The Rising Author Tag

I stole this tag from Nicki, who told me to steal it, who stole it from someone else who told her to steal it, and I’m told it’s just messy beyond that, but the point is that this tag has devolved into a Macguffin-ish thing and is no longer really a tag. But anyway, without further ado…

(Apparently this tag has no rules.)

1. What is the weirdest thing someone has ever said to you about your writing?

Um… I’m sure my best friend has said plenty of weird things, since we regularly say weird things about each other’s writing… but currently nothing is coming to mind.

2. What is the worst thing you ever wrote?

The story that began and ended my mystery-writing career. It had no name, all of the characters were stolen from mysteries I enjoyed reading, the One Ring showed up for, like, two scenes, and the ending (looking back) was extremely disturbing. And yet I could probably rewrite the thing from memory.

3. What is the most awkward scene you’ve ever written?

Pretty much any scene in The Shadow Raven with Nissa and Rolan. We’ll leave it at that.

4. On a scale from 1 to 10, how often do you end up writing more than 3 chapters of the stories you start?

Mm… Probably about a three, but it’s purposeful. I don’t let myself write too much of stories that aren’t what I’m primarily working on. At most I just write a starting point for me to come back to when I have time to focus on the new story. It’s generally around 2,000 words worth, at this point.

5. What is the hardest thing for you to write?

Description, probably? But I don’t know, because I have a ton of trouble writing it into a story, but if I’m simply writing description then it turns out pretty good. So… I don’t know. It’s annoying.

6. When you look back at your early writing pieces, what’s one thing you can see you’ve improved in?

Everything? Dialogue (oof), character development, worldbuilding, description (at least I’m aware it’s an issue now), plot (even if I’m still bad at it). I’ve been writing for ten years, so there’s been a lot of improvement, lol.

7. How do you name characters?

It depends. Sometimes I make things up, sometimes I pick random names that sound cool, sometimes I pick them based on their meanings… It really varies.

8. If you had to pick one genre to write in forever, what would it be?

FANTASY.

9. Which of your characters do you feel most guilty about?

Um… *goes to scour story list, because I know there’s at least one I’ve felt bad for*
So apparently I stand corrected and there are none I feel guilty about, because all the bad things that happen to them have purposes. I feel bad for several of them, sure, but not really guilty.

10. Which of your characters deserves everything you’ve given them?

Catessa, in The Last Assassin. I mean, yeah, her intentions are good, but the way she goes about things is so wrong that… she deserves to feel guilty, even overwhelmingly so. She deserves to have the punishment she ends up with. That’s how sin works. But she, like all of us, is also granted grace.


If you want to do the tag, feel free to steal it! If you had to choose one genre to write in forever, what would you choose? Do you ever feel guilty about things happening to your characters?

4 thoughts on “The Rising Author Tag

  1. If I had to choose only one genre to write, it would definitely be fantasy. It can be whatever you make it, and it has dragons! Who could ask for more?

    1. Exactly! One could even have sci-fi elements /in/ one’s fantasy and then it’s a win-win for me. Fantasy has the flexibility to include almost any other fiction genre, which is epic.

  2. I’d pick fantasy too, though I might would have said the general genre “fiction” just to be safe. ;)

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