crabrock posted:

what's your opinion on sex with your dad?

FunkyAl posted:

Sheriff Niles - A Cheers/Frasier Expanded Universe Fanfiction

Niles sat on the precipice of the cliff and let out a long, satisfied breath. good intro, there is a lot of potential energy here, both metaphorically and literally. The sun was setting over the little old west town he had come to call home, drenching the sand in red and orange, interrupted by the cool winding shadows of rock formations both near and in the distance. whoops then you got boring. this image works for me like zero percent and 'interrupted' doesn't work the way you want it to. it scans like they're interrupting the setting sun, not the colors. It had been a big change, leaving his old life as a psychiatrist and coming here in his brother Frasier’s time machine, this is a very awkward way of getting across information, but at least you're not trying to be coy about it. also isn't fanfic usually written for fans of the work? why are you explaning the relationship between Niles and Frasier? it just slows it down but he had never been happier. gently caress wait, you mean the cliff is just for a pretty scene? this cliff better be loving important if you lead with it

He would never forget the day it had arrived. He was at Frasier’s apartment, watching TV with his Father like his catholic priest? if not why'd you capitalize it and Daphne. Daphne. He still thought about her, but every time he did he was slightly ashamed at how long it had been. Ever since he had fallen in love with that whore from the saloon and had sex for the first time it had changed this is bad grammar. ever since he'd fallen in love what had changed him? you mean falling in love changed him? ever since falling in love falling in love had changed him? write your sentences in a normal human manner please his life immeasurably. Frasier had been embroiled in a conflict with a caller on his radio show, the way you put this next to the saloon bit makes it sound like this is the event that made him fall in love with Ms. Saloon but it's not someone who had called Frasier a “big doody,” and of course no had shanghaied his closest family members into helping him resolve the issue. In a moment when the gently caress is this moment happening. 'had been embroiled' is ongoing action. you mean this is happening at the apartment? maybe try showing some of what's going on instead of the most bland telling that had seemed to last an instant and stech lol. also boring metaphor into forever, the room was filled with a brilliant flash of light, every color of the spectrum so, white light. that's what light that's every color of the spectrum is and yet its very own. ??????? The light vanished and in its stead was a mahogany box the size of a closet that was puffing odorless purple smoke out of an exhaust pipe on its side.

Out came Frasier, drenched in blood. cool something happened i guess Frasier, of course, seriously gently caress you was still where he was moments ago, i don't know where that was since you didn't say frasier was there you just said he was involved in radio show shenanigans mouth now agape, staring at this new Frasier wildly. all i imagine when i read this is the emoji for surprise But new was the wrong word to describe him, not what you use a comma for the Frasier that stepped out of this box was grey and overgrown, like...with plants? or is his hair overgrown? i figured grey meant complexion but you may have forgotten the difference between person and hair his skin wrinkled and spotted, his red hangdog i literally had never heard this word and couldn't figure it out from context so i guess i'm the idiot here eyes drinking in the scene. He seemed distant from this place now, so Darkest Frasier wasn't distant before? estranged from his idiom. lol gently caress you He sniffed the air and approached his doppelgänger. He whispered something in his ear, and then turned to the rest of the room and announced that the time machine he had come into easy joke: lol gross. seriously though this phrasing blows more than frasier penis joke ok joke over now belonged to them, to do with whatever they saw fit. He then sloped so he didn't move just kind of leaned over? toward the door, patted Eddie on the head, and the elevator inside of Frasier's apartment?? rode down the elevator, never to be seen by anyone in that room again.
i think you forgot to press enter here
It started small at first. frasier penis joke callback After the initial shock wore off, Frasier took the opportunity to take his family on a tour through his glory days at Cheers. The young barflies took an interest, and a couple of them ended up joining them on their further adventures through history. These were wonderful days to be sure, seeing King Lear performed by Shakespeare’s company, “running into” Sigmund Freud and had a wonderful, mind expanding discussion, standing on the stony and firey surface of an earth still millions of years from supporting life. either make this list shorter or more interesting

Time Travel what's with the capitals dude quickly wears on a person, however, and after a (relative) year of timehopping Niles and a few of the others had expressed a desire to settle down for a while. Niles had won a deed to a small town to the whole town? i guess land barons were a thing but who the hell was he gambling with in the old west also this sounds like someone in the present just had a deed to Small Town, Wild West, Only Valid 1850-1900 in a poker game some months back, and thought it a good opportunity to create a community for this group of people who no longer seemed to fit anywhere else in space and time. wow yeah after doing three touristy things in a time machine you really feel like settling down in the old west???? He became the sheriff, a role he was surprised at how easily he fit into. dear god what did you do to the word order here. His father would have been proud, had he not gone insane shortly after seeing the two Frasiers in the same room at the same time. might have mentioned this when frasier was taking "his family" back a few seasons to Cheers

