Post by: Asterales on January 23, 2016, 11:01:00 PM
From techniques for world and character building, writing styles, the creation and writing process itself, inspirations, your favorite way to start a scene, the use of dialog, the good and bad points of different types of verse in poetry, to talking about what is especially difficult for you in writing and asking how others solve problems they come upon, in short, anything and everything connected to writing is allowed!
If you want to especially focus on your characters, you can introduce them in the OC Showcase (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?topic=536.0) and get to know them a bit better with the prompts posted there.
If you want to talk about your characters and their interaction with their world or plot decisions that might or might not influence them, the Writers' Corner is a good place, but background stories and insights into the characters' worlds are very welcome in the OC Showcase, too!
I hope everyone from the OC Showcase is fine with me creating this thread and its "limitations".
Post by: Mélusine on January 24, 2016, 03:40:53 AM
Post by: Róisín on January 24, 2016, 04:51:07 AM
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on January 24, 2016, 05:34:33 AM
So, here's a question: can a character exist independent of the setting?
My personal take on it is: decidedly not. Every character must be shaped by their setting to a greater or lesser degree, which is why I don't tend to put stuff in the aforementioned OC thread, and why, for example, "Jazz Age"!Onni is crippled by stage fright, while Western!Onni is afraid of the racism of the outside world, instead of being deathly afraid of Beasts, Trolls, Giants, and the Rash.
On the other hand, some things can remain consistent in a character regardless of setting. Any version of Emil, for example, will always be a mass of insecurity poorly cloaked by pomposity, and also Lalli's friend, assuming Lalli is present. On balance, though, more is changed by setting than is constant. The Western AU has allowed Emil to gain more confidence than the "Jazz Age" AU, for example, so the former will have fewer outbursts of insecurity than the latter.
So, now you can all tell me every way in which I am mistaken.
/me jumps off soapbox before produce begins flying
Post by: Róisín on January 24, 2016, 06:31:26 AM
Something I worked out is that a character is well created (or, for a fanfic writer, well understood), if you, the writer, can drop the character into a situation, watch what they do, and think, 'yes well of course, being X, what else could he do?' If doing that leads to a character reacting in a totally unexpected way, either your understanding of your character deepens, or shows an unexpected facet; otherwise, you know you have it wrong, and will have to take that character back to basics, and build or discover them again.
Post by: Asterales on January 24, 2016, 06:49:42 AM
So, here's a question: can a character exist independent of the setting?
My personal take on it is: decidedly not. Every character must be shaped by their setting to a greater or lesser degree, which is why I don't tend to put stuff in the aforementioned OC thread, and why, for example, "Jazz Age"!Onni is crippled by stage fright, while Western!Onni is afraid of the racism of the outside world, instead of being deathly afraid of Beasts, Trolls, Giants, and the Rash.
On the other hand, some things can remain consistent in a character regardless of setting. Any version of Emil, for example, will always be a mass of insecurity poorly cloaked by pomposity, and also Lalli's friend, assuming Lalli is present. On balance, though, more is changed by setting than is constant. The Western AU has allowed Emil to gain more confidence than the "Jazz Age" AU, for example, so the former will have fewer outbursts of insecurity than the latter.
So, now you can all tell me every way in which I am mistaken.
Hmm, I think, I agree with you.
Spoiler: To quote (annoyingly) form the OCS • show
It seems that, for me, characters are so very intertwined with the setting that I cannot even try to build a new world around them. One that would fit their "energy". Simply because other characters will have remained in the world that eventually out-grew them.
On the other hand, from my perspective, characters can be missing energetically in a setting. These fluffy-snake-dragons had a very cool feel to them, like mist or rain and rather mysterious. Taking them out of the story directly affected the weather in certain parts of the country, some scenery choices and the general level of mysteriousness vs straightforwardness in this story.
Then again, the main character has changed to a degree that should make him entirely unrecognizable, whereas the set up largely remained the same.
I think, maybe the traits that remain, are ones that are universal and could have been brought on by many things or something that could happen in any story. Basic emotions or psychological mechanisms. But are we talking about the characters personality here, or their experiences? Where does one start and the other end?
But I also somehow managed to fuse five stories into this one.
Spoiler: show
What defines a character anyway?
So my question would be: Do you think a setting can exist independently from a character? Would you be able to use the same setting for two stories or as habitat for completely unrelated sets of characters?
No, I think you're right, LooNEY. The character and the environment shape and are shaped by one another. In a different world, the same person will react to different things, but will react to things of similar ........nature? Value? Meaning?......in the same way.
Something I worked out is that a character is well created (or, for a fanfic writer, well understood), if you, the writer, can drop the character into a situation, watch what they do, and think, 'yes well of course, being X, what else could he do?' If doing that leads to a character reacting in a totally unexpected way, either your understanding of your character deepens, or shows an unexpected facet; otherwise, you know you have it wrong, and will have to take that character back to basics, and build or discover them again.
Yes! That!
Possibly the reason "Canon" and "Fanon" characters exist. When characters have been (mis)interpreted by fans, but their behavior has become established as just as valid as the original, due to many ff-writers interpreting them similarly or because certain "what-ifs" had strong impact on the fandom.
Post by: Aierdome on January 24, 2016, 08:13:05 AM
Something I worked out is that a character is well created (or, for a fanfic writer, well understood), if you, the writer, can drop the character into a situation, watch what they do, and think, 'yes well of course, being X, what else could he do?' If doing that leads to a character reacting in a totally unexpected way, either your understanding of your character deepens, or shows an unexpected facet; otherwise, you know you have it wrong, and will have to take that character back to basics, and build or discover them again.
This, definitely. For me, the moment I know I have a fully-fledged character on my hands is when I want them to do something only to realize that this is a thing they'd never say or do.
As for the question of whether a character can exist independent on the setting, I'd say that the part that stays the same regardless of what situation the character comes from is very, very small - if Tuuri had grown up going on expeditions to Silent World every Tuesday, would she still be so excited for the outside world? While she may still long for being "out", her attitude and reasons behind her wanderlust would be completely different from canon Tuuri's. Would Onni, with his apparently quite impressive powers, still be so scared of the outside world if he was Immune? Probably not, though he might still fret about unexpected problems arising.
For me, the reason AU characters end up looking so similar to their canon versions in many fan-fics is that, consciously or not, the writer tweaks the situation they're in to be similar - or equivalent - to that of the canon versions. A fun thought excercise: if Emil and Lalli were swapped at birth, would they still become friends when they met in year 90?
So my question would be: Do you think a setting can exist independently from a character? Would you be able to use the same setting for two stories or as habitat for completely unrelated sets of characters?
I think it's called "expanded universe"... ;) But to answer the question, this depends on how much you've created of your world. I've recently became quite a fan of worldbuilding - I have an entire world map, with all countries and their capital cities marked, for a story which never moves out of a hundred kilometres' radius from the start point! By now, if you pointed at any random point on the map, I could give you a story set in it. It helps if you approach it sorta like building an RPG campaign (which is how the abovementioned story started). You set up a coherent setting, give it rules it abides by, figure out more important parts of its backstory and present-day events, and voila! It can accomodate pretty much every character.
BTW, have you read Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere books? That's the kind of a thing I'm talking about. With the amount of building that went into it, everyone could create a Cosmere world, magic system and characters and never have them interact with canon characters or planets - and it'd still be recognizably a Cosmere story.
Of course, on the other hand, there are characters so powerful that the setting would look completely different if you were to take them away, but that's probably not someone who'd makes for a good main character. See: the God-Emperor of Mankind in 40K. If you plucked the guy and replaced him with someone caring, pleasant and... let's call it "psychologically canny", the setting would be completely turned on its head. In a way, it's like a "noble vs grim" distinction I've seen once. A "grim" setting is the one where the world is completely immutable, regardless of what the characters do - to continue with my 40K example, no matter how many decisive victories the God-Emperor's side gets, the Imperium is still dying. The "noble" setting is the one where a few men can change the world completely - like in Star Wars, where taking down the Emperor puts the galaxy-spanning Imperium on its knees and gives way for stuff like New Republic and First Order.
...oof, I think I've given you a small essay. tl;dr: characters change depending on the setting, but a well-built setting can carry different characters without changing, unless those characters aren't too powerful.
Post by: Róisín on January 24, 2016, 08:35:04 AM
However, I had noticed that the SSSS fanfic on the Scriptorium, as well as on AO3 and fanficnet, seems to have two distinct strands - one that sticks fairly closely to canon, and another that diverges wildly. And yeah, some of the latter seem to have taken on a life of their own.
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on January 24, 2016, 08:40:58 AM
So my question would be: Do you think a setting can exist independently from a character? Would you be able to use the same setting for two stories or as habitat for completely unrelated sets of characters?
I think it's called "expanded universe"... ;) But to answer the question, this depends on how much you've created of your world. I've recently became quite a fan of worldbuilding - I have an entire world map, with all countries and their capital cities marked, for a story which never moves out of a hundred kilometres' radius from the start point! By now, if you pointed at any random point on the map, I could give you a story set in it. It helps if you approach it sorta like building an RPG campaign (which is how the abovementioned story started). You set up a coherent setting, give it rules it abides by, figure out more important parts of its backstory and present-day events, and voila! It can accomodate pretty much every character.So, for purposes of discussion, what is a setting, then?
Is it simply a specific place and time?
Is it, for example, "Regency England"?
Is it "Regency London"?
Is it "London immediately before and after the Battle of Waterloo"?
Or is it a specific assemblage of characters, whatever their physical location?
For an example, when I say "Blandings Castle", do I mean the actual (fictional) residence, or do I mean the Earl of Emsworth and all the other Threepwoods and their kin and friends?
Or when I say "the Drones Club", am I talking of the premises, or the assorted Eggs, Beans and Crumpets that frequent them?
In either case, I think many stories, whether successive or simultaneous, can be told.
For my first set of examples, there is an entire sub-genre of popular romance called "Regency Romances" set therein.
For my second set of examples, P. G. Wodehouse wrote numerous stories with either assemblage (or both!).
I know, I'm asking the Deep, Tough Questions, but that's my nature.
Post by: Róisín on January 24, 2016, 09:06:01 AM
The setting will only be as interesting as the writer's description of it. As will the characters. So it's important to be able to visualise or remember a setting well enough to describe it clearly to the reader, and to be able to imagine a character well enough to do the same.
Post by: Keeper on January 24, 2016, 09:59:25 AM
What's interesting is that I really changed the social setting than the place. It's still a small town with an old mansion on a hill, but now it's in some medieval-age world/time/society.
Post by: Lazy8 on January 24, 2016, 10:45:13 AM
I think that, while characters certainly wouldn't be the same characters if they were placed in a completely different environment, you also can't discount the various innate ways in which they respond to environments. Someone used the example of Emil and Lalli being switched at birth, so I'll expand on that one; if the switch had somehow happened, they certainly would no longer be the same Emil and Lalli that we know and love. However, Lalli-in-Emil's-position would hardly be a carbon copy of the vain pretty boy, insecurity-masquerading-as-arrogance either, nor would Emil display Lalli's particular brand of taciturn introversion. Environment does play a huge role in shaping the characters, but there are also a lot of things innate to the characters themselves - intelligence, introversion/extroversion, natural talent, mental dis/ability, even physical appearance - that can't be discounted either. And if you decide to arbitrarily change these factors, then you don't have the same character anymore anyway, rendering the whole point moot.
Post by: Aierdome on January 24, 2016, 10:54:59 AM
So, for purposes of discussion, what is a setting, then?
I'd say it's the world, the times and, perhaps, the rules. A setting would be "21st century America in a world suffering a vampire plague" You've got the time (21st century), place (America) and rules (there are vampires and they're a plague). A group of characters remaining the same in various settings is an ensemble. Whether Blandings' Castle or the Drones Club is a setting or an ensemble depends on the context it shows in.
Ah, ye olde Nature vs. Nurture debate.
I think that, while characters certainly wouldn't be the same characters if they were placed in a completely different environment, you also can't discount the various innate ways in which they respond to environments. Someone used the example of Emil and Lalli being switched at birth, so I'll expand on that one; if the switch had somehow happened, they certainly would no longer be the same Emil and Lalli that we know and love. However, Lalli-in-Emil's-position would hardly be a carbon copy of the vain pretty boy, insecurity-masquerading-as-arrogance either, nor would Emil display Lalli's particular brand of taciturn introversion. Environment does play a huge role in shaping the characters, but there are also a lot of things innate to the characters themselves - intelligence, introversion/extroversion, natural talent, mental dis/ability, even physical appearance - that can't be discounted either. And if you decide to arbitrarily change these factors, then you don't have the same character anymore anyway, rendering the whole point moot.
Nah, Lalli wouldn't change into Emil clone, and Emil wouldn't change into a copy of Lalli. I think I didn't put it very well in my post, but I agree with you in that there is some part of the character that won't change regardless of setting the author would put it in. If Emil and Lalli were to be switched at birth, they wouldn't become a grey-haired Emil and blonde Lalli, of course. But I don't believe they'd become people we could recognize as Emil and Lalli if we didn't know the switch had taken place.
Post by: Lazy8 on January 24, 2016, 11:04:57 AM
Nah, Lalli wouldn't change into Emil clone, and Emil wouldn't change into a copy of Lalli. I think I didn't put it very well in my post, but I agree with you in that there is some part of the character that won't change regardless of setting the author would put it in. If Emil and Lalli were to be switched at birth, they wouldn't become a grey-haired Emil and blonde Lalli, of course. But I don't believe they'd become people we could recognize as Emil and Lalli if we didn't know the switch had taken place.
Yeah, I think that you can't definitively say it's one or the other, because what shapes a character is very much a combination of nature and nurture. (I also now really want to read a story in which Emil and Lalli somehow were switched at birth.)
Post by: Asterales on January 24, 2016, 11:08:10 AM
Spoiler: show
But to answer the question, this depends on how much you've created of your world. I've recently became quite a fan of worldbuilding - I have an entire world map, with all countries and their capital cities marked, for a story which never moves out of a hundred kilometres' radius from the start point! By now, if you pointed at any random point on the map, I could give you a story set in it. It helps if you approach it sorta like building an RPG campaign (which is how the abovementioned story started). You set up a coherent setting, give it rules it abides by, figure out more important parts of its backstory and present-day events, and voila! It can accomodate pretty much every character.Spoiler: show
In either case, I think many stories, whether successive or simultaneous, can be told.
Spoiler: show
This is an interesting discussion for me because I just drastically changed the setting of one of my stories. It started out as a modern-day small town setting, but I decided I could get more of a story if the characters were in a more medieval/fantasy village. And some of their traits are still there; Diana is still curious, Lucy still cares greatly about her friends, Rebecca is still the responsible older sister for Ethan. But some new traits popped up with the new setting- I figured out that Diana likes to sew, and Matthew likes to bake, and Lucy is average at both of those things. If I put them in the sci-fi setting of my other story, I would probably learn how resourceful and brave each character is, and what advantages they have that they would use in a more tense situation.Thats great! *pretends to understand how you did it and is not secretly weirded out at all*
What's interesting is that I really changed the social setting than the place. It's still a small town with an old mansion on a hill, but now it's in some medieval-age world/time/society.
Well, at least the characters changed with their surroundings. I get that part.
What do you think you will be able to get out of the medieval setting opposed to the modern one?
The setting will only be as interesting as the writer's description of it. As will the characters. So it's important to be able to visualise or remember a setting well enough to describe it clearly to the reader, and to be able to imagine a character well enough to do the same.And to remember that the setting is real to the character and likely the only reality they know.
I think, that's the way to pulling off even the most astounding settings, whit the suspense of disbelieve still in tact.
/me ooks at
I type too slowly, clearly. Going to bed now.
Post by: Lazy8 on January 24, 2016, 11:22:48 AM
I can't just go and put a character that 'feels' lime-green and silver in a world that is mostly black, red and dark grey, with hints of saturated dark blue and green! It's impossible!
But once characters of 'the first generation' die, the colour/energy/feel of a world changes for me, because their weight is missing from weave and matter, my sensibilities start revolting once more.
The only thing I can do with my characters and worlds is to try to slowly morph them by adding or subtracting strands of colour, a smell, a distinct sound or, well, "energies" :(
Slightly off-topic, but... do you have synesthesia, Asterales? Never seen anyone describe a character or world in terms of color or smell before.
Post by: Keeper on January 24, 2016, 11:43:50 AM
Thats great! *pretends to understand how you did it and is not secretly weirded out at all*
Well, at least the characters changed with their surroundings. I get that part.
What do you think you will be able to get out of the medieval setting opposed to the modern one?
How I did it? I pretty much scrapped everything I had and started over with only the characters and the original surrounding area. It helps that when I had the very first thought of the story, it was very similar to the setting it has now. The modern-day thing came later, but it wasn't working out, storywise. I don't want to have a conflict between tow human parties driving the plot. Rather, I want it to be more humans vs. fate/nature which works better with a more nature-heavy setting. And I read a lot of fantasy books, so a medieval setting is one I feel like I actually understand better, plus I have a bit more flexibility.
Post by: Róisín on January 24, 2016, 04:57:20 PM
If you want to see that progression of writing from the perspective of a wonderful poet whose sensorium gradually changed, look for the work of Judith Wright. The descriptors changed over time, especially in her landscape poetry, as she gradually became profoundly deaf. And of course it can be the mental balance that changes, and with it the landscape depicted. You don't have to go past the work of Vincent van Gogh to see that.
If you read my stuff, for that matter, you'll note that the balance of descriptors is a little strange. In my case, I've a very good proprioceptive sense- I can, if you like, always 'feel' myself very accurately in the landscape, and it reflects in my writing. My sense of touch is very good, and I have a 'perfumers' nose' which again is reflected in descriptions of landscape, food, people and the like. On the other hand, because my hearing is no longer brilliant, and my eyesight is fading, being far better at night than in glaring bright light, the things I notice, and therefore describe, are different.
But I completely get Asterale's descriptions, and find them interesting.
Post by: Lazy8 on January 24, 2016, 05:29:10 PM
Lazy8: noticed that you were asking Asterales about synaesthesia? I don't know whether that is what is happening with her, but there are other reasons as well for using other senses as descriptors. I have a poet friend who is blind, and years ago knew another poet and musician who started to go deaf as a child due to a disease which affected the bones of his inner ears and who became totally deaf by his early twenties. Their work is good verging on brilliant in both cases, but has a slight but disturbing element of alienage when it comes to descriptions.
If you want to see that progression of writing from the perspective of a wonderful poet whose sensorium gradually changed, look for the work of Judith Wright. The descriptors changed over time, especially in her landscape poetry, as she gradually became profoundly deaf. And of course it can be the mental balance that changes, and with it the landscape depicted. You don't have to go past the work of Vincent van Gogh to see that.
If you read my stuff, for that matter, you'll note that the balance of descriptors is a little strange. In my case, I've a very good proprioceptive sense- I can, if you like, always 'feel' myself very accurately in the landscape, and it reflects in my writing. My sense of touch is very good, and I have a 'perfumers' nose' which again is reflected in descriptions of landscape, food, people and the like. On the other hand, because my hearing is no longer brilliant, and my eyesight is fading, being far better at night than in glaring bright light, the things I notice, and therefore describe, are different.
But I completely get Asterale's descriptions, and find them interesting.
Oh yeah, just asking out of curiosity. Mostly because I find it fascinating the various ways in which people's senses can intermingle, and learning about different ways that people perceive the world.
Post by: Jethan on January 24, 2016, 11:06:48 PM
Spoiler: show
Spoiler: Sorta long, sorta rambly • show
I also wanted to reply to your comment on the OC Showcase...
Quote
Spoiler: show
Spoiler: Atmosphere and Description • show
Post by: Asterales on January 25, 2016, 03:11:38 AM
[...] I want it to be more humans vs. fate/nature which works better with a more nature-heavy setting. And I read a lot of fantasy books, so a medieval setting is one I feel like I actually understand better, plus I have a bit more flexibility.That is probably true. I hope the setting works out for you the way you imagine!
Flavor is a very good word, too. I think words kind of have a "flavor" and a texture according to tongue movement and sound.Spoiler: Sorta long, sorta rambly • show
And I get, what you are saying about becoming confused when trying to figure out if an element fits a story or not or a story can have that setting. Could imagine being able to move characters around in an universe, but my setting(s) have never grown beyond a continent or two (which aren't even necessary)
I really think concentrating on that planet is a good thing and admirable. Why not fill in as many holes, you could trip over, as possible? What would you be doing if you weren't fussing over it? Would it be something more productive? As long as you don't feel you are holding yourself down with it, what's the harm?
I understand the kind of difference the medium could make. I would find it hard to write the exact same story in German and in English.Spoiler: show
A comic and a novel version would surely be interesting, but I can imagine them being very confusing at the same time.
Hopefully you'll be able to find a solution!
To avoid disappointment though, I don't think it is ever possible to produce a story, that isn't interpreted differently from what the author intended. Just look at the different readings of a single panel in SSSS - sometimes it has huge repercussions.
Not to discourage you, but maybe you should mentally prepare yourself to succeed only mostly, instead of completely.
Slightly off-topic, but... do you have synesthesia, Asterales? Never seen anyone describe a character or world in terms of color or smell before.
[…]
No, I don't think I do. There might be strong connections between the different senses for me, but I don't think that qualifies as Synesthesia.
Spoiler: show
Róisín: What you say is very interesting! When I read it, I had a strong recollection of reading a book in which descriptions of taste constantly popped up and confused me to no end. It were good descriptions and not over the top, but they still felt foreign to me and I thought about them a lot at the time.
Post by: Mélusine on January 25, 2016, 08:24:39 AM
Post by: Aierdome on January 25, 2016, 09:30:21 AM
Question : am I the only one always wondering if I write properly the characters who are the opposite gender ? (*Fears not to be clear enough* Mens, for me, because I'm a girl ?)
I admit that I don't have this problem most of the time, but then again, my stories suffer from having very little female characters, so perhaps there's something I'm not aware of. Also, the problem raises its ugly head when I have to write romantic scenes. When I try to write them from female perspective, they always just... fail to work properly. No matter what I write, it just never feels like something a real woman would do, and I have to escape into male POV to make it work. Which is... weird, to say the least, seeing how I'm a woman myself. ???
I'd say if you worry about this, just give it to some guy to read and ask him if it feels right.
Post by: Yuuago on January 25, 2016, 09:54:22 AM
Question : am I the only one always wondering if I write properly the characters who are the opposite gender ? (*Fears not to be clear enough* Mens, for me, because I'm a girl ?)
Hmm... I've run into this problem when writing in historical settings, but in those case I think it's due to having yet another level of research that I need to take into account (societal expectations of the period/class vs individual approach to situations, etc).
But with modern/fantasy/non-historical settings, I haven't found it a problem. I take the same approach to writing women as I do to writing men, and it all comes out fine. Since people are individuals, it isn't really like there is a "proper" way to write anybody, really.
Post by: Mélusine on January 25, 2016, 10:04:28 AM
Also, the problem raises its ugly head when I have to write romantic scenes.*Shivers* My nightmare... okay, less than battles/confrontations, but I always feel so clumsy !
I'd say if you worry about this, just give it to some guy to read and ask him if it feels right.Of course :) But I haven't a lot of guys in my potential beta-readers... Until now the only one hadn't saw too much problems... I hope...
But with modern/fantasy/non-historical settings, I haven't found it a problem. I take the same approach to writing women as I do to writing men, and it all comes out fine. Since people are individuals, it isn't really like there is a "proper" way to write anybody, really.Maybe I'm thinking too much :) I tend to write better, or to have the impression to be able to write better when I have an experience to relate with what I'm writing, because I can use memories, sensations... to describe something more "real".
And it's just that, sometimes, when you've spend so many hours writing, you're not anymore able to see the little details which might be small problems, attitudes which sounds a little wrong, reaction a bit weird, ... For example, a friend I was beta-reading had a male character, a big brother, strong, worrying for brother and sister, and putting his hands on his hips while asking them where they were. Which is an attitude I never saw on any men. I'm not saying men aren't allowed to do it, but with the character's temperament, it sounds wrong, folding his arms was a more coherent attitude.
Post by: Yuuago on January 25, 2016, 10:11:59 AM
For example, a friend I was beta-reading had a male character, a big brother, strong, worrying for brother and sister, and putting his hands on his hips while asking them where they were. Which is an attitude I never saw on any men. I'm not saying men aren't allowed to do it, but with the character's temperament, it sounds wrong, folding his arms was a more coherent attitude.I'm still not sure I'm clear.
