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Good poo poo, OP. On a long drive, so I'm just reserving this space to re-post my combat writing advice with some edits. I think it will be good to keep it on the first page. Here it is. Sorry this took me so long, everyone, and I still need to respond to some things in the old thread - I was in a military wedding on Saturday about four hours from where I live so I didn't have a whole lot of time for this sort of thing. I was able to do a saber arch which is pretty awesome, and I had the honor of being the last dude on the left who swats the bride on the rear end with the flat of the blade. ============================================================================== On writing combat scenes - I'm sure it's very possible to learn to write good ones despite never being in combat or receiving combat training, it just makes it much harder. I look at poo poo I wrote before I got into the Army, and I just shake my head at my own ignorance. Tips on Writing Military SF is a pretty good resource for general military tactics, and it applies to contemporary military fiction just as much. I disagree with some of the guys predictions for future military tech, but they're just predictions and we can't all be Nostradamus. Tom Clancy, for his flaws, absolutely knows how to write military combat scenes. Greg Rucka does great combat scenes. So does Stephen Coonts. These are writers to look at for examples of how to write combat. I'm going to split my own advice into two sections, since I'm saying a lot here. I by no means think I'm the highest authority on this poo poo. Hand-to-hand Now, I primarily write and read stories involving gun combat. For me, this tends to be easier to write. Hand-to-hand, especially "theatrical" martial arts, involves a lot of back-and-forth, and it's not very interesting to write or read. Something like this: quote:Kung Lao snap-kicked Shang Tsung in the side of the neck. The wizard took the blow and rolled with it to the right, coming back up with a lightning-fast serpent strike aimed at Lao's right armpit. Lao parried wit a ridgehand, and countered with a knee to the chest. Tsung grabbed the knee quicker than the monk could have ever expected, and spun, throwing his opponent to the ground. Lao rolled into a back somersault, avoiding Tsung's stomp kick. He rose back up to his feet and threw a middle-knuckle punch at Tsung's left temple. Tsung parried with his own knifehand, and... See how this starts to get boring and tedious? It'd probably look pretty awesome in a movie, but writing it takes forever and I don't find it interesting to read. You can condense that kind of scene, describing the general shape of the fight, punctuated by important or especially devastating or even just cool strikes and moves. quote:Kung Lao snap-kicked Shang Tsung in the side of the neck. The wizard took the blow and rolled with it. The two men went at it, a flurry of perfect kicks, serpent strikes, ridgehands and knuckle punches traded back and forth, blow for blow, parry for parry. At one point, Tsung gained the upper hand, using one of Lao's high-knees as an opportunity for a spinning single-leg takedown. Lao was able to avoid Tsung's follow-up stomp kick, and the two men were back at the elegant and deadly ballet. I find it much easier to write realistic brawling, where there really isn't a whole lot of back-and-forth striking and blocking bullshit. This includes MMA-type fighting. Describe a few punches and kicks here and there, then get into the grappling. Since grappling involves much bigger muscle movements, you're getting through more of the fight using less space and fewer words. I'll use one of my own characters for this example, some of you should recognize him. quote:Bronco stared at the drunk redneck with the neckbeard, waiting for him to throw the first punch. The neckbeard cooperated, swinging for Bronco's jaw with a big, obvious haymaker. Bronco took the punch on his right shoulder as he stooped, coming up with a right hammerfist to the neckbeard's sternum. The guy grunted like an angry hog, and reeled back into the bar. Bronco was on him, fast for his massive size, shoving the neckbeard up against the stained wood. Bronco grabbed his head and slammed it into the bar, three times. So Bronco just beat the poo poo out of two dudes in only a little more time than it took for Kung Lao and Shang Tsung to dance around and wave their limbs about like a couple of kung-fu pansies. You can strip this poo poo down even more, just describing the general sense of big, hard punches, a takedown here and a chair to the sternum there. There's also nothing wrong with just summarizing fight scenes. quote:The five jetheads sauntered across the room, cracking knuckles and twitching. Two of them had cheap knives, one had a baseball bat. Bronco and Gabe exchanged vicious smiles. It took a few minutes for the cousins to drop all five of them barehanded, and Bronco only got stabbed once. Gabe nursed a sore calf from a good solid bat swing, but the five druggies were going to need immediate medical attention. Bronco was pretty sure the guy he had thrown was dead, but the cousins didn't bother to stick around and confirm. Guns and realistic tactical combat I already gave some places to look for good tactical writing. Now for some of my opinions and advice on it. Depending on what kind of scene you're trying to write, you can either go fast and tight or slow and methodical. For any kind of close-range combat