|
Written by Paul
|
|
Sunday, 21 April 2013 22:36 |
I find myself writing about clothes a lot, in this and in other stories. Something often ignored in all kinds of fiction is what a dirty, sweaty, harsh life adventuring really is. Characters should come out of a dungeon crawl, or a battle, or a chase scene with their clothes ripped and scuffed, holes in their pants and shoes, etc etc, yet we see it so rarely. Legolas never has to get new pants, Harry Potter never has to change his shirt because there's a hole in it, and almost no one addresses the problems simple bathing presents in a more primitive setting. I think this is often a result of living in the modern age - people are used to buying new clothes whenever they want, and even if they are broke they can hit a thrift store and get something that will at least cover their ass. As a society we have plenty of clothes - so many we have to give them away when we accumulate too many.
But pre-industrial eras were not like that. In the medieval period even nobles obtained a new set of clothes maybe twice a year - on Easter and on Christmas. Cloth had to be woven or otherwise manufactured by hand, clothes were made entirely by hand and had to be fitted to you - you could not just hunt around in a store and get what you wanted. People had nothing like the carelessly-counted stores of clothing we think of as normal, they did not know the sensation of digging through an old drawer and saying "Huh, forgot I had this."
It's something I think is important, and I cannot bring myself to skip or elide over it. Characters get their clothes burned, shredded, bloodied or covered in dirt; soaked in river-water and slimed with mud. These clothes need to be replaced, and they often have to make do. I also take care sometimes to explicitly describe what characters are wearing. I'm a very visual writer, and I need to be able to picture all the little details, I feel like it helps conjure up the proper image, the feel of another time or place.
Plus, part of the fun of being a pirate would be getting to wear whatever outrageous crap you wanted. That would be awesome.
|
|
Written by Paul
|
|
Thursday, 18 April 2013 23:44 |
One of the fun things about writing porn - as I have said many times before - is the ready-made excuse it gives you to stop everything and just do a sex chapter. No plot, no fighting, no travel, just sex. It would be a mistake, however, to ignore how these kinds of couplings will affect the characters. Here we introduce characters to new people, sex them all up and see how they take to each other, and we also sow seeds of future interactions. The sex must always be in-character for them to have, and it can reflect their current interactions as well as show us where their relations might go.
Just wanted to remind everyone who does not already know that we are always going on about something or other over on our Twitter feed, and we have recently revived our Tumblr and are posting stuff there as well. Follow us for all kinds of fun.
|
|
Written by Paul
|
|
Wednesday, 17 April 2013 00:41 |
In between major sequences of a story like this, you have to take some time and make sure all your ducks are in a row. It can be difficult, especially since this book is so tightly plotted and has a few too many characters - but it has to be done. You have to take time to get the major players together and let them interact. You have to make sure everyone is up to speed on the plot, so you aren't stuck later explaining how so-and-so knew such-and-such. Plus, it serves as a decent vehicle for exposition, because while it is important for the sake of continuity to make sure the characters understand what's going on, it's even more important to make sure the readers do. If a character is not getting it, that can be a slip, or the basis for a joke. If the reader is confused, you done goofed.
Everybody wave to Regina, as this is her walk-on appearance (the first of three) as Zenobia's dinosaur wrangler. I made that suggestion and she jumped at it, so I hope she likes it. :)
|
|
|
|
|
<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next > End >>
|
|
Page 2 of 21 |