OHH okay, now I understand better what you mean. Yeah, that kind of thing... Well, even in such a case, I'd say it still comes down to individual behaviour, and making sure that one is consistent with the type of person they're writing. Not necessarily on a, like, male/female level, but just what they act like as a person. :Va Probably.
Post by: Mélusine on January 25, 2016, 10:14:20 AM
Post by: Yuuago on January 25, 2016, 10:17:49 AM
Okay. First conclusion : I'm worrying too much ^^
Worrying too much is definitely a thing, yes, and might be the case here. ;p One tends to be one's own harshest critic.
Post by: Asterales on January 25, 2016, 10:21:12 AM
As for emotions, I don't think they can be all that different.
Some of the gestures one gender uses and the other doesn't, might also be learned, so if you have a fantasy world you could arguably invent your own gestures. It might be more difficult to make the reader relate, though.
And I totally agree with Yuuago that it is the individual characteristics that are ultimately pivotal, not the gender or sex.
Post by: Mélusine on January 25, 2016, 10:26:02 AM
One tends to be one's own harshest critic.*Conscientiously looks in an other direction as if she wasn't concerned*
And I totally agree with Yuuago that it is the individual characteristics that are ultimately pivotal, not the gender or sex.Haaaaaaa ! It wasn't what I... *Blames her English*
Post by: Hrollo on January 25, 2016, 12:13:32 PM
I've recently that my way of conceiving a story is oddly analogous to my way of playing a videogame called SpaceChem.
SpaceChem is a puzzle game whre you given certain objects at an input and must assemble them into different objects before deliverying them at an output (the "objects" are actually atoms and molecules, but that's entirely incidentical, the game can be played by someone who knows no chemistry). The key aspect is this is a programmation game: to manipulate the objects, you have two little mechanical arms that run along a rail and execute the instructions they encounter — you must set the path of the rail and the instruction on it so that they form the right objects (this can include making sure the two distinct arms, which each have their own path, act in a syncroneous way).
The result is this is, unlike most puzzle games, very open: a given levels can have dozens of different, equally valid solutions — which doesn't mean it's an easy game, in fact the difficulty curve is pretty stiff.
In practice it looks like this:
Spoiler: show
Anyway, here's the analogy to my method of writing.
First, in a level, you are given certain ressources (the objects you get from the inputs and the program instructions you're allowed to use) and an objective (the objects you must create): this is the theme of the story, this is what the story will roughly be about, in terms of context, kind of story, thematics, mood, etc.
Then, from this, you must first elaborate a strategy, understand which manipulations the objects have to go through, and in which order — this must be planned carefully as room and ressources are limited in each level, and collisions between objects aren't allowed: this is the plot of the story, this is the narrative of events that will actually happen in the story, and how they will be articulated toward each other, in which order they will be told.
Once this is done, then the actual design needs to be implement, the paths of the manipulating arms must be drawn, the instructions put into place, and the whole thing must be tested until it works (which sometimes may involve backtracking and completely rethink part or all the strategy): this is the characters of the story, the final actual elements that do all the work to make the story work, but which are themself guided and motivated by the story.
So that's how I conceive my stories, from the general to the particular, I guess — not that there's anything wrong with the opposite approach.
Post by: Asterales on January 25, 2016, 12:21:25 PM
Haaaaaaa ! It wasn't what I... *Blames her English**Pat, pat*Shades ! Why have I so much shades in my language and not in English T_T
That's why we write in our mother tongue, isn't it? :)
Don't worry about it so much. I sometimes really have to think what an English phrase means exactly, even if it only contains words I know.
Nonetheless, we can still talk about techniques and experiences.
It has been fun up until now, haven't it? ;D
*looks at Rollo's post*
Well, if this isn't something to look forward to for tomorrow!
*falls into bed*
(Seriously, though, I need at least semi-coherent thought patterns for this.)
Post by: Aierdome on January 25, 2016, 01:18:37 PM
Rollo - interesting! For me, I mostly go the completely opposite way - I start with idea for a character, then craft a plot around it and then, hopefully, a theme emerges. I've never really written the idea around the theme, and I'd probably not even know how to do that, so it's interesting to read about.
Asterales, I do not want to barge into your away-from-computer life, but maaan, going by your posts from the last two days, you need more sleep. :(
Post by: Lazy8 on January 28, 2016, 06:31:59 PM
It's been a very long time since I've written anything completely original, so much so that most of the settings I came up with were pretty generic. Character building comes a lot more easily than it used to--I've gotten to the point where more often than not OCs will simply tell me things about themselves that I never thought out or planned--but I've gotten so used to playing in other writers' sandboxes that constructing my own sandbox is a skill that's kind of fallen out of use. And it sort of got me thinking about what goes into putting together a really unique setting like A:tLA, Ursula K. Le Guin's Hainish universe, or of course SSSS, where people look at it and remember it for being new and refreshing rather than just thinking "Oh yeah, there's another Tolkien ripoff."
Thoughts?
Post by: mithrysc on January 28, 2016, 08:20:23 PM
So I'd like to hear people's thoughts on worldbuilding when writing original fiction.
It's been a very long time since I've written anything completely original, so much so that most of the settings I came up with were pretty generic. Character building comes a lot more easily than it used to--I've gotten to the point where more often than not OCs will simply tell me things about themselves that I never thought out or planned--but I've gotten so used to playing in other writers' sandboxes that constructing my own sandbox is a skill that's kind of fallen out of use. And it sort of got me thinking about what goes into putting together a really unique setting like A:tLA, Ursula K. Le Guin's Hainish universe, or of course SSSS, where people look at it and remember it for being new and refreshing rather than just thinking "Oh yeah, there's another Tolkien ripoff."
Thoughts?
I have a lot of thoughts, but not so much structure so here goes a semi-ramble:
Spoiler: show
From there I work out some more of what I want the world to do or feel and also do some more research. Since I'm a very visual person mood or style boards (I either use Pinterest or just keep dumping images or documents into a folder) help a lot. Then since I am also a frustratingly practical person I also start picking things apart and figuring out how everything would work, or if everything would work that I can't just handwave by magic. This also involves a lot more research, and all the time I'm looking for interesting things to add or change.
As a side note, worldbuilding for me rarely happens without some characters already, sort of how some people were talking about building the world around the character before. So my character-building will affect my world-building, and vice-versa.
Er...I'm not sure what I was trying to accomplish by writing out all that, but TL;DR:
Research, collect, steal, combine, create, research. Nothing is really completely original, or at least most things aren't. Take the worlds you find interesting and try to pinpoint why you find them interesting, then work from there. Or take a common trope and flip it around, and see what you get when you throw in other ideas you find interesting.[/spoiler]
Only semi-related, but I'd also like to share some of the writing resources I've found helpful: Limyaael's fantasy rants (https://curiosityquills.com/limyaael/) (usually applicable to more things than fantasy), Brandon Sanderson's Write about Dragons (http://www.writeaboutdragons.com/brandon_w2012/) lectures (mostly fantasy & sci-fi), and Writing Excuses (http://www.writingexcuses.com/), which is basically a treasure trove of information and also has the best tagline ever.
Post by: princeofdoom on January 28, 2016, 09:38:26 PM
There are going to be certain things expected of men or women in any culture, and some cultures will be stricter about enforcing those expectations. But no one perfectly fits what is expected of their sex or gender.
But definitely, if you give a guy character a trait that isn't seen as masculine and it fits him, there is no reason to change it. If it doesn't fit, it's because it doesn't fit HIM and not because it's not a guyish thing to do.
Post by: Lazy8 on January 28, 2016, 10:00:32 PM
From the writing board that I've been on for several years, it seems that people either worry they are writing the opposite sex wrong OR that men are easier to write than women (coming from women). The latter seems to be because men are presented as the default a lot of the time. But in the case of the having issues with the opposite sex, it seems to me that the problem is not seeing them as people first and guys or girls second.
There are going to be certain things expected of men or women in any culture, and some cultures will be stricter about enforcing those expectations. But no one perfectly fits what is expected of their sex or gender.
But definitely, if you give a guy character a trait that isn't seen as masculine and it fits him, there is no reason to change it. If it doesn't fit, it's because it doesn't fit HIM and not because it's not a guyish thing to do.
*nods* *nods*
This is pretty much exactly what I say when I'm advising pretty much any male writer on how to write women. Most common problem I see with male writers attempting to write female characters is thinking of them as women before thinking of them as individuals. The SSSS characters demonstrate this concept beautifully - could you picture Sigrun cleaning floors with woodland animals while waiting for a prince to come rescue her? Or Reynir thirsting to prove himself in battle? Or Sigrun and Tuuri sitting down and giggling about boys?
...okay, I think I need to go grab some brain bleach now. Be right back.
*returns after having downed a whole gallon of brain bleach to wipe those images from my head*
I'll add, though, that you shouldn't forget the characters' gender either - especially if they live in a conservative society with rigid gender roles. Typically, each sex will experience a whole slew of fears and pressures that the other one doesn't have to worry about.
Post by: Unwary on January 30, 2016, 11:43:31 AM
It was about OC culture versus the writing culture before the internet. I tried to break it down as follows.
OC culture sprung up collaboratively, based on the freedom of the internet, and tend to be completely character driven. The characters often have intricate back stories, as a result of all the narrative they have participated in. When newly created their backstories often tend to be referential, whether to some common standard so that they are 'compatible' with as many other OCs that share that standard, or refering back to other events in the creator's narratives. Often there is much greater projection of the author onto the OC, and they grow organically through interaction with other authors and characters.
By contrast, traditional writing is far less character focused. The plot tends to be first to be created, though a character may serve as inspiration for a plot. The characters are designed to fit the story, and are often much more specialized than a comparable OC, as the character isn't necessarily designed to be transportable. The character will have as much back story as the author wants, including less than the minimum needed for an OC, which has to be able to stand somewhat separated from it's world. The character tend to grow, but along the lines of the story. Adapting more to the plot, than the plot to it.
To summarize, OCC is about the joy of telling A story, making something together that is more than the sum of it's particpants.
TW is about telling THE story, perfecting a narrative to the best ones abilities, with as great a control and finesse as the author can muster.
That was the definition/comparison I proposed, and I have been thinking about it a lot. For one thing, like most things, it's probably a lot less binary and more of a spectrum. For another, I haven't really done much in the OC style, so I'm speaking as outsider/observer, and would appreciate feedback.
So, thoughts and opinions? where do you fall on this spectrum?
(Personally, I think I'm about 5/8 traditonal writer, because I tend to create in this order. Worldbuilding and large scale plot, characters, and their personal story arc through the major events of the world.)
Post by: Curry on January 30, 2016, 12:50:25 PM
[sneep snop]
So, thoughts and opinions? where do you fall on this spectrum?
(Personally, I think I'm about 5/8 traditonal writer, because I tend to create in this order. Worldbuilding and large scale plot, characters, and their personal story arc through the major events of the world.)
Ooooh, man, this is so cool and a very good point! o: I've definitely seen a lot of examples crop up in the OC thread especially in the discussion about how OCs come to be. I definitely fall more on the OC side, because I tend to create characters and then the story, but in the past I was heavily plot-focused and the characters were made to fit the plot.
Funny story: I had a collaborative story that I worked on with one of my friends a looong while back and I was very frustrated because both of my friends created characters and then believed the story would come later but I couldn't accept that and I never understood how they could be so relaxed ^_^" I'm 100% sure I would annoy the hell out of past me with my current methods...
Post by: Unwary on January 30, 2016, 04:21:44 PM
On the other hand I don't think I've changed much in how I come up with stories. The content yes, and the output have both changed. But I'm still following roughly the same pattern.
Idea, extrapolate large scale plots and events from that, find the most interesting character and place to put them and write that.
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on January 30, 2016, 07:17:28 PM
So here's another thing to consider: are you really sure your character would "never do that"? There are so very many reasons/excuses I can think of for seemingly OOC behavior, but I'll use Minna's own example of Onni from the (fairly) recent pages. When he showed up, people were saying, "Minna wouldn't have Onni act so OOC!" After page 451 (http://sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=451), they stopped saying it, because she demonstrated that it was a struggle for him to act so OOC.
Just food for discussion again.
Post by: Unwary on January 30, 2016, 09:47:42 PM
I'd say that there are limits. It's like say a metal bar. The plot/author's hand can bend a character to any shape, but it's not going to return effectively to it's original form. If it does return, then you don't have a very well defined character. Sure, Minna can show the struggle that Onni underwent, but if he keep shifting form our first impression with him, it's going to start being weird to compare first chapter Onni to the new Onni.2
Post by: Róisín on January 30, 2016, 11:04:31 PM
Or a character may be radically changed by some external event or piece of information, becoming ultimately a very different person. Perhaps they fall in love, or discover that their best friend is in fact the person who killed their family, or that the villain they are struggling against is their mother, or that every other character really is conspiring against them, or.....
If an author is going to majorly change a character, they not only need to come up with a believeable reason within the context of the story, they need to be very sure to make that reason clear to the readers. Otherwise you have bewildered readers going 'but Soandso would never ever do that!' But if the change is gradual, as it would be in life, the writer can carry the readers along on the journey of exploration of the 'new' character.
Post by: John Candlebury on January 31, 2016, 12:15:59 AM
For example if you wanted to tell the travels of some explorer in a high-fantasy world, you could take the Númenóreans and the Dark Lands, by doing that you've got a lot of decent story elements already. You've got yourself powerful sea-faring kingdom submerged in a civil-war, a low magic world, a gigantic forest covered continent shrouded in mystery and a dark power manipulating the most powerful king in the world; with two simple decisions you got all of that for you to play around. Now only got to emphasize the parts you like from the setting, replace the ones you don't like and tie your story to the result.
Post by: Asterales on January 31, 2016, 02:25:24 AM
(I glimpsed a recommendation of Limyaael's rants in mithrysc's post and I must say, I am a huge fan of them, too! They are great and really get you thinking!)
I think the most important thing is to take your world serious. Even if it is a comedic setting, if you don't accept the rules of the universe for real, then you cannot think of things that make it unique and you cannot experience it from your characters points of view.
Always try to think an aspect to the end, even if it seems to be a completely ridiculous one.
Personally, I don't believe a setting can be original or new - but the presentation can be! Think about stereotypes very carefully, but don't try to throw them out the window - otherwise you will get an anti-stereotype and that is just as boring.
And something I take very seriously, environmental possibilities: What kinds of plants grow in which region, what kind of animals would live there, how many of this kind of what and that kind of mineral would be needed to keep X-village supported, what do people eat and how do they protect themselves from wether during different seasons.
You can use real plants and animals as bases, and then modify them, make them more fantastic or 'unbelievable'.
And with that I am back to taking your setting seriously. You have to believe it to be as true as it is for your characters, and they cannot start doubting conventions based on our, this, worlds politics or changing traditions - they have their own.
I'll give you a few examples of thinking a thought to the end from some of my own stories:
Spoiler: show
Just... don't stop halfway and call it a day when you design a world. There is always an astounding, surprising, funny, gruesome detail to be discovered when you set up the rules. So please, please, please don't break them!
And you can start form any kind of idea - even the most ridiculous sounding one!
Asterales, I do not want to barge into your away-from-computer life, but maaan, going by your posts from the last two days, you need more sleep. :(I always need sleep. ;D Your comment made me realize, that while it's unfortunate most of you seem to start posting here, when I am supposed to have been asleep for some hours, doesn't actually stop me from going to bed! (Also, exams coming up. Oh, no! *cries*) So I'm not very active at the moment :P
Huh, it turned out most of the answers weren't answers to Lazy8...
I don't know where I see myself in terms of OCC/TW. Until your post, Unwary, I hadn't even thought about the fact that there might be a difference.
My stories are very character driven. Then again, the characters never exist independently of the world and I want to tell a very specific story in each case. Hm, maybe I see myself in the tradition of the Bildungsroman? So, actually my characters do change a lot? I find it unrealistic if they don't... I chase them through hell and back and they stay the same? Nawww~
But usually I start with world and characters at the same time. At a certain point both of those are fully formed and the mechanics of the setting so strict, that a plot is bound to spring up.
But I usually do have a very general idea of the themes I want to cover. In Ferusch's case that would be choice (crops up in all my stories, as it is a personal favorite, but in his it is almost the main focus); (following) other's expectations, the power of one person over others; redemption; loyalty and rejection.
Post by: Aierdome on January 31, 2016, 11:30:47 AM
Never heard of the OC/TW division before. Interesting. I think I fall mostly on TW side of the divide, crafting characters to fit in with the story, changing them as I see fit and spending ridiculous amounts of time on world-building rather than character-building.
So here's another thing to consider: are you really sure your character would "never do that"? There are so very many reasons/excuses I can think of for seemingly OOC behavior, but I'll use Minna's own example of Onni from the (fairly) recent pages. When he showed up, people were saying, "Minna wouldn't have Onni act so OOC!" After page 451 (http://sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=451), they stopped saying it, because she demonstrated that it was a struggle for him to act so OOC.
I would say the better statement would be "character would never do that unless X". You can always push a character to become a horrid person doing terrible things, and you can always put them thorugh a redemption arc that would make them do a lot of good things, it's just that, like Róisín pointed out, you have to show the passage where the character changes to accomodate for a new thing they would now do. It also gets the audience used to the "new" version of the character. Makes it change with them, in a way.
Tew way that I've personally found works best for worldbuilding is: take some other author setting, find a barely elaborated upon locale/historical reference and then build the story there. Goal is that the constraints imposed on you by the existing universe should make it easier to work on the elements that your plot/characters actually need. Once you got those necessary setting details, you can start separating your "extended universe" for the originals author's.
Literally how a lot of my stories had started. :)) Although usually after a while of world-building the original element I started with goes away or is so buried under the rest that (hopefully) it would take a clue from me to figure it out.
Then again, sometimes I design a world I think is original only to realize that I unwittingly took inspiration from things that I like. And I'm not talking small things, like name of the character looking kinda similar if you squint - I mean huge elephants in the room that I should've noticed much earlier. For an example, the thing I'm currently building has, among others, two gods, one of which is a bird-themed mischievious deity of magic and future-sight who has blue as his colour, and the other a crazy berserker war-god with "KILLKILLKILL" mentality and red colour motif. It took me three weeks to realize that their description is virtually identical to that of two gods from W40K, my second favourite fandom I'm spending way too much time thinking about.
Ever happened to you?
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on February 01, 2016, 12:46:40 AM
Then again, sometimes I design a world I think is original only to realize that I unwittingly took inspiration from things that I like. And I'm not talking small things, like name of the character looking kinda similar if you squint - I mean huge elephants in the room that I should've noticed much earlier. For an example, the thing I'm currently building has, among others, two gods, one of which is a bird-themed mischievious deity of magic and future-sight who has blue as his colour, and the other a crazy berserker war-god with "KILLKILLKILL" mentality and red colour motif. It took me three weeks to realize that their description is virtually identical to that of two gods from W40K, my second favourite fandom I'm spending way too much time thinking about.Yes, and sometimes I come up with something, let it lie a bit, and someone comes up with something eerily similar in the meantime, meaning no one will believe I came up with my idea myself. As an example, in 1998 or so, I came up with a setting that has many similarities to the 'Verse from Firefly. Do I think Joss Whedon broke into my computer and took notes? No. Can I publish the stories featuring that setting? Not without a major rewrite. *Sigh*
Ever happened to you?
Post by: Róisín on February 01, 2016, 02:18:02 AM
Post by: Lazy8 on February 01, 2016, 07:59:09 AM
Yes, and sometimes I come up with something, let it lie a bit, and someone comes up with something eerily similar in the meantime, meaning no one will believe I came up with my idea myself. As an example, in 1998 or so, I came up with a setting that has many similarities to the 'Verse from Firefly. Do I think Joss Whedon broke into my computer and took notes? No. Can I publish the stories featuring that setting? Not without a major rewrite. *Sigh*
Reminds me of that time I wrote this one fanfic, finished posting it and then watched Mad Max: Fury Road several weeks after. "Wait a minute..."
Though in that case it was a lot of weird parallel plot points I noticed rather than setting.
Post by: Unwary on February 01, 2016, 10:51:55 AM
Reminds me of that time I wrote this one fanfic, finished posting it and then watched Mad Max: Fury Road several weeks after. "Wait a minute..."I'm in a weird position in regards to that, as I don't watch many modern movies, but am active on the internet and talk to people who do. So I have subliminal exposure to all different elements on them. It makes me really watch what I write, and also lead to a bunch of people either telling em to watchrelated movies, or telling me Not to watch related movies. It's weird at times.
Though in that case it was a lot of weird parallel plot points I noticed rather than setting.
Thanks also for the feedback on my idea about the OCC/TW spectrum, I'm trying to figure out if there might be a class of author I don't really cover in that, and if there isn't, whether the spectrum is too general.
Post by: princeofdoom on February 01, 2016, 05:40:27 PM
I say this because I am very centered on characters over plot even in my traditional writing. Often, if I have characters that are well rounded and I find that a plot idea just won't work with those characters, I scrap or modify the plot before even trying to change the cast I have.
So that might be another group?
Post by: Laufey on February 01, 2016, 05:50:58 PM
Post by: Mélusine on February 01, 2016, 05:54:04 PM
princeofdoom: I know this might not be exactly related but I was really strongly reminded of the three writer types (http://delphina2k.tumblr.com/post/110735180378/the-crocodile-hunter-style-of-writing-involves)... :D... Gardener. Definitively ^^
Post by: Laufey on February 01, 2016, 06:53:48 PM
... Gardener. Definitively ^^
Same here, or at least for most part. I have to say though that the most recent NaNo project was one big crocodile wrestling show from start to the end, fun but indeed exhausting. You don't only "negotiate" random, cool subplots into submission, you also have to make them somehow make logical sense when they're all put together... :P
Post by: Unwary on February 01, 2016, 09:32:33 PM
Post by: John Candlebury on February 01, 2016, 10:55:15 PM
I do tweak the setting for my characters but ultimately its plot>people
Post by: Róisín on February 01, 2016, 11:26:11 PM
Looking at how my current stories are shaping up, I think my writing style is a combination, in that I have a very clear idea of the nature of the characters, and my method seems to be to place the character in a situation and see what happens. Given the sort of person he is, and given the events that have shaped his life and his nature, what will the character do in this situation? Followed by examining how, in the long run, the character will be changed by the situation, and how (or if) his later actions will be affected by these changes.
Post by: princeofdoom on February 02, 2016, 12:35:36 AM
Post by: Asterales on February 02, 2016, 02:13:12 AM
*scratches head*
I guess I am an architect, despite the strange way the actual masonry works for me? Hmmm.
Might be why I never get anywhere in terms of just pushing the story out. I mean, I am ridiculously obsessed with detail.
Spoiler: show
Post by: Laufey on February 02, 2016, 02:51:25 AM
For example, what is the yarn for this and that cloth made of? What are its characteristics? If there is a percentage of this or that much metal thread in it, how heavy would a garment made of x meters of this cloth be? How costly in terms of money and time would it be? Who could likely still afford it?
That's not a bad quality to have at all, actually, even if it does hinder the writing process. Knowing your facts and how things work can be crucial for creating something believable. A friend of mine once made me read a hilariously bad novel that was set in supposed Heian era Japan, and it had a scene where a noblewoman screamed something akin to "I - can't - STAND - this - anymore!" and dashed out of the room.
Except that a Heian era noblewoman would not just suddenly dash anywhere at all. The sheer amount of silk they wore, their long hair, and especially the long "trousers" that dragged behind would have made her trip and stumble, not to mention how heavy her clothes would have been. As memory serves she was even going to attend a formal ceremony, which would have meant she would have been wearing way MORE than just a 12-layer junihitoe. The mental images were hilarious though, I'll give the author that (and I'm not even getting to how scandalous the situation would have been already, having a woman sit in the same room with men, not behind a screen even, with her face in full view of everyone... maybe her gathering up her silks and tottering out of the room screaming dramatically would have been the least of her misbehaving).
Post by: Róisín on February 02, 2016, 04:13:44 AM
Edit: I keep thinking of that particular poem as Japanese, but it is in fact Chinese (Li Po, I think). Probably confused because the guy who translated it into English was himself working from a Japanese translation, and it shows! But same idea with a lot of Japanese poetry. It's very minimalist!
