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Flesnolk posted:To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Wildbow. His worldbuilding is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical bullying most of the torture porn will go over a typical reader's head. There's also Taylor's cardboard outlook, which is deftly woven into her charactization as a Mary Sue - her personal philosophy draws heavily from the trashcan, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they are wild for the Wildbow. They have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of his meandering prose, to realize that he's not just telling me exactly what Taylor is thinking at any given moment, he says something deep about NOTHING. As a consequence people who dislike Wildbow truly ARE idiots - of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Taylor's existential catchphrase "Take that, you worm!" which itself is a cryptic reference to a publishing deal that will never happen. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Wildbow's genius wit unfolds itself on their Kindle readers. What fools... how I pity them.
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Jun 4, 2020 01:32
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Flesnolk posted:To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Wildbow. His worldbuilding is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical bullying most of the torture porn will go over a typical reader's head. There's also Taylor's cardboard outlook, which is deftly woven into her charactization as a Mary Sue - her personal philosophy draws heavily from the trashcan, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they are wild for the Wildbow. They have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of his meandering prose, to realize that he's not just telling me exactly what Taylor is thinking at any given moment, he says something deep about NOTHING. As a consequence people who dislike Wildbow truly ARE idiots - of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Taylor's existential catchphrase "Take that, you worm!" which itself is a cryptic reference to a publishing deal that will never happen. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Wildbow's genius wit unfolds itself on their Kindle readers. What fools... how I pity them. It's a pity this is too long for a new forum title.
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Jun 4, 2020 01:45
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Flesnolk posted:To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Wildbow. His worldbuilding is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical bullying most of the torture porn will go over a typical reader's head. There's also Taylor's cardboard outlook, which is deftly woven into her charactization as a Mary Sue - her personal philosophy draws heavily from the trashcan, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they are wild for the Wildbow. They have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of his meandering prose, to realize that he's not just telling me exactly what Taylor is thinking at any given moment, he says something deep about NOTHING. As a consequence people who dislike Wildbow truly ARE idiots - of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Taylor's existential catchphrase "Take that, you worm!" which itself is a cryptic reference to a publishing deal that will never happen. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Wildbow's genius wit unfolds itself on their Kindle readers. What fools... how I pity them. Okay, make this the thread title.
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Jun 4, 2020 02:08
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I would also like to express my fondness for that particular post. Edit: Oh my God, the thread title. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 05:46 on Jun 4, 2020 |
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Jun 4, 2020 02:32
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It's weird, because I generally enjoy Wildbow's okay compared to some - I even liked the first half of Twig quite a lot - but I just can't get into Pale whatsoever. It feels like the first few chapters are full of too-vague descriptions and really drawn out setup scenes, even compared to Ward, but everyone's comparing it very favorably to Ward. I feel like I'm missing something. Do you guys think it's it's possible to even write web serial with a slower pace, or it just anathema to the format? I was learning towards "no" but the response to this has thrown me off a bit.
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Jun 4, 2020 06:50
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PoorWeather posted:It's weird, because I generally enjoy Wildbow's okay compared to some - I even liked the first half of Twig quite a lot - but I just can't get into Pale whatsoever. It feels like the first few chapters are full of too-vague descriptions and really drawn out setup scenes, even compared to Ward, but everyone's comparing it very favorably to Ward. I feel like I'm missing something. By 'slower pace' do you mean frequency of new chapters, or slower internal story pacing?
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Jun 4, 2020 06:57
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Hungry posted:By 'slower pace' do you mean frequency of new chapters, or slower internal story pacing? Pacing. I've seen a bunch of stuff miraculously hold in popularity despite a super slow/inconsistent update schedule. PoorWeather fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Jun 4, 2020 |
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Jun 4, 2020 07:04
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PoorWeather posted:Pacing. I've seen a bunch of stuff miraculously hold in popularity despite a super slow/inconsistent update schedule. Absolutely. Wildbow is good at some things, but his pacing has been consistently awful since day one. Serials are tremendously difficult to pace relative to traditional novels though- part of that comes down to doing what it takes to push 5-10k words out the door every week, but a lot of it comes down to narrative spine- what is your story's scene-scene and arc-arc progression, and what is the minimum any given scene needs to accomplish to move the characters and story forward? I'd cite ItM as an example of a slower but really well-paced serial, although that's kind of cheating since it feels a lot more like a traditional novel published in serial than anything. The first chunk of WtC was fairly decent in that respect as well, until stuff goes into overdrive and deer pregnancy house rape plots start popping up. One key litmus test that I was discussing with a buddy earlier- in all of the stories I just mentioned, even if you point to a chapter and go "This is poorly-paced because of X, Y, and Z," fixing it often means rewrites or structural work. In a lot of Wildbow's stories you can straight-up remove thousands upon thousands of words per chapter without significantly effecting the plot.
