#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 10 Nbr 03 Part 2 — Should books include a content warning?
Well, I inadvertently conducted an experiment in content warnings. I added a content warning for Ch 10 Nbr 4 (here: https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/112560345961576143) consistent with my eldritch.cafe instance's standards. It stated:
How do you handle highly intimate scenes? CW: Intimacy. Nothing graphic, but, really, if intimacy or discussion thereof bothers you, don't read.
In my opinion, it worked a little too well. 😊 I generally can count on more response. Yeah, maybe the post wasn't deserving.
The "experiment" does allow me to discuss my fears about CWs—despite agreeing to use them in the spirit of their requirement. In warding off people who need them to be sufficiently detailed, or want them, reading a CW forms in the reader's head a preconception without actual knowledge of the facts. It's a cudgel not a scalpel. In my cited CW, I overwrote it because in the back of my mind I fear picking up a hater. I've dealt with getting badgered because someone's interpretation of reality wasn't mine, and I became an evil to be purged for the good of the world. As a shy person, this is a very difficult thing for me to deal with, so I use CWs.
#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 10 Nbr 05 — Have you ever dreamed about characters in your work?
So rarely as to be certain it happened less than a dozen times.
What being an author has done is turn most of my dreams (the one's I vaguely remember, anyway) into sequential stories that feel like narrative. I am not saying they make sense, but events seem to happen for a reason, with characters that show up in successive scenes, with recollection of what happened reflecting in choices that follow. Sometimes, the story continues after being awake for sometime. Sometimes it continues on a subsequent night. My dreams are always in color.
#WordWeavers 2406.05 — Do you have fans/people who enjoy your writing? What’s your relationship to them?
I've gotten sporadic feedback for years, some which has made me confident a certain population of readers like my stories because they aren't run of the mill. For a long while, I had a reader who liked dissecting passages in my stories, happily pointing out sarcasm and innuendo, and subtleties in the interactions between characters. Complementary comments are always nice. Way back in the previous millennium, I received an actual fan letter. You know, with an envelope. Written on a typewriter. I really wished I'd saved it, but I was young and stupid.
#PennedPossibilities 336 — Would you or have you ever used a mixed metaphor in your writing? We would love to hear some examples.
Unintentionally? I hope not. Intentionally, not often. Like a misquoted cliché, such things are humorous only if the reader is aware of the original metaphors. Since I write in first person, and those persons either live in some future time or some fantasy world, my characters can't tell their stories using common English metaphors. That said, I've created sound-alike metaphors and my characters have used them mixed them snidely, usually for the purposes of innuendo.
Like 335, they're a rarity in my current works, so I've none at hand to share.
#WordWeavers 2406.04 — Antagonist POV: Is it easy for you to apologize? Can you apologize to someone right now?
If I made a mistake or bumped into somebody? Of course. Many people recognize me, or take a look at me, and something between awe and stupidity sets in. I account for that. I've survived the fall of civilizations; I can be charming. What I won't apologize is for doing things I must do, whether it simply upsets you or ends up killing people you knew, and all the permutations in between. My role in this miserable life that never ends is ensuring humanity survives. Nobody apologizes to me for saddling me with that responsibility. You know what really ticks me off? Questions like this one. Sorry!
#WordWeavers 2406.03 — Who is your most creative character?
In the sense of one of my creations being uniquely different? I have one who character who interacts with the spirits of a few people and aliens who have died over the course of the two SF novels, but in the end it's difficult to decide whether the spirits were "real" or if the shaman is simply insane. In another set of novels, the main POV is able to rewrite reality (but not history) by application of will, but doesn't really understand the process or the implications. It takes a couple of books for her to fully understand she's being used, then she has to fix what she's been tricked into doing.
In the sense of the character being a creative? Being creative isn't often important in my stories, but my characters have things they do beyond what is necessary for the stories. Almost all my characters cook, and at least one of them cooks for a party that proves pivotal to the story (the shaman above). Caramelo in Inklings is a "spirit" photographer. It's important for the story as the MC wants to get him a job because she finds his work amazing. His artistry allows me to add a visual component to how the magic flows in the story.
I include CWs if the publisher or host requires them (Mastodon does) keeping to the spirit of the requirement. Beyond that, I refuse to impose my opinions on the matter upon any author, other than to point out that you dismiss this topic, and its implications for finding and retaining an audience for you work, at your own personal risk.
#PennedPossibilities 335 — Do you use metaphors in your writing? What are some examples?
Yes. But it took a question like this to think to quantify it: A lot less than I thought. Going through three different stories (recent works), I found that I rely on simple description and simile most of the time. After 10 minutes, I couldn't find anything suitably florid or particularly interesting to relate.
#CfP for the #conference "#Women#Travel#Writers in Northern Europe during the Long Nineteenth Century", which will take place at the Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) on February 27-28, 2025.
The devil-girl is at heart a control freak; she's just not mean or unpleasant about it. Depression results when she's stymied in finding how to control problematic situations from which she cannot escape, which usually ends up with her trying crazy and dangerous things to bully her way through.
