1. Where do you typically get your ideas?
This varies greatly. For my shorter fics, they’re almost always prompted from a kinkmeme or exchange.
For the multichaps, When Coldharbour Calls and Heaven By Violence (and Fire in the Sky before that), it’s a great deal more complicated. I have the basic plot of the game as a starting point, and then I have a “what if” to deviate from that. What if the Dragonborn was a mercenary? What if the Vestige was (spoiler for Long & Lost)? What if the Inquisitor was an aggressive, unstable widow?
Some ideas come to me right before falling asleep. It’s a very creative time for me, being half-asleep. I’m usually pretty good about remembering what I thought up, too. On occasion I will lose an idea by the next morning and have to wait until it comes back, or it disappears forever and I’ll never know what I’m missing.
6. Where do your titles come from?
I love this question! Titles are my favorite part! In the past I have used thematic idioms, but recently got into using song lyrics.
Heaven By Violence is an in-game reference as well as used literally, however. I love titles that can be taken multiple ways.
Examples of my favorite titles are From the Blue (from “bolt from the blue”, an idiom, as well as from blue being the Stormcloak color), Whistle Down the Wind (idiom meaning to abandon, send away, or leave something/someone) and come rain or (sun)shine. “Come rain or shine” is an idiom, combined with a reference to a character’s nickname being Sunshine.
The series When Coldharbour Calls is an in-game reference. Its “books”/parts and the chapter titles come from Florence + the Machine lyrics.
14. What’s the one word you can never spell/use properly, no matter how hard you try?
Not sure there is one… hmm. Oh, I suppose a character name, Danarius. For the longest time I thought it was Denarius. I think I’ve broken my habit of spelling it wrong, though.
Oh. And “physically”. It merges with “psychically”.
25. How do you create an original character?
OML. This is an incredibly awkward process that I’m not really sure how to explain. For most of them, they already exist in my head, fully formed in personality and somewhat appearance (with tweaks for setting/fandom). For those situations where I require an OC that is entirely new… Mostly, the plot drives their character creation. Meaning, they are what I need them to be and not the fully realized, independent characters that I already have.
An exception to this would be Kaylaneth from WCC, who started out plot-driven in Charity Case, the first piece I wrote about her. She developed a more distinct self later, when I set out to write Breaking Down. For this I had a barebones idea of the plotline from ESO’s AD quests, and let the words flow without an outline or character sheets.
29. How do you plot your stories?
No, seriously. I’m really, really bad at plotting. So much so that my strategy of late seems to be “get idea, start writing, hit a wall, then outline what already happened until I can move forward again”. Only for the longer things, though. For my shorter stories… man, idk. I feel like I just moosh plot points together and end when I get sick of the damn thing.
