Yes, I know I’ve said this before

[erastes]

Big note to self.

Dear Erastes, you doofus,

When you create a character – make a note of his bloody NAME!  So you don’t have to go tearing back through 24 chapters to find it.

Oh – and don’t write this kind of sentence ever again. “His eyes looked up at me.” 

Yours, disgustedly,

Erastes

Comments

[rwday.livejournal.com]

"His eyes looked up at me, then rolled away down the corridor like bloody little meatballs."

Love those sentient body parts! And the name thing, I do that all the time. Or what's worse, I don't bother to go back and check and end up giving the same guy 3 names.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

it reminds me of Harry having his mother's eyes.

IN A JAR!!

:)

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

I love animate body parts. They always seem so right in the first draft and then sound silly in the rewrite.

Names. (shudder) My current WIP involves David Archer's family: 2 brothers, 4 sisters, at least half a dozen of their children, a resident cousin, outside characters, and the household staff, and many of them have had name-changes from my outline because this idea has been sitting around for a good ten years and I've used the original names in the meantime. I need a wall-chart... and my printer's in the shop. And unfortunately, the character who is DOOMED was named when I never expected to write a sequel for Ransom, and I just hope Mark P doesn't think I'm killing him off on purpose.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

*LAUGHS*

You definitely need a wall chart - get one of those whiteboard thingies!

I've also just noticed that I had a housekeeper in chapter two and I never mentioned her again...she'll have to go... if I can find her - can't remember her name of course...

argh.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

I don't see any mention of the housekeeper in Chapter 2.

What I do notice is that Chapter 2 is in third person and not first. Must have been before you changed it.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

well, she was somewhere there - perhaps not in chapter 2 - i remember Jude and Myles telling Crispy about it.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Chapter 4!

"Moffat?" I said, venturing in behind Jude, my head tipping back in awe at the shelves which reached to the ceiling, every single one filled with beautiful books.

"Mrs Moffat. The housekeeper. She's particular—to make a vast understatement—about the house. Nothing should be moved, or changed. Here—" He took my arm and pulled me forward gently. His hand gripped my elbow with a surprising strength. "There."

[ammonite7.livejournal.com]

I ended up creating an entire binder for each of my novels, with maps, name listings, dates of birth, character traits, on and on. More for the sci fi world-building thing w/special words and history. Yikes. Then, of course, there is the time line for anything that is actual history. I could never keep track of anything without my binders.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

i really REALLY wish I could be that organised - I start out with the very best of intentions....

[dcjuris.livejournal.com]

Favorite line that I write *all the freaking time*: "His heart pounded in his chest." You know, as opposed to pounding in his foot or something. :-/

Yes... ::nods sagely:: I have spiral notebooks for every book - and then one "master" notebook with all the character names and all the pertinent details about everyone. But um... I must confess... I don't actually access them all that much because I've...um... ::cough:: I've sat and read them over and over like flash cards so I could memorize them all. Yeah. I'm a lil neurotic.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Those pesky hearts! You know, mine often DOES pound in my ears, and yet no-one ever says that.

I think everyone is more organised than me!! waily!

[crawling-angel.livejournal.com]

His eyes looked up at me...

...and pleaded with mine to come down to his level as he was a short-arsed, horny boy.

*sniggers*

[erastes.livejournal.com]

eww! Eye-sex! You win for sporkingest comment of the week!

[crawling-angel.livejournal.com]

*cursties and falls over*

Thank you! :D

[adventurat.livejournal.com]

Ah, the sentient body parts! Still, at least they're cleverer than the ones who have to be guided through their function -- "He looked up at me with his eyes."

A friend of mine has an icon that cracks me up every time, a mocking salute to the bad fanfic over which we met:



I read over my last year's nano novel and discovered I'd changed the hero's name from Rufus to Rupert and back over the course of five chapters. ;-\

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I just adore that icon.

Hmm. and you can't even say that Rufus is short for Rupert. Poor confused hero. *pets him*

[adventurat.livejournal.com]

She has another one, same maker, that says "I will consider it with my brain", which also cracks me up.

[beckyblack]

His eyes looked up at me. His ears ignored me. His nose went out to get some smokes and his teeth ran away and joined the circus.

I once started a story with a house in Finchley and ended it with it in Chiswick, which must have been awfully inconvenient for the characters who lived there. "Mum, the street outside looks different today!"

And I changed Hannah to a Jilly partway through something once. They don't even sound remotely similar!

And I've had someone's mother around when he was in his mid twenties and later said she'd died when he was 13. Zombie mother. Nice.

And in a fanfic I once had some characters speculate that so-and-so might be a mysterious dinner guest their friend had invited. Entirely forgetting so-and-so died right in front of their eyes several years earlier.

Oh, I've made some real howlers.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

*giggling so hard*

Oh you've really cheered me up - thanks!

[spindriftdancer.livejournal.com]

Ohdear. Thanks for the giggles, JFM (:

And, Erastes... thank you, too. I don't feel so dumb now. Even da 'professionals' have brain farts sometimes. Whee!

[emeraldsedai.livejournal.com]

That name thing, oh yes. I start a database. I THINK I'm only going to have four characters, uh huh.

Then they start sprouting friends, and family members, and pets...OMG Pets! Horses and dogs and cats. And there are married names and given names, and sometimes titles.

Names. Whee!

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

There's a kind of stereotypic phrasing like this which I find myself annoyed at in my own writing.
The a friend of mine provided the perfect bon mot for it.

"Your hands are so cold, my dear."
"Yes, they keep better that way."

[chris-smith-atr.livejournal.com]

TARDIS. Just remember. YOU DO NOT NEED A TARDIS.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I note you've been very quiet about your time-travelling artists...

[mylodon.livejournal.com]

I do that! And change names halfway through. And I can never remember the names of people's houses.

I'm so small his eyes would look down at me. After he stood up from being sat on the settee.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Gah yes.

He stood up

He sat down.

His eyes looked into the distance.

He held it in his hand!

argh!

[ammonite7.livejournal.com]

Chuckle, hack and giggle with my mouth, stomach and . . . whatever. So much fun reading this.

Note to Self

[superqueeroes.livejournal.com]

*Chuckle* That sounds so like me when I'm writing. LOL

Ellen

[jean-roberta.livejournal.com]

Well, no one needs to know this if you revise before the work gets published. Glitches in works-in-progress are allowed. I recently reviewed a PRINT antho including a story in which a minor character is "Dorothea Cross" on one page, and "Dorothea Cook" in the next reference. And this is by a writing team of 2 women that I usually admire.