Post by: princeofdoom on February 02, 2016, 04:30:32 AM
I'm working on clothing ideas right now for a humanoid species with different ideals of appearance for three separate sexes/genders and while I have some inspiration from certain cultures, I don't have anything concrete yet.
Then again, concrete clothing would be EXTREMELY heavy, so that might be for the best.
Post by: Róisín on February 02, 2016, 04:47:11 AM
Post by: Mélusine on February 02, 2016, 05:26:41 AM
... I have no idea. I'm the person who wrestles the crocodiles into fertilizer for my garden outside my new building...Interesting way to define yourself ^^
Post by: Asterales on February 02, 2016, 05:33:08 AM
A lot of Early Japanese culture did have its base in borrowings from Chinese culture. So depending on the period that's from it would make a lot of sense.:D Oooh, three genders?
I'm working on clothing ideas right now for a humanoid species with different ideals of appearance for three separate sexes/genders and while I have some inspiration from certain cultures, I don't have anything concrete yet.
Then again, concrete clothing would be EXTREMELY heavy, so that might be for the best.
Also there was that thing in Japanese writing of brevity and implication. Have you ever read a short poem called 'The Jewel Stairs Grievance'? It's very short but not a word is wasted, and the whole story is implied in brief descriptions.
Edit: I keep thinking of that particular poem as Japanese, but it is in fact Chinese (Li Po, I think). Probably confused because the guy who translated it into English was himself working from a Japanese translation, and it shows! But same idea with a lot of Japanese poetry. It's very minimalist!
Spoiler: show
That's not a bad quality to have at all, actually, even if it does hinder the writing process. Knowing your facts and how things work can be crucial for creating something believable. A friend of mine once made me read a hilariously bad novel that was set in supposed Heian era Japan, and it had a scene where a noblewoman screamed something akin to "I - can't - STAND - this - anymore!" and dashed out of the room.
[snip]
Spoiler: show
I'll have to kick my butt this fall and participate in NaNoWriMo!Post by: Róisín on February 02, 2016, 05:54:29 AM
And as for hidden meanings: you have the kennings of Nordic and Saxon poetry, to understand which one needs at least a basic understanding of the culture behind the language. It's a little difficult, for instance, to work out how 'the hawk's land's fire' equates to 'gold', but it makes sense once you do work it out. Then there are the verbal ellipses of the Old Persian Sufi poets, or the over-the-top descriptive rants of Gaelic poets like Brian Merriman.
I think understanding how a lot of this stuff works broadens and deepens our understanding of language, and thus makes us better writers.
Post by: Asterales on February 02, 2016, 06:02:05 AM
Q: While we are (still somewhat) on the topic of clothes, how important do you all think different clothing styles are to a setting? In terms of distinguishing cultures/ethnicities? Do you think it might be an overused technique or is it actually an effective way to make a point?
I like to use different styles for different cultures, but at the same time I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't be nicer (and more realistic) to have disputes between groups of people that dress the same and prefer the same kind of housing and generally share a culture.
Culture can be a fount of dispute, but who says cultures don't start do develop only after a group has split?
Post by: Mélusine on February 02, 2016, 06:07:57 AM
I'll have to kick my butt this fall and participate in NaNoWriMo!Yes ! :D Join us !
Post by: Róisín on February 02, 2016, 06:33:24 AM
Details of clothes can illustrate how one character feels or felt about another. I remember one of Gene Stratton Porter's American novels from early last century, in which a young woman is trying to persuade a young man, who was abandoned as a baby, that his mother loved him and did not leave him voluntarily. She does this by tracking down the orphanage where he was raised, and the baby clothes in which he was found. The baby clothes look as if they have been remade from the fabric of a once-good dress, possibly a wedding dress, and are hand-sewn with tiny, delicate, careful stitches and fine seams, and she uses this detail to persuade him that he was not carelessly thrown away.
The writer tells the reader a lot of things with actually spelling them out: the mother was poor but had not always been so; she was probably married or widowed, which mattered in that time and culture; she was a careful and meticulous person; she was skilled at sewing; she was prepared to commit time and patience to getting ready to welcome her child. Hence by implication she loved her child, which is what the young man needs to know at the time.
A little detail like whether someone's shoes are polished or their socks are darned can tell the reader if the character is still trying or has given up hope.
Edit: And I realise I didn't even mention clothes etc. as indicators of wealth/poverty, military rank, social standing or lack thereof. Or of the esteem in which people are held by whoever makes the clothes.
Post by: Aierdome on February 02, 2016, 06:56:45 AM
Q: While we are (still somewhat) on the topic of clothes, how important do you all think different clothing styles are to a setting? In terms of distinguishing cultures/ethnicities? Do you think it might be an overused technique or is it actually an effective way to make a point?
I like to use different styles for different cultures, but at the same time I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't be nicer (and more realistic) to have disputes between groups of people that dress the same and prefer the same kind of housing and generally share a culture.
Culture can be a fount of dispute, but who says cultures don't start do develop only after a group has split?
I'd say clothing is important for worldbuiding and the like. It can tell you a lot about the culture people come from without actually spelling it out loud for the reader. Compare people in simple clothes vs people wearing ornate robes and dresses, or note people who base their "fancy" suits on military uniforms - it's a huge tip about what their culture is like, and you don't have to say that X glorify simple life, Y are all about shock and show, and Z are heavily militaristic. It can also underscore the feeling of not fitting in and give the other characters - "NPCs", so to put it - first impressions of your character. The Y person would feel horribly out of place and overdressed in X's town, while Z folk would find Y too garish and perhaps kind of silly.
As for discussions between different groups, I agree that you don't necessarily have to have two different cultures to provide a dispute, and in-culture schism is also a fascinating subject. And I'd say you're on point about development of a culture. I've always thought that while subcultures can develop within one group, to call something a "culture", it's probably not part of the same "main group" anymore longer.
Post by: Asterales on February 02, 2016, 07:03:33 AM
I can agree with you on all of them.
I think enemy stereotypes are often far to clear cut. I don't like the feel of otherness or exoticism, that tends to go on in Fantasy a lot. Sometimes so much so, that you think the only reason an author chose a clothing style, is to veritably scream in the face of the reader: "There! Take that! It is refreshing and original and so different from the protagonist's culture! Do you feel the mysterious aura, the titillation?!"
Maybe, what makes me dislike it so much is not only that it can feel forced on the side of the author, when taken too far. It is also what we expect to find in novels, so it might be interesting to see something different for once (although, of course it is this prevalent in literature, because it is quite natural in real life, too).
The most annoying is, that clothing styles are usually generalized and then apparently uniformly applied to all members of a group, when really, it should be used like in the examples you gave above, Róisín - to individualize, characterize and give insight into the personality of one person, even if that person also belongs to a certain caste.
*thinks about this some more*
Post by: Róisín on February 02, 2016, 08:31:46 AM
However, the three races that do worry about such things tend to express their cultural differences through dress. One, which has a militaristic, survival-oriented culture, has uniform-like patterns even in civilian clothes, and the hero, who lives there and is military, needs to have his clothes tailored to him to conceal his birth defects, because that culture is also extremely paranoid about mutations.
His mother's culture is much more exploratory, less insular, and has few of the rigid social and gender divisions of the first. They tend to unisex clothes, mostly sarongs, but use jewellery, as some of this world's cultures do, to express relationship status, gender orientation and willingness to interact with other people.
The third race is older, somewhat decadent, and use clothing as a way of demonstrating wealth and culture. Their aristocratic women never cut their hair, and regard this as a mark of status sufficiently ingrained that when, in one of the novels, an elderly woman is restrained by having her hair locked into something, it never even crosses her mind to hack it off.
All this detail is built up gradually as part of the storytelling, not lectured about by the writer. She also uses the technique of exposition through briefings, debriefings and occasional courts martial, for the military characters. All different ways to build background without beating the audience over the head with it.
Post by: Unwary on February 02, 2016, 09:45:36 AM
Hmm. Convincing arguments, Róisín and AierdomeWell... I confess I haven't done much with clothing. But this feel relevant to a story of mine, about a small religion whose adherents can swap minds. The protagonist decides to leave home, and essentially swap with the furthest person they can find. And so, from a secluded winter highland, where almost everyone is in the religion, she finds herself in a massive trading town that fancies itself the hub of the world. It's Mediterranean, and cosmopolitain, and there are very few walkers, very few people who understand the sheer amount of distance across cultures she travelled. Plus she finds that the previous occupant of her body was involved in the local politics, something completely beyond her grasp.
I can agree with you on all of them.
I think enemy stereotypes are often far to clear cut. I don't like the feel of otherness or exoticism, that tends to go on in Fantasy a lot. Sometimes so much so, that you think the only reason an author chose a clothing style, is to veritably scream in the face of the reader: "There! Take that! It is refreshing and original and so different from the protagonist's culture! Do you feel the mysterious aura, the titillation?!"
Maybe, what makes me dislike it so much is not only that it can feel forced on the side of the author, when taken too far. It is also what we expect to find in novels, so it might be interesting to see something different for once (although, of course it is this prevalent in literature, because it is quite natural in real life, too).
The most annoying is, that clothing styles are usually generalized and then apparently uniformly applied to all members of a group, when really, it should be used like in the examples you gave above, Róisín - to individualize, characterize and give insight into the personality of one person, even if that person also belongs to a certain caste.
*thinks about this some more*
Anyway... that was a tangent. But one of the first thing she notes is that the people here not only wear different clothes from home, they also wear different clothes. Back at home there wasn't as much focus on the body or clothes, as those were all things that could change at a moments notice. Plus it was cold enough that well... there's only some many variation on 'wool,wool, and more wool' that can be accomplished. But here, there are people with tattoos, people wearing almost anything. And it's all rather confusing for her. In this case I'm I've got the 'strangers all wear the same clothes' thing back to front. She's coming from a homogeneous clothes culture and I can expresses both her confusion and shed light on her upbringing by describing these clothes and her reaction to them.
Okay, here's another question. Does anyone else here have massive worlds, harking back to the crocodile hunter, a real big'un, that they have been thinking about for months or more, trying to figure out the ramification of the central idea? (/me raises his hand.)
Post by: Aierdome on February 02, 2016, 11:49:54 AM
Asterales - I know that annoyance at "because it looks cool" exoticism, but I think much of the problem with it stems from the fact that the writer is going for pretty looks without considering whether something like this could reasonably develop, or what the practical implication of such clothing, hairdo and others are. A good example would be Jane Lindskold's Firekeeper books. One of the cultures there has a "thing" of wearing complex face-paint, Polynesian-esque face tattoos and heavy, ornate robes. In this case, it's not explained, but this serves the story itself, as a huge part of the mythos is that people are descendants of old colonists whose original cultures are virtually unknown. However, Lindskold uses the exotic cultural trappings in many different ways: a character is shown to be adopting the culture by starting to wear robes and face-paint; the MCs are instantly noticed everywhere they go because they dress too lightly; a character running away from the culture has troubles disappearing because of his tattoos; and of course a girl wearing comfortable trousers catches up with member of the culture running away from her in no time. So I'd say there's nothing bad in exoticism itself as long as its implications are considered and applied.
Unwary - yes, I do have one such crocodile. Some half a year back, I've made a world where I had everything figured out. And I do mean everything. I had all the species described in detail, including cultures within them, biological stuff, longevity, social castes and relationships with other species (a friend of mine said my "dwarves" don't deserve the name, as I tried to figure out "biologically correct" humanoid with dwarven "qualities" and it ended up as an amphibian with sharp claws, pale skin, no beard, gecco-like fingers, huge eyes and a third eye on the forehead, glowing infrared. Likewise, elves ended up having talons-like nails, empty bones and feathers on their heads and backs). I had international politics, all the countries mapped out, rough political situation in all of them, seven different religions and a magic system I could perfectly understand. I had history, cults and secret societies. And when I tried to put all this in one "master file" for quick reference, I clocked at 50 pages written in font TNR 12. And I wasn't finished.
It was about this point that I realized I'm not writing a novel, I'm writing a bloody RPG corebook, and I still didn't have good motivations for main characters or any sort of coherent plot. So right now, the whole master file is sitting on my computer and pendrive waiting until I either become a good enough writer to tackle it or decide to turn the whole thing into actual RPG, because it'd be, honestly, a pity if all that worldbuilding of mine was to go to waste.
Post by: Sunflower on February 02, 2016, 03:13:17 PM
I got into an interesting conversation on the bus the other day.
It was about OC culture versus the writing culture before the internet. I tried to break it down as follows.
OC culture sprung up collaboratively, based on the freedom of the internet, and tend to be completely character driven. The characters often have intricate back stories, as a result of all the narrative they have participated in. When newly created their backstories often tend to be referential, whether to some common standard so that they are 'compatible' with as many other OCs that share that standard, or refering back to other events in the creator's narratives. Often there is much greater projection of the author onto the OC, and they grow organically through interaction with other authors and characters.
By contrast, traditional writing is far less character focused. The plot tends to be first to be created, though a character may serve as inspiration for a plot. The characters are designed to fit the story, and are often much more specialized than a comparable OC, as the character isn't necessarily designed to be transportable. The character will have as much back story as the author wants, including less than the minimum needed for an OC, which has to be able to stand somewhat separated from it's world. The character tend to grow, but along the lines of the story. Adapting more to the plot, than the plot to it.
To summarize, OCC is about the joy of telling A story, making something together that is more than the sum of it's particpants.
TW is about telling THE story, perfecting a narrative to the best ones abilities, with as great a control and finesse as the author can muster.
That was the definition/comparison I proposed, and I have been thinking about it a lot. For one thing, like most things, it's probably a lot less binary and more of a spectrum. For another, I haven't really done much in the OC style, so I'm speaking as outsider/observer, and would appreciate feedback.
So, thoughts and opinions? where do you fall on this spectrum?
(Personally, I think I'm about 5/8 traditional writer, because I tend to create in this order. World-building and large scale plot, characters, and their personal story arc through the major events of the world.)
Wow, this is a great analysis! It encapsulates a lot of concepts I'd been fumbling towards (as you've seen in the Shared Story Skype discussion, Unwary). I have a very deep background in reading and analyzing traditional writing, and your distinction between a more plot-based style vs. a character-based style in the OOC world rings true for me.
Note that this distinction is stronger in so-called *literary* fiction, where there is relatively little carry-over of characters and settings from book to book. It's weaker in so-called "genre" fiction (sci-fi, fantasy, detective stories, thrillers, etc.), which are much more series-friendly (for various economic as well as intrinsic reasons), as well as in pop culture (the whole Marvel universe, Star Wars, and other 'verses where the format -- novel, short story, TV episode, movie, cartoon, comic, Webisode, etc. -- is relatively unimportant).
I'm fascinated by this kind of theorizing and discovering whole new channels for creativity. So given that I'm just a literary *observer* as opposed to a full-on creator, I hope to spend more time and attention here.
Post by: Asterales on February 05, 2016, 03:45:49 AM
I'll make sure to have a look at their work when I have money or someone in my family who still insists on giving me birthday presents :)
I feel ashamed to say this, but at age 14 or something, I pretty much went from reading world literature to reading ffs only (cheaper, even if you have to suffer through a lot of awful stuff to find the few gems), after I had finished with my parents's book shelf. We didn't have that much money at the time, sooo...
At the moment, I buy tomes of expensive encyclopedias, rather than books with actual stories.
Really, my knowledge of recent (and not so recent) publications is very, very lacking ::)
Unwary, I have a world I've been working on for the last seven years. Its not as grand as Aierdome's.
I also didn't make a lot of effort to expand it, until a few months ago (had a writers block that lasted about 3,5 years) and am only just getting back into it.
I posted two maps in the OCS (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?topic=536.msg86541#msg86541). They are supremely unfinished. The bigger map doesn't even have all the features I had thought up at the time I started drawing it. At the moment, it shows about one quarter of the total landmass. I won't need all of it though.
The part of the map that is better worked out is the country where the story takes place, but the ancestors of a lot of the main cast comes from the North (that isn't an the map at all).
For reference: an imaginary vertical line from the southern to the northern border of the more detailed country measures about 1000 km or 620 miles.
So this country is the southernmost point of this continent. I want to have a southern continent as well, but it's not necessary, so I try not to think about it.
I still need to figure out the air currents and detailed climate patterns and so on.
The northernmost part of the continent is covered in glaciers and ice and the planes in the east are supposed to have a climate a lot like Siberia, but even in TA (Acronym), that country in the south, they have snowfall in winter.
I might warm the continent up a little. I haven't decided yet.
But even what is on the map now needs a major reworking.
I like your ideas for your story!
The mind-swap-religion has so much potential for delicious confusion! ;D
Post by: Yuuago on February 13, 2016, 11:45:15 PM
How do you deal with writing more than two characters at once? Any specific strategies?
I've found that when I'm writing three or more characters in an extended scene together, it's difficult to make sure that nobody disappears into the background. Ensuring that everyone has an equal presence (in scenes where everybody is supposed to have an equal presence) is like pulling teeth.
Does anybody else find this challenging? It might be just one of those things that I need to chip away at until it becomes easier, but... ehh.
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on February 14, 2016, 12:16:38 AM
Soooo... question for you all!Well… I'd still say it comes down to the why of the scene. Why are they all there? Why is each one there, individually? That should determine who does what and when, more than anything. If a character stays in the background, maybe there's a reason. And even when a character doesn't speak, you can document their reaction.
How do you deal with writing more than two characters at once? Any specific strategies?
I've found that when I'm writing three or more characters in an extended scene together, it's difficult to make sure that nobody disappears into the background. Ensuring that everyone has an equal presence (in scenes where everybody is supposed to have an equal presence) is like pulling teeth.
Does anybody else find this challenging? It might be just one of those things that I need to chip away at until it becomes easier, but... ehh.
Hopefully you can find something worthwhile in that blather.
Post by: Róisín on February 14, 2016, 12:31:13 AM
Post by: Mélusine on February 14, 2016, 04:37:15 AM
Soooo... question for you all!At long as you don't forgot the third character on your scene, all is fine ? ^^ (On my finished novel, at a moment, I have a animal. And a beta-reader who asked some pages later "And, where is it now ? Because I see no more mention of it." Oups ? ::)) As LooNEY_DAC said, even is someone isn't speaking, you can show her/his reactions to the reader, proving this character is listening. Or not listening maybe. Maybe this third character will interrupt the two others. Maybe they look at the third at a moment. You have a lot of possibilities to maintain a link with a character who doesn't speak yet and the reader :) And it's not because one or several characters are a little more in the background that they are less important. A character can also begin in the background and reveal how important she/he is later too.
How do you deal with writing more than two characters at once? Any specific strategies?
I've found that when I'm writing three or more characters in an extended scene together, it's difficult to make sure that nobody disappears into the background. Ensuring that everyone has an equal presence (in scenes where everybody is supposed to have an equal presence) is like pulling teeth.
Does anybody else find this challenging? It might be just one of those things that I need to chip away at until it becomes easier, but... ehh.
Maybe don't focus too much on "equal presence" ? Equal is a little too much rigid to my mind.
Post by: Jethan on February 14, 2016, 05:14:47 PM
Since we're discussing how to keep keep extra characters from being forgotten in a scene, I think a prompt testing that dynamic would be good.
Select a set of characters:
-Tristan, Dhelran, and a female character they know (I chose whichever one makes the most sense for the prompt)
-Sheyla, Robert, and Robert's mother, Madam Darhurst
-Three new people you describe (a guy who bakes, or the Empress of Seven Havens who pensively muses on how she will defeat the demon lord who killed her family in the dark wars...how ever much you wish to describe them)
Make whatever prompt you feel like! Throw my characters or new characters into a crazy scenario! I'll try to do multiple short scenes if enough prompts get thrown around. And I guess if anyone else wants to try a new character prompt they can put their own spin on it? Could be fun to play around with this.
Post by: Róisín on February 14, 2016, 06:30:09 PM
Or you could describe the scene from Fred's point of view, possibly as a place for exposition about why he dislikes Meryl, or that he is using the distraction as cover while he implements his Devious Plan, or slips off to steal the diamond necklace while all the other characters would swear he was there listening to Meryl the whole time. Or Joe noticing his silence may be an important plot point. Possibilities are limited only by imagination.
Post by: Unwary on February 14, 2016, 08:08:40 PM
So, one can keep them in mind by mentioning that they are pacing, or not making anyone's eye contact. Often that can tell a story just as evocatively as dialog.
Post by: Asterales on February 14, 2016, 09:19:56 PM
Select a set of characters:I'm not giving you a lot.
-Sheyla, Robert, and Robert's mother, Madam Darhurst
They have to find "The Golden Carrot of Lore" to get rid of a pesky ghost haunting their front door porch.
Try to make this one dark violet, if you'd like to.
Or
Over night the right shoe of the favourite pair of Robert's mother seems to have gone missing.
This one could be gold and pink.
On the topic of equal character presence...
I agree with the others. I think one of the characters has to be the point of view character, so the others will always have to be seen from their standpoint. Even if you use all of them as point of view characters throughout the story, you'll have to pick one for the scene.
You can try to pull off the omniscient storytelling style, but I don't think it works very well. It's better to have one POV character per scene and not break that chosen POV.
That doesn't mean your other characters don't play an important part in this scene. They are just not the point of reference.
Post by: Róisín on February 14, 2016, 11:55:25 PM
Post by: Mélusine on February 15, 2016, 06:17:33 AM
You can try to pull off the omniscient storytelling style, but I don't think it works very well. It's better to have one POV character per scene and not break that chosen POV.Ah ? :-[
Post by: Aierdome on February 15, 2016, 10:30:24 AM
Ah ? :-[
I'm sorry if I'm about to explain something you already know, but I think this is what the question is about, so... In writing, there are three basic types of narration.
First is the first-person point-of-view (POV). Narration belongs to a character in the story, complete with their random emotions and ramblings. A lot of romance novels, and stuff like Hunger Games and Twilight have first-person POV.
Second is the third-person POV, or limited third-person. In this case, the narrator describes the sights, emotions and events as they are seen and experienced by a single character within the story (though there can be several characters, with narrator switching the one followed), but using "her" or "she" rather than "I", and is a bit more on the "outside" than in first-person POV when it comes to "hearing" characters' thoughts. The important part is that the narration sees and knows only as much as the character do. Harry Potter is a good example of limited third-person.
Third, the one Asterales talks about, is the omniscient third person. That means that the narrator is an "outsider", omnipresent god looking from above at the characters and their motivations, knowing what's going on in the head of every single one of them. This is hard to pull off because it comes in the way of connecting with a character, distances the reader from the story and ruins the suspense ("little did she know that her efforts were meaningless..." kinda kills it), not to mention that showing thoughts of everyone in the room can lead to confusion.
Hope that helps.
Post by: Mélusine on February 15, 2016, 10:45:59 AM
Post by: Aierdome on February 15, 2016, 11:27:24 AM
No, I'm the one sorry, Aierdome :) My reaction wasn't precise enough. It's just... the omniscient kind had always been my way to write ? I don't pretend I'm talented at all with that, but... I don't know, it never seemed so difficult for me ?
Ah. Okay. (...she said sheepishly ;) ) I admit I've always preferred limited third-person, pretty much for the reasons I've outlined above. With all respect to your writing abilities, I've just never found omniescient narration as engaging as limited, and can't write it either without drifting into character's mind.
Post by: princeofdoom on February 15, 2016, 01:25:56 PM
Post by: Róisín on February 15, 2016, 05:48:27 PM
The tales had many virtues: the language, the author's vocabulary were all a delight. His descriptions, especially of landscapes, have the same numinous quality as Minna's art. He can write completely sympathetic characters, including many of the ones in this tale other than the hero. And I know the redemption of a flawed hero is a traditional theme of great tales. But Covenant is just so annoying! My pleasure in the story is spoiled because I want to pick him up and shake him and tell him that characters more interesting than he is are being destroyed while he ditzes about having an existential crisis.
Not all conflicted characters are so irritating. For instance, Jeffrey Farnol's character Martin Conisby and Shakespeare's Hamlet both hold my interest and my sympathy, even on rereads of the tales. Part of that is the writing skill (especially Shakespeare, obviously), but it's also the interactions of the characters: Martin's interactions with Joan, Joanna and Richard are what makes the stories, even against the background of a swashbuckling adventure story. And while both main characters are morally conflicted and totally confused about what is going on, and the ways they deal with the conflict are very different, both of them follow the rule of 'being himself, what else could he do'.
