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i meant it in a nice way
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Sep 6, 2017 04:21
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the old ceremony posted:i meant it in a nice way it was taken as the highest compliment
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Sep 6, 2017 04:37
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HOW THE gently caress DO YOU STORY? Almost every thing I've written has been just an idea, some scenario, situation that, at first, I thought could make a passable story. - Guy discovers time travel. - Woman finds out she's a ghost - There's a superhero with stupid powers - something/someone that does something. Add the standard story requirement: 1. Your main character needs something 2. Someone or something is in the way ANY THING I DO ends up feeling forced, cliche, predictable, and/or done to death already. And don't forget the twist! Is that all we're doing as writers? Putting a person on a path of desire, blocking that path, add a twist where person learns/changes? Last week I researched "tell a better story" and it's all about characters. If your story feels flat, it's probably weak characters. When I try adding wants/needs/quirks into characters, it reads like I'm just forcing things, painting by numbers. Am I being self-defeating so I won't have to sit down and actually write? I assumed as much over the weekend, so I quit lollygagging and wrote the worst turd of my life for this week's Thunderdome. "BUT AT LEAST YOU'VE SHUT UP AND YOU'RE WRITING" I told myself. And I forced myself to finish - or to come up with an ending. And it sucked and it was forced. I left it alone for awhile instead of pushing words around. I came back to it, I tried > character flaws, a countdown to danger, a twist... and it all was just more poo poo barbecue sauce on a poo poo muffin. here's my question:When YOU start with your lump of clay, no story, no characters, just a blank page, how the HELL do you get from nothing to a thing that doesn't feel blandly cookie-cutter, or too impossible to work? It's killing me. I want to write words. I want to write crafty descriptions, multi-dimensional believable characters, unexpected twists and emotional rollercoasters, but I end up with poo poo sandwich on a filthy re-used paper plate. And yes, I'll start off the suggestions with: - shut up and write - read more stories I read more stories -- other Thunderdome stories that were pulled out of thin air in just a week, and wonder, "what in the loving hell how did they even think that poo poo up from a blank page 7 days ago?" (I'm looking at you, Captain_Indigo holy poo poo.) How do I story better?
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Sep 6, 2017 17:26
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Well I mean, at least you get what you're supposed to be doing re: story structure. As for making likable characters, just try to think of people you like and why do you like them? You have to think of characters as more than just a plot device to achieve/do something. They're PEOPLE who want things and have a whole history that has led them up unto the beginning of your story. You mention character flaws, which is one of the big ones, but instead of thinking of a flaw as "this thing i am directly addressing in this story" think of it as "this thing that has plagued this person their whole loving life and it's just who they are now." Then you tell the story through that lens. But don't make them mopey jesus christ. Just because people have flaws doesn't mean they whine about it the whole story. people like characters with flaws because of how they succeed and persist IN SPITE of those flaws, not because of them. I think I've enjoyed a modicum of success in TD because I don't really have a plot in mind, usually. I just think of something that I'd like to write about, then throw a character at it. Most of the time I think "man, i have a great plot idea" it ends up falling flat (probably because it feels forced). almost nobody ends up where they thought they'd end up, because life throws shitloads of problems at you and you have to make choices. same with your characters. so depending on what type of character you're trying to write, they'll react to challenges in different ways. if you already think you know HOW the challenge will be overcome, then you're not really allowing any room for a character to develop, you're just writing a plot summary with some pronouns stuck in it. I'd suggest writing little character vignettes for a little bit. Just make up a dude and throw stuff at him to see how he'll react. think "how would somebody I know handle this? how would I handle this? what is a way this has been handled in other stories, and can i play with that?" also twists suck. the ending should be telegraphed out so that when it happens the person says "of course it ends this way" even though (hopefully) they didn't think of it because they were too busy just enjoying the ride. also make your characters humble because cocky know it alls are annoying. the only cocky know it alls that are entertaining either have a shitload of charm or get shown to be wrong and accept it (humble again) crabrock fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Sep 6, 2017 |
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Sep 6, 2017 17:42
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This isn't really advice, but when I write a story I start with an emotion or image that is evocative for me personally. Often this involves mining my life experiences for material, just to have that kernel of realism at the core of the piece. My primary goal, even before thinking about the shape of the story itself, is to figure out how to make the reader feel the thing I feel (inasmuch as that's possible). Once I have that, I take the more formulaic approach you're talking about, creating a character and giving them hopes, fears, and desires, etc twists are not necessary, and not all sharp turns in the plot are "twists"
