Day 5 of #WritingWonders : Scents and Sounds

The scents and sounds of Ascension are in general strange if you were used to living in monastery in an Earthlike managed ecosystem.

There's smoke from people actually burning solid fuel! I mean, WTF, right? The forests of muddy ochre coloured vegetation have a salty, marine smell (but Calnor doesn't identify it, having never seen a sea).

Noisy things include real outdoor weather, the rumble of explosives from the quarry, and Nolene.

Day 6 of #WritingWonders: opening scene theme song.

Easy. First movement of Beethoven's "Moonlight" sonata, as the the Ribbon Ship falls into orbit and Calnor comes out of suspension not sure at first where he is.

I don't write cinematically in general, but I can picture exactly how I'd shoot that scene.

It's an easy choice because the book is structured based on the movements of that sonata,. If that sounds a bit wanky, fair. But you try things, right? It sort of works so I leaned into it.

Day 7 of #WritingWonders : what does the MC look like?

I don't know exactly? 1P POV means I never had to "see" Calnor's face to write him.
And I can't draw.

What I do know: 40-ish, not tall, wiry build but with some weight and muscle tone lost during suspension in the 20-year flight from Tetra to Ascension.

Probably brown eyes, close-cropped hair. Arrived in light, loose silk-like shirt and trousers, so mistaken for a Buddhist on arrival (actually a Matheist, maybe Buddhist-adjacent tbf)

Day 8 of #WritingWonders: describe your MC's laugh.

Calnor is very reserved, and has a dryish, self-deprecating sense of humour. I don't think he laughs out loud even once in the book? Not as Calnor anyway. We can revisit that technicality tomorrow.

But the 2nd protagonist, Nolene…
[
"Ha!"
She had a sharp, high-pitched laugh, if that monosyllable had been a laugh.
]

She's more a laughing at than a laughing with kind of person. As a teenager, obviously everyone else's stupidity is funny.

Day 9 of #WritingWonders

MC POV: when was the last time you laughed? Why?
- - -
Joreth here, ignore Calnor, there's nothing interesting to say about him. I'm the Main Character really.

The *second last* time I laughed, it was at how naive and easily played everyone around me was.

The last time was at how naive and easily played I was.
- - -

Day 10 of #WritingWonders: how much humour is in your story?

A little, here and there. I'm playing with ideas around technology, politics and unintended consequences, and along the way, the characters living through that will find some of it amusing, as one does.

I notice tho that often when Calnor is making a wry observation I'm using it to foreshadow something very bad happening to him, so he'd find it less funny if he knew that.

So anyway, 1/3 of the way through #WritingWonders, and I should probably re-mention that disOrder is an existing, published book you can get now if you like (my book bundle is linked off my profile, you can also get a paperback on Amazon, or EPUB on Smashwords)

BUT there's more: for the duration of May, I have created a 100%-off coupon code UP53U on Smashwords for my collection Silk and Sharp Edges, which contains the story Pure, in the same universe as disOrder:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1041554

Day 11 of #WritingWonders: does your MC laugh more or cry more?

Calnor/Joreth cries more, because of an irreparable loss, and also due to incredible physical pain at one point.

While he's unambiguously just Calnor, his emotions are quite flat (apart from anxiety), for reasons.

Nolene laughs more, but arguably has more to cry about.

Day 12 of #WritingWonders: do you think your story will make readers cry at some point?

Eh. I want them to care about the characters, and feel to some extent their pain and terror and desolation and comfort and triumph, and in the end be satisfied by the experience.

But I don't know if people actually for real cry while reading books. Is that a thing? I can get that with listening to music, but it doesn't really happen to me with the written word, so I don't *expect* anyone to. Who knows.