lkh_lashouts | A writing query for you all

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A writing query for you all

Hiya. Long time lurker, infrequent commenter. I have a question poking around on the squishy grey shelves of my brain that I'd like hear some answers to that relate to our shark-jumping heroine and the deterioration of her storyline.

What lessons have the post-Narcissus in Chains novels taught you all?

I ask because I am a novelist and I've written four novels so far, working on getting them published, which is hard. I've heard bits here and there that suggest some of you are also writers and so I wanted to know if you too have been taking notes on what to do and what not to do based on the crap that Hamilton pulls with Anita.

For the interest of brevity, I'll toss my lessons into a list. Feel free to add yours below if my post strikes your fancy.

1) Avoid a sausagefest. This one was a bit difficult considering my novels have to do with pre-established characters (the archangels of Heaven, who are almost all male), but I've made sure that my main character has a healthy spread of supporting female characters. None of them are crazed judgmental bitches or jealous haters. Anita's vendetta against feminine women has taught me to make sure to show all sides of each woman's personality, from the sweet to the vengeful to the tomboy to the girly girl.
2) Do not force in extraneous love interests. I admit there's a love triangle going on in my first novel series, but I've made it clear that it's just two guys. No one else in my main character's life is in love with her, they do not worship the ground she walks on, and they don't compliment her every single time she walks in a room. Unlike Ms. Blake, who must be worshiped by the opposite sex pretty much all the time in the post NiC novels, to my continual disdain.
3) Keep the main character humble and grounded. Anita's got the worst case of high horse syndrome I've seen in a long, long time. I hate how up her own ass she is sometimes, so I've made a point to have other characters point out my girl's flaws and call her out on things when she's being unreasonable.
4) Conflict needs to be in every single scene. Whether it's internal or external, conflict is absolutely necessary in every scene. This does not fly in the post-NiC novels. A particularly horrific example is Cerulean Sins, where there are literally chapters and chapters of nothing but exposition and info dumps that are boring and have absolutely no conflict whatsoever. If you don't believe me, read the first three chapters. You'll probably gawk at the unabashed lack of conflict there.
5) Everything is not about her. There are other characters who have problems, desires, and inner turmoil, and I try my best to allow them to develop throughout the course of the story. Anita's complete lack of sympathy for her poor sex slaves astounds me sometimes. Consider Nathaniel's background. Or hell, Asher's. Both of them should be receiving oodles of love and support and should have character arcs, but Anita and her magical vagina are clearly more important so they just keep getting kicked off screen like red-headed stepchildren.
6) Try to stay modern and do research to keep the details realistic. Many of you brilliant folks have pointed out how behind the times Anita is, especially when it comes to long term birth control and keeping herself clean before and after sex sessions. I've made sure to pull my glasses on and research everything that I possibly can to avoid the dreaded "Did Not Do the Research" label that other writers and readers will be happy to slap on my work otherwise.

Those are the most obvious ones for me. I hope to hear from you guys because I'm genuinely interested and I'd love to talk shop with other writers. Tchau.

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I do want to write erotica, but one thing I will be sure to do is keep it creative! LKH's sex scenes all sort of blur into each other, which really is not the point of erotica :P

Well, since I've started posting, and this is one of my favorite subjects...

EDIT! Edit, edit, and edit some more. And listen to people when they tell you that you're wrong, which IMHO is a part of editing. Always focus on how you can make a book better and more interesting, and never ever assume that your book is good enough.

Have as few characters as possible. Thin the herd frequently to keep things light. If you think you need them later, choose a non-permanent way out. Reunions are always fun, especially when another character has just dropped dead.

Stories have a structure. Some of us can do that easy, some of us need help, but regardless of how talented you are at structuring your story, do not reach for the first thing on top of your head to flesh it out. The work doesn't stop once you've got the thing outlined. Micheal Bay and LKH are both highly talented at story structure, but when it comes to fleshing them out they both turn into poo flinging monkeys reaching for the nearest stack of brown. Weigh all your ideas before you put them into play, and never be scared to throw a bad idea out.

Conflict is your friend. Your characters are not.

(And while this is more from working retail/food service than AB, it congealed while reading AB so might as well) The most important part of your book is not the plot, it's not the characters, it's not the word choice or the research. It's the reader. The point of writing is to be read, otherwise you can keep it all inside your head. That leaves a lot of room for you to play in, but never, ever forget that once you start asking for money you stop writing for yourself. Do whatever you like, but remember if the reader is not happy you will not be getting paid today.

