Self-Awareness is the Key to Great Writing: inspiration & spark

This post is part of a series to augment the Author's Manifesto available for free download.

This and other inspirations of mine are gathered in the Spark Directory for you to explore.

Find more consciousness content in my Cosmic Directory.

Think about great writing for a moment. It's a miracle, really. Emotions and images arise within readers, all from squiggles on the page. There is so much artistry that goes into crafting those high-quality squiggles. Beyond the required wordsmith skills, there is a profound amount of humanity behind any story that comes to life.

How else but self-awareness do you paint a character in his struggles, with his pain, striving to overcome and triumph? In order to write such a thing, you must be able to step outside of your own pain and see how it has shaped you.

All these characters of mine–they all are some facet of me, and I in turn am all of them. Yet they are so disparate, so potent, so visceral. How can one person see through the eyes of so many people? To be a great writer, you must become the eye that sees itself seeing. Such self-awareness is crucial to the writing process.

Check out this Author's Manifesto for more of my inspirations!

Everyone's experience is unique, and yet great writing presents characters at various stages along different paths. How can a person reflect on one life's experience and discover a thousand lifetimes of development? Self-awareness.

The more self-aware you become, the more insight and nuance you can infuse into your characters. The more you live as your true self, the more relatable and profound your characters feel. Your stories gain depth and meaning beyond intention.

Each character becomes a vassal of truth for readers like him. Characters drive themselves downward until they revolt against their patterns and uplift into wisdom. Great writing lives out the lessons that life teaches us–and only the self-aware writer can capture those lessons on paper.

At every moment, every person is in constant flux between dissatisfaction and breakthrough, breakthrough and contentment, contentment and dissatisfaction. With my Tales of the Known World saga, it is my hope that readers become more self-aware through the adventures they have conquered.


That's it for this post! Check out my latest inspirations for more.

Download the Author's Manifesto here, or start your adventure below.

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Life is an adventure.
Are You Ready?

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The Realms of Iorden: a map commission

This post is Part 1 of a series to augment the Fictional Cartography by D.N.Frost available for free download.

This and other map commissions are gathered in my Portfolio Directory for you to explore.

This post is also Part 1 of a series about The Once and Future Nerd.

When I first stumbled across The Once and Future Nerd fantasy podcast, I was blown away by the professional voice acting and tongue-in-cheek narration. I found the TOAFN storyline rife with the same irreverent examination of fantasy tropes that I love exploring in my own work. You can read my five-star review of their podcast here.

While poking around the TOAFN website for bonus content, I started imagining all the different places our heroes visited in the first season. Then it hit me! For all the detailed worldbuilding the creators had crafted, there needed to be a map to share their world with fans.

Check out this Fictional Cartography by D.N.Frost for more maps!

Fortunately, making maps is kind of my thing, so I contacted the podcast writers Zach Glass and Christian Madera with my offer.

In exchange, I hoped they'd let me invite other TOAFN fans to try out my fantasy saga while we wait for their new season.

As it turned out, they already had a map, but it wasn't quite up to their exacting standards.

So despite being busy with the next season of their podcast, Zach and Christian responded with excitement and made time to collaborate with me.

Here's what they had to say about the finished map:

Through the entire process, D.N. was wonderful to work with!

We entered this process having absolutely no map-making experience. D.N. is extremely patient, and willing to explain her map-making process in a way that makes sense to lay-folk like us.

If we requested a feature that was in reality a poor choice (or, on occasion, actually impossible), D.N. never shot down our ideas. She patiently described how the map would turn out using our idea, how she would recommend to do it differently, and would allow us to make the final decision.

As world-builders without cartographical experience, this was extremely helpful. It allowed us to maintain complete creative control of our world, but also drastically improved the "real-ness" of the geography. On most occasions, our map, and therefore our world, was greatly improved by her input.

In terms of aesthetics, D.N. was always on-point, and extremely detail-oriented. If something on the map didn’t match our exact aesthetic vision, no matter how small, D.N. put in the extra effort to make sure the map uniquely fit Iorden.

She even cared about the far-flung corners of the world that we had not put as much thought into. Those parts of the world that we had left vague, she filled in with exquisite, beautiful detail.

