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Question for Thunderdomers, how do you decide on what story to write, prompts and flash rules and all? What goes on in your head? Do you snag the first potential story out of your brain and put it on the page? Do you spend half a day brainstorming and narrowing down your options? I have a problem of starting very late (Saturday-Sunday) and just going with whatever seems good enough. I guess the lack of editing time compounds the problem, but often I'm already hamstrung from the very beginning. This week I took in a flash rule to focus my creativity into something more defined (FREEDOM).
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Jun 27, 2013 02:16
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Thanks, guys. I've never given much thought to "but what if", but I'll see if I can use it.sebmojo posted:Throw your prompt up and I'll have a go at it (just the first part, you get to write it). My flash rule is "your main character must struggle against the control of someone or something outside him/herself"
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Jun 27, 2013 03:32
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sebmojo posted:Ok. Free associating time. I actually had a similar train of thought while in the bus. Something about a mom who's all but enslaved by her family who sit on their rear end at home everyday while she tries to provide for them... Thanks for showing me how it can be done!
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Jun 27, 2013 04:41
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crabrock posted:In other news: http://www.bartlebysnopes.com/contests.htm I'm not sure why there's an entry fee for that contest. Is it an incentive for writers to submit the best work they could make?
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Jul 3, 2013 18:21
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Mr.Drf posted:So November is coming up. I know the work NaNoWriMo produces is mostly tripe, and that the whole event seems looked down upon in this thread. On top of that I know I am not a regular poster in this thread, but would anyone be interested in a writing camp style NaNoWriMo thread? From my experience with Nanowrimo, it felt like writing one long first draft for a month. It left me little time to step back, reflect on my work, or rewrite anything. It was definitely a "don't get it right, get it written" thing. So I don't think a camp could work.
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Jul 22, 2013 14:40
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I got through Nanowrimo by telling myself that I only had to reach the word limit, and keeping to schedule by writing a certain amount of words per day. It helped that I had an outline that dictated what would happen for each day, though of course I didn't get to follow that to the letter. I suppose the simple goal of "write n words in a month" doesn't seem like good advice for writing quality fiction, and it isn't, not directly. Since your output's going to be a first draft at most, it's going to be pretty bad. So no one needs to know what you've written. No one needs to care. Surprisingly, this killed my internal editor and I was slogging words every night while tired or drunk because gently caress everything, I'm just writing. And then I hit the word limit. I think the experience did me a lot of good, because I used to be a real prissy perfectionist and never got anything done because I was fussing over every sentence even before I completed it. It best hammered to me the advice that your first draft sucks so just get it written and revise, revise, revise. Mr.Drf posted:The NaNoWrimo people on Facebook have been laying out a structured sort of framework for their writing groups. That involve group "sprints" of writing at agreed upon times, weekly talks about how every one is doing and whether they have met their goals, brainstorming and support from group members to help everyone get prepared and finish. I know it's more intimate and hugboxish than the Thunderdome and more focused than the Farm. I take that this is the "normal" way of doing Nanowrimo? Being an introvert, I'd probably crash and burn if I followed that approach, since I tend to forget writing around people and get distracted by them instead. But it sounds like a lot of fun, I don't believe people are supposed to treat Nanowrimo as their super-serious novelist debut or something.
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Jul 22, 2013 15:50
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I'm going to sound silly for asking this, as I jumped into the current Thunderdome prompt, but what actually makes a story a "story of intrigue"? When I think about intrigue, I think about secrets, of backroom deals or secret agreements. It's the sentiment that something is going on and that you, as a reader, want to get to the bottom of it. Is this correct? I'm just afraid of missing the prompt by a mile.
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Aug 15, 2013 15:12
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I use Evernote because at least you aren't crippled without an Internet connection. Googledocs isn't bad, though.
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Aug 21, 2013 01:04
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If you're having problems with plotting, I recommend the book 20 Master Plots: And How to Build Them. At the very least, it will help you decide what kind of plot your story is, and it will help you write it. The examples are pretty good, too.
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Sep 12, 2013 05:06
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Throughout the years I've gotten a distaste for any extraneous physical description. When reading, I tend to visualize characters on my own and it limits me when the author insists on a certain cut to one's jaw. Unless it's important elsewhere, I just roll my eyes and continue. I'm more interested in stance/posture or clothing, because that does reveal something about them. To me, over-description smacks of the author not trusting the audience enough.
