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Goddammit. That's all. Writing is hard, learning to write better is hard because I want to write instead of learn to write. But when I write I want to learn to write better. I hate school.
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Mar 3, 2017 15:04
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I hate starting. Description description description verb description. gently caress that noise. I want to just start the story, no descriptions at all. gently caress the reader they'll have to just figure it out. OH I KNOW ALREADY. "SHUT UP AND WRITE." I know.
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May 30, 2017 14:09
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Better Fred Than Dead posted:I'd cop to the argument that they aren't timeless if it was like dickens but those are all good attention getters
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May 31, 2017 14:35
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MockingQuantum posted:Are there any worthwhile online courses for novel writing, paid or otherwise? I've never had anything like a writing class, outside of the standard ones required as part of education curriculum, and I wouldn't mind having a class that maybe results in me stumbling around blindly a little less. While I defiantly turn my nose up to any formal education in the pursuit of creativity, my father took a creative writing class at our state college about five years ago. He loved it, and he finished his book. In fact his completion is what convinced me I could write a book it's gotta be easy right?
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Aug 7, 2017 14:12
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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? Last week I researched "tell a better story" and it's all about characters. If your story feels flat, it's probably weak characters. When I try adding wants/needs/quirks into characters, it reads like I'm just forcing things, painting by numbers. Am I being self-defeating so I won't have to sit down and actually write? I assumed as much over the weekend, so I quit lollygagging and wrote the worst turd of my life for this week's Thunderdome. "BUT AT LEAST YOU'VE SHUT UP AND YOU'RE WRITING" I told myself. And I forced myself to finish - or to come up with an ending. And it sucked and it was forced. I left it alone for awhile instead of pushing words around. I came back to it, I tried > character flaws, a countdown to danger, a twist... and it all was just more poo poo barbecue sauce on a poo poo muffin. here's my question:When YOU start with your lump of clay, no story, no characters, just a blank page, how the HELL do you get from nothing to a thing that doesn't feel blandly cookie-cutter, or too impossible to work? It's killing me. I want to write words. I want to write crafty descriptions, multi-dimensional believable characters, unexpected twists and emotional rollercoasters, but I end up with poo poo sandwich on a filthy re-used paper plate. And yes, I'll start off the suggestions with: - shut up and write - read more stories I read more stories -- other Thunderdome stories that were pulled out of thin air in just a week, and wonder, "what in the loving hell how did they even think that poo poo up from a blank page 7 days ago?" (I'm looking at you, Captain_Indigo holy poo poo.) How do I story better?
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Sep 6, 2017 17:26
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Thank you ALL for your incredible input. I'll commit to two of those immediately: - take notes on anything interesting, just put it into my writer spank bank. - lose lofty aspirations, just write every day, character studies, situations, anything to get the dust out of my brain. I'm so stuck to "write better than you wrote three years ago, or don't write at all." Which, speaking of... flerp posted:my early dms and losses helped me as a writer a lot more than any of my hms and wins. This would be my (4th, 5th?) attempt to return to TD despite my butt hurt feelings. I've been sitting on the Worlds Greatest Genre Redefining Novel for two years now, having already donated 80,000+ words to a tale of Uninteresting People Reacting To Mildly Strange Things in a Slightly Weird Place. Time to do more and then, hopefully, do better.
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Sep 6, 2017 20:30
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Dr. Kloctopussy posted:Are we even talking about the same Thunderdome???? First DM was 5/1/2013. It's tattooed on my ankle. All-in-all, 4 losses, 2 dishonorable mentions. But it's spread out over 4 years, so I got that going for me. Now excuse me I'm going to go write some poo poo.
