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

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SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/books/review/workshops-of-empire-by-eric-bennett.html

I just stumbled across a link to this interesting article about how a lot of modern writing advice, such as "show, don't tell", is a result of Cold War politics specifically designed to discourage writers from writing social critiques. I am going to check out the book.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2019 20:19

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 00:27

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Does anyone feel like giving me feedback on a 17k word historical fantasy novelette?

The editor of "Fantasy and Science Fiction" said that he liked the idea and the history, but that the beginning of the narrative felt rushed.

If interested, pm me your email and I will send a google doc invite

.

Edit: Might as well add the full message from F&SF:

C.C. Finlay posted:

Dear Simon,

Thank you for giving me a chance to read XXX. I thought there was an interesting idea (and piece of history here), but at the beginning the narrative felt rushed to me, which pushed the characters toward the background. Overall, the story didn't quite grab me and I'm going to pass on it for Fantasy & Science Fiction. But I wish you best of luck finding the right market for it and hope that you'll keep us in mind in the future.

In the meantime, we hope that you are doing well and staying healthy.

Best regards,

Charlie
--
C.C. Finlay, Editor
Fantasy & Science Fiction
fandsf.com | @fandsf

Edit: I do not need more feedback at the moment. Thanks to those who signed up

SimonChris fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Jun 2, 2020

# ¿ May 22, 2020 15:15

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

take the moon posted:

gently caress it I'll do it but itll be a skim or I'll read the opening chapters or w/e. a whole novelette is a lot to read lol

I don't have pms but im diseascipline @ Gmail dot com

Thank you

. I realize it is a lot to ask, so any feedback is welcome. I am certainly not expecting line editing.

SimonChris fucked around with this message at 19:19 on May 24, 2020

# ¿ May 24, 2020 19:12

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

take the moon posted:

also if if I ever punked anyone for not writing w/ the pathetic excuse of they have a job im sorry lol. I have not written a word each day I've worked. Lit. Get home and pass out

if anyone has any Advice on writing Fiction on days u just feel like sleeping off after work plz post up

I try to write just a single sentence on such days. A single sentence is easy, and once I have written it, I often feel like adding a few more!

# ¿ May 24, 2020 19:26

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Speaking of Fantasy and Science fiction, the editor has some really good advice in his Duotrope interview:

https://duotrope.com/interview/editor/28/magazine-fantasy-science-fiction-fsf posted:

Q: Describe the ideal submission.
A: It is submitted in standard manuscript format (as described here: http://www.sfwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Mssprep.pdf ).
The title is unique and reflects the major themes or other content of the story.
The first line is interesting.
By the end of the second paragraph, I'm caught up in the story and want to find out what happens.
It holds my attention all the way through.
When I reach the end, I've thought thoughts I've never had before and felt things I've never felt before and feel like my time was well spent.
And when I go to send the author a contract and check, their contact information is all there on the manuscript.

C.C. Finlay, Editor on 01 February 2016

https://twitter.com/ccfinlay/status/721144970426486784

I need to work on my introductions.

SimonChris fucked around with this message at 19:58 on May 25, 2020

# ¿ May 25, 2020 18:35

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

edit: deleted too

SimonChris fucked around with this message at 16:09 on May 28, 2020

# ¿ May 28, 2020 15:26

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Crowetron posted:

I had this idea for a character in something I'm working on to try to cope with trauma by learning a musical instrument. The thing is I don't know how to write effectively about music without lyrics. Does anyone have any suggestions of books or stories that do that sort of thing well? Where should I look to learn how to describe music?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinteuil_Sonata

https://theartsdesk.com/classical-music/search-prousts-vinteuil-sonata-violinist-maria-milstein-writers-musical-mystery

"In Search of Lost Time" contains several references to the fictitious "Vinteuil Sonata", which is so vividly described that musicians have tried to reconstruct it based on the book.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2020 19:56

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Dr.D-O posted:

Recently I wrote a piece of flash fiction for a contest Weird Tales was running. Despite not writing a lot before, I really enjoyed it and was hoping to write more short fiction in my spare time. Ideally, I'd like to submit my work for publication somewhere.

I was wondering what people's experiences have been with submitting short stories to online magazines for publication?

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3776293

If you have archives, the old short fiction publishing thread is quite good.

It is too bad that the goon story spreadsheet never made it off the ground.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2020 19:57

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

ravenkult posted:

5-6 cents per word is considered ''professional'' rates as per SFWA (6 cents since a couple of years back). These are also hard to get into, but there's always pro anthologies going around that are ''easier.'' Flame Tree puts out a few of those a year that they announce in their newsletter. They do one sci-fi and one horror each time, maybe 3 times a year. I've been in one of them so if I can do it, anyone can.

