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Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion

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  1. Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion
    If you read What If?, you've probably noticed that my update schedule is grievously slipping. While I promise weekly updates, it's been more like monthly updates. This is because I bit off more than I could chew and started What If? during the summer, thinking I could keep up a chapter a week. As soon as I went back to school the September after the book started (I'm homeschooled, as I've mentioned before in this blog, but I'm taking classes at the local community college), it slowed down. By December the semester was over and I sped up a bit, but now the next semester has begun. In addition, I've recently been having a series of minor family crises, along with extracurricular things, and of course, sometimes even when I can be writing, I'm too stressed or uninspired to put any words on the page. I try not to force myself to write if I'm not feeling up to it, because I've noticed that when I didn't feel like writing at the time I wrote some scene, it's evident in the bland narration and dialogue and lack of anything interesting happening.
     
    Still, Book 7 is a 20-chapter book like most of the others in the series, and it started in late July, so it should have been finished by the start of December. It's inexcusable to only be on Chapter Fourteen when the book started 37 weeks ago. It's already gotten to the point where I will have to delay the start of Book 8. And like I mentioned in my last blog entry, I want the series to be finished by the end of next year. As of this writing, there are 90 weeks until the end of next year, and 60 of them must be used on Book 8, 9 and 10. The remaining 30 are obviously for the intermissions between books. Normally I give myself 8 weeks between books, so if we assume 8 weeks between Book 8 and 9 and 8 weeks between Book 9 and 10, that means I have 14 weeks to work with before I start Book 8. I could safely drag Book 7 out to mid-July and still finish on time. Obviously, I don't want to do that.
     
    However, expecting myself to write the remaining 6 chapters in 6 weeks is too much right now. Being realistic, I expect it to take at least 10 weeks. During school, it can take me almost 3 weeks to write a chapter (obviously depending on the length of the chapter, which varies from around 3000-8000 words), but when I'm off school I can occasionally manage one chapter a week. I seriously doubt that the rest of the book will take more than 14 weeks, especially considering there are only 5 weeks left in the semester, but if it does, I will simply have to shorten the other intermissions. Either way, there will be no intermission between Book 7 and 8. Because of these severe delays, Book 8 will start after Book 7 with no more than a single week of a break. This is well enough, because Book 8 picks up directly after Book 7 ends (I obviously haven't written Book 7's epilogue yet, but depending on if I can make it work as an ending, Book 8's first chapter might literally begin only seconds after the ending of Book 7).
     
    This segues into the next part of my plan: writing ahead. When I started this series, I was updating three times a week. This was because I had written all of Book 1 before I began to post it. If I had done this with subsequent books, we might be seeing nearly year-long breaks between books. Because the books were so short at first (Book 1 was only about 70,000 words - for comparison, Book 7 had hit that mark by Chapter Eleven), I decided I would write them as I posted them. With Book 2, it worked out okay - I stayed ahead of my update schedule until almost the end. As I got more busy though, that became increasingly difficult and with Book 7 I was practically behind the update schedule before the end of the first month of the book.
     
    To mitigate this effect, I'm writing Book 8 before I even finish Book 7. I'm already behind my intended schedule (I wanted to be finished Chapter 5 by now, but I'm only on Chapter 3), but since this is my final year of high school and I shouldn't have a very busy summer, I am hopeful (though not at all making any guarantees) to finish writing Book 8 by September, when I will start college full-time (as opposed to part-time as it is now). Whenever it finishes being posted really depends on when I finish Book 7, but I'm more concerned about staying ahead of my update schedule than I am about the update schedule itself.
     
    It may seem counter-intuitive to be writing two books at the same time. Wouldn't that just make both of them go more slowly? Yes, really, it does, but I've already basically given up on finishing Book 7 with any amount of regularity to my update schedule by now. Please just bear with me until I finish Book 7. As long as I finish it within the next 14 weeks, I'm still on schedule. I am really hoping to finish it before then, so I can have Book 8 written by the end of summer, but I can only write as fast as my circumstances will allow.
     
    By no means have I given up on the series - I will finish it out as long as I'm physically able to do so. Whether I will finish it by the end of 2012, and whether I will manage to provide any regularity to my updates from here on out, I can only make promises, but with this much work put into it, my own death (or losing my arms or something like that ) is all that's going to stop me from finishing.
     
    Again, I'm really sorry that I've been unable to hold to my promises regarding the update schedule. I've always prided myself on having a story where you could count on there being an update, even if it might be a few days late - not like the multitude of excellent fan fiction I've read only to find that the author has given up or isn't serious about updating regularly. But I've fallen into that myself now. Serves me right to make such steep promises, I suppose. But rest assured, any readers I still have - I am still here, still writing, and doing the best I can to keep putting out updates.
  2. Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion
    So because of huge delays, Book 7 (which should have been done a month or two ago and instead could possibly take into March to complete) isn't done yet, but I have set my schedule for the remaining three books of the series, and regardless of when What If? finishes, Book 8 will be launched on April 18, 2011. I will begin writing it in about two weeks, so the beginning of Book 8 and the ending of Book 7 will be written alongside each other. That's probably a recipe for disaster, where I'll be forcing myself to write a chapter and a half of stuff every week until Book 7 is finished, but I'm set on sticking to my schedule with no more delays if at all possible, and I want to have a safe cushion of chapters already written when I start Book 8. At this point, the only thing that could stop Book 8 from being posted then is if Book 7 somehow takes longer than that to finish, since I won't have them running concurrently. That would just make the break between Book 8 and 9 shorter though; there's plenty of built-in time to still finish the series by the end of 2012 (which is what I'm planning for).
     
    Book 8's preliminary title is Six Voices in Harmony. Despite Book 7's first-person style, Book 8 will be returning to form with a third-person omniscient narrator. There will be two plots in the first part which come together in the middle:
     
    The first plot will show the gods at the beginning of time, chronicling the creation of the universe and what really happened between Koenori and the others, since we have heard conflicting stories from different characters about whether Koenori is the hero or the villain. The answer may be a bit less clear-cut than it would seem.
     
    The second plot will pick up right where Book 7 will leave off, with only a few timelines separating Guutana and his friends from their goal - Harmonization of all timelines. Actually, going into any detail about how the two plots will intersect will spoil a few upcoming plot details of Book 7, so I'll leave that for the Book 8 preview whenever Book 7 finishes.
     
    In other news: I am toying with the idea of doing a reboot/rebuild trilogy after the ending of the series. It would be at my own leisure so updates would be infrequent, and if my life just gets too busy I could possibly drop the project early, but I don't really want to stop writing for BZP when the series finishes, nor do I want all of my characters just sort of die off from my consciousness when their story is finished. I have already made somewhat detailed plans for this trilogy, but the question is, come 2013 when the series is over and I'm a full-time college student, will I still feel up to writing three more books? That's something we'll have to wait and see in two years. That's why I'm not officially announcing that this will happen, just throwing it out there that it might.
     
    This rebuild trilogy (I hesitate to call it a reboot since that implies that I'm just telling the story again, but better somehow - rather, this is a separate continuity with the same characters and settings, but an entirely new plot, so I'm calling it a "rebuild") would be called "The Storm Trilogy", with each book named after a different type of storm (Hurricane, Blizzard, and Thunderstorm would be the titles of the individual books). In the Dairuno Toa series, storm motifs have always been associated with the character Auserv, and this trilogy will take a greater focus on him, as he will be a main character from beginning to end.
     
