Kagan MacTane (he/him)I doubt I'd ever have an entire chapter be about trauma recovery, all in one chunk. But I think I'd be even less likely to gloss over any serious trauma in such a short time, overall. In fact, I can easily see it cropping up literal years later (in story time), perhaps in a completely separate book if I were doing a series. 3/3
#WordWeavers day 26: What is your current project teaching you, craft-wise or personally?
How serious and large an undertaking writing an entire novel is. Holy shit.
I mean, I wasn't exactly taking it lightly; I didn't think it was going to be some teeny little thing I'd just dash off in a month or two. But damn, I really didn't expect it to be *this* big a project (especially considering how small a fraction of the way through it I am).
#WordWeavers day 27: Is it difficult for you if your partner or closest friends don’t enjoy books?
I truly can't say, because I'm pretty sure I've never had a partner who didn't like books, and if I've had a friend who didn't, it was so long ago that I can't remember (or they were so subtle about it that I never noticed, but I kind of doubt that).
#WordWeavers day 29: Have you ever written a pet into one of your stories?
Some of my characters do have pets, but I'm taking "written a pet into..." to mean "used a real-world pet as the template for one in a story". On that basis, no. My characters' pets are original, not based on any I've had or known in my life.
#WordWeavers day 30: If there were a party, would your MCs be the center of it or hiding in the corner?
It entirely depends on: the particular character; the party, including who else was there; and their mood.
#WordWeavers day 31: What are your MCs’ relationships with food like?
Generally pretty "normal", I think. None of them have disordered eating patterns, or are food-insecure, or anything like that. 🤷🏻
#WordWeavers day 1: Who is your most despicable character and how do you feel about them?
Well, my *second*-most-despicable character is a corrupt cop. It'd be hard to say much about the character who's even more despicable without giving away some things that I want to show up naturally in the book and give people the willies. But I will say that my feelings about this character are that they're a scary monster. Hiding behind a pretty face — as many of the scariest do, especially recently.
#WordWeavers day 2: Do you enjoy writing "good", "bad" or morally grey characters more? Why?
Honestly, I think my biggest enjoyment seems to come from writing characters who are having a good time, enjoying what they're doing. Whether that's good, bad, or neutral (just having fun and not hurting anyone) seems to be irrelevant.
#WordWeavers day 3: Share a vivid sensory description from your story. What was writing it like?
Here's Kevin Wingard experiencing a magical warding charm plucked from one of three guards Margot Chu has just knocked out, in chapter 2. Writing this was fun and interesting, as I tried to imagine: If I were a magician, and suddenly had a charm like this handed to me, what *would* that feel like, anyway?
#WordWeavers day 4: Look back at the first thing you wrote. What did you do right?
A few things! I did a good job (IMO) of describing a numinous experience; I think I gave a pair of characters distinct and relatable voices, and I also, serendipitously, happened to be able to throw in some fun symbolism.
#WordWeavers day 5: If you found out that someone had to live one of your MCs' lives (like in the "Stranger Than Fiction" movie), would you change the story?
Huh? 😕 But someone *does* have to live their lives: they each do. They're people. How are they not people? Of course they have to live their lives! What‽
#WordWeavers day 6: Share an important or fun lesson you've learned as a writer.
I've learned that pantsing ("discovery writing", "gardening", whatever) is really hard for me. I'm still trying to decide whether that means I just need to outline the hell out of things, or whether I should practice and get better at pantsing. I'm leaning toward the latter... but it ain't easy!
#WordWeavers day 7: What's the most rewarding thing about writing?
Getting to create an entire world and people, and even sometimes see them having fun in it.
#WordWeavers day 8: What's the most frustrating thing about writing?
How incredibly long it takes to get even a little bit done.
#WordWeavers day 9: Have you ever talked to a reader of your story? How did it go?
To me, this phrasing implies something other than "I handed someone a piece of my writing and asked them what they thought." More of a chance encounter with a stranger who'd read my stuff. So in that case, no, I haven't published anything yet, so I haven't yet had the opportunity for this to happen.
#WordWeavers day 10: Have you ever dedicated your work to someone?
I'm not yet at the point where I have enough to be worth dedicating to anyone.
#WordWeavers day 12: What would you tell a fellow writer who was struggling with self-doubt?
