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.

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HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Just self publish it man.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2017 03:06

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 06:07

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Is this a scene from that Dafoe movie where the fox snaps its jaws at him in slow motion

# ¿ Sep 15, 2017 17:32

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Stuporstar posted:

What do ya'll do when you notice you're using a particular word too much? I keep shoving "especially" into my sentences, can't think of any word that works better. I finally checked the thesaurus, and not a single word in there has the right emphasis or works in the same context. It's driving me crazy.

Flip the two halves of the sentence and come up with a different structure.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2017 02:57

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Finish writing a chapter or w/e and then do a ctrl + F + replace for whatever word is bothering you. Use a space. Then go back and re read it and see if there are any sentences that needed it. (You won't find any.)

# ¿ Sep 16, 2017 20:03

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

CantDecideOnAName posted:

I just wanted to say that this weeks TD stuff had some stuff that was pretty hard to get through. Very grim, horrifying stuff. Posting this here because praise don't belong in the 'Dome.

To make it discussion-worthy, how do you write horror? Should you go for the stuff that freaks you out, or stuff that you know freaks other people out?

Both. There are shared fears that you can use as foundation level scary, like a fear of the dark to set up danger. But to get to the nitty gritty crap you use what scares you.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2017 03:07

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Burkion posted:

So I'm conflicted on this.

I am very, very serious about trying to get my project published, and I want to get it as good as I can possibly take it.

Should I just keep posting chapters as I get them done to my thread? Get proper critiques from people that bother to look them over?

I should be able to remove them later on if it, hopefully!, becomes an issue. but I'm not sure anyone would really want that. I think I'm on the right track but I am so loving in my own headspace with the story it's kind of hard to say for certain.

Sooner or later your thread will be archived and you won't be able to delete. Choose carefully.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2017 23:07

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Edit carefully. Maybe work up a check list of elements you want to include and check the content against that?

# ¿ Dec 12, 2017 15:36

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

That might actually be more of a tumblr issue though I'm sure promoting online stories that aren't fanfic is tough. Tumblr is notoriously hard to spread content on, the only way to get attention is if your post goes viral, and posts only go viral through luck. otherwise you're stuck with only a handful of notes.

You would have better luck on a different platform at least.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2017 22:36

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Vulpes Vulpes posted:

What different platform would you suggest?

Yeah, I don't have much of a reach, and the format doesn't help. Ah well, I'll keep writing stories regardless!

The only platform that makes sense to me is blogspot or Wordpress but it's not like those are any better in terms of reach. I've wanted to write serials for months but the fact that there's not an ideal platform for people to read it on (and the fact that I'm a huge POS that can't keep a schedule) is just a big road block.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2017 17:27

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Dadbod Apocalypse posted:

I am not doing this, but as a lovely theoretical example...

Let's say I want to write a short story about traveling across the universe in cryogenic sleep, but since it's an experimental technology, it turns out that while your body is in stasis, your mind is still consciously active during the 1,000 year journey.

What can I do and/or where can I go to check to make sure an idea I want to write about is unique and hasn't been done by someone else already?

This actually comes up in the scifi podcast Sayer.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2018 21:19

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Dadbod Apocalypse posted:

But I took everyone�s advice and appreciate it? Holy cow, go rage out at someone else.

just do your best, that's all you can do. Ponder these 22 rules of storytelling: https://boingboing.net/2013/03/07/pixars-22-rules-of-stor.html particularly this one:

quote:

Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th � get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.

Its fine to have a premise that appeals to you even when its been done before. Just work on getting rid of the obvious possibilities to make it yours, you feel me?

# ¿ Jan 28, 2018 22:43

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Stuporstar posted:

Or watching the world pass by in The Time Machine
Or the sensory deprivation chamber in Stanislaw Lem's Tales of Pirx the Pilot
Or the cryogentic chamber in Cixin Lui's Three Body trilogy

And he could read all those and go, "Nope, nope, not what I was thinking..." and if he were smart would come to realize his story is never going to be so like something already written that he needs to stress about it.

jesus dude, chill out.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2018 01:14

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Stuporstar posted:

Why do you assume I'm not chill? I was trying to tone it down to give good advice.