    I am aiming, with this "Storm Trilogy", to tell a new version of my series that is completely accessible to new readers but still exciting for old readers, and I'm also aiming for something that will fit within the established Bionicle canon (so the supernatural elements - the gods, the Dying Breath, Tinporu, the Chosen Three, the Dairuno Stones, etc. are all out). The books will go in chronological order and cover the same story arcs as Books 1-6, but in entirely re-imagined ways.
     
    For example, Hurricane would open with a similar scene to A Strike of Lightning's opening scene, but quickly take a turn for a story more resembling Story of the Dead, only with Auserv and his team fighting alongside Onathei, Feyain and Gyotaren, eventually ending with those teams running into Rakdan and following him to Tonryak for the Storm Trilogy's version of The Minister of Destruction.
     
    Blizzard would be closer to The Tables Have Turned, To Be A Hero and In The Dying Breath, but with Auserv (and what's still left of his team by then) being part of the main cast from the beginning, and obviously with largely different reasons for the heroes to be going to Dyteeli and fighting Sihnozu, given that Dairuno and the Dairuno Stones won't exist in this version of the continuity.
     
    Finally, Thunderstorm would be entirely new material, tying up the stories of all the characters from the first two books, featuring new adventures of Auserv's, and ending somewhere around the short story Honey.
     
    In other words, all the same plot (and then some) will be covered, but in different ways. Also, obviously, each book would be much longer than the average book of the series, since they're effectively covering three books worth of story per book. Probably the trilogy would take 3-5 years to write, depending on how fast or slow I write them (and obviously depending on whether or not I decide to finish it or drop it early). This is an exciting idea for me because I can explore relationships between characters who never would have met, and I can freely do whatever to whoever even during what was, for this series, flashback story, because the plot doesn't have to be related. For example, maybe in this continuity Onathei will die early on and Barnoka will survive to the end - I can do whatever I want along those lines so it won't just be the same thing all over again.
     
    Anyway, back to writing Book 7 for now...
  3. Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion
    Coming next month is the seventh book in The Dairuno Toa, What If? The flashback story arc has finally concluded with The Minister of Destruction and we are moving on with where the story left off in In The Dying Breath. The book stars Guutana, Roqini, and Desurk, some of the heroes of the first three books, as they travel down the paths time shouldn't have taken and correct it to the main timeline. In each of the twenty chapters, a different timeline is featured, each exploring different scenarios such as "What if Matoro had hesitated too long in Karda Nui?", "What if the Toa Mata's canisters hadn't malfunctioned?", and "What if there had been no Toa Metru?" (the first three chapters).

    The only main characters are Guutana, Roqini, and Desurk, which will be a refreshing change from the usually rather large casts of this series. Other characters will appear, but aside from appearances from more cosmic characters (the creators mentioned above will play small roles) and a certain antagonist who begins to appear a bit later in the book, no one else will appear in more than one chapter.

    Aside from just a series of disjointed stories about random alternate timelines, the story advances the overall mythology of the Dairuno Toa series, giving some answers and showing a much clearer image of the big picture I am building up to. And as in any story, the main characters will grow as people over the course of the book, as they react to their new powers and learn to deal with them. The message of the story is developed through these characters, and deals with power, and what rights it gives those that have it, and what rights it does not give.

    You can expect to see the Prologue posted on July 19th. Updates will be posted on Fridays, and as usual there will be twenty chapters, a prologue and an epilogue. PM me if you would like to be notified when the story goes up. I'm looking forward to the next leg of the story and I hope everyone enjoys it.

    (PS: The banner up there is preliminary and could be changed before the book goes up. If anyone would like to make me one that has the same basic structure and color, but looks better, I'd appreciate it a lot. )
  4. Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion
    Well, I haven't blogged in a while, so I'm just writing this to say that I'm on vacation in Charleston, South Carolina for the next week. I have Internet access at the place I'm staying, but for the most part I'll be out and about (at beaches or sightseeing) during the days and will probably be mostly gone from BZPower and other sites I frequent (though, to those who have my e-mail address, Gtalk address, or AIM screen name, I will still be answering e-mails and will try to get on AIM and Gtalk once a night). I'm hoping to use the week away from most of the Internet to write.
     
    Book 7, which I decided like 2 years ago would be called What If? (breaking the series tradition of four-word titles ), is doing well so far. I'm almost 3 chapters (or perhaps more accurately, about 10,000 words in, because I've been kind of jumping around as far as chapters go) in so far, but I'm hoping to get a lot done over this vacation. The book so far is a lot different from anything I've done - it's largely episodic rather than a flowing narrative. It's also told entirely in first person, except for a short scene at the beginning of each chapter, inspired by how in crime dramas you might see the murder being committed in the first scene while the rest of the show is the characters trying to figure out what led to what the viewer saw at the beginning. In this case, since the premise is that the characters are going to all the alternate timelines, figuring out what made them alternate, and fixing them to line up with the main one, we see the first major divergence from the main timeline in that first scene (though I will be shamelessly using the butterfly effect, so what you see in the first scene will rarely ever be the first divergence point). Again much different from my previous epic is the tiny cast - just three main characters. Many series regulars (the other Toa-Kal, the Dyteeli characters, Onathei, Auserv and his team, etc.) will be appearing, but because the group is working on a different timeline each chapter, the characters besides the main three don't stay consistent. One chapter, the divergence point might involve Dyteeli, so we'll see Barnoka, Krandorn, Zirralo, etc., and the next chapter it'll be on Metru Nui and that chapter won't have any series regulars. I don't plan to introduce many or any new characters, since I have (I recently counted) 96 named characters already available for me to use, but I will be using many more canonical characters whereas previously I had only used the Barraki and a few Dark Hunters.
     
    When I get home next Sunday or the day after, I will post a proper preview of Book 7 with a short excerpt. The book should begin to be posted on July 19th. As per usual, plans are for it to have a prologue, an epilogue, and 20 chapters. Updates will generally be on Fridays (except for the Prologue and Epilogue, which will both probably be posted on Mondays). As usual, anyone who wants a PM notification at the time the book is launched can feel free to ask. Since Book 6 was rather sparingly reviewed (by which I mean - only Takuta-Nui reviewed at all ), I'm kind of hoping for a larger audience this time around, so I would be more than happy to even give notifications every chapter if it would get me back up to the number of regular reviewers I had during Books 4 and 5. It just feels kind of pointless to be writing for only one person, and while at this point I'm finishing the series just for my own gratification no matter what anyone else does, it is nice to know people like what I'm doing, and if they don't like it, it's even nicer to know, because it can help me improve as I continue.
     
    Anyway, guess I'll end this entry here. I will be back on June 6th, hopefully with another solid 10,000 words under my belt.
  5. Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion
    To those who this concerns (that is, Takuta-Nui plus however many people read and don't review ), I've made a major change of plans for my Dairuno Toa series. I had originally planned for it to be 15 books long - 5 trilogies, of which I am now concluding the second one with The Minister of Destruction. However, I've now made some more concrete plans for my life. As it is, I'm in two relatively easy college classes and I still hardly have time for a chapter every week. It won't get much better in summer, when I plan to get a part-time job. Then I'm in for another two semesters of community college, with potentially some more difficult courses, and after that I'll be done high school as well so I'll be a full-time college student, which will last several years until I eventually have done everything I need to be a clinical psychologist (including some internship). Obviously my original plan of finishing the series by 2012 is unrealistic, since I started in fall 2007 - I would've had to have begun the third trilogy by now, but I don't foresee that getting started until summer. If I was to stay with a 15-book plan, I might not be done until 2014 (at which time I'd be 20 years old), and that's being optimistic.
     