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Sep 6, 2017 17:43
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A lot of it just has to do with skill. Authors who can pull stuff out of thin air can do it because they have a lot of practice pulling stuff out of thin air and thus have developed a knack for it. 1) I would recommend you figure out what kind of stories you're good at writing. That doesn't mean you can't write other kind of stories but if you should develop what you're good at first so that you have something firm to stand on when you tackle more difficult ideas or subjects. There's no shame in starting out as a comedy writer even if you want to write grim hardboiled detective stories. 2) Everyone has lovely ideas, I promise. Every single person who has put words down knows the feeling of only spitting up flat characters, bad and cliched plots, and the frustration of not being able to come up with something that is interesting, even if it is only interesting to you. The idea is that if you come up with enough bad ideas eventually you'll come up with something good. This is known as statistics. I recommend a daily writing journal for you to write ideas into. Write as many ideas as you can. Review the previous entries when you start a new day so that you don't repeat yourself. This will force your brain to come up with something new after you have gone to the trouble of making your ideas concrete. This will be an infuriating stop-start process. 3) When you're not so frustrated, take one of those lovely ideas or bad characters. Start thinking of ways to modify them to make them interesting, even if you have to crib ideas from other authors or stories. "This character would be more interesting if s/he had super strength like Superman/Wonder Woman. This plot would be better if the parents died tragically. This would be cooler if the character turned into a dragon." is a valid writing exercise. Once you are used to building up bad things into good things then you will have a much better understanding of how to create. Do not show anyone the results of these exercises. They are strictly for your personal enrichment. This is to find out what you like and what you are good at. I recommend you do this for a month, and then go back to the well and try to come up with something original. See if anything changes the results of your characters or plots or whatever. 4) Do not try to write something you think you should be writing or that you think should be cool or what you perceive to be "adult" or "mature." Write what you want and pursue your interests. This may be silly romcoms or it may be horror stories involving cannibals. Only you can know and you can only know if you pursue what you want to see more of. In short: write what you like don't be afraid to steal from people who are better at this then you, because you will learn a lot by copying them. just don't publish it, savvy? write what you like just because something may seem stupid or bad to you now doesn't mean it has to stay that way write what you like keep a daily writing journal write what you like HIJK fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Sep 6, 2017 |
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Sep 6, 2017 17:44
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magnificent7 posted:It's killing me. I want to write words. I want to write crafty descriptions, multi-dimensional believable characters, unexpected twists and emotional rollercoasters, but I end up with poo poo sandwich on a filthy re-used paper plate. i think this is the main issue. it isnt that youre writing bad, which happens we all write bad, it's that youre putting too many expectations on yourself. you cant just expect to pick up a pencil and write these engaging stories w/o a lot of experience. it takes time and effort. one analogy i liked from an author (forgot her name) is that writing is like driving. when you first start driving, youre so focused on what youre hands and feet are doing, you cant listen to music or talk to people in the car. once you get more experience, though, those things get more natural and you can listen or talk without thinking about your feet. its the same thing with writing. you have to learn and get comfortable with writing good sentences, developing characters, creating good plots, etc. and it doesn't happen all on its own, nor is all of the pieces going to be mastered at once. you have to build yourself up, and once you can write strong sentences you can then focus on the next thing, like characters. it takes time and practice. keep working on it, but dont expect to create a masterpiece immediately. its okay to fail at what youre trying to do, because it teaches you how not to do it. eventually, with all those gently caress ups, you realize how to actually do what youre trying to do. w/r/t to ideas, i like to think the brain is front loaded with bad ideas. as in, when you get a prompt, your brain is equipped to solve it, but usually in the most simple, efficient way. the issue with writing fiction is that the most obvious interpretation is usually the most boring. however, i still find a lot of value in writing or brainstorming those bad boring ideas, because it gets those ideas out of your head. it also gives your brain a new problem -- whats a better idea than this stupid poo poo? and sometimes, it works out and you can get something really cool because your brain takes leaps from that basic, boring idea. (sometimes it doesnt work but thats okay). i know sebmojo does a similar thing where he takes the most obvious interpretation and then changes it until it gets more interesting, but my method mostly involves deleting that rough draft and starting a new thing entirely. different strokes, but it can help.
