
Hello S.E. readers, Gwen with you today to discuss a familiar topic — book reviews. If you’ll journey with me, I hope to spark a smile or two. …
Holistic Reviews

Hello S.E. readers, Gwen with you today to discuss a familiar topic — book reviews. If you’ll journey with me, I hope to spark a smile or two. …
Holistic Reviews

Yahoo Image Search
Haven’t used this picture for a while, but I guess it works. So, I mentioned yesterday that I completed the first draft of Do I Need to Use a Dragon? (Fantasy Writing Tips). I don’t know if I should keep that part in the parenthesis though. Feels too clunky and the blurb will make it clear what it is. Anyway, I’m now left with the following issues:
I hate this part of the whole thing because it’s where a massive amount of doubt and my anxiety turns up. The moment I have to interact with somebody new, I start to lock up and consider hiding. Then, I say yes to whoever responds to my request first and become submissive during the process. Probably a terrible author to work with when it comes to art. That or a great one because I agree to nearly everything. Definitely need an agent or publicist here.
Well, it was certainly a break from work and school. It was also cold and we got some snow, so it felt like winter. Can’t complain about that since I live in New York, so we expect that weather. Been fairly dry the last few years, so we were do to get some rapid fire snowstorms around here. Of course, it hit when I was the only one around to shovel, so I’m sore. My son tried to help, but a little guy with a large shovel can only do so much before he goes to play. I’ll take what I can get since he could have refused to help in general.
With there being no work, the week was primarily video games, television, Lego sets, and relaxing. We watched ‘Godzilla: King of Monsters’ to get ready for ‘Godzilla vs Kong’, so now my son loves Mothra. Kind of hope that one makes an appearance in the next movie for his sake. I introduced him to ‘Dragon ball’ too. The original with 11-year-old Goku and we’ll work our way up to ‘Z’, ‘GT’, and the newer one that I know nothing about. Got some episodes of ‘One Piece’, ‘Fairy Tail’, ‘Dr Stone’, ‘Pokemon’, ‘Yugioh’, and ‘Animaniacs’ too, which makes it sound like we were always in front of the television. Most of those are the night viewing before bed, which helps him relax a bit. The rest are breakfast or lunch because he won’t sit still to eat. A family dinner is the only time we get him to stay at the table. Oh well, it’s winter break.
Speaking of Lego sets, I bought my son the Lego Super Mario Starter course. This is a set based on Super Mario and you need to get this one before getting any of the others. That’s because it’s the only one with the Mario, who has Bluetooth, a scanner on his bottom, digital eyes for expressions, speaker for sounds, and a chest screen for coin and power up display. Yeah, this was high-tech. I had to put an app on my iPhone, which was a major battery drain. That was the only way to get the instructions, but my son liked how he could move the images around to get a better look at what he had to do. It records the coins you collect since several pieces have barcodes that Mario responds to. Also, he acts like he’s fallen into lava if you put him on anything red. It’s pretty fun because we couldn’t figure out why he kept making the noise until we saw he was placed on the red rug. I also bought the Bowser Castle Boss Battle, which you add to the overall set. That took 2 days to put together since we were shoveling as well. Needless to say, my son loved it and played with it all the time. The pieces are all over the floor of his room though because he can build different courses. Have to tread carefully when I check him before I go to bed from now on.
I finished Do I Need to Use a Dragon? last weekend, which I’ll talk a bit more about tomorrow. I’m at the point where I need to figure out how to gather the rest of the pieces such as beta readers and cover/interior art. Never did interior art before, so I’m not sure how to include that into an eBook. Do I put it directly into the Word file and hope the formatting doesn’t mess it up? I’ll ask that again tomorrow. When I wrote the post for tomorrow, I was exhausted. Still, another project is done and I’m aiming to finish the outlining of another series this weekend. That clears the deck for fresh outlines at work and getting ‘Tales of the Slumberlord’ into its final outline stage. Fingers crossed that things work out. We’ll see what happens though because weeks after breaks are either quiet or chaotic. There is no in-between.
Did I mention the exhaustion last weekend? That was because I got the second Covid vaccine shot last Saturday. I thought that the achy arm and feeling a little sleepy that evening were the common side-effects people talked about. Nope. It was around 10:05 the next morning that I was hit by a fatigue like a bus coming out of nowhere. This was in the middle of working on Do I Need to Use a Dragon? and I was determined to finish that project. It took me all day with several pseudo-naps and a slight bit of masochism where I pushed on the injection spot to send a jolt of pain through me. Coffee makes me drowsy and I had nothing else in the house. No way I was driving either. I think I was annoyed at being nearly laid out too, so I fought to finish the project primarily out of defiant spite. Who or what was I spiting? I have no idea, but I can through in time to have a big dinner. Then, I promptly laid down to . . . Not be able to sleep because the fatigue wore off and I found myself wide awake at midnight!
