Tomas’s Comments (group member since May 15, 2018)

Tomas’s comments from the Support for Indie Authors group.

I used that with the Latin names. For example, I took the Latin name of an apple tree (Malus pumila) and used snippets of it to create the name 'Lumilan'. The issue with this method is that I need to find two words I can play with instead of just one.

Hello everyone!

As I work on my writing project, I often struggle with naming the characters. My imagination is really horrible on that matter. So, I thought I might share the things I've used as a source of ideas and ask what others use.

So, what I've used so far:
Names of stars/constellations (mostly in Latin)
Latin names of plants/animals
Nordic names (for dwarves)
"traditional noble" names (for human nobility)

Still, I'm short a few ideas to name some remaining characters, so I'd like to know what other people use as inspiration.

Using text to speech for revising is something I've seen mentioned here on Goodreads but I am not sure at this point if it was in this group (and I am too tired to look it up, sorry). If it works for you, it can be a nice way to get it ready before beta or editor (the more things you fix, the less time they will need - and possibly less money in case of professional editor).

Okay, this will be a bit harder to explain.
Copy-pasting from Amazon's help page:

X-Ray is a unique Kindle eBook feature that allows readers to learn more about a character, topic, event, place, or any other term, simply by pressing and holding on the word or phrase that interests them. X-Ray for Authors is a free Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) tool that enables you, the author, to add your own descriptions or commentary that will show up when the reader engages the X-Ray feature. With X-Ray for Authors, you can add new X-Ray entries, edit existing ones, or enable X-Ray for a new book. At this time, X-Ray only supports eBooks published in English.

By default, for applicable words, it imports Wikipedia definition. For custom words (names, locations, creatures, ...) I presume it takes the first sentence where the word appears. You can replace that with your own custom description up to 1200 characters long (so, around a paragraph).

Amazon has a guide and a help article on that matter that should be easy to find in the KDP section.
----
Edit:
If I understand it correctly, if you enable X-ray for your book, it'll go through some automated process that'll find the words it believes should be included, and find the excerpts. You can just flag all it finds as okay and do nothing else, or go one by one writing custom descriptions. You can remove some (if you don't want them to be shown by X-ray) or add those it did not catch.

To everyone replying lately: message V.K. directly, as she said in her last post here.

Make sure you gave it all you could - especially revising, editing and weeding out as many errors/typos you could.
While I am not there yet (I count 2-3 more drafts at least), what I've heard is that the actual publishing is quite easy, at least through Amazon.

It needs to be set up by the author.

Maddy wrote: "Hi all, ..."
No links and/or self-promotion. Comment deleted (as was the other thread you started).

Anna Faversham wrote: "900 words a day is good, especially if you have college and work to juggle with too. Stephen Fry rattles off 5,000 sometimes, he says."

And then there's me who can get into a situation like this: nothing for two weeks, then hammer it with one 10000 day and a 5000 day after, then another period of (next to) nothing. My longest "doing nothing" period was 4 weeks while my best was a week when I reached almost 40k (between Xmas and NYE in 2017).
Just find whatever works for you.

I'm not sure what exactly you have in mind. Could you try being a bit more specific? Do you want advice related to how to set up a series on Amazon? A box set one all parts of the series are complete? Or on writing it in general?

Corey wrote: "How do all of you get reviews on amazon?"

Once every long time, someone decides to write it. There's nothing else than waiting for it...

Thanks, Mark. You made some valid points, I'll keep them in mind when I get to update the blurb again.

Well, James Cameron's Avatar was an old story in a space setting instead of native Americans. Taking something that works and giving it a new form might work.

When we're at that, I might confess that the MC in my WIP was an orphan in the early concept stage. It was also combined with another cliché - having a crush on the princess he'd eventually marry at the end to live happily ever after.
Fortunately, I found myself unable to build a good story about that and changed it over the course of the following concepts and neither was true by the time I started drafting.
(view spoiler)[Eventually, it changed to his parents being captured in action at the end of the first book instead of dying. He also does not fall in love with the princess anymore, though she makes an impact on him. (hide spoiler)]

Also, there's the "hero does not feel pain until a beautiful woman starts taking care of the wound". Yes, adrenaline/shock can temporarily suppress pain but... adrenaline would fade sooner (and thus the pain would be felt sooner) than some time after the fight and I doubt shock would face in such a favorable timing either...

M.K. wrote: "I'm interested. Let me know what details you need :)"

No links, please. Send it to her by PM, as she asked and delete it in your message here.

Something I just recalled from a half-year ago: a store with photo-stuff (cameras, memory cards, etc) had a poster with the motto "show, don't tell". I realized that I'd probably give it no attention whatsoever if I did not start writing and hear this particular advice a few times. That's when I realized taking on that path slightly altered my perception of the world.

I'd say the best way might be the simplest one: consult a native speaker. Possibly have one as a beta reader or editor.
You can look up lists of differences between the variants but those are often aimed at spelling, more so than at idioms or phrases used in common speech.

Dwayne wrote: "...only because another moderator already commented on it and they seem fine with it."

The original post had no links to the mentioned blog or direct self-promotion. Since it's something to eventually happen off Goodreads, I thought it okay.

I did not want it to sounds as ruling out both. Maybe mentioning it's a symbiosis is a good idea as well.