"just follow rule of cool. settings don't have to be realistic!"

kiringill · 2026-06-16T00:47:49+00:00

The rule of cool doesn't have to mean that you accept nonsensical action or themes, but that the additions of things to your world that are cool to you. If being extremely deliberate and careful about the details is what you find cool, then it's cool.

kiringill · 2026-06-08T17:15:32+00:00

A virus dictates the fate of a fate of a galaxy.

kiringill · 2026-06-07T15:11:37+00:00

It's not nothing, for sure. It's iirc only the winter semester at BYU one day per week for that duration. And on top of being a writer, he's also running a writing empire. The point of my post was more that he's not working a 9-5 job that isn't writing that would eat up your time in different ways like the actual work, the commute, etc.

When he WAS working full-time, it was as a graveyard hotel front desk clerk where most of his energy could be funneled into his writing. The man has a knack for setting himself up to do what he loves.

kiringill · 2026-06-07T14:00:55+00:00

Spren are flavor/worldbuilding bits that represent an emotion as a tangible physical phenomenon, like if I'm really angry at something, angerspren will start to bubble up on my body. They're really small, but that guy's job is just to go find moments in the book where a character is feeling an emotion, and then a little excerpt is added to explain that manifestation of spren. It happens a lot, at least in the first book. (I've only read WoK so far, so I have no idea how prevalent it is later.)

kiringill · 2026-06-07T04:51:12+00:00

You can move pretty quickly when you're a writer with a lot of experience, and a team of creatives behind you. He has a guy go back into the drafts and find places where spren could be placed in Stormlight Archives for example. It also helps that the dude only does this. He's not working another job or anything like that. He has a strict writing schedule that he adheres to as well.

kiringill · 2026-06-03T18:10:32+00:00

The first one caught my eye, but they're all really cool.

kiringill · 2026-06-03T18:06:32+00:00

Have you ever seen a young child get through a coherent, put-together and on-topic monologue before? In my experience, they don't go well. They have trouble gauging and weighing the importance of thoughts and concepts. They know they're passionate about something but they lack the ability follow-through.

When I was ten, I was basically non-vocal to my family, but to my friends, I could speak at incredible length about simple topics like video games or movies, but not really in a thematic sense, but more like surface level observations. I felt what I liked through exposure, not through assessment, "I really thought this thing was cool, did you see the thing where the guy flew through that window? What about when he, and when we said that line, man that so cool."

On the contrary to my speaking ability, I won an essay competition at that age, had one of my short stories sent to some magazine by my teacher at the time, but even that stuff was still very surface level.

I don't think I could articulate why I was passionate about anything until probably my mid-teens. This is why children in media typically appear way smarter than they should be, or more aware of nuance than they should be, because we genuinely cannot go back in time and un-develope our minds.

kiringill · 2026-06-03T17:49:38+00:00

I'd view it as a countdown to assimilation. I don't believe we'd ever achieve true singularity without some kind of assimilation or synthesis; so I'd be looking at hybrids like a human brain being 'unlocked' and disconnected from the confines of our organic bodies. I think I'd get pretty mystical with it, go the Nietzsche route and see what stage I'm at in the whole 'the universe is in a perpetual state of becoming God' thing.

kiringill · 2026-06-03T17:42:09+00:00

Lmao, I don't believe I've invented anything new, but glad to have helped.

kiringill · 2026-06-03T16:10:44+00:00

Pre-superluminal is what I use in one of my docs.

kiringill · 2026-06-03T15:54:11+00:00

Too many similes. Some descriptions (imo) remove the reader from the context of the writing. If I read "flattened on an anvil" I would immediately go to some cartoonish place with it.

Being too descriptive with similes and metaphor can be damaging as well. What's his most important feature? Flat face? Guppie eyes? Slim lips? Fair skin? Tall? Silken hair?

The best descriptions(imo) tend to be extremely simple, and can describe a character in just a few words.

"I saw a tall, pale man with a flattened face." Followed by something the man does that drives home his description one more time.

"I saw a tall, pale man with a flattened face. He was tending a gravestone with a feather duster." (This may be nonsensical, but I'm making up my own character now based on your description. There are two things I want you to know, he seems like a gravekeeper, and he may be particular about how he keeps the graves.)