1. Don't introduce a magical new power/person just when the MC needs one. If your MC is in over their head with whatever, and if they can't figure a way to get out of trouble with what they have on them, or just by running away...well, they suffer consequences. Which leads me to

2. Consequences. Everything should have consequences. Like, in a world where Anita isn't the Author's Sue, she wouldn't get away with showing up to work with the police in six inch high heels, and seven guys in tow. They would totally stop hiring her to consult (or whatever she does now) if she refused to stop bringing random dudes with her to crime scenes and dressing so unprofessional/impractical.

That's a really cool list, though I'd argue that conflict isn't necessary in every single scene because then you're just rolling from one thing to the next without getting a chance to calm down and breathe. It's important to know when to take a break before diving back in or upping the ante.

That said, I'd also add:
A) ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES. And sometimes they might seem minor at first but can snowball into something massive later. But having a heroine that gets to do whatever she wants because of handwavey laws/superpowers when she demonises (and has killed people) for lesser offenses. I still can't wrap my head around how it's okay for Anita to enslave people to her harem but it's OH SO TERRIBLE for Belle Morte to do it because BM totally doesn't love her sweethearts. And how Anita's defeated MOAD but evidently suffered no side-effects from devouring the power of the oldest and most powerful thing ever or how nobody's really noticed MOAD's sudden disappearance.

Mostly this provides the pay-off for victory -- a character that doesn't struggle for it isn't interesting to me. This is a major problem that I had playing Dishonored because Corvo starts off as the most badassed character ever and only he and his particular skills can pull off these missions, and in the end...he's still the same guy. There's no learning curve, there's a brief moment of being kicked when down but it's okay because he gets his swag back and resumes being the most awesome. (Also the whole thing with the Outsider grates because he's like 'here, have some magic powers because of reasons!' and then turns up to be Captain Exposition from time to time. WHAT IS YOUR POINT, DUDE.)

B) INFODUMPING: look at various ways to do it effectively. In the case of AB:VH the big mistakes are constantly asking, 'What does that mean?' and having information regurgitated often several times saying the same things makes the heroine look like she's a complete idiot. It's a real kicker given that Anita's supposed to be an expert in her field. Plus it grates on my nerves that the author feels the need to coddle the audience and explain every. minute. detail like I'm too stupid to figure something out for myself or read between the lines. Likewise having, "As you know, Bob," lectures between two characters who should probably already know this stuff can get irritating as hell.

The other danger in this is that slabs of internal monologue can break up the pace of a scene. I'm trying to get back into Kiss the Dead and got two pages into the first chapter before saying, "I can't do this right now," and closing the book because there was so. much. unnecessary. waffle about this vampire's hair and how unaesthetically pleasing he was, meanwhile the actual scene was vampire weeping in terror before the heroine and her trying to get information about a missing girl. #priorities (But this is where I'm grateful for terrible writing because I've learned to become a better critical reader?)

But seriously, if we don't actually need to know this information right now...then don't include it. It will probably save on repetitive splurges later when you might have found a place to insert this information in a more organic fashion. "Show, don't tell," is a good rule of thumb, but sometimes exposition is kinda necessary. Knowing when to do that is tough.

(argh, to be continued because I'm too wordy for LJ comment fields)

Listen to your readers, particularly the ones who have been on board since the beginning.That's not to say you should go down the "give them exactly what they want" school of thought road, but it does mean that if you collected a large group of fervent fans and suddenly they seem to be bailing out in droves, it may be a good idea to find out why. As the writer, you don't always know best. Outside input is important.

Many of you brilliant folks have pointed out how behind the times Anita is, especially when it comes to long term birth control and keeping herself clean before and after sex sessions and fashion choices.

I've not read the later books - I come here for the sporkings instead! - but so far as I can see the old truism "murder your darlings" holds fast. You have to get rid of stuff you think is So Kewl a lot of the time. And in LKH's case, some actual murdering of some of Anita's actual darlings would probably help declutter immensely.

I'll try to add a few that I think haven't been said already by others....

