Fiction Writing: Advice and Discussion

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Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Here's a question which I have been wrestling with for a while, but it's so basic and stupid that I do not want to ask it of the NYT best-selling author I know because I fear he will think I'm Moon Moon.

Chapters. What the gently caress are they and how do I know when to break things up into them? I have conflicting thoughts on the purpose and use of "the chapter", and maybe I'm just overthinking it! But seriously, I'm outlining and feeling like I should start marking certain stuff off as its own chapters, just to make further work easier, and my brain is making GBS threads itself over chapter breaks.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2013 04:46

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 23:06

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

You know, I'm trying to write an outline over here, and I've got Karla Homolka and the Menendez brothers posting in the drat thread about how to set up quiet spaces for writing. :mad:

# ¿ Aug 10, 2013 18:48

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

I tap into my inner Buddha nature to find the tranquility to write even in a mighty conflagration.

You lesser writers, with your sweet egg chairs and peaceful, sun-dappled windowsills, ugh. :rolleye:

# ¿ Aug 13, 2013 18:37

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Here, just use this.

quote:

Rock Harding erupted sensuously into the room, his Mr. Olympia-quality physique rippling like an ocean in a hurricane. He stood as a verile giant, seven feet of uncompromising masculinity packing nine inches of the same. His chest, incomprehensibly muscular, strained the buttons of his crimson flannel shirt, tufts of thick, black hair poking out between them in sharp contrast to his impossibly blond hair. Rock's sapphire gaze raked fire across the room, like his head was a Normandy beach and his eyes were Nazis.

Rock's rear end was perfect, perfect in a way where even the most homophobic man would find himself growing firm at the sight.

I don't care if your story isn't about Rock Harding. It is now.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2013 01:45

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Now I'm imagining a Vin Diesel version of Sister Act. And it's arousing.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2013 04:27

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Old detective novels, like Dashiell Hammett, pretty much always start with the dude taking the case or showing up on the scene, with the emotional growth and desire to actually solve the mystery coming after. It's okay for your professional problem-solver to take the case purely because it's a job.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2013 14:55

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Martello posted:

Mods, please change title of thread to Fiction Writing: JUST loving WRITE

And then change the title of the self-pub erotica thread to Erotica Writing: JUST WRITE loving

# ¿ Oct 9, 2013 14:01

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

That's a good piece of advice. I find it challenging, to say the least, to find someone who will read my work and not just go "yup, looks good, dude". That's not helpful at all.

If you think you won't fail, you're blind. If no one will tell you when you've failed, you're a blind man being led towards a cliff.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2013 04:58

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Don't read Shakespeare. You should not ever read Shakespeare. Go find a theatre company and watch them perform Shakespeare, you will have a much more satisfying time.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2013 05:33

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Yes. Thrillers/suspense.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2013 15:41

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

My own proclivity is to utterly eschew exposition. I'm always afraid of it clunking and dragging, and I think it's because it goes by so much slower writing than it would reading, so it seems like it's just too much on my end. Thus, I have really spare descriptions and backstories, and then it just feels like endless talking heads!

Incidentally, this is why having an outside reader is a good thing. They'll know, and they'll know better than you do, what your failings are.

# ¿ Dec 27, 2013 20:02

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

The charred bodies, which were localised to a 20'x15' irregular area on the north side of the street approximately five yards from Nikodemus...

# ¿ Dec 28, 2013 05:31

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

So if he'd just been honest, we'd all be spared his obnoxious fans? Son of a bitch.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2014 18:22

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

And when all else fails, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand :v:

# ¿ Jan 23, 2014 19:38

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Your Dead Gay Son posted:

Especially in an ancient historical setting

Then have a man come through the opening to your thatched mud hut with an atlatl in his hand!

