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Wait for the next release. I want usable mugs damn it!

55 (71.4%)

We can use the current one. I like the big trees and slightly smarter dorfs.

17 (22.1%)

I'll take .34.11 thanks. I want to know I'll get to kill things for sure.

5 (6.5%)

Total Members Voted: 77

[Talvieno]

Feels a bit off from my usual standard, though (whatever that standard may be). I don't think I've ever really tried to tell an actual story through journal entries, so I guess I don't really know how to make it work. I use third-person narration so much that I'm kinda lost without it :V

I think the main difference from your regular writing stye is its brevity. One thing I've always noticed about your work, though, is how incredibly emotionally unattached your narrator's point of view is - which I suppose is actually admirable if you're writing from a third person perspective, because there's a complete lack of bias towards any of the characters or the way their actions are viewed. (Although I suppose if you were trying to write in a significant plot twist, it might be a good idea to tweak the reader's opinion just a bit one way or another - but your plot twists always managed to fool me without that, so I don't know.)

All of Vanya's story is written in first person, which I'm actually less fond of than third person - I was writing in first person specifically because I didn't like using it. =P Well, mostly first person - there's a little bit in second person every once in a while. I could try to help you out a bit, but I wouldn't consider myself an expert on the subject by any means.


The first thing you'd probably notice in a comparison from your regular work is how short your journal entries are - at least, related to Silena (which I was sad to see come to an end) or especially Osmah and Thothil (I was really sad to see that end, I kind of got sucked into it (I also admit I may have been shipping just a little bit)). OR, perhaps the best example I can think of - the zhuetat/devok/alkyun universe hostage situation story.

The second thing is that you're writing in first person without any emotional inflection or personality quirks, which I suppose makes sense if your character is completely emotionally detached, but it doesn't make for as fun or believable a reading experience. People tend to expect first-person narration to have a personality to them. It doesn't have to be much, really - with Vanya I took the approach of making her "writing" be a little more imaginative and philosophical than I would normally write things, and added a few tiny things here and there to further disassociate her writing "style" from my own, such as a few "catch phrases" she "liked to use", and her use of italics (which I later dropped because it felt so unnatural, I'll admit, and exceptionally hard to work with when you're writing her retelling of someone else's speech (She has a "tendency" to repeat the same word twice to add emphasis rather than saying it in italics ("very, very happy" instead of "very happy" or even simply "very happy" for instance)). There are a few other tiny things I can't remember off the top of my head... She's somewhat shy/reserved/withdrawn about certain things, which is something I tried to gradually let fall from her "writing style" as the story progressed, due to character development - she wound up being a lot less shy than she originally was. She's also somewhat dreamy when it comes to fairy tales and magic - something I tried very unsuccessfully to integrate into the story, I think - when it finally hit the infamous magical chapter everybody hated where I was introducing magic, everybody said it was overly descriptive and Katie came off looking like a Mary Sue, which was really just me trying to write it in Vanya's writing style. :\ But I failed pretty hard at that, I'll admit.

And that's all I can think of in one go - it's not really so much "help" as much as me just rattling off what I did to try to make my first person narration a little more enjoyable, and it's more than a little rambly. I suppose to sum it up: give your "writer" some character? I can very much imagine everything Thol says to be said in Mr Frog's voice. (Which, funnily enough, exactly matches the little clip you uploaded with you speaking about mugs - I think that got burned onto my brain. lol)


Also, random, Splint, I just recently noticed you included Mr Frog's portal bracelet in the Vanya armor pic... You are freaking awesome. I have no idea how I missed that, though.

And Asea, looking forwards to seeing it, assuming you're still posting and just a little late.



edit: also, @Mr Frog: I love that you're using the volcano I found while doing the map. lol    It's about time it worked its way into the canon.

[Aseaheru]

The scanner (you know, the one that took a year to find and get around to using the first time?) decided that it despises me.
So things are postponed.

Unless you guys wish to see really, really bad photos?

[Mr Frog]

YAYYY EPIC TALVIENO MEGAPOST

One thing I've always noticed about your work, though, is how incredibly emotionally unattached your narrator's point of view is - which I suppose is actually admirable if you're writing from a third person perspective, because there's a complete lack of bias towards any of the characters or the way their actions are viewed. (Although I suppose if you were trying to write in a significant plot twist, it might be a good idea to tweak the reader's opinion just a bit one way or another - but your plot twists always managed to fool me without that, so I don't know.)

It's a bit odd hearing someone comment that my narration is unusually-detached... I write that way because that's what I like to read. I really really hate it when the narration tries to describe a specific character as heroic or tragic or whatnot. That sort of stuff should be able to be seen on its own merits. It seems like cheating otherwise, and tends to evoke a weird sort of dissonance when a character obviously isn't as sympathetic as the narration makes them out to be (to give an example).

All of Vanya's story is written in first person [...] there's a little bit in second person every once in a while.

Right, I never got around to ripping you for that. Second person is really never a good idea in my experience. I guess it only really was tolerable in your story because the segments were so short.

