I have learned a lot by writing A Little Fox Tale. I had never written fiction before (unless you counted the enlisted evaluations I had to write in the military), and was unsure of the pacing and style. Also, I knew nothing about dialog. Getting my hands on and reading a copy of Inspiration for Writers by Sandy Tritt, and a copy of Mugging the Muse by Holly Lisle helped a lot. Input from a couple of friends who read some of the chapters helped as well.

I discovered after I had finished chapter 1, that I needed to collect all the reference lore for my kitsune in one place. Therefore, I took time out to write a Kitsune Lore document that pulled together all the lore I could find on the Internet. I sorted out what agreed and what contradicted. Then I rolled in facts about red foxes and gleanings from various contemporary manga. Lastly, I added some fictional tidbits to facilitate my storyline. Now that I had that put together, I was able to write more intelligently about my kitsune. Then I discovered that my fifteen year old memory of Yokohama just didn't cut it. That resulted in a detailed Google search of sites and maps of Yokohama. When my character needed to go shopping, I had to look up where shopping was in Yokohama and then what items might be for sale to a young lady in Japan. Research has become a key ingredient. One thing that was very helpful to me was Serendipity, a website with name generators. As I introduced a new character, I would go there and look for a suitable name.

As I have completed each chapter, my confidence has grown, and I think my writing has improved. Now I am more comfortable with dialog between characters as well as pacing of the story itself. I had agonized over including sexual scenes and even how explicit to make them. A chance read of a first novel writing guide in the bookstore a few days ago made me realize that I didn’t need to be worried about it. Therefore, I am going with what feels comfortable to me. Besides, in the end, I am really writing this story for my own enjoyment. I hope that others will enjoy it as well.

Now five weeks after starting this story, I am halfway through chapter 10. All of my chapters are between 3000 and 4500 words each to allow me to post two chapters a week. I will be posting chapter 5 tomorrow morning around 10am EDT.

hugs,
Kaho =^.^=

(Edited and crossposted from my LiveJournal)