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sebmojo posted:It's a book everyone who has any interest in writing well should read for the limpid beauty of the pontius pilate scenes if nothing else. Russian literature in my experience is pretty interesting and almost modern seeming in how it's composed. I don't know why it's not in the classroom more.
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Mar 15, 2014 06:45
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Shageletic posted:Back about the Lucifer thing, it might be worth reading up about Jewish mysticism about the concept, specifically kabbalism nd Gnostic teachings regarding the topic. The concept of the demiurge is a never-ending spiral of interesting storytelling. I had heard that word in relation to comics but I had no idea what it meant. After one wiki article and another site I have a wild new direction I want to go in...
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Mar 15, 2014 15:46
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This is a really simplistic question that I know has been asked before, but: When do you come up with your titles? How do you come up with them? Okay, so it's actually two questions. The title thing is bothering me a lot because I feel like at this point I should have a name to call these things I'm working on.
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Mar 19, 2014 08:59
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I guess I felt like everyone had their titles all worked up and ready when they start. I think I might have to go back through when I edit and look for something that ties the themes together or even some phrase that encompasses the main idea of the story.
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Mar 19, 2014 23:58
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Re titles: don't sweat it too much. Publishers tend to veto author titles anyway, so it's only really a relevant skill in amateur (read: non paying) places like the dome. Well this is actually meant to be self published. It kind of makes me worry more.
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Mar 20, 2014 08:54
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DivisionPost posted:To add to this: I'm not just into crits because I want to be a better writer. Obviously I do, but what I really relish is the potential to have a conversation about whatever my reader sparks to. That goes for whether the critiques are positive or negative: I recently got feedback on a romance piece, and the reader thought my male lead was too much of a simpering, whiny douche. I don't think that the problem people have is simply to do with negative criticism. That's to be expected. When I've posted on other forums, I won't name names, the idea of the crit sections seems to be don't even discuss what it is that the person has said to you is wrong. You're to accept it and move on without any protest. That's not a back and forth. Another issue I've seen come up is people who seem to be out to just put others down for their writing rather than help them get better. Sure there might be a point where someone isn't cut out to be a writer, but I think this venue lends itself to people being overly insulting when dealing with others. It's funny to a point, but when it happens because the person is trying harder to be insulting or funny than they are trying to be truthful there's an issue. I haven't really had much crit experience here in either direction. But I can see how some people might view internet criticism that way.
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Mar 21, 2014 05:45
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sebmojo posted:Not discussing feedback you've received is an excellent rule imo. Mainly because you always feel like saying NO BUT DON'T YOU SEE and it actually doesn't matter. What your critter read is what they read and its up to you to either ignore their response (if it's pure vitriol, which is actually very rare in CC) or internalise it and learn whatever lessons it has to teach you. It's more that I had problems where the person was being very oblivious in an intentional seeming matter. For instance I remember one person told me on that same forum that when they read they treat every sentence like it has no context what so ever. Context is what makes ideas flow. It's why have paragraphs and the like for relate subjects. I know it's totally okay to ignore the idea a person has, but I feel like it's better to at least let them know for the sake of future reviews why it's an issue to be like that. Also there have been times where a person goes on about invalid points like someone cursing in a first person narrative. "You should never curse outside of quotation!" I feel like if we're really being gracious and accepting our critiques we should be able to teach the person doing the critique a little bit to help them better in their own work or in future critiques.
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Mar 21, 2014 07:45
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CommissarMega posted:
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Mar 21, 2014 07:58
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Why would anyone do this?
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CommissarMega posted:I think it all depends on the nature of the reply. If your response is reasonable, like say, "All right, but could you clarify what you meant when you said my dialogue was stilted?", I'm sure the resulting discussion would be very good for all involved. However, if your response is "GET OUT HATER! YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THE LOVE I SHARE WITH SEPHIROTH!", then you may have a problem. Every story I write is a thousand tiny love letters to Princess Peach.