The first thing you'd probably notice in a comparison from your regular work is how short your journal entries are - at least, related to Silena (which I was sad to see come to an end) or especially Osmah and Thothil (I was really sad to see that end, I kind of got sucked into it (I also admit I may have been shipping just a little bit)).

I keep wanting to resume them, but it feels like it's too late. It was also really selfish of me to shitcan Osmah when you'd helped me so much with it So sorry.

OR, perhaps the best example I can think of - the zhuetat/devok/alkyun universe hostage situation story.

Before anyone posts confused comments -- this refers to an unrelated short story I PM'd to Talvieno a loooooooong time ago. I'd have posted it publicly somewhere and linked y'all to it, but plagiarisers gonna plagiarise so no.

The second thing is that you're writing in first person without any emotional inflection or personality quirks, which I suppose makes sense if your character is completely emotionally detached, but it doesn't make for as fun or believable a reading experience. People tend to expect first-person narration to have a personality to them.

I was honestly trying my best to give the narration some personality*, but I guess I just don't really know how to :V

It doesn't have to be much, really - with Vanya I took the approach of making her "writing" be a little more imaginative and philosophical than I would normally write things, and added a few tiny things here and there to further disassociate her writing "style" from my own, such as a few "catch phrases" she "liked to use", and her use of italics (which I later dropped because it felt so unnatural, I'll admit, and exceptionally hard to work with when you're writing her retelling of someone else's speech (She has a "tendency" to repeat the same word twice to add emphasis rather than saying it in italics ("very, very happy" instead of "very happy" or even simply "very happy" for instance)). There are a few other tiny things I can't remember off the top of my head... She's somewhat shy/reserved/withdrawn about certain things, which is something I tried to gradually let fall from her "writing style" as the story progressed, due to character development - she wound up being a lot less shy than she originally was. She's also somewhat dreamy when it comes to fairy tales and magic - something I tried very unsuccessfully to integrate into the story, I think - when it finally hit the infamous magical chapter everybody hated where I was introducing magic, everybody said it was overly descriptive and Katie came off looking like a Mary Sue, which was really just me trying to write it in Vanya's writing style. :\ But I failed pretty hard at that, I'll admit.

Aaand now I do, sort of. I'm pretty sure I was the only one to call Katie a Mary Sue, unless there were a lot of PMs that I'm not aware of.

I can very much imagine everything Thol says to be said in Mr Frog's voice.

I guess I'm also kind of mode-locked into Mr Frog's specific writing style, if it's that bad :V

(Which, funnily enough, exactly matches the little clip you uploaded with you speaking about mugs - I think that got burned onto my brain. lol)

I'm not sure how to take this. Is that a compliment?

edit: also, @Mr Frog: I love that you're using the volcano I found while doing the map. lol    It's about time it worked its way into the canon.

Hehehehe.

Thank you for writing all this. I don't like taking advice from people, but it's a hell of a lot easier than figuring all this out by myself.

*Edit: Actually, come to think of it, I really wasn't. I put only the bare minimum of time and effort into coming up with Thol's character, so it should only follow that his journal entries are bland and uninteresting. Think I may have to overhaul his profile somewhat. Fun!

[Reudh]

Hey Talvieno, love the new chapter update, and also bump reminder for pm-ness!

[Talvieno]

It's a bit odd hearing someone comment that my narration is unusually-detached... I write that way because that's what I like to read. I really really hate it when the narration tries to describe a specific character as heroic or tragic or whatnot. That sort of stuff should be able to be seen on its own merits. It seems like cheating otherwise, and tends to evoke a weird sort of dissonance when a character obviously isn't as sympathetic as the narration makes them out to be (to give an example).

Most writers inadvertently leave little hints to the writer's true thoughts or intentions embedded in the narrative - little glimpses at the mind of the creator. Sometimes the writer writes something a specific way to try to fool the reader into thinking a villain is actually an ally near to the start of the story, for instance... or perhaps the writer puts a little bit of extra emphasis on a certain character's death. Maybe it's nothing more than accidentally spending a bit of extra time with a particular character - the point is, if you break it down far enough, you begin to see little hints that the writer has an attachment to his story. Your writing, on the other hand, always feels detached in this way, is what I mean by it. Not only that, but the only reaction I've ever seen you try to evoke from the reader is laughter. =P I know this is intentional, though - we've discussed it at length before.

Right, I never got around to ripping you for that. Second person is really never a good idea in my experience. I guess it only really was tolerable in your story because the segments were so short.

It's a play on Toady's "This is a microcline statue of a dwarf. It menaces with spikes of wool yarn," and so forth. I just expanded it a bit. I was planning on giving the second-person narrator an important part later on, and was also planning on immediately switching out of the second-person perspective to a third-person one.

I keep wanting to resume them, but it feels like it's too late. It was also really selfish of me to shitcan Osmah when you'd helped me so much with it So sorry.

This was the exact opposite reaction I'd hoped for - it was merely praise, not meant to make you feel bad. =P

Before anyone posts confused comments -- this refers to an unrelated short story I PM'd to Talvieno a loooooooong time ago. I'd have posted it publicly somewhere and linked y'all to it, but plagiarisers gonna plagiarise so no.

