On April 27, 2024, Kasie and Rex went to the X (twitter) for #WritingCommunity tweets and answered them on the air. Here are the show notes:

Theme for the day

Internet Grab Bag

Agenda

• Quick Catch Up
• What’s the internet got to say?

Segments 1-4

It’s the end of the term for me (Kasie) and so that time of year when I’m ruing the way I set up my class and how labor intensive all the grading is. I’m also fielding emails from students looking for a few more points and begging for higher grades. Sigh.

As such, I’ve had very little time for anything else although I did manage to take six more pages in the vampire rewrite to our writers’ group meeting on Wednesday. Slow progress there.

Didn’t have a topic for today. So I took to the internet to see if any writers were asking something magical we could unpack for a full hour. There’s a few here but mostly it’s one shot and done. So it’s a GRAB BAG week.

@Justin_author asks “Who lives with your main character? Any roommates?” 

– why does this matter? How do the living conditions change the character’s accessibility? Change the story dynamics?

@EveKoguce asks “Are you on speaking terms with your first love?”

– who were they? Who were you? How did the relationship affect you? What tendrils of it remain? Have you ever written it?

“Krow” at @MXB_Kverse asks, “What is a passion you and your characters share?”

– why did you give them this passion? How does it impact the story? 

@LaraRouseWrites asks, “When was the last time your MC had a day off?”

– what did they do? Why is it hard for them to take time away? How important is their job/career to their identity? To their role in the story?

Social Media Blueprint for Writers @smbprt4writers asks, “Is becoming an author risky?”

– why? How can you mitigate the risk? What are some early ‘burns’ that you wouldn’t trade? What are some mistakes you made that you wish you’d known better?

@SaraKateIshii asks, “Do any other authors SUCH BAD HANDWRITING that if they hand wrote their drafts they’d never be able to read it?”

– what’s the advantage of handwriting a draft? How do you get it into editable format?

@GabrielleBuba asks, “What’s the worst thing you have put your character through story-wise?”

– characters are not people, so suffering is expected and natural for them; the sacrifices they make in pursuit of their goal should be the ‘worst’ things, right?

Keith Hutson, @SWAnimus01, asks, “How important are subplots in big works? Do you like or dislike them?”

– we did an episode on subplots here, specifically of the romantic variety. Subplots should mirror and strengthen the main plot by treating the same (or adjacent) themes.

Women Writers Network @womenswriternet asks, “Do you write full time or have a full or part-time job?”

– the replies were between work full-time write-when-I-can and retired write-all-the-time.

V.C. Boldick @BoldickV asks, “How do people find jobs in your WIP? (Resumes, Mentorship, Nepotism)?

– this is a little bit like the PESTEL analysis we did for world building that one time. On the ‘economic’ question we’d ask how do people get work? What are the jobs available?

@HannahHanvey asks, “Are you a plotter or a pantser?”

Rebecca Weber @RWeberWrites asks, “Do you have any random knowledge that lives rent free in your brain?”

V.C. Boldick @BoldickV also asks, “Does your MC have an accessory you associate with them? How did they get it?”

– like Heather Chandler’s red scrunchie?

@Justin_author also asks, “What’s the first job your MC can remember wanting to do when they grew up?” 

– did they do it? Why or why not? What does that childhood ambition tell us about them?

@noraraywrites asks, “How long is your average chapter?”

@LinnaeusWriter asks, “What do you wish people would ask about your book?”

@SaraBushway asks, “Do drugs and alcohol play a role in your WIP?”

@LaraRouseWrites asks, “How much do you read?”

@justin_author asks, “What is a way your main character is suffering at the start of the story?” 

Internet Grab Bag accesses the #WritingCommunity hashtag on X and reads as many of the most recent questions as possible to create a natural (?) discussion between the weekly hosts of Write On SC. Have more questions you’d like answered? Tweet us at @WriteOnSC