    So I took a look at my long-term plans and decided that some of my planned stories, while cool or good for fleshing out the story more, were ultimately unnecessary, and I managed to cut the story down to ten books. The third trilogy will be compressed into Book 7 and 8, and the fourth trilogy will be entirely contained in Book 9. Then Book 10 will serve as the "grand finale" and cover what would have been the fifth trilogy. My plan is to finish Book 7 by the end of this year, and do Book 8 and 9 in 2011. Then Book 10 will be completed in 2012, ending the series around where it would have if I had been going according to plan.
     
    The ending and the basic plot of the series will not change, but some character development will probably be sacrificed. Instead of, for example, the Dyteeli characters having a book mostly to themselves (as was the plan for Book 11), that story will be relegated to a subplot of Book 9. On the bright side, some of those stories may wind up as short stories that I'll post between books, so the character development won't necessarily be lost, just taken out of the main story medium.
  6. Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion
    I'm a bit (well, actually very) late in posting this preview, but better late than never, right?

    Coming next week - January 3rd - is the sixth book in my Dairuno Toa series, The Minister of Destruction. It is the last book in the flashback trilogy, and focuses on the origin of the Toa-Kal, who starred in the first trilogy, and their first mission. It also focuses on two races new to my series, called the Vespirn and the Ophinam, who live on an island called Tonryak, a part of the archipelago which we've heard a bit about in past books.

    In the past, the Vespirn hunted the Ophinam for sport, but that all changed when their newest queen, Trezia, came into power. She decided to outlaw the hunting of Ophinam, and disbanded the Vespirn military, declaring that as long as she lived, the Vespirn would be a peaceful and enlightened people. This did not sit well with Ukkaf, a military commander who was out of a job. He believed that the ancient custom of hunting Ophinam had not just been pointless savagery, but was instead because the Ophinam were evil. He was widely ridiculed for this view at first, but then word began to spread of a gang of Ophinam led by a mysterious figure named Murkti raiding Vespirn villages and killing villagers who attempted to stand in their way. Suddenly, Ukkaf found himself leading his own gang, composed of old soldiers and proactive civilians alike, tracking the movements of Murkti's gang and defending the Vespirn villages. Both gangs operated under Trezia's nose, but what was obvious to her - and everyone - was that this was certainly not shaping up to be the age of peace and enlightenment that she had intended it to be.

    This is the state that the Toa of Ayomeii find themselves in when they arrive on Tonryak. But the Vespirn and the Ophinam are not why they are there. They came tracking an enemy of theirs named Rakdan. Rakdan, the titular Minister of Destruction, attracted their attention when he loaded the island of Batarknokk with explosives and detonated it, killing a small group of Matoran stranded there - of which Guutana, Roqini, and Krakana were survivors. Now Rakdan seems to have set his sights on Tonryak, and the Toa of Ayomeii will not allow history to repeat itself.

    A brief excerpt from Chapter Two:

  7. Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion
    Today I found something I wrote for a school assignment from when I was in 3rd grade (that would be about 7 years ago; I was 8 or 9). I have no recollection of writing it, but it reflects my current style to some degree and as such was probably written right when I decided I really liked writing. Here it is:
     

    It's quite short and has a few corny parts, and in general really has nothing on my current writing, but I was younger and not yet serious about writing, so I at least found it quite impressive for me to have written at that age. The concept, while probably not completely original, was new to me at the time, and the ending twist, while clumsily executed, would practically be worthy of the Twilight Zone if there had been more of a build-up.
     
    If you didn't get it, the "at least that's what it meant to him" line was meant to suggest that Justin is on the little planet but has already come to see it as his home. It's intentionally ambiguous, unlike anything else I wrote in that period of my life. Speaking of which, I have a few more stories I wrote way back when that I might post in here sometime, if anyone's interested.
     
    In any case, I'm considering taking this idea and fleshing it out into a longer story that I could perhaps enter in a writing contest. I have a few other ideas too (mostly "wouldn't it be cool if...?" ideas, like my latest "wouldn't it be cool if a psychologically damaged man fell in love with someone he had made up and had to come to terms with the fact that she wasn't real while going through therapy?") which I also plan to use as short stories at some point.
     
    Anyway, I suppose I've been up long enough, I should get a few sleep cycles in before I have to get up for my college classes tomorrow. I'll have some kind of new entry up...eventually...
  8. Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion
    So over the last month while BZPower was down, I managed to write three chapters of my fanfic. I know that it's not much for one month, since normally I have to post two chapters a week. But with no motivation from BZPower, the fact that I wrote the 20+ pages I did is very impressive. So I'll begin posting the next stretch of the story starting on Monday.
     
    Why am I delaying almost a week? Because my computer's hinge has been damaged, making using it very troublesome. I generally don't like sitting for long periods of time on it because I can't move at all (the computer has to constantly be propped up or it will simply flop shut). So I'm assuming that'll be fixed by Monday.
     
    On next Tuesday, I have my first real college classes (and I'm only 15, so that's pretty cool), that being Intro to Psychology and second-year Japanese (first year was done during high school). I'm also doing a few classes at home, namely Kitchen Chemistry and Consumer Math for this semester and World Geography and Literature for next semester.
     
    Speaking of kitchens, I've started an allergy avoidance diet over the time BZP was down. My eosinophilic diseases make me very sensitive to many foods, so I'm reduced to eating a select few groups of food to avoid having allergic reactions, in the hopes that the eosinophils (allergy cells) in my digestive system will eventually die off, allowing me to eat normally. I haven't generally missed the foods, and the lack of allergic reactions is worth it, so don't feel bad for me or anything. Plus people with eosinophilic diseases tend to have a much lower chance of getting cancer in the places they have excess eosinophils, so at least we know I won't be dying of throat, stomach, or colon cancer.
     
    Um, that's about all I can think of to say right now. So...later.
  9. Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion
    No, no, not a literal one. As the banner indicates, I'm talking about Book 5 of my Dairuno Toa epic series. It's already time for it to be posted... Seems like just the other day that I was making this kind of entry for Story Of The Dead.

    In any case, please enjoy the story! And I'd love to get some reviews too.

    Now to send out the notifications to the readers who asked for them, and then I'm off to bed.
  11. Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion
    Some problem with my computer's ability to connect to the Internet has appeared and as such I will not be online often until that gets straightened out. It might be a few hours, it might be a few weeks. Until then, I'll get on from my parents' computer when I can, but will be unable to post any fan fiction since that's all on my laptop. Thus, No More Sorrow, which would have been posted today, is delayed until the resolution of this problem. I do have it finished and it is some of my best writing, so I hope to be able to post it very soon.
  12. Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion
    Recently, my projected life path shifted a bit. Prior to this shift, I was interested in one thing - writing - and figured I would probably do something like teaching at a middle school to support myself between books or whatever. The idea of teaching never fully appealed to me however. While I was positive from a young age that I wanted to make a career out of writing, teaching was something I had thought of because I like helping people. As it turned out, when I tried to teach my younger brother math, I discovered that stubborn children have extremely strong wills and I'm fairly repelled by the idea of having to put up with that every day from thirty kids that aren't mine.
     
