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How the hell do you not quit writing over and over again, after getting about 5k-10k words into a story? It's a habit I cannot kick and it's frustrating.
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Aug 30, 2014 04:41
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 04:30 |
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What's a good place to seek crit if I don't wanna do Thunderdome.
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Nov 7, 2014 18:27
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I dunno where else to put this, but what's the general attitude towards telling a story in present tense? I seem to have an easier time writing in the present tense, but I've not seen a great many works (esp. speculative fiction works) that do it.
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Nov 9, 2014 18:53
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Not so much fantasy, I take it?
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Nov 9, 2014 20:31
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I think I'm sticking with present tense, mostly because I enjoy writing in it a lot more than in past tense and poo poo, if I'm not happy with my work, what's the point? I do have a serious question: where do I find people to give me decent crit, because my friends are great but I rarely get the sort of feedback I want from them and also, getting a thorough analysis is very hard. I've posted in the snippets thread here, but nobody's bitten, so far.
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Nov 10, 2014 19:46
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I'm willing to give it a try, I'm just afraid of my very first entry losing. 
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Nov 10, 2014 20:08
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sebmojo posted:It's a $5 bet that your writing is as good as you think it is. What if I hate my writing and think it's poo poo?  I signed up and toxx'd myself.
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Nov 11, 2014 16:09
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:I'll admit Save the Cat is a bit cliche (and the creator's greatest credit is Stop! Or My Mother Will Shoot!) but it still works pretty well as a loose outline of when stuff should happen in a normal book or screenplay. This is amazing, thank you. It'll definitely help my outlining.
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Jan 23, 2015 17:38
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Obviously, sticking rigidly to the word counts Save The Cat gives you is silly, but it's really helpful to have the beats of a three-act structure laid out like that.  I've read McKee's Story and I found it more helpful and involved, too, but it's easier to pull up the beat sheet than go hunting for my copy of Story. There's nothing wrong with following a structure that's known to work. Not everyone wants to be innovative and trailblazing. I just want to tell coherent stories people will enjoy. Also, my mother had a copy of the The Artist's Way and it's ... it's a bit on the New Age, mindful hippie side but if you can deal with that, it's good. Though I honestly don't think being creative can be taught. You either are or you aren't. painted bird fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Jan 24, 2015 |
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Jan 24, 2015 16:42
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I don't think structure was the problem with The Imitation Game. The problem with The Imitation Game was making a movie about a prominent gay figure and focusing it on a heterosexual romance he had once. I don't think Save The Cat presents anything more rigid or formulaic than the basic three-act structure. Again, I'm not advocating following it off a cliff, I'm just saying that having a thing that says "you [can] introduce the B plot at the start of Act II" is a helpful reminder for when I'm outlining and I'm stuck on what happens in the middle of the story. painted bird fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Jan 24, 2015 |
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Jan 24, 2015 18:20
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General Battuta: I respect that you're a published author and I'm a nobody who hasn't ever finished a project, but I also think you're attributing the shittiness of Hollywood blockbusters to the wrong thing. It isn't a formulaic structure that's the problem, it's the total lack of original ideas draped on the formula.
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Jan 24, 2015 18:31
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I'd be interested in a general thread for project toxxes. Or doing it here. Either way, it sounds like a good idea.
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Jan 26, 2015 19:24
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EDIT: never mind! Looks like it's not gonna be an issue.
painted bird fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Jan 26, 2015 |
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Jan 26, 2015 20:53
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Can I toxx myself even though I'm working on a comic and not prose? Or should I take that to the comic making thread.
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Jan 27, 2015 04:27
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After a lot of angsting about whether I want to do visual art or writing, I've decided to stop waffling and do writing and also toxx myself. I have a novel in the works. I've written no actual words of it. The goal wordcount is 100k (it's fantasy). I'm  ing myself to have the first draft done by March 31.
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Jan 27, 2015 22:17
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Yeah, I know it'll probably be trash. The goal is to get it done so I stop waffling and stalling. I have a question: if I'm writing fantasy, how much of a turn-off would the use of nonstandard (i.e. made up fantasy) pronouns be? There's a culture that figures significantly that uses neutral pronouns for their children and I was wondering if I should go all-out with that and use the neutral pronoun in narration or not.
