Tag: Characters
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Updated Planning Methods
Planning a novel doesn’t always come easily. As a hybrid planner/pantser and an ADHD’er, I often find myself super excited at the beginning of the planning process, pouring myself into putting every minute detail to paper. Until the impatience sets in, at which point I must write. Once I’ve abandoned the planning, I hurl myself…
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A Study of Ash & Smoke AI Character Art
I learned about Artbreeder around 2020 when a bunch of my writer friends had loads of fun quickly generating portraits for their characters. As these things go with me, I only created an account around 2022. I’m always the last to jump on a trend if I jump on it at all. In that regard,…
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Down the Rabbit Hole, We Go
As a writer, I have to know about writing, tropes, self-editing, working with professional editors, and that kind of thing. The obvious stuff. What they don’t tell you when you enter this rabbit hole, is you also have to know about cover trends, blurbs, sensitivity readers, trigger warnings, marketing, and how to unravel the algorithms…
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Have a Free Colouring Book
A Trial of Sparks & Kindling is set to land in July! The first ARC’s have gone out and are already being read. Eek. This part of the publishing process is both my favourite and what freaks me out most. Like, the book is done. Out there. It’s out of my hands now, and that’s…
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Face Claims – Fall of the Mantle
This post is brought to you by random discussions. A bunch of my writer friends and I were talking about whether we base our character descriptions on real-life people and actors, and it got me thinking about where I got inspiration for my characters. Now, though I do have a Pinterest mood board for A…
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Spot the Differences – Writer vs Main Character
I posted an excerpt from A Study of Ash & Smoke over on Instagram yesterday, and wrote a bit about the anxieties that Cara and I share. Which got me thinking. People often assume that authors base protagonists on their own personalities. While I suspect there are loads of authors out there who do just…
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My Favourite Character Trope: The Lovable Rogue
The way to hook this reader is easy. Write a character who is always dressed to impress, has the wildest charm and self-confidence, flirts with everyone, says things the protagonist thinks but would never utter, and is willing to take the quickest route to get the job done–even if that means doing morally questionable things.…
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Meet the Characters
I don’t know if you know this, but A Study of Ash & Smoke is officially available for pre-order. Can you even? I can’t even. Everything is happening so quickly now, it’s almost unreal after all the time I’ve spent working on this book. And let me tell you, it’s looking good. I’ve been assisted…
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Strong Female Characters
There’s this thing all around the internet. Advice paired with a general outcry–write strong female characters. I’ve had multiple conversations about this in the last few weeks, and I thought we could continue chatting about it here. People want Strong Female Characters (from here on SFC) to the point where they come down really hard…
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Book Talk – The Physician’s Apprentice
EDIT – This Book’s title has changed since I wrote this post. The story is still the same, but the swanky new title is A Study of Ash & Smoke. I’ve never done a post discussing what this book is actually about, and I honestly don’t know how that’s happened. So, considering I’ve completed the…
Yolandie Horak 