http://www.rinkworks.com/namegen/
That is the name generator I used. The directions are a bit complicated, though. Now I'm having a problem with names that are too much like names in other books. But I'll change a few letters and it will be fine. I will definitely use the name generator to come up with a replacement for 'Findas'.

These sound really cool, especially the one w/ Irish and African etc. names, in case anyone visits one of those countries in any of my books.

Lu

I think Findas will be Aydas now, and Esran will be Enhas. I'm considering changing Niriel to Neriel to make it less like Miriel. (If that makes any sense.)
Now I can actually get some more writing done.

I just made a breakthrough on my sequel. My main characters are an entourage of five very close friends and one, I haven't been able to find a good character arc for her. I just did. Referring to my description of my villain, Caecita, I have two characters that get blinded by her. So to prepare these five characters for the next battle with her, they do exercises blindfolded. I just wrote a scene that is far more beautiful than I expected.

The group and their main trainer go into a cave and turn out the torch light, leaving them in absolute darkness. This character must try to take out the trainer, with a ball and chain while he fights another member of the group in close range. She has her other three allies nearby, but not sure where. Needless to say, she can't do it on her own, but without the trainer's queue, her four friends help her out in a jaw-dropping display of teamwork, love, and care for each other.

This scene got me to think about her character and I'm going to have her be somewhat independent and not entirely trusting of her team. Then this scene will break that and make her truly rely on her team and her Lord. But I will save that for the first editing phase. Because something like that happened once, I have to consider it may happen again.

Still waiting on a release date from Lighthouse. I've confirmed the final editing changes have been done. I like the cover art, and I've submitted a two paragraph book description and a one paragraph bio description. I really can't think of anything else. But it's all in God's timing. He knows when it needs to come out. I am willing to wait for it, but if I'm going to wait, I'd to know how long I'll be waiting. It's so close.

That's fantastic news, Fencer! I'm very excited for you! I hope we get to see the cover art soon.

Recently, I've been trying to get to know my characters' personalities a little bit better. But for some reason, I'm able to give all my side characters more in-depth descriptions than my main character. I don't know why that is, but I suspect that perhaps my main character is becoming cliche and maybe a little too perfect. His only real flaw is his habit of making rash decisions, which is sort of cliche for the hero of a fantasy novel. Any thoughts on how I might develop him more?

So, is this a place to just talk about writing or do we post our writing or post a link to it er what?

So, is this a place to just talk about writing or do we post our writing or post a link to it er what?

Hi Star! We mostly talk about writing here and seek help with characters, plots, names, inspiration, motivation, etc. If you wanted to share your work, you'd have to post a link since it's against the rules of the thread to post work here.

Hi Star, welcome to the Writer's World Thread. Just to clarify Silver, here we discuss any type of writing from fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and the even more rarely mentioned journalism. We discuss about our experiences in writing, projects we are working on, ask questions and anything that falls in between. As Silver stated, we are not allowed to post actual works. The reason why is that it will tie up the server and take up excessive thread space. So provide a link if you want to us to see the actual work. As this forum is a public web-site, many people don't want their works open to the public.

You are more than free to discuss what you are doing and we have plenty of people here with varying abilities and experiences who can help. I joined into this topic about four years ago and right now I am just about to have a fiction novel released. So I have experiences with the publishing industry that many others here have sought advice for. As we say in writing circles, the way to get better is to write and be around other writers. We love to hear about what you are doing.

I just decided to keep Niriel, even though it sounds a lot like a Tolkien name, because what I wanted to change it to turned out to be the name of a video game character. Now I have my name problems worked out and I'm ready to go.

Thank you for the kind welcome and infromation Silver the Wanderer and FencerforJesus!

I have a definite interest in writing, mainly fiction writing. Currently, I am co-authoring a fiction book with my sister. I am so happy I found this writer's world thread, as I love discussing writing!

Co-authoring hasn't been discussed too often here. How is that working for you? What type of fiction book are you writing? We'd love to hear more about your project. And again, if you have any questions about a particular scene you are working on, a concept you aren't sure about, or if you simply want to bounce an idea off some heads, this is a perfect place to do that.