like room-clearing or house-to-house fighting, most of the tension comes from the speed and violence of action. Don't bother to go into too much detail of what everything looks like. Use quick visual flashes and short sentences to give the impression of lightning-fast, violent gunplay. This is something I wrote recently and I there is a separate thread for the whole story. It's longer than the stuff I put in the last post, and it also transitions from gunplay to hand-to-hand: quote:At the corner of the drug house, she took a knee, her FN assault rifle tight in her shoulder. Without looking at Bronco, she motioned with two fingers to the front door. Bronco slid past her, his Dearborn Valiant low and at the ready. He dropped to his own knee to the right side of the heavy steel fire door set into the blockhouse wall. Mathis gave the thumbs up, and he pulled the sticker charge out of his right cargo pocket. The square sheet unfolded with a quick snap of the wrist, and he placed it flat against the door just below the handle and maglock. With a quick swipe of his hand, he smoothed the charge and stuck it securely to the metal. He looked up at Mathis and nodded, then quick-stepped back around to her position, pulled tight up against that beautiful rear end. Hopefully this gives an idea of the kind of fast-paced, kinetic prose that looks good for a tactical combat scene. Going slow and methodical is good to build a different kind of tension, the waiting game between a sniper and his prey or a squad moving through a rural or even urban area and looking for contact. It works very well if you can describe the slow, tense movement from house to house or hill to hill, the protagonists just waiting for the first bullet to fly. Then transition into that fast, violent prose. Black Hawk Down is still among the best movies for realistic tactical combat. It's a great thing to watch before writing that kind of stuff. Haywire, which I just watched for the third time last night, has some very good small-unit urban combat poo poo, and uses very realistic explosions. That flat bang followed by a cloud of dust is about what C4 looks like when it goes off in real life. Only certain specific explosives go up in a huge loving fireball, and most of them have some kind of fuel in them. Grenades and any kind of demo charges most certainly do not create fireballs. If anyone has any specific questions on tactics or firearms, feel free to ask. You can PM me or just post here if you think it would be good information for everybody. Again, I don't claim to be the be-all, end-all for this kind of poo poo, but I've done it in real life and I know a little about writing it. Guns vs. Swords   Guns always beat swords, period. If you want to go the other way, make your story obviously unrealistic with fairies, unicorns, vampires and magical girls or whatever, and nobody will care. But don't try to come up with stupid, convoluted reasons why the protag always uses swords or other "melee weapons" - don't ever write those words together in fiction by the way - it will just make anyone who knows even the least bit about real combat roll their eyes and stop reading. A bullet will always move faster than a blade, and moving my trigger finger a quarter-inch will always be quicker than some dude trying to cover six feet or more of distance to stab me with his mastercrafted claymore. If any super-cool HEMAA or Japanese weapon art practitioners think swords are better and want to argue with me here, please do, I love ripping your poo poo apart. 
Martello fucked around with this message at 06:32 on Jan 26, 2013 |
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Jul 16, 2012 01:35
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Martello posted:Combat and poo poo Edited my placeholder post with the combat writing stuff from the old thread. If anyone has any questions or things they want me to elaborate on, let me know and I'll edit it in or just make another post.
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Jul 16, 2012 16:27
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What you just said isn't actually active vs passive voice. You were talking about tense, there. Active voice is "He hosed the dog." Passive is "The dog was hosed by him."
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Jul 16, 2012 17:14
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Someone asked me about sniper duels in the old thread. I posted one I wrote today in the Fiction Farm if anyone wants to check it out.
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Jul 22, 2012 06:36
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So everyone was talking about word oval office, and I posted that sniper duel thing over in Fiction Farm, and it was supposed to be exactly 563 because that's what Nautatrolus Rex specified in his OP, and then when I was talking to Nautatrolus privately, he was yelling at me cuz it was only 553. I felt very embarrassed and  but then I looked into it and realized Scrivener and Word do their word oval office differently and the problem was that Scrivener cunts hyphenated compound-words as two words in the word oval office, where Word cunts them as only one word for the word oval office. What do you guys think? Personally I'm not sure but I plan on using no hyphens and instead keeping the two words separate or putting them together in a portmanteau, because I want never again to have the wrong word oval office. We all know how important the Word oval office is.