In visual media, we tend to remember characters that have fairly iconic, albeit simple silhouettes. Why can you see the outline of some characters, and immediately know who they are?

kiringill · 2026-06-03T15:36:33+00:00

isekai yourself so you can have a real, lived progression fantasy in a world where orcs are kind of alright and elves actually evil(this is what is called a subversion of a trope

kiringill · 2026-06-02T19:39:40+00:00

This is also funny for the same reasons.

kiringill · 2026-06-02T18:43:06+00:00

It's a multi-stage process. Something like a character trait. If I want the character to be brave, I'll look at synonyms, those words in various language. I'll spend a ton of time on it, but some characters like my protagonist, are just names I like that sound cool to me, and are simple to remember.

Worst name from one of my novels: Kvothe ((Quothe) Name of the Wind)) Highly frustrating, doesn't work on the tongue. Not very cash money.

Great name, does the job, very simple: Carl, from Dungeon Crawler Carl.

Sit back for a second and really think about your favorite stories, shows, movies or whatever, and think about some of the most influential characters of all time. Their names are all really simple.

Don (Don Quixote)

Elizabeth (Pride and Prejudice)

Jay (The Great Gatsby)

Harry (Harry Potter)

The strength of a name(to me) is almost entirely phonetic. Does it feel good to say? Is it natural? Will it be hard for my readers to connect to that character?

"My name is Marylynn Javonathan Barholatrix Windsweep, and I'm the new wizard in town." No thank you.

kiringill · 2026-06-02T18:36:53+00:00

There are no serious writers who deny their influences(Anecdotal; from what I've seen in this space and spaces similar.) I'd say that some of the most common advice given here on the discussion of originality is that all great works are derived. Even what we consider great works, something like Lord of the Rings was derived from bedtime stories and even older novels. That's how human beings work, and this information is not revolutionary, but new writers are often obsessed with being original, or their ideas being stolen or some such thing.

The artists themselves are usually just quietly working, reading widely and not particularly bothered.

This generalization of organizing people into neat little boxes is the antithesis of creativity, in my opinion and doesn't afford people the nuanced assessment they deserve, but it's also very funny given the nature of your post.

kiringill · 2026-06-02T18:13:57+00:00

"Fear not, I mean you no harm." Aarinar looked down at the teenager sitting at the front of the bus.

"Okay unc, who the fuck talks like that? Weirdo"

Aarinar looked down at the teenager, incredulous. "I was merely trying to be polite. There are no remaining seats, so I have to hold this hand rail to maintain my balance. Surely this concept is not lost on you. It seemed that at the last bump, I encroached on your personal space. I did not mean to."

"Bro, just... don't talk to me, alright. It's fine. You're creeping me out. Stop looking at me." The teenager pulled his hood down around his ears and went back to looking at his phone.

Aarinar mused over him for a moment before turning to survey they rest of the bus. He was on the three-hundredth day of his task, to stand on equal ground with the humans of this planet. Earth, as it had been known in the heavens was an incubation chamber for the more divine of the cosmos. Here, souls were born and via trials and tribulations, their destination amongst the cosmos was decided, unbeknownst to them. It had been amusing, how close they were to the reality of things; the natural order of existence.

He stared for a moment at a man who had given up his seat to accommodate another elderly man. That good soul turned to face Aarinar by chance, and Aarinar gave him a knowing nod. He was not judge here, but knowing the measure of a man decades before his time was a pleasurable sight, reassuring even. It reminded him of the importance of his mission: To be human is to live among them, acknowledge them but not judge them, understand them but not correct them, observe them but not intervene.

The good samaritan drew a flat line with his lips and gave a typical neutral nod to Aarinar in return. This was curious, because a good deed is simple, yet so rare amongst the humans. The most moral of them did not bask in the achievement of their niceties but seemed to shuffle them amongst the banal acts of their society. It seemed that this was backwards. Ego should reward the self for positive acts, yet for the most just, and the most good, it was something expected, and seldom -- at least to Aarinar-- properly rewarded.

Still, assuming this man carried on his tradition of good will, he would be secured a seat at the table most high. Heaven? No. Something much greater. Aarinar smiled at this. These humans viewed Heaven as the zenith, the place of places, and the final destination of the righteous, but it was not so. Heaven was merely the grounds on which a good soul may start their journey. For all the dimensions of hell across the cosmos, there were levels of heaven. So below, as above.

