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I'd like to become a professional writer in the next decade.

7 (29.2%)

Less than videogames.

6 (25%)

I am a professional writer.

3 (12.5%)

More than my health.

2 (8.3%)

I'm not sure.

5 (20.8%)

More than videogames.

0 (0%)

Not at all.

1 (4.2%)

Total Members Voted: 24

Voting closed: April 23, 2012, 11:42:36 pm

[Willfor]

I finally finished my outline of Hera's story (I can't quite call it Hera's story since there are three PoVs, but Hera is the one you all know, and I am forever making up new titles for it, so). It clocked in at 1900 words itself, and should translate to roughly 120,000-150,000 words before I start getting into smaller subplots.

I know in advance I have enough plot for at least one more novel. Mostly because the plot isn't resolved at the end of this first novel even though things have settled down by the end (I don't like sudden endings in novels, and I want to write something I would read). I plan to continue outlining until I reach an exceptable resolution to the primary plot.

Wolrdbuilding has come along significantly, but I expect it to expand further as I write and outline.

[Fishbreath]

Well, you guys seem to be getting on alright without me. :P I've been meaning to keep involved here, but what with unreliable wifi and a lack of writing production it's been difficult. On top of that, Minecraft found me (you may lament my doom now).

In other news, I've been doing some groundwork on the short story I'm going to build off the last sci-fi fragment I put up. I'd like to involve you folks in the production from start to finish, and see how much better it turns out with critique at every stage. I'm going to allow myself the delusion that someone reading this might actually want to read the finished product sight unseen and put the outline in spoilers. My tentative title is "We Sail Off To War", from the last line of the Hymn of the Naval Arm (lyrics at the end of the post):

Spoiler: Outline (click to show/hide)

1. Background
1.1 The Brenner drive (by name only; show the rest)
1.2 The start of the Exile War
1.2.1 Brief history from 1225-1254
1.3 Situation on the Threshold front
1.3.1 Battlefield: gas giant, leading and trailing trojans. Complicated moon system, lots of places to hide, etc.
1.3.2 Strategic considerations: very important. Threshold makes a lot of war product
1.3.3 20-30 ships on each side. Exiles have better ones, generally.
1.3.4 Three Exile protected cruisers: Vengeance, Reprisal, Retribution. Individually better than any one Confederate ship in Threshold, in company a threat to the whole Confederate fleet
1.3.5 Exiles have been running rampant with their cruisers. Confederacy won't engage them directly, and is striking where the cruisers can't be.

2. Warspite arrives in Threshold
2.1 Two weeks of drill, taking on stores and crew, and such at the Confederate base
2.2 Introduce characters and concepts:
2.2.1 CDR Weatherby, Charles: respected, well-known, old-fashioned in style but underneath a skilled modern tactician
2.2.2 2ENS , : dedicated to staying with the naval arm. Parental expectations, maybe: father is War Minister¹.
2.2.3 LTs from first fragment: mention in passing
2.3.4 Senior Petty Officer : to do all the enlisted-rank stuff with a name.
2.3.5 Warspite: aging point-defense cruiser. Not generally deployed outside of larger fleets, but exceptions are made in times of duress. Basically impossible to attack with missiles, but not as durable on primary systems² as newer ships and undergunned for her size.

3. Warspite leaves leading Trojans, heads to Argo
3.1 Meet up with Hermes upon arrival. Captains exchange pleasantries, decision is made to sail in company.
3.2 2ENS is on bridge watch, and contact!

4. Warspite chases Vengeance
4.1 Vengeance runs insystem instead of out into deep space. Confederates wonder why. Realization: she's alone and almost out of fuel. Speculation: personal problems between armored cruiser captains?
4.2 Warspite and Hermes succeed in bringing Vengeance to battle.