    So teaching was out of the question for me (not that I had really, really wanted to teach to begin with), and I wasn't quite sure what to do about that. My father, who tended to shoot down my ideas on a "that doesn't pay much" basis, was pushing me towards science and math, which I'm not at all passionate about. My mother was seeing everything through the glass of what I could do with writing - freelance writing, journalism, etc., while the only writing I'm interested in is, at the moment, young adult adventure/mystery novels.
     
    Eventually, as part of my Academic Affairs class mentioned a ways back in this blog, we had a guest lecturer come in and talk about choosing majors based on the MBTI system, which is a way to classify a person's personality with four letters (I or E, S or N, T or F, J or P). My personality type is INFP, a type well-suited to writing. Looking down the list of suggested careers, psychologist caught my eye. Since the MBTI system interested me so much, and I had liked helping people from the beginning, I came to decide that this was a career path that I really wanted to pursue. The past couple weeks I've spent much time researching MBTI and psychology in general, and I find it all extremely interesting.
     
    But that's not what the entry is about. As the title (which actually has a dual-meaning ) would suggest, this entry is about how I'm using what I know about psychology so far to aid in my writing. What I'm doing is assigning my characters MBTI types and using that to see how they would react to certain situations. It's actually really helping in the writing of my fifth epic, which will begin to be posted towards the end of June. As follows are the types I've assigned each of the six main characters of Book 5:
     
    Auserv: INFJ (Despite being a representation of me, Auserv has developed into a completely separate entity, and as such gets a slightly different type)
    Eilaiki: ENFP
    Kebeshu: ISTJ
    Abakkon: INTP
    Zyrleck: ENTP
    Eolirk: ESTP
     
    This has helped extraordinarily in defining how the characters relate to each other and how they will react to situations, and also has made them far more real to me and hopefully to the readers once I start posting it. There are a number of great sites about the MBTI system if you're interested, and you can take a free test at this site or if you're interested I could give you a test based on my own knowledge of the system - sometimes humans can give the test better than computers.
     
    Also, if anyone's as interested in this stuff as I am, what would you guys (my regular readers) say to me starting a blog feature where I do in-depth profiles of each of the 16 types (ISTJ, ESTJ, ISFJ, ESFJ, ISTP, ESTP, ESFP, ISFP, ENTJ, INTJ, ENTP, INTP, ENFJ, INFJ, ENFP, and INFP), along with a list of characters in my series who are that type? Just throwing the idea out there.
  13. Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion
    Haven't gotten a review on Story of the Dead in two weeks tomorrow. Usually I get 4-6 reviews per week, but the last two chapters have been entirely ignored. Are people still reading?
     
    I hope this isn't misinterpreted as being whiny, but if no one's reading I don't really have any reason to stick to my schedule... I think I'll delay the last chapter and epilogue for a bit, seeing as how I haven't written either yet and seeing as how it doesn't look like I'll be getting any reviews for them right now anyway. :/ So for the record, I'll be working on Chapter 30 and the Epilogue, and I'll post them as soon as I get my next review (Chapter 30 and then the Epilogue the next day). That means that if I get a review tonight in response to this entry, I'll have Chapter 30 up tomorrow and the Epilogue up on Sunday. That also means if no one reviews until June, there will be no updates until then.
     
    However: If I get no reviews by the end of June, I'll just suck it up and post the chapters, then move onto Book 5. I definitely do not expect that to happen, but if it does I will not end the series at Book 4, Chapter 29. (Though I will probably simultaneously start it over on the site I moderate - I actually get reviews there. )
  14. Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion
    Well, it's been a warm and sunny weekend in a so-far rainy April. Back in the days before whatever it was happened to me, weekends meant a news update on my epic series accompanied by a wordy writing tip. I figured that since my series is indeed continuing here, I had better get back into the habit of weekly updates. Especially since Story of the Dead is two weeks away from its less-than-grand finale (it actually ends quietly and reflectively, unlike any of my other books), meaning that boring two-month period in between epics is about to start once again, to be ended by the arrival of Book 5, working title A Strike of Lightning (ASOL will be its designated abbreviation).
     
    Now for a shameless grab at new readers: For those who clicked this entry out of curiosity and aren't familiar with the Dairuno Toa series, it's a pet project of mine that I've been working on for nearly 2 years and plan to continue working on for at least 3 more. At heart, it is about the struggles of a character of mine named Guutana. Relatively early on in the series, he becomes a supernatural being who is capable of immediately regenerating after death in any form; he has unlimited power and knowledge. His job (at first) is to travel the multiverse, making every last one of the infinite alternate universes more or less identical to the main universe. After this task comes the endgame of the series, in which Guutana leads the inhabitants of the new composite universe into war against those who were corrupted by the overarching villain in the series, Koenori. The series can be followed by those who enjoy the long-term mysteries of this universe I've created, and by those who just follow the short-term drama and philosophy contained in each installment. You can find links to the current four installments in the content block at the right titled "My Writingz".
     
    News on Book 5: As I think I mentioned in an earlier entry, I am writing Book 5 by hand in a notebook. After I complete it, I'll type it up and edit it in the process, and from there post it on BZPower. There's really no particular reason I'm doing it that way, but if it ends up that this experiment is a success, future books will probably be written this way too. Here's a quick excerpt:
     

     
    Writing Tip of the Week
     
    Every few months, I find something unsatisfactory about my writing and then spend the next few months trying to improve upon it. By the time I'm satisfied, I'll find another problem. At the moment, what I'm working on is making characters who are realistic. My work is populated with two kinds of characters: fun, charming kinds that you can never get down for long, and angsty, whiny kinds for whom suicide is something most desirable. There are a few who fall in between those two (Qedono is the prime example, I'd say) who tend to be my favorite characters. Several characters switch between the two at least once; several more do it regularly. Stepping back, most of my characters are two-dimensional at best, making them very predictable, unrealistic, and generally boring.
     
    What I'm striving to do now is have characters display a range of emotion, which in turn causes them to act a number of different ways. With a character like Qedono, everyone expects every word out of his mouth to be sarcastic. There may have been about three lines he had in the entire series so far where he was in too much shock to think of something witty, but that's about the extent of his emotional fluctuation.
     
    As I roll along in Book 5, I'm trying to make characters have a general personality trait that people can identify them with, while also allowing them to act entirely differently at times. Characters' reactions to events should be based on their personality, but sometimes an event that should effect them one way will effect them another way entirely, for various reasons. Also, conflict and plot developments need not all come from external sources. A character's own flaws can provide interesting developments.
     
    Anyway, take from this what you will. I can't give too much in-depth help with this because I'm still teaching myself how to do it.
  15. Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion
    Just noting that all of the work I lost in the "Time Skip" is reposted (the last three installments of In The Dying Breath, the first twenty-one installments of Story Of The Dead, and the short story Honey). Glad to be done with that at last...
     