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Sep 18, 2013 02:47
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BreakAtmo posted:Thanks. What's got me thinking about it is a story idea I have - it involves a person being hired to either find a missing child or transport a kidnapped child somewhere, and the 'inciting incident' would be them getting the case. However, the main character actually changing emotionally/being forced into action would come later, slowly, as their neutral nature shifts to something more moral by the case. A more emotionally cataclysmic event that drives the protagonist would come much later, shifting the story in a new, more driven direction. However, I've heard opinions in the vein of 'the inciting incident needs to force the protagonist into action', and 'taking a case' would not be sufficient. Is your protagonist starving or in need of a job to pay rent? Is the child related to a close friend and he/she can't leave them behind? What would make your protagonist absolutely need to take the case? Those are questions you should ask yourself.
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Sep 27, 2013 14:50
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I liked 20 Master Plots. Yeah the title sounds super boring but it's honestly a great book about plotting. It explains the structure of each plot clearly and why they're like that (why does the hero usually take three attempts before he finally succeeds in the Escape plot?). Also I learned the difference between Quest and Adventure from that book.
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Dec 20, 2013 14:16
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CB_Tube_Knight posted:It's been a long time since I posted on this forum. It seems like a lot of the same stuff is going down. Mistborn is a trilogy with combat mechanics that are meticulously explained and documented in appendices. People get superpowers by drinking metals (Pewter makes you super-strong and fast, iron and steel make you Magneto, etc). The fights can get quite intricate. Actually if you want to read something like anime, there's a whole imprint of books for you. MM9 is straight-up a kaiju novel, Battle Royale is Battle Royale, Yukikaze is fighter planes vs aliens, All You Need Is Kill is coming out as a movie this year.
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Feb 22, 2014 13:59
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Bringing up Sanderson again, he wrote an essay on how a lot of writers try to imitate movies with prose, writing fights blow-by-blow. That doesn't work because a novel isn't a visual medium. What he suggests instead is to get inside the head of the POV character and focus on the stakes of the fight. Also, keep a handle on blocking.
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Feb 22, 2014 17:11
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Anonymous Robot posted:however, and both he and the reader will end the story not actually knowing exactly what had gone on. (Whether that will detract from enjoying the story or not is a separate issue.) Actually, mystery readers will not like this. The mystery must be solvable; you're essentially playing a game with the reader, where they try to solve your mystery before you reveal your answers. The reveal brings closure. No reveal and they will feel cheated (because hey, their attempts didn't matter!). quote:Does anyone have a favorite portrayal of Lucifer. Medium doesn't matter. And I have the comics in my Kindle already so I'm going to look over those. Just the comic. One of my all-time favorites.
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Mar 14, 2014 10:31
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Anathema Device posted:Does anyone else get self conscious when they write crits? I have a hard time telling when my crits are helpful, and I'm always afraid I come across poorly. Do you catch yourself suggesting how things should be? Not the micro stuff (grammar, punctuation) but the macro (characterization, plot) stuff? Are you suggesting a different ending or something? Because that's stepping over a line as a critter (critique-giver? crit person?). You shouldn't do that unless you're an editor (and even then, with care). I have a friend who does that, and we had to tell him to back off a little because he was already going into "this is how the story should be, as how I would like and write it". That, and we don't ask crits from him anymore.
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Mar 21, 2014 02:38
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CommissarMega posted:And also because I'd like some tips on how to write the mundane- I saw the 'no sci-fi/fantasy' restrictions on the latest Thunderdome challenge, and my mind went blank Have you been reading fiction that's not science fiction or fantasy? If not, there you go. You don't need to go strictly literary either.
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Mar 28, 2014 08:07
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General_Disaster posted:I have a question for the assembled. Are you writing a character-focused story, or do you need to move a story using multiple actors? Will your POV characters stay or are they just there to advance the plot? (say, you're writing a war novel where you need to portray a battle on several fronts) re: working on Thunderdome I try to have a basic germ of an idea by the day the prompt comes up. It can take me 1-2 days before I decide to write something. Ideally I can get the first draft done in one sitting (1-3 hours). I do this before bedtime so when I wake up the next day I get this niggling feeling of my story not being any good--which is actually a good thing to have. That's when I rewrite it. Sometimes I just throw the draft out and write a new story. That's okay--oftentimes you don't know what you really want until you write something and decide it sucks. My last story had 5 drafts, two of which were complete rewrites. I try not to start near the deadline because I always feel awful about it. That feeling when you run out of time and have to post what you have and people yell at you for your awful story which could have been made half-decent in a single rewrite... EDIT: I find it better to sign up late--I don't like the pressure of having to come up with something. If nothing comes to mind, then I could just not sign up and spare myself the grief. You don't lose points for not participating anyway! Lily Catts fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Apr 22, 2014 |
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Apr 22, 2014 02:10
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crabrock are you writing an anime??
