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ravenkult posted:I don't care about length as long as it's something I'm interested in. If anyone needs a beta reader, I'm around.
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Aug 11, 2014 12:40
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 14:03 |
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It's hard to find a good balance between a hug around feel-good echo chamber and a negativity deathtrap. I guess I'd say if the feedback you get tells you why it sucked, you can work with that. What's your writing process? Maybe a change of routine could help. How do you draft / redraft?
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Aug 17, 2014 10:49
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KevinCow posted:My biggest concern is that I'm just not creative enough to tell a story. Is there anything I can do about that, or is it just something that you either have or you don't? 1) Free writing: Just write. Write anything. For a set period of time. Even if the result is "loving hell, I can't write. I can't think of anything. I have been mindwiped by cylons. My brain is a barren wasteland upon which camels are making GBS threads. Do cylons know what camel poo poo is? Why did they put it in my brain?" Then you look at it from the perspective of 'is any of this useable?' The camel poo poo bit was OK, so run with that. Don't correct spelling or grammar, just let your mind pour poo poo out. Do this once a day and the ideas will gradually filter through, if only by process of attrition. If nothing else it's a great warm up. 2) cut-up: if you're still looking at your free writing blankly, cut it up into sentences, then cut each sentence in half. Spread them out over a table or your bed. Make new combinations. Rearrange them until two pieces make something interesting. Honestly, the toughest thing about being creative is learning to separate the production and critical parts of your mind. You need to produce a ton of unusable crap, take a break, then cut it down until it's useable. Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Aug 17, 2014 |
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Aug 17, 2014 20:14
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PoshAlligator posted:Fiction writing advice: how do I lead a fulfilling life?
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Aug 20, 2014 12:03
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Vija games are fine, as long as they don't cut into your writing time. You can even use them as inspiration if you're stuck (skyrim for fantasy, aliens for sci-fi, GTA for redneck erotica etc). Also, they fulfil an important motivational role in our psychology, or so vSauce claims: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5jDspIC4hY The caveat is that you need to be writing an absolute bare minimum of 2k words a day if you want to consider yourself a writer.
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Aug 21, 2014 12:31
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Fine then, 'when starting out.'
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Aug 21, 2014 14:01
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Dear author hahahaha slush pile yours sincerely, Ed.
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Aug 24, 2014 08:39
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My art teacher once said the trick is not knowing how to start, but knowing when to stop. If you keep picking at a story trying to make it perfect you'll drive yourself insane. The more you look at it, the more the good bits will seem less inventive and shocking revelations become boring, because they're not new and exciting to you any more. But they will be to your readers. Trust your instincts when you wrote it, then trust your proof readers. Make sure it makes logical sense, make sure it's gramatically correct, then move on. Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Aug 26, 2014 |
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Aug 26, 2014 14:47
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Shh, let him think it's safe. We're running low on kidneys.
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Aug 28, 2014 00:50
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Blue Star posted:Okay, the sorceress hires them to steal the jewel. They give it to her. She pays them and the job is done. They go home. One of the stones was transmuted into the form of a girl who does not realise she has the power of a minor god.
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Aug 30, 2014 23:51
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I'm currently using an old laptop just powerful enough to run Ubuntu. Enough power to run the built in word processor, but not enough power to play games or watch videos. Ubuntu because it's up and running in seconds and I don't have a clue how the back end works so I can't install a bunch of distractions.
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Sep 2, 2014 09:52
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As storytelling gets more and more interactive, storytellers may / may not realise that the things that we see as gripping and tension creating in films and books are just frustrating in an interactive medium. Fun fact: I was carting round a PHD proposal a few months ago all about problems of interactivity in storytelling, but while everyone said it was fascinating and they'd be really interested, nobody 'felt they had the expertise' to supervise. The nearest I got was a guy in Southampton writing about hypertexts and a guy in Wales writing about vijagames. Maybe they were just being polite, but it seems a shame that there's all these new media opening up and universities are barely acknowledging the presence of the kindle.
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Sep 4, 2014 17:28
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how long before we can abandon these inferior vessels and become digital conduits through which our sherlock slashfics pour
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Sep 5, 2014 17:41
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Liam Emsa posted:I don't know. I just feel like I don't spend enough time painting the scene. If I do, I feel like I'm forcing myself to do it, and then adding unnecessary fluff detail. I have a screenwriting background, so I often feel like I'm painting it like a movie scene, and I don't know if that's good enough or not. quote:INT: HOSPITAL CORRIDOR, NIGHT ... Do the same with your descriptions: quote:It was dark in the hospital corridor. Start general and then get specific. I would limit the description to a paragraph - any more than that and IMHO you should describe things in terms of what a character thinks of / relates to it to keep it interesting. Honestly, the majority of readers know what a hospital corridor looks like. Your main job is to then define what details they need to get the scene right so that when a character jumps out of a side door knocking them into a shelf, they don't think "wait, what door / shelf?"