    In other news, I got a DSi during the midnight release last night. It's really nice. As far as video games go, I'm just waiting for summer though, when MegaMan Star Force 3 comes out. That's going to be the highlight of my summer.
  16. Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion
    As you probably know, all of BZPower's posts from September 2008 and onwards are gone. That means that all that's left of the Dairuno Toa series on BZPower is Book 1, Book 2, and the first 18 chapters of Book 3. The ending of Book 3 is gone, and so is all of Book 4.
     
    Thankfully, I have almost all of it backed up, and only minimal rewriting will have to be done. But the thing is, there are 24 chapters of my work gone, and because of the whole "one chapter a day" rule, that will take nearly a month to put back. So I'm currently debating whether or not to waste the next month reposting Book 3 and 4, or to just give up on my fan fiction series here and move it elsewhere. Like I mentioned a few blog entries ago, I'm doing several other projects in other places, including a rewritten version of Book 1. I'm considering just doing my series over there now, where at least I'll be writing a new version of the series rather than wasting time copying and pasting chapters I've already written.
     
    I realize that it would be pretty cruel to just get up and leave the (albeit few) fans I have here, but they could always follow me over to the other site. That, or they're going to have to wait a month for anything new, since I refuse to start SOTD at Chapter 21. Either way, this is a bad thing for my series.
     
    Personally, I'm leaning towards aborting it on BZP and moving it over to the other site. I know you're probably thinking "How could you possibly think it would be worth it to start over from the beginning compared to starting over from six months ago, when it would only take a month to recover the latter and over a year to do the former?" The difference is that in the past, my writing was simply not that good. Book 1 and 2 were mostly awful, Book 3 started off and ended better but slid backwards in the middle, and Book 4 is still only approaching a satisfying level to me. I find it much preferable to start over from the very beginning and dismiss BZP as a practice round.
     
    If enough of my fans really, really, don't want this to happen, I'll continue to post here. But I want to focus my attention on that other site, which I currently co-manage and have been an active member on for three years. I honestly feel like my allegiance should be there and not to BZP anyway. I do have The Comedy-Makers to finish here, so I'm not leaving either way just yet, but I will be drastically less active from here on out.
     
    EDIT: I was really upset when I posted this. Now that I've calmed down a bit, here's how I'm seeing things:
     
    I really don't feel like reposting anything, but if I don't have to worry about only being able to post one chapter a day, then I suppose I might as well. No matter what, I plan to be less active here; I'll probably be only online to deal with matters related to my epics (including C.I.R.C.L.E., which I recently became an associate of). I will be starting from the beginning on that other site as well but will also continue on BZPower, at least until the series on that other site catches up (which will probably take at least a year). Since my writing time will primarily go towards the rewritten series, new BZPower chapters will probably be up on an "as I finish them" basis instead of holding myself to two chapters a week. And because I really need a break from this, I think I'm still going to hold off the reconstruction until April, and thus Story of the Dead is on hiatus until then.
  17. Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion
    I reposted the last three installments of Book 3 today. It's late and I'm tired, plus I've got 20 chapters of Book 4 to do, so I'm saving that for tomorrow. Just letting everyone know...
     
    EDIT: Got the prologue and first four chapters of Book 4 up today. This is taking longer than I thought. I'll continue to do as many as I can every day until I have them all up; normal reposting will actually begin next week at the latest.
  18. Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion
    This sonnet is dedicated to how bad I am at writing sonnets. It was written while I was hyper (hyper for me means getting 8 hours of sleep and a cup of coffee XD) so don't take it too seriously. It's whimsical with a bit of seriousness in there.
     
    NOTE: In this sonnet, "lol" is pronounced like "lole" (rhymes with "roll").
     
    I can't write, especially not sonnets.
    My rhymes just aren't quite good enough.
    What's something that rhymes with sonnets? Bonnets.
    See? If my rhymes were steak they'd be too tough.
     
    Tough steak is no good, in my opinion.
    Another thing, getting exactly ten
    Syllables is too hard; see, my minion?
    I only said that for the rhyme, men.
     
    Good, now I'm on the penultimate verse.
    Penultimate means second-to-last, lol.
    Gah, "lol"? Could this sonnet get any worse?
    Let's find out, as to the last verse we roll.
     
    This verse gets to be shorter; I love it.
    Now this is over, so don't have a fit.
     
    Had some fun writing this. In case you were wondering, I made it blatantly horrible on purpose; I could write a better sonnet if I had to. I just hate writing poetry. Especially rhymes. *shudder* I hate rhymes. (That makes the prophecy back in Book 1 painful to reread for me. It was actually pretty painful to write.)
     
    In other news, I'll be reposting Books 3 and 4 starting next Monday. Book 4 is nearly done and I've actually already started Book 5. I'm doing the first draft of Book 5 by hand, just for the sake of variety.
  19. Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion
    It's been over two weeks since I've made a blog entry. >_>
     
    Story of the Dead's writing has caught up to its posting. In other words, I now have to pump out two chapters (around 4000 words) a week. I also have at least six (usually more) hours a day spent on schoolwork and several more hours spent on other responsibilities that keep me from writing as often as I can, meaning my writing time is usually limited to about 4 hours a day at the very most. That's 1680 minutes a week for writing, and 4000 words to be written in those minutes, meaning I have to write about 3 words a minute to make the time. Which isn't really too bad, but I usually don't use all 4 of those hours for writing (see the tip of the week below), and a lot of the time I don't actually get 4 hours. So it's challenging. I write whenever I can and hope for the best.
     
    In case anyone was wondering, I am entering SSC5 with a Dairuno Toa series bonus short story. It involves Auserv and Eilaiki. I chose Auserv because he allows me to write without filtering things through another character's viewpoint: his viewpoint is my viewpoint, since he is me. And Eilaiki was chosen because her entire purpose in the story is as Auserv's romantic interest. Anyway, the story beings directly before the Great Cataclysm and ends in the immediate aftermath of it, making it (aside from the temporarily discontinued Tyaseri's Blog) the most recent entry in the Dairuno Toa series. Auserv, Eilaiki, and their team (who actually get names in the story ) have made it their goal to make a map of the entire universe. In this story, called Honey (dual-meaning title there), the team arrives at a southern island that seems to be uninhabited. Of course, you know how it goes with seemingly uninhabited islands in my universe.
     
    The Matoro story that I mentioned in the last blog entry is indeed going to be posted soon. It's finished (final title is Smile, another dual-meaning title) and I'm going to post it as my 1111th post special, so just hang on until I get there and you'll see the story. To tide you over until then, here's an excerpt from it:
     

     
    But Matoro should know that I never let my characters get off that easy. XD
     
    In other news, I'm taking a college course now. It's called Academic Affairs and essentially tries to get you to learn how to be a "master student" (someone who has gotten so good at learning that they can do it without consciously using techniques). We meet once a week at my local community college on Tuesdays; I'm the only one in the class who hasn't graduated high school yet. (Actually, one other guy hasn't graduated yet, but he's a senior while I'm technically a sophomore, so I'm still the youngest.) It was nice: yesterday, our professor had the flu so instead of hiring a sub, she got some lady to come in, write down who came on a piece of paper, collect homework, and send us off after 10 minutes from what was supposed to be an hour-long class. On top of that, she told us that everyone who turned in the homework got extra credit and everyone who didn't could still turn it in next week for full credit. So now I have more than 100% in the class.
     