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Jul 26, 2012 02:11
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squeegee posted:I'm not trying to write about an Everyman in that era or anything; I have well-defined characters that exist as their own entities who just happen to live in this time period. The story isn't about the era, it's about the characters-- but I do want to accurately represent their surroundings as much as possible. I also have a couple hundred pages of varying usability written for this project, so it's not that I'm not writing-- I just have some concerns that I feel I should address before I get any deeper into this thing. I guess what I am talking about is the sense of place (because time really is place, in a sense), similar to writing about a city you've never actually been to but have read about/seen movies about/etc. Someone who has actually lived there is likely to feel its lack of authenticity. Could you possibly be any more vague with this very specific question? Give some more details, post an excerpt. Give everybody something to work with. From the little I can pull out of your circumlocution, you're fretting that old folks will read yer story and be like, "that ain't how it was back in my day, gonna hunt that Window-Washing Implement guy down and beat his durn brains in with m'cane!" There are three (3) ways to handle this. 1. Don't worry about it and write your story as well as you know how. 2. Talk to (or read the work of) some of these geezers to get a sense of what it was like. Nautatrol already pretty much covered this. 3. Write a story set in a different period. Maybe if you can get less vague people can help you out more. Post an example of what you're worried about for comment. Something.
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Jul 26, 2012 20:43
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Yeah, you just put the pin back in like Ambiguatron said. I've done it with practice grenades before, but no way would I gently caress around like that with a real frag, unless if was actually necessary. I have to disagree that the M67 is what most people picture as a generic grenade. That honor would go to the Mk 2 "pineapple" grenade. The SA logo itself is a Mk 2. Martello fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Aug 1, 2012 |
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Aug 1, 2012 19:26
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:What's the best way to introduce characters who have well-used nicknames? I'm planning to have a group of soldiers in a short story. Like a few other people said, you can just stick to the nicknames and not worry about the real name. If it's the main character or the real name is somehow important, you can pretty easily throw that in there in a number of different ways. I've done it myself with my Bronco character. Sometimes I introduce him as Brady "Bronco" Halligan and then never mention his real first name again. Sometimes I don't even say anything about his real first name. You could also have the squad leader (or whatever) introduce the new guy to the squad like this: "This is Sergeant Sanchez, but we all just call her Brass. The big ugly fucker is Corporal Gainer, and over here we have Detroit. His real name is unpronounceable so don't worry about it." Something like that. Also, depending on what kind of soldiers these characters are, the nickname thing could become cheesy. Contrary to what Dr. Kloctopussy said, we really don't all have cool-guy nicknames in the regular Army. Usually everyone just goes by last name (and rank if appropriate) among the enlisted, and officers call each other by first names among peers and from superior to subordinate. Most nicknames are insulting, used to differentiate between two Smiths (Fat Smith and Texas Smith), or because the dude's last name is difficult to pronounce, like the example I wrote above. In my old platoon we had three Johnsons. We called them Big Johnson, Fat Johnson, and Little Johnson. Even after the other two Johnsons left, we still called the one dude Fat J. I also had a Forward Observer named SGT Blake, who we all called Ballsackface for some reason nobody could ever properly explain. If a dude's last name sounds like something funny, we change it so it's that funny word. For an example I coined last week during a field exercise, there was an engineer LT named Burdick attached to my battalion for the exercise. Naturally, I started calling him Bird-Dick, which quickly caught on. He was in charge of a few dozer teams, so that made him LT Bird-Dick of the Dildozers. So if these are just regular Infantry soldiers, try to more or less follow the examples I posted above and still use a lot of just last names and ranks. If they're Delta operators or something like that, then they probably do all have cool-guy nicknames, because they use those as callsigns on the radio. Modern Warfare 2 and 3 did a good job with that. Sandman, Peasant, Grinch, etc. Those all work for super-black-ops guys of all stripes. And yeah, to echo Kloctopussy and Tartarus Sauce, the example you quoted works for giving both the nickname and the real name. quote:I don't know which sandy vagina gave me this title (almost everyone has thanked me for my feedback), but I resisted the urge to make posts complaining about it. In all fairness, dude, I've definitely seen some crits from you that went something like "I didn't like this and the story didn't work NEXT" which isn't exactly helpful. I certainly poo poo on plenty of people but I try to actually point out the problems when I do it. Also, you're complaining about the avatar right now so that kinda defeats the whole "I didn't complain about it" thing. 
