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change my name posted:Speaking of writing software, I've only used Word, but was thinking about how nice it would be to have something intuitive that easily showed different sections and let you hop between them. Maybe broken up into different panes that you could hop between; ie, characters, scenes, concepts etc. And maybe you could then dive deeper into each category in the same way. Scrivener is a good option, or you can try the free program that mag7 linked above.
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Apr 9, 2016 05:06
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change my name posted:Speaking of writing software, I've only used Word, but was thinking about how nice it would be to have something intuitive that easily showed different sections and let you hop between them. Maybe broken up into different panes that you could hop between; ie, characters, scenes, concepts etc. And maybe you could then dive deeper into each category in the same way. Is this a weird joke I'm not getting where you just describe Scrivener? If not you should buy Scrivener, it's literally this. (And you can try it for free).
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Apr 9, 2016 05:26
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And again, as I have mentioned several times before and mag7 just linked to 6 posts above yours, yWriter5 is free.
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Apr 9, 2016 08:47
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General Battuta posted:Is this a weird joke I'm not getting where you just describe Scrivener? If not you should buy Scrivener, it's literally this. (And you can try it for free). Nah, I've just never tried anything else. But now I will!
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Apr 9, 2016 15:30
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Hey, dead zone of writing advice. This morning I had an idea for a story that takes place in Cuba. Having never been there, and no real knowledge of the place except from Godfather Part II, where would you suggest I start (edit: start learning enough about Cuba to make the locale believable)? The story will be sci-fi/horror, it'll be in present day Cuba, (specifically, this current purgatory state between playing nice with US and not nice). I've already got Juan Of The Dead and Una Noche on my must-watch list to get a sense of how different the streets, the people and the culture are from me, (Southern USA). I'm not expecting to pinch out a book that will be hailed as a brilliant observation of Cuban culture, but I'd like to at least try to white-wash my total ignorance of the place. FAQ: Q. Does it have to be Cuba? Why not pick some other place you have been or at least know more about rear end in a top hat. A: Yes because the story involves an infection that doesn't spread from Murica to Cuba due to the current embargo (is that the right word?). Sure. Pretend it's zombies if you'd like. Q:. How do you not know anything about Cuba you ignorant rear end in a top hat? A: It isn't easy. I also do not know anything about Napoleon's empire, The Mexican/American War, or almost anything History or Social Studies related. These were my "nap research studies" classes that confirmed my decision to skip formal education and go directly into the exciting world of data entry. magnificent7 fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Apr 14, 2016 |
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Apr 14, 2016 20:36
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You gotta do the work. Buy a nonfiction history of Cuba and then at least two fiction books by Cuban authors. Read and absorb! That is, uh, a start at least. Also go find someone tearing down a white person's story about Cuba and see what went wrong.
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Apr 14, 2016 20:48
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General Battuta posted:Also go find someone tearing down a white person's story about Cuba and see what went wrong. Now... to go find a story about Cuba by an American that was criticized for not being accurate. Back to Godfather Part II!
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Apr 14, 2016 21:15
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magnificent7 posted:Hey, dead zone of writing advice. You know, me being a Russian, I'm a part of a culture that Americans love to write about without really bothering learning anything it about beyond reading a book or two. You know what? It's annoying as gently caress. You (as in, generic you) can't fake this poo poo. You can only really convincingly pull off the level of immersion into a culture that you yourself are at. You've read a few books about a culture? Congratulations, you can now insert a few scenes where your character, an American, goes to wherever you chose and, like, gets drunk in a bar and has a car chase. You could maybe even write a minor character who's an immigrant in your US-based novel and not embarrass yourself. Have you spent a few years actually immersing yourself in a culture? That's fantastic! You could now probably pull off a novel about being a foreigner in said culture, as long as you didn't try to be too profound about it or, like, write your exploration of their national character. You could probably even write about locals, as long as those locals spend most of the novel fighting off reptiloid ninjas. You want to write a novel about Cubans in Cuba being Cuban? You kinda need to have had more input than just a few books. I mean, I suppose there are people who amazing enough that they could pull this off. But are you this amazing? I mean, you are asking goons how to do it on the Internet. (As a sidenote, you do realize that the embargo is a lot more porous than you seem to think? Tens of thousands Americans travel to Cuba and back each year. Not to mention a couple million of Canadians and Mexicans, some of whom travel to US immediately thereafter.)
