Fiction Writing: Advice and Discussion

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theworstname: Jun 9, 2011; Spider Robinson's posterior.

The perfect Human at (3:24) succinctly conveys some things to consider when making characters.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2013 02:32

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 01:56

theworstname: Jun 9, 2011; Spider Robinson's posterior.

The epigraph is a coat-hanger that you hang your story on. They are more for your (the writers) benefit than the readers.
Start with a epigraph, write your story or chapter down, and if you still think it is looking good after the final draft, leave it in.

Icon-Cat posted:

if you were writing a sci-fi story about a divided soul, or something.

Souls? In science-fiction? :colbert:

Souls are the domain of Science-Fiction's older hunchbacked brother Fantasy, and their beautiful but mildly retarded inbred offspring Science-Fantasy.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2013 10:04

theworstname: Jun 9, 2011; Spider Robinson's posterior.

STONE OF MADNESS posted:

A bold claim. I can think of quite a few SF titans who were obsessed with souls, or at the very least with their absence - if you're talking about latter-day writers who just like to sperg on about tech then maybe you have a point..?

If it is a science-fiction setting that treats souls as quantifiable, accountable stuff rather than just the ruminations of the characters I would argue that it is in fact science-fantasy.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2013 10:33

theworstname: Jun 9, 2011; Spider Robinson's posterior.

Runcible Cat posted:

I think you may be being a bit strict about your fictional science there; do you also consider anything involving FTL travel to be science fantasy?

That is a very good question. Yes, I do consider anything involving FTL as science-fantasy.

Mind, this is a strictly personal perspective.

theworstname fucked around with this message at 11:21 on Feb 5, 2013

# ¿ Feb 5, 2013 11:07

theworstname: Jun 9, 2011; Spider Robinson's posterior.

Philip K. Dick uses epigraphs quite effectively in his novel Ubik.
Sande Cohen and R. L. Rutsky go into some detail about it in Consumption in an Age of Information around page 33. :siren:

SPOILER

Martello posted:

Oh man, personal definitions of genres! I love this! Personally, I draw the line for Feminist Sci-Fi when any female characters are included in a sci-fi story. I once read a story that would be hard SF but there was a girl dog in it so it's Feminist Sci-Fi to me.

Touch�. Tiggum did make some interesting points though.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2013 10:35

theworstname: Jun 9, 2011; Spider Robinson's posterior.

Sitting Here posted:

I just wanted to say that because of this thread, I went and downloaded yWriter5. I don't know if the pay programs are any better, but I am amazed that I've been writing on computers for so long without using something like this. I like pretty much everything about it so far. It also runs on my lovely netbook. I can feel a productive streak coming on.

Question: How painstaking are you when developing the climate and geography of a non-earth world (thinking more fantasy here than literally other planets in this universe)? For example, I'm writing about people who live on an isthmus in an area that has a roughly Mediterranean climate, and since they're fishers and farmers I have to figure out what would live and grow in that area, and so on. And then what starts as a simple scene with a villager getting run down on a clam field by a guy on a horse turns into a bunch of research about whether there would even BE clam fields in an area like that, or whether they would need to dive for clams, or what. After a while it starts to feel like a pointless holdup.

The clam field is kind of a silly example. But you can only write "around" so much ignorance, so at what point do you guys give yourselves creative license to just say 'gently caress it, that's how this made up world works'?

I personally like stories that have that extra air of authenticity, but I find it hard to write to that standard for sheer lack of knowledge.

I only world-build as much as necessary for a story, otherwise a lot of time gets wasted on stuff that isn't relevant. The same applies to research.
I would use various tools to help accelerate the process if the purpose of a story demands a large amount of world-building.

This one time, I spent days trying to figure out if a protagonist could see his city of origin a long ways off from the top of a mountain.
Me and a friend banged our heads together and eventually came up with the following workable equation:

D = √H(2r+H)

D = distance
H = height
r = radius (planet)

Pretty neat, too bad readers don't care about exact distances.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2013 11:58

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 01:56

theworstname: Jun 9, 2011; Spider Robinson's posterior.

Phil Moscowitz posted:

Read a book.

This sort of advice frequently gets handed out around here, often with some measure of derision. I'm not sure if it's entirely helpful.
Yes it is necessary that one reads plenty of books from various genres, but more emphasise needs to be placed on the importance of critical reading skills.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2013 10:34

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