Dorian Rainer's Blog

https://worldbuildingjune.tumblr.com/post/619593733140283392/2020-world-building-june-prompt-list

It’s worldbuilding June and I’m gonna get some worldbuilding posted. The lot of it will be posted over on the Ophidian Serial site. If you’d like to join in just worldbuilding your own worlds , I’ll be adding it to another post. I actually want to talk about something else.

Things are hard, I know. Covid isn’t over. Riots are rampant, for good reason too. Know that this is a Proud Black blog/site and I encourage you to look into everything that’s happening here and in the Philippines and Hong Kong. Shit is getting rough. We’re tired of not being heard. So hear us now and help the best you can.

What’s happening is ridiculous. It is tiresome. If it makes you uncomfortable, good. Know that we’ve dealt with this forever and it didn’t make moves until more cameras focused on monsters in the act.

Please stand with us.

It’s been a while since we’ve chatted. If you haven’t seen the new site updates here’s what happened:

cleaned up old files and cluttered works
moved In the Garden of Snakes to its own serial site (which should have happened at the beginning, but you have to test waters everywhere / still hosted on ao3 as well)
made a tab specifically for works and short works. every image goes to where it’s supposed to go.

But I’m here to mention something I posted on patreon:

So, in the last chapter update, I mentioned this:

a side note: i got a idea last night about changing the titles of the chapters to tell a story… just a tiny story. like a conversation in your head.

just a thought. i’ll get back to you guys later about it.

I hate titling chapters and I hate leaving them as “chapter x”

So, I tried to come up with a story told in the chapter titles that I’ll update on the serial site. As I mentioned, it’s like the voice in your head talking to you, but for Mohan, it’s the spirits that guide him through his magic. What I have so far is this:

O’ Champion, hear me. ( chapter 1. )
An Assassin seeks a Priest.
Rumors follow like a rancid wind.
They fear you could be “God.”
But who are you, Oracle?
Do you believe to be “God?”
Does your Protector?
Let him swear to you, Voi’staa.
So, you can see me…
You are not evil, but evil things come.
I understand. Stay strong.
You are my Champion—My Star.
No one else is in your place but your Protector.
Only you can destroy or save this fiend.
Do not let that beast halt your story.
You must regain control the best you can.
They give you tools.
But my tool is confidence. Stay. Strong.
You don’t need a plan.
Just a friend.
One to empower you. ( current chapter. )

I’ll update the serial site soon with these whereas ao3 probably won’t have these chapter titles. (if there’s one thing I hate, it’s manually updating titles on ao3) thing is, this will only be seen on the GLOSSARY, not the actual chapters themselves– they’ll still have the stale “i just gave up” chapter titles.

And if you’ve seen the new serial site, you’ve seen that things are titled “B1/A1” now. Mostly for me. It means Book 1 / Act 1.

In the Garden of Snakes is Book 1 of like… maybe three.  But Act 2 of Book 1 is just a side story that couldn’t fit in to the main book for Garden of Snakes.  Book 2, however, will revolve around Damien and his quest in becoming [INCOMING STORY SPOILER] Mohan’s sole and bound Protector. More information on what that means will come later on, but we’ll see when that time comes.

Stay safe. Stay home.

– Chell.

A lot, actually. I’m up to no good? It’s that time where I do a lot of maintenance and clean up here and on AO3. That being said, I forgot a lot of using Royal Road that I just couldn’t keep crossposting. I’d just… forget about it.

But, aside from that, I’ve been updating pages and cleaning up things where there is now a page dedicated to linking to all works and the character pages have personalized art. Not fantastic, but I haven’t drawn anything since high school It’ll get better soon.

With time, after all the updating, I’ll post a “not really patch notes” patch notes post.

Also, I’m trying to use my non-personal, mostly a “work” twitter for more active updates and whatever else that can happen. It can be found here: Boom.

So pardon my dust. Enjoy your day.

-Chell.

Out of a scribble, what story can be told? It doesn’t have to be good of hold a perfect circle, but a stick figure can speak a thousand words. What will yours speak? Will they tell stories of nightmares? Love stories? Whimsy? Is there an idea that’s been bubbling away in your head that you just need to get out?



Take a moment. Scribble out the scene that stands out the most. Then write it strong.


So have a short prompt. One that doesn’t hold very much or lead you onto something anew, but something that allows you to drabble out short prose, or make a poem of, or type up a microfiction.



10 Types of Short Stories


Different types of Fiction


List of Writing Genres

As stated in Prompt 1– there’s no official thing about this. It’s all for fun.

Tricks of the trade are taught by Masters. Each one of them have fallen in love with their trade or trudged their way through the training to get to where they are now. However, that part doesn’t quite matter. How they’ve achieved that title of “Master” means nothing when you’ve got more to you.

What is it that you’re obsessed with? What drives you that does or doesn’t tie into your craft? What lured you into its seductive grasp and trapped you there? Tell the story.

