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People want me to post this in FA: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zBtK0ULH71mMiRCGBidbjpl3YqrdzD-QRYmom3mi6u0/edit?usp=sharing I basically just slammed together two common breakdowns of the Hero's Journey. More info re the Harmon Embryo can be found here and is definitely worth a read -- the whole series is wonderful.
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Feb 27, 2017 02:14
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A human heart posted:Isn't a lot of this advice quite biased in favour of extremely formulaic genre fiction narratives with plot and characters as the main focus. like you're spending all this time talking about plot but lots of great books don't have much of a plot or its fairly unimportant?
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Feb 28, 2017 23:25
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HEY GUYS LET'S MAKE A HUMAN HEART HAPPY, BUT I ALSO HAVE A REAL QUESTION HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT NOVELS LIKE INVISIBLE CITIES THAT ARE MORE A STRING OF THEMATICALLY-CONNECTED VIGNETTES TIED TOGETHER BY A LOOSE FRAMING NARRATIVE HOW DO THEY GENERATE FORWARD MOMENTUM WITHIN THE NOVEL, IN THE ABSENCE OF TRADITIONAL STORYTELLING STRUCTURES
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Mar 1, 2017 03:13
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IT IS A THEMATIC CHOICE
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Mar 1, 2017 03:17
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YOU CAN'T TALK TO ME LIKE THAT I READ INFINITE JEST
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Mar 1, 2017 03:19
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TequilaJesus posted:What's everyone's thoughts on spicing up dialogue tags? One person in my writing group says I use "he said" too much. When I try to throw in "he replied/he asked/he interrupted/he shouted" etc., another will tell me I need to stick with "he said."
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Mar 6, 2017 04:51
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I've seen M-Dashes for dialogue in three places 1) modernist/postmodernist authors trying to break the rules to make a point 2) very old European authors 3) people trying to evoke very old European authors Here's a general guideline: if you're going to break the rules, know what it means to break them. It feels to me like m-dash dialogue has a very restricted set of uses, beyond which it's ugly and distracting. Maybe you want it to be ugly and distracting (in which case, cool) but be aware of the response it gets.
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Mar 7, 2017 23:56
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A Human Heart, has anybody ever told you that you're needlessly abrasive? You asked a question, people answered it, then you insulted the people who answered it. You don't get to act like the !!!ONLY MATURE ADULT!!! if you refuse to court anybody who politely disagrees with you.
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Mar 9, 2017 23:52
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Yo A Human Heart, I just wanted to say that I appreciate the stuff you've been posting. I shouldn't have snapped before, and it's good to have people asking those sorta questions. We get a lot of new people looking for basic advice so we tend to lean that way, but there's also a lot of talented folks and it's not a crime to ask us to be better. SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Mar 20, 2017 |
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Mar 20, 2017 03:08
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*sees a child get their hand torn off in an industrial accident* "man, top hats are the poo poo"
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Jun 15, 2017 23:53
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sebmojo posted:Could you please listen to what people are telling you. The only way to write is to write, so do it and then rewrite it when it is terrible. It's ok to be terrible. Be terrible. I require you to be terrible. Be all the terrible you can be, Fruity20. The first story I ever wrote was about a kid on a trip to the museum who got teleported back to ancient egypt when he touched a mummy, then he woke up in his bed. It was all a dream ... or was it?!? because there was sand in his hand so it's like maybe it wasn't a dream. Now I get invited to fancy literary things where there's free wine and you'd better bet I wouldn't be smashing back free platters of fancy cheese if I'd given up because I sucked. I sucked for a solid 20 years and even now I'm not convinced.