# ¿ Jan 23, 2014 20:39

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

That's an awful lot of extraneous attribution you added to a scene with a single character, though. I wouldn't have been nearly so heavy-handed with it.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2014 06:06

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Please read Heroes Die, Tube Knight. Matt Stover does really good action, and within that book is both normal-dude action and crazy "living god fighting a sentient river" kind of stuff.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2014 23:19

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

People were recommending fantasy because the question was asked for "over the top" action scenes. If you want something more realistic, sure, go for westerns. But if you want people hurling fireballs and running up castle walls, well, Louis L'amour wasn't so good at that.

e: L'amour was really good at having people see glinting sunlight high up the wall of an arroyo and norrowly dodging a rifle bullet :v:

Blade_of_tyshalle fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Feb 24, 2014

# ¿ Feb 24, 2014 19:16

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Programmer fantasy: a brilliant young hacker in Old Neo-Tokyo-2 clicks the compile button and his rendered file is bug-free.

Fantasy.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2014 04:57

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

The thing I'm working on now, I'm writing it scene-by-scene in order. I feel like if I don't write it in order, I'll miss out on new ideas which change how later stuff goes. Like, I didn't put into the outline for Eleanor to catch a bullet in the shoulder, but while writing the scene it made sense. And now that informs her behaviour through the rest of the story and led to a scene with a doctor and, more importantly, the doctor's son who is now a character previously nameless from the outline intended to appear in other scenes. When I wrote screenplays in college, I did them out of order all the time and it was really awful because I kept coming up with new ideas and had to either discard them or rewrite other stuff to make it work.

But with either approach, I find the outline stage is really fun. It's where I'm free to throw huge ideas around and go "what if Bram Stoker had a sword fight with a vampire lord on the roof of a castle during a lightning storm?" It's actually writing those scenes which becomes a pain in the rear end :v:

# ¿ Mar 7, 2014 15:18

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

drat, do you work for Black Library, systran? I swear that's word-for-word how the Enginseers are introduced in some book or another.

(Introduce your Arcaneers by having some piece of magitech break down so you can talk about it. That seems like a good in.)

# ¿ Mar 13, 2014 14:01

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Stabbey_the_Clown posted:

Maybe it's just me, but when I read stories in the mystery genre, I kinda expect that the mystery will be resolved by the end. "Who the hell knows what happened" does not seem like it will be satisfying.

The Maltese Falcon is actually pretty lovely for exactly this reason. Same with A Study in Scarlet. They both end with "what the gently caress just happened?" as a solution. In Falcon, Sam Spade suddenly fucks over absolutely everyone and walks away. In Scarlet, Holmes pulls the solution to the case out of his rear end and then you get to read a short story explaining what the gently caress the entire preceding story was about. And those are both stories where the resolution happens in the text!

# ¿ Mar 14, 2014 05:12

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

John Glover played a great Satan on Brimstone. I remember fondly his speech about how Mother Nature creates plagues and senselessly kills millions of people, yet everyone hates him.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2014 13:36

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Because it's Russian. The last time Russian literature was allowed in America, Joseph McCarthy (pbuh) had to save the country from its insidious menace :911:

# ¿ Mar 15, 2014 14:01

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Hemmingway would have loving loved :cheers:

Too bad we don't have a six-toed-cat emote.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2014 18:29

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

CB_Tube_Knight posted:

I am thinking I might sit here and try and come up with alternate interpretations for the Four Horsemen because the Bible isn't as concrete on most of their names as we're led to believe. I don't know where people got this whole thing with Pestilence from, but that's not even close to what the text says.

If you want to do something slightly different, consider other things which come in tetrads, then apply the attributes of those things to the Horsemen. The first thing which comes to my mind is the seasons, so discard that idea immediately because it's way too obvious.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2014 04:47

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

CommissarMega posted:

Well, the thing is I want to introduce a few things, like a race of empaths and a generally accepted group of people who just happen to be possessed by demons ("We prefer the term 'Unified' or 'Refugees', thank you very much."). I was just wondering if I should add in a two/three sentence paragraph about how these dudes are empaths, and those dudes are demonic immigrants.

