Characters

October 26, 2013

NaNoWriMo Notes: Characters

Characters are the core of the story. Without them, you really don’t have much of a story or really anything to write. It’s why I take a lot of care in my character building. I want to understand the character the best I can before I start the story itself. Once I know my characters, Continue reading

Author, Characters, Writing

character building, character development, Characters, motivations, NaNoWriMo
October 6, 2013

Preparing for NaNoWriMo

October tends to be the month of preparation for me when it comes to National Novel Writing Month. However, I never go into too much depth when I plot. Mostly because all I need is the main idea of the plot since the finer details of how the plot is implemented depends on the characters Continue reading

Writing

Characters, exercises, NaNoWriMo, planning, plots, setting
July 27, 2013

A Single Story

I recent TED Talk I found really spoke to me. Chimamanda Adichie is from Nigeria, and she speaks about the danger of a single story, where she relates how a single story of Africa has caused grave harm and a critical misunderstanding about the huge diversity of people and cultures within Africa. There are many Continue reading

Characters, World Building, Writing

character conflict, Characters, stories, TED Talks, world-building
July 24, 2012

Diversity: Race

At Racebending.com, the article, “Frustration of an Asian American Whedonite,” expressed in vivid detail one of my biggest qualms with the Firefly universe – a show I dearly love. Here is the fusion of Asian and American culture in the future, but there is no actual representation of Asian people outside of a few scarce Continue reading

Characters, World Building, Writing

Characters, diversity, People of color, Race, whitewashing, world-building
July 14, 2012

Illness

Since I haven’t felt well of late, I’ve wondered how illness is portrayed in stories. Sometimes it feels like illness is hardly ever mentioned – like the science fiction story I’ve finished reading lately, where it progresses forward in a very play by play manner, and everyone is always perfectly healthy. No one ever suffered Continue reading

Author, Characters, Writing

Characters, fiction, illness
June 13, 2012

Tropes Vs. Women and Diversity in Literature

My world-building series takes time to craft, since I often sift through my old notes and textbooks to make sure all the information presented here is accurate. For all my readers wondering, this is why the next installment on Atmospheres and the various cycles on planets is not yet ready. In the meantime, I can Continue reading

Author, Blogging, Characters, Elivera, Writing

Characters, diversity, feminism, fiction, literature, tropes, women
June 2, 2012

Characters with Disabilities

It is rare to find any book that has a character with a disability. Usually if they do appear, the character spends the book finding a way to defeat the disability, to conquer it, and to become able-bodied again. There are quite a few disability tropes, and these tropes in general are bad. It’s rare Continue reading

Characters, Writing

Characters, disabilities, disability, fiction, inclusion, people