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Sep 6, 2017 17:52
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I get story ideas from different things. Sometimes it's questions like why is necromancy always bad? What if the police used it to find killers? Sometimes it's little things that I find interesting. I jot them down in an idea list (what's known as a commonplace book, actually) and let them simmer and then I pull from it if something strikes me. Here's a little chunk:code:Let's go back to the first idea I mentioned about police necromancers. That's all very good but where's the conflict? If you can just talk to the dead to see who killed them, where's the struggle to find a killer? Well, what if something makes it so that they can't do their job? From there I ironed out the details of what they could do, and something from my idea list (a typo someone made that stuck with me: "mindbottling") created the conflict: someone is killing people and making their minds inaccessible to be read. Tada! Figure out a neat world and throw a wrench in it. Write down things that create interest in you from everywhere- wikipedia articles, things you see in real life, things you see in dreams, typos that catch your attention. Look through it every now and then and see if something strikes your fancy. Don't just read; find new things. Watch movies you wouldn't normally watch, look at new hobbies, play different games. It's all material for the mindgrinder.
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Sep 6, 2017 17:53
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CantDecideOnAName posted:I get story ideas from different things. Sometimes it's questions like why is necromancy always bad? What if the police used it to find killers? Sometimes it's little things that I find interesting. I jot them down in an idea list (what's known as a commonplace book, actually) and let them simmer and then I pull from it if something strikes me. Here's a little chunk: I'm in the same spot as you magnificent7 and I've found this ^^^^ to be immensely helpful. I keep a small notebook on me at all times and it's become my commonplace book. Any time I have an idea that in any way intrigues me, even if I literally go "Hey what if-- nope, that's bad" I'll still jot it down. I think there's a certain amount of conditioning you can do where you "train" yourself to trust your imagination. If you treat the ideas you come up with as worthwhile, eventually you'll start to get out of your own way. You'll still have terrible ideas, but the balance does seem to shift towards less-terrible ones. It did for me, anyway, after a couple of months of carrying around the notebook. I will also do what HIJK said above too, I'll occasionally just grab one of those ideas and write about it. Not with any purpose in mind, just a quick sequence of events, or a scene, or even a bit of description. I find that writing down whatever comes to me relieves a lot of the pressure to perform, and my writing tends to loosen up and feel more natural as a result. Also, get bored. Seriously, this has been a revelation for me, as someone who is chronically over-connected to the internet. I have a habit of constantly being online or having music or movies on or whatever, and when I forced myself to just leave everything off and re-experience boredom, gradually my imagination kind of woke up and I'd land on some interesting story ideas. I think our modern tendency to stay constantly stimulated is kind of a detriment for creative work. Edit: though I should qualify, I'm still very very new to writing myself so this is all super-anecdotal. Also I've hit some weird point in my writing where the English language just seems to stop functioning in my brain. You know where you say a word too many times and it kind of loses all meaning for a while? I feel like that's me lately, all the time, with every word.