Carl rolled his eyes as he looked the resume over. "I'm not hiring another empath, Lindsay. Not after the last one tried to psychoanalyze my wife. I'd rather take a burn-out dipshit in a band shirt getting possessed by a demon. Sorry, I meant someone who's 'Unified' with a 'Refugee'." He made airquotes as he spoke. "At least those guys have a work ethic."

"That's really insensitive. My brother is Unified," Lindsay said. "He hasn't been able to hold down a job in seven years. Azjeroth makes him smell of sulfur and decaying flesh."

"I've met your brother. He doesn't bathe and he eats hard-boiled eggs, that's his problem, not some loving refugee from an infernal dimension. Who else you got? These auto parts don't sell themselves."

# ¿ Mar 24, 2014 04:56

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Whoa now, that graph is definitely missing a World Navel and possibly some Supernatural Aid. I call bullshit here.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2014 05:03

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Have you tried getting a tablet so you can write with the stylus and have the computer hilariously misinterpret your writing?

# ¿ Apr 6, 2014 22:19

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Les Habitants du Coeur

# ¿ May 20, 2014 03:39

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

General Battuta posted:

We were talking about emulating Cormac McCarthy's style in particular. I don't think he ever uses semicolons.

Doesn't he not use punctuation at all? I think he's the dude who doesn't bother with quotation marks, at least, believing that people will just understand from the context when it's not someone talking or whatever.

# ¿ May 25, 2014 17:11

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Hugo winner, right there, man.

# ¿ May 27, 2014 23:55

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Watching some of Sanderson's lectures got me to approach things a little differently, and I think I like the results more so far. But maybe that's part and parcel of having mulled on it for a while beforehand already. He's kind of distracting, though, chowing down on Gummi Bears constantly. And is he wearing a... foam fedora in some of those videos?

I should just finish something and get it out there for crits, jesus :rolleyes:

# ¿ Jun 1, 2014 17:36

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Describing people is hard. Not just the technique of layering the description into the narrative so it's not so drat obvious what you're doing (though some authors make it work having someone look in the mirror and describe themself), but also figuring out the words to use.

How do some of y'all approach this horrible facet of writing? Both the insertion and the choosing.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2014 17:26

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Or Bret Easton Ellis novels. But then, it's hard for him to write someone entering a scene without describing their outfits down to the thread count of their underwear, so...

# ¿ Jun 12, 2014 03:38

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

The Invisible Man in... The House of Mirrors! :drac:

dun dun dunnnn

# ¿ Jun 12, 2014 04:31

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

I dunno, guys. I think it has merit. Now I know Solomon has skin the colour of some kind of coffee-based drink!

I'm going to assume a mint-green shamrock frappe.

# ¿ Jun 16, 2014 12:58

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

How is it racist to say someone's skin colour? It'd be racist to say "Jim liked NWA because his skin was the colour of a mochaccino," but just saying "Jim was dark-skinned"? Hell, go for broke. "Jim was black." Be authoritative of that. Own it! Own Jim's black rear end!

Wait, hold on, I want to try that one again.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2014 03:28

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

I feel like a good rule of thumb is "if you are describing a person's appearance in relation to food, please don't." Unless you're writing a comedy piece where someone's skin glistens like a warm, glazed cinnamon bun and their eyes are the depthless blue of a raspberry Slurpee. Then, hey, go for it.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2014 04:15

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 23:06

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Dr. Kloctopussy posted:

And if they incorrectly assume someone is white, and later realize they are not, they will be mad at you, because....???)

Like that one girl in Hunger Games, or Blaise from Harry Potter. People just randomly assumed both characters were dainty, blonde, white girls. They then flipped their goddamn lids when not only were both black, but Blaise turned out to be a fella, too. People felt betrayed.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2014 12:13

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