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Sitting Here posted:all writing should be 3rd/past, all pizza should be cheese, all chicken should be nuggets gently caress Sitting Here posted:we live in the time of endless reboots, honestly i would chew all my limbs off if it meant unconventional and outsider art had its day in the mainstream yes Everything I've loved reading these days has broken every drat genre workshop writing rule that exists. I can't even get my writer-peen up these days unless I'm doing something I know is wrong wrong so very wrong I should be shot for even trying to write this Most of what I write is bad as gently caress Idc Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Apr 10, 2018 |
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Apr 10, 2018 00:13
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Djeser posted:I've read a story told in non-linear epistolary format with paragraphs from two sources interleaved so it alternated between an article about the protagonist's birth and the protagonist's death. And that was in a sci-fi book, which everyone knows means it was genre garbage for babies. I recently finished reading Excession, where half the story is told in usenet posts by giant spaceships, which was cool. I want more of that and less new SF authors following the loving "Save the Cat" formula.
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Apr 11, 2018 00:12
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Dr. Kloctopussy posted:It's YA, so probably a little more Save-The-Cat in terms of narrative content (like what happens and when), but The Illuminae Files is "told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more." There is, perhaps, a bit of cheating in the sections that are "summaries of security footage," but it's not too bad. And it also involves giant spaceships. Sounds interesting enough I've put it on hold at the library. Thanks showbiz_liz posted:I'm not saying he's wrong, just that I would have found it personally discouraging, for not-necessarily-rational reasons. It took me a long time to get over the feeling that if I couldn't immediately produce a flawless masterpiece, I really shouldn't bother trying to write. I only managed to start producing work once I got over the feeling that it Had To Be Perfect. Djeser posted:Yeah imo from a lit crit perspective I can see the argument the guy seems to be making, but from the perspective of someone offering advice to writers, "writing isn't valuable unless it's Meaningful and your Opus" seems like not the best perspective have, especially if you're someone who's still learning as a writer and can benefit from practice. I'd have to read Delaney's book myself (and it sounds like the kind of writing advice I prefer given where I'm at), but I want to say that shooting for the moon gets really loving fun once you get over the fear of failure. Like, you go into assuming you're probably gonna gently caress it up and just have fun experimenting. If you have to trash it afterward, at least you learned something, so it's not a waste of time. Sure, new writers benefit more from figuring out the rules. The real trap is becoming an alcolyte to some guru with a magic formula, the kind of advice-giver who promises the One Easy Trick to Writing a Bestseller, because they're preying on all those people afraid to fail, who want to write a perfect first draft and instantly get it published without having to sweat over it. I'm not accusing anyone of that here. It's just what I meant by "genre-workshop writing rules" earlier. What I love most about this forum is when someone comes in asking, "Can I do X?" the response is usually, "Try it and see." It's so much better than a lot of poo poo I see online, with writers/editors proclaiming that "only amatuers write in first person!" or "all flashbacks are bad!" If you listened to all these assholes, you'd plateau at merely competent and never write anything great--after all, how can you if you never take risks?
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Apr 12, 2018 00:51
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I type out passages from stories that strike me and then make notes about how it struck me, which I've mentioned before. I also read widely and pay particular attention to voice. I think voice is far more important (and difficult) to nail than plotting, which is why you can find tons of books on plot, but have to read a lot of fiction to study voice. Though LeGuin's Steering the Craft is one of the few writing books that tries to tackle voice, and does a pretty good job of nailing the basics. I find a great narrative voice lets the author get away with drat near anything. A story can meander all over the place if the writer is a great bullshitter. Prime examples for me are Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Rivka Galchen, and Marlon James. I don't care where their stories end up because I'm too busy enjoying the ride. One thing I do to help focus my stories and develop the voice (this is primarily in first person), is figure out who the narrator is telling the story to and why. Are they trying to impress, justify their actions, or just make someone laugh? During editing, it helps me figure out what to cut, because some poo poo is not important enough to tell, even if the story seemed to naturally flow that way in the first draft. I ask myself, "If the audience was right here, would they be rolling their eyes with boredom right now?" If yes, it has to go, and any Important Details will have to fit in elsewhere. Conversations will have to be compressed or cut. Because as important as dialogue can be, people will lose interest if you drivel on. I write way too much bullshit. I love letting my characters bullshit. So developing a specific drive for the narrative is how I cut down the bullshit and get to the point.
