the-lake-king

[the-lake-king]

Hi! I followed your username from Men of no Country to here and right to your fic questionnaire, where you've said one of your strong points is writing OCs (and, considering Peter is '90% of my own devising', as you said). So as a fellow writer I wanted to ask you: how do you go about making your OCs? I always make them too bland, personally, but that might just be lack of practice.

Wow, what a question! Sorry for not seeing this earlier; I don't check Tumblr very often these days. I think coming up with characters is a process that varies wildly from one author to another, and there is no 'right' answer. Also, it's something that's always been fairly organic for me, so I don't know that I'm the best person to actually give advice if that's something you have trouble with. That being said, I'm flattered you would think to ask me, and I'll try to break down my process.

First, what is this character for? I don't mean this in a big, existential way, more of a 'what do I need this person to do in the story?' I pretty much constructed the Peter of Men of No Country while writing the first chapter, so let's start with that. I wanted to have someone who would ultimately be kind of an opposite to Thomas, so what does that mean? I came up with some things that I thought this person could be:

outwardly anxious

free with his emotions

awkward

Okay, that's enough to start with. From canon, we have that he's:

an artist

an aristocrat

he has a good relationship with his cousin

he's run off to Tangier

heavily, heavily implied to be gay

This stuff could just as easily be things that you or I came up with for a character that was 100% out of whole cloth, but we have it here so might as well use it. So, we're going to have a hyper-visual, somewhat flamboyant escapist, who, idk, doesn't like the cold?

At this point when thinking about a character, I like to step into their shoes for a bit. This guy is back in England for his cousin's wedding. Let's start on a minute alone with him. Maybe Bertie is coming to meet up with him in London so they can go north together, and he's waiting by himself. What is he doing? What is he thinking about? What is he looking at? Maybe he's cupping his hands around his tea for warmth. Maybe he's looking out the window, people-watching. Maybe he's worried that somehow he'll mess things up. Maybe he's excited to meet his cousin's fiancée. A lot of the specifics don't really matter in themselves. The point is that I try to become this person in my head for a while, and understand how it feels.

I find that at this point, for me, the character will start to get a voice and a life of their own. This is the part where I really couldn't tell you how to do it. Peter capitalizes Certain Ideas in his head. I didn't exactly decide that he does that. I didn't decide that he counts backwards to calm himself down, either. I can only say that I find it's a bit like starting a snowball and rolling it down a hill. If you get a big enough core packed properly, it just picks up more snow and adds to itself. The only sensible notion I can pluck out of it is not to just stick random quirks in where they don't naturally come up, and instead let the little things flow from the big things you decided at the beginning.

The last thing I do is steal. Peter gets extremely nauseous on ships, a little on trains, but not at all in cars speeding through winding city streets. That's someone I knew in school. Peter's hands shake so much sometimes that it interferes with his work, and it freaks him out even though he's dealt with it for a long time. That's me. Those are my hands, and that's my ruined drawing. They feel real because they are. Simple as that.

I don't know how much help this is, or if this is the kind of answer you wanted, but this is just about how I do it. Hopefully, you can pull something useful out of it all. Good luck, and I'm sure that one way or another, with practice, you will find you get better :)

#answered asks #writing advice

[the-lake-king]

I need to let you know that I found your story "Men of No Country" (as you will find out as soon as you get the mail saying that you got, uh, several mile-long comments on it😅no pressure to answer to them of course!!) and I'm in love with it 🥺and with your writing style🥺 and with your characters!!! All of them except Philipp😒 but especially Benny😊🤗he's wonderful and sweet and kind and lovely and handsome!!! And he now has a special place in my heart❤️😌

Hello Fred, thank you for your comments! They have quite possibly made my month, and I promise I'll answer them in more detail than here. I'm so glad you're enjoying the story. Your love for Benny is particularly appreciated, since he's my special OC bean that I didn't have a home for for the longest time. I'd toyed with the idea of doing a one-shot from his POV once the main fic wraps up, and I think you've convinced me. :)

P.S. - Love your username.

#asks #fanfic #men of no country

[the-lake-king]

Fic questions! I was tagged by @irrationalgame. Thank you, my dear :)

1) how many works do you have on AO3?

• 20

2) what’s your total AO3 word count?

• 121,883

3) how many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

• Only Downton Abbey that's up there, though I did have a Good Omens one once upon a time.