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Apr 24, 2014 07:31
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re: cliches I always found this "Stories we've seen too often" list from Strange Horizons to be amusing.
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May 28, 2014 05:32
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blue squares posted:I'd like to post my stuff in the farm (and would then go and critique others, too, of course) but the things I'm writing now are all things I hope to get published, and I know it's just a dumb forum, but would having it on here affect that? It being possibly considered "previously published online"? Put it on a Google Doc. Make a thread and link to it. Then take the link down when you want to submit it.
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Jul 9, 2014 02:36
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Dr. Kloctopussy posted:I remember reading that other well-known authors have used the same technique, copying passages from their favorite books long-hand. [FIND CITATION] Here: http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/03/26/want-to-become-a-better-writer-copy-the-work-of-others/ Full disclosure: I have yet to try this myself, because I've been looking for just the right book.
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Jul 26, 2014 03:45
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Revol posted:Nobody yet. That's really the biggest obstacle, finding an artist partner. But you won't be able to find one as you are right now. You need to finish a story that you can pitch to artists--worlds are only as interesting as their stories. Having an actual something they could read is better than just telling them "I have a cool world," because it's not just a one-way street, they're probably looking for a good writer to work with, too!
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Jul 27, 2014 23:55
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PoshAlligator posted:Also is the Writer Goons writing group dead now? I'm unable to crit because my phone line has been torched for a week. I will try to get some writing done but there are no guarantees.
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Aug 8, 2014 02:34
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Sitting Here posted:I am SUPER busy, like, so busy that even taking the time to post there is more work than I can conceive of doing, to say nothing of reading and critting. So I apologize for the lack of organization. I am taking a week off work starting next Wednesday, so while people are more than welcome to post this week, I will probably be somewhat MIA until next week. I like the activity that a weekly schedule prescribes, even when it doesn't actually happen. For my novel (speaking for myself here) I don't think I need an in-depth, line-by-line, because it's still pretty first draft-y even if I have revised the chapters at least once. Something like Muffin's, which is polished enough, would benefit, though.
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Aug 8, 2014 03:58
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I have two questions: 1. How does one write convincingly about music? As prose is not an aural medium, words about music are nowhere near as good as actual music in conveying what it is. Many books include song lyrics in the text, but since I don't know how they're intended to be sung, they just come off as poetry. I'm trying to write something that's going to deal with music a whole lot (protagonist is a pop star), and I need help on this. 2. Chemistry is something that comes up often in reviews and critiques. We have an intuitive grasp of it, i.e. we can tell if the two main leads have chemistry or not just from a gut feeling. How can I write with this in mind, striving for "good chemistry" instead of "bad chemistry"? Are there more concrete guidelines for this?
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Aug 25, 2014 12:56
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TheRamblingSoul posted:I've been reading more on fiction advice and there seems to be a general consensus of "to be a better writer, just keep writing." I agree with the consensus, but there's another side to being a better writer, which is being a better person. I don't mean in the sense of being a moral, upstanding citizen, I mean that fiction has to come from somewhere. Which is you, by the way. Have you ever had an original thought in your head? Have you ever truly felt something? You can't write it if you never had it. Meet new people. Listen to them, know them. Dabble in different hobbies. Travel. Take care of yourself (very important). The brilliant, best-selling author who's cloistered and antisocial is a stupid cliche--where do they get their ideas? Your writing must come from something, namely yourself, so you have to fill yourself with meaningful life experiences in order to produce sincere, if not good ideas. Writing is a lot more enjoyable and better if it's sincere. As for being good, that's what the "keep writing" advice is for. You don't even need to turn your actual life experience into a story. You're writing fiction, so you're free to make things up without anyone knowing better. You could just take the core feeling and use it to drive your protagonist's character arc. Maybe someone looked up to you so much and you let them down by loving up and it's nagged at you ever since. You could use that. If you can't have it, then you cheat by reading. For me, the chief reason why reading is so useful for writing is to pick up experiences that are normally outside our reach. I'm not a girl, so I read stories with female characters (and preferably by female authors) to get an understanding on how they act and think. The other benefit is that every book is more or less a successful case study in writing, as long as the publisher is reputable (lol), since you are guaranteed that several people have taken a look at the story, improved it, and decided that murdering a bunch of trees to print said story on is worthwhile and profitable. But reading alone isn't enough, either. There's another cliche, that of the best-selling romance writer who is totally clueless about romance, because she (another cliche) has never been in a romantic relationship. So how come she's so good? Because she's read a lot of romance books, duh, but they paint a very different world from reality, and that's why she can't just get a date! You get the picture. By all means read a lot, but don't forget to live your life well--you'll become a better person (if not a better writer) at the very least. SO TO ACTUALLY ANSWER YOUR QUESTION, I just think real hard about something significant that I felt (first-hand or second-hand, even), then play around with that feeling until I have a character whose arc revolves around it. Or I freewrite until something comes out.
