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Naerasa posted:I'd argue it reads even better as It depends on momentum too, is this the last thing said in this scene or is there a response? I think both are good but have their own places.
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# ? Mar 13, 2017 06:36 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 10:30 |
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Djeser posted:Writing is first and foremost a communication of ideas from the author to the reader, and one of the most persistent problems amateur writers have is prose getting in the way of their ideas. This applies across all genres and styles. Effectively conveying ideas is difficult. A lot of the advice people give (especially in this thread, or in places like Thunderdome) is meant to develop the writer's ability to effectively convey their ideas. There's nothing inherently wrong with a stylistic choice, but a super common mistake amateur writers make is focusing on their stylistic choices to the detriment of conveying their ideas. I don't really agree with the notion that prose can get in the way of ideas, it's usually the reverse that happens. Content derives from form. If the form is bad, then I don't care about the content. Whereas fairly banal content or ideas can be great if the prose is good. SurreptitiousMuffin posted:A Human Heart, has anybody ever told you that you're needlessly abrasive? You asked a question, people answered it, then you insulted the people who answered it. You don't get to act like the !!!ONLY MATURE ADULT!!! if you refuse to court anybody who politely disagrees with you. I've been reasonably polite in this thread, and haven't insulted anyone.
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# ? Mar 13, 2017 12:04 |
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A human heart posted:I don't really agree with the notion that prose can get in the way of ideas, it's usually the reverse that happens. Content derives from form. If the form is bad, then I don't care about the content. Whereas fairly banal content or ideas can be great if the prose is good. Genuine question: how much fiction have you critiqued? Because I can tell you from personal experience that amateur authors and even authors with some low-tier publications under their belt can abso-loving-lutely muddy up a workable idea with a misguided attempt at non-traditional prose (or any other writing gimmick, and yes, a technique can become a gimmick in the wrong hands). And those are the people posting in this thread. You sound like you've probably read a lot of polished, stylized literary fiction. Which is great! But this thread isn't populated by a bunch of celebrated literary figures. Not everyone is aspiring to be the Frank Zappa of writing. Maybe you could help us understand where you're coming from by showing some of your own work? And explaining why you made the stylistic choices you did? I'm assuming you have documents full of the type of writing you're describing, since you seem very enthusiastic about discussing it in this thread for fiction writers.
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# ? Mar 13, 2017 19:13 |
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neongrey posted:For the love of god, use contractions at every possible instance. People run their words together, it stands out if you don't. I should of agreed with this but I know better.
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# ? Mar 15, 2017 17:26 |
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Chernabog posted:I should of agreed with this but I know better. "Should'f"
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# ? Mar 15, 2017 19:03 |
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SHOULD HAVE U MORAN'S
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# ? Mar 15, 2017 19:32 |
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crabrock posted:SHOULD HAVE U MORAN'S no u
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# ? Mar 15, 2017 19:39 |
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Naerasa posted:I'd argue it reads even better as Yeah, I'm a lovely writer, but in reading the original post I thought that this version was more effective (given that there is no other context anyway). Similar to the thing about "he said" "she said" being invisible phrases I feel like that structure already sets up that Hawklad is the one saying gtfo since it's adjacent to the action piece.
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# ? Mar 16, 2017 17:59 |
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crabrock posted:SHOULD HAVE U MORAN'S I believe it is spelled "you" but I am not sure, this was not covered in my writing classes and I do not know for a fact that it is "you", probably should have figured it out on my own but I did not
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# ? Mar 16, 2017 18:16 |
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Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:I believe it is spelled "you" but I am not sure, this was not covered in my writing classes and I do not know for a fact that it is "you", probably should have figured it out on my own but I did not ok sure if you accept the white man's codifying of everything and stomping out any variation, i spell it the way William Shakespeare did.
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# ? Mar 16, 2017 18:34 |
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this thread is way worse than the old one. fight me if i'm wrong.
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# ? Mar 16, 2017 18:45 |
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anime was right posted:this thread is way worse than the old one. fight me if i'm wrong. ur way worse
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# ? Mar 16, 2017 18:56 |
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I'm enjoying all the fiction, and the advice.