4) what are your top five fics by kudos?

• Men of No Country - Peter Pelham x Thomas Barrow (Pelrow?) in Tangier

• The Thing About Barrow - George Crawley POV through the ages

• Almost Eurydice - Thommy, based on, shockingly, Orpheus and Eurydice

• By the Light of the Night - Thommy, a re-imagined night of the fire

• Beautiful Day - Barris, a sweet vignette 

5) do you respond to comments? why or why not?

• I always respond to people, though it might take me a little while. I’m still utterly baffled that people read my stuff, and I want to talk about it. I deeply appreciate people taking the time to give me their thoughts because I know it can be weird/intimidating to talk to an author.

6) what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

• Toss-up between Someday and Without Stamps. Both of them have ambiguous endings that are sad in different ways. Although, I have stuff in the works that’s much angstier.

7) do you write crossovers? if so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

• I haven’t, but I’m not opposed to it. I had an idea a while back for a His Dark Materials crossover (basically just Downton but set in Lyra’s world), but I can’t promise that it will ever see the light of day. 

8) have you ever received hate on a fic?

• Thankfully, I have not. As soon as I say that, I’m sure some will turn up in my inbox.

9) do you write smut? if so what kind?

• I have been known to sometimes. M/M, thus far. I haven’t really published anything I would consider kinky, but I’ve been told that I have a very high bar for what qualifies as kinky, so... do with that information what you will.

10) have you ever had a fic stolen?

• I certainly hope not.

11) have you ever had a fic translated?

• Nope.

12) have you ever co-written a fic before?

• I haven’t, but I’m very intrigued by the idea of doing an epistolary fic with somebody.

13) what’s your all-time favourite ship?

• Is saying Thomas x my version of Peter Pelham cheating? I’ve become way too attached to an idiot who is 90% of my own devising.

14) what’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

• Tbh I feel pretty confident that I’ll eventually finish everything I have that I would dignify with the term ‘WIP.’ 

15) what are your writing strengths?

• Making people sad, for sure. I’d also say I have a good hand with OCs.

16) what are your writing weaknesses?

• Editing. I’m a very bad judge of my own writing, so I’m prone to alternately agonizing and slapping things together. It makes my writing erratic at times. I’m also not very good at writing fluff/happiness in general. 

17) what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

• I try to keep it brief, and I always provide translations. I think a lot of it can bog a work down for all the people reading it who don’t speak that language, but that a little bit can add a certain flavour.  

18) what was the first fandom you wrote for?

• Technically I think it was Treasure Island, when I was about nine and didn’t know what fanfiction was. In modern times, Good Omens.

19) what’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

• Probably Almost Eurydice. It was an absolute blast to have the kind of raw creativity available in writing dreamscapes.

I think everyone I know who writes has been tagged in this - but if not I give you my sincerest apologies and hope you’ll consider this me tagging you. 

#tag game #fic questions #fanfic #writing

[the-lake-king]

Tag game: which element writer are you?

tagged by @multihistorynerd

Smoke Writer

'And he took the cigarette from his lips, placing it between his own. He took just one drag, long and slow, and then, he breathed it out in the other's face.' You smile in front of your enemies, and puff in their faces the smoke. You like to see them cry, like to see them suffer. You write pain in the most elegant way, making it a candy that slowly melts on the reader's tongue. You may have limits, but you push yourself always past them. Love the challenge your comfort zone can’t give you. You are the mysterious person everyone has a crush on, the one that smiles in front of the storm and kneels in front of weak ones. And your writing reflects it. It charms everyone and, even if the exit door is there, your reader will never take it. You're the one who can take a trope, one so used that it's a clique, and create something completely new. Your work is breathtaking, emotions described so well they feel real, and characterization that makes your stories pop out between all the others.