FYI, the SFWA qualifying rate has been 8c/word for some time now.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2020 16:30

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYvYrns_Ngc

In case some people are still confused about metaphors, I have uploaded the full metaphor scene from "Plain Clothes (1987)". Featuring a reading of e e cummings.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2020 17:28

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

I've been experimenting with GPT-3 text generation using AI Dungeon. If you select "Classic" mode with the "Custom" option, you can simply type in a story prompt and have the AI generate the rest. If you don't want to do the text adventure thing, you can press Enter without typing anything, and the AI will keep generating more story. You can also adjust the length of the generated text and other parameters in the settings.

Here I have tried using the first paragraph of the first Baru Cormorant book as a prompt:

The AI Baru Cormorant posted:

Trade season came around again. Baru was still too young to smell the empire wind. The Masquerade sent its favorite soldiers to conquer Taranoke: sailcloth, dyes, glazed ceramic, sealskin and oils, paper currency printed in their Falcrest tongue. Little Baru, playing castles in the hot black sand, liked to watch their traders come in to harbor. She learned to count by tallying the ships and the seabirds that circled them.

She had a great time with her friends on the beach when they played hide-and-seek or tag. They would play for hours until one of them found something new to tell about it. One day she saw a man coming out from behind some rocks. He wore nothing but his loin cloth and carried no weapons at all except a small fishing net he used as an oar.

"Who are you?" she asked. "I'm looking for my friend."

The man looked at her with surprise. "You're my friend? I thought you were a pirate!" he said indignantly. "What do you want here?"

Baru smiled shyly and held up her hand to show him where the beach ended and the sea began. "My name is Baru," she said, then pointed to herself. "And this is me."

He stared at her for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, yes, you look just like your picture book. And this is me." (*Removed some creepy stuff here*)

"Do you have a name?" she asked. "All people need a name so I can talk to them."

"Everyone calls me Roldan," he said. "What do you want to talk about?"

"I want to be friends," Baru said. "And what are you doing here?"

He stared into the distance and showed her his teeth. "I'm fishing," he said. "Look at all the fish I caught!"

"You only have one," Baru said, "and it's the wrong kind." She took his hand in hers and led him back to the village so she could show him how. He might not be her first friend, but he would be her best.

2

After spending a year on the island of Taranoke, the Emperor of the Known World decided to provide greater support for its expansion. The Imperial Governor at the time, a dour yet charismatic woman named Cassandra, finished her conquest of the southern islands and turned her eyes west. She sent ten thousand men to conquer the land of the Hyrons on the continent of Epirus, leaving only a meager five hundred on the island.

The Empire hoped that this new conquest would provide them with access to the fabled inner sea, where great treasures and savage warriors waited to be conquered. Instead, they found swamps and malaria. By the time Cassandra had won control of Epirus, she had lost nine thousand soldiers to disease alone.

She returned in a foul mood. She blamed the Ministry of Colonization for sending her on a fools errand and under-supplying her on purpose. She blamed her soldiers for being weak. She blamed the jungles for being jungles. Then she took it out on the local population.

The Hyrons had never been conquered before. They were a proud people with long history of fighting off outside invaders. They fought tooth and nail, but they could not match the sheer manpower of the Empire's army. It took three years, but the Hyrons were broken.

Trouble started when the surviving population rebelled. They were joined by the refugees from the conquered islands, who no longer had anybody to rule over them. Refugees swarmed into the jungle and eluded the grasp of the Empire. Cassandra sent more soldiers, then more, then more again. Then she sent in the off-duty soldiers, then the sailors, then the citizens of Epiros who weren't dying fast enough. The war just kept going and going and never seemed to end.

Cassandra was executed for her failures. A new governor came in and tried to change up tactics. Instead of sending more soldiers to the island, he sent bureaucrats. They wrote letters back to the Emperor about how they were trying to make peace with these uncivilized barbarians, but they needed just a little bit more time and a few more soldiers. The Emperor tired of it all, and stopped replying. They kept writing for a decade.

By now, nobody really knew why the hell they were fighting anymore. It was just something they had been doing for so long, it had become a part of life.

Baru and Roldan were two of the many soldiers caught up in the endless war.

