The Role of Etiquette in Chinese culture (3)- Ceremonial Rites 

There used to be more ceremonial rites in ancient China but many have grown out of fashion. For example, the coming of age ceremony for the high born where males aged 20 are capped and given a courtesy name while girls’ hair is styled into a bun and given a hairpin at the age ofContinue reading “The Role of Etiquette in Chinese culture (3)- Ceremonial Rites “

Moonalake’s Writing Updates- December 2025

I have officially moved onto draft 0.84, which is somewhat of a milestone since I’ve been stuck at draft 0.83 for three years and a little bit over now.  One of the main takeaways (well, I’ve always known this but the Excel exercise gave me a much clearer idea of the difference between my maleContinue reading “Moonalake’s Writing Updates- December 2025”

Remarkable Women in Ancient China (26)- Liang Hong Yu 

Who is She?  One of the known female generals in ancient China and potentially the only one that had spent some time in a humble situation Notable Life Events Why is She Remarkable? I didn’t actually know she was the one who started a trend of wives of officials earning a separate wage. I didn’tContinue reading “Remarkable Women in Ancient China (26)- Liang Hong Yu “

Gaming Approach to Character and Utilisation in Fiction 

I mentioned previously that I took “some time off” from the WIP by converting all my main characters into FATE character sheets. What I didn’t explicitly mention was that I had a second go at this recently after I understood FATE myself better after watching a long Youtube video from FATE SRD in conjunction withContinue reading “Gaming Approach to Character and Utilisation in Fiction “

Scene by Scene breakdown- Reflections to date 

I did feel like my amended version of the scene by scene breakdown was more easy to fill out compared to the original version. In particular, it is certainly more suitable for my needs due to my tendency to lose access to my characters. Or rather, I should say that I’m mostly in contact withContinue reading “Scene by Scene breakdown- Reflections to date “

The Role of Etiquette in Chinese culture (2)- Left versus Right 

There are two aspects to which left versus right is important in Chinese culture.  The first is that unlike Western society where right is considered the power position, it’s the reverse in Chinese culture. By the power position, I mean both seating arrangements and whether you walk to the left or right of someone else.Continue reading “The Role of Etiquette in Chinese culture (2)- Left versus Right “

Moonlake’s Writing Updates- September 2025

Due to an accidental hand injury which lasted for a week and the two changes in approach I made for this particular task (first changing from index card to Excel and then leveraging FATE scenario creation technique for my novel), I’m expecting that it would probably be closer to the end of this year thatContinue reading “Moonlake’s Writing Updates- September 2025”

The Role of Etiquette in Chinese culture (1)- Titles and Personal Addresses 

This topic is actually inspired by my study in translation (I started my graduate certificate in translation in the middle of July) and I thought etiquette does play a very important role in Chinese culture, all the way from ancient times.  Before I delve into the topic area of this post, I will just listContinue reading “The Role of Etiquette in Chinese culture (1)- Titles and Personal Addresses “

Remarkable Women in ancient China (25)- Zhao Rao

Who is she? Notable Life Events Why is She Remarkable?She is not the only palace maid who has risen to a high position (nor the only nanny for the Emperor for that matter) but I did find it interesting how it was effectively palace servants, of which Zhao Rao is one, that the Dowager EmpressContinue reading “Remarkable Women in ancient China (25)- Zhao Rao”

Scene by Scene breakdown

I learnt the original form of the scene by scene summary from the UBC novel writing courses on EdX and it has the following elements: As time goes by and I read more writer craft books I had come to think that for me at least, what the characters want is often not foremost onContinue reading “Scene by Scene breakdown”