It would depend heavily on what it was they were doubting: their ability to complete their book? Whether their work was any good? Whether they'd ever be able to sell it, or make a career out of writing? 1/3
And it would also depend on what they said when I asked the question I've learned is crucial if you want to help someone: "Would you like some advice? Or would you prefer sympathy?" N.b.: It's critical that you *mean it*, that you be willing to provide either, and not look down on sympathy as being "lesser" than advice. Maybe remember a time in your own life when you've wanted sympathy, not advice. 2/3
Alternatively, "I'm sorry, I don't have any advice, but I can offer sympathy" is a very valid thing to say! 3/3
#WordWeavers day 14: Who do your antagonists care about?
Travis Winter: Himself and his wife, Holly McQueen. (She kept her surname; she already had a very successful career before meeting Travis.)
Derrick Devereaux: Himself, his husband Ashton, his friend-group in general, and also the San Francisco drag community and gay community. 1/2
Van Martinez: Herself, her siblings in blue on the San Francisco police force, and also a couple of friends outside the force.
Donna Kuang: Herself, her husband Larry and son Brandon, and the people of San Francisco. Not just the voters, all of them!
Adrian Hardesty: Himself. 2/2
#WordWeavers day 15: Describe your MCs' eyes.
Four of them have brown eyes, with David Hartmann being the lone blue-eyed one. And I will *not* be describing either Margot Chu's or Jessie Nakamura's eyes as "slanted", "almond-shaped", or having epicanthic folds at any point in the book. That's completely unnecessary; I'm positive my readers will be able to figure it out. (Their surnames help a lot in this regard.)
#WordWeavers day 16: If your MCs had statues put up in their honor, what would it be for?
I've thought about this a bunch since the question came out, and honestly... I don't like to just outright reject the question, but in this case, I really don't they ever would have statues in their honor. They try very hard to work behind the scenes. 1/2
Theoretically, if Jessie made a career of art and then became wildly successful, or if Angel became a famous architect, they might get statues for those things. (Unlikely, though.) The other three? I don't think anyone's making statues for librarians, MRI techs, or web developers, no matter how cool, interesting, or dedicated they are. 2/2
#WordWeavers day 17: Would you still write if you had to use a typewriter or pen and paper?
Pen and paper? Absolutely not. My hand just won't handle writing for long periods of time without cramping. (If I'd been born in a time before typewriters? I don't know. I might have developed the stamina for it.)
[Edited to add: the last sentence of https://social.lol/@alkaid/116085664170057754 applies to me beautifully, as well.] 1/2
Alkaid Proof (@[email protected])
#WordWeavers 02/17—Would you still write if you had to use a typewriter or pen and paper? Typewriter. My handwriting is atrocious, and writing by hand has always been a strain meant to be endured for the love of the craft. Cursive made it easier in some ways, but I much prefer typing. And let's be real...anything I handwrite would never see the light of day. Too much friction and I can barely read my own writing.
Typewriter? Ugh. I don't know. I don't think so. The thought of retyping so much stuff every time I edited anything? I can't abide redoing work I've already done. 2/2
#WordWeavers day 18: Can your MCs carry a tune?
I think David and Angel both can, although not at anything like a professional level. Not sure about Jessie and Carlos; I can see cases to be made in favor of both yes and no. And I suspect Margot can hit the notes very precisely, in terms of pitch, but the timbre of her voice isn't very smooth. I suspect.
#WordWeavers day 19: Do your antagonists believe in the supernatural?
My antagonists, as well as my main characters, *are* supernatural. Or at least, agents of it; the living spirit of San Francisco itself has taught them all magic and given them the power to cast it. Not believing in the supernatural, for any of them, would be like not believing that people can see colors, or not believing in their own right hand, or something like that.
#WordWeavers day 20: What tropes are in your current project?
Oh, so many of them! An incomplete list, as per https://tvtropes.org/ titles:
Action Girl (multiple ones, in fact)
Affably Evil
Badass Longcoat
Bi the Way
The City (in a big way!)
Ensemble Cast
Family of Choice
Five-Man Band
Magical Society (a bunch of them!)
Paranormal Mundane Item
Portal Door
Utility Magic
#WordWeavers day 21: What part of editing is hardest for you?
I haven't done much of it yet; I'm trying real hard to just finish writing my first draft and then deal with editing. But I strongly suspect it'll turn out the answer is "cutting enough material to get down to a reasonable size".
#WordWeavers day 22: Have you ever created a character that you really didn't enjoy writing?
I don't *think* so. There's one of my antagonists who I don't enjoy having to do as much research as I need to do for her background (the political fixer, in case you were wondering), but when I actually _write_ from her perspective, it's usually rather fun.