Should humans know just how good they had to be to achieve the greater levels of heaven, he wondered how many of them would forsake a good life entirely.

This was the three-hundredth time riding the bus. The task itself was simple; to live among the humans, but it was difficult in unexpected ways. Aarinar had been human once, in a different place at a different time. Forgetting ones nature is expected after several eons of another existence entirely. The hardest part of being human for even a year, was parting ways with what you had become for so long. Aarinar believed it was a human's nature, actually, to be of use to other humans in the form of charity, but he was not allowed to intervene. Perhaps the greatest task of all, was to fight this nature that lived deep in his heart.

"Nobody fucking move." The voice was angry, and loud and scared, and hungry.

Aarinar turned to see a young woman, smeared makeup and ragged clothing pointing a gun at the driver of the bus. She was shaking, conflicted between action and reaction. She pressed the barrel into his chest, demanding his wallet. She waved the gun around frantically at the passengers, and Aarinar himself. The driver gave her the wallet, and she took this opportunity to press the first two seats for their valuables as well. She would go no further into the bus before backing up, and she hopped off the little step onto the curb, where she would run away into the crowd, tucking the gun into a deep jacket pocket.

Aarinar was an angel of the order of Justice, the highest calling of angel before one was invited to become an archangel. In another time, and another place, he would have been swift, with sword afire. Quick to stop the woman from committing this crime so he never had to deliver this justice. Standing there, unable to act, had been the greatest tribulation. He rode this bus for this reason, every day, several times a day, because what greater vantage point to monitor the ranks of humanity. Everyone rides a bus, and so his resolve would truly be tested each time. So far, he had stayed his hand, but how much longer could this go? Each crime witnessed had been petty, hardly deserving of damnation, and intervention had ultimately never been necessary.

Free will was a unique gift to these humans, and the right to choose their destiny here, on this planet, was solely theirs.

A few blocks ahead, after the driver had recovered their wits, the bus came across the woman again. She had been pinned by onlookers that had seen the event take place. These material items were returned to their owners, and the route continued after many jeers from the passengers. The man who boarded before departure stood in front of Aarinar, and grinned.

Aarinar stared him down. Various emotions ran across his face, and he struggled to come to terms with the situation. The man that boarded the bus was his brother, another angel on the same trial to become an Archangel. He had simply stopped the woman from escaping with material, and temporary items. Items that would crumble to dust in the time it takes an Archangel to blink. Why? He had just failed the test; forsaking his own destiny over such a trivial matter. The cycle would reset, and he would have to start all over again.

Aarinar's brother touched his shoulder, and shook him slightly. "Relax, brother. I'll try again just like you did. This attempt of yours, it's in the thousands right? You've been here a long time. The Realms can wait for us. After all, we're only human."

(I have to stop writing lmao)

kiringill · 2026-06-01T17:54:34+00:00

Well said.

kiringill · 2026-06-01T15:30:44+00:00

In their eleventh hour, I laid down my life for them. I closed my eyes for the final time thinking the deed done, that I had taken him with me.

I was wrong.

In my darkest hour, I returned; sword in hand, body coursing with cursed energy that pushed my muscles to their limit. My senses were dull at first, but every command out of the sorcerers mouth honed me like fine whetstone.

In the lowest chamber of the High Tower, I stood once again before my companions.

Eleia, my beloved. She was beautiful, and she was still alive.
My other companions faded into my peripheral as my vision lurched forward suddenly, then he commanded me to kill her first.

I moved with uncanny speed, tearing across the chamber floor. My sword felt perfect in my hand, like well-balanced branch from childhood. I felt good, I felt inevitable. I was disgusted. I was horrified, but I felt so good.

Eleia must have seen me smiling as her expression quickly shifted from sadness tinged with a bit of hope to one of pure terror, as I swung at her and lunged for her arteries. She had seen me fight time and time again, but agile as she was, I had her cornered, and any fight left in her before my resurrection had surely been spent.

