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Author Insights
Here you’ll find my ramblings on process, concepts, character building, activities, some free-written articles, and even some personal posts. Any articles that relate to the Immortal Zero Series will always include a spoiler alert if there are spoilers to watch out for. If I haven’t included it, then the article is completely safe.
Overcome The Hardest Steps Of Revising A Draft Manuscript
One of the hardest things about writing a novel is going through and reviewing it. Depending on who you are this can be the most daunting task of writing. It can feel very overwhelming when you have 200-300 pages of a document staring down on you, and you know you have to go through every line of it.
Here is the process I’ve developed over almost fifteen years of writing. Maybe it will help you.
Creating A Character: How I Created Leas Steele
While many of the Immortal Zero characters have been in development for nearly twenty years, Leas Steele’s character never existed in the first several drafts of the The Seven Stones. In fact, when she was first introduced in the original 2012 version, she and Tainean were added into the story for pure comedic relief, which – as some of you already know – is fucking ridiculous.
Aside from not even being particularly funny most of the time, she has a serious streak that rivals General Almadzi. In this article, I’m going to break down how our favorite thief was created and give some author insight into the complex character of Leas Steele.
The concept of Yin-Yang in The Seven Stones
I’ve never really been a huge believer in clear-cut good and evil, always believing people were multisided, ever-changing, and unpredictable. So, when I created the characters in Immortal Zero, I wanted every person I created to be complex on some level. I wanted everyone to walk that line between good and evil.
The main characters, Leona Almadzi and Leas Steele were designed to represent those two sides and how blurred those lines can get.
How To Build A Dynamic Character
What Is A Dynamic Character? A character is a vessel the writer chooses for the readers to experience their story through. A dynamic character is a character that changes as the plot progresses (read more on climax and character development here). Most importantly,...
What Really Happens At The Climax Of A Story
First, What Is A Climax? A climax is the pinnacle of rising action (as you learned in high-school). But what the hell does that mean? The main character, in pursuit of the story's goal, arrives at an event or situation. At this point, your character must make a...
How To Plot Your Novel – 8 Easy Steps
Forget What You Know About Plot Writing a novel can be an overwhelming feat. There are so many things to consider before even putting words to the page: genre, tense, setting, style, voice. Some writers claim the beginning is the hardest to write and it's why many...