Nothing says Happy Author like hanging your main character.

Connie, may I tag?

Nothing says Happy Author like hanging your main character.

This is my new motto for all fiction I have ever written, or will ever write.

t I was thinking slash too.

Nothing says Happy Author like hanging your main character.

Unfortunatly, it also says depressed reader- at least, any reader who actually liked the girl.

Connie, may I tag?

Feel free.

Am, get your mind clued up to the idea that Susan doesn't write slash. Because this sounds a little- thankfully, not too much- like the novel I'm working on at the moment. Only my first person is male.

Not slash, and set in 1810 to boot. And I'm not at all claiming it's particularly original. It all started when I was annoyed by the movie version from Mansfield Park a few years ago, and started thinking how I would do it if I wanted to make the themes of MP more accessible to a modern audience. With all the changes I've made, I don't feel like I'd be disrespecting Jane the Great by submitting it for publications, but the roots do show.

With all the changes I've made, I don't feel like I'd be disrespecting Jane the Great by submitting it for publications, but the roots do show.

Only a bad thing if it's your hair dye you're talking about. (Yes, Spike, I'm thinking about you again!)

Often times, I'll print out a hard copy of a double-spaced first draft, get me a big ol' red pen and go to town on it in a big comfy chair. Then I'll type the whole thing in fresh. There's also the "remove five words from every big paragraph" game. You'd be surprised how many excess words there are when you start looking for them.

I have very few excess words. I do a lot of longhand writing, and then play edit-as-I-type. My first drafts tend to be pretty tight, though.

One of my literature teachers said that Kafka used to read his bleaker stuff out loud to his friends, and he'd keep cracking up in the middle of things.

Oh, hell. Kafka is me.

I find that I get a lot of ideas and inspirations just from the simple act of running things by my friends. They don't even have to say anything. Just the act of physically having someone else in the room really helps me. I don't know why.

I did a lot of writing for a text-based rpg, so I tend to be all about the senses. Sometimes so much so that it sounds like they're being experimented on. And does it feel damp there? And how loud is that in your ear? Uh-huh, and it smells musty? Round and round.

But I learned a good deal by having to write an environment where someone had to live. To feel immersed enough to roleplay.