- Character flaws that are really flaws. I get tired of the usual 'hot temper, rebels against authority, too honest, cares about her friends too much, etc.' that a lot of novels have. They can be really good flaws if used to their fullest potential to bite the character in the ass (like when Sirius died coming to save Harry from a trap Harry walked into that exploited his 'needs to save people' thing) but they're usually not. Usually they're there to make the character seem more noble and cool. Such is the case with Anita's snappiness--it's technically a flaw, but it's meant to make her look clever and snarky, and she never gets in trouble with her boss or the cops (or, if she does get in trouble with cops, they're the bad guy and it's really because they're jealous bigots)

- Character flaws that are ACKNOWLEDGED as flaws. Anita has SO many things wrong with her, but LKH doesn't seem to realize it, and the narrative doesn't treat any of these traits or actions as wrong, and anytime another character does, they're shown as in the wrong for it. Which brings me to...

- Other characters can be in the right, including ones that disagree with your character or dislike your character or vice versa. And even if they are in the wrong, they are not horrible people for it. They also have their own reasons that probably should not include 'just jealous of your character' or 'is a close-minded bigot' most of the time, because those are reasons that the are designed to pit the reader against them. Making their reasons understandable is a lot better in my book, especially if you're writing for an adult audience that should be ready to see a world that isn't just black and white.

- Your protagonist does not have to be a likeable or good person, but they should be a likeable and good character, or at least fun/interesting to read about. Anita is not. She is not interesting, fun, or enjoyable to read about or from the POV from at all anymore. Probably the BEST example of nailing this that I've ever encountered is Humbert Humbert from Lolita by Nabokov. Written from the POV of a vain pedophile who kidnaps a twelve year old after marrying her mother to get close to her, and said pedophile is an immensely likeable character for most readers and interesting as hell to read about. And his story? Doesn't have zombies or werebeasts or metaphysical powers. But it has him and Lolita. The world is really only as interesting in practice as the characters make it, and Anita's world is amazing in theory, but she's doing zip in it anymore, no exploring and expanding like there used to be beyond the bare minimum for an asspull to give her a new power or lover.

- If you are writing from the POV of a character, keep in mind what they would focus on, and when. In the first chapter of Skin Trade, Anita has just gotten a head sent to her in a box from Vittorio, a master vampires and serial killer. She is about to call the Vegas police (since the return address was Vegas) but then goes on a very long monologue about the photos on her co-workers Manny and Larry's desks, and who is in them, and what they look like. We learn the names, nicknames, and ages of their kids, Anita insults their wives, and we know the exact color and texture of Larry's baby's hair and how it relates to each of her parents and how it compares to that of Nathaniel. And then she starts wondering if she should have pictures on HER desk and who of. And when she actually meets Vittorio and it's supposed to be a scary oh-shit situation, she notices that his hands aren't as dainty as she likes on her men but are still graceful enough. Neither of these things make any sense for her to be focusing on at that moment. It makes her seem like she's stupid, doesn't care, or has ADHD. Which brings me to...

- Relevance. No one in those photos ever shows up in these books. That baby's hair is never important. That was a big waste of time and words.

- You know what else got lots and lots of description and mentions in Skin Trade? The numerous weapons that Anita brought with her to Vegas. I was particularly excited for the phosphorous grenades. Guess what? She never uses ANY of them. Not a single weapon, be it gun or grenade or knife, all of which we were treated to numerous lengthy listings and descriptions of, gets to be actually used. We also get a lot of scenes of her refusing to put down her weapons to get in somewhere or see someone, and a scene where a cop nearly arrests her because of everything she's carrying. If you are going to include stuff like this and bring it up repeatedly, it better actually see some action. Chekhov's Gun and all.

- Indeed, don't include the promise of cool things in general and then not deliver. In Skin Trade, we got a demon, we got jinn, and we got a team of SWAT wizards and psychics who each had a special power or magic of their own. The demon is never faced because it goes back where it came from on its own, the jinn are sealed away semi-offscreen with no fanfare or challenge, and only one SWAT guy ever uses his power and that's in the same vein as the jinn situation. That's cheating the reader so hard, and they will hate that. It's disappointing. It's a rip-off. Don't do it.

AND PROBABLY MORE LATER, I LIKE THIS TOPIC!

- Some variety in the villains. Unless they all have reason to have the same motive (like the Death Eaters in HP--and even then, some were more moved out of fear or family loyalty than sheer prejudice) they shouldn't. AB used to be good about this--Nikolaos wanted the vampire murders solved, Gaynor wanted a zombie raised so he could find the hidden family treasure, Zachary wanted to stay alive, Dominga wanted money, Stirling wanted land to build a resort, Magnus wanted to increase his fey powers, Niley wanted the Spear of Destiny. You had some diverse, creative motives there. Now, however, all the motives of the villains revolve around Anita in some way--they're jealous of her, they're in love with her, they want her dead, and/or they want her powers. Chimera wanted her for his queen, Vittorio wanted her for his Human Servant, MOAD wanted her for her new body, it's pretty much all about her.And that's getting boring, predictable, and it's done really obnoxiously to boot. I would like new villains with new interests, please.