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Sep 6, 2017 21:26
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Exmond posted:Why do you care about what others think? Stuporstar posted:GREAT POINT about read stuff other than just what I wanna write. sebmojo posted:With your most recent tdome story (which I'll crit for you) I was pretty invested in the dadchat, and I was sad you gave up. Please - don't crit it. It was bad, it's not worth the crit effort. I appreciate it - I do - but I'll save that for something else that I feel deserves your time. I researched the poo poo out of the Tardigrade, went into a rabbit-hole over that useless crap, tried to purge it from my head by writing the superhero description, then added the kid-dad story around it, and exactly like you've said, gave up, instead of finding whatever the hell it could have been. I think that happens too often - I throw up my hands, "'welp, this is poo poo." So - yeah. Gonna start writing poo poo to get to the other side, just to break through that surrender moment. And stop trying to map the tale from start to finish. Let things happen, see where that goes. magnificent7 fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Sep 7, 2017 |
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Sep 7, 2017 02:10
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Thranguy posted: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 You guys have given me so much fantastic info thank you all. At some later date I want to assemble all of this, condense it and re-post in here. I just started to do it, then realized "oh hay I'm putting off writing stfu and go do writing." Some later time I'll do it. I firmly believe there's a special magic to putting a story into < 1500 words. Y'alls input really help. Helps. Did help.
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Sep 7, 2017 15:05
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The sun rose over the money farm, trees rustling with twenty-, fifty- and hundred dollar bills. "God I love Universal Basic Income it just makes sense," Chet said, waiting for someone else to pick the bills from the money trees. He was too busy looking for a higher paying job. "It's not that I'm lazy," he told his former boss. "Quite the contrary. But when the economy collapsed because nobody asked where the money would come from, well, now these benjamins are good for wallpaper and that's about it."
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Sep 11, 2017 16:10
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Queries? THIS is what you need: http://queryshark.blogspot.com/ Read it. Read it a lot. Read all of them.
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Sep 13, 2017 16:42
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HIJK posted:Just self publish it man. All the sticks of gum I've got from self publishing made it totally worthwhile. I didn't make any money from self-publishing is what I'm saying. But i DO have a sweet set of 32 matching coasters now.
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Sep 14, 2017 03:36
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fridge corn posted:whats a good resource for culturally ambiguous names for characters? the story im writing doesn't take place anywhere specific and i don't want my readers to think it does but i definitely don't want a bunch of dumb white people names Old cemetery. It's the best for names, and they can't sue you.
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Sep 14, 2017 19:54
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fridge corn posted:did i mention that one of the foxes is also stuck in a trap? So it's Furry Torture Porn Fan Fic. Got it.
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Sep 15, 2017 16:00
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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. Especially is easy to replace with some other word. SHRUG on the other hand. What the hell English language, how hard is it to come up with another word? (he asked, his shoulders bobbing)
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Sep 16, 2017 03:22
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oh hey! NANO-WRIMO IS COMING UP IN 45 DAYS Y'all better start getting your nummers up. Get ready to do word sprints - 2500 words per day come hell or high water. For me, my word count today is... (mumble mumble counts words in this post) 33. I LOVE Nano. LOVE IT.
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Sep 20, 2017 03:13
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sebmojo posted:the worst that might happen is you get a loser av. MockingQuantum posted:Honestly I'm kind of masochistically excited for the day I get a loser av. All it takes is a Showgirls/Black Swan erotic fan fiction. I think. I forgot what the hell I was going for now.
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Sep 22, 2017 02:18
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Chairchucker posted:Replacing them costs money and we're all too cheap to do it so we leave them forever. Going on 5 years now I believe. But - to be fair. I think I replaced the first one. After the second one half a year later I decided F that just leave it as a bitter hostile reminder that I continue to suck at this game.
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Sep 22, 2017 13:36
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I love when dreams give you a great story. I hate deciphering my almost-asleep voice trying to narrate that story via voice memo.my half awake rear end posted:"he's the key see. The ivy from laotian volcano ash. He's drawing on -- no above -- the pillow. he's the key." I mean. What?
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Sep 28, 2017 14:43
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DAMMIT what's the best way to say this in this order:quote:“Those were her associates from a time long before I came along.” Is that grammatically correct? I'm setting up the pacing - the confiding body language, then the word, and then the payoff that it's said in disgust. edit - also - "From a time, long before I came along" or "from a time long-before I came along" I can hear it all perfectly in my head, but it reads like a drunk cat scaling a Christmas tree. edit again: one last thing: WHAT do you call people who attend a funeral to pay their respects? Well-wishers? Mourners? Sympathizers? magnificent7 fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Sep 29, 2017 |
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Sep 29, 2017 18:57
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Phil Moscowitz posted:How about this: OH drat that's good. Phil Moscowitz posted:Attendees? WHAT ARE YOU, HEMINGWAY? Perfect word. My brain shut down.
