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The apostrophe is obnoxious and having androids and droids be different things is ridiculously confusing. If you're using common use words you pretty much need to use them as they are normally used. When writing about unfamiliar technical things you need to be especially clear.
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Dec 25, 2014 08:19
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You guys do make a good point. I wanted the apostrophe to be insulting, to hint at how poorly "low-grades" are treated even before actual abuse is shown. The word is said in the same tone a racist would say "Yid" or "Spic." Single-syllablic, more of a grunt than a word, a casual and dehumanizing phrase. Can someone offer an alternative phrase? I'll drop the apostrophe, but I want to keep a phrase analogous to the Droid-Android dichotomy I have in place.
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Dec 25, 2014 08:39
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Uh, well. Why can't you just have "droid" for the degrading phrase and have the upper class androids treated like regular humans?
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Dec 25, 2014 08:40
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Well, most do. Most hide the telltale lines around their joints and take in human names, but by law they must make it known they're Androids. And since the cost of the upgrade is exorbitant they're generally well-off, so they're politely referred to by their "proper" race name. Crap, sorry about the stupid apostrophe derail, guys. I'll shut up about it now, and thank everyone for the advice you've given. Sorry, guys!
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Dec 25, 2014 08:51
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If you want this effect why not just have Androids and androids? (or is this even worse)
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Dec 25, 2014 11:55
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Or have the class divide between androids and gynoids. 
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Dec 25, 2014 12:15
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Mild plagiarism but there was an old episode of Doctor Who with two races of slave robots: gold plated ones that could talk and I can't remember the name, and the other couldn't talk and we're treated as less sapient, and thus were called Dumb. Or you could call them Bots, like the AI in multiplayer games. Maybe stray from the word android a bit?
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Dec 25, 2014 14:40
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Szmitten posted:Mild plagiarism but there was an old episode of Doctor Who with two races of slave robots: gold plated ones that could talk and I can't remember the name, and the other couldn't talk and we're treated as less sapient, and thus were called Dumb. Or you could call them Bots, like the AI in multiplayer games. Maybe stray from the word android a bit? It's The Robots of Death and it's a great serial. Tom Baker and Louise Jameson. Script Editor Robert Holmes thought robot stories were dull and wanted to generally not do them, but Philip Hinchcliffe, producer, insisted they could do a good and interesting one. Chris Boucher wrote it and it's considered by many to be a truly classic serial. Some people don't like it though. If I remember right there's more than just two tiers, there's like three? But they go up in "intelligence". The lower ones are just servants and don't talk, so they're mostly ignored. It's not like they could do anything bad. OR CAN THEY?
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Dec 25, 2014 15:38
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PoshAlligator posted:It's The Robots of Death and it's a great serial. Tom Baker and Louise Jameson. Script Editor Robert Holmes thought robot stories were dull and wanted to generally not do them, but Philip Hinchcliffe, producer, insisted they could do a good and interesting one. Chris Boucher wrote it and it's considered by many to be a truly classic serial. Some people don't like it though. Made that post on an iPad in a hurry and it was bad. but yeah, the main point is that I always remember one of the humans explaining why they're called Dumb and he says it with such mean spirited relish, and it was actually a clever name because they're dumb as in mute, and it's used as a derogatory name because they must be stupid if they can't talk ohohohoho. Basically, don't go for something obvious like two variations of the word "android". Remember things like robot literally meaning slave and such.
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Dec 25, 2014 21:13
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Szmitten posted:Made that post on an iPad in a hurry and it was bad. but yeah, the main point is that I always remember one of the humans explaining why they're called Dumb and he says it with such mean spirited relish, and it was actually a clever name because they're dumb as in mute, and it's used as a derogatory name because they must be stupid if they can't talk ohohohoho. Actually, "Robot" is a racial slur. Droids are gentle and kind by nature, but the "R-word" is one of the few things that can incite them to anger, though that anger usually ends with them running from the room sobbing. Violence is a learned trait for Droids, one that either has them reset to an earlier memory backup before they became violent, forcibly "upgraded" into military service, or simply deleted from the Central Network. Moddington posted:Or have the class divide between androids and gynoids. Actually, all Droids start off "male." If one wants to be female, he has to pass a test nearly as difficult as the Sapience Exam in order to show he understands the concept of "female." That's why there are generally very few "female" Droids and very many "female" Androids. For Droids, however, the difference is mostly cosmetic, although female Droids are used for more "mental" tasks due to them being more intelligent by design. Perhaps I should keep the name "Droid" for the low-grades, and call their upgraded brethren "Synths" instead? Would that be too generic? "Synth" sounds less like an insult, but in a way it's even more of a deceptive title -- they're hiding their Android roots by making themselves into synthetic humans.