The Empire organized its ranks differently for this conflict. Soldiers were organized into large groups based on their class. The skilled were put into work details. Carpenters, miners, stonemasons, cooks, smiths, and more kept the army running. The unskilled were the combat troops. With the war dragging on longer than expected, more and more of these were conscripts from conquered lands with no training. The elite were the veterans and marines. They got the best equipment, were used strategically, and had the most say in things. In effect it was more a class-based system than a rank-based one.

Baru was a marine, through and through. He had joined the navy at a young age and proven himself countless times. He distinguished himself in skirmishes in the southern islands, and was sent to fight in Epiros as soon as he became an adult. He had become a marine because he wanted to travel and see the world, not spend his life stuck in some fort waiting for an attack that may or may not come.

Roldan was a work detail grunt. He didn't have the flair or talent to be a marine, but he was still an experienced soldier who had fought in many battles.

As the years passed and Baru distinguished himself as a brave and capable leader, Roldan distinguished himself by being in the wrong place at the wrong time on countless occasions. He suffered injuries that would've been fatal for most, but the healers did what they could. Over the years he developed a great fear of dying in battle and becoming a cripple. He was already a nervous man even when uninjured, and his time working in the hospital only made him more paranoid.

Baru noticed this change in his friend. More than once he offered to have Roldan transferred to his unit, but he always declined.

The funny thing was, the war was finally turning in the Empire's favor. The work detail soldiers built a massive wall around the heart of the island, cutting off the refugees from the jungle and all the resources in it. Starvation and sickness thinned their ranks, and skirmishes reduced them further. Banditry became more common as refugees turned to robbing fellow refugees for survival.

Finally, they raised a flag of surrender. The war was over. It had taken nearly two decades, but the Empire finally destroyed the rebellion.

Most of the marines were sent home, but Baru and some others were stationed there to maintain order while the rest of the army was sent to reinforce the western borders where refugees from the Arat province were flooding into Empirian territory as Epiros retook their land.

It was at this point that Roldan finally got his transfer.

This is surprisingly good for AI generated text. The AI did forget Baru's gender, but otherwise it actually tells a semi-coherent story. I think I might use this for inspiration in the future.

SimonChris fucked around with this message at 09:38 on Dec 9, 2020

# ¿ Dec 8, 2020 22:15

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Doctor Zero posted:

Scary. I actually laughed out loud several times. What part did you put in exactly???

I only put in the first paragraph, from the book. Everything after that is 100% AI-generated, by repeatedly pressing Enter to trigger more text. Typing in commands tends to make AI Dungeon slip back into second-person text-adventure mode, which I am trying to avoid. I think watching the AI work is more interesting without the game framework.

Anyway, I didn't notice quite how creepy the first part was before I posted it. Sorry about that. It doesn't normally do that kind of stuff. I've removed that part from the text.

I tried again and got something less creepy:

The AI Baru Cormorant: Take Two posted:

Trade season came around again. Baru was still too young to smell the empire wind. The Masquerade sent its favorite soldiers to conquer Taranoke: sailcloth, dyes, glazed ceramic, sealskin and oils, paper currency printed in their Falcrest tongue. Little Baru, playing castles in the hot black sand, liked to watch their traders come in to harbor. She learned to count by tallying the ships and the seabirds that circled them.

One day she saw a ship coming from afar. It was big and dark, like an oaken coffin with sails of silver. She knew it must be richly decorated, because her father had told her stories about such things when they were together on the sea. A man stepped out onto deck, his face pale as bone. He wore a long cloak that fell past his knees; he held a staff in one hand and looked down at the people below him with cold eyes. He waved toward the city, but no one paid any attention. They just watched him.

Baru's mother stood beside her, holding her hands to protect them from the sun. "What is it?" she asked quietly.
"I am a messenger," said the man, looking up at them all with cold eyes. "The emperor wishes you all well."

"He does? But why did he send me away?" Baru's father cried. "Why did he not let us go home?"

The man turned his head slowly toward the city. His face was grim, and his voice was cold. "Because I have seen what can happen if men are allowed to live free, even for a moment." Then he pointed to the city walls. "This is where your family should be."

Baru's mother frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You should be ruled," he said. Then his voice grew cruel, and his eyes looked down at the people with hatred. "You should all be ruled. You are nothing but sheep that walk upright. If you were wise, you would give yourselves over to the wolves."

The people cried out in fear. The messenger pointed to the city again.

There is definitely a stochastic element because it returns different results using the same prompt. Anyway, I won't do any more Baru if the author doesn't like it.

