RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/PennedPossibilities" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>PennedPossibilities</span></a> 736 — MC POV: Do you or did you once admire your parents? Who do you admire today?</p></blockquote><p>I admire my mother, who was an international music and theatre star; she would always sing for me. </p><p>Same for her manager, who likely fathered me though nobody said. He took care of me like an uncle, played with me, took me places, even read to me whenever they were in town because my mother couldn't. </p><p>My mother was like me [autistic]. Every face she showed the world was an act, studied, choreographed, perfected, performed impeccably—and she was so amazingly good at it. The same each time. Like a recording. She was a star. </p><p>But, she knew she couldn't do <em>mother</em> for me; the performance would be fake, was fake, and she had learned her baby daughter saw through it into nothingness, so she didn't try anymore. Instead, she sang for me and that wasn't faking it, never was; it was her heart shining through. I knew that, and loved that, and her. </p><p>They died when I was five. </p><p>If her records are played in a restaurant, I walk out. I don't cry in public.</p><p>[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]</p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BoostingIsSharing</span></a></p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>gender</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>fiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writer</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>author</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/mystery" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>mystery</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/thriller" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>thriller</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/romance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>romance</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sf</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sff</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sciencefiction</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writing</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writingcommunity</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writersOfMastodon</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writers</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSdiscussion</span></a> <br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSstory</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSReluctanceStory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSReluctanceStory</span></a></p>
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#boostingissharing
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Nick East (Indie Writer)<p>My Oughtobiography will be a short book 😊 <br>1. Sleep (This is my favourite)<br>2. Snack (Icecream counts as dinner!)<br>3. Mind my own business (unrealistic)<br>4. Write (probably won't)<br>5. Repeat (stop loop upon death)</p><p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://a.gup.pe/u/writers" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>writers</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://a.gup.pe/u/writingcommunity" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>writingcommunity</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://a.gup.pe/u/writing" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>writing</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://a.gup.pe/u/humour" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>humour</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://a.gup.pe/u/indieauthors" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>indieauthors</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://a.gup.pe/u/authorindiespeak" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>authorindiespeak</span></a></span> </p><p><a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/WritingMemes" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>WritingMemes</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/Memes" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Memes</span></a><br><a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/Author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Author</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/Authors" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Authors</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/IndieAuthor" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>IndieAuthor</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/IndieBooks" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>IndieBooks</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/AmWriting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>AmWriting</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/Writerdons" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Writerdons</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/Writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Writers</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/Writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Writer</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/Writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Writing</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/WritingCommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>WritingCommunity</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/Writinglife" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Writinglife</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/WritersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>WritersOfMastodon</span></a><br><a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BoostingIsSharing</span></a></p>
RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/WordWeavers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>WordWeavers</span></a> 2025.07.23 — Your MC is lost in a busy city, and GPS isn’t an option. How do they handle the situation?</p></blockquote><p>She's lives in an interstellar civilization without electricity or electronics—or GPS. She knows how to use a map. Duh.</p><p>[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]</p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BoostingIsSharing</span></a></p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>gender</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>fiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writer</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>author</span></a> <br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/mystery" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>mystery</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/thriller" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>thriller</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/romance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>romance</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sf</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sff</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sciencefiction</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writing</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writingcommunity</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writersOfMastodon</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writers</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSdiscussion</span></a> <br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSstory</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSReluctanceStory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSReluctanceStory</span></a></p>
RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/WritersCoffeeClub" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>WritersCoffeeClub</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/WCC" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>WCC</span></a> 2025.07.22 — Do you write your characters’ thoughts, or let their actions speak for themselves? Why?</p></blockquote><p>I write in 1st person. The narrator is the POV. The reader gets to experience a continuous description of what is important enough for the POV to notice, what they are willing to report doing, what they want you to know about what people are saying and doing—and <em>especially</em> what they think about it. It is a stream of thoughts and reactions, often presented with snark or filtered by worry, and if the reader pays attention, spun in subtle ways to fit the MC's agenda. Sometimes my characters even quote their own thoughts!</p><p>Here's what it looks like in practice from the POV of the devil-girl in <em><u>Reluctant Prizefighter</u></em>. She's been wolf-whistled by a street gang member, but she has some defense training and has subtly dodged his grabs, but has verbally and physically bruised him. <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/excerpt" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>excerpt</span></a></p><blockquote><p>I hadn't learned yet how to reliably work the miracle I'd created defeating <em>The Monster.</em> Was this miscreant the one who might help me break through?</p><p>I looked at how his muscles moved, his legs and rear when he turned momentarily to retort to a gang mate, how he held himself erect—</p><p>I blinked. <em>He had dimples!?</em> Arguably cute, and not enough of a threat, nor cute enough to sway me either. I turned and walked on, trying not to grin, saying, "I doubt it."</p><p>"Doubt what?" I heard his shoes catching up.</p><p>"I thought you might teach me <em>something."</em> I gave him, his not exactly scrawny body, more of a dismissive look than it deserved. "I was mistaken" <em>that you're sufficiently threatening to help me.</em></p><p>He sped to cross my path, but I must have intimidated him; he didn't block me. I took a much better look at his rear end. Squarish. Muscular above the hip, too. I rather liked the view, but now he'd turned red and I had to look up at his angry eyes. My hit struck home.</p><p>He asked, "What are you? <em>Spurs?</em> Or <em>2nd Street Fist Gang?"</em></p><p>"What are you? Besides rude?"</p><p>"NGG Syndicate. We <em>all</em> are." He pointed to his shoulder, and lifted a sweaty sleeve. Hiding what he revealed might be the whole purpose to him wearing the t-shirt.</p><p>"Wow. You <em>let</em> someone brand you!" <em>How stupid can you get?</em> It read NNGS in cursive, burnt into his skin with either a wire pattern heated by fire, or by an application of reluctance, but reluctant force would require him to absolutely trust the miracle worker—which might be the point! <em>Still foolish.</em> The scar was pink; the hair had only partially grown back. I didn't want to shudder, but did so anyway.</p><p>He added,"You're going to regret trespassing—"</p></blockquote><p>[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]</p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BoostingIsSharing</span></a></p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>gender</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>fiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writer</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>author</span></a> <br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/mystery" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>mystery</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/thriller" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>thriller</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/romance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>romance</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sf</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sff</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sciencefiction</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writing</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writingcommunity</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writersOfMastodon</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writers</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSdiscussion</span></a> <br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSstory</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSReluctanceStory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSReluctanceStory</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/microfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>microfiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/flashfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>flashfiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/tootfic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>tootfic</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/smallstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>smallstory</span></a></p>
RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/ScribesAndMakers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ScribesAndMakers</span></a> 2025.07.22 — Show us something you've created. Tell us the story behind it.</p></blockquote><p>There's not much of a story, here. Both my spouse and I have families where preserving fruit in alcohol was a thing (Ukrainian & Italian extraction). In both traditions, what got used was with a neutral spirit, aka vodka. My grandmother used to make her vodka, and reportedly blew up the kitchen sink in a Chicago apartment a long time ago.</p><p>These cherries are preserved in bourbon, and newly made so they've about a month to go to be fully enjoyed. I'm creative when it comes to food and food preparation, so a few years ago after making vodka cherries and having left over cherries after running out of the Tito's, I tried a bunch of things like Triple Sec and Old Granddad. The batch I made with Uncle Nearest generated a fandom.</p><p>Sadly, I used my reserved Uncle Nearest for this batch. The new bottles just bought, obviously made by a distiller who bought out the original entrepreneurs, cheapened it. It was obvious: dark brown versus light reddish brown, even discounting the address change. Sad.</p><p>I think they'll make good cherries next year, though, if not for drinking neat.</p><p>More in <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/AltText" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>AltText</span></a>.</p><p>[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]</p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BoostingIsSharing</span></a> </p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writer</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>author</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/photographer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>photographer</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/chef" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>chef</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/cooking" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>cooking</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writing</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writingcommunity</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writersOfMastodon</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writers</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSdiscussion</span></a></p>
RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/WordWeavers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>WordWeavers</span></a> 2025.07.22 — As a writer, do you use the same level of description you prefer to read? If not, do you use more or less?</p></blockquote><p>My preference is only essential description, read or written. It differs for me between the POV and the supporting characters, less for the former, more for the latter.</p><p>Since I <em>want</em> the reader to see themselves in the story, I often give the POV character little or no description, other than what matters for the story, or what they think about themselves. </p><p>I took this to an extreme in <em><u>Mars Needed Women</u></em> in that the main character has a name that sounds like Mary† though written as if Asian, was named that because she's an atheist in a theocracy, has one child whose hair is described as resembling hers, is obviously not at all curvy because of her comments about a curvy character, and works out so is comparatively muscular. <em>And that's it.</em></p><p>In <em><u>Reluctant Moon</u></em>, there are two main characters who are very into each other, sometimes poetically going into description of their partner in intimate detail. Empathy in action is more important to this story, but with two characters, I get to cheat somewhat: one gets to have a complexion like porcelain and the other is as dark as midnight. Oddly, it's not their skin color for which they face prejudice. </p><p>In another story in the reluctance series, the only thing I think I'm going to fully describe is the character's horns since they cause her trouble. They're the size of a crooked index finder, greatly resemble rusty rebar including the dangerously sharp point, and are positioned at her temples pointing back. They destroy hats, but can be hidden in the devil-girl's hair, which implies some sort of red. She'll describe her complexion simply as olive and considers that she's so average she could disappear in the slightest crowd, were it not for her height. I am going to get rid of her scene looking into a mirror because it kind of annoys me that she would enumerate her features simply because she can, especially since she really doesn't care about them (except when she is disguising herself).