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Apr 14, 2016 22:19
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but you can write a cuban character in cuba for white people, and they won't know/care, so go hog wild.
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Apr 14, 2016 23:18
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What if I want to write about white people in Canada? Just toss in some bagged milk mentions?
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Apr 14, 2016 23:41
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If "but I might not do it well" were a reason not to write things, no one would ever write a thing.
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Apr 15, 2016 00:24
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Megazver's point is well made though. If you want to do something then you should do it well. Writing cultures unlike your own is very difficult and it requires patience and a willingness to learn, as well as the wherewithal to admit that your stereotypes and prejudices might get in the way, and knowing that there are many things that you're just going to get flat out wrong at first. But I think it's something worth doing if you want. You just have to sink a lot of time, effort and attention into it. And you have to realize that other people in other cultures...are people, and not exhibits or entertainment to be gawked at.
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Apr 15, 2016 01:06
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change my name posted:What if I want to write about white people in Canada? Just toss in some bagged milk mentions? Have him refer to a couch as a "chesterfield" and you got yourself a bonafide Canadian, I'll tell you what, eh
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Apr 15, 2016 01:25
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Read as many books as you can be bothered reading then write something that feels true to you. Noone will die if you accidentally have someone drink their tea with milk WHICH THEY NEVER DO IN CUBA OMG and conversely no matter how many books you read you're not gonna be a native. Writing is smoke and mirrors. (I don't actually know Cubans' preferences for tea)
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Apr 15, 2016 07:59
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sebmojo posted:(I don't actually know Cubans' preferences for tea) Aint no party like a Cuban tea party. Hey. Ho. I think my best approach here - just for my own peace of mind, is to write the main character as an Ex-Pat who's involved, but constantly aware that he doesn't know poo poo about the place. WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW, people. Write what you know.
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Apr 15, 2016 15:14
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Bluff like mad about what you know.
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Apr 15, 2016 15:20
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Write what you think you know, find out what you actually know
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Apr 15, 2016 17:09
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docbeard posted:Bluff like mad about what you know. Yeah, pick a few things in Cuba you will know everything about and then focus like a laser on that. Like study carefully how the healthcare system works and what it's like, since your plot sounds like it might need that, and a couple other things. Maybe watch some documentaries about Havana or get books with photographs of Cuba from the library so you have an idea of what it looks like. I'm doing something similar with Somalia myself.
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Apr 15, 2016 18:36
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I have a brand new character that I'm holding like a tiny little doll and I keep thinking, "you're so cute, what am I going to do with you?" What am I going to do with him?
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Apr 17, 2016 05:20
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youre going to write a story that uses that character key word being WRITE
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Apr 17, 2016 06:03
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HIJK posted:I have a brand new character that I'm holding like a tiny little doll and I keep thinking, "you're so cute, what am I going to do with you?" Make a TVTropes page about him
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Apr 17, 2016 06:19
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Ironic Twist posted:Make a TVTropes page about him
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Apr 17, 2016 06:41
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flerp posted:youre going to write a story that uses that character I have no plot just this dumb little dude that doesn't want to leave his hou-- Wait. Ironic Twist posted:Make a TVTropes page about him Well obviously, how else can I decide if he's a Tsundere or a Yandere
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Apr 17, 2016 06:48
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HIJK posted:I have a brand new character that I'm holding like a tiny little doll and I keep thinking, "you're so cute, what am I going to do with you?" Stick him in an environment, wind his little key, and see where he goes.
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Apr 17, 2016 07:05
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HIJK posted:I have a brand new character that I'm holding like a tiny little doll and I keep thinking, "you're so cute, what am I going to do with you?" Kiss him and hug him and squeeze him and call him George.