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Sep 9, 2014 00:51
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weather report: Combine it with something interesting, something that tells us about the character or the setting. Like having rain glistening on the head of a spear, or soaking the shirt of a girl as she runs home, the sound of footfalls close behind. Or wind blowing litter down an empty alley. Make the weather part of the setting. company history: If you've got masses of backstory, add it as an appendix and just refer to key events in the text. Have characters recount details to each other while doing something else. Example: quote:"We've got less than a minute before the system goes off! Give me the goddamn code!" Caveat: Never have a character explaining something to another character that they should already know. Having that character forget a name or a date and have to be prompted is fine. Having them forget what their company does or needing an aspect of their military training explained to them, not so much. TLDR: If you feel you have to include a boring detail in your story, combine it with something interesting.
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Sep 9, 2014 10:56
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God Over Djinn posted:Have you ever read Thunderdome? Crits that just say 'you suck, stop writing' without giving you specific things to improve are one in a million... Bitching is people telling you your writing is poo poo, and can usually safely be ignored. If however someone tells me why my writing is poo poo, it's great. I'm not going to pretend there isn't an initial "no gently caress you, this took me ages" but one thing uni was great at was teaching us how important feedback is. You just have to put your pride off to the side for a moment and remember why you write: for other people to eventually read it. Also how insufferable people are who get to the end of year 2 and bitch about how they don't do drafts / editing.
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Sep 17, 2014 01:46
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LOU BEGAS MUSTACHE posted:absolutely false. bitching is done for a reason, and it hurts to hear it, but bitching is quite often done for a reason, it might be for a lovely reason, or a great reason. If however you just get a hundred "your writing is bad and you should feel bad" replies, there's not much you can do with that. Yeah you could take a fresh look at your work, but chances are that if someone didn't see the problem when submitting, they're probably not going to see it without specifics. And you could guess from demographics what they're likely to have hated, but again, it's leaving you to self-analyse, something decent writers have already done. I realise this all started off talking about Thunderdome which largely contains good advice, but in the broader context of criticism in general there will always be a "you suck" contingent that aren't really helping.
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Sep 17, 2014 02:08
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But we're all dead anyway according to Barthes, so what does any of it matter 
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Sep 18, 2014 16:39
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Maybe you could compromise: Start with your general impressions and then move on to specifics? ...and now we're offering critiques on how to critique.
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Sep 20, 2014 17:07
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I'm writing a story not set on earth, and I want one of my characters to be from the not-earth equivalent of Australia, and use a lot of not-Australian slang. The story will never visit not-Australia or meet anyone else from there.
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Sep 28, 2014 11:22
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Schneider Heim posted:So here's my question: is it okay to revise chunks of your novel if you're dissatisfied with its current state/direction? Probably with modern time constraints you won't have a month, but even if you only leave it a week you'll be surprised at how fresh your perspective is and how much more you see. Looking at it on paper also helps you see it differently. Plus, it means you spend that week writing new stuff instead of poring over the old stuff and picking at it until you hate it.
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Sep 30, 2014 11:36
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I've discovered the main cause of me hitting a wall when writing and it's this: I always have too complex an idea. Like at the moment, I've hit the wall at about 4,000 words in a romance piece, which should (by it's nature) be fairly simple to write, but my rear end in a top hat mind has given me a great twist that I've managed to seed so deep into the story that I can't write any more without making sense of one of the characters' motivations. I have tried writing it out in it's most basic form and moving on, but I've now written everything that occurs after that point, and I need to finish this one conversation and I can't because I suck at dialogue and now I hate myself.
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Oct 1, 2014 18:11
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Djeser posted:Do people have anything else they've found to motivate themselves (in general, or in specific for writing)? I advocated writing 2,000 words a day a few pages back, and while that's a worthy eventual goal if you want it to be a profession, 1k a day is probably more reasonable progress. Even if you have to open up a separate word document & write complete crap that has nothing to do with the story, the act of writing strengthens the neural pathways involved in producing prose and will make it easier the next day, and the next. Get yourself into a rhythm. Also don't beat yourself up about video games. If you make your entire life work with no play... Well, we've all seen The Shining haven't we. Reward yourself with a bit of gaming if you meet your target. Disclaimer: I have never thunderdomed and am not making any money yet. I am however finding the above advice useful in breaking my own mental deadlocks.
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Oct 10, 2014 10:32
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Confession: I got suckered in by Forward Press as a teenager with 'poetry' based heavily on Manic Street Preachers lyrics. The most embarrassing thing is that my mum still to this day tells people that I was one of the "top 100 poets*" in the country, and has kept all the books. * They released a 'best of' compilation called this. I won £200. I bought a long black coat with it.
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Oct 10, 2014 13:12
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Jagermonster posted:Also, turn off your wifi. I've found this to be true: "You can't call yourself a writer if your writing machine gets internet." (or something like that) - some author (Jonathan Franzen I think)
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Oct 10, 2014 14:27
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crabrock posted:i need a metaphor. i'm like the guy who owns a lot, but it's in a bad part of town so I never go check on it and it's overgrown and filled with old tires and broken bottles and smells of piss.
