Writerly Ways

[cornerofmadness]

I've gotten so fun results from yesterday's meme. I'm letting it run a little longer because I don't have time to work on it right now anyhow.

I wanted to talk a little about 'historical' writing. It is harder than you think to get all the little details right and in many ways I think 'retro' writing might be even harder. In a historical you already are prepared to go looking for how things were done in the 1890s or the 1920s. But how about something written in 1997? Or even 2005?

Somehow 2005 is already 14 years ago. This came up as I was working on the never ending story I'm doing for the fandom_stocking. It's 2004/2005 and in the original draft I had them texting and using emojis and the day before it was due I had a sudden thought. Wait a minute, this is 15 years ago. Hell in Buffy's first season she still had a freaking pager (something I forgot to get off my syllabi this time when I was forced to use an OLD one). I Googled it. in 2011 (six years more recent than my story) people only texted 32 times a month on average. They don't carry on text conversations like we do now, like I had in m y story. Oops. Hell it would have been a flip phone anyhow. I had to change that.

Then I'm like wait, there's a skype scene. Did Skype even exist in 2005? Turns out yes but it was barely 2 years old so while I kept it, I did change it some.

And it's little things like that that'll get you. I've seen historicals make it to print with idioms that wouldn't have existed at that time (once it was baseball related one that apparently neither the author nor the editors knew that). Even researching might not be all you wanted it to be. One of my Soldiers of the Sun stories made it to print with a radio show that wouldn't start until two years after the fact but the web page I used had the wrong date.


As for me, today was another bust. I'm struggling with my depression. Some days it's hard. I'm unmedicated for it because I'm allergic to 90% of the stuff and otherwise have bad reactions to what I'm not allergic to. I have things I need to do and communicating with others is part of it.

So how about some links

Making Sympathetic Antagonists (And Why Thanos Wasn’t One)

Six Common Storytelling Problems in New Manuscripts

APODS – Priorities: The Four Ps (Part Three – Plan and Part)

10 Ridiculously Simple Steps for Writing a Book

How to Create the Perfect Writing Process for You

You Can’t Skip Hiring A Cover Designer

How to Promote Your Book

Writing Lessons From TV: Rick and Morty Revisited


Storytelling Tip: Engineer Your “Hook” Map


Speaking of Soldiers of the Sun, here's my next sound track. This time the music is much more coherent. I found I needed to immerse myself in the time period so almost all the music is either from the 1920s and 1930s or is modern versions of swing. I had so much fun with this one and I hope you enjoy it.

Soldiers of the Sun

You can find it here

Blurb

Caleb Davies and Agni Pradesh are worried about their teammate and lover, Temple Chevalier. Not only has he lost his long-time partner, Fu Li, but he nearly died fighting a demon himself. Also, Temple isn’t sure he’s ready for a new teammate after Li. Caleb and Agni are even more concerned that their three-way relationship with Temple exists less because he loves them and more because he’s hiding from the pain of Li’s loss.

1932 shapes up to be a terrible year for the Soldiers as they welcome the New Year fighting demons and then end up investigating a case that pairs them up with the Knights Templar. This would normally be a good thing, but it forces Temple to face his painful past. Worse yet, the case leads right to Astaroth, a Prince of Hell, who might prove to be an unbeatable foe.

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[cornerofmadness]

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