But...
If it the situation puts people at risk and she can't do anything about it...
She did have a mental break one time, where she failed to harm herself.
Another time... well, her employer died, though it was because her employer became too stupid to live. She has enduring PTSD, and it's not because of her too young age. It's that she's was raised to be responsible and doesn't know how to let go.
#PennedPossibilities 333 — Pride Month Edition: Do you write any characters who are a part of the #LGBTQIA+ community?
My objective is to write female characters who overcome and deal with the strictures of their society, whatever they may be—stories that make you think of why needing to write such stories should even be necessary. (#Feminist author.) I neither avoid nor actively seek to write otherwise diverse characters, but I have written them anyway. Characters have a way of presenting themselves. I've written a gay romance side story for my current main WiP arc. I wrote a short story accepted for a trans fantasy anthology that sadly never got published because the publisher went under. That my MC's roommate is also apparently bi just is, and how it plays out is just what it is, too. No drama. Having been brought up with diversity makes me want to depict diversity as normal and everyday. Do I try to make political points with such characters? Not so much as I might with female characters.
#WordWeavers 2405.31 — Do your MCs enjoy games that are more physical or intellectual?
Wintereyes has never heard of... What did you call that? Games? She'd be interested in learning more about Township people if you would be willing to teach her.
The devil-girl is familiar with the concept of games, and she's done role playing games—as in trying to act the part of various people she might deal with in social situations (estate parties) or in real life (tenant farmers, officials, miners, petty rulers, etc.) Doing well meant she'd face less anxiety when hosting or negotiating with real people. Social anxiety was one of the many reasons she would later run away.
Things like board games or sports games? She wouldn't see the point. She was a prizefighter. Though people considered it a sport, that was never a game for her. It was how she would earn tuition and hone her fighting skills, and get sucked into the mob.
So physical or intellectual? She'd definitely enjoy physical games better.
#PennedPossibilities 331 — Has your MC ever desired the feeling of a fresh start, or a better understanding of themselves and / or the world around them?
Yes. Disappearing and starting fresh is a recurring theme with her. She's done it a few times.
My devil-girl values her freedom to pursue her interests (thaumaturgy) over practically anything. But for a single book, she has no attachments to anything material. She lives as an ascetic. Threaten her people and it won't end well. She will do most anything, if she feels she is learning or stretching herself. And, when she's pressured to do what annoys or bores her, or you have the temerity to threaten her, she will state clearly that she will disappear on your ass if you don't stop. No idle threat, that. She ended up running the syndicate when the Doña died (and no comment about who was responsible for the Doña's death), then ghosted the organization two weeks later taking nothing with her. She'd gotten rid of the undesirables first and was just sooo done with it all the flapping headaches.
#PennedPossibilities 330 — How does your MC go about expressing or not expressing their sexuality? CW: Sexuality?
Intellectually? Tactically?
She was reputed to have the kiss of death, but that gets ahead of that she used it to control the Doña's underlings in the mob. She even arranged for her own teacher, a mob lieutenant, after she'd throughly studied for the test and felt she was ready. She didn't kill him, don't worry! She found she enjoyed kissing, and used it aggressively on men (and women) as a tool until she discovered the whole thing could be fun—then incidentally found herself "expressive" with two boyfriends in two days.
#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 9 Nbr 30 — How do you achieve a sense of wonder in your stories? CW: Intimacy
I don't have a formula, and it isn't something I try to create arbitrarily. It's usually written by accident (or incidentally), and almost always requires tuning of the found passage to make it truly wondrous. It's the right words in the right order. [Not helpful, R.S.!] If anything, wonder is usually tied up with emotion, a sense of achievement, or something well deserved, maybe even something so perfectly crafted by people or nature that it would make a person stare or feel goosebumps. However, I find simply being human can evoke the best sense of wonder—for example:
I woke to dawn rays filtering through lace draperies. A cool jasmine-scented breeze tussled the soft fuzz on my arms and brought the sounds of twittering robins and sparrows. My bombastic bedmate had not molested me. Perhaps she had heard me when I said I preferred men. That, however, did not prevent her from snugging up to me in her sleep.
I grew aware of warmth against my back. I commended myself for not flinging myself from the bed like a crazy person this time, but instead lifted my head and looked back. She lay there, sheets kicked off by one of us, her golden back against my paler one, making us a pair of Cs. Her usually poofy hair matted against her face and spread out in night-sweat glued-together curly tresses across her pillow. She snored imperceptibly, and somewhat daintily for such a large-boned woman.
When I shimmied to break contact, she began to shiver. Even after I gently replaced the sheets over us, she continued. She twitched. After a few moments, I heard the faintest whimper.
I lay my head on the pillow and felt bad. I shimmied back, until our skin made contact. In a minute she quieted and fell deeply asleep. I didn't move. Didn't want to. Because, I knew. She had felt terribly alone—worse, I realized, so had I.