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Luigi Thirty posted:This may be a basic bitch writer question but I'm working on a horror scene that I can picture in my mind like a movie but can't seem to get out on paper in a way that makes sense. The protagonist, having saved the village through the awakening of her new power, is undergoing a magical healing ritual. She comes to realize during the course of the ritual that it's strikingly similar to a recurring dream of a magical harming ritual, and in her sight the two visions gradually merge until she freaks out and we cut to the next morning's "...well, we had to sedate you so you wouldn't hurt yourself..." Sometimes I find it helpful to ask questions just to help flesh out a scene. You don't need to answer me, and you certainly don't need all of these questions to be answered in your scene, but I think a lot of times it's helpful to take stock of what you do know and what you might not have considered yet, so it can inform your writing. 1. The character saved a village through some kind of newly awakened power. What did she save the village from? How does she feel about her new power, and how do the people around her feel? Whatever the answers to these questions are, there's an effect on the character's state of mind. 2. She has some manner of injury or impurity that requires a healing ritual. Why does she need to be in a healing ritual? Is she hurt/impure? Is this healing ritual something that she recognizes, a tradition that is known in the village, or is it kept secret? Does it actually involve iron chains tying her to an altar, and if so, why? 3. She has recurring dreams (nightmares?) about a malevolent ritual. Are these premonitions, or the result of a girl with an active imagination? Or did she actually witness some kind of harming ritual in the past? When she experiences these recurring dreams, what kind of physiological or psychological response does she have? 4. The resemblance between the two rituals seems to trigger a defensive response in her, and she can't tell the difference between the real (present) ritual and the imaginary (dream) ritual. What is your character's subjective experience? Let me give you a couple examples 1. Character A feels there's an uncanny similarity between this ritual and one from her dreams. Each detail in common raises her suspicions more and more. From a reasoned, logic-driven (even if it's faulty logic) point of view, she says, "Unchain me, you vile cultists! I know you're up to no good! I know you've got that bone pick of yours, and you're going to bleed me dry!" and starts resisting. 2. Character B has an instinctive, animal-like response to the ritual. The dream keeps coming back to her. She is not literally seeing things that aren't there; it's more like a traumatic flashback, or a panic attack. But when the priest raises his hand in benediction, all she can see is the black hooded figure from her nightmares, the carved bone pick. Had there been a face beneath that hood? It might have been the priest's face, the round curve of his cheeks, the same dispassionate downward gaze from on high. 3. Character C has a mystical, supernatural vision. She actually has a vision, sees something that is not there in front of her. Is this one of her powers? Maybe it's not the priest who frightens her, or the humble provincial altar, but her own future--she's seeing ahead to a future that awaits her. The village recedes, the dream swells, more real than reality.
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Aug 7, 2022 15:04
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 01:33 |
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General Battuta posted:This conversation always turns into a giant fuckfest but I'll keep it brief. i agree with everything you said, but i have to point out an irony. The first Mistborn book is about, basically, a hapless white settler who is humiliated by the competence and skill of his indigenous guides, who accumulate and pass on knowledge to each other through magical means. When he stumbles upon apotheosis he aims to debase their culture and creates a totalizing magic system (by appropriating their magic) that he believes will give him absolute control. But he underestimates the outmoded magic of the indigenous sages and it leads to his defeat. anyway i think a materialist view of how to write fantasy powers is fine if you want to write about materialist fantasy. it's a suffocating view if you want to write non-materialist fantasy. I am not smart enough to say what people ought to or ought not to write about. But I personally enjoy Earthsea more than Mistborn. And I think the story with the best use of magic in it is probably Twin Peaks lol. Although I also adore the ridiculous magic logic of shounen manga like Hunter x Hunter, which tends to shine when it stretches its logic to the near breaking point anyway. thanks for the great post!
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Apr 4, 2023 23:02
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I think the best bang for your buck is to just listen to author interviews. George Saunders is frequently interviewed; Ursula K. Le Guin was as well. Podcasts like Bookworm (with Michael Silverblatt) and Between the Covers have a veritable treasure trove of author interviews. Just think of an author you respect and search for "[author name] interview" on youtube or spotify and listen away; they tend to run between 20 minutes to an hour and a half. Not all the interviews are going to blow you away, or even necessarily be directly about the craft of writing, and some authors are better interviewees than others. But listening to authors talk about their own work, or just hearing some of the details of their lives and seeing how it connects to what they write, can be really enlightening and wonderful. Another approach would be using Audible or a free library app like Libby to download audiobooks of books on writing. Lots of authors have a book or two about craft or at least about being a writer. Some recommendations: Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George Saunders Daemon Voices by Phillip Pullman On Writing by Stephen King What I Talk About When I Talk About Running and Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami Letters to a Young Writer by Colum McCann There are also some that are a bit more explicitly how-to books, such as: The Lie That Tells a Truth by John Dufresne Naming the World by Bret Anthony Johnston How to Write Best-Selling Fiction by James Scott Bell Cephas fucked around with this message at 13:19 on Oct 23, 2023 |
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Oct 23, 2023 06:55
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a friendly penguin posted:Hey, thanks for posting this! It also links to an article recommending books with gender-nonconforming characters which is what I'm here to ask about. This was a good start, but these articles are from 2018 and I'm hoping there's been a lot of new stuff since then. The Monk & Robot books by Becky Chambers are about a nonbinary human who goes by they/them. The queer YA scifi graphic novel On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden has a nonbinary character who is handled well.
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Oct 28, 2023 23:31
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Without knowing your story, I would say, can you conceptualize your "starting off a great character dynamic" as a scene or vignette with a clear narrative arc? (Are they physically doing something?) Maybe think about it in musical terms--a sonata or concerto has a certain number of movements. The first movement may not directly, obviously share a theme or continuing melody with the second movement. But the composer feels like there is something about the connections or contrast between the two movements that is important. Both movements are enhanced by being part of the same larger piece; there are emotional reverberations, if nothing else (though in reality, there are probably shared motifs, or underlying rhythms, or key changes that connect the movements). So like, if it's just a scene of two characters sitting in a diner shooting the poo poo, for the sake of showing the reader what these two people's personalities are like, that's maybe less than ideal. But if the scene functions somehow as a contrasting episode, as complementary to the climactic scene, then it will feel important, even necessary. Because the goal is ultimately for every element of the story to feel somehow necessary, like it would be wrong to remove it. Cephas fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Mar 19, 2024 |
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Mar 19, 2024 05:00
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Phat Phingers posted:samurai in the future https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMlORkxMS-0
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Mar 28, 2024 03:07
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 01:33 |
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I have a short story that probably needs one more draft of meaningful revisions before I'll feel comfortable sending it out for submission. Do yall normally just let it sit for a while so you can gain some distance from it, and move on to work on your next project? Or do you hold off on starting something new until you're totally done with what you've been working on?
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May 4, 2024 06:47
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