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Really? That's a relief, considering I didn't want to seem ungrateful for someone's reply. And yeah, onomatopoeia makes me roll my eyes. Does anyone use it well?
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Feb 4, 2015 00:46
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But it's balanced by how easy earth girls are
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Feb 4, 2015 01:54
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They actually make a series of horrible dry clicks followed by a high-pitched buzz that makes babies and dogs cry.
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Feb 4, 2015 04:06
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bromplicated posted:He also laments about how his dick is too big to fit in the toilet bowl. To be fair, this is a totally legitimate concern -- I share this malady, and it's a heavy burden to bear. (My penis, that is.) Seriously speaking, these people aren't writing fiction, they're barely writing period. Even the worst professor should curbstomp their GPA -- they don't even sound like they're trying. I never understood why people resort to boring semi-autobiographical nonsense. Doesn't everyone have a story to tell, something totally unlike their normal lives? I thought it was a universal thing to wonder what it'd be like to be someone else, someone different, though not necessarily better. I can't decide if these people are truly boring and uninspired, or happy and fulfilled without needing to resort to unnecessary fantasy.
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Feb 13, 2015 22:08
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I've got a problem. As early as a month ago I could write anywhere I had access to a keyboard, but in recent weeks I've found that I can only get myself to write when I'm drunk or over-caffeinated. Since I'm trying to quit drinking and lower my caffeine intake, it's become difficult to articulate my ideas. I have no lack of inspiration, but the ideas are like kidney stones passing through a narrow urethra. On top of that, I don't have nearly as much time as I used to due to hosed up hours at work. I know this is a common question, but should I go back to drinking too much? I need to make what little time I have for writing work, and the only way to do that is get drunk or loaded on coffee/energy drinks. It's not healthy, but I really don't give a poo poo about my well-being anymore -- the only thing that matters to me is writing. I'm going to fail this week's Thunderdome because I can't get my story right no matter how many times I rewrite it, and after losing my last entry I'm really losing hope. sebmojo posted:pm it me with the quickness u untrustworthy blaggard this this this lemme see
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Mar 1, 2015 21:58
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Well, it's not that beer and coffee make me more creative, it's that the beer made me stop worrying about things and the caffeine gave me and enthusiasm. Without them I'm just a nervous, tired wreck and I can't get my ideas in order. I have depression as well, but the drugs aren't covered under my insurance plan and they make me a listless zombie, so I just drink until I stop worrying and my back stops hurting. Then I usually feel up to writing, I know what Stephen King said in On Writing, and I agree with him for the most part, but his work after he got clean was substantially poorer than his nosebleed days. Writing used to be my best outlet for frustration, but it's starting to feel less like a relief and... well, it's like a crippled, retarded baby I truly, truly love, but I'm not equipped to take care of any longer. (no offense to people with disabilities intended with this post, by the way)
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Mar 2, 2015 01:47
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I suppose I'm lucky that I don't need to be drunk to get ideas -- if anything, I have too many ideas. Everyone has ideas, from Faulkner to Dostoevsky to Myers to the redneck scraping gum from the bottom of picnic tables. The trick is to get them down, to translate thought to words. That's where I'm hurting. I'll write hundreds of words, pat myself on the back, go to them later, and delete them all because they're loving garbage bullshit that only an illiterate moron would write. When I drink, I don't worry, and I don't hate myself as much. I don't hate my work. I can look at my stuff, shrug, and keep writing. So what if it sucks? And so what if I have to walk eleven miles to work in the snow tomorrow? I still have half a bottle of wine and so much blank space to fill. Put on some music and fill. That. poo poo. UP. But I gotta stop drinking. I gotta stop the caffeine. I had a nasty realization recently -- I woke up one morning and my eyes were blood-red and aching, my vision blurry. I had my eye doctor check me out, and he told me that if I didn't change my habits, I would soon go blind. In other words, I put so much stress on my body that my eyes are about to explode. I think I'm going to take a break from writing after I finish my next TD entry. I have enough stress to deal with without adding more bricks to the pile.
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Mar 4, 2015 22:50
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Unless you're writing hard science fiction, or a story entirely about the science involved, it's better to keep the actual science plausible enough to keep up the suspension of disbelief, but vague enough to let the reader focus on the narrative and not the details. Remember the MST3K theme.
