Charliesangels

I started writing a book by taking a scene at a time in the order that I thought of them and then thought that I'd just try and fit them together afterwards, but I'm finding it incredibly difficult to put them into order and bridge the gaps. Have you ever written like this? Did it work for you? What can I try to sort the order out?

Thanks!

~ Dotty Lottie

...Or from the POV of a character who can't remember certain aspects of their character?

Do they eventually remember who they are?

What happens to make them remember?

Does anyone else help them to remember who they are?

If they can remember some things, what are they and why do those things stick around?

How realistic is their time comatose/with amnesia?

What happens to make them forget certain aspects of their history/personality/mentality in the first place?

I've been writing about a character who can't remember most of his past after someone tried to kill him by hitting him over the head and wondered if there are many other amnesiac characters out there. The thing that I find interesting to write about with my character's amnesiac episode, is that he was running from a street gang that he got involved with when they try to murder him, so when he wakes up and can't remember who he is he is in Scotland, meaning that there is more or less nothing to remind him of things from his past. I'm planning for him to stay there for a couple of years whilst two of his friends attempt to find him (everyone else believes he died in a gas explosion) so that when they find him, he'll begin to remember what happened to take him there in the first place, but things will have changed a lot between him and his friends since they have spent so much time apart and have effectively carried on with their lives as much as possible.

Anything within the dystopian genre, aside from the Hunger Games as I have already read those and thoroughly enjoyed them.

1. What did you think of it?

2. Who was your favourite character and why?

3. What did you think about Cassandra's father?

4. Do you love or hate Rose?

5. Do you love or hate Topaz?

6. How did you react to Stephen's change in character?

7. Which Cotton brother was your favourite and why?

8. Did your opinion of Thomas change throughout the book?

Personally, I found the character of Cassandra's father, James Mortmain, the most interesting. Not only because of the small mystery surrounding his work, but also because of the way he came out with some of the funniest lines in the book without being an intentionally funny character.

Thanks!

Or if Christmas doesn't exist in their world, how would they celebrate it if it did? Who would they celebrate it with? What would they do? Where would they go? What would be the best part? etc.

Thanks!

I was flicking through the B&A section of answers and couldn't find any creative tools/character-based questions, so I thought I put a few out there! Please star this if you would like another interview/more creative tools.

So, pluck a character out of your story/novel and get them sitting comfortably!

1) What were you doing before you were yanked out of your reality?

2) What was the last song/piece of music that you listened to?

3) Which season is your favourite?

4) How do you feel about Wednesdays?

5) If you had to pick between a beanbag, an armchair and a hammock which would you pick?

6) Which would you choose: tea, coffee or hot chocolate?

7) Who do you consider to be your closest friend?

8) Who is your worst enemy or rival?

9) Do you like books?

10) What are your favourite type of flowers?

11) Given the choice, would you rather go swimming or horse riding?

12) Are you a dreamer, or are you completely down-to-earth?

13) Would you be or are you ever content to live in your imagination?

14) What would be your ideal birthday or Christmas present?

15) Have you ever attempted to or do you play an instrument?

Thanks!

For example, someone who dislikes classical works, but goes around reading and quoting them anyway could be deemed as being an "untrue" or "fake" reader because they aren't actually particularly interested in what they're reading and are reading it to change the way they are perceived by others. Have you ever done this? Do you know anyone that does?

For instance, currently lots of fantasy and paranormal romance books are very successful due to the fact that they are popular and, to an extent, fashionable at the moment. Even if the actual quality of the writing isn't brilliant, this genre seems to be selling excellently. Do you think that this is right?

Whilst I would argue that this is wrong for anything else, I'm not sure how I stand on this issue because as a writer your goal is to write something that others will like, which will aim to entertain and amuse them. It is, of course, possible to do this and still maintain a good quality to your writing, but the authors who have incredibly successful works published without having an excellent quality to their writing must have achieved the first of these two goals, so should they be cast aside simply because they're popular and fashionable, but not necessarily "correct"?

Would you care to pull them out and describe them a bit? Any horrific memories? Things that they have done which they regret immensely? Do they have any issues with members of their family? Were they sent to boarding school at a young age? Do they have a haunting past?

Basically, if there's anything particularly interesting about any character of your choice I'd like to hear a bit about it.