SimonChris fucked around with this message at 10:20 on Dec 9, 2020

# ¿ Dec 9, 2020 09:16

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Leng posted:

I recently read Baru 1 and loved it; am currently reading Baru 2 and that AI's attempt (which I saw the unedited version of) was indeed horrifying. I did Andrew Ng's machine learning course once just to get a better understanding of the basic concepts and I have to say that I have no idea how you would train an AI on what is and isn't appropriate when it comes to writing fiction.

The mistake was starting with a great book written by a good author. How about you try one of these awful books written by a bad author or these also terrible books written by a really bad author?

Yeah, that was a mistake. I apologize to General Battuta.

Anyway, here is the preface to Twilight. The first four paragraphs are from the book. The rest are AI-generated.

Twilight AI posted:

I'd never given much thought to how I would die�though I'd had reason enough in the last few months�but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.

I stared without breathing across the long room, into the dark eyes of the hunter, and he looked pleasantly back at me.

Surely it was a good way to die, in the place of someone else, someone I loved. Noble, even. That ought to count for something.

I knew that if I'd never gone to Forks, I wouldn't be facing death now. But, terrified as I was, I couldn't bring myself to regret the decision. When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your expectations, it's not reasonable to grieve when it comes to an end.

The hunter smiled in a friendly way as he sauntered forward to kill me.

"So," he said, "you're the one who did it."

It took all my willpower not to scream out loud. My throat felt dry, and I didn't know what else to do but keep silent. The hunter reached down with his other hand, and pulled the pistol from its holster on his side. He held it up slowly, as if waiting for me to make some sort of move or reaction before pulling the trigger.

My heart stopped beating as the bullet went through my chest and into my brain.

The world spun around me, and I could feel nothing but air rushing past my lips. I saw stars, and heard no sound save for the wind blowing against my face. It seemed like forever, but only lasted a moment. Then, everything returned to normal again.

When I opened my eyes again, there was only darkness surrounding me. There were two figures standing over me: the man holding the gun and a woman wearing a black dress with red trim who stood behind him.

"Isabella?" I managed to gasp.

"Hello, Bella. It's been a long time."

The woman knelt down beside me, and brushed the hair out of my face. The hunter moved over to stand where she had been, his face as emotionless as stone.

"You're dead," I said stupidly.
"Obviously not," she responded with an amused smile.

She helped me sit up, and I looked around. We were alone in an alleyway I didn't recognize, with only an abandoned pizza box and a few beer cans to keep us company.

"Am I dead?" I asked, suddenly realizing the situation.

Isabella laughed. It was musical and light, the sort of laugh you'd expect to come from a girl just learning how to ride a bike, not the grim creature crouched on the other side of me.

"No," she promised me.

There genuinely doesn't seem to be any drop in quality. Also, Twilight must have been part of the training material since the AI knows the name of the main character (I did another Twilight run where the AI decided that the main character was named "Kate", but still gave her a love interest named Edward).

My point in posting all this was simply to demonstrate how you can bypass the game part of AI Dungeon and use it to generate story ideas.

Edit: Also, in case people think I am making this up, you can use the link https://play.aidungeon.io/main/adventurePlay?publicId=801290bc-5aa7-4302-87ba-efbeb1ae0a4d (do not click) with the code Evu4Qk to join the Twilight game. Just press enter to generate more story. You will need to go to https://play.aidungeon.io/ and click "Join Game". This requires signing up for a free account.

SimonChris fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Dec 9, 2020

# ¿ Dec 9, 2020 12:48

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Whalley posted:

There's always the option of rewriting to not have to worry about it, like how I always rename characters if their name ends with an s and they have to be referred to with a possessive.

ie, "He was tall enough that everyone had to crane their necks to see his face."

"https://www.azquotes.com/quote/1595971" posted:

Parker wasn't supposed to be a series. He was supposed to be one book, and if he was only going to be in one book, I didn't worry about it. And then an editor at Pocket Books said "Write more books about him." So I didn't go back at that point and give him a first name. If I'd known he would've been a series, I would've done two things differently. First, I would've given him a first name because that means for 27 books, I've had to find some other way to say, "Parker parked the car."

Reminds me of this.

In the Mel Gibson movie "Payback", based on the Parker books, they renamed him "Porter".

SimonChris fucked around with this message at 13:38 on Feb 11, 2021

# ¿ Feb 11, 2021 13:36

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vRfNtvFVRo

Slightly off-topic, maybe, but Jon Ingold of Inkle Studies did a really good talk on the problems with video game dialogue, which makes a lot of good points about dialogue writing in general.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2021 08:58

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Can anyone recommend some good resources for story plot design? I find myself getting lots of ideas for story concepts and settings but then getting stuck because I have no idea what should actually happen.