Tagging @dragonss-in-the-north and @infinity2020corner

Tag game: which element writer are you?

tagged by @bittermoonswrites

Smoke Writer

‘And he took the cigarette from his lips, placing it between his own. He took just one drag, long and slow, and then, he breathed it out in the other’s face.’ You smile in front of your enemies, and puff in their faces the smoke. You like to see them cry, like to see them suffer. You write pain in the most elegant way, making it a candy that slowly melts on the reader’s tongue. You may have limits, but you push yourself always past them. Love the challenge your comfort zone can’t give you. You are the mysterious person everyone has a crush on, the one that smiles in front of the storm and kneels in front of weak ones. And your writing reflects it. It charms everyone and, even if the exit door is there, your reader will never take it. You’re the one who can take a trope, one so used that it’s a clique, and create something completely new. Your work is breathtaking, emotions described so well they feel real, and characterization that makes your stories pop out between all the others

Sounds about right 😎

also tagging @dadzawa-adopt-dabi @marianna5writes @anubis2701 @tigers1o1!

#tag game #element writer

[the-lake-king]

Takes notes

why cant the marquess of hexham whisk an underbutler away to tangier and kiss him late at night on the beach, tasting the salt from the sea on his lips? 🤔

#peter pelham #thomas barrow

[the-lake-king]

my ancient greek history professor is making us post memes weekly. i swear to god

#classics memes #i understood way too many of these

[the-lake-king]

I'm just freaking smitten with Men of No Country. Your writing is flawless and Peter is so charming. But it's your Thomas that has my heart; his characterization is perfect and you have handled a very difficult headspace so so well. I'm super thrilled to have discovered this fic, thank you for all the love you've put into it! 🧡

Thank you for the lovely ask! It brings me such joy that something of mine has moved you, and that you found it handled Thomas well. Thanks for reading, and for making my entire day.

#asks #fanfic

[the-lake-king]

That sketch of rose from titanic but it’s Thomas (draw me like one of your Tangiers boys)

this one too is found after a while and people wonder "hm wonder who that is? peter did seem to cherish him :)"

#peter pelham #thomas barrow #downton abbey #draw me like one of your tangiers boys

[the-lake-king]

i know that a lot of what pliny the elder says is kind of bullshit but i've never wanted to believe him more in my life than when he says that hedgehogs collect apples for the winter by rolling onto them so the apples stick on their spines and they can carry them off

#hedgies

[the-lake-king]

REALLY BLOODY EXCELLENT OMENS...

Many, many years ago (it was Hallowe'en 1989, for the curious, the year before Good Omens was published) Terry Pratchett and I were sharing a room at the World Fantasy Convention in Seattle, to keep the costs down, because we were both young authors, and taking ourselves to America and conventions were expensive. It was a wonderful convention. I remember a huge Seattle second-hand bookstore in which I found a dozen or so green-bound Storisende Edition James Branch Cabell books, each signed so neatly by the author that the bookshop people assured me that the signatures were printed, and really ten dollars a book was the correct price.

I could afford books. Good Omens had just been sold to UK publishers and then to US publishers for more money than Terry or I had ever received for anything. (Terry had been incredibly worried about this, certain that receiving a healthy advance would mean the end of his career. When his career didn't end, Terry suggested to his agent that perhaps he ought to be getting that kind of advance for every book from now on, and his life changed, and he stopped having to share a hotel room to save money. But I digress.) Advance reading copies of Good Omens had not yet gone out, but a few editors had read it (ones who had bid for it but failed to buy it) and they all seemed very excited about it, and thrilled for us.

On the Saturday evening Terry left the bar quite early and headed off to bed. I stayed up talking to people and having a marvelous time, hung in there until the small hours of the morning when they closed the hotel bar and all the people went away, and then headed up to the hotel room room.

I opened the door as quietly as I could and tiptoed in the dark across the room to where my bed was located.

I'd just reached the bed when, from the far side of the room, a voice said, “What time of the night do you call this then? Your mother and I have been worried sick about you.”

Terry was wide awake. Jet lag had taken its toll.

And I was wide awake too. So we lay in our respective beds and having nothing else to do, we plotted the sequel to Good Omens. It was a good one, too. We fully intended to write it, whenever we next had three or four months free. Only I went to live in America and Terry stayed in the UK, and after Good Omens was published Sandman became SANDMAN and Discworld became DISCWORLD™ and there wasn't ever a good time.

But we never forgot it.

It's been thirty-one years since Good Omens was published, which means it's thirty-two years since Terry Pratchett and I lay in our respective beds in a Seattle hotel room at a World Fantasy Convention, and plotted the sequel. (I got to use bits of the sequel in the TV series version of Good Omens -- that's where our angels came from.)

Terry and I, in Cardiff in 2010, on the night we decided that Good Omens should become a television series.

