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Elephant Parade posted:The banjo partisan probably imagines your setting to be strictly grounded in Merry Olde England (or wherever) when that evidently wasn't your intent. Their mistake was bombarding you with period accuracy nitpicks without confirming that period accuracy was something you were interested in. I have a worldbuilding doc that specifically says it's a colonial 1500s-1700s era and I want to incorporate more culture than just "Uh, Europe?" I think I threw him for a loop by having a protagonist who is a Knight in an era where she feels like she is becoming antiquated and useless, so his brain is going "Middle Ages or Renaissance." He did sort of tip his hand by putting out a "women weren't this prominent in society until very recently" comment so I think I won't be able to please him (even though the character he was complaining about is inspired by Anita Garibaldi, who is really cool). It's strange because he had good opinions in our online book club until he started giving me feedback on this draft. I don't want to keep this negative, so one cool thing to come out of this is that one of my other readers is an ESL teacher who is giving me really cool advice on how I can utilize my past perfect tenses after I told her it was something that I worry about. So she's going into lines and telling me how I can change the sentences around to make them more dynamic, which I love.
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May 29, 2022 23:28
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I know outside content isn’t always the best, but I felt this this was…impactful?
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Jun 3, 2022 17:02
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When you have the threads of an idea that you think could be developed into a good/interesting story how do you go about developing it? When do you decide it's actually not a viable idea?
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Jun 14, 2022 23:05
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bessantj posted:When you have the threads of an idea that you think could be developed into a good/interesting story how do you go about developing it? When do you decide it's actually not a viable idea? Find the character who cares about the idea the most, whether because it helps them or hurts them or answers their prayers or makes them an outcast or whatever.
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Jun 14, 2022 23:25
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^^ Thisbessantj posted:When you have the threads of an idea that you think could be developed into a good/interesting story how do you go about developing it? When do you decide it's actually not a viable idea? But also, I’ve found an idea is not viable if, try as I might, I can’t squeeze enough story out of it. Like, you can make a story (short or long) with just about any idea, but I have so many ideas I wrote down that didn’t have enough meat on them for me to give enough of a poo poo to actually write them, so they end up mouldering on the pile. Cool ideas need characters to carry them. Even stories as light on plot and concept-based as Calvino’s Cosmicomics have strange little characters to carry them
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Jun 15, 2022 00:31
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Yeah I read somewhere that strong characters can cover for a weak plot, but a strong plot can't carry weak characters.
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Jun 15, 2022 00:46
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My process when I have an idea is to open a document, detail what the idea is and what I want from the story, and just brainstorm. I like to write down my thought process in whole (so not just cliff-notes), putting down every idea that comes to mind, even if it doesn't work--if it doesn't, I'll explain why, and sometimes that forms a new idea, etc. It helps me get past stumbling blocks--it's easy to get stuck or go in circles on a certain problem if you don't put down mile-markers, so to speak. Specifics about the setting, the characters and how the story will progress usually springs from there, and I'll isolate certain parts and expand on them, make a Save the Cat! beat-sheet for the main character, and so on. But it obviously all depends on what the idea entails: is it a setting? A certain scene? Maybe an interesting character, or a relationship between characters? A theme? Or maybe it's a hodgepodge of all of those. In any case, a simple process of asking how/what/why to any of those fragments should yield results fairly quickly. That doesn't guarantee that the story you're shaping is good, only that it's cohesive. I'm a newbie writer and currently writing for practice, so even if the story isn't brilliantly unique and interesting I'll usually end up writing it anyway. Brainstorming does seem to yield results even if the idea isn't rock solid, but I can tell it's bland if my interest wanes.
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Jun 15, 2022 01:09
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General Battuta posted:Find the character who cares about the idea the most, whether because it helps them or hurts them or answers their prayers or makes them an outcast or whatever. Stuporstar posted:^^ This Junpei posted:Yeah I read somewhere that strong characters can cover for a weak plot, but a strong plot can't carry weak characters. So if I have an idea but not really a character I need to find a character to fit into that idea so they can carry off the story. I'm still very new to writing so hadn't really thought of that but brilliant, thanks for the advice. Ovenmaster posted:My process when I have an idea is to open a document, detail what the idea is and what I want from the story, and just brainstorm. I like to write down my thought process in whole (so not just cliff-notes), putting down every idea that comes to mind, even if it doesn't work--if it doesn't, I'll explain why, and sometimes that forms a new idea, etc. It helps me get past stumbling blocks--it's easy to get stuck or go in circles on a certain problem if you don't put down mile-markers, so to speak. Specifics about the setting, the characters and how the story will progress usually springs from there, and I'll isolate certain parts and expand on them, make a Save the Cat! beat-sheet for the main character, and so on. I had never heard of the Save the Cat! beat-sheet it seems like it would be really useful. Thanks for the advice everyone bouncing an idea off a character and plotting it out seems like it will hep me thrash out what ideas work and what deserve the bin.