</p><p>As for non-POV characters, I describe them as much as they need to be described for story purposes. As an author pointed out yesterday, if we later learn that the murderer in the mystery has bright red hair, somebody will be neutrally described with the clue, as in, "'That yellow dress really doesn't go with her freckles and ruddy hair.'" I moderate the need to describe in Dickensian detail with a desire, again, for the reader to see themselves and people in their community in the characters of my stories. </p><p>I especially enjoy the POV tagging other characters' eye color. For example, in <em><u>Inklings</u></em>, Wintereyes characterizes her love interest, after seeing his eyes in the sunlight, as having caramel eyes, like the hard candy, then later nicknames him <em>Caramello</em> despite learning his name. I can't help but describe him as a looking like a pacific islander, for in his world he is essentially an exiled chieftain's son, so his build and bulk and general appearance tag along. As for Wintereyes, the POV, judging by her name, her eyes could be anything from crystal blue to grey, and I'd not be surprised if most readers assume her hair color is white or light blonde. In the story, she is accompanied by <em>Mother Wolf,</em> who is a white wolf. Maybe someone will joke that Wintereyes resembles her mother? Maybe…</p><p>=-=-=-=-=<br>† About the name: I was checked to ensure Googling the name will make the it apparent it isn't a name commonly used in the culture it sounds like it came from.</p><p>[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]</p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BoostingIsSharing</span></a></p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>gender</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>fiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writer</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>author</span></a> <br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/mystery" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>mystery</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/thriller" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>thriller</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/romance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>romance</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fantasy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>fantasy</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sf</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sff</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sciencefiction</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writing</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writingcommunity</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writersOfMastodon</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writers</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSdiscussion</span></a> <br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSstory</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSInklingsStory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSInklingsStory</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSReluctanceStory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSReluctanceStory</span></a></p>
RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/PennedPossibilities" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>PennedPossibilities</span></a> 734 — Have you ever written fanfiction? If so, for which fandoms?</p></blockquote><p>Yes, as stated in my profile.</p><p>For those who poo-poo the idea (i.e. stigmatize it), as a professional writer I'll recommend it as an excellent way to take your obsessive knowledge of a show or a book and translate it into carefree <em>practice</em> writing, to wit, in order:</p><p><strong>It doesn't matter.</strong></p><p><strong>It doesn't have a deadline.</strong></p><p><strong>It doesn't have to sell.</strong></p><p>If the fandom is online, posting fanfiction stories is an opportunity for <em>instant feedback</em> you won't get in original writing, unless you are already a brand name. Mind you, those stories are NOT yours to sell or profit from, other than to profit from the fundamental practice writing and completing stories. I recommend using a distinct throwaway <em>nom de plume</em> for each fandom.</p><p>As I've admitted many times, I used the offered opportunity to develop my distinctive (I hope) 1st person style and playtest original (as in distinct from the IP) plot, worldbuilding, and character ideas. It should be considered dangerous only if the IP owner is litigious (for some reason, the late Anne Rice comes to mind), you find you can write nothing else <em>and want to</em>, or someone might use the fact that you wrote fanfiction to troll or hurt you.</p><p>As a professional writer attending conventions, more than one established author has admitted to writing fanfiction, sometimes for the fun of it or to blow off steam from the real work. As I stated, whilst it was fun doing so, in the end I focused on healing after my burnout in 2001 <em>and</em> perfecting a writing style for my future work.</p><p>[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]</p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BoostingIsSharing</span></a></p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>gender</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>fiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writer</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>author</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writing</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writingcommunity</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writersOfMastodon</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writers</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSdiscussion</span></a></p>
RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/EroticMusings" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>EroticMusings</span></a> 2025.0713 Week 7 (July 13-19) Craft — Do you have a distinct style? Did you develop it intentionally? Do you want to change it? CW: Note the hashtag; nothing salacious.</p></blockquote><p><strong>Do I have a distinct style of erotic storytelling?</strong> As in unique enough that a reader would recognize it as something I wrote? I am not well enough read in the various applicable genres to say that definitively, but I'd be willing to entertain the notion. I have not yet published anything that I would label as more than cursorily erotic, and that's only if the reader is reading for the double meanings and implications, which I would recommend that they always do.</p><p><strong>Did I develop that style of storytelling intentionally?</strong> I did, very much so! I don't write to entertain; no, I write to say something (usually about gender roles) <em>and</em> endeavor that it also entertain. Similarly, I don't write to provide gratuitous content, but then if the reader decides they see it that way, in a reading world were textual-interpretation and the idea of <em>mort de 'auteur</em> is fashionable, I am more than happy to have the reader have their way. I suppose a dirty mind helps here, though I dislike the term as it implies wrong thinking and is often used to coerce and control people. I am not a fan of instructional manuals or anatomy lessons, and use of common vulgar language and over-used terms. There is plenty of pornography out there, and I've no desire to compete. </p><p>Since I write in 1st person, not 3rd, the showing experiences and the goals of the POV is necessary, and, in my opinion, what is truly erotic, if a reader chooses to see it as such, is the <em>connections</em> people make, the illogic of desire, how it feels, how time dialates and worries manifest, whether the POV's heart beats faster and sweat gets in the way, what the POV want for the other person and whether they react in kind, and in the end the effort and sacrifice it takes to achieve those goals as much as how they (however many of them) deal with the results and aftermath. For instance, from a WIP, it's when a simple neck massage—to comfort a person (for the sake of simplicity, call them a prince or princess) you are learning to respect who has had a bad day at court—can turn into something rather messy in a public space simply because you and they both agree it must, and consent that must happen <em>now.</em> When friends or antagonists get to together, they can and do learn about themselves, often make <em>a mess of it,</em> and maybe have fun doing so or ponder why, if not. The ripples it sends through a story can be <del>delicious</del> wonderful. The concept here is that all human activities are equally important to the story, and if the reader sees issues with this then it is the reader who is learning something.</p><p><strong>Do I want to change my style?</strong> Well, perhaps I should wait and see if I find an audience that likes what I am writing, first? 😝</p><p>[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]</p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BoostingIsSharing</span></a></p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>gender</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>fiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writer</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>author</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writing</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writingcommunity</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writersOfMastodon</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writers</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSdiscussion</span></a></p>
RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/PennedPossibilities" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>PennedPossibilities</span></a> 731 — MC POV: Tell us about the last time you felt guilty. CW: Discussion of consent and lying about it </p></blockquote><p><em>The dragons and daemons in the reluctance series are very human, despite certain epigenetic differences from us. Rainy Days is the main series antagonist. It serves as a meta-analysis of a novella-sized chunk of <u>Reluctant Moon</u> by one of the two MCs. It is gender fiction. —R.S.</em></p><p>[Thorn Rose:] Did <em>She</em> put you up to this question? If I wasn't convinced that it was a privilege simply to suffer her lessons, let alone merit her teaching them to me, I swear I'd be so up to here about some of them. </p><p>This lesson, for instance.</p><p><em>She</em> all but kidnaps me from school, from the middle of Applied Maths class where everybody already hates me for never getting anything wrong, then takes me on a train ride to teach me about dragons, but it is also a train ride into a war zone, a war she had just started. I didn't get to see the fighting or the bloodshed until she later marched me up the stairs of the prefecture governor's mansion, where the dragon lord in charge had killed himself rather than capitulate. (Yes, I vomited and yes I got nightmares. <em>The smell…</em>) </p><p>When I later learned it was something I'd said, which my best friend Streak had echoed, that had made her decide to start the war that day, it <em>wasn't</em> the dragon governor's death I felt guilty about. It wasn't that she surprisingly designated me, a high school senior, to be a temporary military occupational governor with a staff of local and military advisors, nor that it forced me to sign death warrants for war criminals. They actually were criminals; they'd killed slaves (all daemons, all female), not to mention that they'd <em>owned</em> people in the first place. I've made peace with having signed those documents; I knew it was some sort of twisted lesson in that civilization is a veneer, that we choose to go along with, that nobody is better—only worse.</p><p>No, it was that <em>She</em> set up a romantic encounter with a dragon advisor, who was a former spy and underground railroad "engineer" my teacher had depended heavily upon. He looked like a daemon because all he had were horns, like me; he hadn't grown other secondary dragon characteristics. He proved nice. Friendly. Personable. I leaned heavily on him to explain his culture, though he had often lived amongst the oppressed daemon population. It didn't hurt he looked handsome, barely smelled of sulfur, and did know how to treat a woman respectfully unlike many of the prejudiced brutish men native to the dragon lands.</p><p>I <em>thought</em> what followed was consensual. </p><p>He even <em>said</em> it was. </p><p>Since he got reassigned the day after, and things he said immediately <em>afterward</em> stuck in my memory, I now sense he actually lied about that part. My teacher having assigned him to me as an underling, his feeling of responsibility to his people and their eventual freedom, and my position of authority weighted with my demonstrated interest in him (I propositioned him) could have very well put pressure on him. No, I'm sure it did. Only in retrospect did I see the hints that my teacher had set up the encounter, talked up dragon males and how few nice ones there were. And pushed him. Very clear.</p><p>I so want to apologize to him, but my position as governor had always been as temporary as it was absurd. I got sent home with a passing grade and a "job well done" from my teacher, regardless. I'd done my best as I am incapable of not doing my best. Another lesson learned!</p><p>There is a term for what I did to him. I'm incapable of repeating it aloud. Lack of consent is criminal. I so want to apologize, but how? I worry it would insult him. I am sure he has thought it to death, that he had his reasons, too.</p><p>Another of Rainy Days' lessons, I'm sure. For me. For him.</p><p>[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]</p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BoostingIsSharing</span></a></p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>gender</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>fiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writer</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>author</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/mystery" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>mystery</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/thriller" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>thriller</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/romance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>romance</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sf</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sff</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sciencefiction</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writing</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writingcommunity</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writersOfMastodon</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writers</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSdiscussion</span></a> <br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSstory</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSReluctanceStory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSReluctanceStory</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/microfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>microfiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/flashfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>flashfiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/tootfic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>tootfic</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/smallstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>smallstory</span></a></p>
RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/PennedPossibilities" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>PennedPossibilities</span></a> 733 — Tell us what your MC’s home is like. CW: Long.</p></blockquote><p>I will take this question as not where she is <em>living,</em> but rather what the MC would <em>think of</em> as being the <em>home</em> she ran away from.</p><p>When her mother died—killed actually, and surprisingly got named a hero and got elevated and thus so did her daughter—her guardian had an <em>appropriate</em> abode built for her, matching her future station as a head of government and an army.</p><p>The town wall got broken out and extended around pasture lands subsequently turned into manicured gardens. A mansion of intersecting grand limpet-like domes and looming convection towers got built in less than a year by an legion of artisans and laborers. Palaces and princes don't exist in her world, but this edifice might as well be described as such, and as having been built for one. </p><p>She remembers the grand staircase of white marble swirled with black, with brass clad carved dark wood railings. The expanse could have covered the footprint of the three room house she'd spent her first five years in: a bedroom for her opera star mother (and her manager who is probably her father), her own room, and the music room / dining room / kitchen. </p><p>In the mansion, she got her own room, of course. In an odd touch of kindness, it had been constructed to exactly match the same as her old one—if you subtracted the baths and dressing room—into which her plain furnishings, goth girl curios, and even her draperies were moved that jarring day of transition when she was six. </p><p>However, being a mansion it also had a dojo, an armory, a dance studio, an exercise room, three different instruction rooms for schooling in music and art and science, a solarium, an observatory, a working laboratory with vent hoods and chemical storage, a pool room containing an indoor olympic-sized pool capable of making waves to swim and struggle against, a cinema, multiple dining rooms to host from 12 to 144 guests (and host them she did, often, as practice, from the age of seven), and a ballroom for grand parties that often included very grand dances (think quadrilles and waltzes) she had to lead. It included residencies for guests of high as well as low station that could rival eastern city hotels, including aeries for day angels—and a special suite for Rainy Days, the Director of Home and the Nine Outer worlds (she's the main series antagonist), though the MC was never informed of its existence as it might have made her rebel prematurely.