I have no idea who your avatar is but when you say this:

Stuporstar posted:

And he could read all those and go, "Nope, nope, not what I was thinking..." and if he were smart would come to realize his story is never going to be so like something already written that he needs to stress about it.

It is distinctly unchill when you insult the intelligence of someone with an innocent question. It isn't unreasonable for a newbie or a veteran to wonder about the creation of original ideas but it's so needlessly cruel to imply someone isn't smart just because they didn't come to this conclusion on their own. Considering how much variation there can be on even just one idea, it makes sense that someone might want to investigate how far that rabbit hole goes.

I don't know the guy's history maybe he has a habit of doing this exact same thing over and over and over but this is the writing thread. People ask questions about writing.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2018 02:03

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Stuporstar posted:

I meant what he needs to do to be smart, but yeah the italics made a nasty implication that he isn't and for that I apologise. I keep forgetting this isn't the Thunderdome and I'm no longer even in the Thunderdome

Tbh that's why I don't join thunderdome, I don't want to screamed at and insulted over a badly written short story.

Sitting Here posted:

if you're posting in this thread you're not writing the thing

also lmao at troll ideas guy accusing someone of a meltdown within like 5 bullshit posts

the whole point of being a writer is finding excuses not to write. we do other things like putting together ipod playlists

# ¿ Jan 29, 2018 04:43

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Holy poo poo I should just add boxes of puppies to everything write

# ¿ Feb 17, 2018 21:24

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

sebmojo posted:

Make all the women wear full wetsuits and SCUBA gear, completely unexplained.

E: the wetsuitsare the patriarchy

do this, results in flawless victory

# ¿ Mar 4, 2018 00:39

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Discipline. Is the worst. Writing is hell. With their powers combined

# ¿ May 2, 2018 03:58

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Covok posted:

This is going to sound odd, but how do I learn from a book?

See, I used to design games. Mostly do it for fun now since my games sucked. But, anyway, after a while, I started to break down games in my head because I knew how they were put together. So, I'd be like able to see it like a jigsaw puzzle or maybe like an engineering thing or something. Like I got how they were putting pieces together to make it.

I've been reading a lot of books while I write to learn, but I realized it might not be helping because I'm still not seeing things like that. I'm hoping to get a similar epiphany so that I can start seeing the pieces and, from there, the possible ways to put them together for my own works. Anyone got any advice on that?

you have to read until you can look at sentences and understand how their grammar and punctuation and word choice come together to evoke that special feeling that makes you think "hmm this is quite good actually."

I think learning to diagram sentences can help with this.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2018 02:24

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Hmm. Maybe practice by writing vignettes or short stories? Set yourself a word count to tell an entire story, like 2500 words, and then you have to figure out how to shorten the intro enough that you can fit the whole story in, and still have an effective opener.

Do this 50 times.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2018 03:21

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Omi no Kami posted:

Incidentally, I've been doing a lot of writing for (video game) RPGs recently, and I find it interesting how fundamentally that requires you to restructure your opening act. In novels or short stories, you generally have a bit of latitude- if the writing is solid, and what's happening is interesting, you can take 30-50 pages to introduce the characters and their setting before jumping into the deep end. In most decently-paced games, however, you need to give the player control and let them experience the broad strokes of gameplay within the first 5-10 minutes.

A lot of games handle this by starting en media res, but that technique has been unnecessarily used and abused by lazy screenwriters so frequently that I'm pretty averse to using. Instead, I generally end up cutting out a good 30-50% of what would be the first act, and finding ways to accomplish those narrative beats later on.

There's certainly some truth to this but novels and shorts need to do the same thing with the Hook and you only have a single page for that. Getting the reader's attention on strength of prose alone is a tough order

# ¿ Jun 23, 2018 16:31

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

The funny thing about art is that if you fill your not-writing time by examining other pieces of art like sculptures or paintings or anything else then it often helps with actual-writing.

I like writing whenever I can grab time...which is often my desk at work. Shhhhh.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2018 17:08

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

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?

Focus on the emotions of the characters and make it about how their relationship is progressing. Use it as a vehicle to invest in their personal development.

