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Stuporstar posted:I'd love to see a story where the theme is mirrors, and you fill the story with them, and yet you manage to have the character not look at themselves--not once. The way to do this is simple: have the lead dislike himself and his appearance and then use the mirrors as an analogy for judging others harshly because all you see in them is yourself. God damnit this tale of alienation, pariah-hood and self loathing sounds like something sad I'd write for father's day.
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Jun 15, 2014 00:22
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This might sound like a silly question, but would it be too jarring if, in a story section talking about gods and spirits and poo poo, someone asks for a plain coffee? I don't think so, mostly, but there's a little voice in me that says it might disrupt the flow of an otherwise fantastic (in the 'fantasy' not quality sense) scene. And another silly/dumb question- would it be racist to introduce a dark skinned character by having him compare the colour of the coffee to his skin? Basically, it'll go like this: quote:"One coffee, Marcus," Solomon said, and pointed to himself. "Colour-coordinated, thanks." It sounds all right, but I live in a country where one risks being arrested for talking too much about race, so I'd like some outside opinions.
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Jun 16, 2014 06:37
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Coffee in fantasy is fine, for me, anyway, but boy howdy would I not make that comparison.
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Jun 16, 2014 06:44
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Yeah. Uh. Don't do that.
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Jun 16, 2014 06:54
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Ha, I should have known. Thanks for the heads-up, guys. Sorry if I caused offence, by the way. Like I said, Malaysia's not big on discussing race (unless you're a minister and/or have a title).
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Jun 16, 2014 08:03
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I dunno, guys. I think it has merit. Now I know Solomon has skin the colour of some kind of coffee-based drink! I'm going to assume a mint-green shamrock frappe.
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Jun 16, 2014 12:58
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Go watch Blazing Saddles. Your quote was fine, if you're going for comedy in your story. Is there such a thing as Comedy Fantasy that isn't a satire of Fantasy?
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Jun 16, 2014 14:42
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CommissarMega posted:This might sound like a silly question, but would it be too jarring if, in a story section talking about gods and spirits and poo poo, someone asks for a plain coffee? I don't think so, mostly, but there's a little voice in me that says it might disrupt the flow of an otherwise fantastic (in the 'fantasy' not quality sense) scene. I think this is effective, and it's a good way to do what we were discussing earlier regarding "looking into the mirror". It's always so jarring when you think a character is white, and suddenly it's mentioned they are black or "dark-skinned" like 400 pages into the book...so make sure you put this in early at least.
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Jun 16, 2014 15:33
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Cache Cab posted:I think this is effective, and it's a good way to do what we were discussing earlier regarding "looking into the mirror". It's always so jarring when you think a character is white, and suddenly it's mentioned they are black or "dark-skinned" like 400 pages into the book...so make sure you put this in early at least. Yeah, but doing it by having him compare his own complextion to coffee is not much better than having him walk on and say, "Hi, I'm black."
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Jun 16, 2014 17:59
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Well, it sounds tongue in cheek, and maybe the context within the story sets it up to not be so goofy. Like maybe someone was being rude to him earlier, and this can show that it was due to his race? It would also show that the protag isn't put off by the racism and is going to approach confrontations directly.
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Jun 16, 2014 20:52
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 Crit Alert The Sequel I've got my internet mostly back and am celebrating by offering a line by line critique of the first person who posts a piece that's 1000 to 3000 words long in the Not So Short Stories Thread.
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Jun 17, 2014 00:06
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Cache Cab posted:Well, it sounds tongue in cheek, and maybe the context within the story sets it up to not be so goofy. Like maybe someone was being rude to him earlier, and this can show that it was due to his race? It would also show that the protag isn't put off by the racism and is going to approach confrontations directly. The context is that he's talking to an old buddy of his, but re-reading the scene (the fact that they're buddies isn't supposed to be obvious), I'm just going to leave all descriptions of race out. At most I'll just say he's dark-skinned, though that DOES strike me as being mildly racist, so hopefully I'll be struck by inspiration later.
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Jun 17, 2014 02:31
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How is it racist to say someone's skin colour? It'd be racist to say "Jim liked NWA because his skin was the colour of a mochaccino," but just saying "Jim was dark-skinned"? Hell, go for broke. "Jim was black." Be authoritative of that. Own it! Own Jim's black rear end! Wait, hold on, I want to try that one again.