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Jun 17, 2018 05:23
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^^ Yeah, and there's various degrees of en media res. Starting the characters is mortal danger feels cheap, but that doesn't mean swinging hard the other way and making them go through their boring average day or whatever is any better.Omi no Kami posted:This is a really silly question, but I constantly have an issue where I'll have a very clear outline for a story, and if I start 50 pages in I have no problem writing forever, but actually structuring a solid opening chapter that establishes the setting and orients the reader inevitably becomes a long, frustrating slog. Is there anything I can do to specifically work on that area, or is this a case where I should just write 100 really bad openings and learn from each one? It sounds to me, if 50 pages in is where you want to start, then 50 pages in is where you should start. If the beginning bores you enough not to want to write it, it's going to bore the reader too. Most writers are told to chop off the first part of their story, because all the establishing scenes are crap the writer thinks needs to be there, but the readers don't actually give a crap about. So yeah, writing a bunch of short stories might help, and you can do that too, but if you've got a novel you really want to work on, write the whole thing from where it gets interesting to you and by the time you're done, a couple things might happen: 1. Over the course of writing, you've figured out your story enough that you're able to come up with a more compelling opening scene. 2. You feel it's done, so hand it off to someone to get their opinion on whether you need to write that beginning, or beginning 50 pages in is just right. I've written a lot of beginnings. I've done that because I wrote my main character's entire life out and had to figure out where in that life to start the first novel. I had several false starts because I started too early or too late. I finally figured out where to start by asking myself where the protagonist would start, if they were asked to tell the story. It's written in first person, so I turned it into a pseudo-epistolary novel. Focusing on who he was telling the story to and why helped frame what needed to be in the story and what didn't, from a huge disorganized outline full of notes and too much pointless detail. If you're writing in third person, imagining yourself telling it out loud to an audience might help you focus on where it needs to begin in a similar way. Edit (perhaps tangental): I spent a long time pondering this, from Ursula K. LeGuin's Steering the Craft: quote:Some people interpret story to mean plot. Some reduce story to action. Plot is so much discussed in literature and writing courses, and action is so highly valued, that I want to put in a counterweight opinion. A story that has nothing but action and plot is a pretty poor affair; and some great stories have neither. To my mind, plot is merely one way of telling a story, by connecting the happenings tightly, usually through causal chains. Plot is a marvelous device. But it’s not superior to story, and not even necessary to it. As for action, indeed a story must move, something must happen; but the action can be nothing more than a letter sent that doesn’t arrive, a thought unspoken, the passage of a summer day. Unceasing violent action is usually a sign that in fact no story is being told. Her explanation didn't really click for me at first (which is why I haven't pasted the entire thing), until I thought about story in terms of how you would tell a story to someone in person, and how you think they'd react. And I realised how many tightly-plotted stories seemed completely disconnected from that sense (and why I find so many SF-action novels unsatisfying), that there's an audience who cares about things beyond simply what happens next. They care about the why of things, not just the how. And they're moved by emotional effect. This means, for example, you can stop to take the time to make the reader laugh, even if what happens doesn't move the plot forward, and you'll end up with a richer story because of it. What kind of stories do you tell about yourself to your friends, and why do you choose to tell them? I ask the same of all my characters, even if they're not the narrating character. If they're telling the protagonist something, they have the same drive, and the protagonist has their own drive in recounting it. Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Jun 23, 2018 |
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Jun 23, 2018 17:31
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sebmojo posted:It's in media res, Latin rather than French. I thought so, but then I thought I might be wrong and dammit Omi no Kami you led me astray 
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Jun 24, 2018 02:48
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Covok posted:I've been dabbling with an LGBT+ erotic novel. How do you make sex not boring? Because, sex is kind of monotonous activity that is only good when you're like doing it. I've tried a lot of metaphors and textile descriptions...and fetishes...but I think it's kind of boring. Anyone got any advice on how to write that kind of stuff? Forget all that florid bullshit and focus on the highlights. Like the moment the characters connect, peak, and how they come down off the high. What means something to the focal character is the only thing that matters. Discard the rest, because seriously who in recalling the sex they had ever thinks about extraneous details like the texture of the fabric (unless it they were slipping because of it or chafing) or the dull mechanics of every thrust. I once discussed this with a friend who writes and edits romance, and we basically summed up good sex writing as, "Whatever you'd tell your most shameless TMI girlfriend." And the rest you don't bother with.
