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

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

Thranguy: Apr 21, 2010; Deceitful and black-hearted, perhaps we are. But we would never go against the Code. Well, perhaps for good reasons. But mostly never.

This is where I mention Milorad Pavić's Dictionary of the Khazars as the 'hard mode' version of the same question...

# ¿ Mar 1, 2017 03:58

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 08:30

Thranguy: Apr 21, 2010; Deceitful and black-hearted, perhaps we are. But we would never go against the Code. Well, perhaps for good reasons. But mostly never.

SkaAndScreenplays posted:

I'll also confidently add that I've never found an example of first person present tense that worked outside of some character relaying some anecdote or story inside of a story.

You need to read more James Ellroy then.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2017 06:14

Thranguy: Apr 21, 2010; Deceitful and black-hearted, perhaps we are. But we would never go against the Code. Well, perhaps for good reasons. But mostly never.

sebmojo posted:

If a character isn't interesting without their super sekrit backstory they aren't interesting. Think about ways to convey their character in how they interact with the world and other characters.

Most of the time when a character's super secret past gets revealed they become less interesting. Just think about how much cooler Wolverine and Boba Fett were before we knew all about their sad childhoods and daddy issues.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2017 23:18

Thranguy: Apr 21, 2010; Deceitful and black-hearted, perhaps we are. But we would never go against the Code. Well, perhaps for good reasons. But mostly never.

Agent355 posted:

Sorry I mean, what books should I read in the spy thriller/noir genre. i don't know whats good and/or exemplifies the themes there well. I could just pick books at random but I'd rather have somebody point to something fun.

I got about 2k good words down so far, paragraph 1 is a dude dying with a dagger in his chest as the protag suddenly confronts the emotions she feels for finally executing her first assassination and how she feels better than she thought and simultaneously feels really bad about that. It works and it'll work even better with more context later, but I'm really happy with it. It's a fantasy setting too so I'm also having fun trying to think up dumb spy gadgets but replace technology with magic. But really I was just looking for book recommendations. Which I suppose there is probably a better thread to ask...

Charles Stross's Laundry books, especially the first few, may be close enough to be of some help to you. (It's cosmic horror rather than fantasy for the genre, but it's still about an inexperienced person thrust into genre-flavored spy business, with a humorous tone.)

And Tim Power's Declare is a must for genre+spies in general.

Other than that, can't think of anything written that really hits the 'newbie/unwilling spy over their head' spot. That shows up a lot more in other media, from Hitchcock to Chuck...

# ¿ Jul 27, 2017 06:38

Thranguy: Apr 21, 2010; Deceitful and black-hearted, perhaps we are. But we would never go against the Code. Well, perhaps for good reasons. But mostly never.

Stuporstar posted:

Avoid X of X titles for a start. Every hack writer trying to capture the same feel as Game of Thrones have beaten that poo poo into paste.

Nah, the people chasing Eddings readers beat it into paste; the people following Jordan beat it the paste into dust, and the Martin followers are beating it to atoms and quarks.

(And X of Y where Y stays the same for at least a few books was an established formula even earlier. Shanarra/Gor/Dray Prescot)

# ¿ Aug 28, 2017 20:44

Thranguy: Apr 21, 2010; Deceitful and black-hearted, perhaps we are. But we would never go against the Code. Well, perhaps for good reasons. But mostly never.

magnificent7 posted:

HOW THE gently caress DO YOU STORY?

Almost every thing I've written has been just an idea, some scenario, situation that, at first, I thought could make a passable story.

- Guy discovers time travel.
- Woman finds out she's a ghost
- There's a superhero with stupid powers
- something/someone that does something.

Add the standard story requirement:
1. Your main character needs something
2. Someone or something is in the way

ANY THING I DO ends up feeling forced, cliche, predictable, and/or done to death already.

And don't forget the twist! Is that all we're doing as writers? Putting a person on a path of desire, blocking that path, add a twist where person learns/changes?

Let's just go one step further in basic story here: #1 is usually written as 'wants' rather than needs, and for a good reason. Because where you'll often want to end up with, especially in a very short piece, is

3. Main character gets the opportunity to get what they want, at a high price.
4. Main character realizes that also want/need something they can't have if they pay that price
5. They make their choice and receive the consequences.

It's not exactly a twist, but if you can make the decision and decider interesting enough to not be forgone, you've beaten the predictability problem.

# ¿ Sep 7, 2017 02:36

Thranguy: Apr 21, 2010; Deceitful and black-hearted, perhaps we are. But we would never go against the Code. Well, perhaps for good reasons. But mostly never.

Exmond posted:

So during the start of TD I was pretty hopeful and getting good advice. Pick up punctuation books, fix spelling, fix grammar. I have gotten better on that side that the advice is no longer "pass grade 5 english". Still room for improvement of course.

