As you may have noticed, this book is basically one big A/N, but this section, especially, steps out of the 'wiki' role of this book, and tries to answer some questions about craft, at least as I handle it. I don't pretend to be an expert, and in fact, still can't believe anyone wants to read my scribblings, but it thrills me to no end that you do! 

Better yet, many people have asked me questions about how I write... from world building to character creation, and I love this. Interacting with readers and sharing my imagined world is what keeps me writing. (So if you want to see more, talk to me! XD) 

Below, you'll find answers to some of these questions, mostly compiled from comments I've already left elsewhere, but maybe with some more information. 

Enjoy! :) 

Names

Every time I read Rip's name, I read "Rest In Peace!" 

Sorry about the 'RIP' confusion. It was unintentional (came up with the name 'Riposte' first, the logical nickname later). Although it does add a little suspense if the reader is guessing... "foreshadowing?" :)

How do you come up with names for your characters? They're so [weird/unique/funny/stupid]! 

Rip - Riposte is a name I specifically researched for this character. It is a fencing term (an attack immediately after a parry), that I thought was perfect and flush with secondary and tertiary meanings (as you discovered). At some point I'll find my notes and remember what the runner-up 'name' was :) Of course the rest of his full name, "Lord Koray "Riposte" Clasicant, Baron of Dumon" was designed around the Riposte nickname from scratch. (Originally his last name was another fencing term, but I found I didn't like it as much. He needed something classic ;) )

Riposte's name is the only one that means something, but here's how I came up with the others: 

Paolo and Demis are just names I came up with out of nowhere, as most character names I make are. ("Demis" was supposed to be a Terrok transliteration of "Dennis" originally, although now I pronounce it /Dehm-ee/ in my mind, like Demi Moore) I follow the Robert Jordan school of character names, and specifically try to use real world names as little as possible, because I feel it breaks the 4th wall a little.

Ivy - fairly obvious... it's a plant name, and therefore fair game for any Tilwenna... But her origin is in a character created by a friend for a D&D campaign I ran. I coopted the character for this book when I needed a female mercenary that fit in city... and I have big plans for her :> (The friend is on Wattpad, but she's a bit of a lurker, so I won't share the username here ;) — pun intended, if you're reading... )

Tortelli - The city has kind of a Venetian/Parisian feel to it, so I try to have all the 'NPC' names sound somewhat Italian, while still being made up. (although Tortelli could be an actual Italian surname; I didn't check... ) Same thing with Paolo Faranado, etc. 

Pertuli - I've hinted at this before, but I may as well come out and say it... when I used to run D&D games, a lot of the names I made up were very, very goofy. Sometimes punny. Sometimes both. There was a "Lord Dude", "Sir Dudenhoff", Knights of the waters of Pep'C, etc. Of course that won't fly if you're trying to write serious fiction, so they'll have to change if the narrative ever invades those lands... In my Dracoscala campaign, however, the elven characters had an important NPC to show them around and give them the local flavor... Pertuli. (A mid-level double wielding duelist with an eye on the female PC and a swashbuckling flair...) When coming up with his name, I thought about how much of a snob he would be, and thought his name should sound like he was spitting on everyone. Hence the onomatopoeia "Ptui" ... and so, "Pertuli." ...Of course, when Ivy only heard his nickname 'Tuli in the Prize Fight flashback(s), she thought it sounded more like "Tulip," so she calls him flower boy to this day.

How do you come up with your (country) names?

Really? Okay, just remember you asked... 

I made a map of the continent, drew circles (using a circle template from a drafting class) more or less randomly around the map, and just started coming up with names for all of them. Then I divided them into countries and made an index card for each one. I jotted the name of the country and cities on each, with a one or two line summary of the culture. Later, I typed them all into my laptop using wordstar (an ancient program that isn't compatible with anything anymore) and carried that around on floppy for years. Later a friend helped me convert them to Word, although a lot of the formatting and some of the text was lost. 

When I started writing stories based in Terrok, I realized that a lot of the names sounded (or were!) derivative or hokey, since this process started when I was 10, so I changed them. At some point, though, they became canon in my mind, and I had a hard time changing them, so I came up with alternate spellings instead, and called it a regional dialect thing. (Dragoskala being the most prominent example, since it started as Dracoscala, and in some parts is known as Dragoska'la) 

All this is an awful system that I wouldn't recommend to anyone. lolCome up with your geography first, then countries. Place and name cities and towns last (make sure they're near water!), and make sure the ones in the same area have a similar sound. They'll make a lot more sense.I really do wish I could just redo all my country names so they make sense... but I've lived with them all so long I just couldn't, now. I had to change Dracoscala because it was just too obviously "Dragon" and "Scale" stuck together, so much finding and replacing later, we have the new spelling (although you'll notice I didn't change it that much... a compromise with myself, really).