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May 14, 2019 06:04
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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. Junpei posted:My idea does come from a place of passion but I won't lie and say that I haven't seen a marketing angle for this project: SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Nov 16, 2021 |
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Nov 16, 2021 22:41
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Stuporstar posted:Does anyone have a link to that old post on TV Tropes where the dude was agonizing having to rewrite how many health potions he gave his protagonist because he didn’t have enough at the end to defeat the big bad and get his “random drop girlfriend”? SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at 11:06 on Nov 23, 2021 |
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Nov 23, 2021 11:02
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General Battuta posted:Wait how the gently caress is there competitive D&D
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Nov 24, 2021 00:52
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FightingMongoose posted:Here we go again
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Jan 4, 2022 01:40
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I feel like it's way too dense re worldbuilding elements? There are a lot of big fantasy names that we don't have context for and so they're really hard to sink your teeth into. We've got: 1) the Conclave 2) Chanaz 3) the Aleznuaweite Guild 4) resonance disciplines 5) Ennuost Yrg 6) Lowdocks 7) Houses/House-Born 8) Petition Day 9) Supplicants quote:Rahelu’s parents couldn’t afford to send their magically talented daughter to the Conclave so they did the next best thing: they sold what they couldn’t carry and left Chanaz behind. For they have heard that the Aleznuaweite Guild will train anyone in the resonance disciplines and everyone who is willing to put in the work can rise above the station of their birth to the level of their talent—even a foreign fisher brat without a coin to her name. To me, it seems like the elements that actually matter are: 1) Rahelu 2) The Guild 3) Resonance 4) Ennuost Yrg (the city where The Lowdocks are?) 5) Petition Day There's a tight and muscular plot in there, poor child has a gift and manages to rise up through society through merit, with a clear and concrete endgoal that she needs to hone her skills for, it's just sort of currently playing second fiddle to a bunch of worldbuildy stuff rather than being supported by it. It takes three paragraphs to get to Petition Day, which seems like the protag's primary motivation? You want to get to her current needs/goals as quickly as possible rather than taking the scenic route through the backstory. SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Jan 4, 2022 |
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Jan 4, 2022 03:09
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As I understood it, the NO LGBT+ thing was very strictly in reference to LitRPGs, which tend to have a younger male readership that has very specific trope expectations (read: there is one dude with a harem of women) and will review bomb if they're not catered to.
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Jan 5, 2022 07:52
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General Battuta posted:You're hosed. But you'll be hosed no matter what, the SFF community is just pathologically broken.
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Jan 5, 2022 22:51
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:Turns out essentialism isn't just real but good business sense. It's not even taking out of context any more, it's just lies. There is no standard of conduct that'll get the target off your back. change my name posted:Run the script/service that deletes all of your tweets up until a certain period (the last year?)
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Jan 5, 2022 23:01
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I strongly disagree that one shouldn't write outside their experience, but with a few core caveats: 1) somebody who has lived a particular experience is much more likely to understand and articulate it well, and that will benefit the work creatively and in terms of marketing c.f. publicity etc, authenticity sells 2) if you're writing a marginalised experience outside your own, you owe it to the people who do live that experience to do the research. Don't just consult with them, loving listen to them. Which might feel like splitting hairs but I really don't think it is: nobody should be barred from telling a particular story, the problem is telling it badly, and if it's outside your experience then you've got more work to do to make it good.
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Jan 5, 2022 23:18
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It's like hey, I wrote this book while living in Kuala Lumpur, and KL rubbed off on it hugely, but I'm not Malaysian. Not even a little bit. This book got picked up by a Big 4 publisher. Because I did my research. It was a place I lived, the place where I landed my first publishing credits, a place where I still have a bunch of friends who are writers who I trust to call me out on my bullshit. Nobody has ever complained about the Asian elements in the setting. The problem isn't a white guy writing Asian worlds, it's when white guys joke that their research was "eating pocky". Neither readers nor the industry have a problem if you do the loving legwork.
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Jan 5, 2022 23:24
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REMEMBER SPONGE MONKEYS posted:That’s a lot of bricks, maybe take up masonry on the side?
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Jan 6, 2022 03:04
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Junpei posted:You know what that's a fair point, I haven't really been offering much of my own opinion because... well I'm new here so I feel like my opinions are less valid or at the very least less thought-out than most of you Big Shot Super Writers With Experience. Also like, we're a resource -- we're here to help, not to burn you down. People get into storytelling because they love stories, and enabling others to tell their own stories loving rules.