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Mar 21, 2014 08:18
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I am thinking I might sit here and try and come up with alternate interpretations for the Four Horsemen because the Bible isn't as concrete on most of their names as we're led to believe. I don't know where people got this whole thing with Pestilence from, but that's not even close to what the text says.
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Mar 22, 2014 03:54
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:If you want to do something slightly different, consider other things which come in tetrads, then apply the attributes of those things to the Horsemen. The first thing which comes to my mind is the seasons, so discard that idea immediately because it's way too obvious. I think that I might do what you're saying here. I just need to come up with something that makes sense and fits the tone of the story. The seasons thing is really obvious, but already I am thinking of an idea that the outdated ideas from the four horsemen in the Bible were replaced with new ideas. I think I could come up with some really good ideas before I actually have to use them. CommissarMega posted:I know Chinese/Japanese culture has a "4 = Death" thing, because the words for each sound very alike; maybe you can have your Four Horsemen be inspired by that? Like, maybe Chinese generals or samurai etc. I also don't know the tone of what you're writing, CB_Tube_Knight, but you could also base your Horsemen on the Four Musketeers (including D'Artagnan), 4 jolly bros having wild apocalyptic adventures. If you're not going to do the latter though, please tell me because holy poo poo, now I want to do it. I kind of had this idea, except they were all women. But four bros of the Apocalypse.
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Mar 23, 2014 06:59
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PoshAlligator posted:Just somebody please do it. I feel like I am wasting the horsemen if I don't use them in something alone properly.
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Mar 23, 2014 23:10
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Axel Serenity posted:Any instance where the horsemen are not strolling through a Dark Souls-esque world high-fiving each other is wasting them. I think I kind of felt disappointed in the whole Good Omens thing in the end. I just finished it , as in today, after years of being told I had to read it and that it was so amazing. I have several friends who swear by it, but in the end I kind of just enjoyed some of the parts. The Dark Souls thing is probably too dark. I don't want to write about any place that awful. 3Romeo posted:just a random reminder not to confuse premise with story. I am pretty good about this. The last two things I've tried to write started out as a premise and grew from there. But I can tell when something is just a cool set up with no plot and take it from that by thinking of an interesting situation to go through. Green Crayons posted:Well, you're never going to use them in something properly if you just take a single stab at it. True, but I need to figure out what my horsemen are exactly before I do to much with what they do. The idea of different things that come in fours and what they represent is pretty interesting and I think I am going to play with that a little more. I actually had a short story collection about the four horsemen fighting these four regular women--I don't know what happened to that but I need to find it again.
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Mar 24, 2014 18:52
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This is probably going to get me a lot of poo poo, but after sitting down with Bioshock Infinite's final DLC last night I am thinking I'm going to go back and finish this fan fiction piece I had set in the game world because it had a lot of readers at a time and it was a promising project, but also because it couldn't hurt anything as long as I treat it like something I'm going to sell, but can't. I know the general consensus on fan fiction around here and I know I have a novel I'm working on, but I've been wanting to do this for a while and I don't think I'll just be able to let it go. I'm going to wrap it up nice and neat and edit it for a final posting.
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Mar 29, 2014 01:58
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blue squares posted:Stop writing the fanfic. Go work on your novel and don't stop again. When I was slogging through my first novel, I did stuff like this constantly. Anything to avoid working on that dreaded crap novel. I convinced myself it was a good idea. I googled 'when to give up on a novel.' But I didn't. I kept at it, even when I hated it. Stop procrastinating. Work on your book. Finish it. Thing is that I am not dreading work on the novel and I don't see the difference between stuff like this and what people do with the contests here and the like. Not everyone is going to have the same trouble splitting their time.