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# ? Mar 16, 2017 20:08 |
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Here's some fiction: sebmojo is a good writer
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# ? Mar 16, 2017 20:11 |
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Chairchucker posted:Here's some fiction: sebmojo is a good writer
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# ? Mar 16, 2017 20:11 |
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Chairchucker posted:Here's some fiction: sebmojo is a good writer
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# ? Mar 17, 2017 00:43 |
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Chairchucker posted:Here's some fiction: sebmojo is a good writer present tense is a flashy, distracting fad in fiction
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# ? Mar 17, 2017 01:54 |
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it's just a tense, the manner in which your verbs are conjugated* is not a big deal
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# ? Mar 17, 2017 01:58 |
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you will to have ought been being regretted having said that
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# ? Mar 17, 2017 02:09 |
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why wont agents respond to my inquires about my high quality boruto (the sequel to naruto, if you're more of a Bleach fan) fanfics
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# ? Mar 17, 2017 02:11 |
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u write bad, prob
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# ? Mar 17, 2017 02:13 |
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maybe try writing good?????
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# ? Mar 17, 2017 02:13 |
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Djeser posted:you will to have ought been being regretted having said that gdi i knew someone would do this and i hastily edited that asterisk in there for a reason
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# ? Mar 17, 2017 02:13 |
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for real someone post some actual fiction advice that isnt just an insular td circle jerk, i have tried asking actual questions already.
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# ? Mar 17, 2017 02:27 |
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Here's some advice that may not be bad: If you're stuck in your draft, stop trying to write the story and plan out what happens next. You'll solve the problem a lot faster and you'll avoid frustration trying to work through bad prose.
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# ? Mar 17, 2017 02:41 |
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anime was right posted:for real someone post some actual fiction advice that isnt just an insular td circle jerk, i have tried asking actual questions already. Hmmm.... anime was right posted:why wont agents respond to my inquires about my high quality boruto (the sequel to naruto, if you're more of a Bleach fan) fanfics anime was right posted:this thread is way worse than the old one. fight me if i'm wrong. anime was right posted:you're not my real dad anime was right posted:i do henceforth declare that this is precisely how the common man articulates Your story doesn't add up, that's my critique Though TBF... anime was right posted:also anyone want to trade test reading? around 10k words, first threeish chapters of a book. around early next week. no hard deadline. i dont care what genre your book/story/whatever is. you did ask if anyone wanted to test read your novel, which would be cool and good of them. I would, but I'm trying to get my novel to a test-readable place. I don't really have any fiction advice because I'm uuuuh struggling to write a character-driven story. I have an outline and have been sticking to it structure-wise, but when I actually sit down to write the interactions between characters, I tend to discover new motivations/subtext/subplots. So then I have to go back and adjust the outline, and by the time I'm done doing that, a bunch more ideas have popped into my head... but by god I am trundling along. So yeah those are my words about fiction.
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# ? Mar 17, 2017 02:56 |
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anime was right posted:so this is a dumb thought i had when struggling with how to write the middle of the story. anime was right posted:that or they're in a monkey/typewriter sort of situation if they do manage i asked these too dude but no one responds to the actual questions and instead the insular trash. how about this, how do people feel about information density? is it cool to thrust people into buzzword city so long as it makes sense as you continue to read? do you think its better to introduce elements slowly at the cost of lengthening your pace? anime was right fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Mar 17, 2017 |
# ? Mar 17, 2017 02:58 |
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anime was right posted:i asked these too dude but no one responds to the actual questions and instead the insular trash woah dude sorry, I wasn't trying to pick a fight or anything. I thought you were joking because your last few posts on this page were blatantly non-serious. A bunch of us were putting serious effort into making posts about literary style vs "traditional" character-driven plots but that kind of tapered out. I don't have any resources on writing middles because my strategy is to splart out the whole story and THEN figure out the arc. I think it's easier to deal with the middle if you don't approach it as "the middle" in the initial drafting process. But that's just me and I wouldn't necessarily advise anyone to do it the same way. That leads me to a question I wonder about a lot: how esoteric is the actual writing process for you guys? When I try to articulate my methods sometimes, they end up sounding wrong, or they just plain don't work for other people. But I get decent feedback from readers and publications, so apparently something in there is working. Obviously, writing blogs and books have to speak in general terms because they have a wide audience. How much do you guys tend to skew the process to better suit the weird machinations of your brains?
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# ? Mar 17, 2017 03:07 |
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anime was right posted:i asked these too dude but no one responds to the actual questions and instead the insular trash. This is one of those things that comes down to writing style and it's usually a mix of both. For me, I'd rather define the setpieces that are central to the story and let all the ancillary stuff be figured out with context clues. Buzzword City was basically how I felt about Dune when I read it fwiw and it didn't end up mattering because Herbert was able to make it feel natural, so do what you feel like you can pull off
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# ? Mar 17, 2017 03:10 |
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anime was right posted:how about this, how do people feel about information density? is it cool to thrust people into buzzword city so long as it makes sense as you continue to read? do you think its better to introduce elements slowly at the cost of lengthening your pace? I like to do things in bursts. Set the scene with description, have some character interaction. Usually I dump info in when the characters are transitioning between situations. Like, in my novel, there is a fair bit of world building. My protag also spends quite a bit of time moving between locations in her city, so I use those interim moments to have her observe/acknowledge whatever info I think is most relevant at that moment. The novel is fairly dialog-driven, but it's nice to break that up with cinematic description and world buildy details.
