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Thank you. That helped me realize Caleb’s bland because I don’t have his personality in my head yet; what his strong and weak chakras are, for example. Nor have I done enough world-building to know how race would impact his worldview, in part because I haven’t chosen how far in the future this should be set.

Answering those questions should help…[Read more]

Ah! Parent-child relationships are always tricky when it comes to words. *grin*

Thank you so much!

Ellen

It should now be fixed.

For those that care: the CSS for the forum replys was, improperly/unexpectedly, inheriting from the general CSS for the remainder of the site.

I hadn’t noticed it in my testing of this system, but now I’m seeing it as well. Not always, but enough that it is clearly an issue. I’ll look into it.

So far, that feels fine. Again, look at other writers, especially those you admire, and see how they filter in the details about race, gender, and so forth. It could well be that if you go far enough into the future there will be very few meaningful distinctions, but that itself might be a valuable detail. Creating a story is both the words on…[Read more]

I’m seeing that on the right side as well. Let me communicate with Michael and see if we can fix it.

I’m seeing that on the right side as well. Let me communicate with Michael and see if we can fix it.

This is the first 500 words of my homework; I revised it to combine both assignments (the protag was originally a mixed-race woman) by making the protag about as opposite me as I could. Caleb is a Black male pilot comfortable with confrontation and risk. The description of the “warden” is probably the most complete character description I’ve…[Read more]

Excellent.

I have found meditation very helpful, and when I can manage it, meditating at least three days a week is useful in helping me reach the “thrive” level of living. (Survive/maintain/thrive)

Oddly enough, I find daily meditation disruptive, but my meditation tends toward self-psychoanalysis instead of the regular “counting breaths” or “just be”…[Read more]

alancing physical and emotional descriptions is an art form.

I like that.

Clipping photos is a great idea for my human characters.

I’ve been working on my clay work skills to try to build clay models of my aliens, and I need to set aside time to do that on a regular basis. Models would take some of the fuzziness out of my imagination and give…[Read more]

Hi Steve,

Thank you for your response. This is just a technical issue but some of the responses I read are cut off on the right side. I don’t know how to fix that or is that something that needs to be mentioned to Michael. I think I got the gist of what you were saying but some of the words were cut off. I appreciate your continued encouragement.

Very good!

My standard comment about depression is that depression is fear with nowhere to run and nothing to fight. But there is also clinical depression, which seems to be the brain’s neurochemistry stuck in this mode even if there is no obvious external cause.

Not being a doctor, I have no medical opinion about how much clinical depression can be…[Read more]

Most books contain some clues about the character’s race: something about hair texture, eye color, skin color, ethnicity or cultural background, etc. Try picking up a few books (or stories) where there are black characters, and see how the authors handled it. Imitate them. The fastest way to learn is imitation!

You might try cutting pictures of people out of magazines, and basing your characters on them. Balancing physical and emotional descriptions is an art form. How do your favorite writers handle it? Find ten descriptions from writers you like and copy them by hand, giving yourself a chance to “feel” what it is like to think and write this way.

Internal is NOT weaker. And the male/female split is more of a reference than some kind of definitive statement: there is huge over lap, and sometimes that is reversed, but it is a broadly accurate statement. Absorb the “bones” of some plotting approach, and then write as you wish. The most important thing is reading and writing. The rest will…[Read more]

This is a private site. I can’t imagine anyone considering this publication.

It turned into a 1,400-word science fiction piece with a happyish ending because I just couldn’t take any more grim.

Just finished the second revision. This forum is private enough that posting it here would not be considered publication, correct? Or I could post the first 500 words of the original piece.