This will also be a little weird but: make sure to write the stuff that appeals to you. I'm not saying going all out in weird disturbing sex fantasies but don't write rote bad sex just because. If you're boring yourself than you're boring your audience. And if you don't find sex all that appealing (you just described it as a monotonous activity) than there's no way you'll be able to keep your audience's attention for the entire novel.

e: also, don't be afraid to make things too explicit, the dirtier the better.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2018 01:21

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

It sounds like you're not at all interested in the sex but you are interested in the world you've created. So stop writing about stuff that bores you. Also if you can't spell out "loving" you probably shouldn't write porn.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2018 06:51

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Taikuri you're doing so well! Keep it up, you're doing great!

# ¿ Aug 5, 2018 08:12

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

All languages have a certain flow to them and you can make plenty of interesting combinations with both mundane and unusual words. Experience is the only reliable teacher. Read more, write more.

# ¿ Sep 8, 2018 22:38

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Dr. Kloctopussy posted:

Every novel by Chandler and Hemingway was written* during the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood.

Chandler wrote the script for five feature length films, including the classics Double Indemnity, Blue Dahlia, and Stranger on a Train (based on the Patricia Highsmith novel) before he wrote what is probably his second-most-famous book, The Long Goodbye. His most famous book, The Big Sleep, was released in 1939, the same year as Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz.

Hemingway has the slight advantage over Chandler, in that he has zero film credits to his name on wikipedia, but on the other hand:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_the_United_States

Neither of these dudes were writing before the advent of film, or even the mass popularity of film, and if you want to see how authors described action and setting before movies, you cannot look to Chandler or Hemingway for examples.

And while I also cannot agree with the general recommendation to look at pre-modern authors to see examples of less-descriptive writing (there is a reason why the opposite is usually recommended....), I do highly recommend looking at some Dickensian poo poo to remind yourself of what a true wide-angle opening shot can look like in prose:

I know you loving tuned out at the first 5 words, and decided to have another flashback to your high school english class instead of actually reading a thing, so maybe close your eyes, take some deep breaths, imagine finally telling that dumb teacher to go to hell, and then actually read the hilarious loving McSweeney's article Dickens wrote a couple centuries ago.

* Do you want to go through a bunch of hoopla to argue that like two of these books were written several years before they were published? because if for some reason you want to go to bat for that, I will loving look up the original manuscripts. But neither of these guys were even BORN when the Lumi�re brothers screened their short films in Paris. So why don't we save ourselves some time with that "argument."

Well I�m sorry I got my eras mixed up, but I was trying to suggest authors that I found useful for describing scenes and actions without being overly cinematic. I�m sorry that you took it so personally, and that you decided that I hated English class (I didn�t, English class was relatively enjoyable to me). I also have no particular desire to argue with you regarding these books? So why are you making GBS threads yourself so hard?

# ¿ Feb 16, 2019 09:27

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

It sounds like you want someone to collab with because you don�t trust your own abilities. You should work alone so that you can improve your skills instead of using someone else as a crutch.

# ¿ May 9, 2019 18:40

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Fruity20 posted:

I pretty much do. My writing skills have gotten better but...I feel like I overuse words and phrase too much that I have to read a few prose and analyze them for a bit. That and well...It has a massive lack of engagement and feels wholly unrealistic on the dialouge side. Albeit, the story I was working was more on the Saturday morning side of things so the hokey dialogue was a given.

Even then, I try so hard to go over that wall of cringe and actually DO IT! then leave it be for a few days until I grow bored and do a new project.

(forgive my worrying but does this come off as rude? it's hard to convey mood intent in text so i don't wanna come off as a condescending jerk...)

I just find the process as a whole lonely and overwhelming half the time. I don't know if that means I'm not cut out to be a writer...but i know someone is gonna say that obligatory "then why the gently caress are you a writer then?"....so I can get my stuff out there. Just doodling random things ain't gonna get people interested in me..I wanna showcase vast universes, world building, interesting characters, and actually have something contribute to the conservation...but all i have is a lovely short screenplay about a giant housewife....which I hate.

It sounds less like you need a partner and more a place where you can get constructive criticism and help when you run into problems. Are there any writing/artist or storytelling groups local to you? Those are an easy way of getting feedback on your pieces and social interaction but you can still write the story and draw the art the way you want.

Discord servers can fill the same space and you would meet other artistic people that are friendly. They can also help keep you on track if you�re amenable to being poked. That would be my recommendation, anyway.