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# ? Mar 17, 2017 03:27 |
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Sitting Here posted:That leads me to a question I wonder about a lot: how esoteric is the actual writing process for you guys? When I try to articulate my methods sometimes, they end up sounding wrong, or they just plain don't work for other people. But I get decent feedback from readers and publications, so apparently something in there is working. Obviously, writing blogs and books have to speak in general terms because they have a wide audience. How much do you guys tend to skew the process to better suit the weird machinations of your brains? From what I've heard from professional authors, everyone does it differently. Some people full-outline then write exactly what they outline with no deviations, some people full-discovery write and just make everything up as they go along. Some proof as they read and do almost no revising, and some spew out awful crap and then prune off all the bad parts--but most people are somewhere on a spectrum of those extremes. I'm trying it different ways with different stories, but usually I start with an interesting premise and a cool climax, and work from there. I think of cool scenes and moments I want to hit, and the rest of the story is connecting those pieces together in ways that gives them the emotional resonance I want and is an interesting journey. I've come to the conclusion that writing middles is basically impossible, and no one can do it. Mostly, my outlines are pretty bare bones, and I fill in secondary characters as needed. Often, I'll write the scenes that are really cemented in my mind before the rest of the story, which only sorta works since by the time I actually reach them they'll have changed significantly. Disclaimer, I haven't ever actually finished a novel, just short stories. From what I've heard, though, my process would be normal for some authors and heresy for others. anime was right posted:how about this, how do people feel about information density? is it cool to thrust people into buzzword city so long as it makes sense as you continue to read? do you think its better to introduce elements slowly at the cost of lengthening your pace? It also depends on the genre and how much crap you're trying to throw at them. If you are breaking genre expectations, you'll need to talk about it. If you're doing what's normal, don't waste time explaining it.
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# ? Mar 17, 2017 03:50 |
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Sitting Here posted:That leads me to a question I wonder about a lot: how esoteric is the actual writing process for you guys? When I try to articulate my methods sometimes, they end up sounding wrong, or they just plain don't work for other people. But I get decent feedback from readers and publications, so apparently something in there is working. Obviously, writing blogs and books have to speak in general terms because they have a wide audience. How much do you guys tend to skew the process to better suit the weird machinations of your brains? I outline in the worst possible way, by which i mean, i don't actually write the outline down, i just keep track of it in my own loving head. i do not recommend anyone do this they're pretty loose outlines obviously but they're more concrete than nothing; i know what's going to happen in a story, what order it's going to happen in, and specifically what's going to happen in the next few chapters.
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# ? Mar 17, 2017 04:05 |
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anime was right posted:how about this, how do people feel about information density? is it cool to thrust people into buzzword city so long as it makes sense as you continue to read? do you think its better to introduce elements slowly at the cost of lengthening your pace? As long as the reader is never in the dark about something relevant to the plot, then it's fine. You can look at something like His Dark Materials or the Abhorsen trilogy, where they've got a lot of thick worldbuilding, but it's all presented at a rate at which by the time something becomes relevant to the plot, the reader understands it. I actually personally like the effect that a flood of information can give you (when done right) but that's because I'm generally a fan of hyperreality in fiction and media. See: the avatar someone gave me because I loving love the Speed Racer movie. I think it probably varies too when you're talking about short stories versus longer works. I've seen a lot more in novels asides where they'll go and kind of flood you with information and then later on tease bits of it out that had more meaning, where in a shorter story most of what you're going to be accomplishing with a flood of information like that is creating a sense/image of something more than setting up future plot points. Probably the easiest way to dump information in without slowing down pace too much is to put the reader in the viewpoint of someone who's competent and let the internal monologue lead an explanation of the practical aspects. I remember in The Gods Themselves there's a part that's like a huge exploration of a tri-gendered alien society and Asimov basically explains it through the perspective of the viewpoint characters going through their lives.