Post by: Laufey on February 15, 2016, 05:58:40 PM
Post by: Asterales on February 17, 2016, 08:57:39 AM
I like the omniscient POV for fairytales a lot, but for longer stories I want to relate to one or more of the characters, so I agree with Airedome that the omniscient POV is mostly more difficult to read, if not to write.
Sometimes I like the first person POV, but usually the random thoughts popping up and other things that I haven't been able to pinpoint, make me lose my suspension of disbelief. It's probably the same reason I don't like characters' thoughts written out in (limited) third person POV. They can tell other characters about it, or voice it out loud to an empty room, but please don't try to make me believe I can look inside the head of another human/animal/alien/plant when I have trouble knowing what is going on in my own head.
Then again, there are always exceptions and it really depends on the writer and the story what works and what doesn't (and the reader of course). Thankfully, we are all different in our abilities and likes!
Post by: Jethan on February 18, 2016, 01:02:55 AM
I'm not giving you a lot.
They have to find "The Golden Carrot of Lore" to get rid of a pesky ghost haunting their front door porch.
Try to make this one dark violet, if you'd like to.
Alrighty! I finally finished the prompt! Check it out. (http://jethanslair.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-doorbell-ringer.html) It ended up being 1680 words, so I figured it was better to post it on my blog. My handwritten version was longer, but I changed a few things when I typed it. As for colors, it feels more like gold and pink, rather than dark violet.
Post by: Asterales on February 18, 2016, 08:00:36 AM
Alrighty! I finally finished the prompt! Check it out. (http://jethanslair.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-doorbell-ringer.html) It ended up being 1680 words, so I figured it was better to post it on my blog. My handwritten version was longer, but I changed a few things when I typed it. As for colors, it feels more like gold and pink, rather than dark violet.It was fabulous :D I really like the dialogue, there so many lines that made me laugh!
How is your writer's block? Any better?
Post by: Jethan on February 18, 2016, 05:59:12 PM
It was fabulous :D I really like the dialogue, there so many lines that made me laugh!
How is your writer's block? Any better?
Yay! I'm glad you like it! I think this really helped with my writer's block. :)
Post by: snotra on February 20, 2016, 11:53:32 AM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2636963/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Nightmares-of-Futures-Past
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4594634/1/FINDING-HIMSELF
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10070079/1/The-Arithmancer
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4315906/1/Dumbledore-s-Army-and-the-Year-of-Darkness
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Methods-of-Rationality
Post by: Lazy8 on February 20, 2016, 01:27:56 PM
Post by: IKEA on February 21, 2016, 12:18:28 PM
Post by: IKEA on February 21, 2016, 12:30:05 PM
Oh, I'm so sorry, Mélusine! I was out with a fever for a bit and mostly slept during the last two days :( Now I'm just snotty ;)I usually go for first person POV because I find it easier to connect with the characters that way. When I try writing 3rd person, the characters and writing are mechanical. I'm working on it though!
I like the omniscient POV for fairytales a lot, but for longer stories I want to relate to one or more of the characters, so I agree with Airedome that the omniscient POV is mostly more difficult to read, if not to write.
Sometimes I like the first person POV, but usually the random thoughts popping up and other things that I haven't been able to pinpoint, make me lose my suspension of disbelief. It's probably the same reason I don't like characters' thoughts written out in (limited) third person POV. They can tell other characters about it, or voice it out loud to an empty room, but please don't try to make me believe I can look inside the head of another human/animal/alien/plant when I have trouble knowing what is going on in my own head.
Then again, there are always exceptions and it really depends on the writer and the story what works and what doesn't (and the reader of course). Thankfully, we are all different in our abilities and likes!
Post by: Purple Wyrm on February 22, 2016, 02:17:59 AM
Years after its creation debate still rages over whether it's the worst fanfic ever written, or a brilliant piece of trollery disguised as the worst fanfic ever written. It's so horrible that it goes beyond bad, blazes through so bad it's good into so bad it's unreadable, powers through there into just bad again and then finally crashes like a radioactive, dinosaur killing comet back into so bad it's good and utterly destroys it.
The first time I read it I laughed so hard I hyperventillated for ten minutes and almost passed out.
You can attempt to read it here (http://myimmortal.wikia.com/wiki/My_Immortal/Chapters_1-11), but be warned - it features sex scenes, drug scenes, casual self harm, spelling that would make Webster stab out his eyes and burn down a library, My Chemical Romance, Dumbledore in an Avril Lavigne cloak and (for some reason) Tom Bombadil.
Post by: loki on February 22, 2016, 08:39:37 AM
Post by: Asterales on February 22, 2016, 09:25:44 AM
Q: I have a question that might be a tad existentialist.
Why do y'all write? What made you start? Was there a certain event or did you always just like it?
What is the first thing you can remember writing?
Post by: Yuuago on February 22, 2016, 09:55:33 AM
It's really interesting to see how many approaches and experiences with different styles are out there.
Q: I have a question that might be a tad existentialist.
Why do y'all write? What made you start? Was there a certain event or did you always just like it?
What is the first thing you can remember writing?
Why? Free entertainment. : D It's a hobby! And you can do it basically anywhere, any time! For the price of a pen and a stack of paper! (Welllll I guess there's usually a computer involved too, but I'm rather oldschool, so...) Hours and hours of entertainment, hooray! ...So, yeah, I write because writing is fun. And cheap.
I can't remember why I started, because I was writing when I was a kid, too, so I'm pretty sure it was just a case of "I was bored and I felt like trying it". The first story I remember writing was a Pokemon + Legend of Zelda crossover thing with lots of original characters, and the plot was pretty cliche and ridiculous, but I sure was having a good time, and that's the important part. ;p
Post by: Aierdome on February 22, 2016, 10:06:44 AM
It's really interesting to see how many approaches and experiences with different styles are out there.
Q: I have a question that might be a tad existentialist.
Why do y'all write? What made you start? Was there a certain event or did you always just like it?
What is the first thing you can remember writing?
Hm, this answer has a potential to be stupid, but...
When I was nine, I've read Eragon, and really liked it (reminder: nine). On the back cover, the publisher claimed that the book was published when the author was twelve, and nine year old me thought, "hey, I could do that too!" Well, that obviously didn't happen, but with time, I realized that I just flat out really like writing, and if I ever managed to publish something, that could be a really cool way to make for a living.
The first thing I've written... It's super terrible fantasy. Like, absolutely awful. The entire thing took place on an island that must've been shaped like a baguette, now that I think about it, and the plot (I have umpteenth version still sitting on my computer! :)) ) was about five girls leaving home under shady circumstances (they were going to fight in a war! they were fourteen! Ten year old me thought that was a lot!) and stumbling upon a plot by an eeeevil witch to gather several myssssterious artifacts, each of them in a land controlled by a different supernatural creature (said creatures lived only in their land, and nowhere else). Our heroines, then, would, in company of a weredragon and a pair of true dragons, travel from one land to another, always east (hence my comment about island's shape), collecting the trinkets before the witch could do it. I'm not quite certain why the witch didn't start collecting them in the opposite direction, starting from eastmost point and going west, but I've never really finished the thing, so I'm not sure if I even thought of it.
Post by: Róisín on February 22, 2016, 11:08:52 AM
Everybody around me wrote, be it a collection of recipes for a neighbour, letters to a newspaper, or articles, nature observations, journals, diaries, farm records....and of course letters, letters and letters - no email back then, and no phones either, most of the places I lived as a child. One of the great-uncles was a moderately famous poet, an uncle was a humorous poet as well as a serious writer about the First World War, one of the aunts wrote gardening articles for a newspaper. One of the grandfathers had political opinions, and wrote a lot of articles and a couple of books on the subject.
So, I mostly wrote poetry and technical articles, the greater part being of a botanical or geological nature. A few songs. Also scads of articles on gardening, folklore, nature conservation, bushcraft and wilderness survival, archaic arts and crafts, brewing, dyes and perfumes, wild food.... but very little fiction, a few SF stories. A few years back I decided that I had been neglecting fiction and started writing a few short pieces in the local writers' workshop. Then last year I discovered the concept of fanfic, and here I am.
Post by: Hrollo on February 22, 2016, 01:37:39 PM
Post by: Mélusine on February 22, 2016, 02:09:41 PM
Why do y'all write? What made you start? Was there a certain event or did you always just like it?I began to write when I understood I was now able to read stories by myself AND to create mine. A few years after, I assume the "real" answer to a "Why are you writing ?" would have been a "To stay alive.", but I wasn't able to understand it. Today, writing is for me something as normal as breathing, and I have stories living inside my head I want/need to put on the paper, because... how to explain... they "deserve" to be shared even if I'm frightened every time I let someone enter inside one of my stories. Sharing them make them live a little further, and if I had good time with the characters, maybe some other persons could like them and like to follow their story too ? Also, if I don't write at all or don't work on a project even a little, there is a problem somewhere.
What is the first thing you can remember writing?
I was five or six year old when I wrote my first story, with a lead pencil, in the kind of notebook in which you have a blank page and a lined one. I still have the notebook in a drawer of my desk. (It says so many things with child's words that I can't understand how no adult had noticed it *Shivers*)
five girls leaving home under shady circumstances (they were going to fight in a war! they were fourteen! Ten year old me thought that was a lot!)Fourteen, a perfect age to act like that when you're yourself a young teenager ::) *Had had similar things*
Post by: Keeper on February 22, 2016, 02:20:14 PM
It's really interesting to see how many approaches and experiences with different styles are out there.
Q: I have a question that might be a tad existentialist.
Why do y'all write? What made you start? Was there a certain event or did you always just like it?
What is the first thing you can remember writing?
I didn't see this earlier, but I started writing because of one of my friends who wants to be a writer. She was writing several things and she let me read them, so one day I just wondered, "Could I do that?" It wasn't long until I had an idea, wrote it down, and now it's really taking form! I really enjoy writing, too, for the same reasons I like reading- it's another story, another world to explore.
Post by: IKEA on February 22, 2016, 03:14:03 PM
When it comes to HP Fanfiction I am a complete philistine. The only work I am familiar with is the almost indescribable My Immortal.My Immortal is a work of art. Words cannot do it justice.
Years after its creation debate still rages over whether it's the worst fanfic ever written, or a brilliant piece of trollery disguised as the worst fanfic ever written. It's so horrible that it goes beyond bad, blazes through so bad it's good into so bad it's unreadable, powers through there into just bad again and then finally crashes like a radioactive, dinosaur killing comet back into so bad it's good and utterly destroys it.
The first time I read it I laughed so hard I hyperventillated for ten minutes and almost passed out.
You can attempt to read it here (http://myimmortal.wikia.com/wiki/My_Immortal/Chapters_1-11), but be warned - it features sex scenes, drug scenes, casual self harm, spelling that would make Webster stab out his eyes and burn down a library, My Chemical Romance, Dumbledore in an Avril Lavigne cloak and (for some reason) Tom Bombadil.
EDIT: I'm in the "It's a trollfic" camp, if only because I don't believe that anyone could sit down and unintentionally write something this magnificently awful.
Post by: Asterales on February 23, 2016, 09:45:29 AM
And that thing with (somewhat) inappropriate awe of ages between ten and twenty. Really, people that are over twenty are creatures of myths! It's like trying to imagine 10 000 000 coins! Parents and grandparents? Pah! They aren't human! They don't have an age :P
I can still remember an eighteen-year-old visiting my kindergarten and thinking: "When are her teeth going to fall out?" I contemplated this at some length ::)
Well, then I shall answer my own questions. For the first one:
I don't know. I usually hate writing while I do it and it's an awful struggle to produce a sentence most of the time... but I kinda like it at the same time? I like looking back and thinking: "I wrote all this, even though it was soo~ difficult."
My absolute maximum output is 300 words per hour, whatever I write. Doesn't matter if it is a research paper, one of my stories or a comment (I also read very slowly).
When I get really into storytelling, I start being affected by the character's behavior, too. For example, I once wrote a scene in which a character threw up and it made me feel nauseous the whole day. I wouldn't mind, but the scene didn't even turn out well! D:
But it is free entertainment! And the little films plying out before my inner eye have to go somewhere - it would be a pity to throw them away.
The first thing I can remember writing was a story for school in first year. We had to write these short essay-like things and I had seen a documentary about deforestation in the Rainforest the evening before. It led to me writing a three part story about an old wolf protecting a flower and a girl from a nearby village trying to stop bulldozers, or something. The wolf could talk and taught the little girl some nifty stuff and in the end everyone was... getting on with their lives, I think?
The words in this story aren't separated and you have to read it out loud to know what they mean.
I really like reading things children wrote.
Post by: Yuuago on March 01, 2016, 11:14:14 AM
If anybody ever wants a second pair of eyes to look over their work before it's posted, I am totally willing to help with that. I've found from experience that no matter how many times I re-read something I wrote, there will always be typing mistakes or weird grammar that I forgot to fix, and usually someone else finds it. I expect it's the same for others. So, just drop me a PM. As long as there's adequate time for revisions and it isn't super long (like, 20k or something), I can do it.
I usually prefer to do this using googledocs, because making suggestions/revisions with it is easy, but we can find some other way if that doesn't work out.
Post by: Ragnarok on March 02, 2016, 07:27:33 PM
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OgTbjepUbnlnYXtM0P2uKDvWWOjgE83u3DQBmXobY1w/edit?usp=sharing (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OgTbjepUbnlnYXtM0P2uKDvWWOjgE83u3DQBmXobY1w/edit?usp=sharing)
Post by: Róisín on March 02, 2016, 08:43:33 PM
Post by: Ragnarok on March 02, 2016, 08:49:19 PM
Ragnarok, that has the promise of a good tale. The atmosphere reminds me of early Michael Moorcock. That's a compliment.
Thanks!
Post by: IKEA on March 02, 2016, 10:14:31 PM
So...I started writing this a year ago as a prank for my Creative Writing teacher, who forgot to specify the length of the piece we should turn in for Midterm. A whole lot of editing and world-building later, and this resulted. Still unfinished, but I will update as much as I can.Not bad so far, seems like a pretty standard fantasy epic, but certainly one that I would read. Have you ever read the Wheel of Time? I'm picking up very strong Perrin Aybara vibes in your blacksmith.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OgTbjepUbnlnYXtM0P2uKDvWWOjgE83u3DQBmXobY1w/edit?usp=sharing (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OgTbjepUbnlnYXtM0P2uKDvWWOjgE83u3DQBmXobY1w/edit?usp=sharing)
Post by: Ragnarok on March 03, 2016, 05:21:32 AM
Post by: Aierdome on March 03, 2016, 12:36:50 PM
Post by: IKEA on March 03, 2016, 11:25:15 PM
Post by: princeofdoom on March 04, 2016, 02:42:45 AM
Anybody have good tips for writing dialogue? That's by far my biggest weakness as a writer. I've tried to listen carefully to how people talk in everyday conversation but it never comes out right on paper.
I've actually heard that you don't want to write exactly how people irl talk, because it comes out very messy; false starts, stuttering, changing trains of thought in the middle of a sentence, forgetting words. That isn't to say that listening to real life people won't help, but don't try to make your characters talk like real people. Try to have your characters talk like people think they talk or how they wish they talked.
Even if you have a character with a stutter, it's better to leave most of that in the speech tags. Instead of:
"I-I-I-I was j-just go-going t-to th-the st-tore," she said.
it might be better to write
"I-I-I-I was just going t-to the tore," she said/stuttered.
And even then that might be too much really. And remember that just like everything in the story, the dialogue is there to move the story forward or tell us something about the characters or world.
Post by: IKEA on March 04, 2016, 05:27:23 AM
I've actually heard that you don't want to write exactly how people irl talk, because it comes out very messy; false starts, stuttering, changing trains of thought in the middle of a sentence, forgetting words. That isn't to say that listening to real life people won't help, but don't try to make your characters talk like real people. Try to have your characters talk like people think they talk or how they wish they talked.Moving the story forward without being distracting in its own right. Thanks, that makes more sense!
Even if you have a character with a stutter, it's better to leave most of that in the speech tags. Instead of:
"I-I-I-I was j-just go-going t-to th-the st-tore," she said.
it might be better to write
"I-I-I-I was just going t-to the tore," she said/stuttered.
And even then that might be too much really. And remember that just like everything in the story, the dialogue is there to move the story forward or tell us something about the characters or world.
Post by: Mélusine on March 04, 2016, 11:26:11 AM
Anybody have good tips for writing dialogue? That's by far my biggest weakness as a writer. I've tried to listen carefully to how people talk in everyday conversation but it never comes out right on paper.I'm not sure I have advices, but for pity's sake, don't write dialogues with characters saying just "Yes.", "No.", or worst, "...", and all should be fine.
Post by: Asterales on March 04, 2016, 12:29:41 PM
I'm not sure I have advices, but for pity's sake, don't write dialogues with characters saying just "Yes.", "No.", or worst, "...", and all should be fine.Should I laugh or cry? I don't know :-\
As for additional tips: Maybe more concerning speech patterns than actual dialogue. You can try to express the characters' personality with their speech. Give them quirks and such. You could have a character that uses long, convoluted sentences to answer, or one that is always to the point and maybe a bit to honest for comfort, one that always adds qualifiers or someone who is prone to changing the subject, expressing everything in vage phrases, can't let off the sarcasm and so on...
As these different kinds of speech patterns are sometimes not compatible, tension is bound to spring up and one character calling an other one on because he can't understand/access their way of expressing themselves might be interesting, for example and easily used to create confusion in the prelude to a plot twist or in generally furthering the plot.
But these are just ideas on my part.
I'd like some input regarding the best point to start telling my story. For reference, the action starts when the MC is about 18(!) There are four possibilities:
Spoiler: for it is really rather long • show
Post by: Mélusine on March 04, 2016, 12:51:03 PM
Should I laugh or cry? I don't know :-\Errr... did I said something I shouldn't have said ? :-[ If yes, it wasn't my intention.
Post by: Asterales on March 04, 2016, 06:08:31 PM
Errr... did I said something I shouldn't have said ? :-[ If yes, it wasn't my intention.No, just something very, very true! :)
Post by: Róisín on March 04, 2016, 07:23:34 PM
Speech patterns: you can do a lot of non-obvious exposition about a character just by how they speak. By having them sound erudite, using technical terms or long flowing sentences you can suggest an educated or academic character. Brash or hesitant speech, shorter and simpler words and sentences, can be used to show lack of education or lower social position. A taciturn character who normally doesn't say much at all, then suddenly waxes lyrical about something, can demonstrate important character development, or indicate hitherto unexplored facets of his nature. Think Lalli's runos compared to his normal way of talking or not talking. This can also be used for shock value, or to make a major point in the story. I remember my husband telling me about a series he was reading in which one of the characters, who is taciturn to the point where the other characters assume he is mute, three years into the story suddenly comes out with a single sentence which completely changes the readers' estimation of his character. Up to that point he had come across as a grim and unfeeling character who didn't interact, but the readers' perspective was completely shaken up by that one sentence.
And 'what can a child do?' A child in a story can do what a real child might do: watch, observe, learn, suffer, rejoice, educate himself or decide there is no point in doing so, miss people or be glad of their absence, (and perhaps feel guilty about either), dream, plan, hope, despair. Work out how he thinks and feels about all manner of things. Make friends -or enemies. Grow up.
Post by: IKEA on March 04, 2016, 08:12:02 PM
I'd like some input regarding the best point to start telling my story. For reference, the action starts when the MC is about 18(!) There are four possibilities:If I were you, I would cut out option 1 (6-7) entirely. It would start the story off slowly and be really hard to pull off without seeming like a massive infodump and/or filler. Maybe have 8-9 be in a short prologue: introducing everything while keeping it brief enough to keep the audience's interest. Then, start Part 1 at 12-13 and go from there.Spoiler: for it is really rather long • show
That's just my opinion, but here's a great podcast if you need more help: http://www.writingexcuses.com (http://www.writingexcuses.com)
Post by: Róisín on March 04, 2016, 09:49:03 PM
Post by: Jethan on March 05, 2016, 12:10:39 AM
I'd like some input regarding the best point to start telling my story. For reference, the action starts when the MC is about 18(!) There are four possibilities:
I'm kinda in the same predicament. My character starts his story as a kid, but the continuous storyline doesn't kick in until he's a young adult. I did bump up his prologue age from 4 to 6 and kept the action I had planned for. I guess my advice would be a to keep a firm sense of what atmospheric flavor you want your story to have, and it will help you see which starting age/action would work best.
Do you want the story to have the feeling that everything is going well for him, and then everything is taken from him when he's taken captive? Or would starting out with him captive and feeling more grim or sad cause the reader to feel immersed in the real flavor of the story?
I think it would be too risky to start with the fourth option, it seems like the sort of story that really needs the time and space to fully delve into the world's details and nuances. Starting out at least when he's 12/13 seems like it would be necessary for having that build up, but I would be interested in knowing about both of his times in captivity, as well as his normal life before that. Though time skips are rather hard to handle, because it's not sensible to have a bunch of filler thrown in. Though I think novels have it harder with those sort of gaps, compared with webcomics (which could have montages of time passing).
It might also depend on how many books you want. If it's one book then starting with the third option seems sensible, but if it's a series it would make sense to have more background going into it.
Who knows, you may find that something happens when he's 6/7 that is highly plot relevant but wouldn't come up in the in-between times, or starting off with the main action is the best idea. Try to figure out what mix of colors and flavors each point is and how they could work together.
Post by: Asterales on March 05, 2016, 08:43:46 AM
Let me answer you individually :)
IKEA, I haven't had the chance to listen to the podcast yet, but hope to do so before going to bed.
Róisín, I know that you are right, of course, but a prologue spanning 10 years? I hope to not produce a second Wheel of Time. If I do, please kill me. (Sorry to all fans!)
Jethan, his life has never actually been that great, even when he was with his family, so his first captivity was almost enjoyable to him, because it gave him a purpose of sorts, and he met other children of his age.
Otherwise your advice is really helpful.
At the moment it looks like the story might span two books, although I could easily make it four shorter ones. I don't think a trilogy would work (the middle book often feels like a filler, anyway).
I thought I might try writing it form when he is 12, which is what I had planned originally (like four years ago, before I even knew there would be a second part).
Maybe I could try to have a proper, long chapter or several chapters in a row that deal with current developments, then have a short interlude in the form of a dream, a memory, a letter, that shows his past? And jump in time after each of them? Hmmm.
Might also be a bit difficult to make that seem natural... Hm. I could include a little bit of his first captivity: there is a delegation coming to get him from there anyway. It means I can use a scene I wrote almost seven years ago. With heavy modification. Which is better than not at all.
...
That would be nice.
I'll think about it some more!
And try draw up a chapter plan, rather than just a plan of the whole plot, which is what I have done so far. Maybe mark the 'nothing happens' places in and try to figure out which complementary memories could take their place...
Any other ideas?
Do you usually write plans for chapters? And what information do you use to draw up these plans?
Post by: IKEA on March 05, 2016, 09:16:18 AM
Post by: Mélusine on March 07, 2016, 11:36:26 AM
Do you usually write plans for chapters? And what information do you use to draw up these plans?I have done that for the last NaNo, in order to try to balance my chapters. I was simply writing the big things supposed to happen, resumed in one sentence, and trying to have three of them, not more, by chapter. But this is maybe an university's habit...
What do you feel when you give what you've written to someone, or post it for the persons who write things like fanfictions ? I'm always so nervous, I'm curious to know if it's common or not so much :)
Post by: Yuuago on March 07, 2016, 11:59:07 AM
What do you feel when you give what you've written to someone, or post it for the persons who write things like fanfictions ? I'm always so nervous, I'm curious to know if it's common or not so much :)
Totally, absolutely, completely nervous. I basically feel like I'm going to die every time.
Whenever I post on Ao3, I feel like I'm shoving stuff in people's faces. It makes me feel really really anxious and awkward.
So, this is part of the reason that my main/"real" fic archive is on Dreamwidth, not Ao3. There aren't any stat counters, and user subscriptions do not exist - aside from the Reading List, and there are ways to prevent entries from appearing on people's reading lists, even if they are subscribed to you. So, I am way more comfortable with that - posting there makes me feel like I'm putting something in my own space, and that I'm not imposing on anybody. Even though people can see it, it feels "private" somehow, because they need to seek my writing out directly in order to see it, instead of just coming across it randomly while browsing.
But I'm trying to get better/less nervous about posting stuff "publicly"/to Ao3, because I know that these feelings are silly, and that there's no reason to hide my work.