He had put Carla in charge of the saloon, a place not unlike Cheers, and with much of the same clientele, with the important distinction that the clientele was made up of “time variants” of the regulars. oh sweet time shenanigans time for something interesting to...well not happen but maybe to exist within this story Carla herself was 80 years old and completely bald. Woody was still in his prime, lifting casks and crates and ranching in his off time. oh nvm Four Norms from four times each sat at their own corner of the bar. reasonably amusing Cliff had died during one of their adventures, but they had uploaded a copy of his consciousness to a wisecracking computer console that stood in the corner and answered any trivia question you could ask it, much to the chagrin of Carla, who had only ever really liked Cliff for his sexual availability whenever those times came that her husband would show up, impregnate and abandon her. this sentence is like four separate thoughts you sausaged together Sam “Mayday” now that i've read this far i can say the audience is clearly frasier fans because that's the only sort of people who could handle this level of boredom so why are you re-explaining things Malone had also died, of an advanced future STD that made his body collapse in on itself and turned his bones into chalk. vaguely amusing though 'advanced future STD' is a really flat phrase Coach was alive and puttering around though, so that was nice. aw hey thats nice real nice
forgot another enter here, that's cool i got you
Some of their friends from Seattle had come along as well, although Niles did not like to think about that too much. Roz was of course doing fine, taking the opportunity to become the promiscuous gunslinging outlaw she seemed to have been destined to become. what a horrendous verb prhase But Gil Chesterton did not make it through the winter, having refused to adjust his lifestyle to the hard conditions of the desert, and he who, gil? had had to hang “Bulldog” Briscoe for the unspeakable time crimes he had committed, crimes so severe they cannot bear repeating here. this isn't an epistolary story this is niles's loving boring memory while he looks at a boring desert scene why is he redacting it Niles wondered often if they would ever know the extent of the damage he had caused, at one time theorizing who, bulldog? that the root of man’s evil could be traced back to the Bulldog. vaguely amusing but undercut by the fact that you dropped the phrase 'time crimes' and didn't even elaborate on what a single time crime could be He had not seen Frasier in over ten years. same tbh

It would soon be too dark to safely climb down the mountain and back into town, so Niles stood up, brushed off his pants, and began his walk. Just then, time froze and Niles’ eyes were filled with a brilliant symphony of light that he knew could only mean one thing. He approached the smoking time machine. A mustached man who was just around fifty years out of step with time what in god's gently caress does that mean stepped out. Niles felt that he had seen this man somewhere before, that he knew him in some way.

“Dr. Crane?” the man asked.

“Yes, that’s me,” Niles replied.

H.G. Wells shot Niles in the stomach and went back into his time machine. lol

---

H.G. Wells knew this day had been coming for years. That was nothing new, he had known practically everything that was going to happen for longer than he hadn’t, but today felt different. He felt a sick feeling in his gut, but there was a relief to it. He would no longer be burdened by the weight of all time and soon he would be able to freely rejoin it. He checked his watch. Any second now. oh wait redact that lol you kept going after the punchline

The room filled with light and a haggard, hardened man with wild grey hair strode out of the time machine. Wells squinted. The long forgotten sensation of uncertainty began to creep up through his spine. This couldn’t be it, this couldn’t be the man who was supposed to be here. He had to be sure. who had to be sure of what? why what?

“Dr. Crane?” H.G. Wells asked.

“Yes, that’s me,” Frasier replied.

Frasier shot H.G. Wells in the stomach, crossed the room to the original time machine, and disappeared.

you almost had a shaggy dog story that ended on a lovely-funny joke but you blew it. also most of it wasn't engaging to read even in the sense of bad fanfiction. i prescribe two uli harbussens and one shakespearehemmingway

Djeser posted:

CantDecideOnAName posted:

After The War, if you ever want to do a big genre breakdown effortpost, I would love to read it.

Sociopastry posted:

that's actually super interesting, and once you're off work I'd love to hear more about genre.

Deltasquid posted:

That was a good read, yeah. I do like you touching upon "reader expectations" because I never really linked that with genres specifically. It's the reason why so much fantasy seems to be formulaic as well: the reader signed up for a story about elves, dragons, possibly kings and queens. To market yourself as a fantasy story and then to not deliver on that is a waste of your reader's time, no matter how good your story is. Conversely, people who might like your story, dodge your book because they expect traditional fantasy poo poo and they have 0 interest in any of that world-saving magic nonsense.

Dr. Kloctopussy posted:

You might want to go check the date on a newspaper, because if you're finding mostly Elves and Dragons on your fantasy shelves you may have traveled 20 years into the past.

anime was right posted:

my expectation is now excel spreadsheets about the magic system

Dr. Kloctopussy posted:

You might want to go check the date on a newspaper, because if you're finding mostly Elves and Dragons on your fantasy shelves you may have traveled 20 years into the past.