YOU GUYS ARE ALL MISSING OUT!!! MUAHAHAHAHA
...should I be worried about Vanya's stuff getting plagiarized, come to think of it?

I guess I'm also kind of mode-locked into Mr Frog's specific writing style, if it's that bad :V

Nah, I wouldn't say "bad". The brevity makes it a lot easier to imagine it in Mr Frog's voice, too.

I'm not sure how to take this. Is that a compliment?

You've got a good voice, so take it as a compliment. lol

Thank you for writing all this. I don't like taking advice from people, but it's a hell of a lot easier than figuring all this out by myself.

I know you don't like taking advice, but you greatly enjoy constructive criticism - a lot more than most people. (: Part of why I offered it.


And heyaa, Reudh!!! I'll get to that PM. And I was mainly posting the "new" update to bump it and post a new poll. If enough people want me to keep going anyway, despite me not having worked on it for so long, I'll try to finish it.

edit:

The scanner (you know, the one that took a year to find and get around to using the first time?) decided that it despises me.
So things are postponed.

Unless you guys wish to see really, really bad photos?

Every picture I've drawn and posted on this thread has been a cropped photo. I don't have a scanner.

[Cynm]

According to the wikipedia page on copyright,
 "Once an idea has been reduced to tangible form, for example by securing it in a fixed medium (such as a drawing, sheet music, photograph, a videotape, or a computer file), the copyright holder is entitled to enforce his or her exclusive rights."
I dont know how that applies to forums, but you should automatically have a copyright claim to your material. Which, I think, means that copying the work you've put into these stories is in fact illegal.

I am not a lawyer, or an expert on copyright law in any form. Personally, I would really like to see this story of Mr Frog's and as far as I can tell it would be protected from plagarism by international copyright law, so there's that.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Talvieno: If you really want to protect Vanya's story, you could get it published. You've got a lot of material that could make a good novel or two with minimal editing. In know at least one person who is looking into self publishing through amazon. I don't know how that works, but it could be an option for you.   

[Talvieno]

I guess I could look into getting it published, but the main issue for me would be money.

I've also considered posting the notes I've written like Mr Frog suggested, but the main issue with that is that I'd hit the character limit three times before I managed to get it all down onto the thread. It wouldn't be a double post, nor even a triple post - it'd be a quadruple post.

[Mr Frog]

Maybe it's nothing more than accidentally spending a bit of extra time with a particular character - the point is, if you break it down far enough, you begin to see little hints that the writer has an attachment to his story. Your writing, on the other hand, always feels detached in this way, is what I mean by it.

Wonder if this means that, on some level, I truly don't care about my stories. Hm.

...should I be worried about Vanya's stuff getting plagiarized, come to think of it?

I wouldn't really worry about any of the stories here. They're basically fanfics that only really make sense in the context of one specific thread on one forum. Vanya can sort of stand on its own, but it still loses a lot of its value if separated from the thread it was originally linked to.

According to the wikipedia page on copyright,
 "Once an idea has been reduced to tangible form, for example by securing it in a fixed medium (such as a drawing, sheet music, photograph, a videotape, or a computer file), the copyright holder is entitled to enforce his or her exclusive rights."
I dont know how that applies to forums, but you should automatically have a copyright claim to your material. Which, I think, means that copying the work you've put into these stories is in fact illegal.

I am not a lawyer, or an expert on copyright law in any form. Personally, I would really like to see this story of Mr Frog's and as far as I can tell it would be protected from plagarism by international copyright law, so there's that.

I think this is really naïve. Laws only provide protection to the extent that those who break them can be caught, identified, and prosecuted with hard evidence, all of which is difficult on the Internet. For all you guys know, I could have already ripped off the entirety of Vanya's journals and posted it under my own name in dozens of places across the Internet, and you guys simply haven't found it yet. Even if you did, all it takes is a missing timestamp and I can easily claim that I posted it first and it was Talvi who plagiarised me (I'm completely-serious here -- I think this actually happened to the guy who writes the Oatmeal).

E: Just to make it clear, I'm not an expert either. I just like to pretend that I am.

E2: Talvi, please continue your story. The main LP didn't get a proper ending, nor did the Mr-Frog-On-Eris story. I want something in this thread to be wrapped up properly.

[CaptainMcClellan]

Sequel you say?

[Aseaheru]

Soon. When we have big trees.

[Splint]

And spawn able to scramble over walls and moats.

[TalonisWolf]

And spawn able to scramble over walls and moats.

Heh. There is already a solution to this- an overhang, and a double moat.

[Splint]

And spawn able to scramble over walls and moats.

Heh. There is already a solution to this- an overhang, and a double moat.

Yeah, but where's the fun in that? Besides, ambushers man. Like the ones on the 18th of Felsite, final turn. Slip right in, cause havoc, kill founders and recruits alike...

[TalonisWolf]

 There is also the fact that it would require some level of competence- something rarely seen in a Succession Fortress.

[Aseaheru]

Splints competent.