You don't need to have read Weaver to get a strong sense of who Penny is and what she does for a living, by the end of the first chapter of FFoSM.

This is very much true, BTW.

As I suspected, I'm over-thinking processes I understand. I figured your answer about reader's expectations would be what you gave and it makes sense, but my brain gets locked on "but WHY!". I should have gone into physics.

At the risk of offending anyone at all who values the process highly - and for the love of peace, can we understand that I am NOT trying to do that - I find it overrated. I'm not devaluing research and whatnot, I do a metric ton of it (anyone who wants to find me good sources of post-WWII UXB removal work in southeast London, right around 1948-1950, will get a big wet sloppy kiss in "Cruel Sister"'s acknowledgements), but I feel very strongly that putting whatever it is you've researched, or outlined, or learned about what you're writing, should really be part of the creativity, not part of the linear, er, infrastructure.

Basically, drop the overthink, get the creator's knickers on, and make the bits and bobs your bitch.

Cool by me. You're the first "real" (ie, published, reviewed, etc.) author I've ever had a chance to get my mitts on, especially with one of your published works to hand, so I'm taking advantage of the fact to study. I have a tendency to do that instead of trusting myself to know what I"m doing. My issues.

Is that the size of the book as it's going to be on the shelf? And am I allowed to be all sorts of impressed that it's coming out in hard-cover?

I read lots of writing books, suspecting that there's a "secret" that I'm missing. Because if I know how to do something, then obviously it's too easy and I'm missing something important. Like I said, my issues. At least fic is good for the self-confidence, until I start saying, "Yeah, sure, you can write with other people's characters, but you'll suck with just original characters." Ah, the internal voices that screw us up.

See, my problem with writing straight fic is that I get irritated at having to stick with the traits the existing characters' creators have decreed. That's why I'd generally prefer my own people. Dance, little invisible people in my bloodstream! Dance for mama! (jeeeez, it's a god complex; scary...)

Is that the size of the book as it's going to be on the shelf? And am I allowed to be all sorts of impressed that it's coming out in hard-cover?

Just about the size; I have the hardback here as well (my one copy to date; a box will arrive via FedEx with two dozen more, shortly, I hope) and the hardback's a bit thicker. It's actually about 10,000 words longer than the first book, and Matty Groves is about ten thousand words longer than FFoSM. They keep getting longer, and a bit darker each time.

And sure, you can be impressed about the hardcover aspect; I keep forgetting it's supposed to be preferable, though, since the paperback is actually much more lucrative for the author. A lower royalty rate (I forget what, exactly, but it's something like 8% of the first however many sold and then it goes to 10% at the top of the scale), but a tendency for much bigger advances and much larger print runs.

But it's harder. You have to, you know, be canon. No net...Um, episode guide.

I'm always afraid I haven't made my original characters three dimensional enough.

erika, which is harder? Fic or original? I don't know that I find fic harder, just more irritating to write, because I have to put aside what, as a writer, I would have done to an established character's personality or spirit or whatever, and go with the original creator's stuff. I find that really annoying, after awhile. It's like writing in an old-fashioned girdle.

I'm always afraid I haven't made my original characters three dimensional enough.

Made - how? If they're out there living, and talking, and breathing, and getting involved in their life or the situation you want them to deal with or the on the road you've given them to travel, I find the characters take on their own dimensionality PDQ.

Made - how? If they're out there living, and talking, and breathing, and getting involved in their life or the situation you want them to deal with or the on the road you've given them to travel, I find the characters take on their own dimensionality PDQ.

See above statements re: lacking confidence in my own abilities to do something I find relatively easy. All about the safety nets, me.