5. The battle
5.1 Progresses in 3 stages:
5.1.1 Opening moves: Warspite and Hermes stay out from under Vengeance's guns, peppering Vengeance with long-range fire.
5.1.2 Vengeance scores a few hits, slowing down Warspite and Hermes, and begins to close the range. Our heroes get hammered.
5.1.3 Weatherby comes up with a crazy tactic (move to point-blank range, strip Vengeance's radiators³ with point-defense fire, use the whole ship as an EMP bomb, etc.). Disables Vengeance.
5.2 Told in 3 parts:
5.2.1 From the bridge of Warspite
5.2.2 From Warspite's gundecks
5.2.3 From the third-person

6. The aftermath
6.1 Open ending. Vengeance is gone, but Warspite is badly damaged, Hermes can't even make steerageway, and there are new contacts at the edges of sensor range...

1. For 2ENS, read Subensign; for subensign, read plucky midshipman. Ensigns and subensigns are students at the various levels of Navy-operated schools in the Confederacy, from around the 14-20 age range.
2, 3. Confederate warships are built to be highly redundant, to the point where the whole ship can basically be operated by hand and electric power. Fighting capacity is diminished when you fall back to redundant systems (not as effective as the primaries). Killing all of a ship's radiators (by lots of small-caliber fire, say) or electrics (by a massive EM pulse) is a great way to take it completely out of the battle.

Hymn of the Naval Arm:
The star-studded blackness awaits us
As we once again sail from friendly shores
Remember, remember
What we are fighting for

Protecting Confederate union
Defending the country that we adore
For honor, and for glory
We sail off to war

I have a wee little music track to go with that, but my wifi is bad enough that I can't get it to you.

[Supermikhail]

@Willfor: Don't mean to offend, but your last entry could use more straight writing work than outlining, what with always leaving out some descriptions and bits. Also, you don't mean to sell you book, right? I think that's kind of huge size for a beginning writer, I mean an average book has 400 words per page max, and you get 300 pages. I may be wrong, but publishers don't like to risk too big novels these days. Saving paper, I guess.

At peril of stating the obvious, I've got some thought on outlining myself, and at large part they are addressed to Fishbreath, too. I've thought some on Many Words and decided that it lacks a hook in the beginning. To be blunt. Basically, what I want to say is, before you consider your great novel outline finished, consider these points: do you have a hook in the beginning, some suspense, something for the reader to look forward to (sometimes it's just that the whole story is a flashback of the protagonist). Do you keep enough suspense through your story. For example, I've started to think in my last outline about whether and when I should uncover the nature and backstory of important characters. I could do it, but is it going to make the characters less interesting, and the story less exciting afterwards. Maybe if you think about your story in these terms, you'll be able to trim it down, Willfor.

Not to offend, again, but, Fishbreath, it's so funny to read another person's outline! Well, for me for some reason. I don't do it just like that, but I can imagine myself writing it... Or maybe it just feels like reading somebody's diary...

[shadow_archmagi]

OK, with the encouragement of your fearless leader, I have decided to post my latest short story here.

Ordinarily I'd just post text but

A. It's five pages long
B. I have like, fonts and things here that I'd like to keep.

The Epic Of Carl is a hitchhiker's guide-esque (their words not mine) story of a man who lives in a futuristic dystopia.

[Supermikhail]

That's classic! The jokes are solid!

Although, to be frank,

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

"it all was just a random dream" endings have been growing stale on me. But I guess it's kind of hard to come up with something else when it's about a random story.

Other things. As a story, its main flaw is that it frequently switches voices - at first you speak about what's happening at the moment, then about what's done everyday, then, of course, you switch on your author voice. Some consistency would greatly help in improving the story's quality.

Also, at first I actually thought it to be intentional, but it's probably not - in the beginning you've got Carl's and his co-worker's names uncapitalised.

About the hosting. First, your choice is unfortunate in that MediaFire uploads have a tendency to expire. Then, it's probably a matter of choice, but it would be easier to convert the file to PDF, for one it's faster to open and you can't edit it without some manipulation. Besides that, there are many hosting services for text files (like Google Docs), blogs that actually allow many different fonts and formats, although I think your point about fonts is kind of silly.

[Willfor]

@Willfor: Don't mean to offend, but your last entry could use more straight writing work than outlining, what with always leaving out some descriptions and bits. Also, you don't mean to sell you book, right? I think that's kind of huge size for a beginning writer, I mean an average book has 400 words per page max, and you get 300 pages. I may be wrong, but publishers don't like to risk too big novels these days. Saving paper, I guess.