I really like Dragoska'la, but it sounds more exotic, so I made that how they pronounce it in far-off places like Kalibar.

Long Lifespans

I love the way you imply/reference Tilwen lifespan into your character building! 

(Okay, I know that's not a question...) 

Someday I'll post/publish the timeline I've worked out for the boys' history in Dragoskala. It's been a great, ongoing, eye opening exercise. (If I put the timeline up now, there'd be spoilers, and I'm still adding to it so... someday.)

Even human people lead such full lives. So much 'stuff' happens in 20, 30, 50 years. Now imagine if one prominent character's lifespan just continued, generation after generation in the same location. How much 'stuff' they would do in that time? ... It starts to make you see the vampire/immortal/elf characters in a lot of supernatural stories as horribly shallow/2-dimensional.

Some writers handle this by saying the immortal races are 'withdrawn' from society. But it's a bit of a crutch, and for a prominent citizen in the middle of a thriving human city, you couldn't possibly do that. Of course, Rip has been drunk for 50 years, so who am I to judge? But I try :)

The Rose Awards Interview

As part of my prize for taking first in the 2017 Rose Awards with Silver Blades: Prize Fight, I was interviewed by @kalyons . 

Questions were mostly about the way Terrok's setting, cultures, and clothing were developed, and I thought readers of this FAQ would find them interesting. (see link below)

https://www.wattpad.com/501641997-the-rose-awards-2017-interviews

There were also one or two questions about my characters and whether their personalities/relationships were based on any in my real life. I tried to answer as thoroughly as possible, without going overboard, so enjoy :) 

Note: It looks like the rose awards either relocated or have been removed. My apologies. :( 

Inspiration

Inspiration is always hard for me. My stories historically have been prompted by someone else; either someone I was roleplaying with or someone who challenged me to write a particular story. I have a very hard time coming up with entirely new, out of the blue stories to write on my own. 

That's one reason I'm particularly proud of the Silver Blades series. It is something I sat down, puzzled out, and came up with all on my own. (I say that at the danger of sounding like a grade school student who just realized trees don't look like lollypops in his latest drawing, but it's true, nonetheless ;) ) 

However, I have been asked what exactly prompted me to write these stories, most recently by @ShazamBlake :

I wanted to ask, was there any inspiration for the silver blades series. Cause its awesome.

(Note that I'm also rather partial to the exact wording of Shazam's question... ;) ) 

There are a few things that prompted me to write these specific stories... but mostly I was having trouble with pacing in a much longer story I was working on before Wattpad, so I wanted to write something MUCH shorter, that would limit what I could do a little, and help me train myself to pace a little better. (I naturally over-write everything) ... so I knew I wanted to write a novella (or a series of them, as it turns out)! 

 So in brainstorming I decided that I would write about the adventures of a single character who was kind of specialized and flawed. Really good at doing one thing, but with lots of personality issues. 

 I realized in that decision, that my concept sounded a lot like some books I was reading at the time. I was going through a Jamesian phase, where everything I read was from the turn of the 1900's... Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jules Verne, Conan Doyle, that kind of stuff. I really fell in love with the narrative style of Sherlock Holmes stories, where John Watson almost worships Holmes, despite his many obvious flaws, and I realized I wanted to write something similar. Not about a detective, but maybe a swordsman-savant... someone almost maniacally good at fencing, but with substance abuse and personality flaws that kept him from being 'too good to be true.'

I was happy when sharp eyed readers like recognized this right away, and helped me immensely with their feedback. 

 Thus the idea of a 1st person narrative that wasn't the main character came into the brainstorming. I didn't want to do exactly Sherlock Holmes, though, because I have an aversion to incorporating ideas whole cloth, so I decided to break my story up into parts, each told from a different character's point of view. 

 Also, I thought Rip needed some redeeming quality, though, so I decided he should have an iron-clad code of honor, that while somewhat out of tune from the world around him, was inviolable in his eyes. It gives a reader something to latch onto as a moral compass in the odd world of Tilwen and weresaur(s). ;) 

 The bad guy for 'A Duel Nature' was born out of me looking for a 'twist' for my first story. Originally Paolo was to be a wererat that couldn't be killed by ordinary weapons, but I turned it up a notch.