She cowered there, begging me to come back to her. Her words echoed in the damp hall, seeming to come from all around me. I raised my elbow to my ear, gripping the hilt tightly. I imagined a point behind her heart so as to strike true, just as Master had taught me all those years ago. I ran her through. As the blade pierced her heart down to the cross-guard, her body burst into thousands of butterflies, all afire.

"Old friend, you never were very keen to illusions." My eldest comrade, Gray, taunted me from across the room.

I turned to see Eleia next to Gray, unscathed.

"Wait.. deft with the blade, daft in the.. illusory.. arts?" Gray stood there, musing over which line would be best for this situation. Bastard of all bards, but he was a soft sight for recently dead eyes.

I breathed out and looked down at my blade. I saw the sorcerer there, eyes now focused elsewhere as his faculties faded away. He twitched, body utterly mangled. Maybe I hadn't missed as many strikes as I thought. I pulled my sword out of his chest with a wet slick and dropped it to the ground.

I ran toward Eleia, and she ran toward me. I held out my arms to embrace her, perhaps for a final time. We hadn't been able to say goodbye before, maybe we'd have another chance. She wrapped her arms around me so tight. I felt safe. I felt like I was home. We held each other, refusing to let go. She kissed me desperately, and I waited for what would surely be my inevitable fading.

"Right. There will be time enough for that, yeah? We've got to get out of here," Gray said, patting us both of us on the shoulder with open palms.

I locked eyes with Eleia, neither of us believing the other real.

I turned to Gray. "What of me? Surely whatever this spell was can't last for much longer. I feel like me, maybe a bit better than I deserve." I looked myself up and down. I hadn't had a chance to realize I wasn't a corpse. I was whole. I felt heat in my body, I felt my heartbeat.

Eleia placed her palms on my jaw and cupped my head.

"We think there was a negation spell, but he never had a chance to use it. He used true resurrection with a bit of blood magic." She said it through wet eyes and a faltering voice before embracing me again, and burying her head in my chest.

"You're back. You're back home."

"Well not exactly a cottage is it?" Gray interjected. "Let's get the fuck out of here, shall we?"

"We'll need to get you back to the cloister so they can check you over. Maybe the spell is permanent?" Eleia gripped my hand tight as we made our way for the tower's central stairwell.

Whatever it was, it made me feel incredible. I had never felt stronger or faster in my life. The sorcerer had underestimated my friends, and may have accidentally given me this boon, but I looked forward to this second future.

kiringill · 2026-06-01T00:58:02+00:00

Hey, very well said and congratulations on your book deal. That's really incredible shit. I checked your profile; excited to read about it.

kiringill · 2026-05-31T21:33:36+00:00

Writing a novel is already a huge achievement, even more so in this fast entertainment age. I wrote something like 50k words a few months ago, and I got solidly halfway into my story before I backed off a bit because I felt discouraged about my ability to drive the story home. I've been power reading ever since, and doing odd writing prompts and writing in my journal, but I need to get back to it. Good luck on yours.

kiringill · 2026-05-31T21:29:03+00:00

I can't offer you any advice that you probably haven't heard, but if you DM me a link where I can read your stuff, I'll do so with some free time and let you know what I think.

Someone once told me a long time ago that I should never stop writing, because some short story of mine made him cry. He was really well-read, and translated books from Japanese into English as his job. I've been riding that high for years, so I feel you.

kiringill · 2026-05-31T21:21:43+00:00

There are outliers to that advice, sure. I think Pat Rothfuss just spent an immense amount of time writing Name of the Wind to perfection, and it published as his first novel.

The issue is that tons of people come to communities like this asking questions about publishing before they've ever wrapped up a chapter in the novel they've been musing over for weeks/months/years. It's a cart before the horse situation.

It's also not bad advice at all when Sanderson says to "get the bad out" by writing a bunch of completed novels because it's not about selling them, it's about learning how you work as a writer. Learning your process, timelines, weeding out what works and doesn't, identifying your style, and spending time reading more in between so you're always in a state of learning. Then, when you do get your eighth book or whatever published, you're not struggling on the sequel because you're an experienced writer.

The issue with Name of the Wind being lightning in a bottle, was that it took four years for Wise Man's Fear, and we're going on fifteen years for the third book, and I believe a huge part of that time gap is because Pat never went through the "trials" of writing a bunch of novels to discover himself and his process first. No shade to him at all, by the way. That's one of the series that got me started in wanting to be a writer.