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Sep 6, 2017 18:14
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Maybe just be bad at writing for a while? You seem to be taking DM's and losses as Very Serious Things, and while its good that you want to get better it's not-so-good if you go overboard trying to be good right now and burn out. I can't help but see your recent loss as an over-reaction to the DMing story we discussed. One was very minimal with few characters, the other was full of dialogue and stuff happening and went very much overboard. That's not gonna move you closer to being good, if you entirely throw up your hands and start over each time. Try to extract something you liked from that loss and try to carry that to your next story. Try not to worry too much about winning or losing. Just give yourself some breathing room to experiment in. It takes time.
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Sep 6, 2017 19:10
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my early dms and losses helped me as a writer a lot more than any of my hms and wins.
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Sep 6, 2017 19:12
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I should probably get back into TD, it's been a long time. I had to quit because the kayfabe got into my head and really messed with me.
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Sep 6, 2017 19:46
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CantDecideOnAName posted:I should probably get back into TD, it's been a long time. I had to quit because the kayfabe got into my head and really messed with me. imagine the im permabanned poster fyad post but w/ kayfabe instead of irony im too lazy to do that
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Sep 6, 2017 20:08
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i came up with my current book entirely by going "i want to use this plot element that i really liked in a completely different manner" from a comic i read lol idk, plotting is like, easy? its just fixing poo poo thats hard... and when you realize there's a problem when you're still writing, i like to fix it before i move forward, that paralyzes me a lot.
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Sep 6, 2017 20:24
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td taught me that a huge element of writing success is entirely due to luck and mood
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Sep 6, 2017 20:26
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Thank you ALL for your incredible input. I'll commit to two of those immediately: - take notes on anything interesting, just put it into my writer spank bank. - lose lofty aspirations, just write every day, character studies, situations, anything to get the dust out of my brain. I'm so stuck to "write better than you wrote three years ago, or don't write at all." Which, speaking of... flerp posted:my early dms and losses helped me as a writer a lot more than any of my hms and wins. This would be my (4th, 5th?) attempt to return to TD despite my butt hurt feelings. I've been sitting on the Worlds Greatest Genre Redefining Novel for two years now, having already donated 80,000+ words to a tale of Uninteresting People Reacting To Mildly Strange Things in a Slightly Weird Place. Time to do more and then, hopefully, do better.
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Sep 6, 2017 20:30
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My biggest problem is, I'm not sure if people are really going to like it or not. The story I ahve in my head is one I've had for loving ever- and not just one I've been world building on or some such. I've been trying to get it made in comic format but that's exceedingly difficult as just a writer. So I switched gears recently after some revelations and am just writing it out in novel format. I want it to be a sci fi novel series, each one about 300 to 500 pages, that I, once I get going, release a new one every 4 months. I just don't know if it'll have an audience beyond myself. I genuinely do not know how it's going to grab other people who aren't me because it's such second nature to my own thought process that I cannot fairly judge it.
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Sep 6, 2017 20:37
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Burkion posted:My biggest problem is, I'm not sure if people are really going to like it or not. That's what beta readers are for. I've been one for a couple of writer acquaintances and it seems like it's hugely helpful to get feedback on your novels that way. But please, dear god, do a revision or two and have someone proofread before you put anything in the hands of beta readers. Constant spelling mistakes or glaring grammatical errors will kill their experience and some people (myself included) have a hard time offering substantive feedback because they get so fixated on mechanical problems.
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Sep 6, 2017 20:59
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magnificent7 posted:Haha well, my first DM was 4 years ago. I tried again, sucked again, and swore I'd never post my work alongside a bunch of high brow smarty arty writers ever again. 8 months later, I returned, sucked, slinked away, repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Are we even talking about the same Thunderdome????
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Sep 6, 2017 20:59
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flerp posted:imagine the im permabanned poster fyad post but w/ kayfabe instead of irony im too lazy to do that It's too easy to imagine everyone else hates you when you hate yourself.  Also magnificent7, you've had that avatar for as long as I can remember. Was that four years ago? Yikes.