- Speaking of variety in villains, also have variety in personality. The baddies in AB are almost always these over-the-top cruel sadists who torture and rape for the sheer fun of it. That was shocking and edgy at first, yes, but it's unimaginative and exploitative at this point. I'm not saying all villains need to be nuanced and sympathetic and have good sides (though some should!) but when they're all super-ridiuclously-eeeevil and all in the exact same way, it shows a lack of creativity and will cease to interest the reader. Different personalities and modes of operation is just as important as different motives when it comes to having multiple villains who are all independent of each other.

- If there is going to be sex, fine. But it should not delay, interrupt, or take over the plot.

- The tone can be lightened or darkened, but it should remain the same color, so to speak. For instance, Buffy and Harry Potter both got progressively darker, but it was still the same general thing---good wizards versus bad, teens/young adults against monsters. AB's tone, however, has just changed completely. It's gone from hunting monsters to just basically being about Anita's personal life and her harem, with some occasional minor monster crisis on the side if we're lucky. It's not that the tone has just gotten less grim and dark, the entire point of the books has changed from action/horror to badly-done erotica and whining. If a series promises to be something for a reader, it should keep that promise, not steadily degrade into something else entirely. It shouldn't get stale or repetitive either, but, in my opinion, the 'color' should still be consistent no matter what shade it's in.

- Speaking of keeping with a theme, remember how each book used to be named after a supernatural-owned establishment that appeared in that book? That should have been kept. I really hate now how the titles generally have fuck all to do with the book. Seriously, why is Skin Trade called that? I've finished it and I still don't know. Flirt makes sense, but it's still stupid.

- The pacing in Skin Trade was painful. It just...plodded. It crawled. I have decided to never, ever inflict that on my readers (if I ever have any)

1) Overdescribing characters deep-sixes the reader's imagination. I know we generally have a distinct vision of our characters, but we have to give readers room to develop their own mental images tailored to what works for them. Going through four paragraphs of specifics down to flecks of color in eyes tells me that the writer is bound and determined that the reader WILL ONLY THINK OF THEIR CHARACTER ONE WAY and that's pretty egotistical. Frankly unless there is a good in-story reason that hair length down to millimeters/eye shade down to hex code/skin color down to six carefully-selected words from the word-a-day calender is important it is all filler and prevents the reader from the pleasing work of fleshing out the details themselves.

2) That being said, have some interesting locations much of the time, and at least one interesting detail about the location you're in all of the time, or the reader is going to get confused and bored. I realize her job takes her mostly to police stations and strip clubs, but they are all one big blur of beige walls and grumpy cops/neon lights and misogynist lady descriptions. Either come up with more memorable descriptions or start going to more memorable places.

3) It is just fine to care about your characters. It is not fine to swaddle them in cotton wool and protect them from the world. It inhibits growth, conflict, and action, all of which are the point of writing a book in the first place. Just like you have to let your real world friends deal with the issues in their lives, you have to let your characters deal with the issues in theirs. This is what the reader is there to see, after all.

4) Learn to read your own work like a reader and not a writer. If you can't, get an editor. If you can, get an editor anyway. You're a writer, not a god- you might know what you like but you don't always know what is best for publication. If you like something the editor wants to take out, save the original in a separate file and put it away for your own use and go back to work on the editor-approved version.

Write dialogue that exists for a reason. An occasional quip or bit of something that doesn't advance the plot isn't necessarily a problem (especially if it's used as a way to flesh out a character or add strength to their voice), but these should be used sparingly, and any major conversation should have a point and later ramifications.

And, ffs, make your characters talk like people. People do not talk circles around each other for twenty minutes at a time. Again, a bit of confusion for comedy or plot purposes might be fine, but don't have every conversation be full of people establishing basic information over and over again. It's annoying and makes your characters (and you!) look like morons. Or, worse, it looks like you think your readers are.

I think it'll be all right if the character isn't humble or grounded. Harry Potter sometimes suffered from arrogance from being the chosen one. What made him NOT a Gary Stu is that not everyone in the book worshipped him or thought he was all that great. There were students more popular than him. He was bullied. Many felt there were many times where Harry was wrong, and many times, he's been proven wrong.