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Jan 29, 2015 13:09
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I've thought about using singular they and that does appeal, but I think I'll stick with binary pronouns after all, even though I'm a little disappointed. The bigger problem is the character who comes to realise they're uncomfortable with both male and female pronouns, but they don't turn up until later in the series, so I'll deal with them later.
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Jan 29, 2015 14:38
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I'm back in the TD IRC and I'm curious to see this.
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Mar 1, 2015 14:47
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TheGreekOwl: are you by any chance ESL? Some of your sentences are constructed oddly. Your general style is stiff and formal and kind of clunky. Your dialogue is stilted, unnatural and doesn't flow. Your characters declaim lines, they do not speak from the heart. And you've got a huge loving mess of fantasy words and concepts that obscures information. I know you're using Greek, not a conlang, but I think the principles of using a conlang apply here, too: use sparingly, for flavour or when a translation would be inadequate. You've got way too many weird, unfamiliar words here. TheGreekOwl posted:Because I want to. Let's rephrase: what can you do with gryphons that you can't do with humans, that is key to the story you're trying to tell?
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Apr 5, 2015 16:15
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TheGreekOwl posted:If we dont count Pontic Greek, then yes, English is my second language, my first one being Modern Greek. I should mention that a lot of what I write is first written in Modern Greek, then translated into English. Stop doing that and write it in English from the start. That should eliminate at least some issues with your writing, I think - including some very odd turns of phrase and clunky syntax. Translation adds a layer of complexity most writers can't handle, it requires a skillset that's different from just straight-up writing poo poo. TheGreekOwl posted:For the second part, thats a good point, I shouldnt expect everybody to understand Greek phrases, however rudrimentry, without providing context atleast. As for the flow or the naturality of it... thats going to be tricky. Read what you write aloud and see how it flows. If it flows like cement, well, scrap it and rewrite it. Keep doing this until you've got something that you can get your tongue around. It might take a while. You might want to start reading poetry to develop an ear for rhythm, flow and general linguistic aesthetics. TheGreekOwl posted:Beyond physical characteristics (gryphon fly, etc), its simply for the purposes of the plot. They are hunting somebody, its unlike anything they have seen, it goes from there. You can ignore this for the purpose of the dialogue if you want to, but I can elaborate further. Okay, that's fair and all I wanted to know. I think you'd benefit a lot from reading Limyaael's Fantasy Rants. There's a lot of them, so i picked out some that look like they might be relevant to your concept, some that deal with areas you seem to be struggling with and some that are just good articles most speculative fiction authors should pay attention to. I included a lot of the ones on world-building because that is, hands down, the hardest part of speculative fiction. Building Fantasy Worlds Planning & World-Building Casual World-Building World-Building Through Writing World-Building Through Layering Alien Species & Worlds Avoiding Gimmick Worlds Non-Human-Centric Worlds Creating Languages, Part 4: World-Building Reluctant Heroes Army Rant Death & Weapons
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Apr 5, 2015 17:31
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I seemed to recall your gryphon commander fell into that archetype, but clearly I recalled wrong! My bad.
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Apr 5, 2015 21:37
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Can you sync with Dropbox on the Windows version of Scrivener, bc I can't find the option.
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May 2, 2015 07:18
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If you're like me and can't stand Hemingway and his glaring problems with women but want to study that sparse type of style, read Camus's The Outsider instead. (Personally, I cannot stand the vast majority of the American literary canon. If you're like me, don't worry! Just read European and Russian poo poo instead.) I'd argue the likes of Ursula K. Le Guin are on par with what normally gets touted as "literature", but it's harder to find and identify spec fiction authors like that, because SFF readers have no taste and a lot of our "classics" are utter dreck. But there are plenty of worthwhile authors in SFF, you just have to know where to look. crabrock posted:Evelyn Waugh is one of my favorite old timer authors. Both brideshead revisited and a handful of dust are great, accessible novels that give you some classic cred. I find Waugh's views morally repulsive, though.  I'd rather read books that don't make me feel like I'm pondscum. (Also, he was a dick to Auden and Isherwood, who are my favourite old-timer authors, so gently caress him.)