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Jul 17, 2018 06:07
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Djeser posted:In some ways, a bad rough draft is just a really wordy outline. Yeah, this is exactly why I call it draft zero. It's basically this: MockingQuantum posted:Yeah I'm leaning more and more towards the latter the longer I write. I like to put my notes in brackets, and editorial notes in square brackets to make them as noticable as a brisk slap in the face. Especially when I start going all stream-of-consciousness in my push to get literally anything on the page when I don't know what the hell to do next. Usually I only have a vague story arc in mind when I start, and don't bother outlining until I'm halfway through my draft zero and have a better sense where I'm going with it. It probably does take longer jumping back and forth, writing poo poo that's going to get cut, and reworking scenes multiple times, but this way I get the work done and probably end up with a better story in the end than if I tried to force myself to stick to the first idea that came into my head. Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Aug 1, 2018 |
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Aug 1, 2018 23:17
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CantDecideOnAName posted:If you want to hang out with other writer goons in a non-TD setting, there is also the discord server. We have a crit channel if there's anything in particular you wanted people to look at. There's a discord? poo poo, how did I miss this?
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Aug 17, 2018 03:16
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I know that was just an example, but never use adjectives as verbs, especially as a speech tag. That would be better off reading: Sorry, no. This is a stylistic quirk I would totally put up with, especially when the rhythm flows better than your example. There are no hard rules in writing.
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Sep 8, 2018 01:36
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And then grouse at them. Though that is noun that has been verbed.
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Sep 8, 2018 01:42
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Nae! posted:Meanwhile, I saw 'graveled' and rolled my eyes so loving hard they flew out of my skull and smashed against the floor, so ymmv. I agree it's totally ridiculous, but it was in a comedy context so I was just like, Ok I can deal. I just don't like to see people come down on Fun With Words. Fun With Words is what writing should be (partly) about
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Sep 8, 2018 07:01
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:SORRY FOR USING THE WORD "never". Okay? "Use words that exist" is a bullshit rule made up by mediocre editors with no imagination. Good writers make up words all the time. Shakespeare alone is said to have made up hundreds, a significant portion of the English language, and plenty of significant authors have done so since. In fact people make up words every day, they catch on, and eventually make it into the dictionary—so you don't even need to be a goddamn genius to be allowed to do it. Language is fluid, and anyone who tries to pretend otherwise is being prescriptive and dishing out writing advice that is actively harmful to an art that relies on imagination. Even if "graveled" is stupid as hell... Touchscreen is not a word, but it will soon be in its un-hyphenated form, so gently caress what spellcheck says. Peacocked is not a word, but in context if it makes sense, now it is one! Sucklump is not a word, but my made-up slang cannot be constrained I could go on. I make up words for my own fiction all the time, so I will die on this hill. Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Sep 8, 2018 |
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Sep 8, 2018 21:13
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Sure, but after being inundated by advice from midlist authors and editors, about how only conventional, perfectly transparent prose is acceptable, some need to hear that the opposite is allowed. That every book should have its own voice, can have its own stylistic quirks if it fits the tone, and that doing unusual things with language can make a book more delightful. The first time I struggled to find the right word because the right word didn't exist, I was told, "Then make one up." And my reaction was, "We're allowed to do that?" Yes, we are. There are enough decent writers in this forum, who are ready (or already trying) to go beyond the boring advice you read everywhere else. So for anyone ready to hear it: Read more and better fiction. Get a feel for really good prose. Experiment. Play with language. If you're not a native English speaker, don't rub out all your quirks as soon as you brush up against one of our many unspoken rules (because native speakers aren't consistent either—take by accident vs. on accident for example, a generational divide). Make horrible embarrasing mistakes in the process and laugh them off. Have fun. Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Sep 9, 2018 |
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Sep 9, 2018 17:45
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Mirage posted:It's funny about breasts. I wrote a book with a main character who was a tiny flying pixie-like thing similar to Tinker Bell, but naked. (Mostly because she thought humans' reactions to her nakedness were hilarious.) I think I mentioned her boobs twice in the whole book and never really described them beyond "ample." Otherwise she was smart and wise and adventurous and a valued friend and teacher to one of the other characters. The instant you made a tiny flying pixie-thing's breast "ample" you made it a Thing hth Fruity20 posted:i gotta be honest, as a woman, i hate when make writers describe a woman's breast as the most important thing to describe. dude, there are other things for that. Yeah, what about the butt? I mean geez, guys Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Sep 29, 2018 |
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Sep 29, 2018 00:41
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"I have numerous other qualities. Why you all looking at my penis!" yelled the cock fairy over the sound of his ginormous balls flapping in the wind. Seriously, his dick was larger than the rest of him put together. "I just have trouble finding clothes that fit!"