Out of the two characters that I have chosen (from different books Isaac and Thomas) Isaac joined the army at 19 and went out to Afghanistan where he was captured and tortured by Taliban members. Their base was bombed and he escaped only to get shot in the shoulder and invalided home. Thomas on the other hand had a rather privileged lifestyle as the eldest son of a wealthy businessman until his father's gambling addiction made him commit suicide. Aged 18, Thomas became the head of the family and had to use his inheritance to pay off his father's debts. With the small amount of money left over he paid for his younger sister (aged 8) to go to boarding school as he had been sent to Eaton before leaving the UK to hitch-hike around Europe, taking whatever jobs he could find and living wherever and however he could.

Fortunately, both characters eventually get their happy endings. Whether it's reassurance that he made the right choices/managing to catch murderers (Isaac) or simply getting the girl who he had been "just friends" with for the past five years (Thomas).

So, any regrets for your characters? Did they murder someone? Did they betray someone close to them? Or did they just never pay that speeding fine?

Which type of relationship do you enjoy writing about most or find to be the most satisfying to create and describe?

They could be anything from romantic girl and boy to parent and child to protagonist versus antagonist.

In my current project the main male character (21) has a much younger sister (10) who often visits him. Since their father died he feels almost responsible for his sister, which is nice to show through the way her treats her and teaches her how to horse ride etc. It also provides me with an opportunity to include a wider age range in an otherwise early-late 20's group of characters.

Anyway, what do you think? Do you have any particularly special character relationships that you enjoy writing about? How about some that you don't enjoy/like writing about? Feel free to be as detailed as you want and thanks for answering!

~ Dotty Lottie (who is returning to answers after an incredibly long time :P)

For example, as though the story was a letter from one main character to another, so the pronouns used would be "you", "us" and the narrator would be describing the actions of the person they're writing to. The only example that I can think of where a fiction author has done this is in "Stolen" by Lucy Christopher, which I really enjoyed. What do you think? How do you feel reading or writing in second person? Have you tried writing in it? Do you like reading in second person? Does it make you feel more engaged with the story and characters?

I'm currently working on writing a book that follows the relationship of a young woman who finds it difficult to relax and an enthusiastic horse rider/trainer/instructor, who teaches her how to ride and they eventually fall in love. However, in one of the main parts the guy (Thomas) has a serious riding accident whilst training a new pony and is quite badly injured.

He breaks three ribs, shatters his shoulder and breaks his leg in two separate places. I was wondering how long it would take for him to recover well enough from this injury in order to be able to ride again and was thinking possibly sometime around six months. I was also wondering how much I could shorten this time for creative purposes, but still keep the recovery time a believable length?

Thank you!

These are both to the same story and will both still apply to the story if I use the other. I know that sounds strange, but I mean that they will still be relevant to the overall story since it's the last part of a trilogy that follows the relationship of a detective (hero) and a doctor (heroine). The heroine is currently in New York and the hero in London after the death of a woman that he hadn't realised he still cared about made the heroine leave.

First one:

24th December

9:08am New York

Elisa

The rain turned to sleet, and I ran into the nearest department store. I was so far past exhausted that I no longer had to fight to keep my eyes open. Lights and “holiday” music blared at me. I still wasn’t used to these Americanisms, such as “sidewalk”, “apartments” and the inevitable “Happy Holidays” that everyone was intent on saying to anything that breathed.

It wasn’t that I hated Christmas, or my decision to go to New York with Richard. I may have hated the reasons I made the move, but it had forced me to meet new people, which was always good. I hadn’t heard anything from him, which again was inevitable really – as Alex had once told me when Isaac made a decision, he’d keep to it. Mainly, the fact that I had worked double shifts in the run up until Christmas had given me no spare time to even think about what Isaac would be doing over Christmas. Unfortunately, Richard was determined to make sure that I had some time to sleep over the Christmas break. My list of Christmas shopping was admittedly a little sparse, with small gifts for perhaps four or five of the other doctors at work. I was stumped as to what I was going to buy for Richard.

I made snappy decisions for the gifts for work colleagues, and paid for them all within a matter of minutes before I was outside again and running back to my apartment, trying to dodge around the rain drops.

Second:

Everything was set. The plan was in place and events were about to be set into motion – even if they weren’t those expected. He would be leaving that night. His seven year-old daughter clung onto his hand as they walked towards the bookshop.

“What do you want today, Rose?” He asked, hesitating as always before addressing his daughter; he’d always been cut out to make a terrible father.