Terry was clear on what he wanted from Good Omens on the telly. He wanted the story told, and if that worked, he wanted the rest of the story told.

So in September 2017 I sat down in St James' Park, beside the director, Douglas Mackinnon, on a chair with my name on it, as Showrunner of Good Omens. The chair slowly and elegantly lowered itself to the ground underneath me and fell apart, and I thought, that's not really a good omen. Fortunately, under Douglas's leadership, that chair was the only thing that collapsed.

The crumbled chair.

So, once Good Omens the TV series had been released by Amazon and the BBC, to global acclaim, many awards and joy, Rob Wilkins (Terry's representative on Earth) and I had the conversation with the BBC and Amazon about doing some more. And they got very excited. We talked to Michael Sheen and David Tennant about doing some more. They also got very excited. We told them a little about the plot. They got even more excited.

Rob Wilkins and David Tennant on the second day of shooting.

Me and Michael and Ash aged nearly 2.

What it was mostly like shooting Good Omens: peering into screens while something happened round the corner.

I'd been a fan of John Finnemore's for years, and had had the joy of working with him on a radio show called With Great Pleasure, where I picked passages I loved, had amazing readers read them aloud and talked about them.

(Here's a clip from that show of me talking about working with Terry Pratchett, and reading a poem by Terry: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p06x3syv. Here's the whole show from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7OsS_JWbzQ with John Finnemore's bits too.)

L to R: With Great Pleasure. John Finnemore, me all beardy, Nina Sosanya (Sister Mary in Good Omens) Peter Capaldi (he played Islington in the original BBC series of Neverwhere).

I asked John if he'd be willing to work with me on writing the next round of Good Omens, and was overjoyed when he said yes. We have some surprise guest collaborators too. And Douglas Mackinnon is returning to oversee the whole thing with me.

So that's the plan. We've been keeping it secret for a long time (mostly because otherwise my mail and Twitter feeds would have turned into gushing torrents of What Can You Tell Us About It? long ago) but we are now at the point where sets are being built in Scotland (which is where we're shooting, and more about filming things in Scotland soon), and we can't really keep it secret any longer.

There are so many questions people have asked about what happened next (and also, what happened before) to our favourite Angel and Demon. Here are, perhaps, some of the answers you've been hoping for.

As Good Omens continues, we will be back in Soho, and all through time and space, solving a mystery which starts with one of the angels wandering through a Soho street market with no memory of who they might be, on their way to Aziraphale's bookshop.

(Although our story actually begins about five minutes before anyone had got around to saying “Let there be Light”.)

from https://journal.neilgaiman.com/2021/06/really-bloody-excellent-omens.html

#guess i'll be getting prime for a month

[the-lake-king]

To me, Van Gogh is the finest painter of them all. Certainly, the most popular great painter of all time. The most beloved. His command of colour, the most magnificent. He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty. Pain is easy to portray, but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world. No one had ever done it before. Perhaps no one ever will again. To my mind, that strange, wild man who roamed the fields of Provence was not only the world’s greatest artist, but also one of the greatest men who ever lived.

DOCTOR WHO — Vincent and the Doctor

#vincent and the doctor #one of my favourite episodes

[the-lake-king]

I'll ask about "Danny's Family," because I would like to know who Danny is.

Thanks for the ask :) Danny Kent is a strapping young man returning from service in WW2. This story is told from the POV of his best friend, who definitely didn’t accidentally confess his love for Danny when he thought they were both going to die, no siree. And now Danny wants him to meet his family, which he keeps dropping very odd hints about. ;)

This one is almost entirely outline at this point so I don’t have a meaningful excerpt, but I can tell you it is wholesome mostly-fluff, and contains a shoulder cat.

#wip meme #asks

[the-lake-king]

who even are you. like what did you write

I have no idea. Let me see if anyone else in this ask place knows.

[the-lake-king]

Wimbledon AU

It’s Jimmy Kent’s first Grand Slam and he’s finally making a name for himself on the world’s greatest stage, as he chases his dream of winning at the All-England Club. Thomas Barrow’s been here and been defeated before many a time over his patchy career, and he knows this could be his last chance at glory. The young athlete Kent catches Barrow’s attention - and not just for his skill with a racquet.