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Sep 29, 2018 17:50
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Hold on, gotta go edit my gay novel so the first thing my protag notices on everyone is the size of their crotch bulge.
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Sep 29, 2018 18:04
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Boobs everywhere. Everytime I went out in public, all these boob-havers were constantly in my face. I was a nervous wreck having to nagivate through this endless sea of boobs, especially when I knew, theoretically, they were attached to human beings with faces and thoughts inside those faces. Faces that turned angry when you stared into their much-more-important boobies too long. But mostly I couldn't see their faces, which was a relief, because when I did they were mostly angry. Like, how dare I notice they have boobs when I do not. Don't they know how lucky they are to have boobs? I mean, if I had boobs I would play with them all the time, be able to die happy in one endless self-tittyfuck. With boobs you can get all the sex you want. All you have to do is flaunt your boobs. I mean, they don't even have to work at it, because even through a thick sweater, I could still see the boobs. When a woman walked by, every part of her turned transparent, except for her boobs. Even if she had really tiny boobs, boobs is all I could see, they were just smaller and easier to miss in a crowd of bigger boobs. But if they were the only boobs around, my eyes could settle on them ok. Sometimes, but only sometimes, a woman would walk by with a butt that outdid her boobs. I like to thing I'm a man of equal opportunity, but mostly it was boobs boobs boobs. My penis was constantly rock hard and it was torture. —Diary of an Incel Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Sep 29, 2018 |
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Sep 29, 2018 18:28
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People have mistaken my male first person protagonist for female because his voice isn't super masculine, but since this character is pretty much trans-male, I decided that's actually ok. Like if anyone was blind enough to really not notice all the other signifiers until struck in the face with dick, they probably diserved to be shocked into the realization anyway In an earlier draft this character, only when confronted by an rear end in his face went, "Dat rear end!" And I was told this was the most masculine I'd ever written him, but then when directly confronted by incredible rear end, I too have gone, "Dat rear end!" so I don't consider this strictly a masculine thing. However, in the novel moments like that are preludes to sexin/denial of sexin because otherwise why mention your character having a horndog moment? In every case, you'd best think about the reasons for it, otherwise you're accidentally making your character a perv. You know, rather than "relatable" like you're thinkin Also, dear male writers, the breast size of your female characters doesn't actually matter. Like, not at all. You can go a whole book without mentioning cup size or descriptions like "ample" Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Sep 29, 2018 |
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Sep 29, 2018 19:03
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Speaking as a woman, my entire internal monologue is a constant stream of, "My boobs are sagging, my boobs are sagging, Oh God I'll never be loved again cause my boobs are sagging..."
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Oct 8, 2018 00:26
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Djeser posted:I have no accomplishments regarding my breasts either. I would personally go with: My two talents have gone heavily underutilized in my life, and I decided it time to finally put them in action.
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Oct 12, 2018 02:18
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Whalley posted:Great for drafts but I hate reading them every time. Just bring up the important bits from the prologue as they happen dammit, don't give me a short story then instantly start a novel sequel But what if it's a good short story with a novel sequel? I'm drat well doing that right now, and you can't stop me!  Fruity20 posted:to you, what is a good antagonist? like what traits make them understandable to audience? My favorite antagonists to write are genuinely good people trying to make the best decisions given the knowledge they have—they just happen to be at odds with the protagonist's goals and/or worldview. They're not fanatics trying to do good using evil ends. Instead they're good people trapped in a bad system trying for the best outcome. The system itself is the evil, or if not evil at least poison to the protagonist. Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Nov 3, 2018 |
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Nov 3, 2018 22:50
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:By that, do you mean that in essence your antagonist is an agent of the law and insists on the law being followed even if it is considered unjust by people like the protagonist? That's a rather narrow interpretation, but it's an example of what I'm talking about, yes.
