I'm sure a really good writer could get a lot of things out of one of my characters I'd never even thought of but if they were a really good writer why would they need to.

I have just started writing short story's and never understood writers dread of fan fiction till now. I have come up with a character and I don't ever want someone else using that character. anyone else feel possessive of there writing.

I think any author who spends time developing a character is going to be a little possessive of them at minimum, and potentially a whole lot if the character is unique and required a lot of time, effort and imagination.

Great example. In fact, I'd say to keep the fear of heights and re-work the scene to accommodate it. Having a character forced to confront their fears in dangerous situations is awesome!

What makes a good story is the conflict, not just with a villain, but with our own human nature. Fear of heights, dealing with crowds, being shot at, being shot, anything and everything depending on the character. If we plan a story out so far and with so much detail that there are no surprises, we can miss the accidental conflicts that can occur between a character and the story as we write it.

Or to the free beer offered by the conference organizers! (No joke. The lines wrap around entire aisles in the exhibit hall.)  It's kind of comforting, really: one lousy talk won't derail your career.

There's a certain amount of lack-of-expertise inherent in any committee that is required to have members from outside the field, not to mention a certain amount of...reluctance? to adopt mathematical methods in a field that is traditionally dominated by observation and (verbal) description.  I'm going to have to write my thesis in accessible language for those reasons, but I also want to write in a style that's understandable to everyone.  I hate it when technical papers play "hide the verb" with subordinate clauses-- it makes it really hard to grasp the authors' main argument.

Like any good mystery, you have to ask interesting questions then answer them until you've laid out the whole story. If you just say the first step is to determine such and such, then it's going to be pretty dry. If instead you say, the first question is 'can we determine such and such, within a specific range of accuracy, considering we have these variables', then you've got a chance people will pay attention. If the answer isn't obvious, then they'll want to know the answer.

 

I've heard more than a few authors say that once their characters are fully developed they often will take over and drive the story and plot. Others prefer the characters, no matter how well developed, stay within the original borders of the story.

The preference may be dictated by the degree the author outlines their stories or if he just starts from the beginning and lets things happen from there. And certainly well developed characters in a series would govern any new story lines an author creates to avoid having them go against type.

Do your characters come alive and rule or does the story? Will a character cause you to change a story or plot in the middle of a book because it's something the character (as you've developed it to that point) would not do?
 

I like to use name lists.  An easy one to do are Baby Names.  But I actually prefer to just do a simple google search and find those sites with Irish or Romanian or Greek names that also have descriptions that go along with the names.

This makes it easy to have non-space funky names that aren't all over the map and can also be a bit period or strange world culture indicative and help add flavor to the world without straining my brain.  If a name comes to me by itself that's cool but on the whole I find it a lot easier to just go to the list and pick out a cool name, one that fits with where I want the new secondary to go with.



The Deposed King

I do the same thing. Establish the background of the character then find a name that matches.

Speaking and writing are different, though. Writing, you can assume people are there because they want to be reading it.

Academic speaking, on the other hand, 10% of the audience will like no matter what you say, 10% will disagree no matter what you say, and the other 80% are thinking about sex.  (I understand it's possible to modify these figures by doing academic speaking that is actually about sex, but I have no experience in that direction.)

Even when the work is written, the work is speaking to an audience. The audience is this case is the review committee then a suitable publication for peer review, which assumes some level of expertise.

And yes, when speaking to a live audience you're lucky if you don't lose a number of them to a pure lack of interest or to many of life's distractions, especially if the conference is in Las Vegas and most of them were up partying half the night.

'Noooo!' My mind screamed, as I started to reach for the handle. 'This can't be!' I was scared, yes --dreadfully so--, but was I crazy? Perhaps it was true; the stress had been building for months. I again listened, closing my eyes, letting my senses reach out to the sounds of the night. A subtle breeze through the pines, branches against the window in the living room, and the clock on the wall, its second hand softly ticking away. If I was mad, would my hearing be so acute?

I inhaled a deep breath to sample the fragrances around me; the hint of pine still present even in the cold of winter, the coffee grinds and banana peels from the trash I'd knocked over, the roses in the vase on the counter and even the smell of pea-soup lingering on the paper towels from where I'd dropped them. Could I be insane if the lightest scent does not escape me?

I opened my eyes to what lie around me; the ceiling light cast a yellow tint upon the room; the roses a deep red, capping the porcelain vase of black and gold, and the walnut cabinets a rich contrast of deep browns. If I were truly mad, would my sight be so sharp and colors so vivid? If not one of my senses had been dulled, am I not fully aware and in command of my faculties? Or . . .  is sanity more than awareness.

I thought myself clever coming here, a chance to focus on my work. But, it is possible I was too clever for my own good; at least it does seem that way now. The strangeness of it all was suffocating, the isolation, the abnormal quiet, and perhaps the thought of creatures unknown to me watching from all the hidden places 'out there'. There was just so much, 'out there', miles of 'OUT THERE', it was maddening and to my mind un-natural.

I needed the sound of the city, the glow of lights to push back the dark. Here the dark was total, a void where everything lurked, ready to pounce, when you least expected it. 'How could anyone live like this?!' No wonder my mind plays tricks upon me, how could it not?

Somehow, I must get through this. Maybe, if I can clear and settle my mind, the snowmen will go away. Just focus on zombies, this book is about zombies, not crazed snowmen gone wild. I grabbed my laptop and went back into the living room to get comfortable. I opened it up and as I began to type, the noise came again.