Echo Cian posted:

quote:

No one here who's saying to keep writing, is saying to do so in a vacuum. Keep writing, get feedback to identify your weaknesses, take the advice to heart, read up on it if need be, apply it, write more with the new advice in mind, repeat. And learn critical reading skills from reading other fiction, but I covered that in my last post

magnificent7 posted:

Please christ. Anyone. Someone. Come in here and start asking stupider questions than mine. I've really enjoyed the lively chat but holy gently caress.

SaviourX posted:

So, let's take a different route.

Any thoughts on writing to fit the current mode in fiction vs. developing a unique style (for better or worse) vs. writing a specific way that's formed by and reflected in each piece?

For instance, do you use modern prose like a bestseller might, or let the tone and setting inform the language you use?


As an example, someone once paraphrased the first few lines of A Christmas Carol for their own story (even though it had nothing to do with that story), either because they liked the style or thought it was clever, or whatever. They got hammered for not having 'correct' grammar and having a cheap way to start a story, but no one commented on it being Dickens. What does that say?

HaitianDivorce posted:

Someday I would like to meet one of these people. Their minds must be... disconcerting, at the very least.

magnificent7 posted:

I appreciate your input - I do. Even when it's harsh, your points make sense and I weigh them along with any other advice. But everytime you write a long post, I can't help but hear it in this voice:

magnificent7 posted:

My goal is to help the reader hear the narrator's voice. If the reader isn't familiar with the southern dialect, I know it's just in the way, like when I try to read Scottish or Irish narratives. It becomes hurdles instead of helpful. But if SurreptitiousMuffin is saying the words are flat out wrong and get in the way of the story, then that's my own ignorance of writing and not some skillful dialect thing.

I think No Country For Old Men does a great job of writing out the redneck inner voice.

Chillmatic posted:

Chexoid posted:

I would deffo buy a book that came with DnD character sheets for all the principle characters. Especially if it wasn't fantasy at all and was just like, a political drama set in 1987.

Panda So Panda posted:

If it would be helpful, I could post up the first chronological scene that involves this character. But as I mentioned, it's early in the story and I don't think it would show too much of the character. I do have a few main characters thought up and a short, lovely outline worked out. I tend to over-research and overthink my characters, which I'm sure is apparent. It's finally hit me that I do this to my detriment when I recently asked a question about character creation on Joe Abercrombie's blog and he suggested creating a basic idea of the characters but allowing them to take form more organically.

I appreciate the link! I work well with prompts, so this will be a great exercise in character exploration for me. I will get cracking on a few when I get back home from work tomorrow.

magnificent7 posted:

http://www.sfwa.org/2009/06/turkey-city-lexicon-a-primer-for-sf-workshops/

This is an incredible collection of terms used to describe certain traits in writing. Kind of like tropes I suppose. I'm just had it sent to me by one of my writer mentors, and it's pretty goddamn good.

Here's a snippet to give an example:

Sulla-Marius 88 posted:

What's the idea then, what's the moral of the story -- take it to its natural conclusion.

Mike Works posted:

For those of you arguing that a story doesn't need a theme or perhaps moral, I'm curious as to what some of your favorite literature/novels/short stories are that don't have any themes or morals?

Genuinely curious.

Sulla-Marius 88 posted:

This thread is always so hyper-aggressive with people coming out and accusing others of not understanding literature and of being the worst type of person there could ever be. It would be funnier if it didn't have that faint ring of 'cult' about it.

Blade_of_tyshalle posted:

The charred bodies, which were localised to a 20'x15' irregular area on the north side of the street approximately five yards from Nikodemus...

lunatikfringe posted:

Are there any best practices when writing about a "team" of characters? How many are "too many" on a team that will be continuing on to the end of the book and possibly into the next? Is it too difficult having a main character who is only slightly more important than the rest of the team and will be featured as such? Is it possible to pull off a main character acting as the stable, no frills, foundation of the team while the supporting teammates have more interesting characteristics and flaws?

I have a team of 6 so far, 5 of which have very interesting and unique personalities. As a reference, think of the team of marines in "Aliens" that goes in to investigate the colony on LB426. I am currently just brainstorming ideas, putting things on paper and have yet to have the reality of what I can and cannot do set in. This is my first endeavor into fictional writing and I think I might be getting in over my head.

magnificent7 posted:

Great advice but I'm killing myself in the Flash Fiction dome thing. I don't have the time/wordcount to let it evolve into its own story.

At least I stopped thinking about it and forced myself to put words down; and for that I'm grateful.

quote:

My stories in the dome have ALL been like this: "X happens, then Y happens. And people kind of react to that. and then Z happens." Might as well write about my trip to the grocery store.

How can I break out of that

magnificent7 posted:

Now, I have a question for published authors - the ones who've had to make revisions for an editor or a publisher:
Are you asked to make changes that go against these simple rules concepts? Do you get poo poo like:
- Cut all this down into a paragraph of description about the room. (Tell me, don't show me).
- Give me more adverbs and adjectives (I can't imagine a request like this but, maybe?)
- All of this first part of your story could be done as a flashback. (info dump)

blue squares posted:

Uh....what? Well stop doing that what the gently caress

quote:

Marvin Hill was planting a rose over his latest victim when the trap clanked shut. The noise startled him and his wire-rimmed glasses slid down the veined ridge of his nose. He pushed the glasses up with a bony finger, and when he stood he winced as each knee popped. The afternoon sun, fractured through drops of sweat trapped in his bushy eyebrows, almost blinded him. He wiped his brow with a glove so ancient that the rawhide fingertips were almost disintegrated.