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Nov 4, 2018 17:15
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I was asking because I wasn't entirely sure what you meant. The impression I got from your description was that your antagonists were essentially someone who puts upholding an existing system (lawful) against someone fighting the system for being unjust. What other examples did you have in mind? Ok here's an example you may have read. In N. K. Jemison's Broken Earth trilogy the Guardians are charged with protecting their wards, but also with protecting other people from their wards because their powers are extremely dangerous. The protagonist's Guardian is essentially a good person who truly loves the protagonist and wants to protect her, but the system is such that the only way he can protect her is by being a slaver. He doesn't necessarily value the "law" over the protagonist's life, he just can't see any other way to protect the protagonist. The protagonist wants freedom, but in his mind that can't happen, not because it's "against the law," but because she risks being murdered by a mob if they find out what she is, or will put other people at risk simply being free to do her geomancy unchecked. That's only one example, the one your question is leaning towards, because it still has an element of the antagonist doing evil. But they don't have to do evil at all to be a good antagonist… It can get more subtle, like a psychologist prodding someone with mental illness to get a job, even a lovely one, because they think finding work will be good for their patient's mental health. But the lovely jobs available are so miserable all they do is make the protagonist feel more useless and miserable. The psychologist has bought so completely into this society's belief that work in itself is good and not working turns people into miserable piles of refuse, so instead of listening to their patient and maybe suggesting they try something else, they try to cure the person from feeling bad about their miserable work—because the goal is to get them back to work and mitigate the miserableness it causes, not offer real alternatives like shucking off the chains of a lovely society. In the latter example, the psychologist doesn't even need to have the literal power to make the protagonist's life miserable, like threatening to cut off their disability cheques if they don't follow the program. They wouldn't do that as legitimately good people. No, instead (in the case of my current SF novel) they're helping erect mental roadblocks in the protagonist. Leaving the protagonist bumping against the walls in the rat maze, trying to follow all the signposts on the path to "normality," so they can contribute and fit in, instead of looking up at the stars and thinking, "Screw this bullshit world, I'm going beyond." Edit: Choosing genuinely good people as antagonists also adds an element of the protagonist not necessarily being right. Of the protagonist perhaps doing harm to themself or even others. And it's up to the reader to decide whether they side with them or not, not just ride along unquestioning on the assumption the protagonist is always right because they're the protagonist. Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Nov 4, 2018 |
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Nov 4, 2018 18:06
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I your bottom the goatman? Because I feel like this is the only way the relationship is gonna work.
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Nov 6, 2018 04:15
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Screaming Idiot posted:Why they hands so big You know why 
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Nov 20, 2018 07:00
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Fruity20 posted:hypothetically, if you were tasked to go on a expedition to an island full of strange creatures and dangerous flora, what experts shall you bring with you? (i'm having issues deciding what comprises my main expedition team for a short story of mine) Here's some rl inspiration: https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/28/17770988/google-earth-mount-lico-discovery-secret-mozambique-rainforest-expedition
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Jan 8, 2019 20:37
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sunken fleet posted:can I ask vocab questions in this thread? ingratiating
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Mar 28, 2019 16:16
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Whalley posted:Writers who say their work doesn't need editing are writers who aren't progressing and improving. Yep. And yet this is the kind of poo poo I hear from self-pubbed hacks more and more: “some chucklefuck on another website” posted:...don’t write a first draft. Write an only draft and move on to your next project. “another chucklefuck in response” posted:It’s interesting that the “clean first draft” approach is starting to make some headwind. My writing group thinks I’m slightly crazy, but of course one-draft is just another thing on the pile! I guarantee these people are writing the kind of poo poo that ends up in the pyf terrible books thread.
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May 10, 2019 02:41
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feedmyleg posted:Anyone have thoughts on how to tell what's too much and how to tell what gives the work its character and identity? I've heard that when it comes to research you want to take as much of it off the page as you can so it doesn't feel like a constant parade of "it sounds like this guy read a 1920s Boy Scout manual before he wrote this passage," but how do I make sure all these elements aren't making the thing feel all over the place while making sure you don't remove something that's making it unique? I’m currently going through an edit where I’m yanking out bits that sound too much like, “I just researched this!” We were discussing Autonomous by Annalee Newitz on the discord the other day in less than glowing terms, and the problem was her character had no voice—everything sounded like a tech blogger (which the author is) imagining all the cool new tech she could possibly think up, and cramming it into her story with the same tech blogger voice. It was atrocious. And then I noticed myself doing the same thing in one of my chapters  In my rewrite I was able to take some of the same details (but not all of them—some poo poo just had to be cut) and reframing it how my protagonist would tell the story. The point being it had to tell a story, it had to weave seamlessly into the existing story, not just be a cool thing for no reason other than I thought it was cool.First person helps me frame things a lot because the question is always, Why would my narrator say this?