</p><p>The adjunct dome, closest the town, got built out as governmental offices, conference facilities, and an audience room, mostly to train her to run the prefecture she'd was to be granted stewardship over. Of course, her mansion had plenty of servants quarters, kitchens, and workrooms, which she knew as well as her own room, as she often snuck into them (okay, <em>fled to</em>) when her life of constant training became unbearable. She learned to enjoy simplicity and simple duty there, as well as sticky not very sweet vegetable breads, butter pumpkin becoming very comforting and her favorite.</p><p>She thought it was an escape, but it was further training. Of course it was.</p><p>The grounds, the gardens, the parade field, the woods, and the tenant farms beyond them were a whole different matter, and sadly more familiar in her early teens as she had to intern managing them.</p><p>What her home <em>didn't have</em> were proper facilities for learning and teaching how to work miracles and practice the relevant revelation. That was belied by the contents of her enormous private library, but if there is one defining characteristic of the devil-girl, it's how she can be obtuse and blind about certain details until they hit her upside the head. Her home missing what she needed to learn The One Thing she was most interested in was <em>insufferable.</em></p><p>"It isn't lady-like," her guardian would explain when asked.</p><p>She ran away from this grand estate, and lands that stretched from the piedmont to beyond the shore fisheries at sea, and responsibility, to learn how to wield reluctant energies and forces (let's call it magic, to simplify the concept), as well as to find the one friend she had once had, whose words had made it possible for her to work her miracles, and who had betrayed and abandoned her.</p><p>Still. </p><p>Go ahead. </p><p>Ask her about <em>home.</em> </p><p>She barely lived there a decade, but it's her room in that mansion that comes to mind, and her meeting her cold butler-like guardian (who she detested) waiting for her on that staircase of marble and bronze every morning to begin her grueling instruction.</p><p>She's glad she ran away.</p><p>[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]</p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BoostingIsSharing</span></a></p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>gender</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>fiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writer</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>author</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/mystery" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>mystery</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/thriller" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>thriller</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/romance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>romance</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sf</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sff</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sciencefiction</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writing</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writingcommunity</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writersOfMastodon</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writers</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSdiscussion</span></a> <br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSstory</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSReluctanceStory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSReluctanceStory</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/microfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>microfiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/flashfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>flashfiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/tootfic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>tootfic</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/smallstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>smallstory</span></a></p>
RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/WordWeavers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>WordWeavers</span></a> 2025.07.20 — Would your antagonist rather travel or be a homebody?</p></blockquote><p>Boss Mead is a refined and dignified fellow who enjoys the good things in life, like a nice deli sandwich, a sour pickle, and an appropriate wine to go with it. He is polite and controlled, even when sticking the knife in, figuratively, rarely literally, and usually when ordering another to also twist it—which he might do from an easy chair with his world's equivalent of a whisky on the rocks. He's a spider in his web. He is a homebody in that he favors certain places, and he will be depicted as always siting. Menacingly. </p><p>[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]</p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BoostingIsSharing</span></a></p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>gender</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>fiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writer</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>author</span></a> <br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/mystery" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>mystery</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/thriller" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>thriller</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sf</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sff</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sciencefiction</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writing</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writingcommunity</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writersOfMastodon</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writers</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSdiscussion</span></a> <br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSstory</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSReluctanceStory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSReluctanceStory</span></a></p>
RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/WordWeavers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>WordWeavers</span></a> 2025.07.21 — As a reader, how much detail do you want on characters’ appearance?</p></blockquote><p>I really don't want much detail. For starters, if there is too much detail I simply won't remember it, and whilst that is a failing of mine, it is annoying that I might be expected to remember it all later in the book, especially if it is repeated down the line and I misremembered, which can shock me out of the narrative. Less <em>is</em> more. What I want is a characteristic [pun intended] that says <em>something</em> important that I can associate with the character, and has meaning to the story, as I paint my own internal image of the person.</p><p>As you might expect, I keep character descriptions simple in my own works, and scene descriptions experiential, taking care to make it obvious what's important and what's color. </p><p>[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]</p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BoostingIsSharing</span></a></p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>gender</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>fiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writer</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>author</span></a> <br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writing</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writingcommunity</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writersOfMastodon</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writers</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSdiscussion</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/books" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>books</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/bookstodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>bookstodon</span></a></p>