"What is it now?" he said. Of course there was no response from the woman he'd just buried in the shallow grave, but he asked the question anyway. "Don't go anywhere. I'll check the traps, and then I'll be back."

He used a shovel to knock the Georgia clay from his boots and then walked along the weaving pebble path through his garden. The sweet smell of decaying flowers and vegetables hung in the air, and as he walked towards the trap he cleared dead leaves along the path. When he bought the house in 1960, the backyard was freshly sodded like every other house in the subdivision. Today, the only grass he hadn't dug up was a small stretch between the porch and the gate to his carport. He followed the path to the oldest section of his garden. Marvin located his trap between two rose bushes that covered a white criss-crossed lattice. The trap was a wire mesh cage the size of a large shoe box with metal doors at either end. A smile creased across his face and he said, "Well well, look at you."

In the cage, a possum cowered, baring a mouthful of tiny white teeth. He'd used his traps for years to keep the garden free of pests, but he'd never caught something as big as a possum before. It looked like a giant rat suffering from hair loss. It didn't have much room and couldn't turn around in the cage. In fact, it was a wonder how the beast had wedged itself into the trap in the first place. "Guess we'll go with the tail then, all right?" he said.

He pulled his gloves tight, and his right index and middle finger poked through holes in the rawhide fingertips. "You just relax and this'll all be over in a minute," he said.

Marvin pulled open the trap door nearest the tail. The possum growled, its teeth still bared, and it began to back out of the trap. As soon as the fleshy pink tail was out, Marvin grabbed it and pulled. The possum clawed at the cage and hissed but Marvin was already starting to stand up, lifting the tail as he rose. The cage came up with the possum, and Marvin waited a moment until the possum lost its grip, dropping cage. He held the animal at arms' length, looking around for something to put it in. After a moment, he rolled his eyes when it dawned on him he should've just left it in the cage.

"I'm an idiot," he said.

Blade_of_tyshalle posted:

That's an awful lot of extraneous attribution you added to a scene with a single character, though. I wouldn't have been nearly so heavy-handed with it.

Mr. Belding posted:

I mean, you've been doing this for years. I don't know what's so different about someone criticizing a song versus criticizing your writing. And also, in either scenario I think you try to keep in mind that when people say "I didn't like that," they are almost always right, and when they say, "because..." they are almost always wrong.

General Battuta posted:

What? I have never in all my pro sales had a title veto'd, and only once did the editor even ask me to consider changing it (he thought the reference I used was too obscure).

Martello posted:

Speaking of POV characters, I'm working on a novel right now (used to be a short story) and I decided to really flesh out the protag's girlfriend to the point where she's the other main character. My plan is to alternate chapters between them, but not to the GRRM extent of naming each chapter either "Bronco" or "Holly." I'm thinking that some of their chapters will overlap to show different sides of the same scene, with some anamolies in dialogue lines and event details to indicate somewhat unreliable narrators. Anyone think that sounds dumb or cool or anything else? Obviously it's all execution but just wondering what people think about the concept.

Martello posted:

I'm gonna switch POVs between chapters, not inside them, so no need for the *** or whatever. However I do plan on making their voices distinctly different. It's 3rd-person, not 1st, so it will be a little more tricky, but the narrative will take note of different things and use different terminology and so on. Bronco is a jaded, alcoholic street mercenary in his early 30s, and his girlfriend Holly is a 22 year-old college dropout with a baby girl and aspirations to eventually go back to school for her interior design degree. So they will notice very different things about the world around them and the people they interact with.

Blade_of_tyshalle posted:

Watching some of Sanderson's lectures got me to approach things a little differently, and I think I like the results more so far. But maybe that's part and parcel of having mulled on it for a while beforehand already. He's kind of distracting, though, chowing down on Gummi Bears constantly. And is he wearing a... foam fedora in some of those videos?

I should just finish something and get it out there for crits, jesus

Blade_of_tyshalle posted:

Describing people is hard. Not just the technique of layering the description into the narrative so it's not so drat obvious what you're doing (though some authors make it work having someone look in the mirror and describe themself), but also figuring out the words to use.

How do some of y'all approach this horrible facet of writing? Both the insertion and the choosing.

quote:

(though some authors make it work having someone look in the mirror and describe themself)

systran posted:

Do what muffin did and finish a draft, then post the first revision for the group.

Stabbey_the_Clown posted:

Scrivener's card function is helpful to me by making it easy to move the order of scenes around and see if they work better in a different way.

I'm writing a story not set on earth, and I want one of my characters to be from the not-earth equivalent of Australia, and use a lot of not-Australian slang. The story will never visit not-Australia or meet anyone else from there.

I am not sure what the better (least-awkward) approach would be: To use actual Earth-Australian slang, OR to make up completely new slang unique to not-Australia.

Cache Cab posted:

Because you're not part of the circlejerk that runs Thunderdome.

No disrespect; y'all give some great advice. But it can be pretty intimidating to try and get better when the people who're supposed to "help" are so quick to judge people who don't post right, or don't know the in-jokes, or whatever. Sometimes I wish the SA writing community weren't so tangled up in that one thread.

Again, I appreciate the help I get, but I know full well where I stand around here, and it makes it hard to submit things when I know that it's not just my writing that's going to get torn apart.

*ForumsOldGuy.txt*

Sithsaber posted:

This started because an rear end in a top hat told me not to write. That goes opposite to the point you, SM, tried to just make.

Cache Cab posted:

I'm not sure how someone would know if I was making a spell mistake, since any magic systems I use in any future stories will be entirely original. But I don't write a lot of fantasy fiction anyway.