For the number three seed Kent, the first few rounds are a cake-walk, until he meets the legendary Gillingham in the semi-finals. Overawed, he barely scrapes through to the final, and his confidence is shaken. But, watching Barrow’s dogged determination - and his tendency to pull through despite all the odds - gives Kent the motivation he needs to carry on.

By the time Kent plays his first game, Barrow has already battled through four rounds of qualifying just to gain a sought-after position in the starting line-up. And his draw couldn’t be any worse; his old doubles partner (and erstwhile lover) Philip Crowborough is his first opponent. But Barrow triumphs in a fifth-set tie-break and, with new confidence in his own talents, goes on to cruise into the final round.

Finally, Barrow and Kent face each other - and their feelings - in the most important match of their lives.

#thomas barrow #jimmy kent #thommy #this is the most oddly British thing I've read all week #somebody write about Philip in tennis shorts

[the-lake-king]

WIP game: Player Piano 😃 pretty please? 🙏

Thanks for asking :) Thomas learns to play the piano! This was inspired by a bit in the lovely fic My Girl by @bumblebarrow that stuck in my head. He starts playing it because he misses Jimmy, but then it becomes much more than that. I only just started this one, but here's a bit that's fairly clean:

His right hand managed alright, once he knew where the notes were. Scales were easy: one-two-three, one-two-three-four, one-two-three, one-two-three-four-five, going up the ivory keys, mirrored back down. Chords were an odd stretch, sometimes, but he was getting used to it. The problems started when he tried to do the same with his left. That was when his pinky finger collapsed out from under him, or his ring finger decided to spasm over a stretch it didn’t like. When his glove hindered his movement, but also provided support, and he didn’t know whether to take it off or leave it on. When he wanted to smack the music sheets to the floor like a disgruntled cat and give up on the whole idea. But he couldn’t do that. He had promised Phyllis he would play for her, and he wasn’t about to disappoint her again.

#wip meme #asks #thomas barrow

[the-lake-king]

The WIP „Choose“ sounds exciting, what is it about?

This is one that @irrationalgame put up for adoption on discord where Jimmy doesn't get caught during the fire and is the one who winds up doing Choose Your Own Path. It looks like it'll be four chapters :) Thanks for asking! Have an excerpt from chapter one:

Anstruther did indeed decide to drop it, at least for now. A whiff of her perfume hit him as the car door closed, and it made him shiver. Jimmy wanted to erase it from his nostrils, to scrub her from himself in every way that he could. He gravitated towards Thomas all day, trying to absorb his smell instead. Thomas had a nice smell, even under the fog of cigarette smoke. He smelled like home.

Playing the piano in the evening soothed him. He fiddled around with the tune of Second Hand Rose until it no longer sounded anything like the original. He never felt too self-conscious to do things like that when Thomas was listening. It was strange, how having just one person there who enjoyed his musical ramblings made him brave. The thought made his fingers trail off the instrument.

#wip meme #asks #jimmy kent #thomas barrow

[the-lake-king]

“When Van Gogh was a young man in his early twenties, he was in London studying to be a clergyman. He had no thought of being an artist at all. he sat in his cheap little room writing a letter to his younger brother in Holland, whom he loved very much. He looked out his window at a watery twilight, a thin lamppost, a star, and he said in his letter something like this: “it is so beautiful I must show you how it looks.” And then on his cheap ruled note paper, he made the most beautiful, tender, little drawing of it. When I read this letter of Van Gogh’s it comforted me very much and seemed to throw a clear light on the whole road of Art. Before, I thought that to produce a work of painting or literature, you scowled and thought long and ponderously and weighed everything solemnly and learned everything that all artists had ever done aforetime, and what their influences and schools were, and you were extremely careful about *design* and *balance* and getting *interesting planes* into your painting, and avoided, with the most astringent severity, showing the faintest *academical* tendency, and were strictly modern. And so on and so on. But the moment I read Van Gogh’s letter I knew what art was, and the creative impulse. It is a feeling of love and enthusiasm for something, and in a direct, simple, passionate and true way, you try to show this beauty in things to others, by drawing it. And Van Gogh’s little drawing on the cheap note paper was a work of art because he loved the sky and the frail lamppost against it so seriously that he made the drawing with the most exquisite conscientiousness and care.”

— Brenda Ueland, from “If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit”

#vincent van gogh #art