Any new anime by myself? Just ‘Goblin Slayer’ and ‘Maria the Virgin Witch’. I struggled through the second one because of the fatigue. Really enjoyed the first even though it’s incredibly violent and the first episode is a shock to the system if you’re not ready for what happens. They set out to make you despise goblins within the first 5-10 minutes. Now, I’m working through ‘Samurai 7’, which is based on the ‘Seven Samurai’. It’s an older anime and not as exciting as I’d expected. Slow pace, but the characters are keeping me going.
Goals for the week:

Bugs Bunny
A goal of writing is to evolve our characters. If they are the same at the end of their adventure as they were at the beginning then we missed something. Even if they go back home, there needs to be a change. We call it an evolution or development, but know that it isn’t always an advancement. Some characters may end an adventure in a bad position, but they have changed. That is the point. Now, how can character biographies help with this?
Again, we’re talking about pre-writing planning here. So, if you aren’t going to do that then this probably won’t help you. It’s possible to do it in your head, but that doesn’t guarantee that things will stick. With a biography, you can have permanent notes in regards to where you want the character to go. You define their role in the story and show where they have come from. It’s the basis of everything that is about to happen and lead to an evolution. Without this foundation, you might be working on shaky ground and the evolution can be clunky or unnatural. Key word there is ‘might’ because some people can keep it all together or have tools to help with that.
It’s up to the author to decide how specific to be with these parts of a biography. Some will give a general idea or a variety of choices. Others will write it out to the letter and never stray from the concept. Depending on the length of your story or series, it’s difficult to pull off that last option. You may have to go in stages or state the changes in each book. For example, I had to make notes for Mab’s evolution in War of Nytefall. I couldn’t go into details because I didn’t know exactly how I would do her addiction storyline. All I could do was make note of how bad it was and if people knew about it within each book. The rest had to be developed in real-time since evolution is partially influenced by interacting with other characters. This means the biography can only bring you so far and may work best as guidelines.
Of course, you don’t have to go along with your initial idea. Things always change when you start writing. A better evolution may come to mind or the original plan can go against the main plot of the story. You could have intersecting evolutions that negate or damage all characters involved too. Never think that these biographies are written in stone because they are merely a jumping point. Sticking to this can harm the evolutions, which damages both the characters and overall story. Audiences connect with your heroes and villains, so you need their growth to feel natural. An idea that you come up with at first may work, but it will probably need some level of tweaking as you move along. This is an inevitable part of author life.
So, what do you think about biographies and getting a general idea of a character evolution?
(Disclaimer: A warning to those who continue. This is a sequel to a previous story. Both of these were written in the mid-1990’s. While the first one was slightly edited and vanity press published, this one has not been touched in over 20 years. I figure I should do something with it and people may get a laugh or fright from how I used to be. Every author comes from somewhere, so this is part of my origin. To that end, I am deeply sorry for whatever nightmares I will inflict on the literary world and the American English language. Enjoy?)

“I know that I’m not the one to tell you this, but you’re insane,” says Tegam. He is in a room that is brightly lit and surprisingly cheerful. The only pieces of furniture are a blue recliner, a few wooden chairs, and a large, soft bed that looks like it was made for over a thousand kings. Each wall has a flawless, full-length mirror on it as well as many bottles of perfume and several pieces of sparkling jewelry. Behind two of the mirrors are enormous closets that are really two converted bedrooms, which have been filled with clothes that range from, sophisticated to extremely kinky.
“I feel dirty saying this, but Tegam is right. This plan of yours is totally illogical and depends completely on the forces of luck. And you do remember that one of the immortals that we are going up against can manipulate that specific force with effortless ease,” argues Cybro in his metallic voice.
“I think it could work with a little bit more thought,” replies Draveon from one of the room’s corners.
“At least someone is on my side. Even if it is Draveon. Now, what is exactly wrong with my idea?” asks Adriana. A second after she sits down in the recliner a strong zap of electricity knocks her onto the floor.
“Are you okay?” whispers Startrix as she helps her friend up.
“I’ll be fine. Once I’m done castrating Tegam with a rusty pocketknife.” She rubs the sore parts of her body and grabs Tegam by his neck with lightning speed. She starts shaking him like a doll.
