Home sick with strep throat, so doing this instead of any of the 29387429832 other things I should be doing. XD
Anyway, as always, really interesting discussion.
I don't think I've ever held anything back in this way. My approach to writing is kind of "Whatever, whatever, I do what I want." The only time I've specifically held back a plotline for a different story is if I've already got so much going on in the story I'm writing that it would be ridiculous to add it, and/or I just don't have enough time to write it in. For example, in Castle in the Air, through the writing it became clear to me that I really wanted to explore a Jennsen/Walter romance. But I didn't want to do it in that story because it would derail the Jennsen/Dahlia dynamic I had already set up. So I didn't do the Jennsen/Watler storyline that had occurred to me until over a year later, in Waiting for Tomorrow.
Likewise, all the plotlines present in Dragon Blood were originally supposed to be in Son of Blood because it was going to be the ONLY sequel to Blood from a Stone, but the story grew and got more complicated in the telling, until it had become a trilogy when I wasn't looking.
Currently plotlines I'm sitting on are ones that didn't make it into Invictus or The Old Commandments Stand purely because I was on a deadline when I did those and ran out of writing time.
Anyway tl;dr, I never sit on plotlines because I'm saving them for something better. It's more a matter of not being able to fit it in to what I'm currently writing, and sometimes I feel like the idea needs to simmer a bit. For example, I had the idea for For All That We Have and Are about a year and a half before I wrote it, but I wouldn't take back the waiting because if I had written it at any other time than when I did, it would have been a very different story.
As for names, I name everyone, even extras, very deliberately, according to name meanings and symbolism. If I already know a characters arc, then I choose a name that suits them and gives hints at their ultimate destiny. If I don't already know who they are, then I say names out loud until I find one that feels right, and look up the meaning. More often than not, the meaning of their name informs who they are.
My philosophy on it is I can always change it later if I don't like it, and that every character, even minor ones, have a story, and a personality, and a background. It might not be showcased in the story I'm writing, but it still exists. So if they appear enough in the story I'm writing that I need to know what their name is, then I need to know what their story is too - sometimes their name tells me their story, and sometimes their story tells me their name.
And of course, sometimes I just name characters as a cameo appearance for a friend.
About descriptions and actors and so on: I always pick a real person to model characters on. I find having an actual reference helps me keep descriptions consistent. Sometimes I take personality elements as well, but I find characters eventually blossom into their own life, so that by the end they bear little resemblance to the actor or model I stole their looks from.
Obvs with fanfiction the actor is already picked for me, but here are some examples of OCs:
In Silenced by her Smile adult!Renn is based on Simon Woods.
no subject
Anyway, as always, really interesting discussion.
I don't think I've ever held anything back in this way. My approach to writing is kind of "Whatever, whatever, I do what I want." The only time I've specifically held back a plotline for a different story is if I've already got so much going on in the story I'm writing that it would be ridiculous to add it, and/or I just don't have enough time to write it in. For example, in Castle in the Air, through the writing it became clear to me that I really wanted to explore a Jennsen/Walter romance. But I didn't want to do it in that story because it would derail the Jennsen/Dahlia dynamic I had already set up. So I didn't do the Jennsen/Watler storyline that had occurred to me until over a year later, in Waiting for Tomorrow.
Likewise, all the plotlines present in Dragon Blood were originally supposed to be in Son of Blood because it was going to be the ONLY sequel to Blood from a Stone, but the story grew and got more complicated in the telling, until it had become a trilogy when I wasn't looking.
Currently plotlines I'm sitting on are ones that didn't make it into Invictus or The Old Commandments Stand purely because I was on a deadline when I did those and ran out of writing time.
Anyway tl;dr, I never sit on plotlines because I'm saving them for something better. It's more a matter of not being able to fit it in to what I'm currently writing, and sometimes I feel like the idea needs to simmer a bit. For example, I had the idea for For All That We Have and Are about a year and a half before I wrote it, but I wouldn't take back the waiting because if I had written it at any other time than when I did, it would have been a very different story.
As for names, I name everyone, even extras, very deliberately, according to name meanings and symbolism. If I already know a characters arc, then I choose a name that suits them and gives hints at their ultimate destiny. If I don't already know who they are, then I say names out loud until I find one that feels right, and look up the meaning. More often than not, the meaning of their name informs who they are.
My philosophy on it is I can always change it later if I don't like it, and that every character, even minor ones, have a story, and a personality, and a background. It might not be showcased in the story I'm writing, but it still exists. So if they appear enough in the story I'm writing that I need to know what their name is, then I need to know what their story is too - sometimes their name tells me their story, and sometimes their story tells me their name.
And of course, sometimes I just name characters as a cameo appearance for a friend.
About descriptions and actors and so on: I always pick a real person to model characters on. I find having an actual reference helps me keep descriptions consistent. Sometimes I take personality elements as well, but I find characters eventually blossom into their own life, so that by the end they bear little resemblance to the actor or model I stole their looks from.
Obvs with fanfiction the actor is already picked for me, but here are some examples of OCs:
In Silenced by her Smile adult!Renn is based on Simon Woods.
In Blood from a Stone Human!Hali is based on Jaime Ray Newman.
The Blood Trilogy's Freya Kate started out as my friend Kate, but as her character developed I started using Zooey Deschanel as a reference.
I have a reference for almost every OC I've ever written, but I won't bore you with them. :3
So yeah. There you go. THE PRIS FORMULA.