Well . . . it's you. I admire your style, which is colorful, if monochromatic. In other words, gray; always gray. Even your avatar, man! You're great with emotion, but would it kill you to write about a different emotion once in a while?

You're like--Anne of Green Gables, wasn't it? You prefer to end your stories with funerals rather than weddings. And apparently you can't figure out what to do with your characters, so you just kill them all off. You're good at it, I concede; you're a skilled murderer. But is that so desirable a title? XD

(And by the way, I really don't think it's a terrible sin to have the occasional he said or she said after a quotation, especially if you use a descriptive verb in place of said.)

But taste, I suppose, is taste! Cook and eat what you want, and so will I.

So, is this for challenge #2 or #3? If the latter, I guess you've answered Vorex. Anyway, as far as I can tell it applies to either, but to neither prompt nor lexis, so that's--well, I'm not sure that we ever specified, but that's four points.

Sincerely, Nuile: Lunatic Wordsmith

I admire your style, which is colorful, if monochromatic.

This quote is totally making it into my sig.

Haha, interestingly enough my favorite part of the writing process is character development--but that's something I prefer to reserve for longer pieces of fiction rather than short stories, which for me are explorations of the human psyche. Short stories are how I make people terrified or emotional, and epics and novella are where I develop complex and conflicted chars. There's happy moments in those, too.

I guess the reason I prefer more emotionally questionable themes to happy go-lucky ones is because they're a lot more complicated--it's a lot more stimulating for me to have the reader fret over a dying char or shiver at the description of a ghoul than it is to talk about how fairies frolicked through the meadows the day the angels woke to give kisses to fair maidens throughout the land of Lovington.

This is just for the weekend write-off. I gotta write stuff for my privy lexis and Velox's prompts and challenges at some point--got a neat idea about a casino called the 'Hotel California,' in reference to the line 'you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.'

Well--um--cool. I'm famous. Although you didn't credit me. I guess one signature won't exactly get me into the uppermost echelons of BZP society, though.

Naturally that's the most important part of the writing process. A plot's nothing more than the interactions of the characters; the words themselves are nothing more than descriptions of the characters. Ultimately, it's all about the characters.

Okay, well, I'll admit my knowledge of your work is limited to short stories, and the one epic I read in which you partook happened to be a horror about a certain flesh-consuming cloud; a story that, naturally, centered around death and woe and the tone that seemed so vivid in you I came to associate it with you. XD And when, some months later, you mention something about a murderous artist who paints with the blood of his victims, I'm not much swayed in the tone I connect to your work.

Bottom line, I'll have to withhold from making opinions until I see you write something that doesn't involve death, violence, cruor, pain, terror, grief and sorrow. Have you any such works to recommend?

And personally, I disagree that woe and similar themes are more complicated. Happiness, for instance, is something very much taken for granted; that's what, in part, makes it so fascinating. I think grief is easier to deepen than most, but not intrinsically deeper or more fascinating.

Oh, the write-off. I ought to get into one of those sometime.

Sincerely, Nuile: Lunatic Wordsmith

After reading it...I don't really know what to think. It didn't impact me in any way. I won't criticize you for being gray, though. That was Edgar Allen Poe's default mode as well, and look where it got him: he's now in the halls of not just the Great American Authors, but the Definitive American Authors, somewhere under Mark Twain and a couple of other legends. Although I won't necessarily say that darker emotions are inherently more stimulating. I can think of many poems that highlight the happier things in life, like childhood memories and summer days gone by. The songs, poems, and stories that ultimately capture life in a more encompassing sense tend to have a bittersweet theme. That isn't necessarily your objective, of course.

I find Nuile's commend about "he said/she said" to be a bit hypocritical, though, since as I recall he wrote an Incredible Hulk fanfiction that completely went without such wording.

On another note, post again soon you lazy dog! I'm wondering where my friendly neighborhood RM has gone.