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Sep 29, 2017 19:47
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Taciturn Tactician posted:Does this man just have a sack of sadness that he reaches into to pull out a rejection letter to read and feel bad about?
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Oct 2, 2017 19:09
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Steal. edit okay FINE maybe I'm jaded. I start with a lovely basic idea and think about it for five days. Then think about getting around to writing. And then Sunday I hit the oh poo poo panic button and it all comes out at once. I'm sure there's a better approach. Edit edit: this week is a little harder because the basic theme is WIDE OPEN, (Belgium).
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Oct 3, 2017 20:37
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For the first time in my life, I received a TDome prompt and finished and revised my story in the same day. Now, I'm gonna sit on it for two days, and then read it with fresh eyes, and spend the weekend bathed in self-loathing.
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Oct 17, 2017 20:54
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apophenium posted:If I think my story is good, that most likely means it is bad, right? Step one: Spell check. Step two: Apostrophe, comma, and quotation mark check. Step three: Leave it alone for 12 hours. Or 24. Step three and a half, (for while you're leaving it alone): ASK YOURSELF THESE THINGS: 1. Does something actually happen in my story, or is one character merely reacting, somewhat mindlessly, to poo poo happening? 2. Are my characters more than sock puppets with no real reason to make decisions? 3. Will any one else think my story is about something that happens, featuring people who, whether good or bad, have reasons to make decisions? MAKE NOTES as you think about these things. DO NOT TOUCH YOUR WRITING while the yeast rises or else you will make a mess of your pretty house of cards. Step four*: Having left it alone for more than twenty * Step four of course omits doing anything with the results of step three because of course there's no way in hell you'll realize you just wrote nothing about no one and leave it alone, hell yes you're going to go in right now and fix just that one little thing there and then OH MY GOD I KILLED MY IDEA WHAT ARE ALL THESE WORDS. Step Five: Add in the parts you realized you omitted (events, people) and THEN address the parts you highlighted. Repeat. OR Do like I always do. Start writing at 5pm Sunday, submit by 5pm Monday without proofing poo poo because goddamn it I'm an artist I can't be held to restrictions bathe in my words. Now look down there VVVVV to see if I've edited this post because I failed to proofread it. edit: I wish you could see how many times I went back and edited this post about proofreading. second edit after all those other edits: - AS I AM THINKING ON MY OWN STORY THAT I FINISHED, I think, oh, poo poo, I've got a person who kind of learns things and goes oh well. So I'll still ignore my actual writing and just make notes somewhere else with ideas to punch it up. Because if I go in right now, while that's definitely probably maybe going to be an improvement, it's ALSO possible I'm overthinking something I just gave birth to and I can't be objective about. magnificent7 fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Oct 18, 2017 |
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Oct 18, 2017 00:07
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MockingQuantum posted:There's also webapps like Grammarly (for dum dum grammar mistakes and basic mechanical errors) and Hemingway (for clarity, brevity, and general readability) where you can just copypaste your writing into them and they'll do more than just basic spellcheck level proofing. Neither will really make bad writing good, and by no means should be your only method of proofreading, but using them for a while may be a good way to learn what your common mistakes are. My favorite is Slickwrite: https://www.slickwrite.com It gives you a lot of statistics and points out exactly how many prepositions and adjectives you shatter-poo poo into your story. Perhaps I'm projecting.
