Writing Meme Day 14

[annarti]

1. Tell us about your favourite writing project/universe that you’ve worked with and why.
2. How many characters do you have? Do you prefer males or females?
3. How do you come up with names, for characters (and for places if you’re writing about fictional places)?
4. Tell us about one of your first stories/characters!
5. By age, who is your youngest character? Oldest? How about “youngest” and “oldest” in terms of when you created them?
6. Where are you most comfortable writing? At what time of day? Computer or good ol’ pen and paper?
7. Do you listen to music while you write? What kind? Are there any songs you like to relate/apply to your characters?
8. What’s your favourite genre to write? To read?
9. How do you get ideas for your characters? Describe the process of creating them.
10. What are some really weird situations your characters have been in? Everything from serious canon scenes to meme questions counts!
11. Who is your favourite character to write? Least favourite?
12. In what story did you feel you did the best job of worldbuilding? Any side-notes on it you’d like to share?
13. What’s your favourite culture to write, fictional or not?
14. How do you map out locations, if needed? Do you have any to show us?
15. Midway question! Tell us about a writer you admire, whether professional or not!
16. Do you write romantic relationships? How do you do with those, and how “far” are you willing to go in your writing? ;)
17. Favourite protagonist and why!
18. Favourite antagonist and why!
19. Favourite minor that decided to shove himself into the spotlight and why!
20. What are your favourite character interactions to write?
21. Do any of your characters have children? How well do you write them?
22. Tell us about one scene between your characters that you’ve never written or told anyone about before! Serious or not.
23. How long does it usually take you to complete an entire story—from planning to writing to posting (if you post your work)?
24. How willing are you to kill your characters if the plot so demands it? What’s the most interesting way you’ve killed someone?
25. Do any of your characters have pets? Tell us about them.
26. Let’s talk art! Do you draw your characters? Do others draw them? Pick one of your OCs and post your favourite picture of him!
27. Along similar lines, do appearances play a big role in your stories? Tell us about them, or if not, how you go about designing your characters.
28. Have you ever written a character with physical or mental disabilities? Describe them, and if there’s nothing major to speak of, tell us a few smaller ones.
29. How often do you think about writing? Ever come across something IRL that reminds you of your story/characters?
30. And tell us what you like about that person as a writer and/or about one of his/her characters!
31. Question day! You ask, I'll answer.



14. How do you map out locations, if needed? Do you have any to show us?

Only the one map so far, of Tsyllaes :D In making that one, I had rough little ideas about what bits of it would look like, then strung them all together. Raykin was a big desert that roughly followed the river running through the middle of it, sort of fanning out from the source of said river. I knew there was an S-bend around where Ni-Yana is, purely for plot purposes--lets Nimay use desert magic to navigate across that little bit of desert instead of following the river all the way around, so that cuts off a good two weeks of travel in each direction.

So that pretty much had Raykin sorted, cos there's really piss-all else to the kingdom apart from the river and Ni-Yana. Kazin, predominantly tropical, and because I'm from the southern hemisphere that means it goes up north. The actual geography of the place was just scribbling in rivers and dumping some cities around the place. Llayad and Tsayth didn't even have names at this point. I just wanted a place that was even more deserty than Raykin so that they'd all live on boats in the sea. And then they got an ally. Cos. They did. I dunno, there was no planning for Llayad and Tsayth. I may or may not have planned that giant bay between Raykin and Tsayth. We don't know.

I also have this map of Kazin, which is insanely helpful. Basically outlines who's on Shizaaqa's side amongst this bloody empire. The crowns of each province represent its queen, and the star is its army (as opposed to its army's Generals and Commanding Circle, who always side with the queen, otherwise they'll be sacked/beheaded or they'll instigate a coup. Both are just as likely). So yeah. Mostly random, except for Silrona and Sissillya (on the Raykinian border) because they've come up so often in Own missions and such that I know what they're about, and Suza and Haysyd (on the eastern edge) which is where the beginning of Bouquet was set. I think it was Bouquet that made me finally get around to making this thing, actually. So yeah. The other provinces just fell in around them, but obviously the ones closer to Shizaaqa are most loyal, then they fall away a bit lot around the edges.

In short: some bits I know, the rest is just scribbling on a piece of paper. YAY MAPS.