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May 17, 2019 22:25
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oot posted:I've got another case of character-related writer's block. This time I've got a ruthless galactic conqueror character who needs to find something on Earth that gives him a second of hesitation over killing the inhabitants and plants a seed of doubt. Maybe I should think of something specific to the character, but if I go that route I don't want it to be a "Martha"-style copout. It would have to do with his nature. Is it a kill all life on Earth kinda deal? Because maybe he really likes spiders, and there’s so many spiders
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Jul 6, 2019 05:19
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oot posted:It takes place in a universe where most of the characters are LGBT, and the character associated with rainbows is actually one of the few heterosexual ones (at least thematically). So it seems like that could be very confusing. If this is the case, lean into it imo as irony
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Jul 9, 2019 22:32
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I think the best program to help you catch poo poo like that is some kind of dictation software that can read your story out loud to you.
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Jul 15, 2019 16:08
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Sitting Here posted:The bottom line is, if you like to write (but aren't a professional with professional deadlines), there are periods where you just won't generate any output. Maybe it's a week, maybe it's a month—I'm coming off of almost 4 months of little to no output because my brain sat its rear end down like a petulant puppy refusing to walk on its leash. For most of us, these periods of non-output will come and go in a cycle of months or years. I've found, however, that the brain is generally creating stories even if we're not writing them down; sometimes that needs to happen in the background of your mind for quite a while before you're seized by that spark that eventually actualizes into a story. This is me as well
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Jul 15, 2019 23:52
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And I wish I had an egg chair so when I turn my back to everyone it’s means, I am writing dammit, and if anyone disturbs me I can turn and say, “How dare you disturb me in the writing pod.” 
Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Jul 16, 2019 |
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Jul 16, 2019 18:34
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feedmyleg posted:I stopped being a night owl two years ago so I that could start walking up at five to write in the morning with no distractions. It's incredible. I used to scoff at the “if you’re a night owl, you can be at your creative best if you get up and work on your stuff before breakfast” but once I actually tried it, it really does work. Since I stopped letting myself stay up late, getting up still half asleep and writing (before the internal editor has a chance to wake up) turns into some of my best writing days.
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Jul 16, 2019 20:21
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I far prefer saying Don’t Be Precious
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Jul 26, 2019 03:10
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I tend to critique in two passes. Initial reactions can be helpful, but if I find myself asking a question that’s answered in the next paragraph or next page, I go back and delete the, “But what about...?” Because most readers tend to give the author the benefit of the doubt for at least that long. So I sit on my crit for a day so I can go back and ask the bigger questions, the ones that linger, in the morning after the person’s piece has had time to settle in my brain. I don’t feel like I’m giving a crit my full attention if I only do one pass, zoomed in on a sentence level without any sense of the bigger picture.
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Sep 25, 2019 18:57
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feedmyleg posted:Thoughts on exposition-dumps? Is there any way to do them right, or is the only good approach to weave them throughout the narrative over the course of the story? Been reading The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maass (such a good writing book), and this is all he has to say on infodumps: Donald Maass posted:Take dry facts. Almost every story requires that you explain some things to your readers. Scientific, historical, occupational, or local knowledge is needed for the story to make sense. This stuff can sit on the page like a lump. When it does, it’s called info dump. Or it can feel lively, engaging, and important. That happens when that information means something to a point of view character and you put that down in words. That’s it really. When readers complain about infodumps, they’re usually complaining, “Why should we care?” If the pov character has no reason to care about the info, including it usually stands out, feels suspect. If you need to recount history, the most effective opening historical infodumps I’ve seen are the ones where some character related to the main narrative has been affected by that history, were involved in it or destroyed by it in some way. Otherwise, it’s usually better to weave the info in gradually. However, don’t let that stop you from actually writing a huge infodump at the beginning of the novel. Do it, to get it straight in your own mind, and then stick it in your pile of notes instead of calling it a prologue or chapter 1 or whatever.
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Dec 6, 2019 18:30
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Does anyone have fresh ideas on how to anglicize the aleph without it being awkward as gently caress and still conveying the phoneme to an English speaker? ʔ doesn’t really do that, but using a’ is making a hash of my conlang and the language also has the ayin so just using a doesn’t work. I’m conlanging with ancient Egyptian. There are reasons for this. Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 02:14 on May 6, 2020 |
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May 6, 2020 02:12
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