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Sep 6, 2017 21:18
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Dr. Kloctopussy posted:Are we even talking about the same Thunderdome???? Can we please just get Beyond Thunderdome?
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Sep 6, 2017 21:21
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Dr. Kloctopussy posted:Are we even talking about the same Thunderdome???? First DM was 5/1/2013. It's tattooed on my ankle. All-in-all, 4 losses, 2 dishonorable mentions. But it's spread out over 4 years, so I got that going for me. Now excuse me I'm going to go write some poo poo.
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Sep 6, 2017 21:26
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I was referring to the high brow arty smarty part
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Sep 6, 2017 21:33
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idk man poo poo geyser is p high brow
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Sep 6, 2017 21:35
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Uninteresting People Reacting To Mildly Strange Things in a Slightly Weird Place: A Love Story.
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Sep 6, 2017 21:39
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magnificent7 posted:Haha well, my first DM was 4 years ago. I tried again, sucked again, and swore I'd never post my work alongside a bunch of high brow smarty arty writers ever again. 8 months later, I returned, sucked, slinked away, repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Why do you care about what others think? I came here to post terrible urban fantasy stories and I like it. After posting I put on Linkin Park and read through the crits. My story crits came off with "Learn how to grammar better than an 11-year-old" (And a ton of other advice thank you!) so that's what I'll focus on in the next story I write.
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Sep 6, 2017 21:44
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magnificent7 posted:Thank you ALL for your incredible input. I'll commit to two of those immediately: FWIW I know how you feel and it's a really frustrating cycle to know what you want but still being unable to reach it. This Ira Glass quote really helps me when I get down in the dumps: quote:What nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me . . . is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not.
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Sep 6, 2017 21:52
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HIJK posted:FWIW I know how you feel and it's a really frustrating cycle to know what you want but still being unable to reach it. This Ira Glass quote really helps me when I get down in the dumps: thats a lot of words for "write more"
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Sep 6, 2017 22:02
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magnificent7 posted:Last week I researched "tell a better story" and it's all about characters. If your story feels flat, it's probably weak characters. When I try adding wants/needs/quirks into characters, it reads like I'm just forcing things, painting by numbers. Try reading more non-genre fiction that relies almost exclusively on character to make the story interesting, and pay attention to the details the writer uses to flesh their characters out. I also copy out story passages when they grab me, to try to steal their mojo, and write down my own experiences as well, to later mine for character details. That's what I've been doing, for a few years, and it's now way easier for me to figure out how my characters would react to something strange (in an SF setting) without feeling forced or predictable. It's not enough to figure out character drives and flaws. What about all the seemingly inconsequential things they like or dislike, have strong (possibly stupid) opinions on, and so on? Lumping those things into a list of "quirks" isn't enough—if you stop there, it's definitely going to come off as forced. If your character is, say, really into pink or some poo poo, coming up with deep-seated reasons for their stupid color obsession (that has little bearing on the plot, but is still essential character detail) is part of the fun of writing. I've been sadly disappointed by a lot of contemporary SF because the plots clip along so fast I'm not given any time to get to know the characters enough to give a poo poo. It's like their editors are too eager to hack the story to the bone, cutting every detail that doesn't service the plot. The last book I read like that, I knew exactly what I was supposed to be feeling in every scene, but wasn't actually feeling it. There wasn't enough breathing room for me to find a place to land and settle into the story, so I ended up hovering above it a passive observer with no emotional stakes in what I was reading. Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Sep 6, 2017 |
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Sep 6, 2017 22:25
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anime was right posted:thats a lot of words for "write more" Then go out and write more and stop wasting time here.