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Mar 16, 2015 01:10
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Recently I picked up the Discworld series on audiobook, and I'm simply struck by how beautifully Pratchett ties his setting in with the story. He goes on for pages about the Discworld and its cosmology, and he manages to keep it somewhat interesting and -- this is what hooks me -- pertinent to the narrative. A lot of stories try to show massive, detailed settings that have jack to do with what's going on; they spend pages upon pages building up this huge, fantastical world only to tell a the same stories everyone's heard before. I know I'm guilty of this, and I don't think I'd be wrong to assume many others in this thread are as well. It's natural to want to create an expansive, interesting setting to draw in the reader, but if you're at all like me, you fall back on the same old tropes in lieu of creating a story to go with this new world. That isn't to say Pratchett's perfect, of course. A few years ago I put down The Colour of Magic because it bored me, and I really only got into his work once I got the audiobooks to listen to at work -- Nigel Planer's fantastic performance was a huge boost, I think. It hurt when I found out Pratchett had recently passed away -- I feel like I'd missed out on something great. Also of note, I found out that Robert Lynn Asprin -- my late father's favorite author, writer of the Myth Adventures series -- passed away reading a Terry Pratchett book.
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Mar 22, 2015 20:17
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I'm trying to cut back on the unnecessary details myself -- thanks Thunderdome! -- but some writers like Pratchett can make overwhelming detail work. For example, I constantly fought the urge to skip past the excessive descriptions of the Wyrmburg in The Color of Magic, but those descriptions paid off -- Pratchett used every set piece to great effect. I don't think I could ever pull that off, though. To use an awful architectural metaphor, I need to focus less on what color to make the drapes and more on making sure the house has four walls and a roof.
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Mar 22, 2015 21:18
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DrVenkman posted:I'm reading Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot' for the first time and King does a very similar thing to the town in that it's very much a living entity. It's writing to a theme, so while he's actually describing the town and where these people live, he's also including the idea that it's very much part of the story. Not once does it feel like a distraction and it goes way beyond just trying to set a scene. It's kind of amazing what early King was able to do, the man was on fire during that time. Stephen King's older work was amazing. Sure, it wasn't great literature by any means -- the man himself once called his work the Big Mac and fries of his genre -- but it was compelling, it was visceral, and it was true. He may have been bloody-nosed and pill-fed to the gates of hell and back, but by god it made his stuff stand out. He may have saved his life by cleaning up -- and good for him for that -- but his work became a shadow of its former self, and the Dark Tower series took a nosedive from a decent, off-beat play on traditional fantasy writing into "what the gently caress is this garbage, why are Doombots throwing Golden Snitches at Roland" territory. ....actually, having re-read that previous, did King really clean up his act, or did that van drive him back into the loving arms of self-medication?
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Mar 24, 2015 02:34
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I'm thinking of writing a re-telling of the story of Beowulf and Grendel, but in a New York ghetto from the perspective of a young Mexican-American with the same style of language used in the original tale. Is this racist at all, or simply a bad idea? I know execution is key, but I'm not sure if the idea is worth exploring.
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Mar 24, 2015 20:12
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General Battuta posted:It could be racist or really awesome depending on how well you do it. How much time have you spent knowing and learning about the lives of Mexican-American people in ghettos? Are you from that kind of background? You're either ready to write it or you need to do work to get ready. sebmojo posted:I think it sounds like a neat idea. As with all matters of PC, there are actually no forbidden topics and methods, but the further you go from the current orthodoxy the better you have to be. angel opportunity posted:I think trying to emulate the style of language will be the biggest issue. If you don't study English etymology or Shakespeare (preferably as part of a Master's or PhD program...) it seems unlikely you could pull it off. Remember all of the wordplay using outdated meanings of words that your 8th grade teacher had to explain to you, and even then you barely got it? Can you really come up with that stuff? I appreciate the advice. I'm really trying to avoid overt generalizations, give my own spin on the Grendel/Beowulf tale, and maybe have a little social commentary. For example, despite taking place in New York, the monster is free to rampage because the police refuse to investigate it because the victims are all poor minorities, drug addicts, or gang members. I also had an idea for a scene where one of the witnesses to the monster's rampage is an old, crippled drug addict -- the scene between him and the main character ("Carlos" for now, until I find a good pun reference for Beowulf in Spanish) would resemble something out of legend where the hero meets with a wizened wise-man. It sounds silly to me, but I really want to give it a shot. I like the idea of meshing ancient epics with a modern setting.
