Author Topic: Writers' Corner  (Read 54404 times)

Aierdome

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Re: Writers' Corner
« Reply #195 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.
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Mélusine

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Re: Writers' Corner
« Reply #196 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?
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?
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.
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 ;)
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Re: Writers' Corner
« Reply #197 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.
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Re: Writers' Corner
« Reply #198 on: April 23, 2016, 05:17:07 PM »
On names: recently, I've been using names to say something about the culture that birthed the characters, and sometimes things about the characters themselves. For example, I like pairing the names Al(fred) and Gwen. Alfred means "Elf-taught", implying brains, and is also the name of the only English king to earn the sobriquet "the Great". Gwen comes from the same root as the word queen. So you have a king and his queen, in a kind of "in joke".

Róisín

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Re: Writers' Corner
« Reply #199 on: April 23, 2016, 07:07:47 PM »
And of course you have all those 'Gwen-' and 'Jen-' and 'Fíonn-' something names, with the base meaning of 'white', 'fair', 'clear' 'blond' or 'pure'. Like 'Finbar' or 'Jennifer' or 'Gwenhwyvar' (Guinevere).  And the 'Ruadh-' group - names like 'Ruadhan' meaning both 'rowan tree' and 'redhead', which is what Reynir's name would be, were he a Celt.

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'.
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amaranthineamusement

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Re: Writers' Corner
« Reply #200 on: May 16, 2016, 10:15:39 AM »
Hey, coming randomly into this thread but I just thought I'd ask- is anyone interested in beta-ing/proofreading a fic that I wrote for the fanworks exchange? It's lalli/emil, and I don't write much romance so I'd appreciate all the help I can get. PM me if you're interested!

-Am :)
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Re: Writers' Corner
« Reply #201 on: May 16, 2016, 11:12:03 AM »
Amaranthineamusement: I could have a go, if you'd like?
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amaranthineamusement

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Re: Writers' Corner
« Reply #202 on: May 16, 2016, 02:12:32 PM »
Yes, definitely! I'm sending you the fic in a private message, just wanted to give you a direct heads up. Thank you so much!
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Re: Writers' Corner
« Reply #203 on: May 25, 2016, 12:28:27 PM »
Hello! I just found this thread and I have a question on a story I'm working on that I hope some of you can help me with. I'm writing a story about a women who goes on a quest to find a genie but when she finally finds one she discovers that genie's can't perform magic in order to complete her wishes. They must be accomplished manually with her cooperation. But once she has acquired the genie, she can not get rid of him until her wishes have been fulfilled.

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

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Re: Writers' Corner
« Reply #204 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 wishes
Ooh, 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.
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Re: Writers' Corner
« Reply #205 on: May 27, 2016, 10:15:37 PM »
One thing I would reccomend is giving the genie some very human limitations as well. Even without their magic, the genie is bound to be stronger and hardier than the average of our species, right? So they have greater strength and so forth, but something that prevents them from using whatever their advantages might be.
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?
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amaranthineamusement

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Re: Writers' Corner
« Reply #206 on: May 29, 2016, 05:21:41 AM »
I think maybe something that seems hard but is actually a change of mindset for a wish would be good, like
-"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)
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Juniper

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Re: Writers' Corner
« Reply #207 on: June 10, 2016, 08:11:56 PM »
Hufffff, world building is so fun but so hard. I'm still out of shape from years away from creative writing so I'm following some of the tips the lovely people in this thread gave me a few months ago of just starting small to get back into being comfortable with writing.
Spoiler: show

I have a few loose ideas that I want to string together into a story. First of all, setting. It wouldn't be post-apocalyptic technically. It's kind of just the natural ebb and flow of things that societies and cultures come and go given enough time. I spend A LOT of time thinking about how one day we're going to have different languages, countries, cultures, ect. that don't exist now and ours are going to be gone, so why not write about it ? But I also want to do something that's strongly influenced by Celtic mythology so I'm wondering if I could combine the two somehow or keep those seperate. Maybe just have some influences of Celtic mythology but not as an overriding theme because it might be too far off in the distant future if there's going to be new languages and civilizations. Maybe just use it for inspiration for any existing mythologies they have.

Ughh, do I want to keep it realistic or make it fantasy ? Fantasy is just, so much more fun to write, but first of all I'd have to come up with a reason as to why there's magic again and second of all I don't want it to be too much like SSSS to feel like I'm stealing from it with the whole "It's the future and there's magic again !!!" thing, but then again that's also kind of how Adventure Time is, hmm, idk ;_; I did kind of get the idea from adventure time a bit I guess, and that's actually one of the first things I thought of when I started reading SSSS was "Hey it's like Adventure time, it's the future and there's magic again !!!" but if I did that I'd have to find a way to make it original and totally my own so that people don't go "hey isn't this just like Adventure Time ??"

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 . .

And how could I put some of my beloved OC's that I talked about into this universe. Such as, I mentioned them in the OC thread but there's the twins, the ones where one only can use their magical abilities or some sort of powers when the moon is waxing or full while the other only can when the moon is waning or new. Then the other OC who is some sort of impish trickster personality thing. I originally wanted them to be fae of some kind but we'll see if that fae-ness fits into this world ?

I've also had an idea for a while about two characters, one is one of the last of a group of something that got mostly genocide'd off but as a youngin' to protect them they were hidden among the general population. The other is someone who's part of the group that did the genocide and they're trying to track down the first character to finish the job, second character is doing deep recon to find the first character, they don't know who each other is and they end up developing a very close friendship so dRaMa ensues ~

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

Sighhhh maybe I'll figure out a way to string this all into a story. In the mean time just, do research on things, and work on doing small projects to improve my writing.

« Last Edit: June 10, 2016, 11:42:48 PM by Juniper »


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Re: Writers' Corner
« Reply #208 on: June 10, 2016, 11:36:38 PM »
Just some general advice to Juniper, you can have fantasy and realism at the same time. The thing which makes fantastical settings acceptably realistic as well is the fantasy having actual limits to it, which make the characters more alive and identifiable-withable as well. The example I can think of from my own world-building is that I've got a world with a bunch of different species of monsters running around, ect.
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.
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Juniper

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Re: Writers' Corner
« Reply #209 on: June 11, 2016, 12:48:51 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.


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