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Oct 18, 2017 00:21
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I love commas and hate that the crits have made me doubt my comma love. I've been forced to co-op the semi-colon and the em-dash to indicate a side-section of a sentence. I mean I get it, but dammit there's a beauty to a well-paced over-long sentence that can't be achieved without a heavy dose of commas. AND NOW, forcing myself to dial back the commapocalyse of my tales, I'm left wondering if I should've left more commaction in there because now these are all just run-on sentences with no room to pause for a breath. Yeah you feel my pain. edit: somebody explain me how the hell to do this without commas: quote:A dream like her, a lady who could easily win second or third at a beauty contest, stealing a kiss from the likes of me, an old dried-up sardine. Or this: quote:Each went on insisting the other was a spirit, and neither looked entirely of this realm if you catch my pitch; her with her filthy nails and green teeth, him with his eye sockets as empty as a bone-dry bird bath. Run-on sentences? Probably, but, but, but I feel like in first person, there's a rhythm that sells the character. Without those pauseable commas, it loses that magic. magnificent7 fucked around with this message at 14:40 on Oct 23, 2017 |
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Oct 23, 2017 14:34
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crabrock posted:do what you want, just do it sparingly. save it for the times when you REALLY need to use all those commas because the runon rambling nature of the sentence is the only tone that makes sense. semicolons are formal, i try to only use them in like, exposition prose. em dashes are good for a complete aside, something that really goes off on a tangent. i'm more apt to put a period and start a new sentence than either of those, i save them for when i need them. the first sentence i think is fine, the second i would split into two. Thanks Crab.
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Oct 23, 2017 17:59
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sebmojo posted:tdome favours stripped down language because that avoids a lot of beginners mistakes, but if you want to get fancy just do it. there's a vast array of great literature that reads nothing like that. the only caution is to be sure you're doing it intentionally not just out of habit. This I am aware of yes. I tend to get a lot looser when writing in a voice (first person). Helps sell the narrator. Don't you creeps have some judgements to post. THAT'S RIGHT NOT A QUESTION MARK NOWHERE.
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Oct 23, 2017 20:59
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Phil Moscowitz posted:Both looked like something riding the vapors of a wet fart, if you catch my drift You just removed any hint of a Wal-Mart regular from my writing. Also: quote:... if you catch my drift. There's a lot of sayings in the story that are deliberately off. "Catch my pitch" being one of them. AND GREAT. NOW I'M SECOND GUESSING ALL THAT poo poo AS WELL NOW. Do it once, it's a mistake. Do it twice, call it jazz. magnificent7 fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Oct 23, 2017 |
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Oct 23, 2017 21:02
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Exmond posted:Err for being the person who called out some bad commas in your recent story: My proofreader of my one published novel told me I had a comma problem back in 2015. And nope, your crit was dead on when i went back and read my story. But now I'm in that super-fuzzy area between comma hate and comma love. That's right I'm a COMMA CHAMELEON oh the horror.
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Oct 23, 2017 21:14
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Dr. Kloctopussy posted:I like "if you catch my pitch," for whatever that's worth. If the book is totally full of stuff like that, though, it would probably just come off as annoying gimmick. But really, how many times would you actually say "catch my drift" in a book???? Hopefully no more than twice???
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Oct 23, 2017 21:23
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Exmond posted:After my 6th loss/DM in a row I have to be missing something. The feedback from TD has been good, but apparently not good enough :P. Part of it is a lot of errors (I added a crit over in TD just now). Those things are a giant red target on the rest of your story. If you can't get the basics, like quote:"Come with me if you wan't to live," he said. It goes like this: QUOTATION MARK + WORDS + COMMA + CLOSE QUOTE + HE SAID + PERIOD. Took me forever to get that right there. Only time I'm baffled now are questions or exclamations like "He said what?" He said. Or "He said what? he said. When there's easy mistakes like that, the rest of your tale better be amazing to dodge a DM. Only in this way: Judge thinks, "holy poo poo author can't even get THIS right?" I've judged and I've tried to separate my nitpicky grammar opinions from the actual storytelling, but it's not easy because the story keeps getting stopped by simple mistakes, which ALWAYS pulls your reader out of the story each time. Think of the grandpa and the kid in the Princess Bride, stopping the story every time there's a grammar booboo. You did a good job getting your narrator's voice, but there's some clunky chunks that stood out to me: “Let the girl go.” I yelled, reminding myself why I was here. You start a paragraph with this, I'm guessing your MC's pulling himself back into the moment, having been distracted by the explosion in the previous paragraph, but unfortunately, the sentence kind of comes out as you're about to say something like "saving lives and kicking asses" or "getting this little girl