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Jun 17, 2014 03:28
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:How is it racist to say someone's skin colour? poo poo man I don't know anymore Seriously, the whole reason I went with the whole 'coffee' thing is because I thought outright telling readers his skin colour was racist 
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Jun 17, 2014 03:46
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You wouldn't get called racist for that. Racism is when you are subconsciously being racist but actually kind of mean it. What you are doing is what people now call 'problematic.' It means you could be racist, but they aren't sure enough to call you racist for it.
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Jun 17, 2014 03:58
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I feel like a good rule of thumb is "if you are describing a person's appearance in relation to food, please don't." Unless you're writing a comedy piece where someone's skin glistens like a warm, glazed cinnamon bun and their eyes are the depthless blue of a raspberry Slurpee. Then, hey, go for it.
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Jun 17, 2014 04:15
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The "coffee" line isn't racist, it's just a little... weird. It doesn't feel like something any person would actually say; I doubt the comparison would occur to him unless he was feeling self-conscious about his skin color in a way I'm guessing that character probably wouldn't in that situation. He's been black his entire life (assuming he doesn't have revitiligo), so it's not a novel thing he's liable to draw attention to, it's just a fact of who he is. He probably wouldn't even think about it about unless there was some other social, environmental, or personal force making him think about it.
Opposing Farce fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Jun 17, 2014 |
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Jun 17, 2014 04:45
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Fair criticism, guys. I guess I was oversensitive to the point of being insensitive- how the hell that works, I don't know, but I somehow managed it anyway 
CommissarMega fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Jun 17, 2014 |
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Jun 17, 2014 04:47
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I just thought it was tacky, but if the dude is pretty self depreciating, it's fine imo. Just like, don't make him a problematic character in general.
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Jun 17, 2014 05:37
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CommissarMega posted:Fair criticism, guys. I guess I was oversensitive to the point of being insensitive- how the hell that works, I don't know, but I somehow managed it anyway Black people get described as different kinds of coffee all the drat time. Don't do it. Not chocolate either. People who get their skin described like objects: black people (chocolate, coffee, mahogany, obsidian, etc.) > women (peaches & cream, porcelain, alabaster) > white dudes (basically nothing, because white dude is the default and you don't have to tell anyone it's a white dude, because they will just assume everyone is a white dude unless you make it really clear that someone not. And if they incorrectly assume someone is white, and later realize they are not, they will be mad at you, because....???)
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Jun 17, 2014 07:54
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Anomalous Blowout posted:
And me. I'll make sure to disagree with AB on every level, so that you have the benefit of balance.
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Jun 17, 2014 09:27
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Dr. Kloctopussy posted:And if they incorrectly assume someone is white, and later realize they are not, they will be mad at you, because....???) Like that one girl in Hunger Games, or Blaise from Harry Potter. People just randomly assumed both characters were dainty, blonde, white girls. They then flipped their goddamn lids when not only were both black, but Blaise turned out to be a fella, too. People felt betrayed.
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Jun 17, 2014 12:13
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I'd really like to talk about plot; specifically, how the hell to come up with a decent one. Most of my Thunderdome entries get the criticism "nothing really happens here," and on trying to give my wife advice on how to follow through on a story she wants to write, I realized I have no fuckin' clue what I'm doing with regards to plot. I can come up with setting/concept well enough, in longer stories I can make distinct, individual characters, but story eludes me. I know of a bunch of different techniques; the plot circles Dan Harmon obsesses over, Sanderson's rule on making satisfying endings that work like his bullshit magic systems, Jim Butcher's advice on only ever writing questions or answers... just, y'know, none of it seems to stick in my head. How the hell do you turn a concept into an actual story?
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Jun 17, 2014 13:17
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Whalley posted:How the hell do you turn a concept into an actual story? Interesting. How do you define "a concept", out of interest?