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Mar 25, 2015 00:31
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Sitting Here posted:sorry if this is a dumb question, but why do you want to combine all of those elements in particular? Honestly, I can't say for sure -- it came to me the other night when I should have been sleeping, and it won't wriggle away. I think it'd be a nice challenge, to combine mythic folklore with gritty urban drama and to do so respectfully and without falling into Dresden-levels of schlock. Martello posted:Literally it'd be Abejalobo but that sounds dumb and is way too long. I guess it could be his last name. Carlos Abejalobo. I thought about just making his last name Lobo, keeping the "-wulf" aspect intact while making the connection slightly less obvious.
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Mar 25, 2015 19:39
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I'm probably just going to cut out most of the overt Beowulf references and diversify the mythology a bit -- it'd make for a richer, more detailed story in the end, and it'd be easier to write as my grasp on classical English is doubleplus ungood. I also feel there's something vaguely racist about using traditionally "white" mythology to tell a story about a Mexican-American, something artificial. I'll keep the Beowulf story structure of course as it's one of the basic foundation of literature, but I'll stick with modern lingo.
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Mar 26, 2015 20:40
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Megazver posted:If you at a skill level where you're asking writing advice from goons, maybe you shouldn't take on a project of doing a stylistic remake of a piece of medieval literature that you apparently don't even know that well. Screaming Idiot posted:I'm probably just going to cut out most of the overt Beowulf references and diversify the mythology a bit -- it'd make for a richer, more detailed story in the end, and it'd be easier to write as my grasp on classical English is doubleplus ungood. I also feel there's something vaguely racist about using traditionally "white" mythology to tell a story about a Mexican-American, something artificial. I'll keep the Beowulf story structure of course as it's one of the basic foundation of literature, but I'll stick with modern lingo.
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Mar 29, 2015 19:44
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HIJK posted:So you would in fact not be retelling Beowulf at all since you're now excising the most valuable elements of Beowulf that separates the poem from other literature. You would in fact be rehashing The Legend of Zelda. Complete with wise men. Considering how much money it made Nintendo I've seen worse ideas.  No, I'm not going to do this. Videogame plots only work in videogames.Look, I'm a crappy writer, and the only way I'm going to get better will be to read more and write outside what I'm familiar with.
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Mar 29, 2015 21:08
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Chairchucker posted:This is why I refuse to ever write female characters. Or black. Or gay. Or anything other than white hetero males basically. Thankfully, as a body-thieving parasite from another dimension I can live as any variant of human I desire. Unfortunately I've only been a white male, since that's the easiest option. The others keep getting killed or enslaved or otherwise oppressed. I never could wrap my thought-polyp around your bizarre traditions concerning sexual apparatus and epidermal pigmentation.
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Mar 30, 2015 07:57
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ravenkult posted:check your alien priviledge Maybe you should stop being so jealous of me and start worrying about your bio-frame's inevitable decay, air-breather.  Also, how the hell do you people walk around with skeletons inside you? I bet it makes it really hard to squeeze into tight spaces to avoid predators.
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Mar 30, 2015 21:17
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supermikhail posted:You may remember me as that person whom nobody likes in CC, or if I'm fortunate you don't remember me at all. Dude, don't do this, you're bringing up old, irrelevant garbage and causing undue prejudice as well as making yourself a magnet for negative attention -- any praise your idea would otherwise receive will be negated, and your criticism will be unduly harsh as a result. Anyhow, your idea's intriguing, but the main character ("R") doesn't seem to have much agency -- same problem I have in my stories. Give him a reason other than "he woke up and a chick jumps out and screams 'HAIL TO THE CYBER-MESSIAH!'" and "poo poo just keeps happening to him man, I don't know what the deal is!" You need to give him a clear story arc, and what you have currently are a series of vignettes that seems to rely on its gimmick than any substance. If you're embarrassed by your character's names, why did you name them that? If you like the names, use the names and to hell with opinion. If you don't, why use them? Don't be ashamed of your work -- hell, one of the main characters in my novel is named Darkside Black for Chrissakes, and another's named Pepper Zesty, your stuff can't be worse than that. Finally, don't post ideas, post your work. Everyone has ideas, not many people make them reality. Put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, and write.
