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Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 1d

Which is hard because the protagonist lives in a village of about 300 people. And everyone else also lives in small groups like that. It's rare for any of them to meet someone and not know their name, so I have to be creative to make the scenes feel busy enough without every person's name coming up.

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Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 1d

Then again, the people who gave me this feedback said they're not really big fantasy readers. I think I had 100-odd named characters in my first draft, and now I have 53. I tried to avoid the thing you see in, for example, ASOIAF, where people who are essentially just set extras have names.

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Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 1d

It was more a philosophical question tbh lol. But also I've received feedback that there are too many characters. I've winnowed it down as much as I can, I think, unless I start killing some darlings. Which I'd rather not.

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Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 1d

Someone with an MFA help me, my novel is dying

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Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 1d

Does it count as an arc if the character doesn't actually change, but the perception the protagonist has of them does? Like, if she starts out thinking someone is on her side and friendly, and then it turns out they were plotting against her all along, is that an arc for them, or just the protag?

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Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 1d

There are even some characters who have zero lines of dialog that the protagonist understands. Before I wrote the conlang, all of them were like "He grumbled something under his breath." Sometimes she gets translations. Sometimes not. One hardly talks at all. But all of them have some type of arc.

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Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 1d

Does dying count as an arc? I mean, it's a big change, yeah?

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Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 1d

I guess not every secondary needs an arc?

And there are some tertiary characters who definitely have arcs. Partly because they become more important in book 2.

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Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 1d

I'm thinking about this because I'm trying to decide if I have too many characters still. I've been cutting out some of the really minor ones who don't really do anything, and giving whatever small role they play to other characters. So I'm sorting "secondary" and "tertiary"

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Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 1d

It occurs to me that some of the characters I personally think of as secondary are maybe actually tertiary.

Like I think of protag's gf as secondary. She's a major motivator for protag, she is integral to the plot (albeit without protag's knowledge). But does she have an arc? Does she change?

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Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 1d

I had fun doing it, though.

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Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 1d

Ain't that always the way. All the academic work I ever did was unpaid, or in the case of field schools and research for my undergraduate thesis, I paid for the privilege of doing it.

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Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 1d

This sounds both painful and delightful.

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Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 1d

Gonna have to sock drawer it, I'm afraid.

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Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 1d

Regular conversation:

Me: *pours bowl of cereal*
Husband: We're all out of oatmilk.
Me: *opens cabinet where I have put an entire case of oatmilk.
Husband: Oh, right

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Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 1d

Mine just has ADHD I think. There are cabinets that do not exist to him.

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Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 1d

Same but for oreos lol.

Find a cabinet you know he is unlikely to look inside.

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Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 1d

It's not really the fault of the people in the writing groups. The last one I was in was actually really helpful and my book is much better for it. Like a completely different book, really.

But I'm terrible at group dynamics. Maybe I'd be better at them now that I'm medicated. Who knows.

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Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 1d

Oh hey, I hadn't seen you'd published this. Congrats!

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Reposted by Idra Fallow

V.L. Lanius 🏺 is writing, again. @vl-lanius.bsky.social · Aug 24

📚💙 New release!
Royal Magpie's Oath, an epic fantasy/romance full of all the things you love. Like dragons.

Amazon:
a.co/d/4G3gHM0
Kobo:
tinyurl.com/sbkff4uhz

#fantasy #queerromance #dragon #queerwriters #writingcommunity

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Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 1d

Who am I kidding, I probably would hate an irl writing group, too.

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Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 1d

I need to find more people to ramble to about my book. Unfortunately I can only tolerate about two months in a discord server and idk where else to find writing groups.

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Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 2d

I've been showing my characters' accents by giving their dialog minor syntax errors that match the rules of the conlang I wrote for this story, and I think it's starting to bleed into my everyday language.

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Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 2d

Me: You don't need to rewrite the scene. It's fine the way it is. It works perfectly for what you wanted to accomplish.

Also me: Yeah I'm gonna rewrite the scene.

Idra Fallow @idrafallow.bsky.social · 2d

I just spent like two days writing a scene involving a game like mancala because it's the oldest board game I knew of. And now I see this.

Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 2d

The Royal Game of Ur is the world’s oldest playable boardgame!

Played by Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia about 4,500 years ago!

It is a two-player race game, the rules of which have been deciphered from a cuneiform tablet.

Game from the Royal Cemetery of Ur. 📷 British Museum

#Archaeology

British Museum photo showing a two-player board game with gaming counters known as the Royal Game of Ur. Dated c. 2,500 BC.

The game board is composed of a hollow box made of wood adorned with shell plaques. There is a drawer at one end for storing game pieces and dice. The top of the board is covered with twenty square-shaped off-white shell plaques, each bordered with dark-blue lapis lazuli. The shell squares are intricately decorated with blue inlaid patterns including dots inside circles and eye-shapes. Five squares are inlaid with flower-shaped rosettes with red limestone and blue lapis lazuli petals.

The game board is roughly rectangular in shape. Viewed from above in the photo, on the left side of the board is a block of 12 squares made up of 4 across by 3 down. On the right side of the board is a block of 6 squares made up of 2 across by 3 down. The two blocks are joined by two squares extending between the second square down on the end row of the left block and the second square down on the first row of the second block.

Dimensions H: 2.40 cm, L: 30.10 cm, W: 11 cm, (W 5.70 cm at narrowest part)

Beneath the board are 14 disc-shaped gaming counters. On the left are 7 white pieces, inlaid with 5 spots of blue lapis lazuli. On the right are 7 black pieces inlaid with five white spots.

Between the game pieces are three tetrahedron-shaped dice. L to R: Dark blue, brown, cream.

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