I worked out another name problem. Seriously, that's just been bugging me lately. I found that it was the name of a company, but also a last name (I mean, seriously, what is it with my characters' names being last names in the real world. I mean, Estam, Laswell, Saynor, Aydas. . . also in some place Niriel was apparently a guy's first name. Weird)
However, I did get some writing done today. Firron and Saynor are about to have their boat tip over. That is actually based on a real-life experience.

Hello! I'm really glad to see this forum because I'm about to revise a story I've hand written almost four years ago. It's already a copyrighted story because my bestfriends father is a popular lawyer in the south and prompted me to get it copyrighted after I had handwritten it so no one can ever come up with the same idea.

I wont explain too much but it takes place in 2005 between these two young teenage friends Ben and Elizabeth, a friendship they want to last forever that when Ben recieves bad news from his father he risks running away with Elizabeth on a yacht to Australia. In the open ocean a storm errupts and they find themselves on a beach on an island where they meet a wizard who by mistake brought them to the magical island in the sky when he meant to bring the child who drew a map by vision to help him find something. In this story Ben and Elizabeth are tested to find out just how strong their friendship really is.

I plan to write this as a 5 story series.

I need to ask a question from all of you. Since I am revising I am adding and changing a lot in my story and I need to know if by starting in a dream sequence that actually happened to one of my main characters is okay or a bad move? Thanks

Also congrats Fencer! That is amazing and i'll deffinitely buy it when it comes out!

It's not entirely a bad idea. Your opening scene, especially if you plan to publish at some point down the road, needs to grab your readers attention within a few pages. I'll explain more on that in a moment. So for you, is this dream going to be about this map? Is it going to establish the fantasy elements in your story? What is the purpose of it?

The opening scene does not have to be an action scene, but it does need to grab the reader's attention. If you are thinking publication, there are several groups of people you need to think about: the publisher, and various groups of readers. The publisher will rarely want to look at the entire manuscript. They simply don't have the time to do that. When I went to a writer's conference last March, I got a 15-minute consultation with one of the speakers. She only had the time to read the 1st page and a half of my first three chapters and that was enough for her to know whether it was good enough for a bigger publisher than the self-publishers. Most publishers just need plot/chapter synopsis for plot overview and 1-3 opening chapters to get a feel for your writing style. They will be able to tell from that, whether it will be worth pursuing. So the opening scene needs to grab a publisher's attention.

If you can get it through the publisher, your next challenge is to convince readers to read your story. In the event that your story would make it to the shelves of Barnes and Noble, many readers who frequent book stores will often pull a book off the shelves and read the first few pages. If it gets their attention, they will continue reading or buy it. If it doesn't, it goes back on the shelf. I haven't shopped on-line enough to know if there are snippets of books available on B&N on-line or Amazon, but again the theme you need is to get the reader's attention.

You want them to have reason to care about your characters. You want them to want to know more about the world they are in. You want your reader to keep flipping pages. This is true for the action thriller, the mystery, or even romance. The opening scene needs to set the tone of the story and establish what kind of story it is going to be. Nobody likes bait and switch stories. If you start with an action scene, you are telling your readers it is going to be an action thriller. It doesn't mean there can't be other elements in there, but you are establishing the type of story. Don't be like some movie trailers where the trailer gives the impression of an action movie and yet all the action scenes are in the trailer. So once you get your reader's attention, keep it.

So for your dream sequence, it is definitely an option. At the very least, try it out. It can work as a prologue or opening chapter. Use it to establish a key element that plays a vital role in the story (like the map). Use it to establish a main character or two. Have it set the tone of the story and give the reader an indication of the type of story it is going to be. If you have already done this, great. But I hope this helps you and gives you things to think about as you get working on the editing.

FencerforJesus, co-authoring is actually working quite well. We test ideas agaisnt eachother and we can fill in for eachother on places we have trouble on. I think its working pretty well in that you probably won't be able to tell who's writing which section, plus we each have different writing talents to offer into the story. two heads are better than one!

The type of book we are writing would probably be called fantasy. Though set in modern times, there is this other world you can enter into through various ways, plus we have a pegasus and there is Gold Magic and Black Magic. It has similarities to Narnia...

One of the reasons I am so happy I found this is because there actually are some things I would like to hear some other thoughts on.