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Jun 4, 2020 07:26
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Omi no Kami posted:Absolutely. Wildbow is good at some things, but his pacing has been consistently awful since day one. Serials are tremendously difficult to pace relative to traditional novels though- part of that comes down to doing what it takes to push 5-10k words out the door every week, but a lot of it comes down to narrative spine- what is your story's scene-scene and arc-arc progression, and what is the minimum any given scene needs to accomplish to move the characters and story forward? I guess this is more specific to what I mean than just "slow pacing"? I dunno - it's a little hard to pin down for me. A combination of that and not having action driving the story, I guess. I think a lot of it probably comes down to minimizing time spent planning versus time spent reaching a wordcount for a scheduled update. Most of the stuff I write is a bit of a hot mess even at the best of times, but when I'm trying to follow a strict, bi-weekly update schedule, I have maybe 6 or so free hours to finish that update. Just mapping out a scene will usually take me about an hour, so it's far easier to stick to one scene per update and simply bloat it somewhat more than it needs than try to write two or three reasonably fleshed out scenes, which usually ends with not finishing the second one. People haven't responded to my work super positively, though, and there are certainly serials that don't do this, so I was kind of getting it into my head that it was something people just wouldn't really tolerate. But Pale does those exact two things and everyone seems to love it, so I'm honestly kinda baffled by it. It's not just Wildbow fans, either - even people who disliked Ward seem to be on board. edit: wrote pith instead of pale, too many p titles
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Jun 4, 2020 07:43
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Honestly, one of the funnier things to see as a serial writer is people saying they won't read something because it is 'slow' but then also implore people to stick with Worm until the end of the Leviathan arc (250,000 words) because that is when it 'gets good.' So, the medium is fine. It's just text, after all. The issue is the audience and what they think pacing is and what they expect from a serial.
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Jun 4, 2020 07:45
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:Honestly, one of the funnier things to see as a serial writer is people saying they won't read something because it is 'slow' but then also implore people to stick with Worm until the end of the Leviathan arc (250,000 words) because that is when it 'gets good.' I touched on this a second ago, but I think people have people have different definitions of "slow" in this context. Some people use it to mean "the plot advances slowly relative to the wordcount," and others use it in lieu of "there's not enough action/excitement /progress/tension in updates on average". My experience is that people will tolerate the former quite happily, but not the latter. Worm is a good example of this. The plot is slow (though nowhere near as slow as Ward) but the action, the emotional hooks and the protagonist Doing Cool Stuff comes quickly and is consistent enough that people still think of it as a neckbreaking story even though it's really quite meandering and cumbersome in a lot of ways. PoorWeather fucked around with this message at 08:35 on Jun 4, 2020 |
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Jun 4, 2020 07:56
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TWI has like 2 billion words(plus or minus a billion) and only about 15 months have passed in story. So you can definitely go slow.
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Jun 4, 2020 08:13
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PoorWeather posted:I think people have people have different definitions of "slow" in this context. Agreed. I think you can (sort of) get away with slower pacing with enough story hooks. TWI has lovable characters and progression (which a lot of LitRPGs and Shounen anime rest on). Worm has a relatable protagonist, intense/threatening villains, and a mountain of worldbuilding mysteries and cliffhangers to theorize about. I think one of the reasons people get hooked around Leviathan is that after that, the plot is a near-constant stream of apocalyptic crises, which lets you binge through all the words. That can be a crutch, though. Omi no Kami posted:Serials are tremendously difficult to pace relative to traditional novels though- part of that comes down to doing what it takes to push 5-10k words out the door every week, but a lot of it comes down to narrative spine Personally, as an author, I’m obsessive about pacing and structure, which is why I refuse to publish more than one chapter a week. Gotta go slow to go fast. But that's just me.