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Jun 17, 2014 14:42
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Symptomless Coma posted:Interesting. How do you define "a concept", out of interest? "Three members of a family win the lottery at once, but keep it a secret and think the other member's financial successes are a result of stealing from each other." "A thirty year old lady comes to the realization that marrying a vampire when she was 19 was actually a batshit crazy life decision." "A man leaves his big city life to get back to nature, only to realize nature is kind of the pits." "A small town changes entirely to the perfect communist ideal, and discovers their utopic lifestyle has made them the target of nationwide hostility." poo poo like that. Essentially, elevator pitches that give a story concept, but not an actual skeleton. I used to think of myself as a discovery writer, but the problem with that is that I lay the groundwork for these concepts, get ten thousand or so words in, then realize I'm spinning my wheels and have no idea how to get to telling that story. Like, the first bit of writing I ever really fell in love with was Waiting for Godot, and that's a perfect example of my problem: it's a concept, with no fuckin' story whatsoever, just a group of characters spinning their wheels forever.
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Jun 17, 2014 14:49
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edit: wrong thread
angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Jun 17, 2014 |
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Jun 17, 2014 15:10
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Whalley posted:"A bunch of animal control agents realize they're not picking up feral cats any more, but fighting monsters." Weird, I actually did this one. I actually just watched the Sanderson session on "capital-P plot", and it sort-of meshes in my head with Kurt Vonnegut's "make a character want something, if it's only a glass of water." Stories are generally a way of looking at life, and most people code their own lives in terms of -what I want -why I don't have it -how close I am to getting it I know I do. So generally, a story consists of "character we empathise with wants X, but in order to get it they'll have to go through Y." Importantly, the x and the y can be as material or abstract as you want and your audience has time for. Y could be "the sense of self-loathing that holds them back," while X could be "a cheese sandwich," as long as you make us believe it. How does this tie with concept? As far as I can see, concepts are the breeding ground for the X and the Y. 1984's society is littered with Y's both physical (poo poo you can't do) and conceptual (newspeak makes it near-impossible to think properly). X might be whatever is in short supply in that world you've created. In your lottery concept above there's a clever reversal there - in so many stories X is "money", so taking it out of the equation makes us think again about what we need in life. Or X comes from something your character really needs, thanks to their personality. Which is a nice segue. But the things that turns concept into plot are character and progression. Most worlds we create are fundamentally stable - unless literally everyone is hosed in your setting, which is usually too depressing to read, the conflict - the "can't get" comes from a character's incompatibility with the concept they're part of. The Matrix works just fine for 99% of people, but Neo's cursed with curiosity. So design a character whose personality and/or situation means they just can't get on in the world they're part of. Progression is something Sanderson talks about - what makes a story tick along chapter-to-chapter is the slow resolution of whether the character's going to get what they want, and you progressively answer that by moving them closer to / further away from the goal. Careful pacing means you can string this out for ages, either by developing the setting to make stuff better/worse, or developing the character to make them better/worse. That's the way I see it, anyway.
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Jun 17, 2014 15:25
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It becomes a story, or a plot, when things change. There's a description/situation, and then there's change. Gets worse, gets better, but there is change. And the characters evolve/grow. Shawn Of The Dead is about a zombie apocalypse. The plot is taht Shawn is a shoddy boyfriend, doesn't really control much in his life, and by the end, he's a leader and a committed boyfriend, (I think?) So you have things that happen, and you have things that change over the course of the story. You want your readers, (or yourself) to shout "What happens next?" You do that by getting them invested in the characters and the conflict, and how those things change. Now, I'll step aside so the better writers can correct me on most of this. Seriously. Most of my TD stories get the same (very legitimate) response, "nothing happens here." My last story is about an old man who thinks he's being rescued in the forest but really he's got alzheimers. Does anything change in the 500 words? Nope. What happens next? There's no reason to even wonder.
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Jun 17, 2014 16:09
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magnificent7 posted:Is there such a thing as Comedy Fantasy that isn't a satire of Fantasy? Johannes Cabal the Necromancer, Howl's Moving Castle and its sequels + Archer's Goon by Diana Wynne Jones, Discworld is probably parody but hey, it's fun. Dr. Kloctopussy posted:> women (peaches & cream, porcelain, alabaster) You know, I'm so used to seeing these meaningless descriptions that it never occurred to me to consider what that would actually look like until now. Please see a doctor.