Post by: Aierdome on March 07, 2016, 12:26:45 PM
What do you feel when you give what you've written to someone, or post it for the persons who write things like fanfictions ? I'm always so nervous, I'm curious to know if it's common or not so much :)
Actually, now that I think about it, it depends whether I give it to someone "in person" (for example, mailing it to a friend I know "in flesh") or post publicly. In the first case, I'm more like "did you read it already? what do you think? what did I do wrong?" and I have to stop myself from heaving all of those questions on the person the day after I sent the thing out. But when I post it online... "oh gosh they're going to hate it and it's terrible and they'll bash it and I've commited a terrible piece of writing..."
Completely unrealistic, I know, but try to tell this to my nerves. ;)
Post by: Mélusine on March 07, 2016, 12:47:57 PM
Totally, absolutely, completely nervous. I basically feel like I'm going to die every time.I don't know if I must feel relieved ("I'm not the only one") or not. For me, it's mostly a "and it will be as if they were seeing inside of me, what had I in mind when I talked about the fact I'm writing and said yes for giving something to read ?"
Actually, now that I think about it, it depends whether I give it to someone "in person" (for example, mailing it to a friend I know "in flesh") or post publicly. In the first case, I'm more like "did you read it already? what do you think? what did I do wrong?" and I have to stop myself from heaving all of those questions on the person the day after I sent the thing out. But when I post it online... "oh gosh they're going to hate it and it's terrible and they'll bash it and I've commited a terrible piece of writing..."That's strange to have both the opposite reactions :) When someone tell me how the reading was, I'm always wondering how to disappear under the floor, right now please. And they're persons I know at least a little ! (One day, one of my beta-reader sent me a message on facebook, saying something like "I've finished iiiiiiit !" less than 48 hours after having the novel (something around 230 pages). The only stupid reaction I had been able to have was closing the page and trying to not panic more than what I was already doing ^^°)
Completely unrealistic, I know, but try to tell this to my nerves. ;)
Post by: Aierdome on March 07, 2016, 03:47:54 PM
That's strange to have both the opposite reactions :) When someone tell me how the reading was, I'm always wondering how to disappear under the floor, right now please. And they're persons I know at least a little ! (One day, one of my beta-reader sent me a message on facebook, saying something like "I've finished iiiiiiit !" less than 48 hours after having the novel (something around 230 pages). The only stupid reaction I had been able to have was closing the page and trying to not panic more than what I was already doing ^^°)
Oh, I know the feeling... When I see "X reviews" on fic's page, I immediately switch to doing anything else just to check those reviews last...
I think for me this disparity in reactions comes from the fact that people I know in real life will "soften the blow", so to speak, when I do something wrong, and attempt some constructive critique because, well, they care. On the other hand, many online strangers - especially in places like FF.net, AO3 seems to have somewhat "healthier" community - will be less... restrained, and if something will be wrong (or worse, offending their fandom nerve), they'll be much more open about the critique, and frankly, you'll never know what kind of a reader you'll encounter, which can't be said for people I ask to read my thing personally.
Post by: Mélusine on March 07, 2016, 03:51:54 PM
I think for me this disparity in reactions comes from the fact that people I know in real life will "soften the blow", so to speak, when I do something wrong, and attempt some constructive critique because, well, they care. On the other hand, many online strangers - especially in places like FF.net, AO3 seems to have somewhat "healthier" community - will be less... restrained, and if something will be wrong (or worse, offending their fandom nerve), they'll be much more open about the critique, and frankly, you'll never know what kind of a reader you'll encounter, which can't be said for people I ask to read my thing personally.Oh. I understand better :) I have no experience in FF.net or AO3.
Post by: SectoBoss on March 07, 2016, 04:02:54 PM
What do you feel when you give what you've written to someone, or post it for the persons who write things like fanfictions ? I'm always so nervous, I'm curious to know if it's common or not so much :)When I posted my first fics (almost a year ago now, how times change) I would make it the last thing I did during the day so I could just go to bed without having to spend the rest of the day waiting for people to tell me how awful they were. (One unexpected but lovely upside of this is you wake up to nice comments!) I was always nervous and every time I posted I was convinced that this was it, this would be the one that made everyone turn round and go "you know what, we're sick of trying to be nice, please just stop".
Of course, that never happened, and now I just post to AO3 whenever I finish writing. Sometimes I only give it a quick once-over before I post, sometimes I'm more thorough. (I'm still utterly oblivious to typos, though - if I know what something should say there's no way to get me to see what it actually does say.)
So, this is part of the reason that my main/"real" fic archive is on Dreamwidth, not Ao3. There aren't any stat counters, and user subscriptions do not exist - aside from the Reading List, and there are ways to prevent entries from appearing on people's reading lists, even if they are subscribed to you. So, I am way more comfortable with that - posting there makes me feel like I'm putting something in my own space, and that I'm not imposing on anybody. Even though people can see it, it feels "private" somehow, because they need to seek my writing out directly in order to see it, instead of just coming across it randomly while browsing.I'm in two minds about AO3's kudos and view counters. On the one hand they can be useful, and I'm not going to lie and say that seeing "this list of people left kudos" at the bottom isn't a nice thing to see. On the other, if a good fic gets few kudos for whatever reason it'll just slip through the cracks because people will assume it's not worth their time, and the whole thing sometimes feels to me a bit too much like a popularity contest.
Post by: Yuuago on March 07, 2016, 04:12:28 PM
When I posted my first fics (almost a year ago now, how times change) I would make it the last thing I did during the day so I could just go to bed without having to spend the rest of the day waiting for people to tell me how awful they were.
I tried that once. Result: I couldn't sleep a wink. ;p It's funny how different some people are.
I'm in two minds about AO3's kudos and view counters. On the one hand they can be useful, and I'm not going to lie and say that seeing "this list of people left kudos" at the bottom isn't a nice thing to see. On the other, if a good fic gets few kudos for whatever reason it'll just slip through the cracks because people will assume it's not worth their time, and the whole thing sometimes feels to me a bit too much like a popularity contest.
I've definitely seen this with larger fandoms, yeah. Not so much this one - then again, it's possible I'm just oblivious (especially since I'm determined to read literally everything posted, even if it's taking a while). I keep coming across people who use kudos to sort, and it just seems to odd to me - because there are so many reasons that a particular story could have a higher number than another (it was one of the first fics posted, or it's a very popular pairing, or it's an AU that lots of people like, or it was recced somewhere, or....)
I think subscriptions bother me more than the statcounters, though. The thought of notifications of all my stuff showing up in somebody's inbox... brrrr, do not want. Which is bloody hypocritical of me, because I'm subscribed to the fandom's RSS feed, so I see literally everything... But, emotions like these don't have to make sense.
Post by: SectoBoss on March 07, 2016, 04:25:17 PM
I've definitely seen this with larger fandoms, yeah. Not so much this one - then again, it's possible I'm just oblivious (especially since I'm determined to read literally everything posted, even if it's taking a while). I keep coming across people who use kudos to sort, and it just seems to odd to me - because there are so many reasons that a particular story could have a higher number than another (it was one of the first fics posted, or it's a very popular pairing, or it's an AU that lots of people like, or it was recced somewhere, or....)
Yeah, I think the size of the fandom definitely matters. I mean, with only 150 fics on AO3 so far people can afford to take their time and read them all like you say. I've run across people who sort by kudos or comments as well and I usually find they're just looking for an easy read rather than looking to get too involved with the fandom.
Post by: Róisín on March 07, 2016, 10:43:21 PM
Seeing one's work online is a very different sensation to seeing it in physical print, I can tell you. It seems somehow.....less controlled? Playing in another writer's world is also a little strange, as is the care needed to keep my work at least roughly within canon, which I try to do, for courtesy. I like, and find myself sharing, SectoBoss's concept of inserting one's stories into the cracks in the Minnaverse, so they fit seamlessly.
I don't know much about how people sort what they want to read. Not yet as familiar as I would wish to be with the customs and usage of the online world. And my huge issues with the technology and the mechanisms of posting don't help!
Post by: OwlsG0 on March 10, 2016, 05:54:51 AM
I was a bit nervous about posting, myself. Still am, somewhat. This is both my first online fandom, and the first time I have written fanfic for anything. Most of what I've ever had published had been in physical anthologies, magazines or newspapers, and writing online was a whole new and terrifying field. I was familiar with the 'shared universe' concept from decades of involvement in the filk community and SF fandom, but had never written for one (though I'm thinking, now that I know at least somewhat, how to do it online, about the '163..' shared world. Fanfic seems to be a variant of shared universe, and an interesting one.
Seeing one's work online is a very different sensation to seeing it in physical print, I can tell you. It seems somehow.....less controlled? Playing in another writer's world is also a little strange, as is the care needed to keep my work at least roughly within canon, which I try to do, for courtesy. I like, and find myself sharing, SectoBoss's concept of inserting one's stories into the cracks in the Minnaverse, so they fit seamlessly.
I don't know much about how people sort what they want to read. Not yet as familiar as I would wish to be with the customs and usage of the online world. And my huge issues with the technology and the mechanisms of posting don't help!
Sorry to jump into the thread with no warning, but Roisin, I was wondering, have you written anything in a Minnaverse yet? I'm over on the Scriptorium a lot and I wondered if I have missed a piece at all?
Post by: Róisín on March 10, 2016, 07:23:56 AM
I have three parts of what is intended to be a five-part fic over on A3O, where I write as 'Tanist'. (The different name over there is because my efforts to sign up there as 'Róisín' were utterly unsuccessful. Whether this was because they already have that name ascribed to someone else in their system, or because my early attempts to sign up there partially worked, godsonlyknow, but their system won't let me use it. I'm not too displeased though, because when I gave up on using it and was wondering what else to try, I asked my beloved what he could suggest, and he used one of those random-name-and-password generator programs, which amused me greatly by coming up with 'Tanist' on the first try, so I stuck with it!).
However, the story over there is the first three chapters of 'A Few of Mikkel's Secrets'. For the first part SectoBoss very kindly let me riff off a character from one of his early stories, and that was also the story where I first started to play with the 'Mikkel is a secret agent of some kind' idea, basing the story around that, and some huge personal issues dating from the Danish invasion attempt, to explain his motivation for getting caught up in such a kludge of an expedition in the first place!
I will eventually post the rest of it, two more chapters, when my machineries cooperate or the new ones are sorted out. Did I mention 'huge technical issues'? At present A3O won't accept anything longer from me than a comment! The last part I posted was more focused on Lalli, but it will spiral back to Mikkel, I promise!
Post by: OwlsG0 on March 10, 2016, 03:27:27 PM
OwlsG0: Yeah, I have a few fics on the Scriptorium. There was one I did for the Secret Santa, and posted to the Scriptorium afterward, about Reynir trying to re-invent coffee with a little help from Lalli. Then there was a three-parter which I started around the same time (early/mid January this year) 'Gone Astray', in which Emil's scepticism about magic is somewhat strained.
I have three parts of what is intended to be a five-part fic over on A3O, where I write as 'Tanist'. (The different name over there is because my efforts to sign up there as 'Róisín' were utterly unsuccessful. Whether this was because they already have that name ascribed to someone else in their system, or because my early attempts to sign up there partially worked, godsonlyknow, but their system won't let me use it. I'm not too displeased though, because when I gave up on using it and was wondering what else to try
Ah, so you're the Tanist? Yes, then, I have seen you on the website before. That site is really hard to format on, isn't it? I still haven't figured out how the heck to do italics and all that stuff. And I do agree with the stuff about it being a popularity contest, which was said earlier. You can usually tell from the comments when people are there just to freak out and gush over fanservice, and when people are there for the writing.
Post by: Yuuago on March 10, 2016, 03:33:54 PM
Ah, so you're the Tanist? Yes, then, I have seen you on the website before. That site is really hard to format on, isn't it? I still haven't figured out how the heck to do italics and all that stuff.
It uses basic HTML. So, similar to BBCode, but not quite the same. As far as I know, there isn't a rich-text option at all (though one might exist - possible. I'd never use it.)
If you do a search for how to do text formatting in HTML, you should be able to find it pretty easily. I just hand-code everything as I write, but then again, I'm used to it.
Post by: OwlsG0 on March 11, 2016, 12:43:41 AM
It uses basic HTML. So, similar to BBCode, but not quite the same. As far as I know, there isn't a rich-text option at all (though one might exist - possible. I'd never use it.)
If you do a search for how to do text formatting in HTML, you should be able to find it pretty easily. I just hand-code everything as I write, but then again, I'm used to it.
I'm one of those users who just slaps up the first draft, runs through it once, and then uploads the results. I've kind of become used to working around the places where I would use italics because I'm kind of too lazy and technologically illiterate to figure out coding. For example, as grateful as I am for your advice/help, I have almost no idea what anything in your comment said.
Hand-coding does sound meticulous and careful, though, and for that I doff my figurative hat to you.
Post by: princeofdoom on March 11, 2016, 12:47:46 AM
Post by: Róisín on March 11, 2016, 02:30:35 AM
Post by: IKEA on March 11, 2016, 09:37:56 PM
That character writer feel when you suddenly have an idea for a scene or short story, but you don't have characters for it. WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE? WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?What I do generally is just write the idea with bland, placeholder characters then make the characters interesting once the plot is down on paper.
Post by: princeofdoom on March 12, 2016, 12:37:28 AM
What I do generally is just write the idea with bland, placeholder characters then make the characters interesting once the plot is down on paper.
I mean I'm gonna try it, but my usual MO is to get at least some plot from the characters instead of characters being dictated by plot. But all I have so far is secret lovers and one being connected to the color red and the other like, smokey gray. I have a very specific image of them, but have no clue outside of that. Maybe if I describe that bit, or figure out why it's in secret, I can actually figure out what is up with these doofs
Post by: Nimphy on March 12, 2016, 03:11:21 AM
On other news, I was re-reading an old CampNaNo project and.
Why do my violent and/or dramatic scenes between characters sound like the characters doing inappropriate things, like really, I'm just trying to get them to look like normal people fighting or having a complete breakdown when they see a mutilated body or something like that.
Post by: Mélusine on March 12, 2016, 04:06:15 AM
On other news, I was re-reading an old CampNaNo project and.Hey, Nimphy, I think you're approximatively the same age as me when an adult had explained to me why this couldn't happen like that in my story, and that needed to change, and that too. Part of the "why" had made me blush like I never had blushed. I was too young. I sounded strange, or inappropriate, because I was young and in a lack of life experience. (Which doesn't means you have to fight or see a mutilated body !) BUT I was writing, and it could only become better :) Write. Don't lose faith. It will become better.
Why do my violent and/or dramatic scenes between characters sound like the characters doing inappropriate things, like really, I'm just trying to get them to look like normal people fighting or having a complete breakdown when they see a mutilated body or something like that.
Post by: OwlsG0 on March 12, 2016, 04:20:48 AM
How do you people even manage, I literally can't begin a story from the plot. It HAS to begin from characters, and then I get stuck because I have characters and a setting but... I can't plot. I literally don't know how to write an interesting plot.
One of the good things about life experience is that you collect more of it everyday. I know the feeling of being worried about not being able to plot or make people have break-downs because I don't know things- or I did, anyway, but then I got older. The thing to do is commit yourself to your craft and, this is just a personal strategy, but I tend to look at everything as writing experience?
Nurse can't find a vein when giving me a blood test and stabs me three times in the same arm with a needle? Writing material with some genuine experience behind it. Stuck in Panama City for 18 hours while a storm puts Atlanta airport out of commission? Writing experience! Friends do something awful to me? Well at least now I know what an emotional low feels like and I can write about it more convincingly!
Post by: Róisín on March 12, 2016, 05:07:24 AM
And yeah, the only way to become a writer is to write. It may be a truism, but that doesn't mean it's wrong! Douglas Stewart, a great playwright and poet, did his best work at a time when he was working at a soul-destroying job, and each day when he came home from work he would set aside one hour in which to write, no matter what else was going on in his life. He kept to it, even if all he did by the end of the hour was to cross out what he had written the day before. By the end of that period of his life he had produced several masterpieces, including the radio play 'The Fire on the Snow'.
Ideas, even great ideas, are only a part of it. An inspired idea can be the soul of a story, but having the command of language gives you the tools to build a body for that soul to inhabit. And if you ever plan to make a living as a writer, the other two biggies are time and discipline. Sure, it's not impossible to produce a great book in a mad forty-eight-hour splurt of writing, (consider Kerouac's 'On The Road'), but it's very, very rare. Most great books or stories or works of art are, as the saying goes, 'one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration'.
See, writing isn't just an art. It's a craft as well. One needs to understand the tools and the rules and the limitations, even if one plans to later discard them. The most effective free verse (think Shakespeare, Eliot, Pound, Marquis, Hopkins) works far better because those authors understood and were proficient at patterned verse before they started in breaking the rules. (By way of horrid contrast, try John Kydd and Bridh Hancock.)
Post by: Nimphy on March 12, 2016, 05:32:49 AM
Piney, yep, that would be the problem. Little innocent me writes things, growing-up me realizes that the world is not such a simple place and things must be corrected.
OwlsG0 personal experience is useful for scenes, sure, but I don't see how it can really help me form a real plot, with a series of events that connect and lead to something and aaaahh what is even a plot.
Most of the time the problem with me is not "I don't have a plot" because one can always go for the standard "hey let's save the world" plot if they don't really have any ideas, but it's more... It doesn't fit my setting and characters, it's not good enough for them?
Róisín, making a living as a writer has been my dream for, oh, just about forever, but things happen and people try to discourage others from petty art, so... Heh, we'll talk about that in the future. For now, I just write for pleasure and to grow better.
Post by: Mélusine on March 12, 2016, 07:44:03 AM
Piney, yep, that would be the problem. Little innocent me writes things, growing-up me realizes that the world is not such a simple place and things must be corrected.
Don't worry :) Write. You learn all the time.
Post by: Róisín on March 12, 2016, 09:50:58 AM
I had a few short stories published, mostly SF, some song lyrics and a good deal of poetry, and scored a few poetry awards which, again, kept my household going for awhile. But the main thing about earning a living as a writer was being flexible, and being able to write to a topic, as newspaper and magazine writers do. Certainly we have on the Forum some people who have been full-time newspaper reporters; they may be able to explain more. I've worked for a newspaper, but far more often as a proofreader, back in the days when proofreaders were people rather than machines as they now are. And a lot of my writing, especially the nature stuff, was done by hand or on a small portable typewriter when I was actually living in wilderness, or on small farms in the backbeyond - no computers or writing programmes then, partly because it was before small computers, often because no electricity!
It's possible to write a bestseller first time, to pull off a Kerouac or a J.K. Rowling, but far more writers have a lengthy 'journeyman' stage in their careers, where they are working at something else to make their main living, while gradually building up a body of paying work. At least nowadays the online world makes earning a living as a writer easier, and cuts out most of the middlepeople who skimmed off most of the profit from a writer's work. Though there is also a good deal less quality control!
We've all seen how hard Minna works to make a living from what I believe is one of the better webcomics available, and I know several people who sell their work online, that is, they have a website from which the book can be downloaded for a fee. Of those people, the result ranges from 'small but steady income' (that's the textbook on permaculture gardening in the wet tropics), to 'a random few dollars here and there' (that's the modern poet). But it can be done.
Anyway, the point of all that was that surviving as a writer is possible, but the only way to get there is to write. And keep writing, refining your techniques and improving your tools as you go.
And about plot: plot can spring from events: 'in this situation, with these people, what can I have happen that will make the characters grow and interact in interesting ways? And if I change one element, say she catches a bus instead of flying, how does that change the story? What if all her family dies while she is on that bus? How would that change what she does next?' Or the story can be character-and-situation driven: 'being himself, and being put in that situation, what else could he possibly do?'. But to do the last one, you really need to understand your characters, and to have fleshed them out at least a bit.
Post by: Yuuago on March 12, 2016, 01:08:05 PM
How do you people even manage, I literally can't begin a story from the plot. It HAS to begin from characters, and then I get stuck because I have characters and a setting but... I can't plot. I literally don't know how to write an interesting plot.
I have this "can't think of a plot" problem too - at least with original fiction. Hard to figure out why, but in my case I think it might just be that I'm a little bit uptight and reluctant to allow my imagination to do whatever it wants, so the end result is that I can't think of anything. But it gets easier over time, I think. Especially when I read stuff in the genre that I want to write.
...And then there's fanfiction, where coming up with something isn't so much of a problem: decide the characters, plug friends for ideas they want to see, and then go. ;p The difficult part is getting the energy to actually write it.
Post by: princeofdoom on March 12, 2016, 03:23:50 PM
If you know what your characters care about and can put something in their way to stop them getting there for a while, then you can plot.
Post by: Aierdome on March 12, 2016, 04:46:23 PM
That's some fascinating discussion you've sparkled, Nymphy, I've been reading with interest.
For me, it's quite similar to what princofdoom said. When I have an idea for a setting and characters, I start to think of "What would X do when faced with Y" rather than "what's the obstacle/what are they trying to achieve". For an example to explain this, in a story I've been writing a while back (in great simplification):
Spoiler: A bit of rambling • show
And so on, and so forth. The gist of it is that rather than having a plot of "a bunch of people set out to save the world", for some of us it's better to figure out what characters would do, going by their personalities, and then think of how the outside world and other characters would react to this: rather than what they do, write why they do. In other words, not "they set out to save the world", but "they don't want to see their loved ones die because of X". I don't want to look like I'm pretending to be some great expert - or a good writer, for that matter - but all in all, I feel like the stories of "why" are much more "natural", realistic and overall more interesting than "what".
For another advantage of writing this way, it will force you to make your characters act more naturally. Rather than in terms of "what would advance the plot", you think of "what would they do at this point". Assume your plot requires the character to steal a diamond, while the guy/gal has been set up as a honest and crime-abhoring person. If they just steal the diamond with no moral quandaries, readers will cry foul (I'm sure we've all faced this in at least one book we've read); on the other hand, if the character decides that the theft is for the greater good, and that the person they steal from is a despicable criminal - and even then has pangs of guilt - the theft will seem far more natural, because the character has an actual motive beyond "it pushes the plot forth".
To get back to one of your previous posts and step on the borders of this topic, as to "why characters don't seem to react appropriately": it could be, if I may guess, because you as a reader are not in their heads as much as you were as a writer. I've had this moments: the scene I write is downright heartbreaking when I'm writing it, but when I return to it later, it sounds impossibly cheesy and makes all the characters look like they're overacting. The thing is, while I feel those emotions while writing, I don't feel the need to put them down "on paper" because, duh, I know this scene makes me feel like this or that. To make reader-me feel the same emotions later, I have to write all that I feel - make a report on my mental state, if you may - or else the connection the writer-me and the character had is absent.
Hence why I think writing "why" is better than "what". Every reaction character has sounds more appropriate when we as readers are given the state of mind, the reasoning behind the actions, the thoughts at the moment. The character suddenly starting to scream incoherently at the sight of a dead body can look cheesy; a character who's on the verge of panic, unable to think too clearly and absolutely certain that there's a killer in the house with them (regardless of whether it's true or not) is absolutely justified in breaking down into screaming when suddenly faced with a dead body.
Post by: Róisín on March 12, 2016, 06:53:18 PM
Another thing to bear in mind is the writers' adage about what makes a good story (as well as a good newspaper article). Kipling phrased it most memorably:
'I keep six honest serving men,
They've taught me all I know.
Their names are 'What' and 'Where' and 'When'
And 'How' and 'Why' and 'Who'.'
If you can work the answers to those questions into your story, not so much as lecturing the reader but as in-story exposition, your tale will flow much more smoothly, and the reader's willing suspension of disbelief will not suddenly run aground on questions like: 'Wait! Why is John suddenly in Albuquerque when he was in New York, and why is his hair green?'. If you have the character of John sufficiently well realised, it will be obvious that being John, he could not refuse an invitation to his horrible sister's Halloween party, and that Mary being her pranking self in the presence of a Chekhov's bottle of dye, could not do other than dye his hair green while he slept.
Aierdome also has a very good point in that conveying the character's state of mind can give a minor plot point or item major significance. In Hitchcock's take on one of Hodgson's short stories, there is a scene where a woman finds a little discoloured patch on her pillow, and despite being established as a calm, competent and sensible person, reacts with panic terror and bottles of lysol, (it's the 1800s, okay?), which seems weird and out of character until you put together her earlier speculations and see that she has figured out that whatever is making people disappear is some sort of lichen-like infection that gradually turns people into shambling nocturnal grey sponge things. I have wondered whether Hodgson was one of Minna's influences.