#WordWeavers day 23: What word/phrase do you use too much? Has it changed over time?
I haven't checked to be sure, but probably any/all of really, actually, mostly, and probably.
(Yes, I did that on purpose.)
#WordWeavers day 24: Tell us something about your MC that seems unimportant but really is crucial.
The fact that Angel Castillo did slam poetry in their high school and early college days seems like just an interesting curiosity about them. But it's also a sign of the punk heart that still beats under their stylish, suit-wearing exterior now that they're in their thirties.
(And the experience also comes in handy for improvising orations when casting spells.)
#WordWeavers day 25: How is light created in your book? Candles, electricity, magic, or what?
Mostly by electricity; it's set in San Francisco in 2024. But an interesting piece of trivia that may become a teeny plot point: Back when San Francisco first started training urban wizards, during the Gold Rush, there was a standard spell to create light. It was still reasonably common up until roughly a dozen years ago, because it could... 1/2
...take the place of carrying a flashlight. Now that everyone has cell phones, it's mostly fallen by the wayside... but it *does* still exist — and it can be really useful for proving to someone that magic is real. 2/2
#WordWeavers day 26: Who in your book is most like a real person you've loved IRL?
None of my characters are particularly similar to any loved ones, past or present. I suppose the closest might very well be Angel Castillo, who, like my partner, is nonbinary and a good dresser — but that's about where the similarities end.
#WordWeavers day 27: Which of your characters do you find especially interesting? Why?
Too many to list.
#WordWeavers day 28: Would you like to meet any of your characters? Would you tell them who you are?
I CANNOT tell them who I am. I absolutely refuse to ever let them know they're characters in a book; in their own minds, they MUST not simply believe, but *know*, as you and I do, that they're real, live people. This is non-negotiable for me; I won't even hypothetically put questions to them for hashtag games that would break that. 1/2
That said, if I could hang out with them without being their creator? Yeah, I would love to spend time with, and even be friends with, a great many of them! There are a whole bunch who I find quite likable. 2/2
#WordWeavers day 1: What is your greatest fear about your characters?
I have no idea. 🤷🏻 Sorry.
#WordWeavers day 2: Do you write scenes out-of-order? If so, how do you decide on their arrangement?
A little, but every time I try, I run aground on the problem that later scenes build on earlier ones. Even if I know *generally* what happened in the earlier scene-that-I-haven't-written-yet, because I outlined things, I still find that little details matter. Like whether a character mentions a particular thing to another, or if there's been some banter, or whatever. 1/2
The future builds on the past. I can always tell when I'm missing stuff, as I write later scenes without having done their antecedents first.
That doesn't stop me from doing it; I'm currently working on 6 scenes across 4 chapters. But it feels weird.
Anyway, I decide in their arrangement in the outline, although I do give myself leeway to shift them if I later find that'd be a good idea. 2/2
#WordWeavers day 3: Introduce one of your MCs without telling us their age, gender, job and who they are to others (e.g. friend, parent etc.).
I'm sorry, I can't figure out how to fudge the pronouns to keep the gender obscured right now. 1/2
(Could I do my introduction in Lang Belta? "Margot Chu wa mang demang kowltim tenye wang pish baseng ret. Im paxo unte goda, amash im kang du wow tugut; tenye belte belék ere kung fu"? That's "Margot Chu is a person who always has one red piece of clothing. [He/she/they/it] is short and fat, but [he/she/they/it] can fight very well; [he/she/they/it] has a black belt in kung fu.") 2/2
#WordWeavers day 4: When was the last time your MCs lied? Why?
For Carlos and Angel, it was pretty much "the last time they told their partner they were doing some after-work thing when they were actually going to hang out with their magical team". Which, at the point I'm at in my first draft, means "not more than a week ago, and maybe as little as an hour ago, depending on exactly where in the narrative you choose.
#WordWeavers day 6: If you have several stories, which one should a new reader start with? If 1/not yet published, what other works might your readers enjoy?
I've hyped up John M. Ford's _The Last Hot Time_ a few times already on this hashtag (and/or on WritersCoffeeClub and ScribesAndMakers), and I stand by my claim that if you like my story, you'll probably like that one.
But how would you know if you like my story? I haven't finished or published it yet. So, umm. Yeah. 🤷🏻
#WordWeavers day 7: How do you define a “strong” character? How do you create one?