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Aug 3, 2012 15:38
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SkySteak posted:Is it bad that I feel a little put off given the recent drama? I don't know, between that massive blowup in that other thread and what Martello said about stories just being dismissed, I feel really put off about posting here. I know it's silly but I dunno, it just feels a bit worrying. Not to say critique is valueless of course but yeah. Dude. What are you talking about? Which blowup are you referring to? Who's dismissing stories? I said Stabbey sometimes gives lovely crits to the effect of "this story sucks," but I don't think that stories are generally being dismissed across the board. Even Stabbey gives good feedback when the spirit moves him or whatever. What do you mean by that last sentence? Critique is what we want here, I thought?
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Aug 5, 2012 06:04
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I should have posted this earlier - Stuporstar, Nautatrol Rx and I have started a new weekly fiction contest, Flash Fiction Thunderdome. It's going to be a no-holds-barred, minimal-rules type of thing, with an obvious concentration on short pieces. 
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Aug 5, 2012 23:12
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Maxwell, enter the Thunderdome instead of talking about zombie titles.
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Aug 7, 2012 00:44
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C'mon, don't be a scaredy-cat! How bad can the custom title be? Either way it'll be better than having nothing at all. it could be p. bad You're welcome for the combat advice stuff. Feel free to PM me or ask here if you ever have any other questions.
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Aug 8, 2012 16:04
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I was only trying to encourage him while lying about how bad the custom-title would be even though I told him the truth in spoilertext using the always witty "abbreviate pretty to p." thing. Please don't destroy my brain with your wicked fierce mental powers. 
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Aug 8, 2012 17:22
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That should work fine without even using dialogue tags at all. "Dude, remember that one time your mom -" "Shut the gently caress up."
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Aug 14, 2012 03:55
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Yeah I know it should be an em dash, but it looks stupid when it's -- typed out on here.
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Aug 14, 2012 04:00
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HiddenGecko posted:"Dan nabit, there's a piece o' silly putty on ma' shoe." (DON'T go overboard with this kind of word cutting, phonetic accents. Readers will get annoyed if they can't understand what your character is saying.) This brings up an interesting thing -- eye-dialect. Who loves it, who hates it, who has advice on when and how to use it? I've seen it used very well, a little in Cormac McCarthy's work, and a lot in Brian Azzarello's writing on 100 Bullets. But I've also seen it used badly, mostly in lovely amateur writing. I guess my idea would be to keep it legible above all.
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Aug 16, 2012 00:55
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Some people have recently posted decent futureslang in Thunderdome Week II. You prolly wouldn't know because I ain't seen yer yeller rear end in Thunderdome yet. 
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Aug 16, 2012 04:11
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It also helps if you've actually had sex yourself, preferably a lot. I'm not suggesting that anyone here hasn't (although I'm sure there are one or two), I'm just using the general "you." It's hard to write about something as complicated and intimate as sex without some experience of it beforehand. Otherwise it ends up going through the motions of a porno scene and in worst case you end up with "her breasts felt like bags of sand."
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Aug 28, 2012 17:16
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Tartarus Sauce posted:"luncheon-meat truncheon 
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Aug 29, 2012 11:04
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Brock Broner posted:I'm wondering if the following is enough to throw a huge chunk of potential readers off... Well, let's see, what does your sex scene look like... quote:Marc...Steph 
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Aug 29, 2012 22:47
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The frog part is awesome, but spelling Mark with a c and having a character named Steph kills it all for me. Although that's obviously just me being an awful dickhead. Martello fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Aug 30, 2012 |
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Aug 30, 2012 02:40
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In what world did you think that creating an artform that you hate would be a good career path to take? Nice new avatar, by the way. The hammer falls quick around here.
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Sep 9, 2012 05:21
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SkySteak posted:What's the point of having an Advice and Discussion thread if you're just going to tar and feather anyone who is actually asking advice or have a flaw that you personally have a petty gripe with? nervgulper or something posted:Hey, I really hate naked people and am revolted by the idea of sex! The smell of vagina and the sight of my own penis make me literally sick to my stomach! That's basically what he posted, but about fiction writing.
