I’m not officially on social media, but I do peek at non-civilization-destroying venues from time to time. I see a lot of writer games, of which WordWeavers seems the most fun. Per the official Google Doc:
WordWeavers is a writing game on Mastodon created by Branwen OShea and Alina Leonova. The hosts post daily questions for each month.
Start anytime, answer any questions you want, skip as many as you feel like. Use the hashtag, talk to other writers and have fun!
The only rules: be respectful to others and use CWs (content warnings) for posts that might be triggering.
Everyone is welcome to participate 🧡
I can’t participate there, so I’m going to participate here!
If you were a character in your story, what would your role be?
The unspeakably ancient mentor who knows everything, including how this venture is going to go, but nobody listens to my warnings.
Just like in real life.
Do you prefer writing series or stand-alone books? Why?
Generally, I prefer standalones because I’m a slow writer and don’t want to commit to a multi-year endeavor. Most of my trad pub titles were series (though often loosely connected) because we serve the marketing department, not the other way around. (Everybody knows about series dropoff, and yet they force you to write multiple books destined to sell less each time. Kinda like sabotage!)
Because I’m contrary, I’m willingly writing a series now. I’m fully in charge and its fate (from a writing standpoint, at least) isn’t bound to sales, so the commitment is voluntary.
If you had to stay with one of your characters for a week, who would you choose?
Nabrell, the “spooky” curse-breaking twin. There would never be a dull moment in her vortex of weirdness.
Would you be welcome? (related to previous question)
Absolutely. Nab’s very good-natured. And on the meta level, she’s the only character who would be more fascinated than hostile toward me-as-writer.
Her hostile twin would have to be away on business that week, however.
If your MC doesn’t want to be social, will they be direct or make an excuse?
Depends who’s being rebuffed. If she either cares very much or doesn’t care at all about her relationship with that person, she’ll be straightforward about it. If the person is useful, she will call upon her diplomacy training, whether in the form of an excuse or resigning herself to unwanted socializing.
How do your characters welcome spring?
By being harassed by migrating fairy-like pests!
Spring is mostly an agricultural concept, so there are gatherings to welcome/feed/entertain the workers and ensure the traveling ones want to return. We don’t have occasion to participate in such festivities in this book.
How do your characters stay clean, or don’t they? Does plumbing exist?
Heroine takes a shower under a broken downspout at one point. Hero dunks his head in a fountain basin. Both occur in a dilapidated, abandoned city with no better functional options.
In less neglected locales, the world is at a Victorian-ish level of technology. Sewers are old news, and running water and boilers are widely available, if not installed in every building. There are bathhouses in any location populous enough to make such establishments worthwhile. In areas of sufficient precipitation, rooftop cisterns and gravity plumbing are common features of even modest homes.
The great masses of the world aren’t unwashed as a rule.
Which do you figure out first—MCs’ looks or personalities?
100% personality. Unless there’s something functionally relevant about their appearance, such as a tactical scarf or mechanical arm, I have no idea what characters look like until my thoughts turn to preventing my editor yelling at me for lack of description.
If I’m doing my own cover art and vibe with a certain image, “okay, I guess she’s blonde (or whatever is in the image)” is a thing that happens. I used to make covers for other people, and inflexible ideas about character appearance made the process exponentially more difficult.
Do you have any stories within your stories? Ancient myths, family stories?
Heroic legend and accompanying ballad (which I really, really need to cut because it’s so terrible). A vanishing kingdom that was made into a myth. Reference to a play about a king who starves to death in his palace after all the workers he treats poorly collectively say “fuckity bye.” A stranger tells Heroine a “story” that’s suspiciously similar to her childhood, with an epilogue she hears for the first time.
For a giveaway, what swag would you offer with your book?
I’m going to be a buzzkill and say 99% of swag ends up in a landfill within a month. The money spent buying that garbage would be better put toward covers, editing, formatting—things that improve the quality of the actual product: the book. An optimally placed ad to let people know the book exists. Paper ARCs for reviewers who require them. Set that money aside for audiobooks to maximize formats. Pay a web host so you have a digital home that isn’t entirely at the mercy of corporate fuckery. Dues for a professional organization. Donate to an environmental cause to offset somebody else’s swag. Anything for your business other than generating more junk.