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NoButterUtter posted:a small excerpt Language aside, I quite like your rhythm and structure. It reminds me a lot of New Wave Science Fiction, Sam Delaney in particular. What English-language fiction do you like to read?
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Oct 30, 2018 04:53
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Nae! posted:so to say 'to take good care of' is a split infinitive?????? The classic example of a split infinitive is negation. "It's important to not split your infinitives" is technically wrong, since the infinitive is "to split". The "right" usage would be "It's important not to split your infinitives" but in practice that can sometimes sound less natural, so yeah like smarter people than me have said, it's a dumb, overly-prescriptive rule.
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Oct 30, 2018 15:38
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After The War posted:Language aside, I quite like your rhythm and structure. It reminds me a lot of New Wave Science Fiction, Sam Delaney in particular. What English-language fiction do you like to read? feedmyleg posted:I definitely don't think anything in your sample is reason to abandon the idea—I liked the sort of slightly-aloof-yet-playful tone in the piece. And those errors are really the sort of thing Proofreading it is. Thanks a lot. Also, nice to hear about the "slightly-aloof-yet-playful" thing, because that's just the kind of style/voice I've been trying to achieve for a long time in Swedish, interesting that it seems to come through in English too. Kind of embarrased to admit that I've been on some kind of two-decades-long binge of William Gibson and post-singularity SF like Greg Egan and Charles Stross... But I'll check out Samuel Delany too, cool. Also, Yiddish Policemen's Union was amazing, first heard about Michael Chabon in this thread.
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Oct 30, 2018 19:54
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to you, what is a good antagonist? like what traits make them understandable to audience?
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Nov 2, 2018 14:01
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I think the same traits that make a good protagonist: realistic or at least understandable goals and motives (not just bad for bad’s sake), a proactive rather than reactive nature, and relatable character flaws that are more than just “Guy is a psychopath.” This last one can be flipped on its head with antagonists in the sense that they can be compelling because they are so alien to the reader psychologically. But if their motives and actions make sense for them, and fit the character and the narrative, then their “alienness” itself can be compelling.
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Nov 2, 2018 14:27
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Fruity20 posted:to you, what is a good antagonist? like what traits make them understandable to audience? I think some of the best antagonists have sympathetic or understandable motives, but what makes them a villain is that they pursue their goals by unacceptable methods. For example, a scientist who wants to save the planet from the destructive behavior of humans. That's a great goal, it's one we can agree with, but if his means of achieving that would be to wipe out human civilization, most of us would consider that unacceptable. *** I've got a small question of my own. I know there are no set rules for chapter length and such, but in my WIP, I want to start the book off with a very brief scene, no more than a page long at most which ends with my protagonist finding a dead body. The next part starts off with "TWO DAYS EARLIER" and serves as the actual introduction to the setting. Even though the in media res part is so short, should it still be its own chapter/prologue, or could it be tacked on to the start of Chapter 1? Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Nov 3, 2018 |
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Nov 3, 2018 16:49
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Prologue?
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Nov 3, 2018 19:25
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Fruity20 posted:to you, what is a good antagonist? like what traits make them understandable to audience? It's not compelling to have two completely unconnected people thwarting each other. feedmyleg posted:Prologue? 
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Nov 3, 2018 21:11
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Whalley posted:Great for drafts but I hate reading them every time. Just bring up the important bits from the prologue as they happen dammit, don't give me a short story then instantly start a novel sequel But what if it's a good short story with a novel sequel? I'm drat well doing that right now, and you can't stop me!  Fruity20 posted:to you, what is a good antagonist? like what traits make them understandable to audience? My favorite antagonists to write are genuinely good people trying to make the best decisions given the knowledge they have—they just happen to be at odds with the protagonist's goals and/or worldview. They're not fanatics trying to do good using evil ends. Instead they're good people trapped in a bad system trying for the best outcome. The system itself is the evil, or if not evil at least poison to the protagonist. Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Nov 3, 2018 |
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Nov 3, 2018 22:50
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Stuporstar posted:But what if it's a good short story with a novel sequel? I'm drat well doing that right now, and you can't stop me!  and it's great and nobody can tell me any different
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Nov 4, 2018 02:35
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Fruity20 posted:to you, what is a good antagonist? like what traits make them understandable to audience? For me, my favorite antagonists and villains may not have much relatable to them, but they act as great roadblocks to the heroes of a story. Even if their motives don't always make much sense, I'm a sucker for characters that make me go "Grrr I hate that guy!" because they always seem one step ahead of the main characters. Vader went from a good villain to a great one when he surprised the dinner on Bespin. Kingpin has some great motivations, but it would be just as fun to see him constantly staying one step ahead of Daredevil regardless. Thanos is, well, Thanos. All of them make your jaw drop and go "No way! How will our heroes overcome it this time?!" which can be incredibly fun. Note that I'm not saying to ignore motivation, because it's incredibly important. Only that there's another layer to it, and that when your motivations are good and you can mix them with good conflict/plotting, then you have a great villain. The default advice is always "character motivation," but really, either of those two on their own may not make a truly complete story. In short: I like villains that act as perfect roadblocks to overcome.