# ¿ May 14, 2021 13:38

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

HIJK posted:

There's always Dan Harmon's story wheel, if you google you'll find his big essays on each part. Are you looking for help with structure or story inspiration?

Mostly the latter, but those are heavily related, of course. Trying to follow a structure often leads to inspiration.

I will look into the story wheel.

# ¿ May 14, 2021 15:55

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

I've been loath to read "Save the Cat" because it's not really my ambition to write the next "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot", but I guess I should swallow my pride and see if I can learn something. It seems like a useful toolkit, as long as you don't follow it too slavishly.

I will check out the other recommendations as well!

# ¿ May 14, 2021 20:46

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

D34THROW posted:

Anyone ever successfully written a short story (or short story series) or novel (or novel series) using an RPG system to determine the flow of things? Basically playing, say GURPS, against yourself. I'm thinking of doing so because I've tried collaborative writing before and I really like the unpredictability of it, so I'm thinking RPGs as a guide might be a way to incorporate that into my writing proper.

https://www.ironswornrpg.com/

Check out solo RPG's such as Ironsworn, which are pretty much made for this purpose. There is also a thread for such games.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2021 18:19

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

https://www.elegantliterature.com/contest/

I just learned about the Elegant Literature short story contest, and thought I would share it here.

You have 4� days left to win TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS for a 500-2000 word story about descent into darkness. The only caveat is that you can't be a professional writer, but that only applies if you are outright making a living from writing. Even if you don't win, there is still a chance that they will purchase the story for 10 cents / word.

If only I had learned about this earlier... I need time to brainstorm ideas.

Edit: There is a de facto $10 reading fee, but the organizer is offering to cover it if you are too poor to afford it:
https://twitter.com/maxgladstone/status/1462125789269442569

Also, the $10 is actually for a subscription to the magazine and comes with a bunch of discounts for writing tools.

SimonChris fucked around with this message at 12:02 on Nov 26, 2021

# ¿ Nov 26, 2021 10:44

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

General Battuta posted:

I am unfortunately a Professional Writer and can't apply but I will say that this is an absolutely bonkers opportunity. 20k for a short story is unheard of. And your chances of winning are probably higher than selling a story to Clarkesworld or a similarly competitive market.

https://twitter.com/ElegantLit/status/1459975885956820998

I checked their twitter, and apparently last months contest had 178 entries, which makes for a 0.56% chance of winning, pretty close to the Clarkesworld acceptance rate. If you don't win, there is still a 6.8% chance of making a pro-sale.

Also, I guess this is a monthly thing, so they must have found a wealthy short-story enthusiast. I wonder how long they are planning to keep that going.

# ¿ Nov 26, 2021 15:30

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

https://www.sfwa.org/about/join-us/sfwa-membership-requirements/

I don't know if I am the only who missed this, but SFWA recently changed their membership requirements to only consider total income, discarding the old idea of approved pro-markets ($1000 for full membership and $100 for associate membership). I quite like this since the pro-market thing always seemed rather arbitrary and ruled out a lot of respected genre journals. Also, I think I can join based on game writing now! The old game writer requirements were ridiculous.

# ¿ May 22, 2022 16:05

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

sebmojo posted:

also this: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/, from which you can learn that ~550 babies each year are given the name 'Unique'.

https://familieretshuset.dk/navne/navne/godkendte-fornavne

Here in Denmark, parents are required to pick the names of their children from a list of approved names*, so the government maintains extensive excel spreadsheets containing every approved name in alphabetical order. You can download them above. 20.993 boy names, 25.819 girl names, and 1.319 intersex. It is debatable whether this is a good law, but it makes for a convenient writing resource.

* The dystopian YA novel basically writes itself.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2022 09:39

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Is there a poetry writing thread somewhere? I have been dabbling in poetry lately, but I can't find any active SA threads on the topic at all.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2022 09:50

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Stuporstar posted:

This times a billion. Too many budding writers are convinced to cut their plots to the bone because of this poo poo, and they end up pulling out half the stuff that makes their story interesting. Most breakout successes don�t follow the same tired old formula�they�re such successes because they do something different, so they feel exciting and new even if they�re drawing from some hundred-year-old inspiration that�s gone out of style

Even Blanderson got successful developing his own formula and not someone else�s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TGwjiBV2w8

Just Write made a very good and short video about this, using Rocky as an example. Rocky is interesting because it breaks every rule about story structure: Not only does the incident incident, Rocky being challenged by Apollo Creed, happen more than halfway through the movie - at which point Rocky has already won the heart of the girl he wants - but there are also no real stakes in the traditional sense. Creed is paying Rocky 150K regardless of the outcome of the match. Wanting to "go the distance" is purely a matter of pride for him.