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May 30, 2015 21:11
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I'm a huge fan of SFF and I dislike reducing it to "genre fiction", but the amount of dreck honestly depresses me. EDIT: Also, I write fantasy, so I'm not just being a snob!
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May 31, 2015 03:26
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ravenkult posted:I wanna hear more about Stephen King's ''weird sex issues.'' Do we really need to elaborate when he wrote that one loving scene in It.
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May 31, 2015 12:04
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Seriously, I write talky slice-of-life poo poo about transgender characters in a gaslamp fantasy setting based on eastern europe and I have an audience. I'm not doing traditional self-publishing (I'm serialising the story on a model similar to the webcomic model) but still. There's an audience out there for anything.
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Jun 2, 2015 19:00
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Hey, I posted a thread looking for crit, if people would be so kind?
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Jun 3, 2015 17:38
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Speaking of feedback. I'm still looking for crits.
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Jun 11, 2015 13:47
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General Battuta posted:When you log line/elevator pitch your story, tell me who the protagonist is, what they want, and why they can't get it. Or something else that gets at the conflict of the story. Is an elevator pitch necessary when I'm just asking for crits? 
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Jun 11, 2015 14:47
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I didn't think I had to do an elevator pitch if I was asking for crits, so I didn't bother. EDIT: All right, elevator pitch added. painted bird fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Jun 11, 2015 |
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Jun 11, 2015 15:04
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blue squares posted:The minute I read that, I had a good suspicion that it would be bad. Because if the most important thing you can think of to tell a potential reader is the setting, your story is boring. It'd be helpful if you actually gave crit, if you think my writing is bad. If you don't want to, that's okay, you don't have to. But making PA comments like this and then shitposting in my gdoc is just crass, IMO. General Battuta posted:That's awesome! Much stronger. Okay, rad! Thank you for the advice. 
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Jun 11, 2015 16:58
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I really appreciate the parts of this post that are useful feedback, but also a good chunk of it looks like my brain off antipsychotics and it's making me laugh really hard. I read some articles on this elevator pitch business, came up with a logline and reworked my pitch and I'd like feedback on this poo poo, please! Logline posted:In a brutal empire, former necromancers flee a bounty hunter. Elevator pitch posted:Two former death cultists and necromancers arrive in a city languishing under a colonial regime, fleeing a brutal bounty hunter who wants more than just their lives. The Menelik twins -- beautiful, bewitching Anzu and his wry, one-eyed sister Siris -- are changelings, descendants of a mortal man and an immortal shoggot. There are many uses for such a creature's Flesh and Spirit. The twins' dark past has marked them out as undesirables, beyond the protection of the law and unlikely to be missed should they be harvested. The bounty hunter is merciless, relentless and almost mythic in reputation. Amid the political tumult of the sweltering city, what hope do they have against him?
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Jun 12, 2015 16:56
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The hunter wants to incapacitate the twins and sell them to people who'll render their bodies and souls down to their magical and biological components, but I'm not sure how to snappily word that. Also, I'm sorry for being snide at you earlier, I was in a bad mood and I have some trouble with understanding what's a joke and what's an attack on me. EDIT: Is "affection" too vague? How do I make it clear it's a romantic thing? If it were a straight relationship, that'd be easy and I think "affection" would do, but people tend to interpret gay poo poo as ~just good friends~ way more often. painted bird fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Jun 12, 2015 |
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Jun 12, 2015 17:10
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Thank you! I'm glad, because writing gay romance without coming off like third-rate fanfiction is pretty hard. Still, the gay romance is part of the hook of the story and I'd like to make it clear in the elevator pitch.
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Jun 12, 2015 18:10
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Why do you think I'm trolling? 