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Dec 25, 2014 22:05
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I think if you really want to pursue it you should drop the capitalized first letter. You don't see racial slurs capitalized in the real world so it's jarring to see here. In order to really understand things like class and racial divides you would have more luck studying institutionalized racism across the world. Apartheid would be a good primer. Once you've wallowed in the nastiness you'll realize that racism isn't about the word, it's more like the word is an expression of the racism. Divides are more than just name calling, it's embedded in the culture, sometimes even the architecture (like the separation of bathrooms, waiting rooms, etc for "coloreds" vs "whites.") If you really want to emphasis how lower class androids are treated then you need to work out the behaviors and laws and cultural attitudes and then implement them organically. Fictional slurs can always be made up later.
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Dec 26, 2014 01:23
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There is a lot of prejudice and wrong information about Artificial-Americans in this thread.
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Dec 26, 2014 01:44
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HIJK posted:I think if you really want to pursue it you should drop the capitalized first letter. You don't see racial slurs capitalized in the real world so it's jarring to see here. I actually have a lot of that background info set already. For example, Droids aren't allowed to make more Droids -- they're denied the right to reproduce. They can only be built by licensed humans or produced by the Central Network. They're also only allowed employment in "workgroups," and if any single droid falls below expected production the entire workgroup can be dismissed. There's a lot more, but you guys get the idea. This isn't even the central aspect to my story, although it's a large part -- lower-class Droids are also the only ones that can be remotely programmed en masse, which can make several dozen to several hundred rebel at any time, which adds to the prejudice against them. Also, and this is kind of a dumb twist, but androids are actually based on living, sentient machines created by long-extinct higher beings. They used to be the dominant form of life in the known universe until time took its toll. There are people behind the scenes that know this, and seek to keep droid-kind oppressed in order to keep them from reclaiming their former glory. crabrock posted:There is a lot of prejudice and wrong information about Artificial-Americans in this thread. Look, the Bible says Adam and Eve, not 4D4M and eV3.
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Dec 26, 2014 02:37
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oh my god loving android chat. If you have to write this many words to defend and explain your dumb idea than it is BAD. edit: I was informed that my angry post was not angry enough so allow me to elaborate: screaming idiot your posts are very annoying and so are the apologies that appear in every other one. Edit 2: your whole idea is just dumb blue squares fucked around with this message at 03:25 on Dec 26, 2014 |
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Dec 26, 2014 03:13
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At least we got a lesson in why worldbuilding alone is at best dull and at worst a huge flag that the story probably doesn't work. Paragraph after paragraph of exposition can't make the reader care, but one sentence of a character who wants something and can't have it makes a compelling story.
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Dec 26, 2014 03:30
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"God I wish all these meat bags would stop calling me robodick  God I wish I had a dick."
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Dec 26, 2014 03:36
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Reading back I do need to give Screaming Idiot credit for basically saying this at the start. The droid chat is mind-numbing but if you just posted a few paragraphs of the actual story you'd at least give some sense of how well you're doing.
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Dec 26, 2014 03:38
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World building is fun, making up history is fun. But it's not what your story should be about, it should just be kind of...there, informing a couple things. I mean, look at David Eddings novels. Elenia is the world he writes about but at the end of the day the Church Knights are just regular army guys and they wouldn't be out of place in a modern novel. The world building informs some things but not every little detail.