General Battuta posted:

Does Alien actually fit the �save the cat� structure (is that the movie where they save the cat)

If anyone else is curious, the "Save the Cat" from the title refers to the idea that the protagonist must do something to make the viewer sympathise with them, such as saving a cute kitty cat. Even if they are an evil criminal or something, they have do perform some small nicety like that to get the viewer to care about them. You absolutely cannot have a sympathetic protagonist who is mean to cats!

# ¿ Dec 29, 2022 09:52

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Happy new year, everyone!

How was everyone's writing this year? I didn't manage to outright sell anything, but I had an old story published online as a "reprint" and also published three poems:

https://www.metastellar.com/fiction/simulacra/

This is now the third time I have published this story and the second time in English :smug:

.

https://bluepepper.blogspot.com/2022/11/new-poetry-by-simon-christiansen.html

https://theplumtreetavern.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-great-auk.html

https://www.compassroseliterary.com/three-phenomenal-flutterings

Sure, these are all extremely obscure non-paying markets but given that I only started writing poetry in September - in a foreign language - I still consider that to be an astounding success!

I also wrote a few stories that I really like myself and had some high-tier personal rejections. Hoping to sell some of those this year.

How about everyone else?

# ¿ Jan 1, 2023 10:59

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

https://twitter.com/AmericanGwyn/status/1613154023707738119

# ¿ Jan 27, 2023 21:57

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

https://twitter.com/clarkesworld/status/1625982159856041985

As if getting noticed in the slush pile wasn't difficult enough already.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2023 12:50

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Sailor Viy posted:

So far it seems like a massive headache for the slushers but not necessarily a problem for authors themselves except in that it lengthens response times.

The latter is a pretty big deal by itself. As Neil Clarkes points out in the article, the current situation isn't sustainable without changes. They can't ban someone for being a bad writer, so they still have to manually read all of these stories to determine whether they were written by an AI writer or just a really lousy human one. Also, keep in mind that this was posted in mid-February, so the latest bar only covers half a month, yet it is still more than twice the size of the entire previous month.

I suspect that we are going to see a lot of markets start charging submission fees, limit their submission windows, or just flat out stop accepting unsolicited submissions.

SimonChris fucked around with this message at 12:55 on Feb 18, 2023

# ¿ Feb 18, 2023 10:52

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Sailor Viy posted:

I've spent a fair bit of time generating fiction with GPT-3. Aside from problems with continuity, it is fundamentally limited by an inability to be creative, to add new elements to a piece. It seems impressive when you give it "X + Y" tasks (Dr. Seuss poems about Elon Musk, Seinfeld characters playing D&D, etc.) but it can't add anything more than the X and Y that you give it. Or if it does, it does so only by falling back on the most common tropes of whatever it's working with. If you ask it to describe a dungeon then it might fill that dungeon with a goblin, a spear trap, a chest of gold, but it won't present anything surprising to anyone even mildly familiar with the genre.

For this reason I'm not (currently) too worried about AI replacing human writers so much as about it clogging the internet with vacuous text that superficially looks like it came from a person.

This is what has disappointed me the most about AI writers. I thought they would at least be useful for sparking ideas by generating some really crazy, lol-random, avant-garde poo poo, but instead they output the most insipid, by-the-numbers stuff imaginable, completely devoid of any creativity. If you want new ideas, you are better off pulling random words out of hat.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2023 14:51

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Clarkesworld have had to close submissions now.

https://twitter.com/clarkesworld/status/1627721829270814746

# ¿ Feb 20, 2023 18:49

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

https://www.writerswrite.co.za/9-ways-to-write-with-literary-flair/

While googling for ways to jazz up my prose, I found this article about various literary writing technique, which I thought was worth sharing. It is written tongue-in-cheek, but the techniques are valid, and I really like writing advice that is presented as a toolbox of things you can try rather than rules to be followed.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2023 10:44

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

The Sean posted:

I've put off posting this for a while but:

I want my characters to do a medical heist--like a reverse heist--to stop a certain medicine from being used on people anymore*. I can't figure out a general mechanism to do so and I don't work in healthcare so I don't know this space at all. Like, where would the master medicinal source be stored or anything like that. I'm sorry for being vague. Any help is appreciated.