The little girl looked up at him with the dark eyes they shared, thinking for barely a moment. “Harry Potter,” came the natural reply. Her father had now grown used to the fact that the child was fascinated by the magical, but admittedly dark, world of stories and mystery surrounding the young wizard, rather than feeling worried about wanting to protect his daughter from the world.

They walked into the shop hand in hand and an assistant came over to them, recognising the pair as two of their most frequent customers. The shop workers were no longer surprised to find themselves discussing books of various different genres with the seven year-old. Neither did they show any astonishment when her father simply walked with her to whichever section she wanted to look at before wandering off to spend several hours in either the academic section or the crime-fiction section, exclaiming in wonder at the stupidity of the fictional detectives, murder suspects and victims.

Mainly, the bookshop staff didn’t show any complaint over the casual way in which the pair treated the bookshop more like a library, due to their extreme generosity. The girl’s father would buy perhaps one or two books for her each week, but could always be counted on to give generous tips to anyone who pointed them in the right direction or managed to find a very specifically requested book.

The bookshop staff were by no means ungrateful to the girl and her father, but they could not help speculating about the peculiar pair. Not once had the man spoken to them, only to enquire after his daughter or a certain crime-fiction book, which earned him the reputation of “the wanna-be detective”, a nickname that stuck even after the bookshop staff had found his signature on a credit statement. His daughter, on the other hand, was a little more sociable, and would tell anyone who asked, that her name was Rose, before burying her nose back into whichever book she had been reading. However, she would not tell anyone anything about her father; he was a very private man and she was unswervingly loyal to him.

On that particular day, Rose was downstairs in the shop basement, sat in a perfectly circular egg chair lined with feather cushions, and reading a gigantic leather-bound volume of Sherlock Holmes stories. She knew that her father would be upstairs in his usual armchair reading a detective novel, on the claim that it would teach him how not to do his job.

There is more to the second opening, but it won't quite fit :D

After spending this evening writing "the moment" between my two romantic lead characters, I decided that I'd like to hear some first kiss or romantic scenes that have happened/are going to happen between two of your characters.

Here's mine:

She stood in front of him, and Thomas was certain that he could see the complex thought process spread across her expression as she tried to work out what to say. “Pippa, I need to go,” he began, already turning to leave.

Pippa caught his hand and pulled him around to face her. Thomas tried to pull away from her, but she held his hand in grip of iron. Then he made the mistake of looking into her eyes. They were so dark, sincere and warm. Her arms were around his neck and their lips touched. Trying to think what he should do in the confusion of the kiss, Thomas let himself react, taking over the kiss and holding her closer to him. He let the kiss come to its natural end before considering what he wanted or how he felt about her. “I missed you too,” he replied honestly. “And I think, quite possibly, over the last six months, I’ve, I don’t know for sure, but I think-” He tried to make the right words come out of his mouth, but Pippa said it for him.

“I love you too.”

I'm looking to re-string my electric violin as the current strings on it are of a low quality and are always under a high amount of tension, which makes them sound very sharp - even when I loosen them i.e. attempt to make them flatter. However, I'm not sure what make of strings would be best because I have a Tim-toft acoustic violin with very soft stings, making my violin easy to tune and easier to play, but to have Tim-toft strings put on my electric violin it would cost me over £100 which I don't want to do if there's another way that would work. Any suggestions?

So, lately I've noticed that pretty much all of my heroes are of the sarcastic, tall, dark-haired stranger type and was wondering, which kind of hero/heroine you would choose?

This sounds like a horrible question, but I need the titles of some books that you personally would consider inappropriate for children to read because in the book I'm writing the main male character has to let his daughter read a controversial book that isn't really appropriate for her age (8 years old).

Thank you.

Either bullet points or small paragraphs would be great since I can't seem to find anything on the internet and have already used the arguments I can think of.

Thank you!

These are the three I like most in order of preference:

1. So She Dances by Josh Groban - simply an amazing song with a VERY suitable title :)

2. I Won't Let Go by James Morrison

3. Lego House by Ed Sheeran - I like the intro and already have a few ideas but the middle is quite repetitive which will probably lead to the same steps again and again.

If so, why? What's on them?

I did this myself when I started changing the view point that I wrote from every couple of chapters.

Wow, I haven't been on Yahoo in ages. Any new faces? Or characters? How are you're word counts doing?

~ Dotty Lottie