Fiction Writing Advice and Discussion: Read. Write. Crit. Repeat.

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > Fiction Writing Advice and Discussion: Read. Write. Crit. Repeat.

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Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

Some might say her breasts were half empty, but personally I like to think of them as half full. It�s just the kind of guy I am.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2018 08:08

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 22:32

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

I think the same traits that make a good protagonist: realistic or at least understandable goals and motives (not just bad for bad�s sake), a proactive rather than reactive nature, and relatable character flaws that are more than just �Guy is a psychopath.�

This last one can be flipped on its head with antagonists in the sense that they can be compelling because they are so alien to the reader psychologically. But if their motives and actions make sense for them, and fit the character and the narrative, then their �alienness� itself can be compelling.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2018 14:27

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

Covok posted:

I'm a little afraid to now. The story is not safe for work. That's kind of embarrassing.

But okay.

It's a gay erotica novel so like read at your own caution.

This could not be more perfect

# ¿ Nov 5, 2018 19:00

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

Just say his dick is the size of a Schlitz tall boy, your readers will understand.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2018 22:07

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

Covok posted:

So, like I'm amazed at the lack of jokes about how embarrasing the weebness of it all is.

That and the other thing was what I thought people would harp on.

And the bad dialouge.

And the spelling erors.

And the inability to make sex interesting.

And the fact its setting is an Exalted ripoff.

God, why did I show people this?

What's a Schlitz tall boy?

Edit: ^ Spoke too soon.

Well I didn't actually read it, so I have no criticism really.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2018 23:27

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

Fish Noise posted:

Trying not to reach for the stylus right now.

I have a Folgers coffee can for a stylus

# ¿ Nov 6, 2018 01:35

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

Yeah every time he starts talking about Schlock I tune him out. I mean I think most webcomics are garbage anyway and it's not a medium I enjoy, but his seem pretty stupid.

Also whenever Mary is talking about puppetry I skip ahead 30 seconds.

# ¿ Nov 30, 2018 20:26

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

I think this is a corollary to keeping dialogue tags simple. Adding flourishes sparingly is fine, but if every �he said...� is followed by some kind of description it gets old. Whereas closing dialogue off and then expositing through prose doesn�t have the same element of repetition.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2019 02:53

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

Werewalrus �️�️

# ¿ Apr 9, 2019 13:33

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

Fruity20 posted:

so two folks are interested in writing for my web-comic...should I verify first? i'm wary some of these people might be scammers since one was from twitter...and the other has a twitter account with a pepe icon

and like the main reasons i'm worried is well... my story is very left leaning and there's a lot of progressive issues like racism, sexism, and other such things in it. even a few metaphors about certain real life issues like inheritable diseases...

Uh...Pepe tells you everything you need to know I think.

# ¿ May 7, 2019 15:49

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

I�m 95000 words into a novel I�ve been writing for years. A major plot point is the buildup to a war with Iran over possibly fabricated? nuclear weapons. When I started this novel (the GWB admin lol) it seemed like a plausible but pretty unlikely espionage/techno thriller plot.

Now these morons are going to actually start a war and make that plot thread obsolete. Guess I should have made more time to write!

# ¿ May 8, 2019 15:28

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

I don�t get it. Is this guy your ghostwriter or something?

# ¿ May 8, 2019 20:25

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

sebmojo posted:

We squat athwart the page and strain until the word poops come

I�m pooping r now

# ¿ May 10, 2019 22:48

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

Fruity20 posted:

I can write anything as long as it's work safe and prose? (Seems freaking easy)

Somebody can�t follow instructions!

# ¿ May 17, 2019 20:58

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

Djeser posted:

So basically you've got a world, but you're not sure what story to tell in that world. That's a pretty common problem. It's fun to invent ideas, but harder to figure out how to make them matter to people.

My advice depends a bit on what kind of story you're interested in telling, whether you want a big ensemble cast thing, or something that focuses on a few characters, or just one. But one option is to start poking at the basic premises of this world. Take the underlying assumptions and start asking "what if?" What if an immortal god turns out to be mortal? What if a king tries to enact religious reforms against the will of the priests? What if mages are kept under close scrutiny, but then there's a murder in the palace and only a mage could have done it? What if a woman becomes ruler in a patriarchal society? What if a client state of an empire suddenly rebels? This is a good way to figure out a large-scale drama, because by nature, it's going to involve a lot of people and you can draw your characters from those affected by it. What you choose to poke at can also depend on whether you want a military story or court intrigue or mystery or wizard duels or whatever.

If you're thinking of a story on a smaller scale, or you're just trying to focus on finding the characters, what you can start thinking about instead is what personal conflicts might emerge in this world. If it's a world where the afterlife is real, what happens if someone doesn't want to go there? What kind of person would that be? What would they want to do instead? If it's a world where a mage's office is hereditary, what happens when they die too soon and now their untrained daughter has to take over? This isn't too different from the first bit of advice, it's just considering your world on a personal scale instead of on a larger scale. What conflicts are people going to have to deal with? Are there people stuck between two cultures, two social classes, two different sets of obligations? (Even if it's just their job and their personal life, or their place in society and their dreams of something bigger.) Not every character has to be that interesting, but the main characters of a book are generally going to be interesting people.

Also, notice that I talked about being interesting in terms of conflict. There may very well be people in your story who are interesting from a worldbuilding perspective, but who don't really experience much in the way of conflict. It doesn't matter if my immortal god-king drives the engine of creation that maintains the mortal world if all he does is be divine and eminent or whatever all day. (It doesn't mean I can't use him as a character, but I might be better served in writing a story about his jealous personal servant, because there's a lot more inherent drama there.)

This is all really good advice, nice post OP

# ¿ Jun 9, 2019 19:26

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

SelenicMartian posted:

What do you call the feeling when you write the characters into a tight corner, and then, after a few hours of thinking how to cheat them out of this, realize that the means to solve the problem are already there in the characters and the setting? It's awesome.

It really is. You can only hope readers get the same kind of feeling.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2019 16:40

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

E wrong thread

# ¿ Jul 11, 2019 07:17

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

Does anyone set out with �tropes� in mind that they plan on using? Seems more like in telling a story you sometimes just have them, some are more clich� than others, and you do your best not to be too obvious about them.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2019 17:54

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

Isn�t the whole point of time travel stories that they�re paradoxical? Or that there is no actual changing of the timeline?

# ¿ Jul 30, 2019 22:43

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 22:32

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

Stabbey_the_Clown posted:

I'm not familiar with that work, but if it's in the subtext, what's the difference between that and foreshadowing? Or by subtext, do you mean a heading under the chapter number/title?

Every chapter header has a list of things that happen in that chapter. But I think they�re generic enough that they just pique the reader�s interest and don�t spoil anything. I�m actually re-reading Blood Meridian again right now, and to me, when I read those chapter headers, they don�t mean much. Also, Blood Meridian is about so much more than the plot. I would even argue that the �plot� is maybe the fourth or fifth most interesting thing about the book.

But seriously OP, don�t bother trying to emulate Cormac McCarthy.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2019 21:47

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > Fiction Writing Advice and Discussion: Read. Write. Crit. Repeat.

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