AK FEDEAU: THE BLOG

Hello! It was nice talking to you so long ago that I'd like to ask for advice. I somehow convinced myself to do 180 pages of writing before September and I'm coming up with some trouble. I was wondering if you had a certain way you found character voice, especially for guys? Sometimes I feel like the characters talk like modified version of myself and people I know and I wanna change that. Any words of wisdom?

Thu, 23 May 2013 17:15:00 -0700

180 pages of writing before September. Wow. Uh. Godspeed. I know professionals that write that much, but yeah, good luck!

Instead of trying to answer this like I know everything about writing, I think it’s better to provide examples of what I do and let you go from there. For me, character voice has two components - the words they choose and their actual vocal quality. But I get those components by asking myself other questions. How old are they? How educated are they? Are they a native English speaker? What kind of place are they from?

Let’s look at Tony, since he’s the character I last worked with on this. Because he’s modeled off Marlon Brando, I knew from the start that I wanted Brando’s infamous mumbling, and the working-class delivery common to his younger roles. I took a few evenings out and rewatched works like On the Waterfront and Streetcar several times, each time monitoring how he worked with the vocabulary the screenwriters gave him. Which words he emphasized. Which words he slurred. Where he ad-libbed. How casual he was with slang. I needed to convey a tough guy whose inarticulateness belied his true intelligence - so I went straight to the source.

On the other hand, I’m working with Kostya right now, and his dialogue needs are on the other side of the planet. Unlike Tony, Kostya’s got a doctorate, and an enormous vocabulary… in his native language. The problem here is that he’s well-studied in English but not well-practiced, leading to a style that tries to convey big ideas with big words, but lapses in simple grammar. So when I was taking Russian under an old Muscovite lady, I tried to connect the dots between the Russian grammar rules and the mistakes she made with English.

So no matter who I’m working on, I always look to an outside source. Someone who I can sit and observe for a while, and document their mannerisms. After a while, when you’ve watched enough people, you can’t not make them sound different. I couldn’t write a 20’s gangster to sound like me - we exist in completely different social spaces, and I would irritate myself every time I tried to read his suburban-kid diction.

Oh, yeah, and as always - READ YOUR DIALOGUE OUT LOUD. It’s where I catch things that don’t roll off the tongue right, like a character not using enough contractions. If I can’t say it, chances are Tony or Kostya can’t either, and characters stumbling over their lines is the last thing I want.

mr. massani what are you DOING over there

Thu, 23 May 2013 04:30:41 -0700

mr. massani what are you DOING over there

Photo

Wed, 22 May 2013 17:46:59 -0700

commission of rival secret agents Schwarz and Weiss for...

Tue, 21 May 2013 19:09:00 -0700

commission of rival secret agents Schwarz and Weiss for fuckinghardhat! I wasn’t kidding when I said clients are starting to pander to my tastes

also this is a good example of the “easy shading” price level, for those interested

A BRIEF FAQ: 1. What will you do? What won’t you...

Tue, 21 May 2013 16:23:21 -0700

A BRIEF FAQ:

1. What will you do? What won’t you do?

Yes: Portraits, waist-ups, full-bodies. Simple backgrounds. Simple typography. Outfit/fashion design.

No: Chibis, anthro, mecha, and sci-fi or fantasy creatures that aren’t grounded in Earth’s animal kingdom. It’s the difference between a sphinx and the thing from Alien.

Regarding racy material: Let’s talk. I’m not opposed to lingerie or pinup poses, or “life drawing”-style artistic nudity. But no sex, erections, gore, or anything like that.

2. How should I pay you?

Paypal. No cash due until you’ve approved the final draft. This is in the event that I have to make you wait - see Question 5.

3. What am I getting for my money?

Once I’ve worked on it some - probably once I’ve finished the lineart - I’ll send a WIP to make sure it’s all right. Once it passes inspection, I’ll finish it. You’ll then receive the original .PSD and a high-res .JPG and .PNG, to make prints or wallpaper or stare at as long as you like.

I’ll post a low-res version on this blog if it’s all right with you, but you’re the only one that gets the high-res files.

4. Why are your prices so high?

My prices average between $3 and $4 an hour. California minimum wage is $8.

5. How long will it take you?

Ah yes. The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.

If you want to commission me during the academic year, you need to understand that I am a full-time student. I try to get your work done as soon as possible, but I can’t afford to sacrifice a paper or a test. In some cases, I’ve had to put people off until I was finished with the term. This is why I don’t take money until I’ve shown you the end product: I don’t want you to feel robbed if a delay like that comes up.

If you have something time-sensitive, let me know. I’ll move you to the front of the queue.

6. How will I know when you’re open?

I’ll make a Tumblr post announcing it. In big, bold letters. Trust me, you won’t miss it.

leslie uses her followers instead of google shopping, part billion

Mon, 20 May 2013 20:42:37 -0700

Do any of you use/recommend any over-the-ear headphones that are cheapy-weepy but won’t break the first time I use them? I do require over-the-ear, unfortunately, not earbuds. Because of gross reasons.

I’m also not a sound quality junkie or anything. I just need something that’ll keep music confined to my ears and not the whole apartment, because fuck if my roommates need the Red Army Choir at three in the morning and the set I’m using now had the left earbud die and GOD HAVING MUSIC IN ONLY ONE EAR IS IRRITATING

let it be known that tumblr user tobbycat is an actual one of...

