4: Any minor characters that have either taken over or branched off into their own stories?
not stories i’ve ever written out, usually, but i have a lot of character backstories or future-stories for a LOT of minor characters that i’ll probably never write out. but i’ve written out at least 3 short stories to do with lyle’s past that have no real place in five other lies, but they’re about his past relationships—his first boyfriend when he was 13 growing up in a super tough part of new jersey, sleeping with his dad’s boss when he was in his teens, dating this guy named dan (who shows up in 5OL) at the height of his coke phase, and getting out of that through his time dating marnie, who’s great. no real way to weave any of that into the time that five other lies takes place, but i think about them a LOT.
or like, dee’s time being best friends with telly, before ben was really in the picture. how telly and sophie met, and what they were like before having kids. stuff like that. nothing that’s ever spun off into its own story except for in my head.
13: Do you create playlists for your characters?
you fucking bet i do and they mean absolutely everything to me. i talked about them in a previous ask so now i’m just gonna link em all here:
little warlordbendeelittle warlord ost (general story-building)
five other liescomelylylecomely/moira
the little warlord ones are newer so i like them a lot more, but they’re all great. i have older 5OL ones i didn’t link here cause they don’t fit well anymore.
18: Is there anything you really wish you could do, character-design-wise, that you feel is outside your current skillset? A concept that you wish you could pull off but are uncertain about?
i’m still getting comfortable writing women well, which i know comes from my own gender identity issues and misogyny inherent in fandom where everyone writes about gay men and no one writes about gay women. i’m obviously just as guilty of this as anybody. but, going forward, i’d like more of (all of?) my stories to centre around women or non-men, because that’s where i am right now. i wrote a story for the 3-day novel contest last year about a lady who falls in love with a lady-ghost and that was pretty sick. we don’t need any more writing about cis men and i should contribute to that as little as possible.
otherwise, i’m pretty bad at writing fantasy characters-- monsters, fantasy species/races, D&D-type stuff. no idea why. a lot of my stories are very non-fantasy even though i read so much fantasy and sci-fi in my free time, but i’m not great at species creation at this point in time.
