nervous to display your real writing over time. Basically, anything that makes you flex your public writing muscle will over time give you confidence.

Just keep in mind to choose your editors, groups and forums wisely. As with anything online, there will always be a few people who come around just to hurt other people’s feelings and cause drama. This is when you have to go back to determining if an  individual’s feedback is worth letting your feelings get hurt, or is genuinely something that can make your writing stronger.

Q&A

What other things have you done to work up your courage in showing your writing online?

Do you have any experiences with writing groups, and if so, any suggestions on how to find them, what to look for, or what to be careful of?

Continue reading »]]> As some of you know, I’m working on yet another revision for Dreigiau Book 1. I wanted to take a moment to highlight some of the things that will be changing from the version you know and love.

• The new release of Book 1 will be officially titled “The Gift of Flame” after the original Book 1 Introduction’s title.
• I’m majorly revising the beginning chapters of Book 1 to give the world a bit more depth and give a better sense of the culture of the Inner Realms.
• I’m writing new content chapters for Book 1 to fill in some of the blanks. So far, most of these chapters revolve around expanding TsuYa and KoGuRai’s involvement in the early chapters and smoothing out some of the Nefolian chapters.
• The Gift of Flame will be a combination of what is currently known as Book 1 and Book 2 of Dreigiau. This means Dreigiau will be consolidated into a 4 book series rather than a 5 book series.
• The Gift of Flame’s ending will be revised — I’ll likely move a few of the chapters that are currently at the end of present-day Book 2 to the beginning of the next book instead of leaving off on a cliffhanger note.
• History and background will be expanded, including some new content about Zerom, Ghost Clans and exactly what motivated Zerom to do what he did. There’s a new background story for this in development and may result in new chapters as well.

I’ll release more information on things as I go.

I’m also considering writing another short non-fiction ebook that deals with character/figment development. It would be far more indepth than the posts I’ve created on this blog, but along the same lines. Would anyone be interested in something like this? 

Continue reading »]]> As I stated in the previous post, one reason writers may be afraid to share their work is a fear of rejection or criticism. While no one wants to hear people bash in their writing, the truth is, feedback, editing and proofing is all part of the process. That doesn’t mean all feedback is created equal, though.

Listen to any professional writer, or even your writing professors, and they will all tell you that to be a published writer, you have to have thick skin. Pretty much every published writer (even your favorite author) has been rejected — sometimes many, many times — before they found a place that accepted their work. This has, up until now, been one of the most difficult parts of the publishing process. I say “up until now” because with the dawn of the digital era, writers can now skirt around needing an agent or a publisher and go directly to online eBooks and print on demand.

To learn and grow as a writer, you have to be able to disconnect from your work enough to see the value of other people’s feedback. You have to be willing to scrap what doesn’t work, edit what does work, and polish things to a gleaming shine. This sometimes means making difficult choices and going against your emotions. It sometimes means having the courage to let other people into your world so that they can help you make it better.

Types of Feedback

There’s a few different kinds of people who give feedback, some more useful than others.

The I Like It. These are people who probably really do like your work, but don’t know how, or don’t feel qualified, to offer suggestions for changes. They try to be a good friend, though, and encourage you to keep going by telling you what you hope to hear – that your work is good and someone likes it. However, that doesn’t help you make it better. If you have friends like this, don’t get too frustrated with them. Just recognize they’re probably not going to be the ones to go to if you want serious suggestions. (Though sometimes if you ask a few “why” questions, or for very specific feedback, you can get a bit more out of them!)

The Trollface. These are guys who never like anything and rarely have anything nice to say. While there might be something useful in their drivel, I’d take it with a grain of salt and not try to sift through the garbage too much. Chances are, they’re not trying to help and only trying to bring you down.

The Nitpick. These are people who can get annoying, but actually may have good points for you to consider. They often pick about every little fault they find (which can be annoying), but some of these faults may be good questions to ask yourself about your story and characters. If you deal with a Nitpick friend, insulate yourself and know that you don’t have to change every little thing that someone else suggests.

The Balanced. These people are hard to find! Not only are they honest about what they do like (and tell you why they like it), but they also are honest about what doesn’t work in your writing, and are not afraid to tell you. They are really trying to help you make your writing a better piece and tend to offer you good suggestions from a reader’s perspective.

In the end, you as the writer must decide what is best for your story.

At the same time, don’t dismiss an idea just because it hurts your feelings. Try to be open to ideas that other people offer you without losing your own identity. Writers have to create a feedback filter and learn to identify what will make the work stronger in the end. Writers also have to create soul shields and not allow the writing sprit to be crushed when you deal with people who simply have nothing better to do than criticize.

Approach sharing your writing as a learning experience or another form of brainstorming. Let your writing be fluid and always ready to change, never set in stone.  Don’t take feedback personally and learn to identify people who honestly want to help. Those are the people you want to keep sharing with – just make sure you let them know how they’ve helped you and how you’ve implemented their ideas!

Don’t let fear of criticism be the thing that keeps you from opening the doors to other people. If your favorite authors have lived to see many rejections, know that you’re not alone. It’s those who keep writing despite the rejection that eventually make it.

Q&A

• Do any of your favorite authors talk about their experiences and rejections before becoming published?
• What sort of feedback helps you most in your writing? Do you keep an open mind when editing your work?
• What sort of feedback do you give other people?