“Sorry. But with all of those colored wires in the chair, I couldn’t resist crossing a few of them. Why were those wires in there anyway? Another one of your kinky little toys, Adriana?” Adriana throws him clear across the room before sitting on a wooden stool.
“Because it’s a computerized recliner, dumbass. Now, let’s go over this again. When I land on Earth with Tegam, Cybro, and Draveon, we will separate into two teams. I will try to find out more about Fate while the three of you cause some random acts of carnage. The more property damage you cause the better. Killing people are useful, but don’t do it too often because we don’t want the guardians to be too angry. Sooner or later, the guardians will turn up and then we’ll kill them. I forgot to mention this, but I suggest dividing their forces and doing one-on-one fights. They are more adept at group strategies than single fighting. Startrix will be in charge of the Black Tower while I’m gone.”
“What if we start to lose the battle?” questions Cybro.
“A war transport will be orbiting the planet. If we are losing then I will call the ship down and release the Clan of Fire members that are in a cryogenic sleep. There is absolutely nothing to worry about. I have everything taken care of.”
“Does that last statement include yourself? You were the one that let the Mars guardian get away during that first fight. Or have you forgotten about that incident? So busy blaming all of us that you forgot the fact that Fate escaped because of you. He would have been one less annoyance to us if you destroyed him during our first encounter,” states the robot.
“I wasn’t ready to kill him, Cybro. I thought I could have twisted him and turned him to our side. At least I could have had some fun with him. What was wrong with the idea of turning Fate to our side? Comic book villains do that all the time.”
“You’re a bigger idiot than Hellax. If he could be turned so easily, Solix would not have given him the right to use the Solstar medallion and lead the planet guardians. Which brings up another mistake on your part. You gave them the very weapon that could destroy all of us!” exclaims Tegam
“That I did have a reason for. The weapon was only useful to Fate. We had no use for it. Besides, he saw, or at the very least he had an idea, what happened to Solix when it was used at full power. The handsome runt is too scared to try and use it himself because he doesn’t think he is powerful enough to control it. As for letting him go, I admit I may have made a tiny mistake. But I’m not always perfection incarnate,” says Adriana, whose voice gets softer and lower with every word.
“Did you guys actually hear that? The high and mighty Adriana is admitting her mistakes and she said that she isn’t perfect. I guess hell has been thrown into the ultimate ice age,” Tegam laughs as he puts his arm around Cybro’s neck in a friendly gesture. The robot gives him a sinister look, which makes the jester slowly remove his favorite arm.
“Did I wake up with a damn insult me sign on my back? Why is everybody throwing insulting jokes at me? I don’t deserve this kind of treatment! Especially from all of you, leeches.”
“I thought you liked my jokes. But that was when they were done on someone else. The fact is that we don’t trust a plan that has more holes than a soap opera plot. For this kind of mission anyway,” mentions the jester.
“I am your unchosen leader. You have to trust my plans because if you don’t I swear that I will tear you up into so many pieces, it would take centuries for you to come back together.” Adriana turns around and punches a hole in the one of the steel walls and the rest of the room shudders with the impact.
“Woah. Are you going through that time of the month again, Adriana? Because you sure are acting a little on edge and agitated lately. You are usually more calm and easy going,” mentions Cybro. The blond immortal rips off his head and holds it an inch from her face.
“Listen up, garbage can. I am fine. It is not that time of the month and I don’t think it would be any of your business if it was. That is a woman’s private life and will not be shared. I am simply going through some emotional problems that are quickly driving me nuts. And you are not helping me! Nod if you understand me, tin can. Oh, I forgot. Here’s your head, Cybro. If anybody can explain why this is happening to me, I am all ears. Any ideas, Draveon? I’m sad to say that you are probably the smartest out of you four.”
Draveon scratches his chin and finally replies; “Mindtrigger did discover a good answer to this question when you went through this the first time sixteen years ago. As far as we know, you are the first natural born immortal to have ever given birth to another immortal. Psylon and Startrix have never claimed to have children. Anyway, the strangest thing about your specific immortal physiology, Adriana, is that you could give birth every nine months. Most beings have to wait a little while before giving birth again. You can also nurse a baby whether you have given birth to a child recently or not, which isn’t useful, but very peculiar. It would appear that you were designed to be an immortal breeder. It goes along with the seduction abilities and the physical beauty.”
“Oh, great. Not something that makes me want to smile and applaud, even though I like being a mother. But how does the fact that I’m a natural baby machine explain my being very irritable?” remarks Adriana, who is looking at her body in one of the mirrors. The thought of being made for the sole purpose of breeding makes her feel very insecure.