    Writing Tip Of The Week (And Last Week And The Week Before)
     
    Since I've been doing a lot of writing lately, I wanted to share some tips about how to write really fast and get a lot accomplished quickly. I call this "The Crash Course On How To Just Sit Down And Pound Out A Story".
     
    First off, decide how much time you have or want to spend. Don't worry if you have a short attention span (I know I do XD); this plan never makes you do anything for more than half an hour at a time. Of course, you can adjust it to your attention span, but I usually need a break from something after half an hour, and this plan was originally designed for me. Anyway, pick as much time as you think you'll need. I usually do this when I have 3-6 free hours.
     
    Next, schedule your time in 15-minute blocks. Here's an example of my schedule from last night:
     
    4:00-4:15: Writing
    4:15-4:30: Writing
    4:30-4:45: Break
    4:45-5:00: Writing
    5:00-5:15: More planning time
    5:15-5:30: Writing
    5:30-5:45: Writing
    5:45-6:00: Break
    6:00-6:15: Dinner
    6:15-6:30: Break
    6:30-6:45: Writing
    6:45-7:00: Writing
    7:00-7:15: Break
    7:15-7:30: Writing
    7:30-7:45: Writing
    7:45-8:00: Post Chapter
     
    I only had the first hour planned out by 4:00; after 5:00 (designated as "more planning time" on the schedule), I had planned to 8:00. As you can see here, I spent half an hour writing, then 15 minutes on break (which in my case was playing my DS - since you can fold it up, automatically pausing it no matter where in the game you are, it's a good device to use when you only have a short time to play). Then I spent 15 more minutes writing, followed by a 15 minute break (to plan more). Then I wrote another half hour. Then I spent the next forty-five minutes on break, essentially (15 minutes were spent eating). I came back and wrote another half hour, took another break, and then spent one last half hour writing and revising. Then I posted the chapter. Indeed, in this 4-hour period I wrote nearly all of Chapter 16, and I was only actually writing for a total of 2.25 hours. The writing just constantly flowed out until I was done.
     
    That should give you a good idea of how to keep your mind fresh and focused at all times, so during the brief spurts of writing, you don't get bored or tired of it. It works great for me, but I've never suggested it to anyone else before, so I can't attest to if other people find that the frequent breaks keep them from getting writer's block.
     
    If you do feel your thoughts starting to drift to other things - your next break, perhaps - gently lead them back on track. My Academic Affairs textbook put it nicely: (I'm paraphrasing here) "Accept the distractions, and then go back to the task at hand." Don't mentally scream "No! I can't think about that! I HAVE TO WRITE!!!" Just accept that in a few minutes you will be able to do whatever you want, and then turn back to the blinking cursor against the white background of your word processor, put your fingers to the keys, and keep typing.
     
    If necessary, allow yourself as much time as you need for things that don't count as breaks or writing time. For example, if you promised your friends you'd see a movie with them from 6:00 to 8:00, and you're writing from 4:00 to 10:00, simply classify those 8 blocks as "obligations" and leave it at that. Immediately schedule half an hour of writing after the long break though - you'll have a clear head and your brain will be ready to get back to work.
     
    Really, this type of technique can apply to not only stories, but any writing at all, including assigned school writing. But I've only ever used it for fan fiction. In any case, I plan to continue to use this technique to get further in Story of the Dead. Perhaps I can get significantly ahead of the posting again and have a few minutes to breathe!
  20. Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion
    Last night I was digging through the files from my old laptop copied over when it broke. I found a short story that I wrote a year ago. In this entry, at the very bottom, I wrote this:
     

    I finished that short story a few days after that entry was posted, but I never got around to posting the story.
     
    The past couple days, I've been wanting to write a short story. A really thought-provoking short story, better than the other two I've written. So when I found this one that was already written for me, I decided I would polish it (because my writing was not good a year ago at all) and send it out into the world. The polishing is done now, so I just need to decide on the title, and then I'll post it.
     
    The titles I'm currently considering are "Goodbye", "Destiny", and "Smile". Leaning towards "Smile" at the moment. The original title was "The Final Decision", but that's like uber-corny. XD The story is a change of pace from my usual writing because it contains no "action"; the conflict is hero vs. self (the hero being Matoro), so all the action takes place in Matoro's mind.
     
    Right now, the story has nothing to do with the Dairuno Toa series; however, I could slightly change events in the story to add in Guutana and it would take place during the Harmonization arc of 2010. I don't really want to do that, but if you guys think I should, tell me and I will.
     
    Anyway, onto the...
     
    Writing Tip of the Week
     
    This tip is about plot. This is extremely subjective, but if you want to tell if you have a good idea, run it through this test. Score yourself throughout the test.
     
    1. Can your plot identifiably be broken into exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution? It doesn't even matter if you don't know how the plot is going to end yet, but if you pay attention to this while writing, give yourself 20 points.
     
    2. Do you have a hero or heroes that the reader can sympathize with? Give yourself 20 points for this, and take off 20 points if you don't.
     
    3. Do you have a villain who is clearly bad and who the readers can clearly tell is not to be rooted for? Give yourself 20 points for this. Give yourself an extra 10 points if this villain is actually an anti-hero, tragic hero, or amoral but not evil. Subtract 40 points if you have no villain.
     
    4. Does your story have a final confrontation between the hero and the villain? Give yourself 10 points. Is this confrontation action-packed? Give yourself 10 more points. Does your villain win? Take off 4,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 points. (That's 4 octillion points. I think. XD) If your villain is a recurring villain and you're doing a series, only take off 10 points.
     
    5. Do you believe in the plot? Do you think it's good enough to sell? Are you proud of it? For every question you can say yes to, add 50 points.
     
    If your score is under 100, your plot idea needs work. If it's a negative number, you should probably scrap the idea and start over. If your score is more than 240, you either cheated or made a math error. XD
     
  21. Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion
    Somehow I completely forgot to update my blog last week. I apologize for that, guys. D=
     
    Anyway, quick update on what I've been doing with Story of the Dead since my last update. I finished Chapter 13 but haven't moved on much since, and I'm currently writing Chapter 14. I'm maybe a third of the way through it, having just begun the second scene. Unfortunately, this probably means that unless I pick up the pace soon, the posting of the story will catch up to me and I'll be playing catch-up the rest of the book like I was for almost all of Book 3.
     
    At the point in the story I've just reached, all of our lead characters have finally been introduced. The last 3 characters we'll meet in the story are none other than Lariska, Triglax, and Mimic, characters that exist in the canon but who haven't been very far explored. I plan to explore them, especially Mimic, who has always been my favorite Dark Hunter.
     
    Also introduced a totally new but minor character called Aciteth, an Onu-Matoran. Basically, Aciteth is to Gyotaren as Xironu is to Onathei - a right-hand, a confidante, and as you'll see in Chapter 14, a succesor (since Xironu and Aciteth become kings to replace Onathei and Gyotaren, who spend too much time away from the village training). For those who read Tyaseri's Blog, Aciteth was briefly mentioned there as a Toa on Tolliwam and part of the team of Hibuthil, Nejodis, and Mehikir. He becomes a Toa not too long after the telling of Onathei's Story of the Dead, and in the bonus story that I've talked about writing, he'll be a main character and most likely will be shown becoming a Toa.
     