Nick East (Indie Writer)<p>Nonspecific editions > Specific editions 😂 </p><p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://a.gup.pe/u/bookstodon" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>bookstodon</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://a.gup.pe/u/fantasybookstodon" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>fantasybookstodon</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://a.gup.pe/u/bookbubble" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>bookbubble</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://a.gup.pe/u/humour" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>humour</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://a.gup.pe/u/reading" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>reading</span></a></span></p><p><a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/Book" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Book</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/Books" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Books</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/BookMemes" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BookMemes</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/Memes" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Memes</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/Humor" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Humor</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/Humour" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Humour</span></a><br><a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/Novel" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Novel</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/Novels" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Novels</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/Bookshelf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Bookshelf</span></a> <br><a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/Mastobooks" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Mastobooks</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/BooksofMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BooksofMastodon</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/Bookstodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Bookstodon</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/Bookworm" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Bookworm</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/Bookwyrm" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Bookwyrm</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/Bookstodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Bookstodon</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/BookLove" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BookLove</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BoostingIsSharing</span></a></p>
RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/PennedPossibilities" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>PennedPossibilities</span></a> 732 — Is your WIP a singular novel, a series of books, serial fiction, comics, or fanfiction? (Or something else entirely? Explain.)</p></blockquote><p>Of that list, I've written everything except comics. I've no talent as an illustrator and don't know someone I could approach. I've set fanfiction aside for now, but I wrote extensively there to perfect my style (and because I needed immediate feedback). </p><p>Let's see what I'm up to:</p><ul><li><em>Reluctant Moon</em> is a long spicy romantic SF novel, likely to weigh in at about 150k words.</li><li><em>Reluctant Courier (for the Mob)</em> is a novelette that I am just starting to write, over and over again. First chapters sometimes require multiple rewrites if you are looking for a certain set of feelings.</li><li><em>Reluctant Accomplice</em> and <em>Reluctant Fighter</em> will be short novels in the region of 40k, but I'm not actively adding to them at the moment. Both are about 50% complete, but deal with the same character (the Devil-girl) at different times in her life. It will be a series of related books, aptly named the Reluctance Series. You may notice a common theme in the titles? <em>Reluctant Courier</em> is a side story to the Devil-girl stories featuring a breakout supporting character named Bolt. The moonshot that is chronicled in <em>Reluctant Moon</em> is mentioned 200 years later in <em>Reluctant Accomplice.</em></li><li><em>Mars Needed Women</em> is the closest thing to hard SF I am capable of writing. It is a short novel of 33k that is currently in the hands of beta readers.</li><li><em>Inklings</em> is a spicy magical fantasy story about a shy girl raised by wolves who is ackwardly discovering she likes people one cringe-worthy incident at a time. It is a singular standalone short novel, but I've written a number of very short stories with totally different characters in what I call the Wands Universe—and posted them on Mastodon. (See my pinned samples post.) I think of it as on hiatus at the moment, but I know the entire story and could get the urge to complete it at any time.</li><li><em>Through Blood and Tears</em> is a 13-15k novella written years ago but never published, which on recent inspection I realized needed to be rewritten in 1st person. I have added it as another Scrivener project. It is actually a side story for a fantasy trilogy, but I think I can publish the lesbian vampiric coming of age story standalone.</li></ul><p>Yet, I am not writing continuously. Maybe I should dream up another project to add?</p><p>[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]</p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BoostingIsSharing</span></a></p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>gender</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>fiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writer</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>author</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writing</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writingcommunity</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writersOfMastodon</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writers</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSdiscussion</span></a></p>
RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/WordWeavers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>WordWeavers</span></a> 2025.07.19 — Do you use humor in your stories, and if so, what sort of humor (whimsical, sarcastic, satirical, etc.)?</p></blockquote><p>When I analyze my writing fairly, I find I use humor extensively. It provides balance; it's essential, though I rarely intend to be funny, or plot it in. I don't write jokes in my stories (which means the next one will include them.) If you follow me, you've seen I use humor in most of my essays and my posts, this one included. Subtlety is key. It's a pressure release valve that prevents a story from becoming too serious or too dark. I do not do comedy.</p><p><strong>Types of R.S. Humor</strong></p><p><strong>Dead-pan</strong></p><p>People often state the obvious. If placed carefully in the narrative or in the dialogue, it is unerringly mildly humorous.</p><p><strong>Non-sequitur</strong></p><p>I often end an essay, and sometimes end story sections, with a different but related thought or dead-pan comment. (If the thought is <em>unrelated,</em> that's joking.) I was recently discussing a friend's assertion about "there is a lot of grey" (an exact quote) in relationships. The discussion turned heavy, but I ended it by thanking him for spelling "grey" correctly. A definitely related non-sequitur that I think lightened the mood. BTW: Am-English uses "gray," but that's totally the wrong spelling, full stop!</p><p><strong>Snark</strong></p><p>I write in 1st person POV (as I am now), which can reveal how inner thoughts differ from outer dialogue and actions. I love characters who are snarky, sarcastic, or even cynical and have no compunction about narrating that way. A running commentary on life and the actions of others is humorous—funny in the sense that <em>funny</em> is the emotion we feel <em>in reaction to hurtful things that happen to, or are said about, others.</em> Typically, they're things our internal censor keeps us from doing or saying, but embarrassingly it remains an emotion we feel (and like). The psychological frisson we feel at the dichotomy is what we define as <em>funny.</em> </p><p>Snark highlights how we can be good people despite our own uncensored selves. It carries a message of self-forgiveness. I think it is a great device for developing characters.</p><p><strong>Double-entendre</strong></p><p>I often narrate things with words that if taken as written mean one thing, or if taken with another meaning mean something totally hyperbolic or funny (see definition of <em>funny</em> above).</p><p><strong>Puns</strong></p><p>I work to keep these solely in dialogue, and if I can make the puns seem inadvertent by the character, more the better. If the character does it intentionally, that becomes snarky.