30 days on writing: Entry #2

[ed_rex]

More memeage.

0. Explain yourself! In which Young Geoffrey explains the meme and his reasons for exploring it.

1. Tell us about your favorite writing project/universe that you've worked with and why.

3. How do you come up with names, for characters (and for places if you're writing about fictional places)?

4. Tell us about one of your first stories/characters!

5. By age, who is your youngest character? Oldest? How about “youngest” and “oldest” in terms of when you created them?

6. Where are you most comfortable writing? At what time of day? Computer or good ol' pen and paper?

7. Do you listen to music while you write? What kind? Are there any songs you like to relate/apply to your characters?

8. What's your favorite genre to write? To read?

9. How do you get ideas for your characters? Describe the process of creating them.

10. What are some really weird situations your characters have been in? Everything from serious canon scenes to meme questions counts!

11. Who is your favorite character to write? Least favorite?

12. In what story did you feel you did the best job of worldbuilding? Any side-notes on it you'd like to share?

13. What's your favorite culture to write, fictional or not?

14. How do you map out locations, if needed? Do you have any to show us?

15. Midway question! Tell us about a writer you admire, whether professional or not!

16. Do you write romantic relationships? How do you do with those, and how “far” are you willing to go in your writing? ;)

17. Favorite protagonist and why!

18. Favorite antagonist and why!

19. Favorite minor that decided to shove himself into the spotlight and why!

20. What are your favorite character interactions to write?

21. Do any of your characters have children? How well do you write them?

22. Tell us about one scene between your characters that you've never written or told anyone about before! Serious or not.

23. How long does it usually take you to complete an entire story—from planning to writing to posting (if you post your work)?

24. How willing are you to kill your characters if the plot so demands it? What's the most interesting way you've killed someone?

25. Do any of your characters have pets? Tell us about them.

26. Let's talk art! Do you draw your characters? Do others draw them? Pick one of your OCs and post your favorite picture of him!

27. Along similar lines, do appearances play a big role in your stories? Tell us about them, or if not, how you go about designing your characters.

28. Have you ever written a character with physical or mental disabilities? Describe them, and if there's nothing major to speak of, tell us a few smaller ones.

29. How often do you think about writing? Ever come across something IRL that reminds you of your story/characters?

30. Final question! Tag someone! And tell us what you like about that person as a writer and/or about one of his/her characters!

2. How many characters do you have? Do you prefer males or females

Once again the question kind of implicitly presumes a recurring, serial universe and almost suggests to me they should be dressed in long underwear and capes, or else sporting fangs and moaning about the unfairness of eternal non-life.

I got none of that, but ...

I've got a small bunch of characters. For those within the "Orson and Ash" world, the bunch is pretty small indeed.

There's my own dopelganger, Orson, who (really, folks!) is not me but who is admitedly based on me. He started out as a contemporary what if?-style thought experiment and has diverged ever since.

Orson also began very much as a second banana to Ash, a character based in part on aspects of myself and very much on two or three women I knew in my youth, along with a yard or two of whole cloth.

As kept coming back, in story after story, until I had to admit I was a little bit in love with her (I used to have a most unfortunate Thing for falling into unrequited and mostly unrequitable love with lesbians of a certain type) and, in retrospect, she might well have become a Mary Sue had I been writing adventure stories about her.

Most of my other characters in that universe were pretty much faceless spear-carriers — which is one of the major reasons that The Valley of Shabathawan continues to molder after two and a half drafts. But there is one exception, Philomena Hawkins, a woman who was meant to be a supporting player in Shabathawan, but who grabbed hold of the story from the outset, shoved the child Ashera aside and just wouldn't let go.

But I'll discuss that in detail with #19. Right now, I need to get down to serious work.