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Dec 26, 2014 03:42
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blue squares posted:oh my god loving android chat. Hey, I tried to stop the derail way early on, this ain't all on me.  To put a cap on my Stupid Robot Posts, HIJK, General Battuta, Dr. Kloktopussy, and others have said it far better than I can: Worldbuilding is a fun waste of time, but it's time that could be spent actually writing a story. What starts as a few paragraphs explaining a few tiny things to keep a story consistent can turn into a massive, sprawling encyclopedia of poo poo Nobody Cares About*. Changing the subject, how do all of you feel about referencing songs and popular media in your writing? I don't mean annoying Family Guy-esque parodies, I mean little mentions here and there, like how Jon-Tom Merriwether sang popular 60's-80's songs in the Spellsinger books, or how Stephen King will sometimes use specific songs to help get a feel for the story's era or to set a mood. And should we be worried about copyright laws when mentioning the songs? Is there a resource I can use to check said laws? I've looked it up on Google, but I've gotten far too many conflicting replies, so I might as well ask you guys, many of whom happen to be published authors and are thus knowledgeable in such things. *Which, if left unchecked, can encyst into a massive, sprawling series of Something Awful Posts Nobody Cares About. Seriously, I'm really sorry about that. I added that just for you, blue squares. \/\/\/\/\/ Screaming Idiot fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Dec 26, 2014 |
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Dec 26, 2014 04:46
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blue squares posted:the apologies that appear in every other one. Screaming Idiot posted:. Seriously, I'm really sorry about that.[/sub][/sub]
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Dec 26, 2014 04:50
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Screaming Idiot posted:Changing the subject, how do all of you feel about referencing songs and popular media in your writing? I don't mean annoying Family Guy-esque parodies, I mean little mentions here and there, like how Jon-Tom Merriwether sang popular 60's-80's songs in the Spellsinger books, or how Stephen King will sometimes use specific songs to help get a feel for the story's era or to set a mood. And should we be worried about copyright laws when mentioning the songs? Is there a resource I can use to check said laws? I've looked it up on Google, but I've gotten far too many conflicting replies, so I might as well ask you guys, many of whom happen to be published authors and are thus knowledgeable in such things. It's fine to reference songs by their titles, but lyrics are copyrighted and using them without paying royalties can get your rear end sued.
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Dec 26, 2014 05:36
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Maybe I'm the only one, but I actually kind of hate it when authors go out of their way to reference music / other pop culture. There's a few people that can do it well (Pynchon is probably the most impressive) but most of the time, like with some of King's novels, it ends up just looking like some forced attempt to be "hip." Like every time he brings up some really specific band or song that's on the radio, there's always that faint undercurrent of "heh, this is real music," whether it's intentional or not, and when you're dealing with a 3rd person omniscient narrator, it can be kind of jarring. A lot of time it also feels like the author is trying to be too clever for their own good, like a song comes on the radio that just so happens to line up with the themes / plot of the narrative, and it's just such a smug wink-nudge moment. Very rarely does it end up being a subtle, effective way of building characterization or creating verisimilitude, etc. I would say that roughly 90% of the time, your prospective story doesn't gain anything by making a point of exactly which bitchin' Led Zeppelin album the protag is listening to. If the decade that your story is set in actually matters, and the reader can't figure it out without you pointing out that a brand-new track from the Eagles' 1973 album Desperado is playing on the radio, you have bigger problems. And of course you run the risk of your reference being so dated / obscure by the time anyone reads it, but that's probably the most minor concern at play.
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Dec 26, 2014 06:01
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Where does referring to one of your characters as a "Californian Blond Joe Pesci" fall in the spectrum, I wonder?
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Dec 26, 2014 16:16
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The other problem with mentioning specific songs or movies or whatever is that it can very easily make what your writing seem very dated, which is fine if you're actually trying to evoke a very specific time and place but usually bad otherwise. There are certain songs that are classics and people could be listening to them at any point after their creation, but most music has a distinct shelf life. If you reference, say, a Puddle of Mudd song I'm going to assume it's 2002. Also that your character has poor taste.
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Dec 26, 2014 20:46
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dont bore or confuse people with your writing and if people say your writing is boring and confusing guess what it probably is unless they are literally a child (in which case you should maybe write a young adult novel instead)
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Dec 27, 2014 04:26
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Don't suck.
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Dec 27, 2014 05:57
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Tyrannosaurus posted:Don't suck. keep sucking until fewer people think you suck, you will always suck, just suck less
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Dec 27, 2014 06:01
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Tyrannosaurus posted:Don't suck. I know it's against the "rules" to suck, but what if I have a story where actually sucking really bad would fit the themes/motifs and round out my characters? i know i know JUST WRITE but gosh sometimes it's nice to hear encouragement from my fellow wordslingers thanks in advance goons
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Dec 27, 2014 06:07
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The only time you should suck is if there's a dick and you want it to go into someone's mouth.