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Apr 20, 2015 16:14
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RedTonic posted:Screaming Idiot, your inbox is full. What are you storing in there? Scandalous secrets. Also, clearing space now.
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Apr 20, 2015 16:29
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Supermikhail, just write. That's all you need to do. Take your ideas and poo poo them down onto the screen, and worry about making them good later. You don't need validation from us to write, you don't need validation from anybody, you just need to put in the time and effory. Worry about criticism and all that afterward.
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Apr 22, 2015 01:42
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supermikhail posted:Well... the fact that it happened again maybe should make me face up to my actual attitudes to writing, that I've secretly hated it for a while now, have perhaps hated myself, and have certainly had from time to time to let out some steam in passive-aggressive barely held-back attacks on fellow human beings. Apologies for that. I guess I'll maybe see you in a year? JUUUUUUST FUUUUUUUCKING WRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITE
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Apr 22, 2015 05:50
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Martello posted:lol no It's true some stories are awful, but if there's anything positive to say then it should be said -- people are always more willing to listen to advice if they're given an inkling of hope. I've written some godawful poo poo since I've joined this little clique -- in much the same way a chihuahua follows a pack of rabid wolves -- and people have always taken pains to point out the positive aspects, which not only shows me what I'm doing right, but allows me to more easily accept the negative criticism. Tough love is all fine and good, but all too often people forget the latter part of the phrase in favor of the former.
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Apr 28, 2015 01:34
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Something I should have mentioned in my earlier post: if someone takes the time to critique your work, then be grateful, no matter how bitter and full of vitriol their review might be. They still did a favor by reading your stuff, and that's a helluva lot nicer than simply ignoring it.
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Apr 28, 2015 02:32
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My favorite crits are the ones that tell me what I did right and what I did wrong -- seriously, Thunderdome rocks for this, you guys rock for this -- but I'll take a wall of textual abuse if that's what's given. A teaspoon of sugar may make bitter medicine easier to swallow, but medicine is medicine. What you should take away from this is that you should drink everything you can find in your medicine cabinet. Screaming Idiot fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Apr 28, 2015 |
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Apr 28, 2015 02:46
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Surround yourself with inferiors who praise your work in exchange for even the most perfunctory of attentions. Disregard any incidental criticisms as they obviously don't "get" your work. Don't bother addressing the work of others except to remind them of how much better your work is. Try to stick to moderately unattractive members of the sex you prefer and use the group as a sort of beggar's harem. If any of them get good ideas, convince them the ideas weren't all that good to begin with and then appropriate them for your own work.
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Apr 30, 2015 23:59
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Good, so you should have experience in that regard. Also, don't worry about maintaining proper attendance; a writer's group is there to make YOU a better writer, and if you set up any sort of rigorous schedule then what will you do if inspiration strikes? Good writers don't worry about discipline or consistency -- they live by their own rules, or rather, the lack thereof.
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May 1, 2015 00:08
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Yes, and if possible, try to encourage fanfiction. Time spent using other people's property is time you would otherwise waste coming up with your own. Coming up with your own characters with believable motivation and unique, interesting characteristics is much harder than transplanting characters from other established stories. Furthermore, you have a built-in audience. Have you considered combining the Fallout series with, say, My Little Pony? The disparate genres make for an intriguing juxtaposition, and if you add in a few "controversial" subjects you'll make it even more interesting -- perhaps add some implied rape and pedophilia? The taboo is always ripe for potential inspiration.
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May 1, 2015 00:22
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I use an ancient version of Microsoft Works and it's super laggy and I hate it. EDIT: Also, was it one of you guys that wasted ten bucks on my avatar? I liked the blank space, dammit. Screaming Idiot fucked around with this message at 16:57 on May 5, 2015 |
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May 5, 2015 16:54
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Omi no Kami posted:That's a neat way to do it... I try to avoid visual references at least until I have the rough framework done, purely because I'm incredibly lazy, and giving myself references inevitably turns into an excuse to not fully think through my characters. I'm kinda the opposite -- I describe my character's appearances way too often and often way, way before the reader has a reason to give a poo poo about them.  Hey, Idiot, why did you write three pages about a kid getting ready for school? So you know what he looks like! ...and why should I care? Well, he's the main character! And the color of his eyes are important -- the odd shade of blue is a genetic trademark used by the Human Optimization Initiative- HOW ABOUT YOU TELL US THAT INSTEAD OF HOW MUCH THE KID HATES GRAPEFRUIT, IDIOT. Um. Because that fact isn't important until the third novel- MAYBE IT'S MORE IMPORTANT THAN GRAPEFRUIT. But the grapefruit thing is important for a scene later on! Is the scene in the first novel, Idiot? ...no.
