|
I'm in, I guess. First time here, as well. I don't like structured things like this (also why I don't like taking cruises) but maybe I'll see what I can get done.Waffle! posted:How do I stop world building and start writing? So many ideas at once! I don't really like fantasy as a genre but in my experience the world-building problem comes up a lot with that genre (and sci-fi, I guess). No matter the genre, though, my advice is: you don't need to stop world-building so much as only world-build when it directly affects the plot. I'm going to use a wikipedia summary of one of my favorite films as an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Men quote:The year is 2027, when human activities have produced an ecocide with widespread deleterious effects on the environment; eighteen years of total human infertility, war and global depression threaten the collapse of human civilizations.[12] The United Kingdom has become a police state in which immigrants (derogatorily referred to as "'fugees") are arrested and either imprisoned or executed; still, as one of the few remaining nations with a functioning government, it is deluged by refugees fleeing chaos in their own countries. That's a very detailed version of the world. The "what if?" that sets up the world is "what if people couldn't reproduce anymore?" and the answer is "things would go to poo poo in various ways." The last baby to be born dies and that ruins hope for everyone. That's technically explaining "the world" but moves the plot along. The terrorist group leader being the protagonist's ex-wife is convenient, sure, but at least it moves the plot along. We also don't have to have him get familiar with some extremely elaborate backstory about how the terrorists come to be. We as the audience just basically get that enough to follow along with the plot. As far as I remember the movie doesn't explain how fertility ended. It just is what it is. We also don't need a ton of scenes describing the guy's divorce. Who cares. We know what divorce is. The movie has people in Britain hating the "refugee problem" (it even has scenes from the time it was filmed that directly reference abuses in Iraq by foreign powers) but doesn't really go into the specifics other than "the world is crumbling from war and people need a place to go." I don't think it describes the actual details of all of the conflicts (which one could write) but doing so wouldn't move the plot along. The Sean fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Nov 1, 2023 |
#
¿
Nov 1, 2023 21:08
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 15, 2024 16:15 |
|
|
Waffle! posted:How do y'all feel about AI? My normal answer: I feel that good writing should reflect a writer as a person. So many great writers have talked about (paraphrasing for length) creating a character and learning who they are as the (writing) journey proceeds. Figuring out characters by yourself the hard way makes the story yours with your voice and view of the world. I feel like something providing me with characters or conflicts takes me out of the equation. There's curation, sure, but it doesn't travel down the same mental pathways as figuring out on your own. This is similar to advice about not sharing your ideas (which works for other media such as games). Some people are worried that if they share their totally unique and amazing idea that someone will steal it and, therefore, steal the profit/attention/credit or whatever. But I'm sure that if we all used the same basic plot or collection of major beats all of us here would write a distinctly different story through how we choose and present characters (main, supporting, and one-off) as well as dialog and description. NaNo answer: gently caress it. Whatever gets people to write this month is on theme. The Sean fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Nov 3, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Nov 3, 2023 15:58
|
|
|
Oh, word count update. 0 words. I'm fine with it. Just posting to make others feel better if they feel like they're not making enough progress. Gonna spend some time this weekend, myself.
The Sean fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Nov 3, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Nov 3, 2023 16:37
|
|