</p><p><strong>Alliteration</strong></p><p>I can be very alliteral at times, and while that is mostly a rhetorical device, if the right words are used it can come off appropriately hyperbolic and stick in the reader's mind. If I say that, "The perky passionate prince insisted on wearing pink," it comes off as humorous, says something (likely snarky) about the narrator (also likely from a 1st person POV), and definitely defines the prince.</p><p><strong>Innuendo</strong></p><p>This is best in dialogue, especially when the target character doesn't see it but the reader knows exactly what it is. A shared aspersion or dirty secret even if not true is humorous (see <em>funny</em> above).</p><p><strong>Karma, Schadenfreude</strong></p><p>We won't often admit it to our friends, but when someone richly deserves what happens to them, it <em>feels</em> good. It is <em>funny.</em> I write such scenes, but it takes foreshadowing and planning.</p><p><strong>Satire</strong></p><p>Yep. I occasionally write satire. <em>Mars Needed Women</em> is a super serious novel that goes from dystopian to utopian, while questioning the fabric of gender and common human power structures pointing out how bad and good people share certain uncomfortable characteristics. In the story, Mars is being colonized. The main character ends up being shanghaied there. However, the colonial company <em>goes bankrupt</em> at the same time, which becomes all sorts of bad and plot worsening. The name of the company is one of the satirical elements: "E. M. Mars Colonization Corp." We know what "E. M." stands for, don't we?</p><p><strong>Wait for it</strong></p><p>This is harder to define. I often write in grammar B, which specifies a technique for what otherwise would be considered disastrously long run-on sentences. These have to have a point, of course, but if handled like a micro-story within the narrative, where bits of idea are concatenated, ideas are expressed and elucidated, and the reader is carried along on a wave of deductions, when the ship comes to shore—battered by winds and storms of meaning—and it <em>isn't</em> a shipwreck, it carries with it it's own sense of the absurd. Of course, you can employ this technique using standard beginning-middle-end writing of subsections in a scene, but I find a long sentence builds a certain "wait-for-it" tension, the same way an orator or comedian comes to an <em>ah-ha</em> point OR a punchline in front of an audience. That's me, anyway.</p><p>[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]</p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BoostingIsSharing</span></a></p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>gender</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>fiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writer</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>author</span></a> <br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writing</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writingcommunity</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writersOfMastodon</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writers</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSdiscussion</span></a></p>
RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<p><strong>CW: <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/politics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>politics</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/uspol" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>uspol</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/uspolitics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>uspolitics</span></a></strong></p><p>Feeling passive-aggressive today, especially after watching a documentary about how today isn't all that different politically than the mid-1900s for white ethnicities and disfavored religions, and most of the century for POC. I'd thought it had gotten better in the new millennium. I felt safe. But apparently money and lies sway the gullible and envious far too easily, handing power to mean petty people, who then use it to create fear to control the rest of us—and, apparently, it always has. That money and lies might do so far into the future shatters many of my illusions. </p><p>Thanks to the above, I suddenly well understand why I write the stories I write. I hope it'll boost me to completing them.</p><p>I found this montage of photoshopped images and am positing it.</p><p>Hat tip to <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://stlouist.social/@taursndhaus" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>taursndhaus</span></a></span> </p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BoostingIsSharing</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writing</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writer</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>author</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingCommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writingCommunity</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writersOfMastodon</span></a></p>
RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/PennedPossibilities" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>PennedPossibilities</span></a> 729 — Tell us about one place your MC would love to either visit or revisit.</p></blockquote><p>Oddly enough, none of the MCs have a place they'd want to visit or revisit. Most are young, focused whether they like it or not on their "studies." University is a thing. Another MC's life is so dismal, living seems rather pointless. A pair of MCs visit the Moon, but it is definitely not a place they'd have ever have dreamed of visiting, or want to. I mean, it's a dead world… or is it?</p><p>I'm considering the possibility that the devil-girl's mother and her mother's consort aren't really dead; they were secretly spies and got discovered in a hostile land. Strategically, there were no bodies at the funeral. No retcon necessary! It might turn out the her mother's consort (the man who fathered the devil-girl) is being held hostage in another country to prevent the nation the devil-girl lives in from invading (probably one of many). At the point I would actually pursue this plot line, the devil-girl would want to visit, even if not in her official capacity (which might start a war), to free the man. She might be pregnant, though…</p><p>[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]</p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BoostingIsSharing</span></a></p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>gender</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>fiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writer</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>author</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/mystery" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>mystery</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/thriller" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>thriller</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/romance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>romance</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sf</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sff</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sciencefiction</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writing</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writingcommunity</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writersOfMastodon</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writers</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSdiscussion</span></a> <br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSstory</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSReluctanceStory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSReluctanceStory</span></a></p>
RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/ScribesAndMakers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ScribesAndMakers</span></a> 2025.07.18 — Show us the cover to yesterday's book, and tell us what you don't like about the cover.</p></blockquote><p>The cover art features a woman with a knife and what looks like a wookiee. Whilst dressed nominally (and correctly) as a man, she looks like an anglo white Vogue model that would convince nobody she's a guy; she's supposed to be ethnically Japanese. There's a vast difference between a sheep dog and a wookiee. I dislike covers that are wrong in great detail, but the publisher sold through a big printing, without any advertising, using it, so I forgive them. Since there were virtually no returns, I suppose even the duped Star Wars fans loved the story.</p><p>I am not showing the cover as I did not publish it under my current nom de plume. Sorry.</p><p>[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]</p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BoostingIsSharing</span></a> and <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/CommentingIsCool" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>CommentingIsCool</span></a></p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>gender</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>fiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writer</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>author</span></a> photographer chef cooking<br> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sf</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sff</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sciencefiction</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writing</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writingcommunity</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writersOfMastodon</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writers</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSdiscussion</span></a></p>
RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/WordWeavers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>WordWeavers</span></a> 2025.07.18 — The home of your MC is on fire. They can retrieve one item. What is it and why?</p></blockquote><p>The devil-girl would say, "Let it burn. I carry the only important things with me at all times, which are my ancient thaumaturgy primer and notebook. If you need help putting out the fire, I'll help."</p><p>Thorn Rose's family lives in a day angel-cultured home tree that resembles a grove of ancient ficus benjamina whose massive trunks have grown together into a city block-size mass, divided into a dozen "townhouses." As daemons living in a day angel neighborhood, the only place her family could rent belonged to a day angel who rebelled against the daemon-majority government a century ago. Though the former abode of a cultural hero, day angels won't live there in fear of becoming noticed by the government. If the tree went up in flames, the neighborhood would pitch in to put it out. Thorn Rose would frantically want to retrieve everything, but even her pictures of Streak with Rainy Days, or the model she calls Big Streak, could be replaced since she has access to the source of both. She wears the jewelry given her by Streak at all times (horn tips and a gold nose ring). Really, all she'd miss would be her notebooks, but she knows they aren't worth much if the knowledge isn't already in her head (which it probably is). Nevertheless, she'd make herself frantic, needing Streak to calm her down.</p><p>Day Angel Streak would think of saving his bed frame, built from the stake bed of the first cart he ever got to fly through the sky. It was a piece of crap given him by his uncle who wanted him to fail to fly it to convince him to stop making a nuisance of himself at the family warehouse—only Streak has an innate talent for levitating things behind him, even heavy and unwieldy lorries; he learned to "pull" that day, even as parts of the cart fell from the sky as he landed it. The boy made his bed frame from the wreckage, and even Thorn Rose likes it for what it meant to him.</p><p>Day Angel Bolt (where she's the MC) would go nuts trying to get her camera kit from her aerie. It's the <em>only</em> thing she values at the start of her story, and considering how dismal her life has become, perhaps more than life itself. I envision this would not end well.</p><p>Wintereyes (the wolf-raised woman forced to attend university) doesn't understand possessions at all. If Mother Wolf wasn't trapped in the fire, or anyone she could help save, she'd only be sad for the people or beasts who lost their shelter or livelihoods and try to comfort them in her quirky shy way.</p><p>[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]</p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BoostingIsSharing</span></a></p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>gender</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>fiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writer</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>author</span></a> <br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/mystery" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>mystery</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/thriller" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>thriller</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/romance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>romance</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fantasy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>fantasy</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sf</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sff</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sciencefiction</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writing</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writingcommunity</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writersOfMastodon</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writers</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSdiscussion</span></a> <br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSstory</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSInklingsStory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSInklingsStory</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSReluctanceStory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSReluctanceStory</span></a></p>
RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/PennedPossibilities" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>PennedPossibilities</span></a> 730 — 2nd Anniversary Edition: Share a blurb, summary, or tiny snippet explaining your WIP to everyone in the hashtag. </p></blockquote><p>Congratulations, <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mindly.social/@floofpaldi" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>floofpaldi</span></a></span> Two years of prompts is pretty dang amazing! Since you were asking for a tiny snippet explaining my WIP, I actually got pulled to a steamy single paragraph that oddly puts the book into perspective (or so its author would claim). I decided that without permission, I'd not post that to the hashtag. 🫣</p><p>This instead here's a blurb providing the gist (maybe) of a novelette I'm trying to get started, which is taking up my head space at the moment.</p><blockquote><p>Bolt was framed for murder and forced to fly messages for the mob; she wonders often if going to prison might have been the better choice. She's blacked out her memories of bad things for a dozen years. She lives for the rare moments she grabs for her street photography—the capturing of the faces and the camaraderie of a normalcy her stupidity denied her. When a newspaper reporter breaks his camera and Bolt is hovering at the scene of a weird disaster, with a perspective to see more than she should, her quirky photos end up on the front page and seem a ticket away from a life of apathy toward friendship. When her mob boss wants her to shadow the unusual teenage woman she photographed walking out of the erratic star gate, she learns the secret of her blackouts. Boss Mead knows the teenager, whom Bolt soon realizes has whole different take on apathy, one that endangers her reporter friend, her horrible job, and likely the city itself.</p></blockquote><p>[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]</p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BoostingIsSharing</span></a></p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>gender</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>fiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writer</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>author</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/mystery" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>mystery</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/thriller" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>thriller</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/romance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>romance</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sf</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sff</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sciencefiction</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writing</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writingcommunity</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writersOfMastodon</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writers</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSdiscussion</span></a> <br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSstory</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSReluctanceStory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSReluctanceStory</span></a></p>
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