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This is why I refuse to ever write female characters. Or black. Or gay. Or anything other than white hetero males basically.
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Mar 30, 2015 07:00
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 04:01 |
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I think it's okay to link that.
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Apr 23, 2015 03:30
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It only took me 47 entries and 3 losses for my first win, so if you don't see results right away you might as well pull the plug.
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May 13, 2015 08:37
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Personally I enjoyed the earlier books more. Book 5 made me ragequit because it was not a fun read at all.
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May 24, 2015 07:21
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Some of Terry Pratchett's stuff is YA (Diggers, Truckers, Wings, The Carpet People, Nation, Dodger, the Tiffany Aching books, probably a bunch of others) and he's a good author that people should read IMO.
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May 26, 2015 04:13
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I like how he has a girl's name.
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May 30, 2015 18:35
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The Gilmore Girls is/are (both the show and the characters) cool and good you jive turkey.
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Jun 20, 2015 06:49
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While we're sharing our WRITING GUIDES, HERE'S MINE! Method one: Think of a cool idea. Maybe the idea's not all that cool. Forget that idea. Oh wait, the deadline's about to hit, we're using that idea now. Start writing. Just keep writing. Make the subsequent written bits follow on from the previous ones. Maybe you'll get some cool ideas. Maybe not, maybe you should just kill someone off. Did that help? No? Delete that bit. OK now you've either finished or the deadline's about to hit. Sum up in a way that in some respect resembles an ending. Think of a title. Can you think of a good pun that somehow relates? Maybe a bad pun. Use that as your title. Post. Then check the spelling, and lament. METHOD TWO: Think of the cool idea, but this time either you don't have the same deadline or you actually get a genuine cool idea first go, good for you! Think of the whole story. Mostly think of where you want it to end. Think of what you'll need to achieve to work towards that end. EXAMPLE: Maybe your cool COMPLETELY ORIGINAL IDEA THAT DEFINITELY DIDN'T COME FROM A STORY SOMEONE ELSE MENTIONED IN THE LAST PAGE OR SO OF THIS THREAD could be that there's this prophecy. So you'll have to justify a couple of characters to get prophesised... prophesied?... at and someone to issue prophecies. And the prophecy will be "Hey check it, your son's gonna kill you and then bonk you." OK so that's scene one and then what's the obvious reaction? The guy who's supposedly gonna get killed could decide he doesn't want to be killed and have his wife diddled by his son. Scene two could be exposition from him about "no way that would be the worst," but since the audience already knows that, why don't we skip that rubbish and just have the scene where we see what he's gonna do about it? So he orders a woodcutter to kill his son, but instead the woodcutter kills a deer and takes its heart, and there's something about an apple as well, maybe. But anyway, the dad who got prophesied at thinks he's out of the woods even though he didn't have the balls to actually off his progeny himself, but whatevs we've hit scene two because all we need each scene to do is to progress the story to the next necessary place. The words in each scene should be cool and fun words to read, but the end result is the main important bit - it moves us to our next scene. Scene three is some crappy montage or something, he's (the son who didn't die) raised by wolves or elves or mirrors or whatever, fast forward this bit and have him end up strong and righteous or whatever and off into the world, kissing his adoptive mum/dopey/bashful/whoever goodbye but not in that way because that would be inappropriate (DRAMATIC IRONY INCOMING, OH BOY). OK so final scene he's gone off into the world to some MYSTERIOUS KINGDOM I WONDER WHERE IT IS (unless I paid attention to the prophecy at the start) and some drunk old guy attacks our hero and cops a fatal kicking. And then he marries the dead guy's wife for whatever reason, because I dunno, she's hot. And they get married and live happily ever after, and good luck to them, after all if two consenting adults want to get married who should stand in their way, not some blind prophet, that's for sure. But the main point of this method is that I've generally got my story broken up into EVENTS. Event one: prophecy. Event two: attempted infanticide and subsequent mercy. Event three: Grows up, leave home. Event four: kills dad, marries mum, lives happily ever after, after all it's not like this is some kind of tragedy. Everything I write, pretty much, is written with the express purpose of leading the narrative to the next EVENT. Sometimes an event can be to reveal necessary information about a character, and those can be harder to write, because providing that sort of exposition in a showdon'ttell kind of way can be more difficult sometimes but whatevs. (And then think up a witty title, maybe a pun about mothers or something like that.) Chairchucker fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Sep 29, 2015 |
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Sep 29, 2015 15:30
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Tyrannosaurus posted:For the record, I would be interested in reading people's actual methods. Method two in my post is actually more or less what I do, in ideal circumstances. I have a vague structure gradually expanding in my mind, and I know the events, or bits of exposition, I have to hit, and every bit of dialogue and action I use is calculated to navigate me through those events.
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Sep 30, 2015 08:56
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Are they the only two people in the conversation? Because if so, I establish who's talking for the first two paragraphs, and after that just go new paragraph, new talker.
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Nov 2, 2015 09:12
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Shageletic posted:Here's a quick question: what's the difference between fantasy genre and young adult? The fantasy genre contains fantastical elements such as magic and dragons, and young adult is specifically aimed at young adults, hope that answers your query.
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Dec 11, 2015 09:22
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How relevant to the story will the 1000 year old civilisation be?
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Jan 14, 2016 08:13
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Ziji posted:Looking for a bit of general advice for a first time writer. I have written short stories before as a kid, but this is my first story I have written with any serious intent to finish. Some days I would get on a writing kick and spend a few hours starting something, it would grow to a thousand words or so and then I never finish it or I delete it because I don't like it. I also have a LOT of trouble with plot structuring, excessive exposition, and dialogue. Most stories I had written contain no dialogue because I find it hard to bridge conversations in writing. Another issue I find myself having is that when I write, I usually make it up as I go along instead of having a "blueprint" I follow. This feels natural to me, but I feel like it sometimes leads to entire paragraphs of pointless information or fluff that ultimately doesn't make the cut and I've wasted a bunch of time. Join Thunderdome, write stories, we will tell you how bad they are and what you can do to make them less bad. This week is closed for entries, but next week will probably open for entries by, let's say Tuesday?
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May 29, 2016 14:00
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My advice is read fiction. Also non-fiction maybe. But read a fair bit and then write and then have people read your writing and tell you the things that are bad about it.
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Jun 7, 2016 21:24
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HIJK posted:How much do you guys think about genre when you're writing? I don't.
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Aug 26, 2016 05:08
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Megazver posted:So it's junkie fiction, urban fantasy and post-apocalyptic? Will there be spaceships as well? Mmm yes, the idea of there being drug use in the aftermath of a nuclear war is completely ridiculous. Some of the criticisms I'm seeing here are pretty stupid TBH.
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Sep 10, 2016 18:06
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Times I would probably not use first person: a. When I want to shift between a lot of POVs. b. When I want to reveal information not known to my protagonist. c. When I just find it's not working for me. Other than that go hogwild IMO. EDIT: WAIT WE WERE TALKING ABOUT TENSE Just 'c' in that case.
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Nov 8, 2016 09:02
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 04:01 |
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Dystopian Fiction is probably popular, as you imply, because the setting inherently possesses conflict. Conflict is very important to a narrative. If some guy hates Utopia, is he your protagonist, or your antagonist? If he is your protagonist, what is it about the Utopia that he hates, and is it something that would push elements of it towards being a Dystopia?
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Jan 11, 2017 19:28
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