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Jan 9, 2022 02:30
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It's a very arch line, but if that's the intent then it lands; sometimes you gotta just swing for the fences. If the whole book makes choices that big and bold then it might come off silly, but also if the whole book is extremely po-faced and serious it'll come off even sillier – it works if it's in a text trying to ride that razor, that's pulpy enough for it to fit but not so pulpy that it gets drowned out.
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Jan 10, 2022 00:25
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Fate Accomplice posted:thank you - my best guess before this was a shortening of archetypal.
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Jan 10, 2022 09:05
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I think there is a joy when characters act out, though -- robots follow orders, people don't, and when it suddenly occurs to you that there's just no way x would do y like the outline says, you know you're onto something, that you've written a person. To say that they're writing themselves is a metaphor, but it's a very fine metaphor.
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Jan 10, 2022 13:43
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Yeah I mean, you need craft and diligence and dedication to put yourself into a position where you can – to get a bit fuckin poetic but hopefully demystify how this poo poo actually works – channel the muses. A writer with craft and no inspiration will write competent-but-derivative work, a writer with inspiration and no craft will write crap.
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Jan 10, 2022 23:59
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Like, I do not like discussing The Craft in purely technical terms, this Tatyana Tolstoya quote has been living in my head rent-free every since I saw it and ... yeah that's kinda what it feels like; there is a magic to Inspiration, something of the touch of the divine, it feels like life moving under your fingers. I don't think mysticism is entirely the wrong path, if anything I think we rely too much on beat sheets, on techniques, on trying to be coldly logical in the face of something that sometimes feels loving supernatural. quote:A “pre-Square” artist studies his craft his entire life, struggling with dead, inert, chaotic matter, trying to breathe life into it; as if fanning a fire, as if praying, he tries to ignite light within a stone; he stands on his tippy toes, craning his neck in an attempt to peek where the human eye cannot reach. Sometimes, his efforts and prayers, his caresses, are rewarded: for a brief moment, or maybe for a long while, “it” happens, “it” “appears.” God (an angel, a ghost, a muse, or sometimes a demon) steps back and acquiesces, letting go from his hands those very things, those volatile feelings, those wisps of celestial fire—what should we call them?—that they saved for themselves, for their wondrous abode that is hidden from us. Having solicited this divine gift, the artist experiences a moment of acute gratitude, unhumiliating humility, unshameful pride, a moment of distinct, pure, and purifying tears—both seen and unseen—a moment of catharsis. But “it” surges, and “it” retreats, like a wave. The artist becomes superstitious. He wants to repeat this moment, he knows that, next time, he may not be granted a divine audience, and so his spiritual eyesight opens up, he can sense with deep inner foreknowledge what exactly—avarice, selfishness, arrogance, conceit—may close the pearly gates in front of him. He tries to wield his inner foreknowledge in such a way as to not sin before his angelic guides; he fully understands that he’s a co-author at best, or an apprentice—but a crowned co-author, a beloved apprentice. The artist knows that the Spirit blows wherever it pleases. He knows that he, the artist, has done nothing in his earthly life to deserve being singled out by the Spirit, and so if that happens to pass then he should joyfully give thanks for this wonder. And I understand this need to remind baby writers "no, that comes later, first you need to do the hard yards, you can't catch lightning in a bottle without first breaking a lot of bottles", but I can't bring myself to push it away, that feels like consigning myself to the sunken place.
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Jan 11, 2022 00:50
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Seems like it would a helpful tool for editing, but a lot of work, particularly at longer lengths? It's something I'd consider for a writer who's still learning to maybe try out with some shorts, to help get a better idea of things, but for longer texts the cost/benefit ratio seems wack. Might be a good tool in longform if an individual scene isn't working? Still, it seems both slower and less effective than the eternal god-tier Unfucking Your Writing When You're Stuck trick, which is (this is not a joke: try it) switching the entire doc into comic sans.