The word has some ambiguity to it: sometimes, people use it to mean a character who displays strength within their story (i.e., by overcoming difficult tasks and great obstacles), but other times, we use it to mean the character is well-constructed, interesting, etc. — a strong addition to the story. 1/2
Creating the first type of character seems easy enough: just throw lots of adversity at them, and have them triumph over it. (The word "seems" may be doing a lot of heavy lifting, there...)
Creating the latter? Entire volumes have been written about that; I can't really do the topic justice here. 2/2
#WordWeavers day 8: How do you approach stereotypes while creating characters?
I try to avoid them.
#WordWeavers day 9: If you need to share an important piece of history/lore, what’s your approach that avoids infodumping?
One approach I'm using in my current story is to have two "learner" characters. They're both interesting people in their own right, so there's absolutely no problem with them "existing solely to have things explained to them". But they do get to (among other things) serve as reader surrogates, so that readers... 1/2
...can learn along with these characters. I even had one be a fairly new transplant to San Francisco, so I can easily explain non-magical things about, e.g., the City's history or trivia.
Of course, another good strategy is to break the info up into little, bite-sized pieces so it's not "dumping". 2/2
#WordWeavers day 10: Antagonist POV: Imagine you achieved your goal. What’s next?
Donna Kuang says: Which goal? I've got three propositions on this November's ballot, and four candidates I'm backing. But fine, assume I get all of them passed or elected.
Since that would be a goddamned miracle, I'd celebrate like there was no tomorrow. I'd've earned it!
And then, in a day or two, it'd be time to start thinking about *next* year's races. There's always another election cycle coming up. 1/2
Travis Winter says: Once I've made the City safe, and set it on a path that would keep it from being overrun with homeless people and criminals? Then I could just relax and enjoy that. Go back to running my company.
(Narrator: He would not, in fact, relax at that point. He'd find that there was something else wrong, that he *had* to "fix".) 2/2
#WordWeavers day 12: How could someone who knows your MC well console them after the last time you made them suffer?
I haven't made too many of my characters suffer that much yet (I'm planning on ramping it up — although this question is making me wonder if I should pile it on a little more quickly!), but the couple of times I have, I've had other characters help them to some degree. Interesting. 1/2
Frex, in chapter 2, three characters acquire an Ominous Tome of Dark Magic™. Later, one of them talks to another about the things they're finding in it, and Character Two tells the first one that they honestly look *haunted*, and hey, if they've gone through the thing once and gotten the basic gist? Then it's okay if they put it down for a little bit, and just do a little self-care.
It helps.
(Until the next time I hit Character One with something even worse.) 2/2
#WordWeavers day 13: Tell us about a quirk your SC has.
I'm having a lot of trouble with this one, because I've been trying out various different characters to try to find a good answer. While I do feel my characters all have well-developed personalities, I'm having trouble finding anything that feels like "a quirk". I mean, is a hobby a quirk? I don't think so. 1/2
All the details I have about my characters feel more important than mere quirks. Conversely, anything small enough to be a quirk would be... kind of trivial or even irrelevant, you know? 2/2
#WordWeavers day 14: Is selling your work for money important to you when you write?
Not for the money, no. I have a day job, and it pays me better than writing is ever likely to (unless I get *way* luckier than I have any expectation of).
But the knowledge that total strangers had paid good money to read my stories would make me feel really good about myself as a writer. I'm already paying my bills just fine, but *validation* is something you can't just buy.
#WordWeavers day 15: If your SC came across a large crystal that was glowing from within, what, if anything, would they do with it?
Most of them would think, "*Glowing*? Okay, _that's_ a very odd thing for a magical item to do," and promptly look at it with magical sight to try to figure out more about it. 1/2
Not all my SCs are magicians, of course. The non-magical ones would vary from wondering how the hell someone had rigged that up and inspecting the thing for hidden wires or other tech to being disturbed and backing away slowly. 2/2
#WordWeavers day 16: Do you have any kind of ritual to get in the mood to sit down and write? If so, what is it?
It depends on what you mean by "ritual". Is a ritual simply a set of frequently- or at least periodically-repeated actions? Or does it have to be an *intentional* set of repeated actions? 1/3
Estarriol, Terrorist Dragonquirks can be useful, take Data in TNG, his never using contractions is a simple quirk but it makes him stand out.
@Thebratdragon Hmmm, good point. Maybe I should give some of my characters some quirks.
Not that one, though! 😆
mandrake@mandrake I tried that but felt weird about it, because one of my MCs is nonbinary and normally uses they/them pronouns. So using those on another MC felt like misgendering them. 😕
I probably would've gone for it anyway, if I hadn't had this genderless-pronoun language sitting right there...