30 Days Weeks of Writing Questions –Week 4

Several years ago I participated in something called 30 days of Writing Questions – a question a day for 30 days. Since I don’t have anything better to do on Fridays I thought I’d resurrect it, only I’m going to do one question a week. What the heck, if nothing else it’ll be fun, right? And just to make it even more exciting…I was able to locate my original answers, so I’m including them as well. It should be interesting to see if, or how much, my answers have changed.

Question Four:

Tell us about one of your first stories/characters!

Old answer:

One of the first characters I ever created was named Ghia F’ton Banestayju. What a mouthful, eh? She was raised on Earth by a wizardly type old man, who dies before he can tell her who she really is and where she comes from.

The plot is almost embarrassing to admit, but just remember, I was very young! :-p

Okay. Ghia was sent to Earth with her guardian to keep her safe from assassins. Her family was some kind of royalty (I was a little vague on that). After her guardian dies, she feels compelled to visit the Stonehenge where, on the night of a full moon, she hears a strange and wonderful music and dances amongst the stones. This activates a portal that transports her to her home world – Saturn.

See, I told you it was embarrassing.

So here the poor girl is, stuck on an unfamiliar world, not knowing who she really is, and with bad guys after her to kidnap/kill her. That’s about all I remember, other than the fact there was a lot of really weird landscapes she travelled through, like the Crystal Forest, which was a forest literally made out of crystal.

I think a few pages, typed on an antique typewriter on very thin paper, might still exist, but it won’t break my heart if the mice get them. :-)

New Answer

Well obviously not much has changed since the last answer but as I read it over I couldn’t help but notice the resemblance to my Moonstone Chronicles. It, too, features a main character who was sent to Earth to be raised in safety and then returned to her home world as an adult. Although in this case the world she returns to is a magical one, filled with magickal creatures. But it just goes to show, old ideas never die, they just get recycled.

I’m sure there was a story or two that pre-dated my Saturn one, but if so I’ve mercifully forgotten about them and there is no paper record of them.


In case you missed them, here are the previous weeks questions: one, two, three.

30 Days Weeks of Writing Questions –Week 3

Several years ago I participated in something called 30 days of Writing Questions – a question a day for 30 days. Since I don’t have anything better to do on Fridays I thought I’d resurrect it, only I’m going to do once question a week. What the heck, if nothing else it’ll be fun, right? And just to make it even more exciting…I was able to locate my original answers, so I’m including them as well. It should be interesting to see if, or how much, my answers have changed.

Question Three:

How do you come up with names for characters (and for places if you’re writing about fictional places)?

Old answer:

The names for my main characters usually come pretty easily – I can’t start writing about them if I don’t know their names. In Driving Into Forever, I knew from the beginning that my main characters were named Hannah and Kelvin. With the story I’m editing right now, Forever and For Always, the name Treasure Beaumont just popped into my head one day and I started writing. I didn’t know anything about her, except for her name.

Secondary characters, however, can be a whole different story. While Hannah’s best friend was named Sara and hung onto her name from the beginning, the character of Nathaniel underwent many name changes until he decided to hook up with Sara in the sequel. She must have a steadying influence on him. ;-)

Kelvin’s brother and his Aunt also went through several name changes. I try not to have my characters have similar sounding names and if I’m stuck I’ll pick a letter of the alphabet and consult a baby-naming site on the internet. This helps, too, if I’m looking for a name with a particular ethnic feel to it.

As far as naming places goes . . . this is much harder for me. I write about imaginary places mostly – different dimensions, different planets – and these are much harder to name. Again, I try not to have places sound all the same, but it’s not always easy. In my on-line serial I name one planet Sigma Alpha IV, which I think I stole from Star Trek. :-)

New answer:

Not much has changed really as far as the answer to this question goes. Most character names come fairly easily to me. I’ve gotten better at naming the secondary characters – I’m able to find the right name for them and stick to it.

I have several “name the baby” sites bookmarked and when I’m looking for a name I often consult them. This is especially helpful if I’m looking for a specific kind of name because you can do searches by ethnicity.

Places are still kind of iffy though. In my Elemental series, two of the stories take place on the same world, which I don’t think I gave a name to. And the fourth book also takes place on an unnamed world, although I had a lot of fun naming the five major mining operations.

The magical world Jessica finds herself on in the Moonstone Chronicles is also unnamed. However, I have maps to keep track of where she’s been and where she’s going, and I’ve been naming places and rivers as I go along. Some of them are pretty lame names, but they’re names nonetheless.

Come to think of it, my Seven Realms series (which is still mostly in the planning stages) is also taking place on an unnamed world. And the realms themselves have names like: Desert Realm; Ocean Realm; Forest Realm . . .

Hmm. Looks like unless someone is actively looking for a specific world, none of my worlds have names. Maybe I should look up one of those name generator thingies online and get working on that. :-D

In case you missed them, here are the previous weeks questions: one, two.

30 Days Weeks of Writing Questions

Once upon a time on a blog far, far away….

I participated in something called 30 days of Writing Questions. A question a day for 30 days, what could be simpler than that? The beauty of it was that you could start any time and just continue for the next 30 days.

So, since I don’t have anything better to do on Fridays, I thought I’d resurrect this, only I’m going to do once question a week. What the heck, if nothing else it’ll be fun, right?

And just to make it even more exciting…I was able to locate my original answers, so I’m going to include them as well. It should be interesting to see if or how much my answers have changed.

Here we go with the first question:

1. Tell us about your favorite writing project/universe that you’ve worked with and why.

Old answer:

My favourite universe to date is probably where the Myste resides. It isn’t just a setting, it’s almost like a character itself because the characters know so little about it, yet they’re exploring it anyway.

It can be dangerous and unpredictable, and no one really knows what the source is. Is it sentient? Is it magical? Is it created by technology? They’re never really going to know for sure, so it’s lots of fun to throw out hints that can be taken whichever way the characters (or readers) want.

I have one full draft written about the Myste, a sequel in the planning stage* so far, and ideas for two more in the series. As a setting, the Myste has a lot of potential.

* I actually wrote the sequel for NaNo in 2017 – it’s currently sitting at 53,400 words.

New answer:

While the Myste is still pretty cool, it’s not quite as interesting as the as yet unnamed world of the Seven Realms. Each of the Seven Realms is unique – seven closed ecosystems. They’re separated by the wild lands which is the chaos to their order.

In the trilogy I’ve got started I’ve introduced the reader to the Desert Realm, the Forest Realm, and the Jungle Realm. The realms also include: Mountain, Frozen, Ocean, and Darkling

While I’m hoping the books to be stand-alone, adventure/romance, the first three are connected by a wish made at the beginning, and a common thread through all seven will be the fairy godmother, Esmerelda.