# ¿ May 9, 2019 19:56

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

what size of apostrophe are you packin�? *wink*

# ¿ May 31, 2019 16:59

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Mirage posted:

Maya Angelou would rent a hotel room to write in. Agatha Christie wrote in the bathtub. Truman Capote wrote lying down in bed. George Bernard Shaw wrote in a backyard garden shed with a rotating mechanism so he could turn it to face the sun all day long.

Writers are weird, is what I'm saying.

What I'm getting out of this list is that writers are able to write when they're relaxed. Bathtubs are nice as heck, so are beds. Shaw enjoyed some sunshine, good for him. Vitamin D production is important yo!

Being relaxed but still alert seems to be the key here.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2019 19:30

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Covok posted:

I'm a little afraid to now. The story is not safe for work. That's kind of embarrassing.

But okay.

It's a gay erotica novel so like read at your own caution.

sebmojo posted:

By Yuna Aeris

Nae! posted:

Oh man, that takes me back to my first usernames. Brings a tear to my eye...

Okay there's a lot to unpack here but let's have a really important chat about dick-size.

At one point, you've got: "...It was nearly nine inches in length and almost half that in girth." You want to know why someone said you write like a teenaged virgin? Because lines like that are mathematically ridiculous. Either you've got a guy who's <4.5 inches in circumference--which is usually how girth is measured, but below average for something you're talking up as huge--or you've got 4.5 inches in diameter, which is the width of a dvd. Your 9+ inches of samurai man now either looks like he's got a carrot between his legs or an especially tall spindle of blank CDs. One is really odd; the other will probably kill you.

I just want to remind everyone that this happened and that imo it and the subsequent posts are the absolute apex of this thread.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2019 01:24

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Mirage posted:

I once took a creative writing class in college. One of our fellow students was a kindly middle-aged lady writing a romance novel. She had the "too nice to her characters" problem: The main character and her boyfriend were getting along perfectly fine, a love rival was introduced but quickly became friends with the boyfriend and was like "I could never get in the way of their true love," etc.

We hammered on about how the story was kind of static. "Everyone is too nice! There's no conflict! Torture your characters!" we told her.

So about three-quarters of the way through this placid peaceful story, she introduced an international drug smuggling ring who kidnapped the boyfriend, castrated him, and ultimately drove him mad enough to pilot a speedboat full of dynamite into the smugglers' boat, blowing it sky high and sacrificing himself. After years of mourning, the protagonist finally married the secondary love interest.

We all read this and went, um. Good job, I guess.

holy poo poo :lol:

amazing

# ¿ Oct 4, 2019 23:26

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

In that case shouldn't you just follow a Dungeon Master guide or just google "How to build your own DnD game?"

Hard to answer without knowing more about the players and what kind of campaign you're running. In the campaigns I've been most of these nations etc have only been brief blurbs. There's more info in source books but in a casual group you don't get into that stuff much.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2019 19:30

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Tias posted:

I should have specified, maybe. The thought was to arrive at a fleshed-out setting I could write novels in. The RPG element was mostly to expedite the writing of a creation myth. I'm using a system (Dawn of Worlds) specifically made to play deities who create a fantasy world.

I suppose it would work for the geology and geography, but I don't want to deal with the instability caused by an abundance of necromancers and necrotic powder colossi with ten wings and eleven dicks

If you're interested in writing a creation myth then making it an RPG would be an active hindrance. RPGs don't get it into the mysticism inherent in those old stories.

IMO you would be better off reading a whole lot of creation myths, as many as you can find. Follow the lines you think are interesting. Make your creation myth based off what you feel. If you tried to make it from an RPG then I think that would game-ify it too much. And you would end up having a pretty generic story when all is said and done.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2019 02:06

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

It's not necessarily a bad instinct, after all RPGs do make their bread and butter on repackaging various cultures and peoples as fantasy nations. But imo if you want to write a creation myth that should be the thing your RPG is based on, and the creation myth wouldn't be very interesting if it was based on an RPG instead.

But who knows, I could be wrong. I'd be interested in seeing the results.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2019 19:22

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Google docs just runs like hot garbage probably because of their server load. I downloaded Libre Office and haven�t looked back.

# ¿ Nov 12, 2020 00:53

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 06:07

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

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?

# ¿ May 14, 2021 15:14

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

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