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May 10, 2015 20:59
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crabrock posted:when i drive on the highway, i go faster than the speed limit. I have been driving for a long time, understand the risks, and know where i can push it a little and where i need to slow the gently caress down. I've never been in an accident. but you put a brand new 15 year old driver behind the wheel and they try to speed down the highway while texting and wrap around a telephone pole. When I drive on the highway, I do it naked, my body covered in fat, glistening leeches, and there is a clown in my back seat who honks a bicycle horn in my ear every time a stop sign comes near. When I stop, I vigorously scream along to a fifteen second loop of Gregorian chanting from my 1990's-era MP3 player. Meanwhile, there is a Venezuelan man huddled in the trunk of my car, feverishly protecting an aged slab of beef he is convinced will grant him seven wishes. This shows in my writing. I am not a good writer. I also do not have my license.
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May 13, 2015 00:00
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spectres of autism posted:should i keep trying thunderdome or should i kill myself Keep trying Thunderdome. Don't kill yourself, kill words. Kill them all. Murder the words, kill your darlings, take up the cleaver dripping with ink and hack hack hack at the letters until there's nothing left but a jumbled mess of bleeding vowels and quivering syllables. Collect them, sew them together, create a horrible abomination and show it to the world. They will either accept your genius or condemn you as a blasphemer, either way will lead you to a sort of immortality. IT ALL STARTS WITH BLOODSHED. MURDER THE WORDS, TAKE THEIR POWER FOR YOUR OWN.
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May 13, 2015 19:29
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Chairchucker posted:[...] he's a good author that people should listen to his audiobooks because Nigel Planer has an amazing voice IMO Fixed that for you. I'm listening to the Discworld books and Nigel Planer makes those books come alive, especially when he's doing the voice for Death, ironically enough. Reaper Man and Mort were amazing reads.
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May 26, 2015 04:19
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Most fantasy is just Tolkien with extra misogyny. And if I find out someone likes A Song of Ice and Fire, I lose respect for them as a person.
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May 31, 2015 03:49
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Benny the Snake posted:And "Game of Thrones" by extenstion? That's even worse. I can't remember the name of the author who said it, but in the book How to Write Sci-Fi and Fantasy (I think) there was an anecdote about a woman who was going to work with George RR Martin on a series of novels about people who live on floating islands and got around via artificial wings. She went on about Martin's ideas about how only men should be allowed to fly and women should be persecuted, and she then said something along the lines of, "If women can't be liberated in our imaginations and our stories, what hope do we have for real life?" That struck a chord with me. People defend George RR Martin as writing "historical" fantasy, but everything I've seen about it just shows that he's a huge, disgusting freak with more weird sex issues than Stephen King and Anne Macaffrey combined. His stories are full of sexual abuse, and while that behavior was sadly common in feudal eras, Martin writes them with loving detail in his stories. I can't remember that lady author's name, but I like her message. If you're going to write fantasy, why make the same mistakes that have been made countless times before? And if you're determined to write "historical" fantasy full of primitive, evil people committing atrocities, why fetishize those atrocities? It seems to me that anything left to the imagination is infinitely more horrible than whatever's put on the page, no matter how many amputated dicks and raped children and "wetly glistening manhoods" you toss in (and toss off to). In short, gently caress Martin and gently caress everyone who wants to be like Martin. I'd rather remain unknown and unread than be like him, because I'm sick and tired of fantasy and sci-fi being the refuge of backwards shitlords who think the presence of dragons makes the objectification of women is a-okay.