“Well, nobody knows about the exact effects on your mind. This could be a long-term form of post partum depression. I hope I don’t have to explain what that is to anyone in here because I am uncomfortable discussing this topic. My father is the scientist. Luckily, Mindtrigger has made a pill that could prevent these aggression attacks from happening again. He just finished it three months ago. I suggest that you go talk to him after this meeting and find out if anything is wrong with Kilanus. She should be examined.”
“But Adriana has only one child. She goes through this problem a few times every year. Of course, she could have had a few hundred miscarriages that we would never know about. She could also have a few more runts in other galaxies. So what is our plan again, breeder?” asks Tegam with a laugh.
“I haven’t taken the calming medicine yet, prankster. You gave a good explanation for my problem, Draveon. Unfortunately, I have no choice but to believe you about that sole purpose of breeding thing. As for the plan, it stays pretty much the same and very different. Tegam and I will investigate Fate’s origin while Cybro and Draveon cause the usual destruction and chaos. Rile up the cops and put a scare into the human populace. When the guardians appear we will take them on one-on-one. If we start to lose, the fight becomes every immortal for him or herself and we call in the war transport with our back-up troops. How is that for a battle plan?”
“Sounds like the same plan you had before. But I must get the one that stole my sword,” mentions Draveon in a menacing growl.
“First of all, the sword of light was stolen from the original guardians. Fate simply took it back from you. Second of all, you do not even think of touching the Mars guardian!” Adriana shouts while she stares up at her towering ally. The size difference is almost comical as the five foot seven blond stares up at the man who is an entire foot taller than her. In the end, Draveon backs off and leans against the far wall.
“That isn’t fair. Why do you get the honor of killing Fate? Your destiny is no longer linked to his. As far as we are concerned, his death is now open to everyone that has a good shot. Now I must be going and prepare for our departure,” responds Cybro. The robot’s eyes go from deep black to neon yellow before he stands up and starts to leave.
“Hold on, metalman. The honor of destroying the guardians’ leader is mine by universal right. I lost the chance to slaughter Solix like a chicken and I let Fate escape when I had the chance. But the only person’s hands that will be stained by the Mars guardian’s fresh, crimson blood is mine and mine alone. Whoever gets in my way will receive a slow and painful death.”
“Very well. I honestly don’t want Fate. I want that cute Venus guardian. I’ll see you guys in two hours for the lift off. And we better get some roasted peanuts this time or I swear I’m going to complain to the pilot. Why is nobody laughing? Well, it was funny three years ago. You people just don’t like the classics,” announces Tegam while he disappears in a puff of silver smoke. Cybro and Draveon silently leave the two female immortals to speak among themselves.
“So, Adriana. . ,” Startrix says. Adriana cuts her off by putting her finger to her own mouth. The blond picks up her long, wooden staff that radiates soft, blue light and swings it in a wide arc around the room. On the other side of the bed, something gets decked by the staff and knocked into the room’s open doorway.
“Not this week, Tegam. Especially not after that stunt with the chair,” states the seducer.
“Ouchie. Well, it was worth a shot. Maybe Hellax is in the training room. That guy falls for every trick in my book and up my sleeve,” laughs Tegam as they hear his footsteps disappear into the hallway’s gloom.
“He should not be allowed to go on this mission. If he is away from Psylon’s weapon for more than three days, Tegam might turn on us. We almost lost him several times before and you remember the trouble that we had finding him. I say bring either Hellax or Mindtrigger instead,” insists the armored woman.
“No way. Tegam has been kept under the morning star’s control for centuries. After such a long time, the mind control should be permanent. But Tegam is not important right now. And you know just who the main man of this mission is.”
“Fate. Why are you suddenly interested in his past?”
“Certain incidents over the past year have caused my interest to spark. His immunity to the guardian weapons and fighting skills are identical to those of Kilanus. Of course, both of them could be a newer, evolved species of immortals. Every species evolves eventually. If they are evolved then those similarities are useless and only help me get even more confused.”
“That is not hard to do lately.”
“Shut up, seer. Do you remember what we tried about eight months ago in order to injure the guardians?”
“Yes. Mindtrigger had created the robotic immortal hunter that was designed to attack specific immortal signatures. We put in all of our genetic codes into its memory banks, so it would not be able to sense us.”
“Thank you, miss flashback. A simple ‘yes’ would have been enough for me. It’s not like we have an audience. Anyway, I saw the final visual from the robot’s camera. Once it scanned Fate, it stopped and had a slight nervous breakdown. It noticed the genetic anomaly that Kilanus and Fate share and thought he was she. Stupid machine couldn’t tell the difference between a male and a female. It was amusing if I do say so myself.”