Deltasquid posted:

I recently read Robin Hobb and although probably not an elf, the Fool (if that's his name in English?) is definitely similar enough to count.

Spades of dragons though.

EDIT: I may have been reading fantasy books written 20 years ago

Dr. Kloctopussy posted:

What Wiz Zumalt could do with computers was magic on Earth. Then, one day the master computer hacker is called to a different world to help fight an evil known as the Black League. Suddenly, the Wiz finds himself in a place governed by magic--and in league with a red-headed witch who despises him.

Djeser posted:

why did you need to use a japanese word for the thing

Djeser posted:

why did you need to use a japanese word for the thing

After The War posted:

Because Japanese is matched only by German in "single word to mean incredibly specific thing," and even then, the German would probably be something like hauptfiguranderetransportiertwerden.

Dr. Kloctopussy posted:

But "Fukkin Isekai" is two words????

Sitting Here posted:

borrowed words are only helpful if they're ubiquitous enough to convey the same meaning to lots of different people, otherwise you sound like that dumb "all according to keikaku" meme

Dr. Kloctopussy posted:

What Wiz Zumalt could do with computers was magic on Earth. Then, one day the master computer hacker is called to a different world to help fight an evil known as the Black League. Suddenly, the Wiz finds himself in a place governed by magic--and in league with a red-headed witch who despises him.

ExtraNoise posted:

What do you guys do for printing manuscripts? I'm discovering that 40,000 words (which is just the first half) is really expensive to print out at like Kinko's at 10 cents a sheet.

I feel like I get better responses from my beta readers when I give them a physical copy and tell them to go hog wild writing all over it if they want, but it's starting to be cost prohibitive. I haven't sold the book yet, I don't have $20 to print per copy! And as word of mouth gets around, other people are requesting copies.

Do you guys print one manuscript and share with a group, letting them each take a turn with it? Do you just suck it up and figure it will pay for itself eventually? Am I getting ripped off and should explore other printing options? Do I just distribute digitally? (I've been really burned by digital copies before, where I sent out over a dozen PDFs to my usual readers and not a single person bothered to read it.)

cash crab posted:

Oh, right, gently caress. I also came here to ask a question. Speaking of FIRST MANUSCRIPT, I was going to start looking for an agent after I finish the second draft. I'm having an issue with query letters, and I am not sure if this is the right place for it. I am having some trouble figuring out the genre of this book, and therefore, which agencies/agents I should target. I understand the sci-fi market is highly saturated, and frankly, my book isn't in line with what most hardcore sci-fi readers would expect to be reading, either from a linguistic or plot standpoint. Also, from a really pedantic perspective, my book is technically "speculative fiction that happens to set in space". How would I explain this to an agency in a way that sounds less airy?

Dr. Kloctopussy posted:

With respect to printing, I'd you're looking at 5 copies at $20/each, you may as well start looking into buying your own printer.

ExtraNoise posted:

Actually this is a great idea. B&W laser printers aren't too expensive these days. (I have an ink jet but trying to print out hundreds of pages on it seems like the worst idea.)

I hadn't thought of this option. I think I will start saving my pennies.

cash crab posted:

Oh, right, gently caress. I also came here to ask a question. Speaking of FIRST MANUSCRIPT, I was going to start looking for an agent after I finish the second draft. I'm having an issue with query letters, and I am not sure if this is the right place for it. I am having some trouble figuring out the genre of this book, and therefore, which agencies/agents I should target. I understand the sci-fi market is highly saturated, and frankly, my book isn't in line with what most hardcore sci-fi readers would expect to be reading, either from a linguistic or plot standpoint. Also, from a really pedantic perspective, my book is technically "speculative fiction that happens to set in space". How would I explain this to an agency in a way that sounds less airy?

Dr. Kloctopussy posted:

Sorry if you were hoping for magical keywords

Check out Query Shark for tons of advice on writing query letters.

Djeser posted:

"It's soft sci-fi focusing on plot and theme" or something. I don't know what your book actually focuses on or to be honest what it is that sci-fi readers want aside from a big ships that are guns in space

Naerasa posted:

You could always try posting the query in here and see what genre people think it is based on your summarization. Note: this will only help if your summary is a decently accurate reflection of the book itself (which ideally it should be).

cash crab posted:

No, I don't need anything really specific, but all the agencies I've looked at are pretty specific about people assigning genre with their queries. But thanks for the tip about the letters.

ExtraNoise posted:

Do you guys print one manuscript and share with a group, letting them each take a turn with it?

cash crab posted:

No, that could probably work. I'll look around. Also:


I was just thinking, this could be a pretty good solution to your problem. In addition to getting your own printer, you could probably cut costs by having just a few people test read it at a time and circulate those copies, presuming they don't get marked up.