Post by: Lazy8 on March 22, 2016, 07:49:53 PM
So the story I'd want to tell would be from the point of view of someone who's just getting ready for their coming-of-age, and would follow them from the moment they first start to genuinely worry about it, to going through it, to when they finally come out the other side. Some themes I'd like to explore are questions of justice and of empathy. The only real problem I have is exactly the opposite of my usual: I don't have any characters! When I'm writing a fanfiction more often than not OCs just waltz into the plot as they please and declare their intention to stay there, but now that I'm finally thinking of something original all I can come up with for characters are bland cutouts.
Post by: Dverghamrar on March 22, 2016, 08:03:32 PM
Also: what a neat idea! :D
Post by: Hrollo on March 22, 2016, 08:46:12 PM
Post by: Ragnarok on March 22, 2016, 08:47:17 PM
Lazy8 > I don't know if that helps but, this would be a very good opportunity to play with a character who's doing bad things for good reasons, whose actions are well meaning but misguided, to explore the discrepancy that can exists between "acting in a good/right/moral way" and "not causing unnecessary suffering".
Reading Worm might help in that regard, if you have time.
Post by: Keeper on March 22, 2016, 08:49:20 PM
Post by: Lazy8 on March 22, 2016, 10:06:59 PM
Lazy8, I think you might have touched on the solution yourself. :) Maybe, just as a practice or something for fun to do for yourself at the moment, play around with this premise as a fanfic. Perhaps this is something that's happened after Year 0, for example, something that's experienced all over the known world or only in one country? And then the OCs will come trickling in. It'll be a nice little trap to get those OCs to show themselves! Hope this helps!
Also: what a neat idea! :D
Glad you like the idea! Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't know whether I want to turn this into a fanfic. Because then it'll just turn into a fanfic permanently, and I wanted to do an original work.
Lazy8 > I don't know if that helps but, this would be a very good opportunity to play with a character who's doing bad things for good reasons, whose actions are well meaning but misguided, to explore the discrepancy that can exists between "acting in a good/right/moral way" and "not causing unnecessary suffering".
Oh yes, I like that idea. Maybe for future installments? (Look at me, I don't even have a real plot and I'm already planning sequels, seriously me, stop it. :-\ ) That, and the fact that this only happens once, so there's nothing stopping anyone from hurting people after except for an enforced sense of empathy, and not everyone is going to be affected that way - some will just keep right on lashing out and trying to hurt other people like they've been hurt. Plus there's always the possibility of a serial killer who had enough restraint or was simply lacking in opportunity, and managed to live past it, and realized that he had free reign at any point after...
Lazy8: I don't know how helpful this would be, but I tend to draw from myself and the people around me for characters. If you lived in this society, how would you feel? How would you prepare? How would your friends react to it similarly or differently? Etc. etc. etc...
That was actually kind of where the idea came from. I'm seriously going to have to think on this some more...
Post by: Róisín on March 23, 2016, 02:28:25 AM
Post by: OwlsG0 on March 23, 2016, 03:12:41 AM
Tangentially, I'm reminded of that character in Pratchett who, when one of the witches shows her her true nature, rather than collapsing in a sobbing heap and repenting of her evil and murderous ways, glories in it and insists she would have been twice as evil had the opportunity occurred.
It's always refreshing when a character or an author defies conventions. For example, I really do like Pratchett because he was always doing his own thing, and nuts to what the rest of the literary world used in stories. His were not so formulaic, and you really got the sense you were reading something original.
The villains of stories are always the most difficult to accomplish, I think, because it means working with a set of values which are alien to most of us. And there's always the pressure to make the villain distinct in some way- for example, loveable, as seems to be popular in Hollywood these days (ie: Loki from Avengers), or too damned sophisticated for their own good (ie: every Bond villain ever). In writing, it is so much easier to encounter villains who are just villainous, like Hannibal Lecter, Voldemort and a personal favourite, that crazy Mrs Danvers from 'Rebecca'.
Post by: Róisín on March 23, 2016, 03:57:51 AM
Post by: OwlsG0 on March 23, 2016, 04:00:00 AM
I much prefer villains or antagonists who have, or believe they have, a perfectly valid and consistent reason for what they do.
Even if that reason is just "Hey, I like being evil!"
Post by: Lazy8 on March 23, 2016, 07:03:03 AM
It's always refreshing when a character or an author defies conventions. For example, I really do like Pratchett because he was always doing his own thing, and nuts to what the rest of the literary world used in stories. His were not so formulaic, and you really got the sense you were reading something original.
The villains of stories are always the most difficult to accomplish, I think, because it means working with a set of values which are alien to most of us. And there's always the pressure to make the villain distinct in some way- for example, loveable, as seems to be popular in Hollywood these days (ie: Loki from Avengers), or too damned sophisticated for their own good (ie: every Bond villain ever). In writing, it is so much easier to encounter villains who are just villainous, like Hannibal Lecter, Voldemort and a personal favourite, that crazy Mrs Danvers from 'Rebecca'.
My personal favorite villain was always David Xanatos of Gargoyles fame. Not least because he was very genre savvy (I swear, he knew he was in a Disney cartoon and enjoyed every minute of it) and avoided falling into a lot of stereotypical villain traps, had an understandable and very human motivation, was completely unapologetic about doing whatever it took to get what he wanted, but also knew which lines not to cross if he still wanted the heroes to occasionally ally with him.
That said, I personally would not try to write a David Xanatos. I don't think I could do that type of character justice, at all.
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on April 11, 2016, 01:31:40 PM
Post by: Juniper on April 12, 2016, 02:34:48 AM
I much prefer villains or antagonists who have, or believe they have, a perfectly valid and consistent reason for what they do.I've also really enjoyed this too, it's much more realistic. Most people in real life sees themselves as the 'good guy' and thinks what they do has justifiable causes and is the right thing, even if it's not. I want an antagonist who feels human and who I can relate to, I feel like it just gives the story more depth.
Although, my favorite kind of characters are the old "trickster" trope found in a lot culture's folklore from around the lore, the chaotic, clever, and mischievous character. I think this wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickster) does a better job of summarizing it than I do. I'd really like to write a main protagonist who follows a lot of the old trickster trope. I'll probably bring this up in the OC thread eventually, but I've been toying around with an idea of a main protagonist who's part fay, and given some of the old Celtic lore of fairies and how incredibly chaotic, mischievous, and unpredictable they can be I think someone part fay would easily fall into the 'trickster' trope making a good anti-hero. I really have a weak spot for anti-heroes.
Post by: Róisín on April 12, 2016, 03:16:07 AM
Post by: OwlsG0 on April 12, 2016, 07:00:13 AM
Here's something that worked for me a few times when I needed to rekindle my creative spark: pick something to describe. an object in your room, a tree you can see out your window. Something like that. Describe it once, then try to describe it without using an obvious words.
For example, if you are trying to describe a tree, then do it without employing words like 'bark', 'trunk', 'leaves' or 'tree'. I've had a few hilarious results with this exercise.
Also, reading is always a good way. Pick up a good, solid book with some engaging writing and you'll be back in the swing of things soon, hopefully.
Post by: Yuuago on April 12, 2016, 07:37:22 AM
I put something (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?topic=856.msg102398#msg102398) up on the SSSS AU Thread that probably should be linked here.
This jives with a lot of things I've seen elsewhere when people talk about writing AUs. So you're definitely not alone in your philosophy.
Personally, character is only 50% of the draw for me, which is why I prefer the kind of AU where it's "everything is mostly the same but an extra thing is added".
Ah hmm so years ago I used to be super into creative writing and did it all the time and really loved it, but the past several years I've been bombarded with schoolwork that's taken away a lot of my timeand abilityto be creative. But with graduation coming up in just a few weeks I'm looking forward to using my extra free time to get serious again about doing creative things including writing, so I guess what I'm asking and sorry if this has already been touched on and I missed it, does anyone have tips for getting back into writing and digging back up the buried creativity and skill ?
Limited-wordcount prompt challenges work best for me. Probably because there's no need to worry about the story getting too big for me to handle if I'm restricting myself to 100 (or 200, or 300) words. The focus on keeping everything concise helps.
I've also found that reading poetry is a good way to get into it, especially if I'm planning to take the restricted format route with getting back into things. There's something about rhythm and structure that just... works for me.
Have no idea how I'd approach writing original fiction again, mind you, but this has worked for me fic-wise so far.
Post by: Juniper on April 12, 2016, 04:53:22 PM
Post by: KicknRun on April 12, 2016, 10:08:21 PM
I tend to overly focus on emotions when reading, and I tend to see stories that i can connect to emotionally as better than ones with good stories, but emotions i can't connect to. And if the story is kind of bad, but the emotions are good, then I'm way willing to over look it.
and i have an example! ya!
If i had more time, I'd pull out comic panels, but since i have no time, ill probably come around next.. week with some talk about the differences between Jonathan Hickman's and Matt Fraction's runs of the FF comic.And I'll say things about Hickman's run on the avengers too, probably.
Post by: Asterales on April 22, 2016, 05:54:12 AM
It's no fun. I have thought up about 20 different scenarios by now and still haven't found a satisfying solution.
Untrained, weaponless 15-year-old against trained, non-stupid, non-clumsi assassin with a plan is a bit too skewed in favor of the assassin, it seems. Especially if it happens in a secluded spot (did I mention non-stupid?). I also don't know how to turn the situation around so it is the assassin that ends up dying... It might just come down to changing the MC's birthday date -_-
Because things are connected you know? *nods vigorously*
If the MC is born in a different season he will come of age in a different season, which will change his perceived threat level, which in turn might cause people vying for political power to act, should it coincide with other (un-)convenient deaths. But the timeframe is also important, because of distance and information transmission... I need the season to allow for a slightly more hazardous ground and less cover... (If this is the solution that turns out to be viable, that is.)
But if I change the birthday date in a way appropriate for enabling this particular scenario, the character will have to be born at a time that is still associated with snow.
Thats no good! Because snow is associated with whiteness, which is associated with a certain important ancestor and fabulous magic, so that would be good! - Only the character's birthday is not supposed to happen at an auspicious time! *sob* ;_;
Why is it so difficult not to kill somebody?!
Have you ever read any convincing non-assassinations at all? (I'm getting a bit desperate here!)
Or convincing assassinations? I might need that later on...
What made them convincing to you?
Post by: Ragnarok on April 22, 2016, 05:58:44 AM
Post by: Asterales on April 22, 2016, 09:30:52 AM
"Exponentially more important distraction". Hmm. I do believe a minor distraction might help, if only to elongate the few seconds that are necessary to kill someone who is unaware. Something bigger feels too much like cheating to me, and the most important point of the whole ordeal is actually the psychological impact. The politics are important, but only insofar that they are important throughout the whole story.
What I need is something preventing the initial killing and then an opportunity to have a proper scuffle. But the assassin simply slipping or tripping just doesn't sit right with me... :-\
Post by: Laufey on April 22, 2016, 09:49:55 AM
Post by: OwlsG0 on April 22, 2016, 09:52:39 AM
What I need is something preventing the initial killing and then an opportunity to have a proper scuffle. But the assassin simply slipping or tripping just doesn't sit right with me... :-\
Hear hear on that. Whenever a deus-ex-machina like that is pulled out at the last second, it makes me roll my eyes. Unless the assassin has already proved themselves to be a little bit clumsy, then what are the odds they will slip up at the most crucial moment of their mission? Lazy writing. Bad characterisation.
I always feel like the solution to the final battle should be introduced, progressed and developed along with the characters towards the start of the story. It doesn't have to be overt- just a simple comment about it will suffice, but unless there has been some comprehensive development, or the solution naturally makes sense in context, the final battle triumph will feel cheap and easily won.
Post by: Asterales on April 22, 2016, 10:24:23 AM
Hear hear on that. Whenever a deus-ex-machina like that is pulled out at the last second, it makes me roll my eyes. Unless the assassin has already proved themselves to be a little bit clumsy, then what are the odds they will slip up at the most crucial moment of their mission? Lazy writing. Bad characterisation.Exactly.
I always feel like the solution to the final battle should be introduced, progressed and developed along with the characters towards the start of the story. It doesn't have to be overt- just a simple comment about it will suffice, but unless there has been some comprehensive development, or the solution naturally makes sense in context, the final battle triumph will feel cheap and easily won.
Only I really don't see a way not to have it come down to luck in those crucial first seconds. I have thought of something now, and there are many little things I can mention that will lead up to luck intervening at the right moment (the weather condition, a wrong choice of shoes on the main character's part, the traditional clothing that always seems to get in the way at the worst time - in fact the sleeves will save more than one person's life throughout the story, and drive several generals and warriors mad with anger whenever they have to wear something 'court appropriate').
I'm also thinking that maybe, just maybe, the feeling that it was too easy could be used, to for example, make the MC very paranoid. Because, really, what are the chances?
But the initial thing that has to make the MC turn (some kind of noise)... I don't see how I could eliminate the randomness of that.
Hmm. Using the element of luck is about the only possibility I can think of, given the specs. Something that came to my mind though was goldsmiths and injuries; when a goldsmith has a serious injury at work it tends to always happen to someone with years and years of experience under their belt, not to someone new to the craft. The worst injuries almost always happen to those for whom the job is such a routine that they get absent-minded for a second and chop. Perhaps the assassin is someone with much experience and (especially if they're aware how easy their target is to kill) just... forgets some important safety detail, thinking they're in for an easy routine task?That's a good point. Sonja Fischer, the German hairdresser world championship winner, seems to have a weakness for cutting off parts of her own fingers, because she gets ahead of herself... ::)
I don't think I'll be able to utilize it in this scenario, but it is something to keep in mind for later!
Post by: Aierdome on April 22, 2016, 12:59:49 PM
Those sleeves, maybe the character could have something hidden in them? (I'm reminded of the fact that Pekingese were bred to hide in sleeves and be used as anti-assassin measure... true story, apparently) It doesn't have to be a weapon - even something like a metal bracelet could surprise an assassin that would, in a scuffle, slash out at the characters. Also, necklaces and all other jewelry. Having once been smacked (by accident) with a pedant, I can tell you it (1) hurts a lot and (2) is certainly sure to slow someone down. Also, a knife could get entangled with a more fancy neckace, and a band-style necklace, if made of metal, could stop a strike meant for lower throat.
Also, how does the assassination happen? I recall (I can't give you the book now) reading about an assassination when the would-be killer was dressed as a palace servant. The reason it failed was because a seasoned guard of the would-be victim remembered all the faces and was on guard when he noticed someone he didn't know. If your character is cornered in a familiar environment, the fact that he doesn't recognize someone could be an alerting factor, giving the MC a second of two more for reaction, which could mean a difference between death and not dying.
If you want to have your assassin be foiled by a noise, you could foreshadow it by mentioning something a floorboard by the entrance creaking, and people expressing annoyance with that. It'll come off as much less random if the attention's already been brought to it in a conversation. If the assassin enters by the window, likewise. Maybe it takes place on a windy day, and the creak makes the character think the wind pushed the window open? He could stand up to close it, which would give him the advantage of not sitting.
A reflection in the mirror? It could be a newly-hanged mirror, as to explain why the assassin didn't plan for this. Weapon would also make for a handy first-grab makeshift shield.
Furniture-as-weaponry? Kicked-over chairs and tables, random objects thrown to the floor, this kind of stuff would make reaching the MC an obstacle course for the assassin. The MC could arm himself with something like chair leg, which beats fighting bare-handed. From other weapons that may be on hand: candlestands, pens (with a nib), keys, letter openers, big books (doubles as a shield!), wooden figurines, large cups, bottles and glasses.
Post by: Róisín on April 22, 2016, 06:20:38 PM
Post by: Asterales on April 22, 2016, 10:36:10 PM
[…]These are all really good ideas! :D
The character won't get away completely unscathed, but for reasons of further plot development, I can't have him be too recognizable due to a physical disability.
I have actually moved the whole thing outside, into a garden/park the MC usually frequents, to use the terrain, as Róisín, puts it. While I can make use of it as the author, the MC, unfortunately, won't be using it so much as having problems dealing with it, and the character's survival of the attack will largely come down to luck, but I can engineer enough of the conditions that will lead to luck kicking in. With the scenario I have got now (including the noise), I managed to tick off everything I wanted it to contain, plus some neat additional stuff.
Original goals were:
1. Make MC more cautious
2. Make him always carry a weapon (which will at one point incriminate him, because he does so against explicit orders)
3. Show a change in his personal stand within his family, which impacts the character's mind
4. Show a change in political stances, which impacts some following plot points and how he is treated by his captors
5. Foreshadowing (to the MC) the death of somebody he cared about
6. Make the MC's best friend go agains his king's and father's orders to help the MC (giving him a weapon and training him, at least rudimentarily) - which will be foreshadowing for something else. Yay!
7. Change the dynamics of said friendship (not necessarily for the better)
8. Have the MC consciously kill somebody and become aware that while he always believed everything about him was - rightfully - dictated by his family, he actually does have some power of his own. Which is to decide what happens to his own person. And that leads him right into a clash believes. Mental turmoil achieved! ;)
Bonuses of this setup:
1. Reinforcement of the religious/mindset difference between his people and the people he lives with
2. Using the MC's distaste for said people's believes and the slights they thereby commit agains his own for plot facilitation (Festival: occupies others, makes MC wander about early, produces noise - will be used again, a lot later in the story to show MC's changing mindset)
3. Make it all the more significant when something else happens in the same garden
4. Yield a whole trove of symbolical meaning and references to historical incidents, that remain cannon fodder on the political battlefield
All in all, I'm very satisfied! ;D
Congratulate me? :D
... Of course it now remains to be seen whether I manage to write it convincingly. In a way that distracts from the unfortunate cliches.*sigh* *mutters* At least there are neither stones nor dirt involved.
Thinking about all of this also gave me some good ideas for court conduct. This round of asking was very fruitful :).
Thank you all so much for answering and giving me such wonderful ideas! ^-^
I appreciate it a lot!
Post by: OwlsG0 on April 22, 2016, 11:33:35 PM
I always have a hard time naming people permanently because I prefer to know the meanings of names and such before I go on to use them. Because of this, one of the MCs of a story under-works ended up with the ridiculous nickname 'Twig' from her surname.
Post by: Asterales on April 23, 2016, 01:05:41 AM
Astarles can I ask what MC's name is? If you have one?I do have a name. But it isn't a pre-existing one, because for some reason I just can't handle 'real' names in Fantasy stories. So it doesn't have a meaning per se. At some point I decided it's the name of a weather phenomenon that brings the first rain (as opposed to snow) of the year, but since it won't be brought up in the story, it's a moot point.
I always have a hard time naming people permanently because I prefer to know the meanings of names and such before I go on to use them. Because of this, one of the MCs of a story under-works ended up with the ridiculous nickname 'Twig' from her surname.
What is important for me when deciding a character's name is the sound, as opposed to the meaning.
The MC of this story is called Ferusch. Hmm. English pronunciation guide could be Fehroosh? The second syllable is stressed... actually he has several sets of names, but this is the one I use for narration. I Introduced him and a few characters from his universe in the OC Showcase, if you are interested (p.4, 15 and 17).
It would be a lie to say I didn't prefer Fantasy over other genres also because it gives me this liberty with names.
I'm a bit confused as to why the change of topic happened, though, I must admit. And not a just bit curious. Why are you asking? Do you need help with finding a good name for the MC you mentioned? What is she like? What does she do? (This would be perfect for the OC-S, and it would be a bit more private over there, in case you feel uncomfortable divulging stuff on the internets)
I agree that it can be very difficult to find a suitable name at times! For the longest time one of my characters for this story had to go by K., since the only thing I knew was that I wanted a K. at the start.
What I like to do if I can't come up with a good name is to sing non-words to myself, combine existing names or words into one or to go off a phrase in my village's dialect, that is very difficult to understand and mess it up even more.
I also like to make lists with names that strike my fancy, even if it doesn't seem like I'll be using them anytime soon.
I realize this won't help you if you want to use actual names, with actual meaning... :(
Post by: OwlsG0 on April 23, 2016, 02:30:04 AM
Spoiler: show
Post by: Asterales on April 23, 2016, 03:31:14 AM
And we haven't talked about naming techniques so far!
I like the idea of having a theme for only a small group of people. To be honest, it isn't something I had thought of until now.
So how do you all go about finding a good name? What makes a character name off-putting or ensnaring? Is it even possible to achieve this with a name alone? Do you like to have the name match the personality or do you make a point of it being in stark contrast to each other? What is your stance on apostrophes and the like in Fantasy names? Do you like telling names?
And this doesn't only concern characters, right?
Do you have specialized techniques for naming places or do you just go with whatever pops into your mind first?
For that matter, how long does it take you to find a satisfying name on average?
I think for me that would be about 2-3 Months. "K." was nameless for approaching two years though... :o And "most changes of the name" goes to Anyoh (the MCs best friend) with over 12 over the course of 5 years. This story is a slow cooking one! *head desk*
Post by: OwlsG0 on April 23, 2016, 03:47:53 AM
Please bear in mind that I have been world-building since I was a dainty twelve year old, so the names at the beginning are all kinds of stupid
She started off as Beatrice Lake Shakespeare
She then became Johanna Grimm
She then became Jonaen Grimm
She then became Kader Grimm (this was around the time her ethnicity changed from generic lily white to Turkish, with a dash of Kurdish)
She became Tiberia Abijem Grimm
She is now finally Tiberia Oberona Okmen and I do not intend to change the name any further because it fits her perfectly and I may die if I have to try again.
And as for picking names, I usually just probe around until I find one I like. I test a few out. I sound them out and write them down in-story context to see if it fits with the others. Sometimes I take them from my own family- half of which are Southern, the other half of which are Puerto Rican so, bloody hell, there are a lot of us.
But man, you got me beat with 12 names in five years! Kudos on finally finding the one that felt right! My naming process is usually one of years too- took me years to get to 'Twig'. Before that, in my tweenie days, her name was Dracia and I shudder to think of that period.
And as to naming places? I like using a theme too. Like if I'm naming streets, I pick a kind of imagery. Say there's going to be a violent scene in the town, the street names come out as such: Bloody Creek Lane, Tourniquet Street and, once, on a famously sleep-deprived night where I recorded some mind-numbingly dumb ideas, Punch-up Culdesac
I know, it's not subtle, but I kind of like not being subtle sometimes.
One more thing about place names: a while back, I named a planet and gave it some moons. To name these moons, I took the components of the human eye and changed the spelling
For example: iris= yerisz
And that's about it, I guess?
Post by: Aierdome on April 23, 2016, 06:41:01 AM
Congratulate me? :D
Congratulations! ;D
As for the names, I admit I often start with regular ones and modify them to sound more fantasy-ish. For example, Eric -> Eriac, Sandra -> Sanra, Alice -> Alis (funnily enough, Alis is a guy) Darius -> Darys. Others come from words I heard that sound nice to me - Tristar -> Trisar, Sousa -> Souse, Silan -> Cilane. And finally, a lot of names come from me trying out various sounds and looking for something I'd like. It helps me to say them out-loud.
The longer it took me to name a character was... a week, I think? For a while, he went nameless, then he was Saul, then I realized he's from another world and changed it to Shaul, but after a while I realized that it just doesn't... click with me. It felt weird writing it. In the end, I settled on calling him Souse.
I do have those weird presumptions... regarding names and personality that I wouldn't be really able to explain where they come from. It's a first letter thing. I always feel like characters with names starting with M are calm and stout, Es are more guarding, combat-capable and more likely to be one normal person in a crowd of weirdos, Ss are guile and scientific, As are boisterous and more choleric... I don't know where that comes from, but I couldn't name a street-wise thief with M, and I can't have a nurse with a name starting with A. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
When it comes to names, I admit I dislike naming system of "Word Someplace", like "Misty Mountain" or "Black River". I mean, it's fine in moderation, but if everything on the map has such descriptive names, it looks super-unrealistic to me. When I name something, I like to think of the language "theme" of nations near it - for example, the country in the latest thing I'm writing has "French" theme, so there are places like Caderioux, Cadour etc. I like theme naming, too - city of Cadour lies in Caderioux, which in turn lies around river Cado. Any other place in this country which lies in place where a river enters the sea would have -our suffix - Galledour (river Galla), Pexifour (river Pexifeis), Lemmedour (river Lemme) and so on.