After a brief silence Startrix says, “You think Fate is the same child that you encountered on Earth when we returned. Is he the one whose DNA was combined with Kilanus in your experiment? That is what you said happened when you were on Earth seventeen years ago. Even though you only told me about this incident a long time ago, I remember you telling me about it. Am I right?”
“Uh. . . Yeah. It would appear that my experiment has come back to haunt me. That is why I want to make sure Edward Slane is the same child. I could be responsible for his existence. Taking his DNA might have turned him into an immortal. Well, I have to go see Mindtrigger about those emotion pills. But I have one more thing to tell you, my old friend,” answers Adriana as she takes a strange revolver, with white lightbulbs, out of the nearest closet.
“What is that for?”
“We never had this conversation. The only things we talked about were Tegam, my battle plan, and what Draveon told us about my breeding talents.” Before Startrix can grab the revolver, Adriana shoots the white-haired woman with a wide, purple beam. Startrix lets out a curse as she collapses onto the bed. The other immortal crushes the gun and walks over to the bed.
Adriana bends down to the sleeping immortal and whispers, “Almost like the last time. Thanks to that gun, your memory of this talk has been erased forever. You came too close to finding out what I think my connection to Fate is. I will tell you the truth eventually. But not until I’ve taken that son of a bitch’s soul and twisted it into what I want it to be. Sweet dreams, Startrix.”

Yahoo Image Search
Sticking with the character biography topic, we’re going to look into a few tips for those who want to use this trick. I’m sure this isn’t for everyone. It’s a big plotter/planner tool alongside outlines and summaries. You can also go a little too far with a character biography, which isn’t always a bad thing. It all depends on how you use the information that you’ve carefully crafted.

Hey, SE Readers. Joan with you today. Hope you’re enjoying this chilly, um, frigid February. Perfect weather for staying indoors to write. You’re …
Getting it Done with Writing Sprints

Yahoo Image Search
I can already hear at least once pantser preparing to explain why they don’t do this. If it helps, person with fingers at the ready, you’re right. Character biographies don’t work for everyone. They aren’t even universal because everyone has their own way of doing them because every author has different needs. Some even change from story to story or as our own skills grow. I know that I’ve been all over the map as you’re about to see.
Character bios are where I started since tabletop games were my first inspiration alongside fantasy books. This resulted in my originals being more about numbers stats and basics instead of depth. I had hair, eyes, height, weight, skin, and physical attributes with very little variety. I couldn’t tell you what the real difference between a 4 and 5 in strength really was. A 1-5 ranking was probably a dumb choice. I added gear, personality, and skills to the bottom then left it alone. I used this for Legends of Windemere too, but I had notes on other papers for evolution. This system didn’t change for about 20 years because I spent most of my time doing quick outlines of other stories without doing any meaty bios. By the time I came back to that tactic, I no longer cared about the physical stats. I changed it to be a paragraph explaining history, role in story, goals, key events, general appearance, personality, and unique pieces of gear. This gave me more wiggle room and it created the possibility of subplots as I wrote along. It also reduced it from one character per page to 2-3 depending on importance.
The benefit of character bios is the same as any planning activity. It gives you a direction to go with the character. You get a sense of how they fit into your story and world. The writing stage doesn’t begin with you shadowing an unknown figure, but walking alongside an acquaintance or friend. Things may very well change as you go along because you don’t factor all story events into the bio. It’s only a guide for that character. One could even call it a starting point because things can be altered. Everything from hair color to personality is fluid until you hit publish, so never think that your bio is the end of creation. It’s only something you can go back to if you need to revisit a character’s origins. If you have to stop writing that project for a long time then these can be very useful in jogging your memory. This means you can add notes to it as well. Whatever it takes to help you stay consistent.
Another use for character bios is with promotions. You can easily turn one into a behind-the-scenes blog post or video. People like these peeks into the process. You can show how things changed from the origins, which tends to happen. Turn in into a discussion or a lesson about the character instead of an info dump. We avoid those in books, so it’s best to do the same when promoting too. Of course, you can do this without a bio, but it doesn’t hurt to keep track of the evolution. For your own amusement, you can go back and see how you and the character grew.
So, does anybody else create character bios? What’s your style?

Image by John W. Howell Hi, John here with you SEers. First of all, I wish you all a Happy Presidents Day on behalf of the Story Empire team. If you …
Do You Participate in Prompts? Maybe You Should