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Jun 4, 2020 09:42
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Speaking of which, I just read the latest public chapter of TWI and oh boy, there's a lot to unpack. The best chapters are these "a day at the inn" chapters and it's only made better by also having a lot of separate story arcs--if not immediately converging--reorienting their trajectory towards the inn, and doing so because of FOOTBALL. Other things: Yeah I agree, with fire being Maviola's gimmick, she may just get some kind of phoenix gimmick as a skill to keep her around longer. She still needs to tell Erin what she knows about the skill! I love story arcs where the hero has to figure out how to "unlock" the friendship/potential/etc of a number of useless/antagonistic characters one at a time. Joseph is a good start. I hope Kevin gets rid of his Warrior class somehow and decides to go level-free like Ryoka, but if not he's probably gonna invent bicycles and get a related class. Lyonette seems to be preparing to basically be Erin 2.0, including learning to do Erin-like things such as... uh, getting to know people. Maybe Erin will be going on that road trip to various locales teased in vol 6? She's still got an outstanding invite to the Gnoll plains and Salaszar, as well as to the other walled cities. The garden being the same garden for everyone who's ever had the skill explains why plants from different continents grow in it. Also, Teriarch notes that the door isn't an artifact, just a normal door with a spell on it (difference is a bit unclear), so maybe they can duplicate/spread the effect? I think the logical "ultimate form" of the inn will be either multiple doors in the inn so that you no longer have to rotate gems around, or multiple doors around the world leading directly into the garden. Queen of Pop hating being a pop star and considering herself a thespian is a good reason for her to come see the Players. Can't wait for Niers to come on down. I want an entire chapter which is just the inn family, Ryoka, and Teriarch watching and commentating on a movie. Preferably one along the lines of Shrek. Pure speculation: I think some combination of Numbtongue's soul bard skills, Erin's fire skill, and the statues in the garden will eventually allow them to do something like actually bring back the dead for a minute, or something like that. Long shot: they'll all be alive in the garden and it will serve a makeshift afterlife, since we already know that something is terribly wrong with the actual afterlife. Argue fucked around with this message at 11:37 on Jun 4, 2020 |
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Jun 4, 2020 09:43
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madwhitesnake posted:Agreed. I think you can (sort of) get away with slower pacing with enough story hooks. TWI has lovable characters and progression (which a lot of LitRPGs and Shounen anime rest on). Worm has a relatable protagonist, intense/threatening villains, and a mountain of worldbuilding mysteries and cliffhangers to theorize about. I think one of the reasons people get hooked around Leviathan is that after that, the plot is a near-constant stream of apocalyptic crises, which lets you binge through all the words. That can be a crutch, though. Yeah, and since I harp on a lot of serials for structure and pacing it's worth noting that as an exercise I once tried writing in a serial format, e.g. not allowing myself to edit or move the pieces around after each section was finished, and it drove me absolutely batcrap nuts- it's honestly amazing that serials ever make even a bit of sense, so the stories that actually manage to nail novel-ish structure and tight pacing on a schedule impress the crap out of me.
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Jun 4, 2020 10:32
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Argue posted:Speaking of which, I just read the latest public chapter of TWI and oh boy, there's a lot to unpack. The best chapters are these "a day at the inn" chapters Also, the new power rankings are Mrsha the Great and Terrible > Terry > Onii-chan. They're going to have to invent a new tier above Named Adventurer for her when she grows up, perhaps Named Adventurer 2.
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Jun 4, 2020 11:21
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I think of it as kind of like writing a soap opera rather than a novel.
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Jun 4, 2020 12:45
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To really understand my story, you need a really low IQ. Not even basement level or sub-basement level. Deeper than that. You need to be some kind of mental troglodyte.
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Jun 4, 2020 15:29
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Ice Phisherman posted:To really understand my story, you need a really low IQ. Not even basement level or sub-basement level. Deeper than that. You need to be some kind of mental troglodyte.
