Friday Rants and Raves - November 7

[sarillia]

Hello everyone! I suddenly remembered that it's Friday. So how are things going? Any NaNoWriMo news to report?

Today's picture is The Illusion of Diversity by Michael Cheval:

Comments

[badass_tiger]

I never get to NaNo, it always comes at exam time for me! I really want to but I've just never had a chance yet. Oh well, someday. Hope those of you participating are doing okay, and remember - don't panic! Or at least, don't panic until it's over, panicking now is just a waste of time hehe.

One of my irl writer friends and I have agreed to meet up regularly for writing exercises though, so that I can at least sharpen my writing skills every now and then. We practiced writing descriptions last week, this week it's character development. She has problems writing more than one type of character (she sticks to pessimistic, cynical bastards) while I have trouble keeping interest in my characters at all, so we're working on it together.

[sarillia]

That's cool that you get to practice with your friends. I sometimes have the same problem with characters as your friend.

Actually, for this NaNo story I was toying with magical abilities based on personality, where it's a mix of nature and nurture influencing what ability will manifest according to the strongest traits you're predisposed to and the ones that are important to you and are practiced every day, and it occurred to me that this is a good way to face my problem head-on. It's keeping their differing personalities front and center in my mind and I'm exploring the different ways the same traits can be expressed by different people.

[badass_tiger]

Oh wow that is an awesome idea! You're going to show us this story afterwards, aren't you? I'd love to see that :D That does sound like a good way of making sure that all your characters remain separate people, I know I sometimes let slip a moment of mischaracterisation in the name of a joke or a one-liner.

[sarillia]

Thanks! This is one that I want to fix up so I can show people eventually but it's going to need a lot of work.