Post by: OwlsG0 on April 23, 2016, 08:03:06 AM
I don't like the 'this and that place' thing either. Moderation is good, yes, but after a while you just start to wonder how long it took the author to run out of inspiration. Original names for MCs are a big plus for me too. If a character is named Sarah or Matthew, for some reason I can't get into it as easily as I can get into a story where the character is named something weird and outlandish. Off the top of my head, the names Josella (heroine of Day of the Triffids) and all of the names from Watership Down are ones I really enjoyed.
Currently, I'm writing a piece that involves characters named Malene, Nymph, Santi, Little Trout and Siamak.
So that kind of gives some perspective on just how weird names can go when I'm inspired. Not that Siamak is weird- it's Iranian.
Post by: Aierdome on April 23, 2016, 09:04:33 AM
How is 'Souse' pronounced? The look of it kind of reminds me of the nickname for the Spanish name Jesus- which is Soos, as any Gravity Falls fan will know.
(...)
Currently, I'm writing a piece that involves characters named Malene, Nymph, Santi, Little Trout and Siamak.
So that kind of gives some perspective on just how weird names can go when I'm inspired. Not that Siamak is weird- it's Iranian.
Like Susan, but without "n" and with "eh" sound instead of "a". Or Suzette without "tte" part. And yeah, I agree with what you say about common names in fantasy stories - I find it weird that a character from something like a fantasy story with dragons would have name like Jack or Jane. For me, it always kills any immersion I'd have in the story and reminds me I'm still reading a book. Makes the story less... real somehow.
While we're at it, I like the name Siamak.
Post by: Mélusine on April 23, 2016, 09:55:41 AM
So how do you all go about finding a good name? What makes a character name off-putting or ensnaring? Is it even possible to achieve this with a name alone? Do you like to have the name match the personality or do you make a point of it being in stark contrast to each other? What is your stance on apostrophes and the like in Fantasy names? Do you like telling names?Interesting question... I think characters often come to me with their names ; but sometimes, we both realize, months after, that the name doesn't fit. Enora wasn't Enora first, but Cami had always been Cami, and they came to me not together but nearly. Some other times, I have good surprises with meaning of names. I was particularly happy with Elowan, and Siloée (from Siloé). The only time it took me weeks to find a character's name was for Anei, who was here as a character but nameless ; I mixed some sounds from Celtic names because nothing seemed correct. I'm patient, think I'll know the good name someday even if I have to change it in a whole novel, and don't try to make names match personality *Shrugs* Characters do what they want with their names ^^ I don't like the idea a name should define a personality.
And this doesn't only concern characters, right?
Do you have specialized techniques for naming places or do you just go with whatever pops into your mind first?
Places's names is less easy, but the worst for me is last name :/ (This is why I walked in a cemetery instead of on the pavement yesterday : there are last names everywhere, one of them or parts of some of them might help...)
As for the names, I admit I often start with regular ones and modify them to sound more fantasy-ish. For example, Eric -> Eriac, Sandra -> Sanra, Alice -> Alis (funnily enough, Alis is a guy) Darius -> Darys. Others come from words I heard that sound nice to me - Tristar -> Trisar, Sousa -> Souse, Silan -> Cilane. And finally, a lot of names come from me trying out various sounds and looking for something I'd like. It helps me to say them out-loud.Distort names is also a good method ;)
Post by: Ragnarok on April 23, 2016, 09:57:58 AM
Like Susan, but without "n" and with "eh" sound instead of "a". Or Suzette without "tte" part. And yeah, I agree with what you say about common names in fantasy stories - I find it weird that a character from something like a fantasy story with dragons would have name like Jack or Jane. For me, it always kills any immersion I'd have in the story and reminds me I'm still reading a book. Makes the story less... real somehow.
While we're at it, I like the name Siamak.
I figure it depends on setting, mostly. Though I do like distortions or using Old English spellings.
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on April 23, 2016, 05:17:07 PM
Post by: Róisín on April 23, 2016, 07:07:47 PM
I also rather like 'degraded' names - where a name has started off long and formal, and with time or the degeneration of a culture, (or even spelling reform, as happened with Irish Gaelic), has worn down to a simpler form. Like 'Cholmondeley' becoming 'Chumley'. There can even be a sort of inverse snobbery about, say, a family having such names, as in 'we've been around long enough for our family name to erode'.
Post by: amaranthineamusement on May 16, 2016, 10:15:39 AM
-Am :)
Post by: Róisín on May 16, 2016, 11:12:03 AM
Post by: amaranthineamusement on May 16, 2016, 02:12:32 PM
Post by: DonatelloFellow on May 25, 2016, 12:28:27 PM
I'm a little stuck on what her wishes should be. Some points that should be taken into consideration are:
•She makes these wishes with the expectaion that they will be completed magically
•She has always loved the idea of magic even though it has long since died in the land where she comes from and is seldom seen in the world.
•She keeps to herself and doesn't have any close friends, not a very trusting person but would never betray another person without good reason. Cold demeanor but tender heart
•Personal secretary to the leader of her world, although they mainly communicate through letters and seldom face to face. (Is content with her position, does not want a higher rank)
•Loves strange and otherworldly things.
•Feeds the stray animals that roam the streets.
•Likes to travel
•Subtle fashion eccentricities
•easily irritated
So what do you feel her wishes should be? Feel free to add character traits or bits of information if they relate to the wishes
Post by: Tr on May 25, 2016, 05:17:08 PM
So what do you feel her wishes should be? Feel free to add character traits or bits of information if they relate to the wishesOoh, sounds cool! :))
Perhaps, if she likes to travel, one of her wishes is to go to a far-off place, one she has wanted to visit for a while. Maybe it is across the sea, and she gets seasick or airsick easily.
Post by: OwlsG0 on May 27, 2016, 10:15:37 PM
It sounds like the main conflict of your story is going to be between the character of the woman and the genie struggling to work together. It definitely sounds like an interesting story!
Some ideas for wishes?
If she wishes for something like world peace then she will really have her work cut out for her. Maybe she wants to meet her boss and they then have to stage some kind of daring break-in into the highly secure place where said boss works? Maybe she wants to make her first million? You could have it so that they are running various wishes at the same time. For example, using the ideas aforementioned, she works to break in to her boss's place while also making the money for her first million?
Post by: amaranthineamusement on May 29, 2016, 05:21:41 AM
-"I wish I was respected more" actually means that she needs to be more confident
- "I wish I was beautiful" would require her to dress up more and realize that she really is beautiful
- "I wish I was great at _____" (some hobby of hers, maybe she wants to be a winner of a marathon or an artist? Maybe she has a hobby)
-even something like "I wish I had a significant other" which means she has to get a date (genie wingman??? sign me up)
Post by: Juniper on June 10, 2016, 08:11:56 PM
Spoiler: show
Post by: OwlsG0 on June 10, 2016, 11:36:38 PM
But they are still people and still suffer from people problems, and problems relating to their species. Vampires have to cover up completely, facial masks and all, to avoid blistering to death in sunlight. Werewolves have to wear gloves sometimes in places where they might touch silver, or their skin will peel. Tree nymphs have to shave their heads when they take human form so they can photosynthesise (with their scalps) and not starve to death. Various water species have to carry around H20 tanks to avoid drying out.
I guess the point I'm making is that fantasy and the post-apocalypse are alright, so long as you are ensuring to include weaknesses and flaws and such so that you're not dealing with immortals and a bunch of Supermen, and that the realist element can come from there.
Post by: Juniper on June 11, 2016, 12:48:51 AM
Post by: OwlsG0 on June 11, 2016, 12:54:27 AM
Thank you !! See, I think for any fantasy setting there should always be rules in place for the magic, or at least some sort of limitations unless they're as you said a bunch of immortals or something but even then I feel like there's gotta be limits. I suppose I was talking more along the lines of would it still have the same laws, rules, and physics our world has without really any magic, normal just thousands of years in the future, or if I want to blend in aspect of something mystic and not scientifically accurate ya know ? But as I said the mystic and not scientifically accurate is just so much more fun.
Yeah I get what you mean! And magic does totally have to have limits on it, or it just turns into a shonen manga where every new mission has people mastering moves in a week to destroy ultra powerful enemies for no reason other than FRIENDSHIP POWER and stuff. Don't hold much with that kind of stuff.
One series which I think did the limitations of magic really well was the Inheritance cycle. Now I've got plenty of complaints about the series in and of itself, but the way they put energy and strength down as being the limiter on what a magician could do was uncompromising; you played by the rules, or you died. And because of that the pre-teen OwlsG0 that read the series really felt the sense of achievement every time Eragon mastered a new spell.
Post by: Juniper on June 11, 2016, 03:36:35 AM
Post by: OwlsG0 on June 11, 2016, 03:43:46 AM
Ohhhhh yes yes I agree, inheritance series is a good example of a good magic system despite its other flaws. I still have yet to read the last book and even though it'll probably make me feel like a 12 year old I still plan on it eventually.
I happened to finish the series in Paris and had a lot of French questions directed to me, as to why I was sobbing over a closed book. I can assure you the last book will make you feel like a kid and if you were like me, re-live an obsessive crush on Murtagh.
Post by: Juniper on June 11, 2016, 02:19:56 PM
I happened to finish the series in Paris and had a lot of French questions directed to me, as to why I was sobbing over a closed book. I can assure you the last book will make you feel like a kid and if you were like me, re-live an obsessive crush on Murtagh.
Aw heck yes I had a weird little crush on Murtagh too and I am SO ready to relive that
Post by: Aierdome on June 11, 2016, 05:55:36 PM
Can I tell you about our lord and saviour Brandon Sanderson? ;D Seriously, though, if you want to see a well-limited magic system that's really powerful and full of potential at the same time, he's the go-to writer for that, and did a series of articles for writing that kind of stuff (Google "Sanderson's three laws of magic").
If I may, Juniper reading through your notes on worldbuilding...
Ohhh do I want to go far enough into the future where noticeable evolutionary changes have happened with some of the flora and fauna ?? That might be kind of fun but I don't know if I know enough about biology to do that . .
If you're going with magic, you could go the route of "magic energy radiation" or somesuch causing mutations in some animals and plants, like growing horns on horses or causing a flytrap (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_flytrap) to have a growth spurt and develop a taste for human flesh. If it's consistent internally, you don't have to worry much about biology.
I wouldn't worry about comparisons with SSSS or Adventure Time - The Magic Comes Back (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheMagicComesBack) is a common enough motif to have its own TVTropes page.
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Because the first character, the idea of them being the last of something that was genocide'd off sounds almost mary-sue-ish to me I might combine that character with the trickster imp-ish one and make them one in the same. I feel like it might be harder to classify a character as a mary sue when they're a mischievous insufferable little pain :P
I admit I wouldn't say that the character being the last of his kind would instantly throw the character into Mary Sue territory, not even close. At contrary, I believe most Mary Sues are decribed as being insufferable pains, though the idea of the character being trickster imp who's last of his kind sounds pretty interesting. Also, I like those plot ideas you're throwing about. Sounds like bare bones of some interesting story (the trickster imp embarking on a journey with wax/wayne OCs while the genocidal person and deep research person pursue them? At any rate, interesting).
Aw heck yes I had a weird little crush on Murtagh too and I am SO ready to relive that
Add me to the list of People Who Had A Crush On Murtagh, he was so awesome. I admit I quit the series before the final book rolled around, but I always found him to be the best thing about Inheritance Cycle ;D
Post by: Juniper on June 11, 2016, 09:03:19 PM
I admit I wouldn't say that the character being the last of his kind would instantly throw the character into Mary Sue territory, not even close. At contrary, I believe most Mary Sues are decribed as being insufferable pains, though the idea of the character being trickster imp who's last of his kind sounds pretty interesting. Also, I like those plot ideas you're throwing about. Sounds like bare bones of some interesting story (the trickster imp embarking on a journey with wax/wayne OCs while the genocidal person and deep research person pursue them? At any rate, interesting).Ah really ? See when I think of a Mary Sue I think of someone who's perfect and lovable by everyone else in universe, there's a huge emphasis on how lovable they are by everyone around them except anyone who's jealous or threatened by them, for example the very infamous Mary Sue Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way (http://myimmortal.wikia.com/wiki/My_Immortal). So I figure a way to avoid making someone a Mary Sue is to make them more flawed and believable, although yeah, you're right some flaws really can contribute to a character's Mary Sue-ishness so it's important to pick and choose what flaws or drawbacks you give them and how you present them.
But ahhh yeah the plan is to make the twins allied with 'last of their kind trickster impish' which is also why I want to make the twins pretty lawful good and upright to kind of act as a foil to trickster imp.
Thanks for all of the tips and info, that's all really helpful ! I've heard of Brandon Sanderson before but now my interest is piqued a bit more.
Post by: Lazy8 on June 11, 2016, 09:42:24 PM
Ah really ? See when I think of a Mary Sue I think of someone who's perfect and lovable by everyone else in universe, there's a huge emphasis on how lovable they are by everyone around them except anyone who's jealous or threatened by them, for example the very infamous Mary Sue Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way (http://myimmortal.wikia.com/wiki/My_Immortal). So I figure a way to avoid making someone a Mary Sue is to make them more flawed and believable, although yeah, you're right some flaws really can contribute to a character's Mary Sue-ishness so it's important to pick and choose what flaws or drawbacks you give them and how you present them.
But ahhh yeah the plan is to make the twins allied with 'last of their kind trickster impish' which is also why I want to make the twins pretty lawful good and upright to kind of act as a foil to trickster imp.
Thanks for all of the tips and info, that's all really helpful ! I've heard of Brandon Sanderson before but now my interest is piqued a bit more.
Yes yes yes. *nods* I have lots and lots of Things to Say on the subject of Mary Sues, having kept more than a few of them myself back during my early writing days.
First of all, I've seen some deeply flawed characters *cough* Goku *cough* who were still Mary Sues - not because they were perfect, but because of the way they were treated by the narrative, getting let off the hook for some of their worst and most despicable character flaws in ways that none of the other characters were, and almost always being chosen to solve the cast's problems even when another character might have been better suited to the task.
There's also an unfortunate trend toward crying "Mary Sue!" at any canon female character who shows the slightest hint of competence, while not subjecting male characters to standards that are anywhere near as rigorous. Just as an example, here's a list of canon characters I can think of off the top of my head that would be scored at Mary Sues by the standards of most litmus tests:
- Son Goku (Dragon Ball Z): Most powerful person
on the planetin the universein the multiverse including the afterlife, one of the last surviving members of his kind, always saves the day, every single one of his enemies or rivals ends up either liking him or dead, character flaws swept under the rug - Luke Skywalker (Star Wars): Unusually powerful by the standards of his own universe, has a connection to the villain that makes said villain obsessed with him, defeats said villain with minimal training
- Aang (Avatar: the Last Airbender): The Chosen One, last surviving member of his people, masters a skillset in a matter of months that took most of his predecessors over a decade
...and again, those are only a few I can think of offhand. With the exception of Goku, I didn't take major issue with any of these characters. Just thinking out loud at this point, but I think the difference between a real Mary Sue and a false positive on the litmus test is how their flaws are treated in-universe, and whether they're allowed to develop.
Post by: Juniper on June 11, 2016, 11:08:50 PM
Yes yes yes. *nods* I have lots and lots of Things to Say on the subject of Mary Sues, having kept more than a few of them myself back during my early writing days.Yes thank you, I agree 1000,000% that fans are unfortunately more likely to cry 'Mary Sue !' at competent and likable female characters while kind of just shrugging of male characters who perfectly fit the mold. Luke Skywalker is actually a perfect example, especially going on the fact that many people would define a Mary Sue as a self insert character who is some sort of wish fulfillment on the behalf of the author / creator. Mark Hamill has even said that he's positive Luke Skywalker was supposed to be a self insert for George Lucas ::) it always did bug me with both Luke Skywalker and Aang how quickly they progressed through their training and as adolescents were able to take down much older and more competent villains who'd been training for decades and decades, even though I especially liked Aang a lot as a character.
First of all, I've seen some deeply flawed characters *cough* Goku *cough* who were still Mary Sues - not because they were perfect, but because of the way they were treated by the narrative, getting let off the hook for some of their worst and most despicable character flaws in ways that none of the other characters were, and almost always being chosen to solve the cast's problems even when another character might have been better suited to the task.
There's also an unfortunate trend toward crying "Mary Sue!" at any canon female character who shows the slightest hint of competence, while not subjecting male characters to standards that are anywhere near as rigorous. Just as an example, here's a list of canon characters I can think of off the top of my head that would be scored at Mary Sues by the standards of most litmus tests:
- Son Goku (Dragon Ball Z): Most powerful person
on the planetin the universein the multiverse including the afterlife, one of the last surviving members of his kind, always saves the day, every single one of his enemies or rivals ends up either liking him or dead, character flaws swept under the rug- Luke Skywalker (Star Wars): Unusually powerful by the standards of his own universe, has a connection to the villain that makes said villain obsessed with him, defeats said villain with minimal training
- Aang (Avatar: the Last Airbender): The Chosen One, last surviving member of his people, masters a skillset in a matter of months that took most of his predecessors over a decade
...and again, those are only a few I can think of offhand. With the exception of Goku, I didn't take major issue with any of these characters. Just thinking out loud at this point, but I think the difference between a real Mary Sue and a false positive on the litmus test is how their flaws are treated in-universe, and whether they're allowed to develop.
And I also think that's a good way to put it, yeah, not just how the flaws are handled in universe but allowing character growth and development through those flaws is super important in making more believable and real characters.
Post by: Lazy8 on June 11, 2016, 11:20:37 PM
And I also think that's a good way to put it, yeah, not just how the flaws are handled in universe but allowing character growth and development through those flaws is super important in making more believable and real characters.
...I will refrain from subjecting you to any of my Goku Rants.
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Yes thank you, I agree 1000,000% that fans are unfortunately more likely to cry 'Mary Sue !' at competent and likable female characters while kind of just shrugging of male characters who perfectly fit the mold. Luke Skywalker is actually a perfect example, especially going on the fact that many people would define a Mary Sue as a self insert character who is some sort of wish fulfillment on the behalf of the author / creator. Mark Hamill has even said that he's positive Luke Skywalker was supposed to be a self insert for George Lucas ::) it always did bug me with both Luke Skywalker and Aang how quickly they progressed through their training and as adolescents were able to take down much older and more competent villains who'd been training for decades and decades, even though I especially liked Aang a lot as a character.
I also tend to look a lot at Zuko as a character who, in the wrong hands, would have had a very high chance of becoming a Sue (good-looking sympathetic villain, Freudian excuse, childhood abuse / absent parents, born royal, right down to a distinct physical flaw that doesn't actually detract from his appearance), but instead, his character flaws are acknowledged in-universe, they're not all intended to be endearing, they cause him real problems, and a big part of his character arc is confronting and overcoming those flaws.
So returning to the original point, as long as you're not giving your character in your original work undue favoritism, I think you should be good.
Post by: princeofdoom on June 14, 2016, 02:50:23 AM
One is set in a universe with alchemy. The main character is someone with a chronic illness (but is explained in universe as "lacking blood"), who tries to treat it or one day cure it through magic, while also working for his childhood friend/patron/platonic soulmate as an assassin.
The other is a slice of life story about a group of magical girls who defeated the great evil, lived normal lives and are now in their early 60's with careers, families and the like .... when a new evil shows up.
i got more initial interest from friends about the magical girl story, and i think i might be able to do it as a short story or novella, but i've only started figuring out the characters and have no further plot than what's presented. The other story would be a lot bigger, but i have some ideas for subplots, and at least the main character and his friend are based on fan characters i've had for a long time so I could figure out more stuff on the fly.
i should just get writing; i know that inspiration often comes when you least expect it and it's usually that first few words that are the hardest. so just WRITING might get things flowing. but i'm also worried my own health problems will catch up to me write when i get into either one and lose all concept of what i was doing.
Post by: Dar on July 13, 2016, 04:07:52 PM
I am in agreement with IKEA that My Immortal is a trollfic. How can it not be?? I know plenty of people who write bad stuff, but that one is so much of a colossal trainwreck that it just cannot have been created by accident!
What isn't a bad fic though, is anything by eleventy7 on AO3. I won't link them because I almost exclusively read M/M or F/F pairings (Drarry, Wolfstar and Linny are my favourites) and some people might not be comfortable with them, but here's one that doesn't have a romantic plotline and is just gorgeous to read.
It's Astra Inclinant (http://archiveofourown.org/works/4153050) and involves Next-Gen characters as well. It's just beautiful and I teared up more than once reading it.
Post by: Rhynerd on August 12, 2016, 03:49:03 PM
During the course I developed a small idea involving graveyard workers during an alternate version of England's Cholera outbreaks, assigned to keep their eyes and ears out for if any safety coffins started ringing.
I also have two other ideas:
The first is more recent. It's set in a universe starting to become cyberpunk and entails the police force as their city becomes home to a vigilante who relies on technology stolen from one of the corporations to assist in his brutal fight against crime.
The other I've had for quite some time, it's changed alongside myself a bit but allow me to just try and provide a hook for it before I consider going to any full detail: A multi-genre, semi-metafictional adventure involving the exploits and interactions of three story-hopping factions.
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on August 12, 2016, 09:54:42 PM
I mean that. I would be most grateful if any and all went through the stuff and sent me feedback by whatever means are at your disposal.
EDIT: See below for list of links.
2nd EDIT: As I said up top, you can respond by any means that are at your disposal, including but not limited to:
A post here (spoilered or unspoilered)
A comment on dA
A post on the Scriptorium
A Forum PM
A reply to the comment(s) on the SSSS page
A link on any of the above to a google doc
Post by: OwlsG0 on August 12, 2016, 09:56:03 PM
So, recently I posted four stories chapter by chapter on the Scriptorium. Would anyone care to dissect them?
I mean that. I would be most grateful if any and all went through the stuff and sent me feedback by whatever means are at your disposal.
Which ones were those? I've just emerged from a three-day cold so I have no idea what's going on, but I'd be happy to look over them.
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on August 12, 2016, 10:15:33 PM
Spoiler: deviantart links • show
Post by: Tr on August 12, 2016, 10:49:32 PM
So, recently I posted four stories chapter by chapter on the Scriptorium. Would anyone care to dissect them?Ooh, I was planning a reread anyway, so why not!
I mean that. I would be most grateful if any and all went through the stuff and sent me feedback by whatever means are at your disposal.
(Disclaimer: I'm not sure how qualified I am to do this, though. The last time someone asked me to look over their work was... heavens... 8th grade peer editing, and that was not a terribly long time ago.)
Well, my dear sir, I can at least assure you that your writing is infinitely better than the average 8th grader's. I look forward to re-exploring the Realm with pleasure. ;D
Post by: Aierdome on August 13, 2016, 06:57:31 AM
So, recently I posted four stories chapter by chapter on the Scriptorium. Would anyone care to dissect them?
I mean that. I would be most grateful if any and all went through the stuff and sent me feedback by whatever means are at your disposal.
EDIT: See below for list of links.
I'll certainly read this. The titles and chapter titles are certainly attention-grabbing (in a good way). ;)
Post by: OwlsG0 on August 13, 2016, 07:12:04 AM
Monstrously long link set (so spoilered):Spoiler: deviantart links • show
How would you like to have any feedback we might have sent back to you? Google docs, or what?
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on August 13, 2016, 02:16:41 PM
How would you like to have any feedback we might have sent back to you? Google docs, or what?I edited the OP to answer, but will say here: whatever you want.
Post by: amaranthineamusement on August 18, 2016, 04:36:14 AM
I was wondering if anyone would be interested in reading & critiquing my novella? It's around 20,000 words. I can't pay you or anything (I have no money) so I totally understand if you don't want to! But there's only so much my mom will tell me because she's automatically biased ;) It's fantasy with a gold rush twist.
Short summary:
Del Fetler's set off to make his fortune... mining for gold on the floating, magical isle of Cumulus. Despite his best efforts, however, he's soon entangled in a magical adventure that may result in the death of everyone on the island. Can he join forces with two strangers to defeat a witch with no conscience and an evil plan?
Let me know if you want to read it, I can give it to you in word or pdf format... I'll just need your email (or maybe I can send it in a message? I'll see).
Post by: Mélusine on August 18, 2016, 06:37:59 AM
Post by: Ragnarok on August 18, 2016, 08:05:53 AM
Hi! This is kind of a weird request, buuuuuuuuuuttt this is the writers corner, so.