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May 31, 2015 04:15
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crabrock posted:IN MY EXTREMELY LIMITED AND JUVENILE OPINION, ALL OF THE AUTHORS IN A GENRE ARE DEFINED BY THIS POPULAR AUTHOR: BY BEING POPULAR MAYBE HE IS REPRESENTING THE GENRE TO A LOT OF PEOPLE I GUESS?? IDK "I asked about a good fantasy series and my friend suggested this Game of Thrones book, and it's really gross and creepy. If that's what most fantasy books are like, I think I'll pass." JuniperCake posted:The gently caress. You need better reading habits. There is a fuckton of fantasy that is not like that at all. Pick up some loving LeGuin or Octavia Butler. Ursula LeGuin is a treasure and I love her work; one of the first fantasy books I read all the way through was A Wizard of Earthsea. Unfortunately, she does not represent the vast, vast majority of fantasy. Most fantasy is "White Guys doing Cool Things with/to Hot Chicks and also Video Games" and that's the sort of thing keeping the genre down. Earlier in this thread I expounded my new-found love of Terry Pratchett, and I can't restate that enough -- he was extremely progressive, managing to bring to light major societal issues while simultaneously weaving beautiful, hilarious stories. The world needs more Pratchetts and fewer Martins. Fantasy and sci-fi should be about the widening of horizons, not trodding over the same paths worn to the stone by wizards and hairy-footed midgets and grimdark ale-chugging murderers.
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May 31, 2015 04:28
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blue squares posted:it takes longer to say the word woman, because they are slower at doing things. symbolism a woman is a two letters better than a man
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May 31, 2015 04:29
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blue squares posted:But actually, there is nothing sexist about creating a fictional world in which women are oppressed. Literature can make a statement about the current times. For example, Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale. That is a book in which women are oppressed, but it is also a feminist work. Oh, I agree. The problem isn't that women are oppressed in the work, but in that they generally stay oppressed, and how often that oppression is ignored or used to titillate. In another thread someone discussed a scene of Martin's about a man raping his new wife while a recently castrated rival (also a rapist, apparently?) is forced to watch, and the castrated man is supposed to be the one the audience sympathizes, and not the poor woman being used as a plaything and tool for political gain. What I'm saying is that the oppression in a work of fiction isn't necessarily misogyny, but its fetishization is, and the problem only compounds when it becomes a labored theme in that artist's work. I'm sorry if I'm overly critical of this, but what few friends I have who read have recently gotten into Game of Thrones and they won't shut up about the books and they're getting intensely creepy about it.
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May 31, 2015 04:37
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Kaishai posted:I've read hundreds of fantasy novels; I'm odd enough to keep track, so I know that for fact. I deny this claim. Jennifer Roberson, Amanda Downum, Diane Duane, Mercedes Lackey, Melanie Rawn, Tad Williams, Michelle Sagara/Sagara West, Pamela Dean, Anne McCaffery, Julian May, Barbara Hambly, Catherynne Valente, Diana Wynne Jones, Holly Lisle, Tanya Huff--these writers have female protagonists, non-white protagonists, or both; they have precious little to do with video games; they're also names I came up with from scanning my own shelves, so blame the low proportion of male names there on my taste, not the genre. A good library or bookstore would have many more. Doesn't Anne Macaffrey have a situation where one character's riding-dragon mates another character's riding dragon, so now the first character can claim the other character as his own without her approval? Mrenda posted:I'm having real difficulty feeling like I can envision the totality of a novel as I write it. I have plot milestones that I want to reach, and I can figure out what's going to bring the characters to those points but I often feel like there's a superfluousness to the point of getting there. This is something that has plagued all of my writing. When I wrote academic essays I'd be told I hadn't given enough time to something. I'd argue that all of that was covered by what I already said, and when I asked I was told I had covered it, but the reader still wanted it all laid out for them. I think that often a totemic moment should stand for something without belabouring everything else. I know it doesn't work like that, and when I ask people did they understand the significance of an event I've written they'll say the did but they still wanted what I feel is unnecessary detail. Write the scenes you want, put off the ones that don't, and find a way to connect them as time goes on. That's the advice I've read in this in thread, and it works for a lot of people for what that's worth. And add as much detail as you like in the first draft, then add or preferably remove some as you go through later drafts. A first draft is like carving a hunk of rock from a wall, with subsequent drafts cutting away the dross and chiseling in the features and adding polish until you have your ideal carving.
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May 31, 2015 04:48
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