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Dec 27, 2014 06:36
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The only counterpoint I'd add is, don't be so afraid of sucking that you're afraid of trying things. Writing, like life, is a game of trial and error where you fail a lot and learn from those failures.
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Dec 27, 2014 13:37
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docbeard posted:The only counterpoint I'd add is, don't be so afraid of sucking that you're afraid of trying things. Thunderdome is so good for this. Because it's weekly I'm not afraid of forcing something I'm unfamiliar with.
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Dec 27, 2014 20:10
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Mods please replace all posts ITT with "read more, enter thunderdome"
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Dec 28, 2014 01:20
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Martello posted:Mods please replace all posts ITT with "read more, enter thunderdome, play less video games" Fixed.
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Dec 28, 2014 02:16
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poo poo I knew I forgot something, thanks Gator. 
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Dec 28, 2014 02:49
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excuse me but how else will i learn to write dialogue if i dont meticulously study dialogue wheels in bioware games??
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Dec 28, 2014 06:34
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So this is something I asked a while back, and I got some great answers, so I thought I'd ask it again because I'm hoping to fit a bit more fiction writing into my schedule this year. Any writer will tell you how important it is to read widely. I'd say as a general rule that if you're writing in a specific genre you should read a lot outside that genre. If you're writing in a particular style read stuff in a different style. You want to expose yourself to something different so that you can bring a fresh perspective to what you write. With that in mind, what are some authors or specific short stories that writers here have enjoyed? I'm looking, in particular, for stories that really exemplify what a compelling or well constructed short story looks like. Here are a few examples: The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernst Hemmingway - a writer on Safari in Africa has developed gangre from a minor cut and lies dying in his tent while his wife insists that a recue plane will arrive. Very little happens in this story and the protagonists burning desire - that he should have written. Ore, and written more truthfully - is not something he can really work toward in any concrete way. Yet this story was very compelling to me, perhaps because it held my attention despite defying some imports t rules about writing. Also highlights Hemmingway's use of terse and short sentences. Survivor Type by Stephen King. A surgeon stranded on a deserted atoll in the ocean with nothing but his surgical tools and an unlimited supply of heroin will do whatever it takes to survive, including slowly canna idling himself. A horrible,disgusting and highly contrived tale from back when King wrote unpretentious pulp with wads of tissue up his nose to stop the coke induced bleeding. Shows how the right situation can hijack your readers attention and force them, almost against their will, to turn page after page. If you're gonna write pulp this is a great example of how to do it. Five Points by Alice Munro. A married woman reflects on how her relationship with her lover is changing, becoming less free but also deeper, intercut with her lovers story of a confectionary store he visited in his youth where the daughter of the owners began using money from the cash register to purchase sexual favours from the local boys. I honestly just can't get all that into Alice Munro but she certainly knows how to create authentic characterization a of both people and locations. This is another story where thedramamoveswithout too much happening. The goals and the resolutions are. Softly internal, and really not that much happens. This story also does a nice job of intercutting between two entirely separate narratives that are thematically linked. Anyone have suggestions for other stories that you found particularly good from a writers perspective?
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Dec 28, 2014 07:50
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I loved The Man In The Black Suit by Stephen King. And I also loved The Long Walk, but that's a little longer.
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Dec 28, 2014 20:36
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Liam Emsa posted:I loved The Man In The Black Suit by Stephen King. It's really good. Surprisingly hard to knock off, too. I tried. Also by King, I really like I Am the Doorway.
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Dec 28, 2014 21:12
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"Emergency" by Denis Johnson, OP
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Dec 28, 2014 22:25
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LOU BEGAS MUSTACHE posted:excuse me but how else will i learn to write dialogue if i dont meticulously study dialogue wheels in bioware games?? "It's just research," I mumble, my sweaty fingers clawing at my mouse, lifting it up sporadically as I move the cursor over the game screen. "Worldbuilding," creeps from my throat, a mere rasp thanks to my dry throat. I eject the disc, my fumbling hands hitting it into the tray and then pulling the empty game box from the stack of unplayed games next to me, dwarfed only by the stack of unread books, in turn dwarfed by my invisible stack of unfinished novels. In reality those novels are stored on my hard drive, duplicated in a DropBox. I load up the next game and my graphics card springs to life, mocking the work on my hard drive with its extraneous whirring; borne from this poison within my system, built with my own two hands. It was me that wrought this upon myself. Me alone.
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Dec 29, 2014 20:44
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