I was wondering if anyone would be interested in reading & critiquing my novella? It's around 20,000 words. I can't pay you or anything (I have no money) so I totally understand if you don't want to! But there's only so much my mom will tell me because she's automatically biased ;) It's fantasy with a gold rush twist.
Short summary:
Del Fetler's set off to make his fortune... mining for gold on the floating, magical isle of Cumulus. Despite his best efforts, however, he's soon entangled in a magical adventure that may result in the death of everyone on the island. Can he join forces with two strangers to defeat a witch with no conscience and an evil plan?
Let me know if you want to read it, I can give it to you in word or pdf format... I'll just need your email (or maybe I can send it in a message? I'll see).
Send it my way- I'll read when I have time. Word, please.
starwarssith54@gmail.com
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on August 18, 2016, 08:16:42 AM
Hi! This is kind of a weird request, buuuuuuuuuuttt this is the writers corner, so.There's a little envelope next to the dA icon beneath my name. That should e-mail me. PM if you have trouble.
I was wondering if anyone would be interested in reading & critiquing my novella? It's around 20,000 words. I can't pay you or anything (I have no money) so I totally understand if you don't want to! But there's only so much my mom will tell me because she's automatically biased ;) It's fantasy with a gold rush twist.
Short summary:
Del Fetler's set off to make his fortune... mining for gold on the floating, magical isle of Cumulus. Despite his best efforts, however, he's soon entangled in a magical adventure that may result in the death of everyone on the island. Can he join forces with two strangers to defeat a witch with no conscience and an evil plan?
Let me know if you want to read it, I can give it to you in word or pdf format... I'll just need your email (or maybe I can send it in a message? I'll see).
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on September 13, 2016, 03:54:30 PM
So, recently I posted four stories chapter by chapter on the Scriptorium. Would anyone care to dissect them?
I mean that. I would be most grateful if any and all went through the stuff and sent me feedback by whatever means are at your disposal.
EDIT: See below for list of links.
2nd EDIT: As I said up top, you can respond by any means that are at your disposal, including but not limited to:
A post here (spoilered or unspoilered)
A comment on dA
A post on the Scriptorium
A Forum PM
A reply to the comment(s) on the SSSS page
A link on any of the above to a google doc
Monstrously long link set (so spoilered):Just bumping this up to keep it in view. (I know: you're all busy people et cetera; I just wanted to gently remind people.)Spoiler: deviantart links • show
Post by: Lazy8 on September 25, 2016, 04:53:42 PM
This is the sort of setting where I could see the story being either really interesting and thought-provoking, or horribly, disastrously wrong. Thoughts?
(Also, the Curse of Original Fiction strikes again.
- Worldbuilding
- Characters
- Plot
You can only choose one. *headdesk*)
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on September 25, 2016, 08:19:12 PM
So here's a kind-of crazy idea that just started stewing in my head at random while I was out walking today: a world where once people have reached adulthood they don't actually start aging until they have children, and each subsequent child speeds up the aging process. I was vacillating on whether this would be more interesting if applied to everybody, or only to women/people capable of giving birth, with everybody else just aging normally.There are those who would say that they themselves didn't start aging until they became parents…
This is the sort of setting where I could see the story being either really interesting and thought-provoking, or horribly, disastrously wrong. Thoughts?
(Also, the Curse of Original Fiction strikes again.…and there are those who would dispute that last with great ardor (including me--though that may be why I write so slowly).
- Worldbuilding
- Characters
- Plot
You can only choose one. *headdesk*)
Post by: Lazy8 on September 25, 2016, 08:29:56 PM
…and there are those who would dispute that last with great ardor (including me--though that may be why I write so slowly).
No no no, I was referring to my writing specifically. Which is probably why I've stuck mostly to fanfiction lately, because I can only ever seem to come up with one.
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on September 25, 2016, 09:29:10 PM
No no no, I was referring to my writing specifically. Which is probably why I've stuck mostly to fanfiction lately, because I can only ever seem to come up with one.Random thoughts…
It's probably why sequels/side stories are popular, because most of the work is done already. An example of my own is my most recent thing: it's a side story in my Big Future History of Everything, so the setting was already there, and I just had to plop the characters and plotline into it.
This leads to my next asinine idea: why not do each bit separately, and try them in various combinations until you find something that works? Like, create thirty worlds, thirty plots, and thirty sets of characters, and see if you can't get at least one full-fledged story out of them? And the settings, plots and characters that you don't use now can be picked up and dusted off once you find or make the other elements to fit--writing is patient that way. My Big Future History of Everything has been slowly evolving in my mind for maybe twenty years now, and will wait another twenty for me to use it.
Just me rambling a bit here.
Post by: Lazy8 on September 25, 2016, 09:58:40 PM
Random thoughts…
It's probably why sequels/side stories are popular, because most of the work is done already. An example of my own is my most recent thing: it's a side story in my Big Future History of Everything, so the setting was already there, and I just had to plop the characters and plotline into it.
This leads to my next asinine idea: why not do each bit separately, and try them in various combinations until you find something that works? Like, create thirty worlds, thirty plots, and thirty sets of characters, and see if you can't get at least one full-fledged story out of them? And the settings, plots and characters that you don't use now can be picked up and dusted off once you find or make the other elements to fit--writing is patient that way. My Big Future History of Everything has been slowly evolving in my mind for maybe twenty years now, and will wait another twenty for me to use it.
Just me rambling a bit here.
Hmmmmmmmm... that actually is a thought. And I do have characters who've been around in my head since pretty much forever.
Having some music as inspiration also helps. I did find a bit for the empathy apocalypse - not enough for a whole story, but a few scenes at least. That's where a lot of my plots come from - I need music!
Post by: OwlsG0 on September 29, 2016, 03:31:19 AM
Hmmmmmmmm... that actually is a thought. And I do have characters who've been around in my head since pretty much forever.
Having some music as inspiration also helps. I did find a bit for the empathy apocalypse - not enough for a whole story, but a few scenes at least. That's where a lot of my plots come from - I need music!
If you don't listen to the genre already, you might try post-rock. It's all instrumental and devoted to making sound landscapes and all that. Good music to turn off your mind to and let your imagination go where it pleases. A good band to start with is Explosions in the sky
Post by: Rhynerd on September 29, 2016, 05:40:17 AM
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on October 01, 2016, 11:04:23 AM
Pardon me, but I recently put two drafts of a short story I made recently into the Scriptorum, would it be wrong for me to ask for the two cents of the Writer's Corner on them, and possibly doing a repost of those two stories here just to help make that easier?Feedback (such as it is) sent.
Post by: Rhynerd on October 01, 2016, 05:24:49 PM
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on October 12, 2016, 08:05:42 PM
So, recently I posted four stories chapter by chapter on the Scriptorium. Would anyone care to dissect them?
I mean that. I would be most grateful if any and all went through the stuff and sent me feedback by whatever means are at your disposal.
EDIT: See below for list of links.
2nd EDIT: As I said up top, you can respond by any means that are at your disposal, including but not limited to:
A post here (spoilered or unspoilered)
A comment on dA
A post on the Scriptorium
A Forum PM
A reply to the comment(s) on the SSSS page
A link on any of the above to a google doc
Monstrously long link set (so spoilered):Another gentle reminder...Spoiler: deviantart links • show
Post by: amaranthineamusement on October 12, 2016, 09:12:03 PM
Another gentle reminder...
I'm interested in reading these- just got back onto the forum after a vicious quarter and I only saw this now. I will send you my feedback through PM or something, but I thought you should know that I'll be looking at it (don't want to leave you hanging :) )
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on November 12, 2016, 09:51:05 PM
So, recently I posted four stories chapter by chapter on the Scriptorium. Would anyone care to dissect them?
I mean that. I would be most grateful if any and all went through the stuff and sent me feedback by whatever means are at your disposal.
EDIT: See below for list of links.
2nd EDIT: As I said up top, you can respond by any means that are at your disposal, including but not limited to:
A post here (spoilered or unspoilered)
A comment on dA
A post on the Scriptorium
A Forum PM
A reply to the comment(s) on the SSSS page
A link on any of the above to a google doc
Monstrously long link set (so spoilered):Spoiler: deviantart links • show
Post by: OwlsG0 on November 20, 2016, 04:02:38 AM
Post by: Mélusine on November 20, 2016, 05:26:29 AM
You know that moment where you lose all confidence in your ability to tell stories? Yep. The second chapter of a new fanfic is just kicking my ass in every conceivable place and direction.I can't post pictures but I have one sent by a friend with a list. It's title is "The creative process" and it says :
1. This is awesome
2. This is tricky
3. This is shit
4. I am shit
5. This might be okay
6. This is awesome
And it repeats itself again and again during a creative process, for writing a story or something else. Don't give up ! You'll go back to more confidence and pleasure to write :)
Post by: Róisín on November 20, 2016, 08:36:12 AM
Post by: Aierdome on November 21, 2016, 09:32:56 AM
You know that moment where you lose all confidence in your ability to tell stories? Yep. The second chapter of a new fanfic is just kicking my ass in every conceivable place and direction.
Oh, I do know this. For me, it usually comes about two-thirds into any story I'm writing. But trust me, if you power through that hard bit, you'll find that writing is suddenly fun again. O0
Post by: OwlsG0 on November 22, 2016, 03:04:29 AM
Oh, I do know this. For me, it usually comes about two-thirds into any story I'm writing. But trust me, if you power through that hard bit, you'll find that writing is suddenly fun again. O0
I'm finding a lot of this story challenging, mainly because I'm not quite sure which direction to take it in. I guess I'd better plan it more carefully
Post by: Ragnarok on November 22, 2016, 10:18:07 AM
http://archiveofourown.org/works/8208452/chapters/18807770 (http://archiveofourown.org/works/8208452/chapters/18807770)
Post by: Aierdome on November 22, 2016, 10:41:34 AM
I'm finding a lot of this story challenging, mainly because I'm not quite sure which direction to take it in. I guess I'd better plan it more carefully
If you don't know what to do, try putting yourself in characters (both heroes and villains) shoes, and ask yourself, "what do I do now?". And if you have no idea, then write your characters discussing what to do. You'll get some ideas. And if all else fails, I give you Raymond Chandler's immortal advice: when in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun* in his hand.
* If a gun won't cut it, substitue it with an object that will generate the most drama
Post by: Róisín on November 22, 2016, 05:21:41 PM
Post by: OwlsG0 on November 22, 2016, 07:41:00 PM
Aierdome, those are good ideas. I would add, the discussion among the characters as to what to do next can take many forms. You can phrase it as a straight-up discussion, an argument (which can also be an excuse for slipping in some exposition), a flashback, or even one of the characters being so worried about what to do as to have a nightmare about such a discussion. Or, if it's that kind of story, a dream or vision about it.
So much good advice- I'll do my best to put it into practice.
Post by: Rhynerd on November 23, 2016, 04:12:31 PM
In many of my previous posts I've discussed an idea tied to an album of pictures, most of them made in a sketchbook of mine. (http://imgur.com/gallery/C0cZy)
I was asked about my entire idea some time back in a PM, but I feel like I need to iron this out further, and I find that stuff like this is best done with other eyes.
My response to the person is in this quote:
That's a bit of a good question really. I'm still trying to get a completely clear idea out of it myself.
All I really know is that one day while scrolling through images I got the idea of a turn-based game with three classes: a close ranged fighter, a ranged warrior, and a mage that would move around parts of the map for the other two.
Then I developed these three (http://imgur.com/L6XLu8v) to act as a member of each class, and then I added symbols on their backs to indicate ranks (where in reality they would be in those square patches of the opposite color). Then I started thinking of some other minor ideas that I've since melted down for this one, kinda.
I guess the big idea is something like this:
The terrain could be coastal, but it is certainly frozen. Tundra, forests, a couple mountains. In I think one of the tundras, there's this city. It's technology is mostly clockwork but with bits and pieces of technology of ranges just short of WW2 technology.
Everyone there worships this one god, a clockwork god. This god has given some of it's citizens gifts. For some, it manifests in magic, commonly this one that lets them move parts of the world about. Some get other magics, like the ability to spark up flames at their will. Some are given knowledge, the means to make some of this advanced technology as a second nature. There's even some who get multiple gifts. No matter what, these gifts come with a price. In many cases insomnia, but even if they don't have insomnia, the gifted will find that they can only dream of an endless mesh of gears, only sometimes expanding into other clockworks.
As you noticed, there's uniforms in both white and black. While I originally developed them to be warring factions, for some reason now I imagine them as just two rival militias for this city. Perhaps one focuses on defense, and one on offense, or maybe they both have ties to two older gods that fell out of favor due to their warring tendencies. Now I gave them a common enemy. Those creatures that you drew one of. They're tribal, they're hard to kill, they aren't fully understood, but they have attacked in the past, and this city attacks in return.
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on December 13, 2016, 09:56:14 PM
So, recently I posted four stories chapter by chapter on the Scriptorium. Would anyone care to dissect them?
I mean that. I would be most grateful if any and all went through the stuff and sent me feedback by whatever means are at your disposal.
EDIT: See below for list of links.
2nd EDIT: As I said up top, you can respond by any means that are at your disposal, including but not limited to:
A post here (spoilered or unspoilered)
A comment on dA
A post on the Scriptorium
A Forum PM
A reply to the comment(s) on the SSSS page
A link on any of the above to a google doc
Monstrously long link set (so spoilered):…Any feedback is welcome.Spoiler: deviantart links • show
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on January 13, 2017, 06:12:34 PM
*Sighs*
*Posts next monthly reminder anyway*
So, recently I posted four stories chapter by chapter on the Scriptorium. Would anyone care to dissect them?
I mean that. I would be most grateful if any and all went through the stuff and sent me feedback by whatever means are at your disposal.
EDIT: See below for list of links.
2nd EDIT: As I said up top, you can respond by any means that are at your disposal, including but not limited to:
A post here (spoilered or unspoilered)
A comment on dA
A post on the Scriptorium
A Forum PM
A reply to the comment(s) on the SSSS page
A link on any of the above to a google doc
Monstrously long link set (so spoilered):Spoiler: deviantart links • show
…Any feedback is welcome.
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on January 22, 2017, 09:50:32 AM
I can't post pictures but I have one sent by a friend with a list. It's title is "The creative process" and it says :While I don't deny that this happens during the writing process. I'd like to take the opportunity to
1. This is awesome
2. This is tricky
3. This is s***
4. I am s***
5. This might be okay
6. This is awesome
And it repeats itself again and again during a creative process, for writing a story or something else. Don't give up ! You'll go back to more confidence and pleasure to write :)
There's a scene in the first Back to the Future where George McFly explains his reasoning for keeping his stories private: "Well, what if they didn't like them? What if they said they were no good?" It's an echo of what his son Marty had said about not submitting his music to the industry; it's also the nagging fear I have every time I put something up on the web.
I'm generally stuck on the 'This is awesome' stage of the process Mélusine described above, but I also know very well that my tastes are not shared by a large number of people out there; what I think is awesome is likely to be thought of as "bleh" by others. So every time I post anything, I'm biting my nails and sweating blood, waiting for the inevitable person who doesn't like my stuff and feels compelled to inform me about it to speak up (as such). And every time that I put something up and the crickets chirp, I'm convinced that it's because nobody likes it but they're too nice to actually say so.
So, is this a familiar state of affairs for anyone else?
Post by: Crumpite on January 22, 2017, 07:29:08 PM
That's why you need to create to please yourself to a certain extent.
It is HARD to create something good, and even harder to create something new.
If it's something new, you need to march forward and keep your eyes on the goal, not on the bystanders.
If you do that, someday you'll look behind you and find a bunch of folks following you, much to your surprise.
Post by: wavewright62 on January 23, 2017, 02:56:07 AM
While I don't deny that this happens during the writing process. I'd like to take the opportunity tobloviateput down my thoughts on the post-creative process, or my version of it.
There's a scene in the first Back to the Future where George McFly explains his reasoning for keeping his stories private: "Well, what if they didn't like them? What if they said they were no good?" It's an echo of what his son Marty had said about not submitting his music to the industry; it's also the nagging fear I have every time I put something up on the web.
I'm generally stuck on the 'This is awesome' stage of the process Mélusine described above, but I also know very well that my tastes are not shared by a large number of people out there; what I think is awesome is likely to be thought of as "bleh" by others. So every time I post anything, I'm biting my nails and sweating blood, waiting for the inevitable person who doesn't like my stuff and feels compelled to inform me about it to speak up (as such). And every time that I put something up and the crickets chirp, I'm convinced that it's because nobody likes it but they're too nice to actually say so.
So, is this a familiar state of affairs for anyone else?
Oh yeah. And Crumpite has pretty much hit the nail on the head.
(For the record, this is my first visit to this thread, drawn here by your plaintive tone in the Disqus comments.)
For my artworks, I generally get stuck on the 'I am s***' phase. I go away and leave them for a few years, and after forgetting about them completely and unearthing them again, I get to 'This might be okay.' Any works I considered Awesome also get demoted to 'This might be okay.' In fact, the fact that I have been accomplishing and sharing art is new this year (2016), helped immensely by the anonymity afforded by a pseudonym.
For my writing, 2016 was also the first year I did *any* writing (conveniently forgetting teen angst poetry from 35-40 years ago), so I am always surprised whenever anybody likes any of it. I'd prefer not to hear the crickets chirp, but they do and I can deal with that. (That's a lie: I dearly love crickets, and cicadas and wetas, and am bummed that there are none so far in this cold so-called summer.)
Is everything you write awesome? Yes and no.
- Some writings hit you right away, and some take time to percolate through.
The Forum moves so quickly that it really isn't the done thing on *any* thread to comment on something from several pages ago, although I have no difficulty leaving kudos & comments on older AO3 entries.
You write across an array of genres and include AUs and crossovers. There is such a volume of fanfic to enjoy that when I'm not familiar with the other half of the crossover, it's an easy filter. AUs sometimes leave me a bit cold, too (says she whose biggest work posted on AO3 is an AU), much like the Holodeck recurring story device in ST:TNG.
It's possible that some of your fellow writers (present company included) don't want to be seen putting in a generic comment that doesn't give usable feedback on that particular story. Just composing this message has taken me the better part of an hour, and I was supposed to accomplish some RL stuff (and some work on the next chapter of said AU monolith) this evening - ooops. When I 'Post' this, that's me for the evening.
*}hugs{ for LooNEY_DAC*
I will say you're probably the only writer around here who could get me to read a story about the Kastrup reclamation or giant Danish tanks, based on that gem about the Cleanser cycle.
Right, laundry and processing of today's green bean harvest calls.
Post by: OwlsG0 on January 23, 2017, 06:10:31 PM
Post by: Ragnarok on January 23, 2017, 07:53:43 PM
How do I abandon a writing project? Is there an orphanage for them? Do I put it in a reed basket and send it on down the Nile of Obscurity? Just kind of confused as to how to get rid of one in general, like, considering this one had a teeny audience as well.
I believe the Internet version of unpersoning it works nicely- delete it and any records of it.
Post by: Róisín on January 23, 2017, 08:23:06 PM
Post by: Keeper on January 23, 2017, 08:26:37 PM
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on February 16, 2017, 12:31:43 AM
So, recently I posted four stories chapter by chapter on the Scriptorium. Would anyone care to dissect them?
I mean that. I would be most grateful if any and all went through the stuff and sent me feedback by whatever means are at your disposal.
EDIT: See below for list of links.
2nd EDIT: As I said up top, you can respond by any means that are at your disposal, including but not limited to:
A post here (spoilered or unspoilered)
A comment on dA
A post on the Scriptorium
A Forum PM
A reply to the comment(s) on the SSSS page
A link on any of the above to a google doc
Monstrously long link set (so spoilered):And now, more crickets.Spoiler: deviantart links • show
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on February 25, 2017, 10:59:38 PM
Just wondering.
Post by: wavewright62 on February 26, 2017, 02:24:44 AM
So, apropos of... nothing, nothing really, does anyone else have that weird reaction to praise for an ongoing work where you get totally terrified of messing everything up with the next chapter and get kinda blocked because of that?
Just wondering.
Depends on the praise. For general praise or when people get the joke on my light pieces (I'm still astonished when that happens) it's not an issue for me. But if they have mentioned a specific item that they'd like to see more of, whether or not I had intention to do that next time, I will then overthink it & spin out a bit as you have described. For better or for worse, it doesn't happen a lot! And yet, we do want (crave, even) specific feedback.
Post by: Ragnarok on March 06, 2017, 08:55:27 AM
*tosses link to novel-length collaboration into forum*
*Runs*
http://archiveofourown.org/works/9941441/chapters/22254695 (http://archiveofourown.org/works/9941441/chapters/22254695)
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on March 13, 2017, 08:20:24 PM
So, recently I posted four stories chapter by chapter on the Scriptorium. Would anyone care to dissect them?
I mean that. I would be most grateful if any and all went through the stuff and sent me feedback by whatever means are at your disposal.
EDIT: See below for list of links.
2nd EDIT: As I said up top, you can respond by any means that are at your disposal, including but not limited to:
A post here (spoilered or unspoilered)
A comment on dA
A post on the Scriptorium
A Forum PM
A reply to the comment(s) on the SSSS page
A link on any of the above to a google doc
Monstrously long link set (so spoilered):Spoiler: deviantart links • show
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on March 15, 2017, 09:33:13 PM
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on April 07, 2017, 10:55:19 PM
Spoiler: Lotsa links • show
Post by: LooNEY_DAC on November 04, 2018, 10:08:37 AM
Post by: RanVor on November 07, 2018, 01:48:13 PM
1. They have to be designed to operate separately from the setting. If you want to use your character in several settings, they must be conceivably able to act beyond the bounds of the setting they're introduced in.
2. They must be a static character. That's because the character development is inherently related to the plot, and the plot is inherently related to the setting. And while I think it's possible to carry over character development between settings, I don't think it should be done, because it would inevitably result in a lot of confusion on the readers' side.
A few of my characters are shared between all of my main universe's settings, and while my settings are of course designed to accommodate them, I believe a character like Death could conceivably fit into pretty much any story with fantasy/supernatural elements.
Post by: Windfighter on November 10, 2018, 02:42:21 AM
But then
Just as I sat down and started writing
My brain just went "but what if we make it Lalli/Reynir instead"
The very basic is still gonna be pretty much the same but now I need to get it to work in a slightly different way and instead of just being simple hurt/comfort it started out angst... How do you all handle your brain suddenly deciding to take stories in a different direction? =/
Post by: Róisín on November 10, 2018, 06:44:45 AM
Post by: AndrogynousAutarch on November 16, 2020, 07:36:20 PM
For example:
I start with what is supposed to be a simple story about two people falling in love.
The result:
One of them is from a totalitarian police state that has encroached on and invades different peoples and moves on like locusts and the other's family is part of a movement that may have its own ambitions regarding this state.
It is not long before themes of totalitarianism and anthropolgy get in there and copious amounts of otherworldly elements. I realize that it may be the stuff that I'm reading that's getting to me, but still. It's not uncommon for me to take a simple subject and fill it up with me-isms. This is also good though, as it works to make my work distinct and unique.
On the one hand, I could sharpen and specialize myself and on the other I could diversify my content and subject matter.
Post by: Jitter on November 17, 2020, 11:56:56 AM
Prior to SSSS I was frankly derisive of the whole idea of fanfiction, but having tried it I love it! It’s so much easier to get started with an existing world, characters and audience that knows them. Yet still fanfiction is not really bound by the canon, so it allows a great variety!
Pleased don’t be offended, I understand you do proper writing and take it seriously. I’m not suggesting you should switch to fanfiction! But the little challenges could be nice and easy snacks!
Post by: AndrogynousAutarch on November 17, 2020, 05:25:31 PM
Post by: tehta on August 22, 2021, 05:59:56 AM
I would absolutely love to discuss the craft of writing (my stuff is mostly lighthearted, but I am pretty cerebral about how I put it together).
Are any of the challenges still happening?
Post by: Jitter on August 22, 2021, 08:00:24 AM
Current prompt is War / Peace (so either or both). The break will be over on Monday, but works can be added next week too - in fact I have hopes that at least a couple of more works are in the making.
We usually have a challenge for the breaks as well as several other times around the year. We’ll see how it goes this year with YoinkTober (you’ll see soon) and Advent Calendar. I hope we can keep them up, although the fandom did take a major hit with the “bunny comic” early this year (let’s not discuss that here, there’s a thread for the bunny comic and a few threads about Forum / fandom future elsewhere, if you need any pointers let me know).