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Sep 4, 2014 03:25
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One of the books I read had used present tense for flashbacks, with the text italicized. Sort of like the main character reliving the memory at that point in the present narrative (which was written past tense). It kind of works, and I've used it in one of my stories before, but you need an ear for it. re: opening with weather I think of it as small talk written down--the writer is easing the reader into the story. However, the amount of stories in this last few decades have swelled up so much that readers don't have the attention spans to put up with this anymore. Just get to the point, or I'll find another story that will, is the prevailing thought.
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Sep 9, 2014 02:29
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I got a question: Has any one of you tried working on multiple stories in one sitting? If yes, how did you go about it? Was it productive?
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Sep 17, 2014 05:11
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Zip posted:but right now I don't feel confident enough to tell someone that I don't like their stuff... or that they need to change something. Giving critique, like writing, is a skill you can get better with practice. You see, this is one of the things that Thunderdome helped me with. Because I can be sure that TD people aren't big babbies about their words (with a few exceptions), I can be as rigorous as I could with my critique and expect them to take it. I used to have issues with this, because I kept thinking "I don't deserve to crit these people because they're so much better than me!" But that's wrong, because good writers are still perfectly capable of writing bad stories, and calling that poo poo out would help them get better. And since most people do come back and improve, I can be confident that my critique would be helpful to them. It's also one of the things that surprisingly made me better at writing, because the better I got at crits, the more confidence I got in editing my own work, as I could articulate my opinions better.
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Sep 17, 2014 06:21
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Obliterati posted:I know this topic's kinda been done before but I am genuinely interested in it. As someone who hasn't done much hard critique, can people outline the sort of things I should be looking for/saying? I've done a few TD crits but I wasn't sure if they were much use to the writers concerned. I'm a fan of Mike Works' post on the topic: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3495955&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=2#post405652093
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Sep 17, 2014 16:12
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Thanks! That was very illuminating.
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Sep 19, 2014 15:49
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Cometa Rossa posted:Do you guys save chapters as individual documents or as one big file? I go with individual chapters myself, but find out what works for you!
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Sep 26, 2014 02:33
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I'm a chapter or two from finishing the first act of my novel. Now, I'm thinking of going back and rewriting it before I start on the second act, because most of my running crits say that it lacks something that makes it special (i.e. it's pretty generic and doesn't really separate itself from other stories of its genre). I also feel that way, so if I address that problem sooner than later it's going to save me time, I think. I've got little experience writing longform stories (>5000 words) beyond the initial drafting phase, so I don't know if I should do that or blaze on and rewrite once I'm finished with everything. So here's my question: is it okay to revise chunks of your novel if you're dissatisfied with its current state/direction?
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Sep 30, 2014 10:15
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Aaand that's overwhelming support for finish the first draft first. Thanks, everyone.
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Oct 1, 2014 03:49
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Superb Owls posted:Went to Thunderdome this week... and lost. And I'm just wondering two things. a) Is it OK to read other people's Thunderdome entries to see what you could've done better and b) What was it like losing Thunderdome for everyone else? You should read other people's entries. In fact, read everything for the week if you can, AND read the crits that follow. The only danger is getting discouraged at the people who are much better than you, but suck it up and keep writing--someday you'll find that you've caught up.
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Oct 21, 2014 15:38
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I notice it when it's bad, because it sticks out and takes me out of suspension of disbelief.
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Nov 10, 2014 14:05
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chthonic bell posted:I'm willing to give it a try, I'm just afraid of my very first entry losing. Not all TD babbies lose on their first try. But if you do, then you probably needed it anyway.
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Nov 11, 2014 03:13
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Sitting Here posted:How many POVs is too many? I know there is no particular rule about it, so I'm just asking for people's personal feelings. I would go with two major character POVs, considering the audience.
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Dec 24, 2014 14:06
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Lofty132 posted:I'm a total piece of poo poo who has been struggling to find my writing mojo recently. I'm trying the old 'if you write it, she will come' method regarding my muse but so far nada. Any good tips to shake things up and clear the funk? Read something unrelated to what you're writing. Read something that you don't normally read. Fiction or nonfiction, doesn't matter as long as you can get something out of it. It might just give you plot ideas, or narrative techniques. The least you'll get is some entertainment. Never stop doing this. But don't forget to keep writing.
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Jan 16, 2015 15:04
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