Tara Maya's Tales

Rayne Hall   has published more than forty books under different pen names with different publishers in different genres, mostly fantasy, horror and non-fiction. Recent books include   Storm Dancer  (dark epic fantasy novel),  Six Historical Tales Vol 1, Six Scary Tales Vol 1, 2 and 3   (mild horror stories),   Six Historical Tales   (short stories),   Six Quirky Tales   (humorous fantasy stories),   Writing Fight Scenes   and   Writing Scary Scenes   (instructions for authors). She holds a college degree in publishing management and a masters degree in creative writing. Currently, she edits the  Ten Tales  series of multi-author short story anthologies:  Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires, Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts, Scared: Ten Tales of Horror, Cutlass: Ten Tales of Pirates, Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchcraft, Spells: Ten Tales of Magic  and more.   Her short  online classes for writers ...

Rayne Hall has published more than forty books under different pen names with different publishers in different genres, mostly fantasy, horror and non-fiction. Recent books include Storm Dancer (dark epic fantasy novel), Six Historical Tales Vol 1, Six Scary Tales Vol 1, 2 and 3 (mild horror stories), Six Historical Tales (short stories), Six Quirky Tales (humorous fantasy stories), Writing Fight Scenes and Writing Scary Scenes (instructions for authors). She holds a college degree in publishing management and a masters degree in creative writing. Currently, she edits the Ten Tales series of multi-author short story anthologies: Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires, Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts, Scared: Ten Tales of Horror, Cutlass: Ten Tales of Pirates, Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchcraft, Spells: Ten Tales of Magic and more.   Her short online classes for writers intense with plenty of personal feedback. Writing Fight Scenes, Writing Scary Scenes, Writing about Magic and...

--> These are my personal tips for NaNoWriMo. You know the drill. Take only what works. Plot and character are symbiotic. I write plot driven stories, and I know my Tips here reflect that. That’s because I’m just writing down as “tips” the things I myself am doing as I work on my novel. My own bias is embedded in the techniques I highlight. At some point, though, even the most plot-crazed author needs to look into the hearts of the characters. That’s really where the power of the story is going to reside, in the end. Other writers start with character from the get-go and then figure out plot as it arises from the wants and needs of those characters. By the end of the process, if you’ve done it right, the reader shouldn’t be able to tell where you started. Often, though, you’ll start strong with one and have no inkling about the other. You’ll have an awesome, well-rounded character but no idea what to do with her, or an awesome, action-packed plot populat...

You don't need to tell us he has eyes; if he has no eyes, tell us. These are my personal tips for NaNoWriMo. You know the drill. Take only what works. When you think about characters, you’ll want to juggle a couple purposes for them. First, characters should be interesting people we can relate to on some level. They will need biographies. Second, the characters need to compliment each other, behave like individuals, with independent motives, so they will need to have different personalities from each other. Third, the characters must conflict with each other to drive the plot, so they need different roles in the story. Biography A lot of character prompt sheets have millions of things do decide about your character. What was his elementary school? What’s his favorite ice cream?   These questions might be totally relevant to you. Or not. When I’m working on characters for my Unfinished Song series, which is a second world epic fantasy with Neolithic-era tech (b...

Over on YAtopia is a good post on character motivation: The problem with flimsy motivations is that they make the entire story unbelievable. Your characters don't have to do things exactly as the reader would do them - but they do have to act like a "normal person" would be expected to act. Without those believable motivations, the reader is unable to suspend disbelief. And when disbelief enters the mind, suddenly everything in the book starts to look sketchy. So, how do you make sure your characters are realistically motivated? 1. Don't be afraid of the early reveal. Many authors believe that the mystery is what drives the book. Au contraire, my fine friends. Tension is what drives a book. It doesn't matter if your hero has the answer - what matters is what knowing the truth could do to him... Read the rest .

Let's say you have a character, Jane, who is having some problems in her marriage. You might have Jane sitting at a cafe, sipping her latte and ruminating over her divorce. At the next table, she overhears a bickering couple. What happens next? Jane's reaction to the bickering couple will depend on where her character stands on the Hero/Everyman spectrum. Orson Scott Card discusses this in his book on Characters. As readers, we want to identify with a protagonist. The protagonist has to be human enough, ordinary enough, that we can relate to him and his hurdles. At the same time, we want the protagonist to be someone whom we admire, and to whom we can aspire: someone like us but a little bit better than us. A hero. If Jane is living in a literary novel, she's likely to be as "ordinary" and "real" as possible, which means she probably won't even remark on the couple's conversation. The author will slyly allow the reader to make the conne...

As I struggle with finding the beginning, ending, voice and person, for my Secret Novel, I return each time to the characters themselves. Many of you have given me the advice, "Listen to what the characters tell you." I pondered this wisdom deeply and realized something profound. I have no frickin' idea what my characters are telling me. Here's the problem. I know the shape of my story well... but only from the outside. I know what happens to my characters. But I don't know what happens within my characters. I realize this is odd. Usually, I know what my characters want before I know what will stop them from getting it. For various reasons, mostly because my secret novel is inspired by real events, I know all the obstacles but none of the aspirations. My characters have external motivation. Bad things happen to them. But what is their internal motivation? What keeps them going despite the bad things? This is what I have to discover. I usually write ch...