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Jun 15, 2022 08:32
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bessantj posted:I had never heard of the Save the Cat! beat-sheet it seems like it would be really useful. For me, Save the Cat is one of those frameworks that always looks really nice and neat at a high level and then I struggle to do anything useful with it when it comes to actually outlining or figuring out what should happen. If you get stuck with it too, then I suggest trying the "try/fail cycle" model to see if that helps get you unstuck. Basically you ask yourself in every scene "what is this character trying to accomplish?" and then you must answer the question of "did they succeed?". In the early stages of your story, you should try and go for one of these two options: "yes, but there is a new complication" or "no, and things got worse". In the later stages of your plot when you are trying to wrap things up, you swap it around: "yes, and it also solved another problem" or "no, but it had the effect of making some other problem go away". Mary Robinette Kowal explains it really well in this lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blehVIDyuXk
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Jun 15, 2022 09:46
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Thanks for the advice and video Leng.
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Jun 15, 2022 18:05
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bessantj posted:So if I have an idea but not really a character I need to find a character to fit into that idea so they can carry off the story. I'm still very new to writing so hadn't really thought of that but brilliant, thanks for the advice. SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Jun 15, 2022 |
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Jun 15, 2022 23:22
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I know this is the fiction advice thread, but y'all are good with words and this is one of the more trafficked threads in CC so maybe you can help this person out (crossposting from the project index):Bucky Fullminster posted:I don't have an active project thread for this but hope it's ok to post this here incase anyone is still around.
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Jun 17, 2022 10:01
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Sitting Here posted:I know this is the fiction advice thread, but y'all are good with words and this is one of the more trafficked threads in CC so maybe you can help this person out (crossposting from the project index): Very kind, thanks heaps. I feel like a bit of a fraud in the fiction world because I absolutely do not have that kind of imagination and am totally dependent on the guardrails of reality, but yes it's writing notes I'm after so it looks like this might be the best place. It's just such a massive piece that it's hard to wrap a single head around. I don't even know if there's anything anyone can do, just thought it might help to have some other eyes on it for a change.
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Jun 17, 2022 13:29
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Characters > everything else. That doesn't mean nothing else matters, but water runs downhill y'know? There's a tendency in SF/F to assume worldbuilding takes precedence over everything else, but really a good world is one that lets you tell interesting stories, and interesting stories emerge from characters. It is a good rule for me to remember everything flows from characters.
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Jun 17, 2022 14:20
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Jun 22, 2022 22:19
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My current attempts to avoid this problem include: - Look up the invented word on name etymology sites. - Punch it into Google translate (detect language -> English) and see if I get anything. I do this for the component parts of compound words also. - Just do a web search for it and see what comes back in the first page of results. Anyone have recommendations over and above this? I’m not sure how effective Google’s translations would be at picking up slang terms, especially derogatory ones.
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Jun 22, 2022 22:28
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Embrace it by deliberately picking saucy slang for all your fantasy words, but making sure they're not something they can cancel you for.
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Jun 22, 2022 23:11
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base your terms on real-world root words instead of mashing syllables together like a caveman trying to invent fire
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Jun 23, 2022 00:09
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Use real world words but remove a letter or two and swap vowels around. If you're feeling really spicy, use an apostrophe in place of a removed letter
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Jun 23, 2022 00:10
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Orson scott card: ah yes let's have a war where a kiwi wins a battle against the Buggers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUNJd06iyWU
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Jun 23, 2022 00:47
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Elephant Parade posted:base your terms on real-world root words instead of mashing syllables together like a caveman trying to invent fire this Also if you pick a language to base your fantasy language on and stick with it, you’ll have a consistent set of phonemes and such Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Jun 23, 2022 |
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Jun 23, 2022 00:54
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On top of all of the other things, it always bugged me that Card thought that "Maladroit" was a clever nickname for a character.
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Jun 23, 2022 02:19
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sebmojo posted:Orson scott card: ah yes let's have a war where a kiwi wins a battle against the Buggers Look, we can't have this discussion without posting Servants of the Wankh  And the French version, of course. 
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Jun 23, 2022 02:47
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going by the Vance I've read, I'm not sure that was an accident
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Jun 23, 2022 02:50
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Prisoners of the Wank Desperate Addicts of the Wank
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Jun 23, 2022 03:24
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Elephant Parade posted:base your terms on real-world root words instead of mashing syllables together like a caveman trying to invent fire This is what I’m doing but I worry it makes it more likely I’ll hit on an unintentional foul, not less!
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Jun 23, 2022 03:47
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Elephant Parade posted:base your terms on real-world root words instead of mashing syllables together like a caveman trying to invent fire
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Jun 23, 2022 04:25
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Caveat: all the poo poo you make up to sound cool should feel consistent if it's meant to be from the same language/culture. Like if you write like, I dunno, pulling it outta my rear end, Draxathar, you've already kinda developed a soundsystem, a feel. -athar is now a viable ending for names, kinda knightly, almost like "Arthur" but also Drax is a morpheme that people in this culture don't find weird, a punchy plosive rolling into a fricative, strike and roll and hiss, it sounds snakey. You can apply those principles to other names. Snake + knight. There is no deeper logic to "snake" beyond it sounds kinda snakey, bolt it onto a knight of the round table. Kazulad. Rasault. Zilien. Make poo poo up, just make it up consistently. Conlangs are for suckers, and trust me: I spent a lot of time as a sucker.
SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Jun 23, 2022 |
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Jun 23, 2022 04:34
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Caveat: all the poo poo you make up to sound cool should feel consistent if it's meant to be from the same language/culture. Like if you write like, I dunno, pulling it outta my rear end, Draxathar, you've already kinda developed a soundsystem, a feel. -athar is now a viable ending for names, kinda knightly, almost like "Arthur" but also Drax is a morpheme that people in this culture don't find weird, a punchy plosive rolling into a fricative, strike and roll and hiss, it sounds snakey. You can apply those principles to other names. Snake + knight. There is no deeper logic to "snake" beyond it sounds kinda snakey, bolt it onto a knight of the round table. Kazulad. Rasault. Zilien. Make poo poo up, just make it up consistently. Conlangs are for suckers, and trust me: I spent a lot of time as a sucker. I spent years telling myself I’d never be that sucker, that I’d never go full Tolkien, and now look at me. My stupid ADD brain found conlanging too goddamn fun and now I’m lost to time forever 
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Jun 23, 2022 04:54
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i like making stupid language rules but theyre usually just like "i am pretending to romanize this language from another language so that means no Zs or Hs and I used double JJs instead of Gs" and thats it just so names seem consistent. also every translation breaks so many rules you can kinda do whatever anyway. and after all that, just name your characters Flotso and Crud bc theyre funny names
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Jun 23, 2022 04:57
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Spent a lot of time checking out Japanese names and their meanings for Dragon's Redemption because I didn't just want to pull names from anime I had watched
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Jun 23, 2022 04:59
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Stuporstar posted:I spent years telling myself I’d never be that sucker, that I’d never go full Tolkien, and now look at me. My stupid ADD brain found conlanging too goddamn fun and now I’m lost to time forever anime was right posted:i like making stupid language rules but theyre usually just like "i am pretending to romanize this language from another language so that means no Zs or Hs and I used double JJs instead of Gs" and thats it just so names seem consistent. also every translation breaks so many rules you can kinda do whatever anyway.
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Jun 23, 2022 05:02
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Random name generators, no thought, yep Lydia Bentu K'arnwall and Drizzax are all siblings, what of it?
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Jun 23, 2022 05:25
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:I'm the ghost of your ancestor telling you not to repeat my mistakes: I came up with an agglutinative morphology based on smashing Te Reo Māori into Thai's weird Not-Quite-Agglutination thing and gave everybody a three-morpheme name that tells you a huge amount about their profession, their social class, their personality, and I used those names once each and from then on called them all by the single syllable that sounds the punchiest, and every time I see a reader use the short names, even though they were my idea, I get a nosebleed. Gonna try to restrict conlanging to Migraine Season, when the dopamine blings of going full hyperfocus on making up words helps me ignore the pain, but I can’t concentrate enough to put once sentence after another, and for the rest of the year I’m gonna get back to actually writing stories
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Jun 23, 2022 05:31
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Jun 23, 2022 10:44
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kaom posted:This is what I’m doing but I worry it makes it more likely I’ll hit on an unintentional foul, not less! SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Man, I spent months developing multiple conlangs and I ended up with names like "Sen" that sound like I made them up in 5 seconds. Speaking as a linguist who writes fantasy, "make up some poo poo that sounds cool" is a much better place to invest your energy. Elephant Parade fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Jun 23, 2022 |
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Jun 23, 2022 17:17
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Some easy short hand for fantasy naming from GRR Martin: Just assume the reader understands that everything takes place in a fantasy language and is being translated into English. You don't necessarily need to have unique terms for every single thing if there's a real-world analogue unless there's a good reason for it
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Jun 23, 2022 17:29
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I would add the corollary that if your fantasy beings are clearly recognizable as well-established fantasy critters like elves and dragons, you should call them by their common name. If they're graceful, forest-dwelling, long-lived humanoids with pointy ears, you're not fooling anybody if you call them by another name. We know they're elves.
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Jun 23, 2022 19:01
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Elephant Parade posted:i think there are better things to worry about than whether a random made-up word in your novel with a clear linguistic origin happens to sound like an obscure slur in Swahili. who's going to go after you if it does, homophone interpol? if anything, having a word in your language sound like a swear in another language would make it realistic, since that kind of thing happens all the time irl
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Jun 23, 2022 20:26
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I mean look, Zurich airport is called Kloten, which is the Dutch word for ballsack. Switzerland and the Netherlands aren't even that far apart, they're both speaking something that sounds like German on a trampoline, and yet, when I went through Zurich were some Dutch buddies they could not stop snickering, we is stored in the balls. There is nothing more realistic than words in one language accidentally being dirty in another. Or, to flip it, the Dutch word for staircase is trap, and all over the Netherlands there are safety signs of a dude falling down the stairs with the word TRAP above him. Language is weird. SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Jun 23, 2022 |
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Jun 23, 2022 23:21
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