    This is a random thing that I thought might be worth noting: frankly, out of all the teams I've written about so far (the Toa-Kal, the Barraki/League of Six Kingdoms, the Krandorn/Barnoka/Zirralo team, the Lenurin/Qedono/Tyaseri team, the Sihnozu/Geoku/Tekarou team, the team from Rode Nui, the guest star team led by Lepaka, the Hibuthil/Nejodis/Mehikir team, the Guutana/Roqini/Desurk team, and more recently, the Onathei/Gyotaren/Feyain team, the Rai, the Shuuno, and now the Mimic/Triglax/Lariska team), I find Onathei's team to be the most compelling to write about. They're the classic three-man team: the hero/leader Onathei, the sidekick/best friend Gyotaren, and the peacekeeper/girl Feyain. The chemistry between the three is very interesting to explore, and even though I've only been writing about them for a couple months, I already feel closer to them then I ever was to the Toa-Kal or any of the other teams. This is going to make it all the more tragic for me to see the team falling apart towards the end of Book 4.
     
    Anyway, onto the much delayed tip on settings for my weekly...
     
    Writing Tip Of the Week
     
    I've put it off long enough now, I'll finally give you my tip on settings now. There actually isn't as much here as I expected there to be, so I'll try to stretch out as much as I can.
     
    The setting of your story in my opinion should be one (not both) of the following: a) totally unobtrusive and forgettable, like Ayomeii, or B) dangerous and providing problems for the hero as much as if not more than the villain does, like Dyteeli. As you can see, the setting has to be at one of the extremes. A "lukewarm" setting will likely just get in the way of your story or seem gimmicky. Of course, like anything else I tell you not to do in this blog, it can be done right. In fact, Book 4 is (hopefully) an example of how you can have a lukewarm setting - the main conflict is with the villains, but the setting (a living island) plays a large role in the plot as well.
     
    An unobtrusive setting doesn't bring attention to itself and allows the plot and the characters to do their business with little intrusion; it simply sets the stage for a paragraph or so in each scene and then is mostly forgotten until the characters briefly interact with their environment again as opposed to each other. This kind of setting is generally the best, the kind of setting that could easily be changed to something else with only the most minuscule changes to the plot.
     
    A dangerous setting does bring attention to itself, constantly. In a character-vs.-nature story, you'll need the setting to be like this. In other stories, it could be nice to have this kind of setting, since it provides an added feeling of danger when even the environment is turned against you. Usually to tell if you've done this right, see what would happen to the plot if you changed the setting to a type A setting. If you lose huge chunks of plot and the story basically couldn't survive, then you probably have a good type B setting.
     
    Aside from that, you can basically do whatever you want with the setting and no one will complain. Just make sure it isn't too stupid or too nonsensical, and make sure that you can explain all the weirdness of your setting before you write it. (For example, if I had decided that the island in Book 4 was alive before I decided why, I'd be in big trouble later on. XD)
     
    That's about all I have to say for settings, so I guess next week I'll finish this little mini-series of tips with a tip on plot.
     
    Also, guess what guys? Comedy-Makers is making a comeback! I'm writing a new chapter alongside my friend Panakalego, who is probably going to be co-writing it with me (because he's the only one so far able to get me to write it XD) from now on. I don't know when the next chapter will be up, though. Soon. And I mean that this time.
  22. Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion
    I'm doing Story of the Dead on BZPower, an exclusive Dairuno Toa series blog from Tyaseri's point of view (called simply Tyaseri's Blog) on another website, and a remake of The Tables Have Turned on yet another website (the latter two websites, although I disagree with this rule, are not allowed to be mentioned here; if you're really interested in reading these, they shouldn't be too hard to find though). Between the three of them I think my brain may soon run out of RAM and I'll need to get a more powerful processor. XD
     
    The fun thing is that Tyaseri's Blog will end in a way that will, believe it or not, lead right into Story of the Dead, even though it takes place during Teridax's reign! How, you ask? You'll see in Chapter 13 of Story of the Dead, which I am now writing (alongside what will be the January 31st update of Tyaseri's Blog and the first chapter of the remade The Tables Have Turned, all more or less simultaneously).
     
    Speaking of Chapter 13, which will be posted on a Friday the 13th and is called "Chapter 13" (no, seriously, it'll be "Chapter 13: Chapter 13"), I just revealed something very very interesting which was completely made up as I went along. XD That's so far away that I can't say much, though. You'll find out in about a month when I post the chapter. A while back I said that Book 4 didn't do much to advance the mythology/backstory of the series... Well, a lot has changed since I said that and now it advances it the second-most of any book so far (second to Book 3, superior to Book 2 and Book 1 in that order)
     
    Anyway, onto the...
     
    Writing Tip of the Week
     
    I'm really having trouble writing a tip right now, for some reason... So, this week's writing tip is going to be short sweet and to the point, and I'll do a nice long one about settings next week:
     
    If you want to write well, you need to read well. Read a lot, and maybe eventually you'll start to write better. That's it for today. XD
  23. Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion
    I really don't have much to say about Story of the Dead this week; it's coming slowly lately and I'm still working to jump the hurdle that is Chapter 12. :annoyed2: But I'm thinking as soon as I pass it, I'll shoot ahead, at least until the next snag, which I'm assuming will be at about the time the Dark Hunters arrive, probably not until Chapter 15 or later. (Yes I did just give you a spoiler.)
     
    This is a really long one, so we'll now be moving right along to the...
     
    Writing Tip of the Week
     
    This week, as the title of this entry suggests, is about how to create a character - hero or villain or love interest or best friend or ninja sensei or little sister or (so on and so on), it doesn't matter. This is a nearly fool-proof way to create a sound, believable character. Note that this tip isn't written with Bionicle in mind like most of my tips are - this is to create a human or humanoid character. You could probably use the same thing to create Bionicle characters, though.
     
    The next time you have some idle time, just close your eyes so you only see through your mind's eye, into your imagination. (I apologize for the flowery language but this whole idea is so romantically poetic ) Normally when you close your eyes, you see darkness. Maybe a few random colored blobs. Well, I see in vivid detail people and detailed scenes playing out in my head when I close my eyes, and all I need to do is give them a little attention for them to appear. With your eyes closed, just try to imagine a person there. Don't think too hard about how the person looks, because then you'll be controlling it too much; you want this concept for a character to be completely from your subconscious. It's like how your mind creates a dream character - it just randomly generates a person even if you've never seen anyone who looks like that in your life. Eventually the character will appear.
     
    Once you're this far and you've got the mental image of your character, look at her (using female pronouns because the first character I ever did this with was a girl and saying him/he, his/hers, he/she gets really annoying after a while). Note her appearance and try to keep that first mental image in your head as the "finalized concept art" of your character - do not reimagine anything about her later. Next try to pick out everything abnormal about her. My character, when she first appeared to me, had her face covered in tattoos and looked gloomy; her clothes were uninteresting but her shoes were oddly bright red. And she was standing in a subway station. The more you focus on the abnormal parts of your character, the more real that image of her will become to you.
     