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Nov 4, 2018 02:45
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Anyone else have an issue where you end up liking your antagonists more than the protagonist? I've decided to start writing again and I noticed I have a bad(?) habit of taking villains I initially conceived as being irredeemable assholes and making them more personable than the people we're supposed to like. I'm trying to make the villain of my current story a straight-up monster, but his entire purpose for co-opting his insane demon-worshiping cult is to obliterate the political center of the major union of worlds in order to break the stranglehold of imperialism it has over less-developed worlds. Like, he has an ostensibly good goal, but I don't want people read about him and go, "Yeah, this guy and his group of horrifying cannibals are totally right."
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Nov 4, 2018 03:02
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Absolutely yes. The original antagonist of my current WIP has become a second protag in practice. And I'm fascinated by the antagonist I developed in response to that. I may have delved too deeply into the main characters before starting this.
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Nov 4, 2018 04:34
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Is there a way of hinting that a character is worse than what the story actually shows? The tone of what I'm working on is generally light, but I want my antagonist to be much darker than the rest of the setting -- he shows himself as the head of a Hellraiser-esque sadomasochist demon cult, but in reality he's the guy who assassinated the previous leader to co-opt the cult into ending the imperialist government the protagonists are inadvertently working to defend. Of course, while his objective is a good one: "I have to save these worlds from being enslaved and drained of resources and cheap labor." His way of going about it is less good: "I'm going to do it by tricking my stolen cult into building a giant cybernetic flesh-abomination to give this demon lord a vessel with which he may destroy the planet and everyone on it." Now the antagonist in question is the leader of a group of cultists obsessed with rebellion and freedom -- personal freedom, absolute freedom, which means absolutely no taboos, and the unrestrained id. I'm not going to show the extent of their depravity, but I do plan on leaving hints here and there -- but the question is, what sorts of hints?
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Nov 4, 2018 05:17
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Screaming Idiot posted:Now the antagonist in question is the leader of a group of cultists obsessed with rebellion and freedom -- personal freedom, absolute freedom, which means absolutely no taboos, and the unrestrained id. I'm not going to show the extent of their depravity, but I do plan on leaving hints here and there -- but the question is, what sorts of hints?
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Nov 4, 2018 08:56
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Screaming Idiot posted:Is there a way of hinting that a character is worse than what the story actually shows? The tone of what I'm working on is generally light, but I want my antagonist to be much darker than the rest of the setting -- he shows himself as the head of a Hellraiser-esque sadomasochist demon cult, but in reality he's the guy who assassinated the previous leader to co-opt the cult into ending the imperialist government the protagonists are inadvertently working to defend. Of course, while his objective is a good one: "I have to save these worlds from being enslaved and drained of resources and cheap labor." His way of going about it is less good: "I'm going to do it by tricking my stolen cult into building a giant cybernetic flesh-abomination to give this demon lord a vessel with which he may destroy the planet and everyone on it." make there be a huge disconnect in the way they talk about their exploits (all good) and the way people react to them. He says they saved a village from certain ruin, he walks through the village and everybody screams and runs away. He ensured freedom, he steps over a corpse he made to get there. what makes an atagonist scary is that they see their own actions as good and reasonable and right, while to the rest of us they're obviously hosed up.
