“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”
Anton Chekhov
I’ll be the first to admit that I struggle with writing flourishing descriptions, but this quote from Anton Chekhov is usually at the forefront of my mind when I’m trying to improve a scene. I try to think of what is being acted on as much as I do the actor. “The moon shone on the field” becomes “The wheat turned silver in the moonlight”.
When I was a teenager, I was super into Lord of the Rings, thanks to Peter Jackson’s masterpiece movies coming out at that time. As with many other Tolkien fans, I dreamt of creating a rich world of my own. I even planned to invent several languages, despite the fact I’m useless with languages.
In 2003, aged 14, I spent Valentine’s Day with a friend. We were both single, so it was a depressing day for two teenage girls, but we made the most of it. She happened to have an interest in Latin and was kind enough to spend the day helping me invent a language for the world already growing in my mind. My first real attempt at a book followed, titled Eidu Are.
Continue reading“The Origin of Thellian”