    The next steps can be hard because they involve completely bypassing all logic and being willing to believe completely ridiculous things... Blotting out all sense of doubt, tell yourself that this character is a real person and exists in your subconscious world. (To me, metaphorically, the mind is kind of like a stack of three "worlds" on top of each other: The top is the conscious world where your conscious thoughts occur and it's pretty empty and small. The second one down is the subconscious world where your dreams take place - there's an entire universe in there and that's where stories happen. And the bottom world is the unconscious world which is sort of empty but it's where characters and ideas come from.) Then go into your subconscious mind - this will probably require closing your eyes again and being in a near-sleep state - find your character, and talk to her.
     
    Not only does this get in mind her voice and how she acts around other people (for example, my character was shy and she tended to look away from me when she talked), it gets you to know about her. Her past, her future plans, her secrets, her accomplishments... It's kind of like an interview that takes place completely within your own mind. And this kind of thing should probably be done when you don't need to have any kind of contact with the real world at all. I tend to find myself going into a "trance" where I have to consciously shake myself out of this world before I can move or even hear in the real world. A long car ride or when you're trying to get to sleep are good times for this.
     
    Mentally note any observations you have during this "interview" and then move onto the next step. Become the character. Going into the trance I described earlier, put yourself in the subconscious world and manifest your subconscious self as the character, not yourself. This can be awkward and forced at first, but you'll eventually fall into it, like an actor who gets into their role so much that they practically are the character they're playing. Once you've done this, you should have a really great feel for the character. You should know her at least as well as you know your best friends, and probably as well as you know yourself. I routinely switch from my own personality to the personality of my character, in fact, and can do it more or less at will.
     
    The big thing here is asking yourself the question "What is my (or my character's) goal?" Your character can actually answer this for you, or you'll answer it for yourself if you are the character at that time. My character told me simply that she wanted to be free, which told me I had a hero character on my hands who readers would probably be able to sympathize with. Taking the details of her life I already knew, I put her in a scene and started writing. That's your next step.
     
    Write while you're being the character, paying attention to what your character senses - write down exactly what she sees, hears, feels, smells, tastes. That's the key to writing good description that will hook the reader in and make the reader become your character as well. At this point, the character is done and she should be so real that you can have a mental conversation with her at will.
     
    Generally by the level of attachment you have to a character you can get a feel for if they're going to be a main character or a minor character. From their goal, you can tell if it will be a hero or a villain. Usually the first character that rises to your head will be the main hero. But I suppose it could happen differently. As you go through this process, you'll develop a cast of characters (and quite likely schizophrenia as well, but as far as I'm concerned, as long as I know the voices in my head are my characters, I'm not too concerned ). You may or may not already have a setting, but if not that's the next thing you'll want. And so for the next tip, I'll tell you how to make a good setting.
  24. Auserv: Toa-Kal of Emotion
    I'm considering doing a feature for this blog called Epic of the Month, where I give an award of some kind to the best-written epic started in that month. To be fair, the winner would be posted on the first day of the next month (so if I do this starting this month, February 1st will be the day the winner is announced).
     
    Um, aside from that, I don't really have much to say. I'm starting to write a new story, that I may someday publish, and I have no idea how it's going to turn out. But the character is turning out to be the most interesting of one of my characters in a long time, and holds more promise than any other non-Bionicle character. She just popped into my head one day and I wouldn't let her go until she could give me a nice story, which she's doing for me now.
     
    Onto the two days late:
     
    Writing Tip of the Week
     
    Last week the tip was on creating a believable hero. Today we'll see how to create a believable villain. Generally I would suggest making your hero character first, but sometimes characters will just kind of be there in your head (contrary to what I said last entry, this is normal--I've learned a lot about writing in the past week, lol). If you get the idea for a perfect villain, don't worry about having a hero first.
     
    You want to make your villain a foil character to your hero. Whatever your hero is, your villain isn't. In fact, your villain is the opposite. (Don't take this the wrong way--your hero is alive, but that doesn't mean your villain should be dead. ) Say your hero loves dogs. Well, then your villain kicks every dog he sees. Exaggerated example, but you get the idea.
     
    Just like your hero, your villain needs to have a goal. His goal should be directly or indirectly contradictory to the hero's. That means that either his goal actually is that the hero doesn't succeed, or his goal would mean that the hero doesn't succeed. The motivation for this goal, whatever it is, must not be (and I cannot possibly stress this enough) "cuz that's just how I roll".
     
    Even beyond the ridiculous goofiness of that statement, this is simply not a good reason for doing evil. No human in their right mind goes around saying "Well I think I'm going to go kidnap and kill today because it's fun". There sure are people who are that horrible, but no one wants to read about them. I once read that a writer's job is "harder than God's", because when you're writing a story that really happened, people will not question even the most unbelievable events and characters. When you're writing a fictional story, people will constantly, if subconsciously, try to poke holes in your story and say "Well that's not realistic", even if you can point to a real person who was just as bad as your villain. This goes hand-in-hand with what I just said: even if there is such a horrible person, no one wants to read about him, no one wants to be reminded of how cruel people can be. So don't write about these people.
     
    Expanding on this, your villain gains a whole new level of depth when you give him a noble cause. Some bank robbers are just trying to get their families financially safe, I'm sure. You can, in a way, sympathize with such a person. No, it's not right, but at least he wasn't robbing the bank because it was his idea of a good time. Even if he was just robbing it because he was greedy, he has more depth than the one-dimensional puppy-kicker who no one wants to read about.
     
    The same book that said that a writer's job is harder than God's told me that a villain should "at least be nice to his mother", to further expand on this idea. However, you have to do this right. You can't have an entire scene from the villain's point of view just to go on and on about what a horrible person he is--and then, seemingly having become uncomfortably aware of how unrealistic this is, you quickly invent a soft spot for him. What you need to do is build the character around his soft spot--what is he doing all these evil things for? Or who?
     
    One last thing about this kind of villain: despite all of what I just said, you can write a villain like this and pull it off. The only way this will work, however, is if the villain has a very good reason that he has become this horrible. Maybe you can explain through flashbacks or scenes from the villain's point of view. (Or a long-winded speech to the hero as the villain is about to kill him, but we all know how cliche those are. XD) This can even create sympathy in the reader for the villain, which is always interesting, but this is dangerous because people could criticize you for condoning the villain's behavior. Moving on from this subject now...
     
    In the end, the villain must be defeated. You can have him win temporarily, but at the end of the book, the villain must be defeated. If he isn't, you have to write a sequel or at least end the book hopefully. (Think the 2005 ending in the Bionicle story--yes, the Toa Hordika have freed Makuta unintentionally, allowing his plan to continue, but at least they won their battle, completed their destiny, and the future is looking hopeful.)
     
    Generally, I don't like seeing a villain who realizes his mistakes and becomes a hero. This does not include:
    -A villain temporarily joining up with the hero when they have a mutual enemy or goal. (For example, Teridax and Vakama, briefly, in Time Trap)
    -A villain who used to be a hero turning back to being a hero again. (Brutaka in Into the Darkness, Vakama in Web of Shadows)
    -A villain that pretends to realize his mistakes to get the hero to trust him, only to turn on him again. (Hahli basically did the reverse of this in Prisoners of the Pit)
    Those could actually be good ideas, if you do it right (isn't that always the catch, lol).
     
    Again, it's late in this time zone; I'm tired and I've said a good deal, so I'll just let you guys digest that. To conclude this tip series about characters, next week will be about my newest method to develop a character, which I just developed literally within the last five days.
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