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# ? Mar 17, 2017 07:20 |
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anime was right posted:i asked these too dude but no one responds to the actual questions and instead the insular trash. I am working on big posts about dialogue and the writing process but I am also on vacation and only have my phone. For unique vocabulary use, though, check out A Clockwork Orange. Burgess starts relatively slowly with his slang, so you get it through context clues. And it keeps building up as he uses more and more. Edit to add: Oh god drat, I forgot about this parallelism. Beginning of the first chapter and beginning of the last chapter. The first bit is still heavy on slang, but notice, for example, how he explains what a milk bar is, and how he uses the descriptions of their outfits to introduce the word for face, which is then used in the second example. quote:‘What’s it going to be then, eh?’ Towards the end: quote:‘What’s it going to be then, eh?’ Dr. Kloctopussy fucked around with this message at 14:14 on Mar 17, 2017 |
# ? Mar 17, 2017 07:55 |
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them some good posts, im gonna mull over those and think about that stuff. thanks yall.
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# ? Mar 17, 2017 09:06 |
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anime was right posted:so this is a dumb thought i had when struggling with how to write the middle of the story. If someone linked this already I didn't see it when I skimmed to check, but Jim Butcher's got some decent advice on the subject. And before someone jumps in to say that Jim Butcher is a hack, which happens every drat time: Don't even. Whatever you might think of an author, their writing advice is worth considering. If he's popular he must be doing something right.
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# ? Mar 17, 2017 16:41 |
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Sitting Here posted:That leads me to a question I wonder about a lot: how esoteric is the actual writing process for you guys? When I try to articulate my methods sometimes, they end up sounding wrong, or they just plain don't work for other people. But I get decent feedback from readers and publications, so apparently something in there is working. Obviously, writing blogs and books have to speak in general terms because they have a wide audience. How much do you guys tend to skew the process to better suit the weird machinations of your brains? I start out just generally thinking about the story throughout the day and taking notes on my thoughts, which generally tend to pingpong around in my head (so sometimes structural/overall story stuff, sometimes specific character stuff or lines of dialogue, whole paragraphs of description, etc). The main place I do this is during my subway commute. Then once I have several thousand words of that, I arrange the structural stuff into an outline and the other stuff where it belongs underneath the major outline points. Then I look over it to see what's missing or what's weak or what makes no sense, and then I rinse and repeat the freeform note-taking until I feel like I have enough of a handle on the story to start actually writing out a draft. I hadn't heard of anyone else doing things this way, and I kinda had it in my head that I was doing writing wrong, but I recently went to a talk by Ken Liu where he said that he'd written his giant fantasy epic bit by bit during his commute and then organized it using wiki software. I gotta look into that wiki idea, it sounds awesome.
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# ? Mar 17, 2017 18:40 |
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showbiz_liz posted:I start out just generally thinking about the story throughout the day and taking notes on my thoughts, which generally tend to pingpong around in my head (so sometimes structural/overall story stuff, sometimes specific character stuff or lines of dialogue, whole paragraphs of description, etc). The main place I do this is during my subway commute. Then once I have several thousand words of that, I arrange the structural stuff into an outline and the other stuff where it belongs underneath the major outline points. Then I look over it to see what's missing or what's weak or what makes no sense, and then I rinse and repeat the freeform note-taking until I feel like I have enough of a handle on the story to start actually writing out a draft. IMO, there is no right or wrong way to write (aside from the obvious stuff like being a horrible speller or being grammatically incompetent). Every person is different with regards to how much prep they do, how they organize their information, how they go about writing individual drafts, etc. and really it's all about experimenting and finding what works best for you. Some authors (like Stephen King) do basically no prep beforehand and go full throttle on the Discovery method. Others will create in-depth character profiles, fine-tuned outlines, and essentially do months of work before ever putting that first sentence on paper. It's what they've found works for them, and thus it's how they creatively operate. If your routine is working and you're having fun while doing it, then keep at it. If something's not working or you find the work tedious, try changing it up. But don't worry about "writing wrong" because ultimately there is no certified "right" way to write.
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# ? Mar 17, 2017 19:02 |
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Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:If your routine is working and you're having fun while doing it, then keep at it. If something's not working or you find the work tedious, try changing it up. But don't worry about "writing wrong" because ultimately there is no certified "right" way to write.
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# ? Mar 17, 2017 19:52 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 10:30 |
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Yo A Human Heart, I just wanted to say that I appreciate the stuff you've been posting. I shouldn't have snapped before, and it's good to have people asking those sorta questions. We get a lot of new people looking for basic advice so we tend to lean that way, but there's also a lot of talented folks and it's not a crime to ask us to be better. SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Mar 20, 2017 |
# ? Mar 20, 2017 03:08 |