Or alternatively, tell the story of how someone with power fell in love with their obsession, be it dangerous or healthy. Are they a king and a stalker? A blacksmith with a green thumb? A serial killer with a love for animals? What is it?

Have a list of trades if you decided to do a period piece:

How to write obsessive characters? (first reply)
Medieval and Renaissance Occupations and Trades.


How to write Stalkers.


The Subtypes of Obessive Compulsive Disorder.
5 Mistakes When Writing Mental Illness. (this is just handy)

No, you don’t have to have it specific to a time period, I was making this flouncy. Anyway, tell a story about how a character fell into madness through their obsession. Love, maybe? There are no limits on this one. Go crazy.

 

I made the tweet about this the other day about how I just want to do prompt challenges. Nothing too serious. Nothing official. It’s just for fun. It’s to help those creative juices flow, honestly. There are no time limit on these. You might even build an entire world out of it.

So welcome to prompt one.

The “Gothic” genre is large but also small. Pick a location and write yourself a Gothic fantasy or Gothic fiction  about a character who simply wants to find their way in the world or succeed at something they failed at in the past.

But here’s the stipulation: It must be modern.To an extent. Doesn’t have to be in current times or way in the future. Apocalyptic or Cyberpunk future is a-okay! Want a crime story? Go for it. Have fun with it.

Magic is cool.
Demons can exist.
No magic is fine!

What’s the point of this? There is none. It’s just something to get the juices pumping.

Have some refs on how to write gothic fiction. You don’t have to follow these. They just help with ideas and such.

What is Gothic Literature?
How to Write Gothic Literature.
10 Elements of Gothic Literature.
Southern Gothic (the type most people know most aside from Victorian Gothic)
Gothic Fiction


Enjoy. Have fun. And most importantly, don’t rush yourself on doing something you find interesting. If you don’t find this one interesting, come back in a month! I’ll have another one! Also remember: this is only for fun! Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t have anything or if your heart wasn’t cut out for it.

The point is fun. :p

So, here we are. Middle of the story (on my end at least) and ready to do my best at making an ending for a story. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve failed at that part. I either lost steam or just gave up due to insecurities.

But we won’t let that happen.

If you haven’t been keeping up, I’ve been posting heavily on AO3 and now I’m happy to say that I now have a Goodreads account! Mostly because I wanted to spend next year trying to read more and have a listing of all my posted original works so they can be openly reviewed!

After this, I’ll take a tiny break away from the series and try for something tiny so I can return refreshed, but for now. I’m taking this as a personal win. My three and a half year project is thriving and it’s a note to myself and others that:

You still have time. You can do it. Take your time.

Stay strong, readers.

I’ve been mostly doing a revamp.

How do you like it so far? Too dark? Too grey?

What I’ve been doing to the site is hard linking to the actual serial itself, of which you can read on my AO3 right now to it’s updated chapters. Though it is currently the madness that is NaNoWriMo, I’ve got a couple more chapters in the queue to be posted soon once I do a light edit on it.

Why AO3?

I’ve personally used AO3 for years, honestly. I know how it works. I know the tag system. It’s a fantastic site to use for a serial (despite flaws). The font is easy to read on it and I can link my fiction account directly to it for people who are interested. There, I can get more views than I did here and that’s what my problem was. I wanted to outreach to a wider amount of readers and I couldn’t do that here, a got a couple messages that it was harder to read on here. So my idea was to at least keep this as my portfolio and site to hold character profiles. I could still promote here, but I could also connect all my sites as well.

But at the end, I always keep saying:

Everything I write is free to read. You can always subscribe to my patreon and get chapters up to a week or two early before posting to the public. You can always donate to my Ko-Fi for upkeep and motivation (mostly food and tea, tbh).

But, you don’t need an AO3 to read the latest chapters. Guests can leave kudos! You can also follow my more unprofessional (i’m trying to fix and clean up a more professional one) twitter -> @Pavus_ where I do actually announce when an chapter has updated!

So that’s me to you and I’m glad you’ve stuck with my erratic behavior.

-Chell.

The site is gonna go through a bit of an overhaul, as I stated before. This (and my tumblr) will become mostly a portfolio and a site collection of the characters in each story. Short flash prose will still be posted here, but the actual novella itself will not. However, they will still be linked every chapter update.

I needed to figure out how to do this web serial thing through trial and error, but I wasn’t really getting a reach here.

In a previous post, I mentioned that I was going to start crossposting to other sites– ao3, royal road, wattpad, or tumblr. And here, I’m proud to say that I’ve begun re-editing the story so far and posting it to both AO3 and Royal Road. Both sites encourage reviews and comments and I need it for critiques to see where I lie in my work. Where am I weakest and where is my stronger points. Wattpad… wasn’t too great of a place to be. I realized how overpowered it is with fanfiction. I could say the same of AO3, but it’s a cleaner site and easier to use in my fullest opinion.

So I thank you for sticking this far with me and I hope you stick with the journey off site.

See you in the unlimited void, gentle stars.

Chell/Void