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Jun 4, 2020 15:31
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Peachfart posted:TWI has like 2 billion words(plus or minus a billion) and only about 15 months have passed in story. So you can definitely go slow. lurksion fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Jun 4, 2020 |
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Jun 4, 2020 15:44
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twi is really starting to come together now - everything up to the last public update was a prelude. the thing is that twi is about how communication changes the world. so much of what has been written was to establish every corner of the world as somewhere the audience cares about so that when things kick off the audience actually gives a poo poo about what's going on
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Jun 4, 2020 16:29
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Jazerus posted:twi is really starting to come together now - everything up to the last public update was a prelude. the thing is that twi is about how communication changes the world. so much of what has been written was to establish every corner of the world as somewhere the audience cares about so that when things kick off the audience actually gives a poo poo about what's going on Except for the Drath Archipelago, the Japan-equivalent. That's one of the only places that hasn't been revealed in-depth at all yet despite being mentioned many times.
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Jun 4, 2020 17:03
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Hungry posted:I think of it as kind of like writing a soap opera rather than a novel. So what you're saying is, instead of The L Word you want to write The C(thulhu) Word? I am utterly down for that concept.
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Jun 4, 2020 17:50
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Sailor Dave posted:Except for the Drath Archipelago, the Japan-equivalent. That's one of the only places that hasn't been revealed in-depth at all yet despite being mentioned many times. There's a comic coming out this summer that will include it!
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Jun 4, 2020 18:08
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TWI Patreon 7.27 Party planningSailor Dave posted:Except for the Drath Archipelago, the Japan-equivalent. That's one of the only places that hasn't been revealed in-depth at all yet despite being mentioned many times. The pill talk makes me think China-equivalent. But it seems more likely it'll just be generic East Asian themed. Argue posted:Lyonette seems to be preparing to basically be Erin 2.0, including learning to do Erin-like things such as... uh, getting to know people. Maybe Erin will be going on that road trip to various locales teased in vol 6? She's still got an outstanding invite to the Gnoll plains and Salaszar, as well as to the other walled cities. Between Maviola's and Erin's influence (also red hair), it seems like Lyonette will be gaining a flame themed inspiration skill. But I don't see her getting left behind if Erin goes on the trip to the Gnoll clan meeting. Letting Mrsha out of her sight for so long seems really unlikely. I think the Inn is just going to make do with Drassi, Ishkr, and some help from the new Earthers inspired in that direction. Kevin could fill in for the relationship aspect of Erin and I think Imani had been helping with the cooking? Also, magic door. Argue posted:I think the logical "ultimate form" of the inn will be either multiple doors in the inn so that you no longer have to rotate gems around, or multiple doors around the world leading directly into the garden. The garden idea has crossed my mind, like what if Erin were to open up branches of the Wandering Inn in different cities? Could she access the Garden and the rest of the Inn from there? That being said, it seems unlikely. It feels like that would violate the very nature of the Garden. My pure speculation thought is that Erin gains a pocket dimension ability for the inn. When that happens the inn and the hill it's on disappears from Liscor and in it's place will be a magic gate. The existing magic door locations will also get replaced with similar gates. This is being influenced by the presence of so much magic at the inn and the Fae. Patreon 7.27 Spoilers: Ryoka's going to pull of her "rescue" of Ivolethe and Erin's going to be gaining level 50 off of it or get affected by it strongly. Unrelated to all that, I'm still waiting for the scene where Griffon Hunt goes to see Ulrien's statue. I'm kinda surprised it hasn't already happened.
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Jun 4, 2020 19:04
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I enjoyed Pact quite a bit is there anything similar? I'm already caught up with WtC and PGtE.
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Jun 6, 2020 01:36
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I feel compelled to share that someone illustrated the arm amputation scene from Into the Mire in the style of like Titan A.E.??? And it owns harder than any piece of art I've ever received. Spoilers up to Book 1 Chapter 30 and warning for very mild gore if you're for some reason browsing a forum called Something Awful at work.