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Sep 9, 2012 06:03
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Book recommendations! Great idea.Dr. Kloctopussy posted:One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: modern classic about inmates in a mental institution, narrator is insane, villain is an emasculating bitch of a nurse. I have One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest on my Sony Reader and I shamefully haven't read it yet. The Road is one of my favorites, and my introduction to Cormac McCarthy. Soul-crushing, but less so than Blood Meridian and absolutely fantastic quote:Ender's Game: Sci-Fi about a genius kid sent to battle school, my first literary crush <3. Another great choice. Everyone, please ignore all the SJW goons plaguing these forums who go on about Orson Scott Card being a misogynist or whatever the evil flavor of the week is. He might be that and other things, I don't know, but he writes really awesome stories so who the gently caress cares? I hate everything that comes from the mouths of most actors, and it doesn't stop me from watching their films if they're good. quote:Game of Thrones: Epic fantasy dealing more with political intrigue than magic. gently caress yes. I don't think I even need to say anything else about this, except to be aware that the entire series is called A Song of Ice and Fire, and Game of Thrones is only the first book. Also, contrary to the goon hivemind, A Dance with Dragons is just as good as the first four books. People who don't like these books are pussies who can't stick it for the long haul of a true fantasy epic. quote:The Picture of Dorian Grey: Stolen tagline from Amazon, "Celebrated novel traces the moral degeneration of a handsome young Londoner from an innocent fop into a cruel and reckless pursuer of pleasure." I need to read this. Not having read it makes me a shameful English major. quote:Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep: basis for the movie Blade Runner, but somehow completely different from the movie. Completely different and completely awesome. I prefer the movie overall, though. I don't know if anyone can tell but I have a huge hardon for cyberpunk.   quote:Oryx and Crake: Post-apocalyptic fiction. Will have to check this out. I also love post-apocalyptic poo poo. We need smilies for that and cyberpunk by the way. quote:The Big Sleep: Hard-boiled detective novel, real literature. Unff. Seriously, read anything by Raymond Chandler. The Little Sister and The High Window are also great choices. He's one of my biggest literary influences along with William Gibson. quote:Perdito Street Station: Sci-fi that invents the most insane world that you could never have imagined yourself and has no spaceships. I've heard this is great, and I'll have to load it into my new Kindle for this gay training rotation starting this weekend. By the way, it's Perdido. quote:The Lord of the Rings: The father of 90% of modern epic fantasy for a reason. Just gonna second both of these recs. sebmojo posted:Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. I haven't read Calvino since my Alternative Fiction class at Broome Community College back in 2003. loving great poo poo. Do yourself a favor and read it. Seldom Posts posted:Finally Moby Dick. Because if you like the English language, you should read it: I hated Moby Dick in college. Maybe I better try reading it again, but I think it might just be awful. So many pages about whales. Benagain posted:stuff about Parker novels I just bought The Hunter, which is the first book in the series. Only 4 bones for my Kindle!  Also, Darwyn Cooke has been adapting the Parker novels to comic book form and they're apparently really awesome. I guess I could pick up the Parker: The Hunter hardcover this week so I have something with words AND pictures to read out in the Mojave.As for my own additional recommendations, I'll start with some fun-to-read, non-literary genre fiction. The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher These books aren't great, but they're fun quick reads and a good example of how you can throw a bunch of tired urban fantasy tropes into a blender and come out with a smoothie that actually tastes pretty good, although it's not very nutritious. Do read them in order, because the series builds quite a bit. I'm on the sixth book and took a break for a while, but I'll get back to the series eventually. Sandman Slim series by Richard Kadrey I just started reading the first and eponymous novel in the series, and I like it a lot. It's urban fantasy of the same flavor as the Dresden books, but better written and with a better protagonist. At least, I like Stark better, but that's probably because I identify better with violent borderline sociopath assholes than self-hating depressive personalities. Also, angels and demons are cooler than fairies and all that other poo poo. Still has vampires and werewolves though, which is fine by me. Another awesome thing about the Sandman Slim books is that Kadrey is a tattooed badass irl, whereas Jim Butcher looks like a stereotypical D&D DM. I mean, seriously, whose writing would you rather read?   Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse This is a post-apocalyptic fiction anthology that I just got based on a Book Barn recommendation. I've read "Salvage" by Orson Scott Card and "The People of Sand and Slag" by Paolo Bacigalupi. Both are very good. "Salvage" is about Mormons in post-nuclear America, and has some similarities to Walter Miller's Leibowitz novels. Since people have been writing a lot of post-apocalyptic and dystopian stuff, this is a good anthology to look at for inspiration. A Canticle for Leibowitz and Saint Leibowitz & the Wild Horse Woman by Walter M. Miller Moving into genre fiction that is also very much literary fiction, these two books are pretty much the gold-standard for post-apocalyptic novels. Canticle is much more well-known and acclaimed, but I personally like Wild Horse Woman better. The first novel is in three parts, both separated by hundreds of years, whereas the second is one continuous narrative with a single protagonist. Miller's post-nuclear society and geography is incredibly detailed and well-realized, and he also gets into some very cool linguistics stuff. The basic synopsis is, "atomic war devastates the world, the American Catholic Church becomes the dominant force on the continent." If you like post-apoc poo poo, read these loving books. This post is long enough so I'll come up with other recs later and put them here. SkySteak posted:I am just curious but when you say 'military history buff' do you just have a general interest, regardless of type or period, or is there something specific you enjoy focusing on? I'm generally interested in military history for personal as well as professional reasons. I focus on modern military history/science back to WWII, as well as Europe in most of the Middle Ages, and Tokugawa Japan. I have a decent overall understanding of global mil-history, so it's easy for me to research a specific thing and understand the context.