safe" but instead you say this: A domestic dispute turned bad plus one punk on too many drugs to list equalled a hostage situation. That's your MCs job, it's not why you're here, if I'm reading the tale in the voice of a over-the-top 70's vice cop type narration. I didn't bring this one up in my crit because it is absolutely subjective and I might be the only one who feels like that... ALSO, remember, I'm already focusing on the tiny grammar mistakes that keep pulling me out of your tale. ALSO and this is really worth reminding yourself every time you get the DM: YOUR story is being judged against all those others. When it's a great week, the judges are reading story after story enjoying it. When it's a bad week, it's a BAD WEEK for judges and the tendency to grade on a turd, I mean grade on a curve will bite you in the rear end if you're one of the ones making the mistakes that were common that week. [OKAY OKAY don't IGNORE A CRIT EVER, but just kind of ask if they're not getting it? or are you not conveying it] The one crit I've seen of my tale ripped my story to shreds for using bad similes, which was actually VERY intentional on my part; I recently got way into weird/bizarro fiction. So - while the crit gvae me a 4/10, the fact that they summed it up with: Overall: 4/10. Dull and weirdly written kind of felt good - mission accomplished for weird/bizarro fiction. It's a style that ain't for everybody, like Sebmojo says a few posts above this post, directly in response to my question about my weird simile or analogy or whatever they're called. DM's are a good thing if you really digest them. Beg for as many crits as you can get; and prepare to work on your story every single day for a week. That's probably the ONLY reason I got this HM. I wrote the story last Tuesday and then did SOMETHING with it every day after that, up to Sunday where I spent another two hours on it. magnificent7 fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Oct 24, 2017 |
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Oct 24, 2017 16:04
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The prognastya gymnastarscapia describes words as lazers. Hope I helped.
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Nov 11, 2017 06:45
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Where do ideas come from and how do you write? Harlan Ellison sums it up nicely, (for an rear end in a top hat, at least...) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3jbeVA-lKM&t=1106s
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Dec 1, 2017 21:41
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HELP ME WITH A WORD: Here's the line I need to make better: It was as if she had a hard time keeping the corners of her mouth raised, despite ------ [knowing that this is the expected decorum? demeanor? Amenities? social etiquette.] Social norms? Expected civility? Example: The queen is assumed to always be polite, say non-offensive things. It's just expected, a social contract. So, sometimes you see her smile, like when meeting an offensive disgusting person, and it's obviously difficult, but she has to because that's what is expected. What the hell is that word? I'm going nuts. There's definitely a simple term to describe this expected conduct between people, even when it's the last thing the higher-class snooty person would really want to do. magnificent7 fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Dec 3, 2017 |
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Dec 3, 2017 18:31
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Phil Moscowitz posted:I don’t know that a single word will work there. I'm looking for something more of a class thing, not nobility... One person thinks they're better than the other, but tries not to show it. You thank the pizza guy and smile politely, even though he smells like a stoned hobo. You COULD hold your nose and throw the money at him, but that'd be uncouth. A social contract or something. Driving me nuts. I've re-written the line forty times now.
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Dec 3, 2017 19:33
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I hate myself when crits point out obvious poo poo I missed. Not the typos, not the bad grammar, but the key points to a story that, SOME HOW I kind of forgot to include because I was so deep into the story that everything was obvious. Is it my ADD? Is it overconfidence? Great examples on my story in TD from 2 weeks ago: An aging doctor serves vampires who've taken over, specifically he delivers their babies. Kind of a mix of "I Am Legend" and I don't know... a captive forced to heal his captors. What I forgot to include: - he's getting old and despite hating his captors, is weighing his options about joining them. - the vampires have been there a long long time. - I was trying to go for a last-minute ah-ha that the setting was morning, not evening, but I missed the mark in giving enough detail to set it up properly. Here's what I wanted: Multiple twists: OMG SHE'S A VAMPIRE OMG IT'S MORNING NOT NIGHT OMG HE'S OKAY BECOMING A VAMPIRE. What I accomplished: Ehh that's a long night of feeding which does not make sense given his disgust. And I get that. How the hell do I train myself to catch these missed targets ahead of time?
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Dec 12, 2017 14:26
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sebmojo posted:Every 'rule' is really just a flag to look at what you've done that breaks the rule and think if it's worth it. This is the one truth to rule them all.
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Jan 23, 2018 15:07
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| # ¿ May 8, 2024 01:12 |
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I like peaches.
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Jan 29, 2018 18:00
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