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Jun 17, 2014 17:52
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Whalley posted:"A bunch of animal control agents realize they're not picking up feral cats any more, but fighting monsters." If you haven't already tried it, it might be a useful exercise for you to try and write an explicitly Beckettian piece. Just a few characters in a static and limited setting, talking and farting about and failing to get anywhere. Resign yourself to the fact that nothing will happen, don't worry about plot, establish your limited selection of key elements (are they in a room? What's in the room? What's their relationship?) and then start to play with them. Just have fun with a story where nothing needs to happen, and you're not trying to make anything happen. It might help to free you from the feeling of worry about your plotting, you might end up with a character or two who can be used elsewhere, and it might help you to figure out which particular elements are currently missing from your fiction to make you engage with your own storytelling once the initial premise has played out. After all, even at his most plotless, Beckett revels in invention, in grimy detail, in character, in farce, in banter, in reminiscence, in scatology. Godot and Endgame et al. are fantastic premises, but they are much, much more than that, and it's definitely worth looking at how he can make a completely stagnant narrative energetic, vivid and entertaining. The premises you listed are all very hi-concept, perhaps distractingly so - they're punchlines, maybe, rather than actually useful narrative springboards. So maybe you'd be better off just playing with characters, tone and dialogue for a little while, and seeing if something evolves more naturally out of that?
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Jun 17, 2014 18:34
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As an editor this topic teased at a particular nerve of mine, and so this post ended up kinda big with lots of examples. Sorry, but hopefully it is helpful to someone! magnificent7 posted:Shawn Of The Dead is about a zombie apocalypse. The plot is taht Shawn is a shoddy boyfriend, doesn't really control much in his life, and by the end, he's a leader and a committed boyfriend, (I think?) This may get into nitpicky industry territory, but what you're describing is generally considered concept vs. premise; most good stories are strong in both areas, which when combined make for the most compelling material. As in: Shaun Of The Dead takes a pretty well-worn concept (a zombie apocalypse) and extrapolates it into a great premise (A boy must become a man to save his relationship from stagnation and also zombies) in order to make a great plot. Neither the relationship troubles nor the zombies would, by themselves, be seen as terribly interesting. But together they make for a funny and engaging story. Hope that makes sense. Another good example of this in action can be seen in the jacket copy for Ian McEwan's book Solar, which is described as: "a satire about a jaded Nobel-winning physicist whose dysfunctional personal life and cynical ambition see him pursuing a solar-energy based solution for climate change." Again, neither element (the climate change, nor dysfunctional personal life) are immediately compelling on their own, but together they make for good reading. The best stories are often well-worn concepts set against a fantastically fresh premise--something that feels familiar, yet original at the same time. This is a big part of how Theme emerges. It's one reason why, for example, The Dark Knight was so cool: the backdrop (joker vs. batman) has literally been done hundreds of times, but now there is a villain who wants to "watch the world burn" vs. a hero who, to stop an enemy with no motivation other than chaos, must "burn down the forest", thus becoming a kind of villain himself. Here are a few more examples: Up In The Air wasn't 'about' a guy with a lot of frequent flier miles going around the country as a consultant to fire people; it was about a man who spent so much of his life despising the idea of being trapped or beholden to any one place or person, to the point where he eventually realized he belonged nowhere at all. (and piss off, it was a great movie and i'll claw out the eyes of anyone who disagrees  )Kill Bill wasn't 'about' The Bride's revenge-y killing spree; it was about (literally, in the film itself) the validity of the question of whether or not a Superman could ever fool the world into thinking he/she was a Clark Kent--and Bill's refusal to believe that the love of his life could ever live as a Kent, going so far as to kill her because the very idea of it caused him so much pain. The concept is: Epic revenge story. The premise is: Woman loses her baby at hand of former lover, and must erase her past as an assassin so she may begin again as a mother. I'll grant that some of the terms and ideas here are not always agreed upon or well-defined, but in my experience the above stuff represents the differences between concept and premise at least reasonably well and why both are usually important to crafting a good story. I can say for certain that often while working over a MS I have banged my head against the desk, wishing that more authors understood this stuff. As in: go ahead and write that story of your painful breakup with your girlfriend or whatever...but set it against something interesting happening. Give your story some kind of universal appeal, some conflict and tension that goes beyond the very mundane; give it a great premise.