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Sep 6, 2017 22:36
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anime was right posted:thats a lot of words for "write more" HIJK posted:Then go out and write more and stop wasting time here. This is a good discussion, don't poop in it plz. Mag7 i think music can be a good analogy. You have talented multi instrumentalists who can pick up anything and make it sing but can't make their own music, hard working plodders who practice for years and know all the theory but can't improvise, drummers and bassists who can sit in the pocket all day long but won't play faster than a walk. They're all musicians and they can all be good, but they won't all be good in the same way. Tdome examples are Mercedes, who has a particular vein of high octane craziness that's not smarty farty literary but still heaps of fun to read. Or Chairchucker, who's written lots of stories in a similar sort of style but gets a bit better with each one. With your most recent tdome story (which I'll crit for you) I was pretty invested in the dadchat, and I was sad you gave up. Sympathetic too, because getting to the end of my flerpbrawl nearly broke my brain. It can help to write the end of the story if you're stuck on the beginning.
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Sep 7, 2017 01:40
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Exmond posted:Why do you care about what others think? Stuporstar posted:GREAT POINT about read stuff other than just what I wanna write. sebmojo posted:With your most recent tdome story (which I'll crit for you) I was pretty invested in the dadchat, and I was sad you gave up. Please - don't crit it. It was bad, it's not worth the crit effort. I appreciate it - I do - but I'll save that for something else that I feel deserves your time. I researched the poo poo out of the Tardigrade, went into a rabbit-hole over that useless crap, tried to purge it from my head by writing the superhero description, then added the kid-dad story around it, and exactly like you've said, gave up, instead of finding whatever the hell it could have been. I think that happens too often - I throw up my hands, "'welp, this is poo poo." So - yeah. Gonna start writing poo poo to get to the other side, just to break through that surrender moment. And stop trying to map the tale from start to finish. Let things happen, see where that goes. magnificent7 fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Sep 7, 2017 |
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Sep 7, 2017 02:10
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magnificent7 posted:Please - don't crit it. It was bad, it's not worth the crit effort. I appreciate it - I do - but I'll save that for something else that I feel deserves your time. I think that's a good idea. FWIW I barely ever map stories - I might break it up into 2-300 word chunks but that only works sometimes. a good aphorism is that you can only do two things with art - give people what they expect, or what they don't expect. It's up to you to decide which at any given time.
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Sep 7, 2017 02:14
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magnificent7 posted:HOW THE gently caress DO YOU STORY? Let's just go one step further in basic story here: #1 is usually written as 'wants' rather than needs, and for a good reason. Because where you'll often want to end up with, especially in a very short piece, is 3. Main character gets the opportunity to get what they want, at a high price. 4. Main character realizes that also want/need something they can't have if they pay that price 5. They make their choice and receive the consequences. It's not exactly a twist, but if you can make the decision and decider interesting enough to not be forgone, you've beaten the predictability problem.
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Sep 7, 2017 02:36
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Thranguy posted:Let's just go one step further in basic story here: #1 is usually written as 'wants' rather than needs, and for a good reason. Because where you'll often want to end up with, especially in a very short piece, is You guys have given me so much fantastic info thank you all. At some later date I want to assemble all of this, condense it and re-post in here. I just started to do it, then realized "oh hay I'm putting off writing stfu and go do writing." Some later time I'll do it. I firmly believe there's a special magic to putting a story into < 1500 words. Y'alls input really help. Helps. Did help.
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Sep 7, 2017 15:05
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magnificent7 posted:You guys have given me so much fantastic info thank you all. At some later date I want to assemble all of this, condense it and re-post in here. I just started to do it, then realized "oh hay I'm putting off writing stfu and go do writing." relatedly, I've let my long walk monthly fiction  thread lapse, is there anyone who'd still find it useful?
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Sep 7, 2017 15:25
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sebmojo posted:relatedly, I've let my long walk monthly fiction I would find it useful, didn't really know there was anything like it, honestly. I tend to work well with external motivation, and I've never 'ed for anything before because I'm a lame person, might be time to start failin'.
