|
If it's something you can't figure out from a few minutes of searching online, chances are high that it really doesn't matter. I mean there are some genres where people get pissy if everything isn't researched in excruciating detail, like hard sci-fi or historical romance or something, but just getting in the right ballpark is going to be fine 99% of the time. A good story with some sketchy research is always going to be better than a crappy story that someone spent a month doing research for. edit: Especially because you'll never please everyone anyway. Look at that movie Interstellar, which had an actual, well-respected astrophysicist helping them put everything together, and there were still a billion huffy spergs complaining about inaccuracies. Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 07:16 on Mar 16, 2015 |
#
¿
Mar 16, 2015 07:12
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 14, 2024 00:27 |
|
|
Do you have any panels mocked up or anything to give us a better idea of the kind of space / aesthetic you're working with? It sort of sounds like you are focusing on worldbuilding through exposition and dialogue at the expense of the visual component, which is kind of the entire point of a comic book. Worldbuilding can be great for creating organic plot elements, establishing the feel you want to convey, etc., but I've also seen a lot of people that spend months or years doing nothing but worldbuilding and almost invariably nothing approaching a finished product ever materializes from it. There are definitely comics / graphic novels out there with dense text (From Hell is a pretty good example), but it's probably not something you should be shooting for without a very good reason. I also have to agree that your English in this thread feels far more casual and natural. There are minor grammatical errors here and there, but if you hadn't mentioned that you weren't a native speaker, I doubt I would have even noticed them. I guess you are trying to create a certain tone / style by translating it, but I think you are underestimating how difficult it is to translate prose. It's not just a matter of plugging in the corresponding words. The results you are getting right now are going to sound very stilted and unnatural to any native English speaker, and not in an "Oh, it just sounds archaic" way. edit: Whoops, missed that storyboard you posted. Still kind of hard to visualize since those panels have like three lines of dialogue total. I would definitely caution against using Ayn Rand as a source of stylistic inspiration, though - not only is her prose absolute dogshit, but it's also kind of infamously bloated and long-winded. Which doesn't mean that it can't be distilled - just something to be aware of. The first thing that actually sprung to mind was Bioshock, a video game that parodies Rand's philosophy and manages to establish that same kind of tone with a much better economy of words. I'm probably a giant nerd for even using that as a point of reference, but it might be legitimately useful to track down the game's script (are they called scripts? I dunno) for a look at how another medium - specifically another visual medium - approached the same source material. Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 08:16 on Apr 10, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Apr 10, 2015 07:41
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:Blood Meridian is science fiction. Ugh I told myself I wouldn't take the bait, because I think genre debates are almost always pointless and dumb, but I'm curious what qualifications you are using for sci-fi that aren't so inclusive that basically anything could land beneath its umbrella. I've written an embarrassing amount of words about BM for conferences, and while I think there are a ton of labels that you could apply to it, I'm not seeing sci-fi.
|
|
#
¿
May 30, 2015 23:02
|
|
|
Listening to actual people talk can be helpful too, though obviously don't be creepy about it. There are still some tricks to it - a lot of people try to replicate authentic dialogue too closely, and end up with something that is a chore to read (filled with uhms and ahs, pauses, likes, etc.) Which is not to say you can't include those, you just have to develop an ear for it. One piece of advice that always stuck with me (I think it might have even been from this thread, a long time ago) is that people rarely talk directly to each other. Often you will realize that people are talking past each other, or have some motive behind what they are saying. Outside of small talk (which is as boring in fiction as it is in real life), there is generally a reason behind everything a person says, and those reasons can be pretty complex. Great dialogue works by condensing those complex moods / emotions into a spoken line without turning it into exposition.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 17, 2015 23:24
|
|
|
Just a heads up, A Public Space is doing an Emerging Writers Fellowship with three open slots: http://apublicspace.org/blog/detail/the_2016_aps_emerging_writer_fellowships If you get picked you get a mentorship, some cash, and an optional residency. There is no entry fee and it's all handled through Submittable, which is easy as hell to use and anyone who submits stuff for publication is probably already familiar with it. Just in case any goons out there feel like giving it a shot!
|
|
#
¿
Oct 13, 2015 23:45
|
|
|
Varicelli posted:Are there other forums that are good for this? My story is 2500 words and it is very amateur so it doesn't look like it fits within the constraints of Farm and I don't really feel like it's deserving of its own thread. The problem with a lot of writing forums is that people are more interested in getting critiques than giving them, which is totally understandable. There are online workshops (Critters springs to mind) where you are guaranteed feedback, but also have to crit a certain amount of other peoples' writing first. I'm not sure how much utility you'd get out of it unless you plan to keep writing more stuff, though. Honestly, you can totally make your own thread here. I wish more people did, but I understand why people don't - most story threads are lucky to get one or two replies. But hell, if you do post a thread, I'll crit it for you, at least.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 26, 2015 17:25
|
|
|
Shageletic posted:Cool post! Here's a quick question: what's the difference between fantasy genre and young adult? Is there one? Its hard to think that fantasy can be literary or mature enough to not qualify as YA, but I'm not exactly an expert here. Different agents have different guidelines, but if they are talking about blind queries, I'm pretty sure literally nobody wants you to send a blank email with part of your manuscript attached. Generally you are supposed to be pitching them a manuscript concept that they will then request part / all of if they are actually interested in it. Shotgun-blasting every agent you can find with an impersonal copy + pasted letter and an unsolicited chapter of your book is probably a good way to make sure you never, ever get published.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 10, 2015 22:43
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 14, 2024 00:27 |
|
|
Surprised nobody has brought up The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, though I think it would take some seriously crazy chops to keep that conceit rolling for an entire novel. (edit: TooMuchAbstraction mentioned it actually, my bad) I think a lot of interesting conflict w/r/t utopian societies can come from that general wellspring - they are fundamentally egalitarian, which doesn't mean have to mean things are perfect (or even good) for everyone. Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 02:44 on Jan 12, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Jan 12, 2017 02:42
|
|