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Jun 6, 2020 01:45
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Relevant Tangent posted:I enjoyed Pact quite a bit is there anything similar? I'm already caught up with WtC and PGtE. Wildbow has started Pale, a serial in the same world, and his best work to date is Twig, a serial almost certainly not in the same world at all. My other current web serial of choice is The Gods Are Bastards. edit: speaking of which, the new Pale interlude is pretty good and includes one of the better Wildbow action scenes to date imo I don't want to jinx things but I have some hopes for Pale Goatse James Bond fucked around with this message at 06:22 on Jun 6, 2020 |
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Jun 6, 2020 05:05
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Omi no Kami posted:So what you're saying is, instead of The L Word you want to write The C(thulhu) Word? I am utterly down for that concept. Pretty much everything I have written ever is inexorably leading toward that concept, yes!
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Jun 6, 2020 07:22
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I've not caught up to Pale yet but I'm liking what I've read so far, despite not finishing Pact. Does the murder get solved by the end of the first arc? Because even right now I'm already pretty sure I'm going to finish it if the murder mystery is the core of the entire serial.
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Jun 6, 2020 07:27
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Relevant Tangent posted:I enjoyed Pact quite a bit is there anything similar? I'm already caught up with WtC and PGtE. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest a non-web-serial series. If you liked Pact, you will probably enjoy Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden series. The first book is Storm Front. I bet your local library has it, maybe even as an e-book. Umm, if you mostly liked magic, Mother of Learning is a commonly recommended wizard Web Serial. Give it at least 10 chapters before giving up on it. The MC is deliberately an unlikable jerk at first. He gets better. What did you like at Pact? The politics? The quirky magic and karma system? The way he rolled from one-disaster to the next non-stop? Knowing what you liked will help us recommend other things. While we're talking about Wildbow, what do goons think of Super Minion? It's set in a similar super-hero and villain world as Worm. I think I like it better too. Maybe it's just because it's shorter, but it seemed more upbeat even though it is also told from a "villian's" perspective.
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Jun 6, 2020 08:40
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Did the writing in TWI ever improve in any substantial way? I remember reading a substantial amount of it (sometime after the king of destruction reawakens and he fights like a 5 front war and wins) and just walking away feeling irritated by it, because all the best writing were one shot characters.
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Jun 6, 2020 12:51
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Was that the beginning of volume 4? The chapters after that aren't so much an improvement as they are a return to form; it's certainly improved since the very beginning, but by volume 4 I think the writing quality is fairly consistent. I think most people who read TWI would agree that the long long set of King of Destruction chapters that opens book 4 is the most boring point of TWI and it quickly goes back to being fun afterwards. Later K chapters are an improvement, generally in inverse proportion to how much time the actual King gets versus the wide array of more interesting characters to spend time with on his continent.
Argue fucked around with this message at 13:45 on Jun 6, 2020 |
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Jun 6, 2020 13:41
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I stopped reading TWI at the king chapters as well, but I mostly got tired of the overall pacing and feel of it.
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Jun 6, 2020 13:45
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I think everyone agrees that the Theresa/Trey chapters were the worst, along with the Lakan chapters. The former have gotten a lot better, but I still have yet to skip a Lakan chapter after all the Goblin stuff.
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Jun 6, 2020 14:20
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Last chapter of Five Five Five Five Five, qntm's (Ra) latest SCP Antimemetics story, is up. Edit: Not exactly the last, there's still an epilogue Argue fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Jun 6, 2020 |
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Jun 6, 2020 17:06
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Argue posted:I've not caught up to Pale yet but I'm liking what I've read so far, despite not finishing Pact. Does the murder get solved by the end of the first arc? Because even right now I'm already pretty sure I'm going to finish it if the murder mystery is the core of the entire serial. It's new so the first arc isn't done yet. 
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Jun 7, 2020 00:10
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I have started uploading MDA to Royal Road; I've got the first day / chapter up so far I have no idea if an image heavy, second person reposting of a CYOA is going to get any mileage there, but I don't have much else to do on weekends so gently caress it, I appreciate the free word count I have been contacting a bunch of webserial folks, but have not been lucky about responses. Beginning to suspect my e-mail has problems
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Jun 7, 2020 04:17
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Latest Patreon TWI Lots of poo poo happened but uh did Ryoka just sleep with Relc?
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Jun 7, 2020 05:35
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TWI patreon: I was not expecting a Relc/Ryoka shipping 
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