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Jun 12, 2015 18:44
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I'm self-publishing (on a model based on how webcomics are published online), so this is more "blurb" than "query letter". In case that clears up some things and makes my aims clearer. Still, there's probably no need to withhold key plot points that are not supposed to be plot twists. Anyway. The actual pitch. Two versions, one with the romance B-plot woven in and one that doesn't mention it at all: version one posted:The Menelik twins are former necromancers, fleeing a bounty hunter who has pursued them across half a continent. He has cornered them in Wurmwald, a city languishing under a brutal colonial regime. The twins -- beautiful, bewitching Anzu and his wry, irreverent sister Siris -- are changelings, descendants of a mortal man and an immortal shoggot. Their Flesh and Spirit are valuable magical components, priceless to any alchemist unscrupulous enough to make use of them. The twins' dark past has marked them out as outcasts, beyond the protection of the law and unlikely to be missed should they be harvested. The bounty hunter is merciless, relentless and almost mythic in reputation, with a coterie of frightful spirits in his command. With help from neither the powers that be nor the witches and sorcerers of the land, the twins have little chance of escaping him. version two posted:The Menelik twins are former necromancers, fleeing a bounty hunter who has pursued them across half a continent. He has cornered them in Wurmwald, a city languishing under a brutal colonial regime. The twins are changelings, descendants of a mortal man and an immortal shoggot. Their Flesh and Spirit are valuable magical components, priceless to any alchemist unscrupulous enough to make use of them. The twins' dark past has marked them out as outcasts, beyond the protection of the law and unlikely to be missed should they be harvested. The bounty hunter is merciless, relentless and almost mythic in reputation, with a coterie of frightful spirits in his command. With help from neither the powers that be nor the witches and sorcerers of the land, the twins have little chance of escaping him.
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Jun 12, 2015 19:48
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It's cool, my current, stable for a month and a half dose of Concerta still makes me feral sometimes, so I know what stimulants can be like. I appreciate the feedback! "Languid" is in there as a nod towards very old-timey queer-coding (we're talking like, Victorian era), but I might just be being an unnecessary show-off.
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Jun 13, 2015 09:00
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sebmojo posted:A quick and dirty method (stolen from GMing roleplaying games) is to assign characters from films to your characters. So like that bartender is Harvey Keitel in Reservoir Dogs, and the barmaid is, poo poo, I dunno, Rainbow Dash from my little pony or w/e. Doesn't actually matter who you pick but it will differentiate them and give you a spine to hang character development on and it will be entirely impossible to pick the antecedents since no one knows who you're seeing in your head when you write. If you feel weird just picking up someone else's character and running off with them, the longer method is to make a lot of notes about the character! It's what I do when I can't get an organic "feel" for the voice just by thinking about the character. It's hard for me to describe the process I go through when working on character voices, because I always conceptualise characters voice-first and voices do tend to just pop into my head. Everything else comes later. However, here's a quick checklist of things that will influence someone's ~character voice~ that you can nail down:
Also, for the what rather than the how, I have these big lists of character traits assigned to each character. Like so: p. bird's awfully organised notes posted:ANZU: swishy, slightly histrionic, arch, "coiled spring", mean and cutting, affected, theatrical, melodramatic; soft at heart, kind, "team mum", fussy, perfectionist, clever and quick on the uptake; eccentric, clotheshorse, queer; honest, loyal, easily swayed and stubborn by turns. And when characters are talking to each other, I mentally run through their key traits (some are more key than others) and see how they apply. Since everyone's got different traits, everyone's gonna be saying different things. Just remember to apply more than one or two traits per conversation so you don't get cardboard cut-outs talking to each other. (If anyone is curious, I can go through a specific example of dialogue and explain the reasoning but I don't wanna take up space if nobody cares and also this is all pretty intuitive to me and I'm bad at explaining.)
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Jun 18, 2015 10:34
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Yeah, I generally nail down the specifics and nuances of characterisation in scenes. But I'm not going to be able to remember every facet of every single character, so the lists are there so I don't accidentally forget something important.
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Jun 18, 2015 14:56
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 04:30 |
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Any decent guides on the traditional publishing submission process out there? I've forgotten all the fine details.
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Jun 28, 2015 21:04
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