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Nov 4, 2018 09:16
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This is something I'll probably have to solve myself, but I may as well share anyway. I'm writing in third person, and it only just now occurred to me that I don't know whether I want to refer to the protagonist's father as 'Jim' or 'Dad'. Obviously it'll change how much inside the protagonist's head the reader gets, so whichever distance I choose, I need to be consistent.Whalley posted:Just make them internally consistent and make them have a link with your protagonist. If your protagonist has trouble with words, make them able to actually say the right thing to the antagonist. If your protagonist has bionic limbs, make the antagonist disgusted by the augments. You don't even need to do this with the characters in the scene; maybe the protagonist is a vampire, so you cut to a scene where your antagonist is eating garlic kale chips before addressing the congregation of their church. Or maybe they're also a vampire, but willing to do the thing the protagonist isn't. Hmmm... that gives me something to think about for another project I have in the works. I have a clear solid, understandable motivation for my villain, but I'm not sure the connection is there. ...Or maybe it is. In that project, both my protagonist and antagonist are of noble birth. My antagonist thinks that makes him superior to commoners. My protagonist is a princess, much higher in rank than the antagonist, but she truly cares for her people and agrees with the reforms her grandfather started and father continued to make a fairer society. I guess that falls under "they're also a vampire". quote:Great for drafts but I hate reading them every time. Just bring up the important bits from the prologue as they happen dammit, don't give me a short story then instantly start a novel sequel This is also my impression of a prologue, so calling a one-page fast-forward of something a couple chapters ahead doesn't seem to fit. That said, I am thinking of calling it Chapter 1 (or maybe Chapter 0) anyway, instead of putting it at the start of the next full chapter. Stuporstar posted:My favorite antagonists to write are genuinely good people trying to make the best decisions given the knowledge they have—they just happen to be at odds with the protagonist's goals and/or worldview. They're not fanatics trying to do good using evil ends. Instead they're good people trapped in a bad system trying for the best outcome. The system itself is the evil, or if not evil at least poison to the protagonist. By that, do you mean that in essence your antagonist is an agent of the law and insists on the law being followed even if it is considered unjust by people like the protagonist? Guiness13 posted:Absolutely yes. The original antagonist of my current WIP has become a second protag in practice. And I'm fascinated by the antagonist I developed in response to that. I may have delved too deeply into the main characters before starting this. One of my antagonists in my WIP has such sympathetic motivations that even though he tries to kill the protagonist, he would not be an antagonist in the second book.
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Nov 4, 2018 15:04
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A basic style question, but one that I can't find an easy answer to. In dialogue, if a character is starting a sentence with an elision like 'cause or 'cept or whatnot, how is that formatted? Is the first letter capitalized? And related, how do I force Scrivener to make the apostrophe go the right direction in that scenario?
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Nov 4, 2018 15:38
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:By that, do you mean that in essence your antagonist is an agent of the law and insists on the law being followed even if it is considered unjust by people like the protagonist? That's a rather narrow interpretation, but it's an example of what I'm talking about, yes.
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Nov 4, 2018 17:15
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Stuporstar posted:That's a rather narrow interpretation, but it's an example of what I'm talking about, yes. I was asking because I wasn't entirely sure what you meant. The impression I got from your description was that your antagonists were essentially someone who puts upholding an existing system (lawful) against someone fighting the system for being unjust. What other examples did you have in mind?
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Nov 4, 2018 17:28
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I was asking because I wasn't entirely sure what you meant. The impression I got from your description was that your antagonists were essentially someone who puts upholding an existing system (lawful) against someone fighting the system for being unjust. What other examples did you have in mind? Ok here's an example you may have read. In N. K. Jemison's Broken Earth trilogy the Guardians are charged with protecting their wards, but also with protecting other people from their wards because their powers are extremely dangerous. The protagonist's Guardian is essentially a good person who truly loves the protagonist and wants to protect her, but the system is such that the only way he can protect her is by being a slaver. He doesn't necessarily value the "law" over the protagonist's life, he just can't see any other way to protect the protagonist. The protagonist wants freedom, but in his mind that can't happen, not because it's "against the law," but because she risks being murdered by a mob if they find out what she is, or will put other people at risk simply being free to do her geomancy unchecked. That's only one example, the one your question is leaning towards, because it still has an element of the antagonist doing evil. But they don't have to do evil at all to be a good antagonist… It can get more subtle, like a psychologist prodding someone with mental illness to get a job, even a lovely one, because they think finding work will be good for their patient's mental health. But the lovely jobs available are so miserable all they do is make the protagonist feel more useless and miserable. The psychologist has bought so completely into this society's belief that work in itself is good and not working turns people into miserable piles of refuse, so instead of listening to their patient and maybe suggesting they try something else, they try to cure the person from feeling bad about their miserable work—because the goal is to get them back to work and mitigate the miserableness it causes, not offer real alternatives like shucking off the chains of a lovely society. In the latter example, the psychologist doesn't even need to have the literal power to make the protagonist's life miserable, like threatening to cut off their disability cheques if they don't follow the program. They wouldn't do that as legitimately good people. No, instead (in the case of my current SF novel) they're helping erect mental roadblocks in the protagonist. Leaving the protagonist bumping against the walls in the rat maze, trying to follow all the signposts on the path to "normality," so they can contribute and fit in, instead of looking up at the stars and thinking, "Screw this bullshit world, I'm going beyond." Edit: Choosing genuinely good people as antagonists also adds an element of the protagonist not necessarily being right. Of the protagonist perhaps doing harm to themself or even others. And it's up to the reader to decide whether they side with them or not, not just ride along unquestioning on the assumption the protagonist is always right because they're the protagonist. Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Nov 4, 2018 |
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Nov 4, 2018 18:06
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I want to be clear before I say this story that I'm not complaining. I'm saying it only because it gave me a laugh and I feel people here would get a kick out of it. So, basically, someone online agreed to read over the first chapter of a story I wrote and give me critique. That was super nice of them and I thanked them for being willing to do so. I sent it over. Only a couple minutes later I got back the question "So, is English your first language?" Something tells me my writing has a LONG way to go! Edit: Okay, once again, I want to be clear that I'm not complaining. I'm actually really. Seriously. I laughed so hard when I read this. And I am really happy that someone is giving my work a serious pruning. But, I think you'd all get a kick out of this: "You also write like you're a teen-aged virgin. That's not a criticism, it's an observation. Keep in mind Truman Capote won all the writing awards at 19 with Other Voices, Other Rooms. The only thing we judge each other one is the work." Reminds me of this:  But, seriously, they gave me some good, legit criticism and they are really helping me out with suggested reading in the genre. But I just thought y'all get a kick out of this. Covok fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Nov 5, 2018 |
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Nov 5, 2018 01:18
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Covok posted:I want to be clear before I say this story that I'm not complaining. I'm saying it only because it gave me a laugh and I feel people here would get a kick out of it. You have to post the story now
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Nov 5, 2018 06:12
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dreadmojo posted:You have to post the story now Yeah no poo poo, don't give us a review like that and leave us with nothing to judge the assessment.