At peril of stating the obvious, I've got some thought on outlining myself, and at large part they are addressed to Fishbreath, too. I've thought some on Many Words and decided that it lacks a hook in the beginning. To be blunt. Basically, what I want to say is, before you consider your great novel outline finished, consider these points: do you have a hook in the beginning, some suspense, something for the reader to look forward to (sometimes it's just that the whole story is a flashback of the protagonist). Do you keep enough suspense through your story. For example, I've started to think in my last outline about whether and when I should uncover the nature and backstory of important characters. I could do it, but is it going to make the characters less interesting, and the story less exciting afterwards. Maybe if you think about your story in these terms, you'll be able to trim it down, Willfor.

Alright, this is where I have to shoot you down. In no particular order:

1) The chapter I posted here serves on a single purpose, and that was to make sure the characters in it were going to be cooperative when I decided to write in full. I've written an entire second draft of it, and that's not going up yet because I'm working on a third draft of it with the more solid Hera narrative voice I've picked up since I began fully working on the outline. A lot of the criticism you supplied was taken to heart in it.

2) I should have finished this outline before even writing the chapter because I didn't know how deep my plot was going to go at the time, and I couldn't foreshadow as much as I wanted.

3) Writing work for me is significantly easier than outlining is, and I have never successfully completed an outline for any project. The fact that I have actually made one I can stand is a major accomplishment in itself for me, and will help with my motivation to continue this project. And yes, now that I know how the first book is going to end I can put in a lot more hooks than when I had only a faint idea of what was going to happen. I suspect that by the time I finish outlining the entire story (and see what makes sense and what doesn't in the process) I will be able to see the entire story a lot more clearly.

The only disadvantage is that outlines for me find it difficult to survive the first encounter with the enemy (characters I've never written before).

4) As for the publishing, whatever I send in will not be the final product by any means. I'm predicting at least 20-40% of what I write will end up on the cutting room floor once the publisher's editors go over it with a red pen. My work will only have started when I sell it, because then I will actually have deadlines to follow. I don't know how hard it is for some other people, but I cannot simultaneously be an editor and a writer at the same time.

Summary: Novels are hard work. 

[Supermikhail]

Ah, I guess I offended you more by saying that I meant no offense. Also I forgot your disclaimer about that sample.

I didn't know that nowadays most work was done by publishers' editors. Then it isn't any better than pop-music industry.

[shadow_archmagi]

Also, at first I actually thought it to be intentional, but it's probably not - in the beginning you've got Carl's and his co-worker's names uncapitalised.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It is indeed deliberate; he is capitalized in the second half because the second half is his dream.

Your point about tenses will bear looking into though

First, your choice is unfortunate in that MediaFire uploads have a tendency to expire. Then, it's probably a matter of choice, but it would be easier to convert the file to PDF, for one it's faster to open and you can't edit it without some manipulation. Besides that, there are many hosting services for text files (like Google Docs), blogs that actually allow many different fonts and formats, although I think your point about fonts is kind of silly.

I'll try google docs, then

[Willfor]

Ah, I guess I offended you more by saying that I meant no offense. Also I forgot your disclaimer about that sample.

I didn't know that nowadays most work was done by publishers' editors. Then it isn't any better than pop-music industry.

It's all good. I'm just giddy with finally having a story that starts writing itself, and that's making my backbone just a little bit harder.

As for the publishing industry, the best overview I've had on it is reading other author's experiences with it. Here for instance. March 03, 2010 he has a guest post by his production editor. November 25, 2009 he has a guest post by his copy editor. Both of these show some insights on how the publishing industry is in relation to authors these days.

[Supermikhail]

This is retarded. Again - after having seen a Youtube video "The Lord of The Rings by George Lucas", and having participated in a short discussion on the topic of who actually does what. Why don't then all the editors get any credit? Why is there only the original writer's name on the cover, while that groundbreaking experience was brought to us by a number of people (emphasis on "brought", because if done differently, just because of some poor word-choice, we would have had a fit of tl;dr)? You know, everybody points at Rowling's dialogue tags, but we don't know if it was her idea, or it was introduced by a weird copy-editor. 