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Sep 10, 2012 17:04
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sebmojo posted:edit: Oh and Martello - what did you think of the redditor who got all Clancey over sending a Marine battalion back to Augustan Rome? Read pretty well to me, and my skimpy classical education didn't register any major clangers, but it seems your literary MOS. It wasn't bad, but the dude's clearly not an actual Soldier (or Marine). I like his narrative style, it's similar to what you'd read in a book like Black Hawk Down. The bit where COL Nelson makes the "above my paygrade" joke is funny, but why would he say that? He's the Commandant of the Marine Corps now, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of Defense, hell, the loving President of the United States. I'm pretty sure any self-respecting O6 would absolutely leap at the chance to be the highest man on the totem pole with no oversight whatsoever. When he says "A SAW is locked and loaded - .50 caliber bullets." I actually physically cringed. gently caress, dude, Wikipedia is right there! Press ctrl+t and put it in your browser bar! Then type in "Squad Automatic Weapon," or even just "SAW" and find the goddamn disambiguation page. loving people who can't even research the easiest loving military tech poo poo.   I'm wondering what kind of a position this SGT McCandless is in charge of. If it's just a fireteam or a squad, I can buy it, but it kinda seems like it might be a bigger OP (observation post) or a strongpoint on the camp wall. There would likely be a Staff Sergeant or even a Lieutenant somewhere nearby, and McCandless would sure as gently caress send for them as soon as the Romans entered his position's line of sight. Anyway I'll stop sperging on about this poo poo. It's overall a decent read but needs some military adviser help. Black Griffon posted:I think my favorite part of that is this guy. That dude's an idiot. He's a loving GRUNT, and he doesn't even know what the word means. Marine infantrymen always refer to themselves as grunts, so I'm not sure where he's getting the "ground unit untrained" thing. Maybe that's the Vietnam origin, but it doesn't mean that now. I love how he starts by saying "gaiz I'm a former Marine machine gunner" as if that makes him a tactical and military science genius. You know what machine gunners do? Whatever the gently caress the weapons squad leader tells them to. The machine gunner is a dude who carries a big heavy gun, and lies down in the prone exactly where the squad leader tells him to, and then is given a left and right limit, and "shoot everything in that cone of fire." Also, a bunch of people called him out on the reddit, but no loving way does your average Marine carry 300 pounds for 25 miles. One of the other posters said it, that "Marines are known for hyperbole." loving a-right. Unless maybe he means 300 pounds is the average total weight of a combat-loaded Marine, including the jarhead himself. That would be closer to accurate. His claims that they're "physically AND MENTALLY tough" is fine and all, but nobody is trained to be dropped thousands of years in the past with no contact with friends and family. I call bullshit on the vast majority of Marines (or my Soldiers) feeling just fine about that. Prufrock451 was right to give his Marines fraying nerves and so on. He still got a few things right, though. Marines would go for an eternity without showering, no problem at all. They'd probably also just use iodine tablets to purify water like he said, instead of wasting fuel to boil the water. Using an MRE for 4 days...well, you could do that if you don't want any energy. If you're moving long distances on foot you need that muscle fuel. At Ranger School they only give us 2 MREs a day and that's not nearly enough.
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Sep 11, 2012 16:52
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No, I still can. I'm always on active duty, I'm just going to a month-long training rotation. I'll have limited internet access out there but if you send me a PM I'll either respond when I get the chance or get back to you when I return in October. Martello fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Sep 13, 2012 |
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Sep 13, 2012 00:44
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I'll put this here since the thread moved on: For a concealable but hard-hitting pistol, there're plenty of options. What kind of guy is the character? Where is he from? Is he a guy who would only buy American, or would he be all about buying something cool and Austrian? Use cars as an analog - would he drive a big tricked-out Ford F250 Super Duty or a Space Gray BMW M3? If you can give me some details on him (or her) I might be able to make a more appropriate recommendation. And like Muffin said, is this a period piece or modern-day?