The problem I'm having now is the advice im getting is.. inconsistent and vague. It's not something that has mechanics around it nor a clear-cut goal. The best crit I got for my last story was to make the start interesting. Now the advice I'm getting is to have more weight or make things move less quickly. Which isn't something I can exactly look up nor do I understand it. I get line by line crits sometimes but they seem more to be sarcasm than actual help.

Before getting a DM or Loss was okay because I was getting better advice or knew how to improve. This time it stings a little bit because I don't really know how to improve and its the fourth consecutive DM.

Maybe get a couple more weeks in first, but volunteer to cojudge sometime soonish. It's a big part of the learning process, critically reading other stories and talking about them in the small group.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2017 06:20

Thranguy: Apr 21, 2010; Deceitful and black-hearted, perhaps we are. But we would never go against the Code. Well, perhaps for good reasons. But mostly never.

I can only think of a couple of examples where there is a main POV who isn't the only one around. Ensemble works like GRRM or Turtledove, sure, but far fewer with a main character at all.

And in all of them we start with the main character exclusively for a very long chunk of the book, and just go to the others in short vignettes (American Gods) or at the mid point (Richard Stark's Parker books follow a strict structure; the third of four acts is either from the antagonist point of view or a series of chapters from various other characters.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2020 23:30

Thranguy: Apr 21, 2010; Deceitful and black-hearted, perhaps we are. But we would never go against the Code. Well, perhaps for good reasons. But mostly never.

Or find a really good place to split it in half; worked for Ada Palmer with Too Like the Lightning and Seven Surrenders

# ¿ Jun 26, 2022 08:39

Thranguy: Apr 21, 2010; Deceitful and black-hearted, perhaps we are. But we would never go against the Code. Well, perhaps for good reasons. But mostly never.

General Battuta posted:

I just gotta say that having done some research those name generator sites are super unreliable for real world names in languages other than English. Baby name sites too are full of nonsense.

Olympic team rosters give a set of first and last names to match any given country and time frame (within the era of the modern olympics)

# ¿ Jun 28, 2022 21:00

Thranguy: Apr 21, 2010; Deceitful and black-hearted, perhaps we are. But we would never go against the Code. Well, perhaps for good reasons. But mostly never.

This should be fine. In first person, there can exist a narrative present, the time when the story is being told, even when it's not something the narrator will eventually digetically write or tell someone, and ongoing conditions that still hold in that narrative present are fine to put in then present tense.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2022 19:53

Thranguy: Apr 21, 2010; Deceitful and black-hearted, perhaps we are. But we would never go against the Code. Well, perhaps for good reasons. But mostly never.

Nae posted:

You can follow a colon with an em-dash???

Faulkner playing the long game, waiting a century for the cock-and-balls emoji to come into play.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2023 09:01

Thranguy: Apr 21, 2010; Deceitful and black-hearted, perhaps we are. But we would never go against the Code. Well, perhaps for good reasons. But mostly never.

Data Graham posted:

Or internal dialogue, or foreign words/terms, etc. I can think of quite a few reasons you'd use italics. Bold and underline though, nope.

Names of ships.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2023 00:46

Thranguy: Apr 21, 2010; Deceitful and black-hearted, perhaps we are. But we would never go against the Code. Well, perhaps for good reasons. But mostly never.

The bigger problem with the Chinese Room is that it proves too much: everything it says about the incapacities of machine intelligence is necessarily just as true of the biological kind.

Searle is a materialist and so cannot dodge thus by invoking souls or the like. He vaguely waves his hands at quantum woo instead, but that doesn't help; it is easy to imaging a Chinese Roon with a quantum randomn number generator occasionally invoked by the instructions to the operator, and that doesn't affect the argument in any way.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2023 03:09

Thranguy: Apr 21, 2010; Deceitful and black-hearted, perhaps we are. But we would never go against the Code. Well, perhaps for good reasons. But mostly never.

DropTheAnvil posted:

What's the reason to not start sentences with a gerund? For the life of me I can't remember why people were against it. IIRC, it was that starting with a -ing word can cause some grammar issues?

Doing it five times in a row gets annoying, and sometimes it's an easy way to misplace the participle. ("Being of sound mind and body, the stairs in the house are no danger to me." Grammar nerds would say it's the stairs that are sentient. There are probably sentences where both readings make sense and there's real confusion.)

# ¿ Oct 24, 2023 02:21

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 08:30

Thranguy: Apr 21, 2010; Deceitful and black-hearted, perhaps we are. But we would never go against the Code. Well, perhaps for good reasons. But mostly never.

DropTheAnvil posted:

A year is not a setting, unless you are writing historical fiction.

I have no idea what the year 2061 means. Is it post apocalyptic? Are Flying Fart Devices (FFD's) a thing now? Has humanity given up free will in exchange for that sweet sweet 10 pull on the gacha of life?

Just saying "My novel takes place in the year 2061" doesn't add much to the setting, except to let the reader know its 37 years in the future.

2061 means I'm going to be disappointed if Halley's comet doesn't figure in somehow.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2024 19:25

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