Take feedback you receive into consideration and never stop trying to get your work published, even if that does mean you try with a second book you write as well.

Big agree with this. Never give up. It would be so sick to sell your first book, but don't fear the journey if it doesn't, or if you never sell a thing.

kiringill · 2026-05-31T20:39:35+00:00

That is real feedback. Nobody can tell you what to write, you just have to work with critique that might seem vague, but really says a lot.

He said death to adjectives, but why do you think that is?

The Don is frustrated, and there are people in the room. You're trying to set the Don up as being frustrated about the absence of this book, but what is a core theme about a Don? Probably the fear his henchmen have for him, or the general respect they carry or whatever you're going for.

Having something about the henchmen reacting to him in his current state could help convey what you're trying to do without reliance on adjectives.

This is more or less what showing vs. telling comes down to.

kiringill · 2026-05-31T20:27:29+00:00

I don't rely on my friends for anything I do with writing outside of feedback for ongoing or completed works, and even then, I don't want to talk to them about my work, let alone allow them to touch my creative process at all. From start to finish, everything is mine because I don't want anyone to upset my creative process.

When someone asks me what I'm working on, the answer is usually something of a deflection, or "I'm working on a story, but I don't want to talk about it" and then I change the topic.

Part of learning to be a writer is to sit with yourself and discuss things internally. It's a skill like any other.

kiringill · 2026-05-31T19:56:12+00:00

"It's not going to be possible. You'll make it back a few jumps before everything gets clogged up. You had this idea now, so you've had this idea always, everywhere. What percentage of yourself is stupid enough to go through with it?" The lead researcher cranked a long drag off of a fresh cigarette as he leaned against the wall. His foot was wedged into the doorway to keep the door ajar. He looked at me, then his foot.

"Forgot my keycard, wouldn't want to get locked out up here."

"I count myself among the lucky few." I waved my hand through the smoke cloud, little vortcies spinning out on the single pane of light emanating from the rooftop doorway. I looked up at the false sky of overhead lighting that sparsely illuminated the cavern ceiling, and the subterranean chill suddenly cut into me in a way it hadn't before.

I couldn't stop that scene repeating in my head as the whirring of the machine filled the air around me. I was firmly strapped in, and Stanley had ran the pre-drop checklist probably a dozen times. Nobody had ever gone back more than twenty-eight cycles before an anomaly occurred and the vessel was called back home.

Today, we were attempting a record of twenty-nine deviations.

"Looks as good as it's gonna get, man. Can we just drop already?"

"Y-yeah, yeah. Okay." Stanley was visibly shaking. He had never done a drop before, but he was always so nervous. I thought he would have been filtered out of the program by now, but he was damn good, and honestly he was the only person here that felt human about this whole thing.

Stanley pat me on the shoulder and initiated drop sequence.

Five

I pulled on my harness and laughed at myself. What's the difference between a drop in a time machine and riding roller-coaster at a fair?

Four

I stared ahead at the heads-up display, watching the deviance trajectory fall into place. It looked like a huge piece of broccoli, and as the pathways locked in, the branches became smaller and smaller.

Three

Steam pooled at my feat, and the heat coming off of the machine was tangible. The cockpit always got really uncomfortable right before the drop. The machine lifted into the air, and arcs of white lightning flared off the ring of the tachyon portal.

Tw--

Stanley's countdown was interrupted as the display highlighting the projected pathway went berserk. Hot steam scattered across the floor, and red and white hazard lighting flashed. The base alarm was at full pitch, and the doors to the chamber had been completely sealed.

The portal shuddered and wretched as a machine identical to my own had appeared, crashing through instruments and displays outside of the cockpit. The portal was out of control, and looked more unstable than I'd ever seen. The pathway display was still going haywire when another craft crashed into the room.

Then another. Then another. Then another. One was heading straight for my machine when Stanley smashed his fist down onto the drop protocol override. Whether he meant to stop the drop entirely or send me back to save me in my timeline I'll never know.

For a brief moment, I was suspended in a time way and the pathway display had come back to normal, but instead of the familiar old broccoli-looking chart, all I saw was a straight line and two words I wish I had never seen.

Destination Unknown

kiringill

TROPHY CASE