[Fishbreath]

@Willfor: Don't mean to offend, but your last entry could use more straight writing work than outlining, what with always leaving out some descriptions and bits. Also, you don't mean to sell you book, right? I think that's kind of huge size for a beginning writer, I mean an average book has 400 words per page max, and you get 300 pages. I may be wrong, but publishers don't like to risk too big novels these days. Saving paper, I guess.

At peril of stating the obvious, I've got some thought on outlining myself, and at large part they are addressed to Fishbreath, too. I've thought some on Many Words and decided that it lacks a hook in the beginning. To be blunt. Basically, what I want to say is, before you consider your great novel outline finished, consider these points: do you have a hook in the beginning, some suspense, something for the reader to look forward to (sometimes it's just that the whole story is a flashback of the protagonist). Do you keep enough suspense through your story. For example, I've started to think in my last outline about whether and when I should uncover the nature and backstory of important characters. I could do it, but is it going to make the characters less interesting, and the story less exciting afterwards. Maybe if you think about your story in these terms, you'll be able to trim it down, Willfor.

Not to offend, again, but, Fishbreath, it's so funny to read another person's outline! Well, for me for some reason. I don't do it just like that, but I can imagine myself writing it... Or maybe it just feels like reading somebody's diary...

Oops. What I said here appears to have been lost. Oh well.

I have a new prompt, though: write us some exposition, but be sneaky about it. We should be having a good time, but at the end we should have picked up on at least one important and non-obvious fact about your world. Bonus points if you don't tell us what the fact is and we still get it.

[Supermikhail]

And it was almost lost to history! (the prompt, I mean)

Well, I might do something about it at least after I figure out what it actually means. You mean sci-fi "conceptual dislocation" and "shock of dysrecognition"(which I quote from Philip Dick)? Scratch that, I'm dumb.

Although, I have to bitterly refer to my story about rain again in relation to the possible success of this prompt - nobody got that it had a story arc. Well, probably if you explicitly tell people that your story has an easter egg, then it might work.

[Fishbreath]

On attempting to give you guys the first arrangement of the Hymn of the Naval Arm (the military anthem for the guys in the sci-fi fragment I posted earlier) I decided it was lacking and wrote another one (for three trumpets, trombone, and tuba, apparently in a double harmonic scale).

It's not writing per se, but the lyrics are a bit further up, and you can get the music here. I'd appreciate your comments.

[Supermikhail]

Finally, some action. By the way, I have to apologize to you, Fishbreath, because I don't think I'll be able to read Many Words anymore, for some time, at least. Well, because I've got a lot of stuff to do suddenly, and your story just doesn't have enough action for me to serve as some intermittent entertainment.

The tune seems a bit rough. If it was I who was working on it, I'd polish some notes, so they don't seem too noisy, like... how're they called... maybe, triplets in the ending part, where they are pretty hard to make out as individual notes and sound as if the trumpet (or whatever it was) went out of tune for an instant. And generally I'd make it more chord-y. Also, you seem to repeat notes in quick succession in some places and it doesn't really works with current instruments and reverb.

But it works as a hymn. Reminds me of Soviet Russia, where music plays you.

Disclaimer: I've never criticised music before!

[Fishbreath]

But it works as a hymn. Reminds me of Soviet Russia, where music plays you.

That was actually the idea: I hammered out the melody after listening to Farewell of Slavianka one day.

As for the critique: the problem I have with writing music is that I get too involved in it--it might sound as clear as mud to an outside observer, but because I've been in the trenches fiddling with the notes for an hour or three I'll be able to pick it out myself. Alternately, I'll be working on one part, and become completely unable to hear all the other parts after.

I listened to the one I put up, and holy cow did MuseScore add a lot of extra reverb when I exported. I'll have to fix that.

Triplets is the word you're looking for.

Use of both depth and counterpoint have always been hard for me, because I'm a woodwind player. Multiple voices are difficult for me to wrap my head around, but that's what practice is for. I thought that the one section right before the triplets was good in those terms--I don't think I've ever mixed that many voices that successfully.