word choice in historical fiction

I wonder if anyone else obsesses about this sort of thing. I’ve been dutifully working on my steampunk project, writing anywhere from 300 to 1200 words a day, making excellent progress. So far, the plotting before writing has worked out, but I’m only 3773 words in (as of writing this post). Hopefully, the next 80,000—give or take—come just as easy.

I have spent a lot of time between sentences doing research. I want the story to be as authentic as possible, highlighting the innovative technology of the era, keeping true to the political and social standards of the time, and using the language of the time. Dictionary.com has been my best friend through the course of the steampunk project so far. I can look up a word, and the website will tell me what year the word came into common use.

story immersion

Since I haven’t read any new fiction lately (shame on me), I have no book review to post (double shame on me). I do have four books on their way to me that I desperately want to read, so we’ll be stocked up on book reviews for a while after this week.

I’ve wanted to address this for a while, but I was never really certain on how to go about it. With my steampunk project, I finally found the words to do so.

what is voice?

Voice is one of those enigmatic things in writing that evades understanding. When I pick up a book at Barnes & Noble, first the title or cover art grabs my attention. Then I read the cover flap, see if it’s something I would like reading. If so, I turn to the first page and start reading. Nine times out of ten, I put the book back after the first paragraph.

Why?

another d&d characterization post

Today, Kristen Lamb put up a post about character alignment and antagonists based on Dungeons & Dragons 2^nd edition… old school. [Note: the rest of this paragraph rambles a bit] For those of you that don’t know, fourth edition was released a few years ago. Second edition was released the year I was born. There is a lot of debate by hardcore D&D players on whether fourth edition still captures the essence of the game, and most people dismiss it. Whatever. I love it. I came into the game at 3.5, and while third edition has a lot more focus on the details, fourth edition is easier to pick up and play a quick game. I do miss a lot of what 3.5 had to offer, but as the rules change, the game changes, and the players have to change too.

I’ve been leading a party through a fourth edition draconic-based campaign. Right now the antagonist to the party is the band of chromatic (red, blue, green, black, and white) dragons and dragonborn between them and their destination, the ruined castle of Rustir. The next antagonist is the dragonborns’ leader, the Lady of Eialda, and above even her, the god of the chromatic dragons, Tiamat herself. How did they get into this predicament? On their way to answer the desperate call of the king, the party met an inept paladin who died at the claws of a white dragon. Turns out, that paladin was the prince of the kingdom, and his older brother led a campaign against the Lady of Eialda in order to restore peace to Toringad. By unknown reasons, the elder brother, Eindride, and his men never returned. The king offers the party their weight in gold if they can bring his son home. A worthy reward. Especially since the entire party of players I’m working with is unaligned (or in old D&D, chaotic neutral). Not a single one of them would step up and offer to go after the missing paladin out of the goodness of his heart. But for a share of 10,000 gold, I would go find the dumb paladin.

guest post: writing griffin rising

by Darby Karchut

Thank you, Brooke, for inviting me to be a guest. It’s a pleasure to hang out with you today!

Today, I want to share with everyone an excerpt from my article “Wings” in the recently published How I Wrote My First Book: The Story Behind the Story about how I literally backed into this crazy world of writing YA books:

One day, out of the blue, the idea of writing a book ambushed me while I was running in the foothills near my house. A story about a young hero rising above a brutal past with the help of others along the way, with whiffs of fantasy and history and philosophy and even a love story. Maybe something with ... with ... with angels.

Man, I really should have run faster.