Michael Stanton

Oh yes, all the time. 😉

What? 😛

Pearl Maiden by H. Rider Haggard. The Eagle of the Ninth, The Silver Branch, and The Lantern Bearers, all by Rosemary Sutcliff. Those last three are one hundred percent fantastic.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Hostage Lands by Douglas Bond, The Red Keep by Allen French, Rolf and the Viking Bow by Allen French, Men of Iron by Howard Pyle, The Black Arrow by Robert L. Stevenson, Scottish Chiefs, by Jane Porter, Beyond Sing the Woods by Trygve Gulbranssen, The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas, The Edge on the Sword by…[Read more]

As soon as I come up with a new character, I get this mental image in my mind. It is not really a photograph, but it is a very rough painting, blurry, more of an outline. It is hard to explain. There is also a sort of emotion that I feel in each character. I can tell if that feeling is significantly different from the one I sense for another…

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Yes, that sounds far more pleasant.

Talk to them. If your characters aren’t real enough to hold a conversation with, they won’t be real to the readers. So ask them questions— ask them how they feel about their life, how they feel about what you make them go through. Ask them what they would change about your story— ask them what they’re afraid of, and why they are afraid. Ask…[Read more]

Don’t worry, @rolena-hatfield, our name gets misspelled and mispronounced just like that ALL THE TIME. 😛 It is a little bit of an odd name. 😉

Yes, I’m loving this topic too. I can’t believe I didn’t introduce this discussion earlier!

As for the Bible question, there are many different ways you could do that correctly. Just base the scene off…[Read more]

Well then I forgive you. 😉 😛

And yes @Daeus, Gandalf does have some absolutely fantastic quotes. And I totally know what you mean about Edmond— and that line ‘wait and hope’… oh man, just thinking about it makes me tear up and get shivers. 😛 It was the perfect way to end the story.

Absolutely @writefury! And the point is not so much ‘put as much Christian behavior as you can’ as it is ‘write your story inside out with Christianity at the center, and the Christian behavior will follow.’ It will flow naturally and realistically and characteristically into the story if it is the heart of the story.

I think it was @reaganramm…[Read more]

Excellent thoughts, @Daeus! And yes @gretald, what you said was completely true. @Daeus covered that a little in his reply— Christianity, and Christian themes and messages, shouldn’t just be slipped or fitted in and hoped to be gotten away with. You shouldn’t say ‘Oh boy I have this really cool story! Oh… yeah, I’d better put some element of…[Read more]

That is totally adorable. Sure, go for it! And name it Rapunzel. That would be so cute. 🙂

#4

Hm… has your Rapunzel character been shut up in this tower all her life? She might not even know what scissors are. She might think her hair is an absolutely essential part of her— maybe she thinks cutting it off would kill her. (Thank goodness that’s not true 😛 )
And I don’t imagine she has much else to do in that tower, so taking care of…[Read more]

Hm… has your Rapunzel character been shut up in this tower all her life? She might not even know what scissors are. She might think her hair is an absolutely essential part of her— maybe she thinks cutting it off would kill her. (Thank goodness that’s not true 😛 )
And I don’t imagine she has much else to do in that tower, so taking care of…[Read more]

Oooh… oh yes @Daeus, that could totally work with Denholm! Oh boy… I may have to try that. 😛 He’s a really… intellectually geeky sort of guy, for the lack of a better word. He likes using really deep, obscure concepts to bewilder other people just for fun.

You know what @writefury, I would absolutely love that, but I can’t say I’ll have the time. :/
Let me know when you’ve finished it, and I’ll see if I can fit it in with my schedule.
Winter is usually an incredibly busy time for us as a family, what with plowing the steep driveway and ferrying our cabin guests up and down in our 4wheel drive.…[Read more]

Hm… well @writefury, he would probably begin by telling whoever asked everything that his name was not. 😛 From there he would probably devolve into some convoluted explanation of why his name wasn’t important and how there are other things to worry about, and wind up with some completely random thought that would leave the questioner in such a…[Read more]

You know this is really funny, @writefury, but because your Cobalt and my Denholm are similar personalities I find myself comparing how one would act in a certain situation to how the other would act. I’m beginning to find distinctions— Denholm in this situation would probably not have tried the whiny approach (I absolutely love the way Cobalt…[Read more]