*I'm not anti-vaxx or anything like that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOMUfql2Smc

You are in luck, Mary Robinette Kowal just posted a video on how to write heist stories. You should be able to reuse most of the plot beats for a more abstract style of heist. The important thing is that there is a colorful ensemble of characters with different skills and personalities working together to carry out some kind of complex plan, but the plan goes wrong, but the goingwrongness was actually part of the plan all along, etc.

In fact, all of Mary Robinette Kowals recent videos are great, so just watch the entire channel while you are there. I liked the one about prose as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc31v46TTLk

# ¿ Apr 13, 2023 06:53

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

sebmojo posted:

chatgpt is free, you can try for yourself! this is coherent, it's very bland and not what I'd call good but it's a story.

hi chat gpt you soulless fuckin robot, write me a 400 word story about a priest wrestling with his faith. he talks to a parishioner, who confesses a crime. after a long night of spiritual struggle, in which he talks with his father who was very cruel to him, he decides to give up the priesthood

One thing that I feel have gotten lost in the debate is that ChatGPT isn't just for generating text from nothing. It can also be used to analyze existing texts, which I find far more interesting as a potential writing tool. In the following, I have simply pasted the Father John story above into ChatGPT and written command prompts below.

Prompt posted:

Summarize the story in a list of bullet points.

Reponse posted:

* Father John, burdened by doubts and a wavering faith, finds himself struggling with his calling as a priest.
* Mrs. Thompson, a parishioner, confesses to committing a crime, causing further turmoil for Father John.
* Seeking guidance, Father John prays but feels his pleas go unanswered, deepening his doubt and despair.
* Memories of his distant and unforgiving father compound Father John's struggles, intertwining with his crisis of faith.
* Father John realizes that his faith has become entangled with the wounds inflicted by his father.
* He makes the difficult decision to resign from the priesthood to embark on a journey of healing and self-discovery.
* Through therapy and introspection, Father John confronts his past, learns to forgive himself, and embraces the possibility of a new beginning.
* He finds solace in his decision and uses his experiences to help others in need, guided by his own convictions.
* Father John continues to question his faith but sees the wrestling itself as a testament to its existence.
* He walks away from the priesthood as a seeker of truth, forging a new path guided by his own convictions and the flickering light of faith.

Prompt posted:

Identify usages of passive voice and suggest rewrites to active voice.

Reponse posted:

1. "The weight of his doubts was pressing upon his weary shoulders."
- Rewrite: "His weary shoulders bore the weight of his doubts."

2. "It seemed as though the heavens themselves were silent."
- Rewrite: "The heavens themselves appeared silent."

3. "He listened intently as Mrs. Thompson confessed the details of her misdeeds."
- Rewrite: "He listened intently as Mrs. Thompson revealed the details of her misdeeds."

4. "The confessional became a confining space, trapping him."
- Rewrite: "The confessional confined him, becoming a trapping space."

5. "The priesthood, once a beacon of purpose and service, had become a burden that could no longer be borne."
- Rewrite: "The priesthood, once a beacon of purpose and service, had become an unbearable burden."

6. "The memories of harsh words and cold shoulders flooded his mind."
- Rewrite: "The memories of harsh words and cold shoulders inundated his mind."

7. "His decision was made to relinquish his position as a priest."
- Rewrite: "He decided to relinquish his position as a priest."

8. "He was guided by his own convictions and the flickering light of faith that burned within his soul."
- Rewrite: "His own convictions and the flickering light of faith burning within his soul guided him."

Prompt posted:

Analyze the story using the plot beats from Save The Cat.

Reponse posted:

"Save the Cat" is a popular screenwriting methodology that outlines key plot beats commonly found in successful stories. While the given story doesn't precisely follow the structure of "Save the Cat," we can still identify some elements that align with its principles. Here's an analysis of the story using the essential plot beats of "Save the Cat":

1. Opening Image: Father John standing in the dimly lit confessional, burdened by doubts and wrestling with his faith.
- This sets the tone and introduces the protagonist's struggle.

2. Catalyst: Mrs. Thompson confessing to committing a crime.
- Mrs. Thompson's confession introduces a significant event that disrupts Father John's already wavering faith.

3. Debate: Father John's inner turmoil and doubts about his faith.
- Father John is confronted with conflicting emotions and questions whether he can continue in his role as a priest.

4. Break into Two: Father John's decision to resign from the priesthood and embark on a journey of self-discovery.
- This major turning point propels the story forward and sets up a new direction for the protagonist.

5. B Story: Father John's exploration of his past and healing from the wounds inflicted by his father.
- The B Story involves Father John's personal growth and resolution of past traumas.