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Sep 7, 2017 15:46
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There are rules to fiction, which is a lie. Every formula you'll ever read, or piece of advice you'll ever receive, is something that generally works a fair amount of the time for some people. They're guidelines. If you try to force your fiction into them, it can come out forced. I tend to think of writing as more like when schoolkids doodle in their books and turn pictures of Washington into a Japanese schoolgirl or something. Start with a kernel of an idea, then think about what you want to make that idea into. Chew on it for a while. So cops can bring people back from the dead to interrogate them. How does that affect the wider world? What other professions could use that ability? Lawyers, historians, reporters, funeral directors, insurance agents even, just for a start. There's be a gigantic body of law around it. Charlatans would abound. Licensing would be an issue. Can it be done with a snap of the fingers, or is it a whole ritual? If it's expensive or difficult, there would be a disparity between classes in how useful it could be. Necromancy could be a freelance field: Jake Dancer, Private Deadeye. Fifty dollars a corpse, plus expenses. As for characters, what works for me is to give them traits they need to make the story go (usually on the curious-staid/timid-adventurous axes), then add one big personality trait on top of that. "Cynical." "Nervous." "Serious." "Gruff." "Facile." "Kinda stupid." "Forever the center of attention." "Status conscious." Just one big hook to hang them on. If they're anything other than background characters, add a "but" condition. "Serious, but childish around pets." "Gruff but selfless." If they're main characters, give them as many extra traits and conditions as you want to write about. And you have to want to write about them. You need to be endlessly curious about what happens to these people and have a deep-seated need to see how it all winds up. Because if you aren't, if you get bored halfway through, that will probably be blindingly obvious to the reader. You don't have to like the characters. If you're writing about Captain Unredeemable Shithead, he doesn't have to end up being someone you want to have a beer with at the end. But you still gotta care about how in the world he gets out of this situation. There will be times when you realize a story isn't working. You have some choices. You can keep on writing in hopes it gets interesting again (this rarely works for me, but you may be different). You can stash it away, write a different story, then come back to it fresh in the future. You can think up a better angle and start it over. You can cannibalize it for parts and trash the rest. Each of these choices is 100% valid and there's no shame in any of them, because writing is a skill and every word you write increases your skill. Even the sucky ones.
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Sep 7, 2017 17:05
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Mirage posted:I tend to think of writing as more like when schoolkids doodle in their books and turn pictures of Washington into a Japanese schoolgirl or something. Start with a kernel of an idea, then think about what you want to make that idea into. Chew on it for a while. So cops can bring people back from the dead to interrogate them. How does that affect the wider world? What other professions could use that ability? Lawyers, historians, reporters, funeral directors, insurance agents even, just for a start. There's be a gigantic body of law around it. Charlatans would abound. Licensing would be an issue. Can it be done with a snap of the fingers, or is it a whole ritual? If it's expensive or difficult, there would be a disparity between classes in how useful it could be. Necromancy could be a freelance field: Jake Dancer, Private Deadeye. Fifty dollars a corpse, plus expenses. "ask every question a reader would ask about how each thing in your world works, then ask yourself a few more and answer them all in your book" was seriously the exercise that helped me the most w/r/t worldbuilding it really forces you to think about the consequences of your world. test readers are also really good for raising these kinds of questions because if they have one and you haven't answered it, you probably should. anime was right fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Sep 7, 2017 |
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Sep 7, 2017 17:20
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anime was right posted:thats a lot of words for "write more" It's saying more than that, though. Not only is it saying "write more", but it's also saying that writing poo poo is an important part of learning to write well. Producing work you hate isn't a sign of failure; it's an opportunity to figure out why you hate it and work towards something you love. To condense that down to "write more" misses the point, which is that bad work isn't wasted work, but work towards future success. Mirage posted:I tend to think of writing as more like when schoolkids doodle in their books and turn pictures of Washington into a Japanese schoolgirl or something. Is this what the kids are doing now?
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Sep 7, 2017 17:59
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