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Apr 17, 2016 07:24
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Erotica
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Apr 17, 2016 07:31
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Fan-fiction is still fiction writing, right? Congrats! Plop 'em in Harry Potter.
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Apr 17, 2016 13:50
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Oh no I have a character but no story
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Apr 17, 2016 21:24
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Djeser posted:Oh no I have a character but no story Holy poo poo I love flowcharts like this. Thanks dude!
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Apr 17, 2016 21:26
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*If you are Thomas Ligotti branch the far right line to 'you're all set, rock it'
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Apr 17, 2016 21:52
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Okay so here's some thoughts (and maybe getting things off my chest) that might be instructive to someone else: Trying to write a novel when you haven't written much of anything to completion before is, to be frank, dumb. I mean some can probably do it but I sure as hell can't. I've done Nanowrimo nearly every year since 2004, but I was too cocky to think that it really amounted to anything. After trying to outline and write a novel while also finally knowing what I'm supposed to do, I think finishing poo poo, even if it's just short fiction, is way more important than raw word count. On the upside, I think I've jumped from the "I am poo poo but don't understand why, exactly" stage to the "I know what my weaknesses are and I can start working on them" stage. Why on god's earth did I try to write a novel? Well there's a writing competition (Finnish publisher) with a deadline in June and I wanted to write one for that. But starting from scratch (I procrastinated too much, the competition was announced in August) and trying to get a novel done in two months is just dumb if you also have a 9-5 job you actually enjoy doing. I started having huge performance anxiety because I knew I wouldn't have time for anything but the first draft, and I'd have to turn that garbage in with only quick revisions. Another thing that I ran into was that I've written before, but I've mostly written in English (I'm bilingual, natch). I also do most of my reading in English. I do technical writing for a living, but in Finnish. So trying to write prose in Finnish was a big shock. I went to the library and brought home a cartload of Finnish literature and read it, and the problem was that I wasn't really impressed by the prose in Finnish either. All this prose by established authors and all of it felt wrong somehow. (It's also possibly a case of the standards in Finnish literature being lower, because of the different market. Who knows.) Finnish is my professional language and English is my... artistic? language. So trying to write a novel from scratch, in Finnish, in two months, without any proper prior experience - that's just dumb. Sometimes you just gotta know you have made a mistake and move on. It's also way harder to find beta readers in Finnish. Probably something to do with there only being six million Finnish speakers in the world. Sulphagnist fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Apr 18, 2016 |
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Apr 18, 2016 10:41
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I'm trying to aim for a terse, dehumanizing tone for something I'm writing, but I'm kind of at a loss for examples. Anyone familiar with something written like that?
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Apr 18, 2016 21:33
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Djeser posted:I'm trying to aim for a terse, dehumanizing tone for something I'm writing, but I'm kind of at a loss for examples. Anyone familiar with something written like that? http://en.people.cn/
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Apr 18, 2016 21:35
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Djeser posted:I'm trying to aim for a terse, dehumanizing tone for something I'm writing, but I'm kind of at a loss for examples. Anyone familiar with something written like that? James Ellroy?
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Apr 19, 2016 10:09
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How do you guys deal with plot contrivances? What counts as a contrivance?
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Apr 20, 2016 18:37
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Blue Star posted:How do you guys deal with plot contrivances? What counts as a contrivance? I cross to the opposite side of the street without making eye contact, usually
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Apr 20, 2016 19:25
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i get rid of them
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Apr 20, 2016 19:29
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I pile a whole lot on top of each other and call it magical realism
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Apr 20, 2016 19:32
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Blue Star posted:What counts as a contrivance? A writer who is too afraid to let his characters talk about the thing that would solve all their problems because that writer's characters are too shallow to hear a thing and reject it. Blue Star posted:How do you guys deal with plot contrivances? Let your characters be people. Let them talk about the thing that would solve all their problems. And let them choose to reject it.
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Apr 20, 2016 19:33
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ExtraNoise posted:Let your characters be people. Let them talk about the thing that would solve all their problems. And let them choose to reject it. "Nah, F that."
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Apr 20, 2016 19:38
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