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Sep 13, 2012 00:48
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Okay, that helps, but what's his firearms experience? Plenty of civilians are gun nuts, like I will be when I eventually get out of the Army. If he knows what he's doing with a gun, that will also change his choice. There's also budget to consider. Handgun prices vary wildly across brands, models and calibers. I know this sounds like a lot to go into what you'd think is just a simple prop, but it's my belief that your characters should consider the purchase of something expensive - and especially something expensive and deadly - as much as a real live human being would. If he does know a lot about guns, has shot them quite a bit or even just a few different makes and models, and especially if he reads Guns & Weapons for Law Enforcement or Guns & Ammo, he might quite likely be brand-loyal as gently caress. On a side note, do the rest of you guys think I should start a thread just for talking about military/guns/weapons/combat in writing?
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Sep 13, 2012 00:54
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SkySteak posted:Limited but not non existent. His father used to own a few pistols and shotguns. I'd imagine this guy would be the sort who would not be totally clueless but would on the side of buying something fancy; if on the side of purchasing something above his needs. The sort of who, when buys something goes for all the smitten and deluxe options. As said, I'd say upper middle class but not a mansion owning CEO or anything. Have him buy some kind of Kimber Custom 1911 compact model. Kimber is "the" custom 1911 company, and the Colt 1911 is "the" tough-guy AMERICAN pistol. .45 ACP round will kill pretty much anything, especially with the right expanding bullet. Take a look at these little guys. This is the Kimber Carry line, specially made for concealed carry (duh). The Ultra, Ultra HD and Ultra + are the ones you want. All three sound pretty cool, so that's also a plus. "Bobby reached into his duffel coat and pulled out his Kimber Ultra HD." Or summat. You can really just look up "compact 1911" on Google and use whatever cool gun catches yer eye.
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Sep 13, 2012 01:29
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Colt 1911 custom job with rosewood grips and chrome finish. Chevelle SS, red with black racing stripes. Nobody uses Peacemakers anymore, haven't for a hundred years or so, and none of you guys even really know what they are anyway. If he wants a cowboy gun give him a Ruger Super Blackhawk. I might start boycotting HTC now that I know Ruger isn't already a known autocorrect word and I had to teach it to the phone. HTC clearly hates America, freedom, and the freedom and safety of American children.  E: oh and Benegain - thanks for the Parker novel rec, dude(ette?). I finally started reading The Hunter last night and it's loving awesome. Gonna be writing up a storm when I finally get home and back to my Das Ultimate S. Martello fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Oct 14, 2012 |
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Oct 14, 2012 19:54
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I really wish I could just emptyquote CB Tube Knight, because that sums up exactly how I feel about not using quotation marks. McCarthy is one of my favorite authors, he's a pioneer and a genius and a virtuoso, and it's still loving stupid that he doesn't use quotation marks. Try not using any punctuation at all or no capitals or printing your story in white text on black paper if you really need to be Special. Or don't do any of those things and write using standard conventions so people know what the gently caress is going on in the story and aren't distracted by your pretentious attempt to be "literary." If quotation marks are a "visual hurdle" then I don't even know what to say to you.
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Oct 16, 2012 18:30
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Molly Bloom said it was a visual hurdle. I was addressing anyone who thinks Special Literary Writing Rules are a good idea.
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Oct 16, 2012 18:50
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I Am Hydrogen posted:I like your ideas. Is it okay if I use them? I really touched a nerve here apparently. I never said they were a visual hurdle. I asked a question and got some feedback. Ok, I'm being a dick and not very helpful. How about this - post a no-quotations or whatever short in Fiction Farm, and people will tell you what they think of it. I will be one of those people.
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Oct 16, 2012 19:05
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squeegee posted:*I know women are 50% of the population and plenty writers are women, but as a woman there is nothing that makes me roll my eyes harder than a story written by a man where the female character thinks about or examines her breasts. We really don't feel ourselves up constantly or think about ourselves as "a perky A cup" or whatever, hence my mention of this category. I dunno, I know plenty of women who talk about their breasts often, and persumably think about them often too. Chillmatic posted:I think that for every time a woman author sees this happen, her next story should include a male character who, for no reason whatsoever, has to size up his penis during his opening scene- and finds it to be woefully inadequate. Just like I know plenty of dudes who discuss their dick size frequently, be it larger or smaller than average. A good friend of mine used to pull it out to drunk-piss in the middle of the street and shout to the sky, "Why is it so small? Why, God, why?" No poo poo. My point is, just because we and our friends "don't do" certain things, especially involving sex for whatever reason, doesn't mean it doesn't happen and can't be written about.