Anita is this untouchable siren that everyone agrees with or loves. If not, LKH makes it a point to discredit her opposition by making them sexist or racist. Anita needs to be wrong sometimes. She needs to see the consequence of her bad judgement sometimes (e.g., Sirius dying because of Potter). There needs to be people who are more attractive and more intelligent.

On that note, I also learned that villains should be realistic and maybe even relatable. Not everything is black and white like in Anita's world. Her villains tend to be all about sadism and power (I think someone mentioned this already). Gray villains can be more awesome than totally black and evil villains. One villain that comes to mind is Ozymandias from Watchmen. Arrogant, rich, a bit of a know-it-all. He destroyed New York ---- all to invoke World Peace. WORLD FUCKING PEACE. This villain provoked debate with everyone who read the comics or watched the movie. It added a moral ambiguity to the movie, a moral ambiguity that LKH seems to strive for sometimes but always, always falls waaay short.

- If you want your character to seem intelligent, competent, clever, etc., do not do so by just making everyone else idiots so s/he looks the best of the lot by comparison. I am really tried of Anita being considered the ~expert!~ on all things supernatural for knowing very basic things you'd think anyone living in this world, or certainly in law enforcement in the world, would already be quite aware of in the same way that they are aware milk usually comes from cows, rain becomes ice because of the water cycle, don't make eye contact with an angry dog, and so on.

Which brings me to...

- Think about how the world you're writing would really be. Okay, so it's got all these differences from our world. What differences would those differences cause? In the Anitaverse, there are all these supernatural creatures, and always have been, and people have always known this, yet there doesn't seem to have been much adaptation to their existence. For instance, the whole reason that vampires/witches/wereanimals are executed even for petty crimes such as shoplifting is that there's no prison that can successfully contain them because of their powers. Well, why the hell not? How about, for vampires, a prison staffed by priest? Why aren't there more weapons specifically geared towards taking out monsters? Anita herself complains about this in Skin Trade, asking why the SWAT hasn't come up with anything better, etc. And that's a hell of a good question--why haven't they? Or rather, why hasn't LKH? She basically just dropped a bunch of monsters into the world, but didn't consider how the world would really CHANGE beyond some of the legal stuff. Which is sad, because that alone is a really fertile ground for amazing creative stuff. Not just for ways of fighting and containing monsters, but stuff like history--you have people who were really there!--and media and just SO MUCH. Maybe you'll never get a chance to work it all in, sure, but at least think about it so YOU know if it ever comes up and don't have the fudge it on the spot and fret over it not fitting pre-established canon, etc.

- Keep track of your canon. And not with sticky-notes.

- Keep track of consistency. Anita is inconsistent as all hell in words, opinions, and actions on a regular basis. Not to mention hypocritical in a way I don't think was intended.

- If you want your character to be thought of as cool, have them do cool things. If you want them to be seen as tough, do tough things. If you want them to be seen as smart, do smart things. Just having the character SAY cool/tough/smart/etc things or have other characters call them cool/tough/smart/etc is not enough.

- Have the villains be a challenge, especially if you've been amping them up as such. In Skin Trade (sorry to keep bringing that one up, it's the first one since NiC--and that was back in high school, I graduated COLLEGE this year--that I read) we got a lot of talk about what a threat Vittorio was. He ended up not doing much at all, and not being hard to defeat. Fuck that--the heroes need to really be risking something when they fight the Big Bad, and, if you're writing for an audience that's out of elementary school, sometimes they should not only risk it but lose it. Especially if you are writing a gritty grimdark edgy monster-hunting series, for crying out loud. I am a big proponent of victory only coming at a price.

There can be more than one awesome female character. There is not a finite amount of awesome in the world, you don't have to horde it all for one character. I see this a lot in urban fantasy, the female main character is often the only female character that is allowed to be strong. All others have to be weak, petty, backstabbers, or damsels in distress. LKH is a big offender when it comes to this. Downgrading all the other female characters does not make Anita look better by comparison; it just makes LKH look like she hates her own gender.

Make sure your female characters have female friends and spends time with them. Most people have friends that are the same gender as them. Most people spend time with their friends, even if it's just to get together and gripe about how much work sucks. And on this note, make sure your female characters pass the bechdel test. Love lives are not the be all and end all of existence. The scenes with Ronnie and Anita going jogging and talking about cases did a lot to develop Anita's character and make her more real. Getting rid of those was one of the worst choices LKH has made.