We absolutely recommend D.N. to anyone with a fantasy world!

– Christian Madera, co-creator of The Once and Future Nerd

That's it for this post! Up Next: A coastline and topography two-step...

Or skip straight to Part 2: The TOAFN team shares their shiny new map!

Want to bring your own world to life? We can map your world.
You deserve a professional map you can be proud to share.

Download Fictional Cartography by D.N.Frost here, or start your adventure below.

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Life is an adventure.
Are You Ready?

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Lost in the Fray: inspiration & spark

This post is Part 3 of a series to augment the Author's Manifesto available for free download. Start with Part 1 here.

This and other inspirations of mine are gathered in the Spark Directory for you to explore.

Find my published stories and guides in the Books Directory.

In Part 1 of this series, I began writing my first stories, and though the grip of one on one role-play never lost its hold on me, I'd added more populous games to my repertoire by the time high school ended.

A large Dragonriders of Pern game taught me that, while my writing partner was forgiving of my overindulgent character traits, the internet at large was harshly judgmental. As I joined more diverse games not limited to one fandom, I discovered that most players used characters from existing works of fiction, rather than inventing their own original characters. Dutifully, I picked up my favorite characters from published works, and I found that the payoff of writing with friends did not diminish for the changeover.

As time passed, my writing partner and I diverged somewhat, and though we still played together in these large internet games, our intensive one on one writing diminished through my college days. We collaborated in other ways, inventing new premises for larger games, and I developed my first web skills doing basic HTML coding to get our first game off the ground. It drew a decent following, most of the players making an exodus from one of our old games and into new territory with us.

Check out this Author's Manifesto for more of my inspirations!

A new player and I became fast friends, and we developed a writing rapport based on the characters we played. When I heard she was in dire straits, I helped her move in with me from halfway across the country, and our rapport intensified once we were roommates. Though not strictly faithful to the published stories, we fostered an imaginative relationship between Reno and Tifa from the Final Fantasy VII franchise. Later, we added a romance between Renji and Rukia from Bleach.

Meanwhile, I retained old maps and transcripts of the fantasy game that would become my Tales of the Known World saga. I felt driven to turn my premise into a novel, and my old writing partner granted me permission to run with my ideas. But between my college courses, online games, and full-time job, I had little time to edit the convoluted transcript. When I learned my roommate felt left out of my fantasy project, I made the easy decision to quit the novel to make more time for gaming.


That's it for this post! Up Next: How I spiraled into a new beginning...

Download the Author's Manifesto here, or start your adventure below.

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Life is an adventure.
Are You Ready?

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Portent XXIII of Awakening: a riddle in rhyme

In the novel Awakening, there are 23 portents fortelling the events of the unfolding saga.

Start with Portent I here.

These and other riddles in rhyme are gathered in the Portents Directory for you to explore.

Enjoy!

While timeless keepers ruled the waves
Unjustly bred eternal slaves
And pitiless their judgment cast
As harsh on first as on the last

With Mother's mark entitled grew
At length did Mother's creed eschew
When sought they gates of time to chain
To fend their everlasting reign

But Mother's gifts will long abide
In low forgiveness long denied
By kings equality defied
Their fate to Second Gaweh tied.


Can you decode the future Tales of the Known World?

Share your interpretation!
Comment below with your take on this portent.

This is the very last prophesy to appear in Awakening, and it deals with the hubris of the prophetic merfolk. Can you guess what Second Gaweh is?

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Download the Prophesy Appendix:

The merfolk culture is built on the prophetic Gift. Nearly all men produce a portent every twenty days, and they devote their lives to interpretation. For more about the role and inner workings of prophesy, check out the Prophesy Appendix above.

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Alongside every prophesy is an attribution block. This block contains a byline giving the name of the person who said the prophesy, and a dateline giving the day the prophesy was first said. Here is the attribution for this portent:

Dohjis Gelyndi Gusya I
2:2:2:2/5, III:IX

The portent attributed here has not yet been interpreted. It was said recently, and it will be repeated every twenty days until either it is correctly interpreted, or it comes to pass.


That's it for this series! Check out my latest portents for more.

For the Prophesy Appendix, enter your email above.

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Life is an adventure.
Are You Ready?

Liked this? Share, please!