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Jun 17, 2014 18:51
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A good premise has conflict built into it though. A story is the interplay of motivation vs. conflict. Internal conflict builds character and external conflict builds plot. You can have a story heavier on one over the other, or try to balance both, but without either you don't have a story. Period. Magnificent7, you're almost there, as Kermit the Frog will demonstrate here. However, change alone is not enough. That video demonstrates that a story doesn't unfold until a character's plans are thwarted. Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Jun 17, 2014 |
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Jun 17, 2014 20:11
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I'll tell you what I love more than anything. Rewriting a chapter so that it's ten times better, but, just like time travel, you create ripples that spew across the rest of your universe of novel. gently caress. Also - several people last night called me out on my 50K-word novel, saying that it's too short for a thriller/suspense story. And I'm thinking, "no, I can't stand that filler bullshit. I'm writing it lean and to the point." However, today I got my tenth "you must be out your gyat drat mind" response to my query. I'd much rather believe that it's my query that sucks, but is it possible these agents are reading: "this 51K-word thriller is..." and immediately passing on it? Because, sure, I could add more bullshit to my story, but drat I trimmed that mother down to be lean already. Of course, back to my original point, now that I just added a gaggle of hobbits and dwarves to my story, it'll probably get longer. One does not simply walk into Mordor in 50,000 words. magnificent7 fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Jun 19, 2014 |
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Jun 19, 2014 00:11
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I feel pretty confident that most agents would consider 50k to be too short, even for genre fiction; your stated word count is probably responsible for at least some of your rejections. Are you receiving form rejections or personalized? If they're just generic "Thanks but no thanks" replies then you're not left with much to go on, but I would definitely consider the overall plot/structure of your MS and, as you say, consider fleshing something out. I don't have any real experience with editing anything in the thriller/suspense genre but my instincts say those books could likely get by with a fairly lean word count as there wouldn't be much world building or backstory needed, but you're still going to want to shoot for at least 70k or so. From everything I've seen that's about the minimum count for adult fiction that isn't self-published, though of course there are probably exceptions. And for what it's worth, I've read a lot of self-published stuff (series mostly) that seems to fall well under that mark. quote:I'll tell you what I love more than anything. Rewriting a chapter so that it's ten times better, but, just like time travel, you create ripples that spew across the rest of your universe of novel. gently caress. Content editing can help with this once you've reached that stage.  It's very difficult for most writers to view their own work objectively or to spot the kinds of plot/character/setting inconsistencies that annoy the heck out of readers.
Nika fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Jun 19, 2014 |
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Jun 19, 2014 00:37
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Thanks. Good points. Dammit. I'm already doing a rewrite from the top. Wrote the whole story, fixed all typos and a dirty revision. Then sat on it for 3 months, then rewrote it all in a synopsis, and now I'm just tackling the bitch, chapter by chapter, cutting out the fat, condensing vague chapters into one solid one. And, so far, oddly, this approach has increased the word count by about 2K, (cleaning up, cutting down, polishing, rewriting).
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Jun 19, 2014 04:05
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magnificent7 posted:I'll tell you what I love more than anything. Rewriting a chapter so that it's ten times better, but, just like time travel, you create ripples that spew across the rest of your universe of novel. gently caress. On one hand, this is what a literary agent gave me as guidelines: quote:Most fiction - general, commercial fiction, comes in right around 90,000-100,000. Can be a little more or a little less. Not sure if that helps at all? BUT, at the same time, if your query is good enough, most agents would probably want to take a look anyway, even if it's under whatever guidelines they have. Something that sounds really good always trumps everything else. Even if when you get down to actually reading it the manuscript is terrible, the good idea sails it right through the initial sizzle. What sort of things are you saying in the query? As someone whose read a fair few query letters, I wouldn't mind letting you know what I think if you want to post or PM the whole thing.