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Mar 29, 2014 03:36
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Sitting Here posted:So how can we the people of this fiction advice thread help you in your fan fiction endeavors, remains the question. I might post a bit of it. I kind of treat things like the person reading them doesn't know the back story. I feel like that's one of the big issues with tie in fiction and fan fiction is that there's a certain level of knowledge needed for you to even be able to pick up the thing and read it. I try and eliminate that within reason. So pretty much anyone can read the stuff and get it on some level. Oddly enough I have the opposite problem in my own writing because I forget that people can't see into my head. I end up having to go back and slip little details in here and there that weren't implied well or that read unclear (after I have someone else read over it). My main character is a Nephilim. Some people hear that and know instantly what I mean and what that entails. Others might never have picked a Bible up, so there's that to contend with and you want this stuff to be as accessible as possible to everyone. Since I grew up Catholic and had to learn a lot of Theology it can be hard for me to remember not everyone has that background.
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Mar 29, 2014 05:44
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Crisco Kid posted:Even knowing what they are, there are different interpretations of Nephilim. Like, are they gigantic hybrids, or fallen angels like in Madeline L'Engle's Many Waters from her Wrinkle In Time world? (Which is the first thing that pops into my head.) You'll still have to do some clarification. I might have to check out Many Waters. My Nephilim look more or less human and some of them have deformities and health problems. A select few take after their angelic parents. The world I write for is our world with everyone knowing about demons and angels. So Nephilim are well documented and known about.
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Mar 29, 2014 09:25
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You might not get a ton of critiques, but they tend to be of higher quality than most of the other sites I've been on.
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Mar 29, 2014 23:02
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The post with the genre information is kind of interesting. Thanks for that. I've had something of a tiny hiccup with my writing and got kind of depressed over unrelated things. I basically stopped writing for a week and finally picked it back up last night. The thing that I was tackling the last time that I asked anything was the question of what to do with the Four Horsemen. I think I'm going to try some kind of variation of the mother, maiden, crone thing--except I don't know what the make the fourth one. So I'm digging around some and hunting for that. My writing has slowed down a lot. I was doing over a K a day before and I struggled with 500 words just last night. But I think I know the direction I want to go in a little better after having a week of down time.
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Apr 1, 2014 22:16
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Axel Serenity posted:
They are already. This mother, maiden, crone thing is really a byproduct of me having distance from it. I have a hard time telling people that they have to write everyday no questions asked because sometimes distance helps. Jonked posted:Oh hey cool more talk about how you can't write, won't write, want to write, are going to write, and basically everything except giving or receiving actual advice on actual written fiction. Neat! I'll only do it if you make a post being a smart rear end.
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Apr 1, 2014 23:14
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Walamor posted:He might have been a little on the nose about it, but you do treat this thread kind of like a blog. Discussion or questions about writing is good and encouraged, so maybe try to phrase your comments in that way, rather than just an update on what you're doing. I brought up that I had figured out what I was going to do with the four horsemen. I asked a question about that before and someone mentioned some ideas. I don't see anything different with explaining where I was and then updating on the idea I decided on. What doesn't add to discussion is bitching about it. If the idea is bad or too common or good that's what the thread is for. Focusing on the part where I mentioned real life stuff just sounds like someone looking to be an rear end.
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Apr 2, 2014 23:21
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Stuporstar posted:Here is the problem people have with your posts: Well don't think it hasn't helped, that's not what I'm about to say at all. But there needs to be a clearer idea that what you're wanting to do here needs to be for the wider benefit of all and not just the kind of thing where people can bounce ideas off one another and the like. That's how I've been treating the thread because that's how most threads like this I've seen operate. I wasn't trying to be the selfish rear end in a top hat, but I wasn't going to ask questions about the things I didn't need help with or that I could easily Google search the answer for. I just won't bother unless I have an actual question about writing. But thanks for taking the time to say that in a manner that didn't read like you were trying to be so edgy. I didn't honestly know that the thread was for another thing. systran posted:Advice for Tube Knight: Worry way more about plot before you try to cram biblical symbolism and world building in. It's so easy to have a cool world and a tacked-on plot, I've done it in a 50,000 word novel. Oops! I kind of think that the best plots and world-building are the kind that link together and share close knit themes. It's always been a bother to read things where the plot doesn't seem to take into consideration the world they live in or vice versa.
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Apr 3, 2014 02:54
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