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Oct 11, 2014 18:11
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Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:Then again, most critics and award givers disagree with me so what do I know.
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Oct 17, 2014 00:42
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General Battuta posted:Right now it's 140k and it's entirely in Courier New I'd also heard 100k is a good target for fantasy, so it might be an idea to see if there's somewhere around the 100k mark you can split it - just to make the debut a little less daunting, if nothing else. Finally I just checked King's On Writing and he recommends 'two drafts and a polish', and leaving it for six weeks before editing. Bear in mind though that he's a professional who has nowt else to do all day and also recommends 2k words a day. Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Oct 31, 2014 |
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Oct 31, 2014 17:55
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Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:GB's novel is actually legit for-real getting published, so his publisher/editor probably asked him to do it in Courier for their own purposes. 
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Oct 31, 2014 18:53
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I'm going to do nano-lite. 1k a day, which should still leave me time to pump out a 'romance' short every other week. Hell, it's working out better than job seekers. Just.
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Nov 1, 2014 15:41
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Subway Ninja posted:She released an audible sigh of relief as he shrugged in resignation, his weary voice and slumped posture indicating that he was tired of the conversation. Maybe it's just the 4am editing talking, but I mentally replaced 'sighed' with 'grunted like Tim Taylor' and woke up my wife laughing.
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Nov 3, 2014 05:14
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Lovingly, Shepard ran a finger down the blade of Garrus' jawline. "Heard there was a big gun in here. Thought I might see if I could squeeze off a few rounds." Vakarian's eyes glinted, mischievously. "Might need a little calibration first." He whispered, placing a hand on Shepard's chest. "I was thinking you and I could break out the 'tools,' what'd you s-" Suddenly Kai Leng came in and hosed everyone because he is the BEST by drew karpyshyn (age 4)
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Nov 5, 2014 02:43
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Crabrock slash fic please.
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Nov 7, 2014 02:05
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LOU BEGAS MUSTACHE posted:lol i missed this, lmao
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Nov 8, 2014 01:43
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Wrote 2500 words today. Felt good. First draft shite, but still.
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Nov 10, 2014 18:50
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Baby Babbeh posted:I don't know how you can be mad about a narrator withholding information. Good storytellers withhold information until it's dramatically appropriate to reveal it. That's what makes it a story rather than a jumbled recounting of events. Bad reveals feel like an rear end-pull, like getting to a final climactic boss fight and the character suddenly revealing they are a black belt or wearing a bulletproof vest or surrounded by snipers, (unless it's part of a subplot about them coming to terms with wanting / being able to use kung fu / basic safety equipment / military connections). It's a tough one because it requires a skilled writer to pull it off properly, and 'dramatically appropriate' doesn't help without the deeper knowledge of structure most offenders of this trope will be lacking. It can also lead to the dreaded gambit pileup in the wrong hands.
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Nov 12, 2014 11:58
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God, there's a flashback. I haven't read OoTS in years. It just strikes me as something that has to be done just right. Too much signposting and it's not a surprise. Not enough, and it looks like a last minute rear end-pull. My favourites are always the ones that make you want to read/watch the whole thing again so you can look out for the things that seemed unimportant the first time round.
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Nov 13, 2014 02:00
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Subway Ninja posted:I'm uncertain on a specific use of commas. For example: If the grammar in a sentence or clause doesn't seem right, rearrange or reword it.
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Nov 27, 2014 09:24
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I've been going with a combination of pomodoro technique and flexible goals. I stick rigidly with 30 minutes writing / 10 minutes break until I've done a minimum 500 words. My goal is 1k, after which I tend to relax the restrictions on my working environment (no distractions etc). If I reach 2k I call it a day and reward myself (unless I'm doing a first draft, in which case I just see how much I can get down before my brain craps out). I will openly acknowledge though that I can only do this because I am unemployed scum stealing all your hard earned taxes (joke is on you, I can't claim benefits). I think 500 minimum / 1,000 goal is pretty reasonable for most people though.
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Nov 29, 2014 09:18
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 14:03 |
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blue squares posted:I have found that it gets really easy to slip into using "I" every single sentence. I catch myself doing it a lot. I think it causes dull prose. I got nothing other than that. Also you could look at it in terms of academic paragraph construction. A tip I was given is that you put the main point in the first line of the paragraph, the next offers evidence (or for fiction, description), and the next offers a mini summation of the above. Like so: quote:I walked into the room and saw the body. Light filtered in through the stained glass window, painting the scene with a latticework of unsettling colours. It seemed an odd choice of decor for an office. Don't worry about this too much on the first draft or you'll drive yourself mad. Ideas first, readability flow later. That probably wasn't a great example because I'm just waking up. Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 09:06 on Dec 3, 2014 |
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Dec 3, 2014 08:59
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