Jabrosky posted:

I'm an aspiring writer of fantasy and historical fiction who has a few short stories under his belt, but no novels, and right now I'm frustrated with the whole writing process.

One of my problems involves plotting. I can think up settings and characters fairly easily, but not so much plots that could sustain a full novel. When writing short stories, sometimes I can generate a whole plot in my head after winging or pantsing the first scene or moment, but I don't know if this approach could work for longer stories. I do know that I need to have a setting at least partly developed before beginning to write, which brings me to the second problem: research.

Researching isn't necessarily hard per se, but the sheer volume I have to do before writing certain stories intimidates me. I worry that by the time I finish researching a certain subject I might lose enthusiasm in my original idea or get distracted by another.

Speaking of distractions and losing enthusiasm, that may be my biggest problem. My muse is extremely fickle and short-lived. Often I get all excited about an idea but over time burn out on it, get distracted by another idea, or most commonly realize inherent flaws in the original idea and thus can't continue the story. I am not the kind of guy who can slog on with a story after losing inspiration or realizing its basic flaws.

I really want to write novels someday, but I have lost confidence in myself.

quote:

You're already familiar with the intricacies of it, and you get to show off a little piece of you more authentically than aping someone else's accent.

Oxxidation posted:

Not unless the only novels you're interested in writing are TVtropes-esque genre fiction that reads like an anime script put to prose. If you don't like to read, you'll never be able to write worth a drat. It goes against the entire nature of the concept.

Nirvikalpa posted:

I think joyless might have been the wrong word. I like reading, but I don't really like what I'm reading. I think with non-fiction it's better because at least I'm learning. But with novels, I enjoy the process of reading, but I end up revolted by the subject matter most of the time or I can't understand it.

SkySteak posted:

I need the help of any TFR (or just firearm knowledgeable Goons). If I wanted a character to have a small, easily concealed pistol, what would be most feasible? Decent (well for a pistol stopping power would be a nice bonus but I am not sure) former mentioned qualities can co-exist with that.

Chexoid posted:

Steven Erickson's series Malazan Book of The Fallen are dense, meaty tomes with a ton of stuff to keep track of, but that poo poo is down right inspired. That dude has epic fantasy nailed.

Erik Shawn-Bohner posted:

CB_Tube_Knight posted:

Hell, I have issue with the single quotation some traditional British books use (like in the Doctor Who novelizations). I just wasn't used to it.

CB_Tube_Knight posted:

It's not completely arbitrary, they're the way most American English speakers denote a direct quote. That's like saying that the upside down punctuation used in Spanish is arbitrary because someone else doesn't use it, it's part of their language.

Sure languages change over time, but typically not in a way that makes clarity harder.

Martello posted:

e: An example of thinking about sex parts being unnecessary and creepy is in one of the A Song of Ice and Fire books where Dany is walking somewhere and absently thinks about how her breasts feel against the rough weave of her Mongol vest. Ok, so now we know she has a rough Mongol vest on. Not really necessary to describe how it felt against her breasts specifically. So I think we might actually be on the same page here.

Stabbey_the_Clown posted:

I don't think it's a big deal to worry about. If you know an area, specific references are a big plus. If not, then well, you should do some research anyway. You're not expected to know every little detail of every place you might want to take your characters, but yeah, you should at least put in some effort to try and make it as accurate as you can.

* * *

Minor silly question, in the world I'm building, the country which is a rough equivalent to China is called Xiang (pronounced _ecks-AYE-eng [which is often mangled into sigh-eng.]) I'm trying to figure out which of these sounds better as a way to refer to someone from there:

"You want the stall past the Xianese fish merchant."
"You want the stall past the Xiangi fish merchant."
"You want the stall past the Xianian fish merchant."

E1M1 posted:

It's true. Literary fiction is a vast conspiracy of snooty professors telling their students that, no, they can't waste everyone's time with their dogshit space opera or elf story. I have a chip on my shoulder because my teachers made me write stories about sad dads and dead dogs when I wanted to write about the titanium pirates of Neo-Atlantis. Obviously the state of the medium is in decline and soon we will all wallow in lazily written fanfics, and I will smile and set alight my copy of "Best American Short Stories" and throw it onto literary fiction's funeral pyre

Erik Shawn-Bohner posted:

I think steampunk is a valid and interesting genrahahahahhahaha

wow.

Molly Bloom posted:

Chillmatic I will never stop recommending Michael Chabon's 'Yiddish Policemen's Union'.

quote:

Since Cormac McCarthy may be most responsible for popularizing the custom, let's examine a passage from his 2005 novel "No Country for Old Men":

You could head south to the river.

Yeah. You could.

Less open ground.

Less aint none.

He turned, still holding the handkerchief to his forehead. No cloud cover in sight.

The absence of quotation marks may intensify the gruffness of the exchange. Punctuation errors may also imply the lack of formal education typical of his characters. Perhaps the dialogue is all the more swallowed by a vast Western expanse, in which human utterances amount to mere tufts of sage-brush.

Yet take the same passage with quotes added:

"You could head south to the river."

"Yeah. You could."

"Less open ground."

"Less aint none."

He turned, still holding the handkerchief to his forehead. "No cloud cover in sight."

Is that landscape any less vast? Honestly, what do we lose when we insert those quotes?

Molly Bloom posted:

Chillmatic I will never stop recommending Michael Chabon's 'Yiddish Policemen's Union'.

quote:

Rabbi Heskel Shpilman is a deformed mountain, a giant ruined dessert, a cartoon house with the windows shut and the sink left running.

Beantown posted:

Does anyone here ever have to deal with "writing anxiety"?

magnificent7 posted:

But writing? I came at it thinking, "oh this is the easiest! No paint, no guitar strings, no computer programs even! It's just ideas, thrown onto a page! It's telling stories! I do that all the time!"