Little mundane moments of life are a great way to ground the reader in the universe. Make sure you have them sprinkled thoughout the story. It's also a great way to show how the supernatural affects the everyday. LKH used to be good at this in the early books. The scene where Anita is trying to get the blood off her penguin collection is a particularly memorable one. Also, what happened to Anita's angelfish? I don't think we've seen those since the early books. I remember a scene where JC was staring at her fish and they had a conversation about them in the Laughing Corpse. Also little details about checking holy items in the entrance to some of the night clubs really gave you a good sense of how vampires being out in the open changed the world setting. There's a huge lack of effective scenes like these in the latter books and while you know what everyone looks like and what they're wearing they might as well be walking around in a void. You know the setting is analogous to present day, but you have no real sense of anything else. You know Anita spends a lot of time in strip clubs, but you don't know if they're seedy or high class. Is the police station well funded or are they trying to scrape by with their budget?

Protagonists are characters that move the story forward. If your character is merely reacting to the events around them, they aren't being good protagonists, they're being passive. Passive characters are very difficult to make interesting and it's really difficult to have an interesting story with a passive character. Those kinds of stories tend to drift aimlessly and things happen around the character since they're not actively engaging in most of the events. This is the core of the problems with the newer Anita books. Everything interesting happens off screen when Anita isn't there because she's busy reacting to the aurdeur, or drifting from pointless event to pointless event. Things take forever to happen because something has to be contrived to get Anita there because she won't do it on her own. She won't take care of herself, others have to do it for her. The bad guys have to pretty much kick down her door to be noticed. Anita does noting to move the story forward on her own. She just stands around and talks about how awesome and edgy she USED to be.

If you are doing a POV story then admit in your own head as you write it that your protagonist is always going to be an unreliable narrator of the story. We are all unreliable narrators of our own lives as we want to see ourselves in the best light, even if we don't always do the best thing. And then let other characters point it out when it happens. Anita is always the specialist snowflake, everywhere, every day, till the end of time and none of her 'real' flaws are even acknowledged as flaws instead we get pages long tirades on prudery.

(Someone above mentioned Harry Potter, and I think that he shows the unreliable narrator in a story, he is a preteen child when the book starts he doesn't know about magic, there is no way he can be the best judge of character or understand what is happening in the world. He took his dislike for Snape--who yes was a big jerk--but maybe just needed a hug...haha--and turned that into snape trying to kill him. That's just one example. Rowling didn't fall into the problem we have with Anita. Anita is always right Harry was wrong on multiple occasions.)

Give credit where credit is due. Let 'experts' actually be good at their jobs. Re: Anita and law enforcement, they are always the bumbling three stooges variety and not even one is a highly trained professional. I reject the notion that every single law enforcement officer in the whole wide world is a bumbling idiot. Anita or any protagonist doesn't actually have to be the best at everything.

FINALLY...my biggest pet peeve...well the non squick inducing one anyway. Every single man (I would say woman and child, but lkh doesn't write them) are super speshal also. Crazy eye and hair color, length of hair, prettiest, niftiest, biggest penis' ever on a human male. Let someone be 'normal'. BUT IF they are 'normal' then don't have every single other person in the whole wide world immediately fall in love with/or be jealous of them!

To be fair, I have read and written (heh) a fair few sues in my life. I even think they are fun sometimes, but when the author is so blind to the deus ex machina via vagina then we have a major problem!

I've learned that setting up a drinking game based on the series will probably kill whoever tries it in one sitting for the books after NiC, via either alcohol poisoning or water intoxication.

Uh, I mean.

- When you mention something about your world that may catch the reader's attention, be sure to actually use it eventually. It doesn't have to be in the same chapter, or even in the same book, but don't go 'oh by the way there are dragons' and then forget it forever. Even a passing mention once or twice will do, since it'll keep the canon's framework stable.
- Authors may have to set examples eventually. Don't call people jealous whiner babies and blither on about being the fluffiest of fluffy bunnies. That's the wrong example. Because young impressionable folk may follow it eventually.
- Be careful if you choose to (for whatever reason) recycle plots. Because that's boring. Sprucing it up and adding new things and solutions in might help a little bit, but you can only do so much.
- Don't forget that canon actually applies to the main character too.
- Varied vocabulary is very vivid. But don't chew up a thesaurus, spit the crunchy bits out onto a bit of looseleaf, and call it literary genius. ...And the word 'sweeties' can go curl up in the hopper of a rusted old wood chipper.

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