6. Fun and Games: Father John's experiences in therapy and introspection, as he learns to forgive himself and embrace a new beginning.
- This section highlights Father John's journey of self-discovery and the challenges he faces along the way.

7. Midpoint: Father John finds solace in his decision and uses his experiences to help others.
- Father John discovers a sense of purpose in assisting others and finding redemption for himself.

8. Bad Guys Close In: Father John's ongoing doubts and struggles with his faith resurface.
- The doubts and struggles resurface to create tension and challenge Father John's newfound sense of purpose.

9. All Is Lost: Father John questions his faith once again, but this time, it leads to a deeper understanding.
- Father John experiences a moment of despair and doubt, but it ultimately helps him gain a deeper understanding of his faith.

10. Dark Night of the Soul: Father John walks away from the priesthood, accepting the uncertainty and embracing his new path.
- This moment represents Father John's ultimate decision to leave behind his old life and embrace a new journey.

11. Break into Three: Father John embarks on a new path as a seeker of truth, guided by his own convictions.
- This marks a new beginning for Father John as he steps into a new phase of his life.

12. Finale: Father John forges a new path and continues his quest for truth, using his experiences to help others.
- The story concludes with Father John's commitment to his new path, utilizing his knowledge and empathy to assist those in need.

While the story may not follow the exact beat structure of "Save the Cat," these plot beats can help identify the key turning points and character development throughout the narrative.

Of course, such suggestions should be taken with a huge grain of salt, but the same could be said for writing tools such as Grammerly and Hemingway App, which also make plenty of stupid suggestions. The point is to draw your attention to things you wouldn't otherwise have noticed. I don't see why this should be considered any more controversial than using existing writing tools to find awkward sentences, etc. ChatGPT can only take about 4000 words at the moment, so you can't do this with stories, but I am still having a lot fun experimenting with it.

SimonChris fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Jul 12, 2023

# ¿ Jul 12, 2023 16:07

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Haha, yeah, I probably should have checked the original story myself before I posted that. Still, it is fun to play with.

Edit: I don't see the issues with the summary, though. Every point on the list matches something that happens in the story. The Save the Cat skips two of the beats but also references actual events from the story. It is not just making things up in this case.

SimonChris fucked around with this message at 13:12 on Jul 13, 2023

# ¿ Jul 12, 2023 16:51

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

sebmojo posted:

Think of it like a DND module writer explaining what the players will do at every point, instead of just saying what's in the room

This is why I often find RPG module writing advice more useful than traditional plot structures. I am very much a "gardener" style writer, and not knowing what my characters are going to do is just as much of an issue when writing as when GMing, so I find advice like "prep situations, not plots" to be highly useful. Instead of detailed plot outlines, I plan "modules" for my characters, and I don't have to throw all the preparation away when I get new ideas during the writing process.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2023 17:13

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Stuporstar posted:

This metaphor is so ingrained in our thinking (at least Western thinking), that we�re frequently stumped when people don�t get what we mean. People tend to get angry and think, �How could I be clearer?� and assume someone who misinterprets our words must be thick or something. But the truth is even basic words have completely different schema in other people�s minds, no matter how closely they�re culturally related. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-differ-widely-in-their-understanding-of-even-a-simple-concept-such-as-the-word-penguin1

Fun fact: Penguins are named that because they resemble the now extinct Great Auk, or Pinguinus impennis, which was much more well-known at the time. In fact, penguins are not even in the same genus as the Great Auk. The real penguin is dead, and these modern pretenders are not even relatives.

This amusing fact formed the seed for the first story in my collection.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2023 07:03

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Fat Jesus posted:

All that nerd talk got me to try Grammarly. I cut and paste Erskine Caldwell and William Faulkner and it says their prose is bland. Very impressive.

Now paste Hemingway's prose into the Hemingway Editor.

Grammarly really seems to have gone to poo poo lately. It used to fix my grammar and point out passive voice usage. Now, most of the suggestions seem to be sentence rewrites that fundamentally change the tone and meaning of the sentence. Maybe my grammar just got so good that there is nothing to fix anymore.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2023 08:12

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

I just came across this on a writing advice site and simply had to share.

How to fix the writing in Susannah Clarke's Piranesi (spoilers):

A good example of how you shouldn't blindly trust sites that insist on fitting everything into some kind of writing framework.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2023 13:35

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 00:27

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Can't you just split it into two 70k books, or is that too short?

# ¿ Sep 28, 2023 08:00

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

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