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Jun 19, 2014 18:03
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PoshAlligator posted:
Again, I don't have direct experience in the mystery/thriller genre, but I do know that 50k is far too low a word count for most any adult fiction. And I'm not sure an agent would be willing to take a look at something with a count so low, because at best it means that the MS itself will need a massive overhaul/restructuring which, when coming from an unproven novelist, is probably about the lowest percentage shot that exists in publishing. You want to present something up front that is as ready as you can possibly make it, something they can get to market as quickly as possible, and 10-20k additional words aren't going to come quickly or easily. I could see an agent ignoring a 5k over/under or maybe attempt to sort it out in editing--but when you're talking differences of 10k or more for an unproven author, that just seems very unlikely to succeed considering how many reasons there are to instantly reject a query; we all know how quickly agents love to mash that 'nope' button. Nika fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Jun 19, 2014 |
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Jun 19, 2014 19:31
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Nika posted:Again, I don't have direct experience in the mystery/thriller genre, but I do know that 50k is far too low a word count for most any adult fiction. And I'm not sure an agent would be willing to take a look at something with a count so low, because at best it means that the MS itself will need a massive overhaul/restructuring which, when coming from an unproven novelist, is probably about the lowest percentage shot that exists in publishing. You want to present something up front that is as ready as you can possibly make it, something they can get to market as quickly as possible, and 10-20k additional words aren't going to come quickly or easily. Well, I think it does depend on the type of novel you're selling. I don't think I would say 50k is "far too low" generally. That's the sort of length I would think a pulpy mystery might be. I dunno what Mag7's novel is like but if it's similar tonally to that sort of thing then maybe. But, you know, I'm sure you can find a way to bump it up to like 58k which is probably more palatable. But you're definitely right about not wanting to take things that need a lot of work from unproven novelists, which I can vouch for from experience. Although it can change just based on what the agent's workload is like at that time. Sometimes they won't consider anything that needs much work, but other times they'll actually be on the lookout for something they can help build up a little bit (and hopefully, if it's promising, get it into the mould of something they're actually looking for). It's all so variable hot drat.
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Jun 19, 2014 19:54
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Fantastic points all around. And I think my shortcomings are somewhere between the two problems, (weak query, shallow word count). Regarding word count: I'm already adding more to the story; there's sections I glanced over in my original MS (written during Nanowrimo) to get to the end of the story; and the final chapter is similar to the way that Six Feet Under ends, with the next fifty years unfolding. Regarding the query (quoted below): My story shifts POVs, and I've had a hell of a time putting together a query that shows the stakes for the two main characters; they're on opposing sides of the story. Show it from the protagonist, and I miss the whole serial-killer trying to retire angle. Show it from the antagonist, (the killer) and I miss that whole, "holy poo poo is my grandfather a killer or is he being stalked by a killer I do not know!" angle. I spent about two months on this query, and I continue to pick at it, scrap it and totally rewrite it, then come back to it. The Query as it stands right now. quote:Marvin Hill is too old for this nonsense. Killing bums used to give him a sense of accomplishment, not that anybody ever thanked him for keeping the town of Marietta, GA clean, but he didn't mind. Keeping the city safe for his family was all the thanks he ever needed. The bitch is, there's so much more I want to include: Diversity in main characters, (lesbian, female, old man. In fact there's not one white twenty-something male in the book, now that I think about it) My MC (Kate) is a lesbian with a girlfriend, and there's tension between Kate and her father, who is trying to accept her but having a hard time. It's not a major key part of the story, but it's important enough; the main character isn't a white guy. Do I just throw that in, "Kate, a lesbian, is Marvin's granddaughter..." If I write the Query from Kate's POV, the stakes are dropped, "IS her grandfather a killer? if so, call the cops, if no, go have lunch at Applebee's." Positioning the query, (and the opening of the story) from the old man's POV hooks the reader sooner, establishes stakes for both of them easier, etc.
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Jun 19, 2014 21:11
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Reading that query, here is what I would think about the book: 1. I have no idea that Kate is supposed to be your main character at all. 2. This reads more like the blurb on the back of a finished book than a query letter. 3. Your query tells us the premise but basically nothing else. 4. The tone of this query plus the nagging ghost angle makes it sound like this book is going to be about Marvin who is followed around by a wisecracking ghost character that's supposed to be funny. IANALA (I am not a literary agent) but reading this tells me next to nothing about what the core storylines and themes of the book actually are.
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Jun 20, 2014 01:55
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