Mon, 20 May 2013 15:54:03 -0700

let it be known that tumblr user tobbycat is an actual one of those lucky cat figurines that brings you good stuff

or, in this case, GRE prep books

anyway, thanks so much! (ﾉ◕‿◕)ﾉ let me know if there’s anything you want drawn in return

i’ve come to the realization that the outfits i design for...

Mon, 20 May 2013 14:06:00 -0700

i’ve come to the realization that the outfits i design for my lady characters are… gosh, they’re just awful, you can’t even tell what gender they are

i hope you will all accept these redesigns as my heartfelt apology

they will walk around in future-1930s LA in these outfits and no one will bat an eyelash

the only way to understand a machine is to watch it break i...

Mon, 20 May 2013 03:35:33 -0700

the only way to understand a machine is to watch it break

i know painting portraits of kostya making funeral director faces has become my new art benchmark or something, but some friends wanted me to redo his audio diary portrait

writing projects that leslie needs to finish § hard boiled...

Mon, 20 May 2013 01:27:00 -0700

writing projects that leslie needs to finish § hard boiled angels

In the 2130s, androids walk among us in a retro-future LA. They look human. They sound human. And thanks to AIs, they feel human. Their oil-black blood and eyes are the only way to tell, and the only way they die is by violence - something that hasn’t gone unnoticed in anti-android hate crimes.

And then weeks before the premiere of one of Hollywood’s costliest epics, the studio head backing it is murdered. But what looks like the work of the mean streets soon leads back to drugs, and a legendary mobster who vanished years ago. Follow four lives as they intersect in the path of the perfect criminal: The struggling singer who becomes his unwilling gun-moll, her trumpet player friend in search of a way out for them both, the android costume designer turned amateur sleuth, and the chief of police obsessed with taking him down.

my headcanon about you is that you're actually an escaped imagineered automaton from a World Of Tomorrow exhibit from the 1950's that has gained sentience

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:37:00 -0700

ｂｅｅｐｂｏｏｐ

ladgerdas: Hong Kong, 1960.

Sat, 18 May 2013 13:47:56 -0700

ladgerdas:

Hong Kong, 1960.

book... dlc??

Thu, 16 May 2013 16:39:22 -0700

So I was thinking the other day that all the Big Recent Video Game Titles I can name come with DLC. It seems like a foregone conclusion now that if a game has a big budget and release and all that good stuff, a few months later, it’ll get some. It’s not even limited to souped-up weapons or alternate outfits anymore, either. Games like Mass Effect and Dishonored give us entire mini plot arcs, where a different character becomes the protagonist, or your character solves a side conflict.

My question is, has anybody ever seen this happen with books? Not like that, not like paying an extra five bucks for a text file of the secret epilogue chapter or anything. But where a writer went back to a world, and told smaller stories from the same place - stories that weren’t necessary for understanding the original plot, but added color to the universe and were fun in their own right.

Because I really love my noirverse, and there are more stories I could tell in it beyond what I have planned. Inhabitants of retro-future LA whose lives have nothing to do with the murder mystery surrounding Ada & Co., or side characters that would make the story too slow and complicated if I tried to flesh them out more. The problem is I wouldn’t have enough content for them to make them quote-un-quote ~*novel length*~. They’d just be short stories.

So yeah, aside from The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner [‘cause I’m already aware of that one,] have you ever seen examples of this kind of companion content?

Urhg, okay, where is all the clothes you just posted from? Because, urgh, it's so pretty, I just urghh

Wed, 15 May 2013 16:47:00 -0700

The two nautical dresses: Hell Bunny “Horizon” [black] and “Motley” [white]
Two-tone t-straps: Comfortview “Faith”
Swing trousers: 20th Century Foxy [comes in a bunch more colors]
Peter Pan collar dress: Folter Clothing “Back to Ghoul”
High-waisted shorts: Voodoo Vixen
Black blouse: Pinup Girl Clothing “Lauren Top”
Pillbox: Sur La Tête “Panther”
White-trimmed black dress: Collectif Clothing “Fabiola”

time to go looking at shit i can’t afford again ＭＯＮＯＣＨＲＯＭＥ

Wed, 15 May 2013 16:16:32 -0700

time to go looking at shit i can’t afford again

ＭＯＮＯＣＨＲＯＭＥ

Photo

Tue, 14 May 2013 03:38:47 -0700

By the way, I started using HabitRPG over the weekend and I...

Mon, 13 May 2013 15:42:00 -0700

By the way, I started using HabitRPG over the weekend and I can’t recommend it enough

it’s beta as hell right now so there are glitches and downtime to deal with, but if you’ve done any gaming at all, it scratches that EXP/leveling itch by offering it as a reward. More importantly, it punishes you with HP loss when you don’t get shit done, and as a person who is really, really good at being complacent with myself, it’s an added level of consequence.

[Let’s see if I can adjust my sleep schedule with it. Let’s see.]

happy mother’s day (◡‿◡✿)

Sun, 12 May 2013 17:53:25 -0700

happy mother’s day (◡‿◡✿)

Photo

Sat, 11 May 2013 20:30:00 -0700

shitroughdrafts: A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee...

Sat, 11 May 2013 17:45:52 -0700

shitroughdrafts:

A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams. 1947.