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Oct 19, 2012 05:06
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Yeah I didn't mean that you should just bring this poo poo up for no narrative reason. But sometimes there is one. Like if you want a character to be the kinda guy who pulls his dick out and loudly laments his size. You know what I mean? People tend to leave sex and sex talk out of writing because they don't want to write "erotica," yet sex is a pretty loving common topic between humans of both genders, be it around a water cooler or while cleaning weapons or whatever. I know you and I have had the "realistic dialogue" conversation before, but this is one of those things that's always a pet peeve of mine. Saving Private Ryan has that seen where Ed Burns is telling the story about the busty woman at his mother's seamstress shop. It has nothing to do with the actual storyline, but it gives a glimpse into Reiben's past, personality, and it's very much the kind of thing we soldiers talk about during those boring lulls in combat. 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. Martello fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Oct 19, 2012 |
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Oct 19, 2012 05:57
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The lesbian thing is a very good question for me, since I'm working on a story with a lesbian protagonist in first-person. I kinda made her a dude with tits and a vagina, which is probably not right, but all my female beta-readers have liked it. These are not the usual friends and family members who say "ooh I love anything you write," but rather judgmental and surly younger sisters and female friends who would love to tell me I suck. Anyway I probably hosed it up a lot despite all the research I did into lesbian slang and society before I wrote it. I'll be posting rewrites of it in the October Writing Pledge thread if anyone wants to come in there and tell me it's awful. Anyway, yeah, writing about sex parts or sexy parts jeez when there ain't no sex happening is tough and needs to be approached properly. VVV: Fixed, hopefully. Martello fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Oct 19, 2012 |
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Oct 19, 2012 17:05
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CB_Tube_Knight posted:They're still a very common erogenous zone and women do sometimes make a big deal about their own breasts. It's true that there are too many stories out there where men write women as if they're fascinated with their breasts. I agree with pretty much all of this. We need to be careful not to swing the pendulum so far away from what might be perceived as creepy and sexist to the point where our characters are bland and sexless. Sometimes the shape of a woman's -- or a man's -- body is important to their character and the things that happen to them in a story, just like it might be in real life. For example, one of the main characters I write about, Bronco, is a huge meathead who wanted even more muscle mass and so got muscle grafts on top of what he already had from lifting. This is set in the 2030s so such things are possible. He also has a huge dick. Both of those things are important to his character, as they would be in real life. A huge dude is going to get different reactions from pretty much everybody of either sex than a skinny little guy will. Certain women will be much more attracted to him, and some others will be disgusted. Having a huge dick goes the same way once he gets to bed with them. I know it sounds ridiculous, but these are real problems that real people face. Some women just don't want a guy that's hung like a horse (thus "Bronco") and it can cause issues in bed. I understand that not everyone would want to read about or write a story like that, but to me that's the way life is and I want to represent that in my writing. And what if a female character is going after Bronco (for example), but she's a very slim athletic type? Does he just say that he's not attracted to her and leave it at that, or is it important for the reader to know that he likes very curvy women and that's why he isn't into her? I think it is. It shows what kind of guy he is, for better or worse. However, A Clash of Kings is an awesome book.
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Oct 20, 2012 16:01
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The new thread title owns.
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Oct 25, 2012 00:12
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Novum posted:Yikes, no kidding. I'll step back for now and just keep doing writing exercises on my own like I've been doing so far. F'real, post in Thunderdome. Week XIII just closed to submissions, but XIV will be opening sometime tomorrow. We're pretty brutal there but if you suck balls and don't know how to write we'll just tell you that instead of telling you to  right away. Don't wait, just post a story in there. The worst that can happen is you get a really awesome avatar.  However, dude, Chillmatic is right - your first post made you look like a giant douche. If you can try again by just posting something in Fiction Farm or Thunderdome or whatever, and check your self-deprecating bullshit at the door, you'll get some serious feedback. Just make sure your story isn't absolute literary poo poo, like sebmojo said. Soulless Body, post something erotic in Thunderdome. See what happens.
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Nov 5, 2012 03:59
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:I want to make a chickencheese but I'm physically disgusted by both chicken and cheese. CC, how do I become an overnight Chickencheese sensation? How do I make ultimate CCCC? I suddenly feel like buying you a doganusatar.
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Nov 28, 2012 04:37
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