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Jan 19, 2022 10:31
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(from vague memory of the science, the reason this works is because Comic Sans was designed to be legible for people with dyslexia, and each letter is 100% distinct from each other letter, and so reading it hits a different part of your brain than reading other typefaces – you process it more like images than language. What that actually means while writing is that if you switch into comic sans, it does not matter how much a piece matters to you or how recently you wrote it, it will instantly feel like Somebody Else's Writing. Instant distance and objectivity. It's like a magic trick, not loving around when I say it probably saved my career)
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Jan 19, 2022 10:41
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oh yes this is absolutely critical, do NOT submit in comic sans, it is a great editing tool but please don't actually keep your MS in it
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Jan 20, 2022 05:17
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It just strikes me as personal preference? And hey, as a counterpoint: the books described sound horribly boring to me. You shouldn't kill off characters if there's no good (plot/character/tone) reason to do so, and overusing it will quickly numb any shock value it has, but I don't think the tumblr post is useful writing advice beyond the rather banal "here's a thing some readers enjoy"
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Jan 23, 2022 07:04
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I mean, it feels like a valid criticism of the point? There are readers who really enjoy stories about alien robots tentacle-loving each other, and that is a perfectly valid preference, but "your piece of literary realism about growing up queer in the 90s is bad because it didn't contain tentacle gently caress robots" is bad crit, and it's rooted in this idea I've seen floating around that there are Inherently Good Tropes and Inherently Bad Tropes and the value of a story is based on which ones you choose. I don't like questions like "are redemption arcs bad" either because it assumes there's a single answer rather than the always-frustrating but rarely wrong "it depends."
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Jan 23, 2022 07:23
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General Battuta posted:Game of Thrones is well remembered for its character deaths because they're not twists at all. They're clearly set up way in advance and a bunch of people say "bro if you keep acting like this you're going to die."
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Jan 23, 2022 21:46
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sebmojo posted:It is called weetbix emperor and was self published so may not be possible unfortunately
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Feb 7, 2022 04:07
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Leng posted:Oh the author's a Kiwi!
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Feb 17, 2022 05:03
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I think fanfic is a really interesting incubator for talent, and whenever a 19 year-old appears outta nowhere with a solid complete highly-quality MS (I am not insanely jealous of Chloe Gong why would you suggest that) you can put good money on it that they've been writing fanfic all throughout high school. That said, a pretty major caveat: fanfic – in large part because the tag system – tends to be extremely tropey, and fanfic writers sometimes stumble over the expectations of readers unfamiliar with those tropes. Particularly WRT shipping, there's a whole internal universe of understandings and expectations that vanish as soon as you leave Ao3, and you need to be mindful that you're writing for a broader audience. I've worked in publishing but I don't read fanfic, and I've come to recognise aa bunch of them, and I really do worry that they're not going to fly with broader audiences unless handled with a lot of care. You can't just be like "it's enemies to lovers!" or "it's a coffeeshop AU!" and instantly get a bunch of people picking it up, y'know? Because outside of fanfic circles, readers don't care. SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at 01:57 on Feb 21, 2022 |
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Feb 21, 2022 01:48
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Nae posted:I think Coffeeshop AU (and other alternate universe concepts, like High School/Office) are non-starters because they rely too heavily on the original IP as a point of reference. You can't have an alternate universe when there's no original universe you're subverting. On the other hand, tropes like enemies-to-lovers/friends-to-lovers are just relationship paradigms and can pretty easily be transferred to original stories.
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Feb 21, 2022 04:28
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Like, I read a piece of original fiction recently that I did not like because it felt too fanficcy, in that the author clearly seemed bored with everything that wasn't the ships, and it telegraphed its big trope moments in really obvious ways because it wanted the reader to squee about them, the world felt poorly-realized and then in critical plot scenes it kinda just blew past everything, because it felt single-mindedly focussed on, well ... fanfic stuff. I still stand by fanfic as a valuable form of prose, I just think people who only read and write fanfic need to be cognizant of the world outside their scene. It's not just them that has the problem either: fantasy written by people who only read fantasy is dire, I'm just seeing a lot more fanficcy submissions than bad fantasy ones so it's on the brain.
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Feb 21, 2022 04:34
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Leng posted:My turn to have a very weird question: which form of English should I use for my second kids' book?
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Mar 9, 2022 00:53
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