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Nov 5, 2018 07:06
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You should change your picture to the “he never scored” tombstone
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Nov 5, 2018 08:11
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Edited Covok fucked around with this message at 13:17 on Dec 11, 2019 |
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Nov 5, 2018 13:50
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Covok posted:I'm a little afraid to now. The story is not safe for work. That's kind of embarrassing. This could not be more perfect
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Nov 5, 2018 19:00
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By Yuna Aeris
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Nov 5, 2018 19:37
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dreadmojo posted:By Yuna Aeris Oh man, that takes me back to my first usernames. Brings a tear to my eye... Covok posted:I'm a little afraid to now. The story is not safe for work. That's kind of embarrassing. 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. FormerPoster fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Nov 5, 2018 |
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Nov 5, 2018 21:10
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dreadmojo posted:By Yuna Aeris I'm going to defend this by saying it was intentionally meant to be the most obviously fake name possible. Nae! posted:Oh man, that takes me back to my first usernames. Brings a tear to my eye... Jesus. That is not what I meant. Just wanted it to be big. Alright, I'm going to go die of embarasment now.
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Nov 5, 2018 22:03
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Just say his dick is the size of a Schlitz tall boy, your readers will understand.
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Nov 5, 2018 22:07
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Phil Moscowitz posted:Just say his dick is the size of a Schlitz tall boy, your readers will understand. All jokes aside, generic comparisons do work better than measured sizes, because most people don't look at things and think 'wow that must be x number of inches' unless they work with measurements on a routine basis. What they do work with is delicious Schlitz tall boys.
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Nov 5, 2018 22:11
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Yes, I guessed about the name. It's basically what I'd expect for competent weeaboo erotica, though remember that dialogue is punctuated "Blah," he said.
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Nov 5, 2018 22:40
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So, like I'm amazed at the lack of jokes about how embarrasing the weebness of it all is. That and the other thing was what I thought people would harp on. And the bad dialouge. And the spelling erors. And the inability to make sex interesting. And the fact its setting is an Exalted ripoff. God, why did I show people this? What's a Schlitz tall boy? Edit: ^ Spoke too soon.
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Nov 5, 2018 22:40
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Covok posted:So, like I'm amazed at the lack of jokes about how embarrasing the weebness of it all is. Tbh it's not quite bad enough to be funny, but you can probably get some more focused critique if you post a thread.
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Nov 5, 2018 22:49
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Covok posted:So, like I'm amazed at the lack of jokes about how embarrasing the weebness of it all is. Well I didn't actually read it, so I have no criticism really.
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Nov 5, 2018 23:27
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ohmy god lmao
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Nov 5, 2018 23:36
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im not sure whats more fatal, the size of that penis or how hard im laughing
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Nov 5, 2018 23:43
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anime was right posted:im not sure whats more fatal, the size of that penis or how hard im laughing if you as a writer can't prepare yourself to take a 4.5 inch diameter d up your b-hole, you're not ready for critiques
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Nov 5, 2018 23:58
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TBH I was gonna yell at you about the Exalted/L5R fanfic thing, as well as Yowaimaru being an especially bad "a little Japanese knowledge is a dangerous thing" name, but the Gdoc repeatedly crashed my phone browser, so it'll have to wait until I get home and can finish the story/my bullet-pointed list of things to yell at you about.
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Nov 6, 2018 00:09
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