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Author Topic: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___  (Read 314242 times)

Iceblaster

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #555 on: March 27, 2013, 09:21:14 pm »

Hey, this is more of a short story I wrote as filler for my Community Fort, and I was thinking of making these 'Journals' into an entry on a fanfic site(Its Fallout:Equestria if anyone is wondering;I find it hard to make original fiction, dunno why) The [yay]'s are censors;I prefer to keep my works PG-13(No harsh swears) so don't mind them.

Spoiler: Short Story (click to show/hide)

Criticism is welcome and any questions I might be able to answer-relative to the subject matter of this short story. Also, my wording and descriptions may be weird as I write it as I would tell it. Any grammar and spelling errors will likely be fixed over the course of a few days as I frequently check any stories I post and edit out any mistakes;It would be nice if you could point them out though.
« Last Edit: March 27, 2013, 09:25:11 pm by Iceblaster »
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Orange Wizard

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Re: ___/Does Anyone Actually Read This Line?\___
« Reply #556 on: March 28, 2013, 03:13:21 am »

Hey, this is more of a short story I wrote as filler for my Community Fort, and I was thinking of making these 'Journals' into an entry on a fanfic site(Its Fallout:Equestria if anyone is wondering;I find it hard to make original fiction, dunno why) The [yay]'s are censors;I prefer to keep my works PG-13(No harsh swears) so don't mind them.

Spoiler: Short Story (click to show/hide)

Criticism is welcome and any questions I might be able to answer-relative to the subject matter of this short story. Also, my wording and descriptions may be weird as I write it as I would tell it. Any grammar and spelling errors will likely be fixed over the course of a few days as I frequently check any stories I post and edit out any mistakes;It would be nice if you could point them out though.
First things first: Paragraphing. Try and break your writing into several smaller paragraphs, mainly for readability purposes.
Also, I think people find several smaller chunks of text are much less daunting than one big block.

Reading further, I'm intrigued. I want to know what's going on. But there's also a bit of a problem with commas and other punctuation.

OK, now that I've finished, I can say it's not bad. I think I missed a few things with the story itself, like the whole Lemon nonsense, but then again, I don't really have any background knowledge other than game mechanics.
I found some of the style quite repetitive: "blah blah blah" I said, doing something. Try and vary how you say things, and not just in dialogue. I understand that in this particular piece, the dialogue is essential, but in other pieces, try and use more descriptions. Don't rely on the reader to come up with what something looks like. You need to tell them, so they can see it for themselves, and it's easier to build a story around something the readers can see.
After that, you just need to clear up the presentation. It looks a bit ugly shown as one big block of text, and reads a bit ugly with the lack and misuse of punctuation. Once that's done, you're on the fast track to being a published author! For a very, very niche market...
« Last Edit: April 03, 2013, 01:13:32 am by InsanityIncarnate »
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Chagen46

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #557 on: April 02, 2013, 05:01:13 pm »

Here's a piece of old comedy writing I had been doing. It's the first...three pages of it.

The basic idea is that this guy takes a blank notebook and asks that anyone grab it and write it in...and as you can see, the people who write in it are...odd, to say the least.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I wonder if the actual idea is funny/interesting.
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Leatra

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #558 on: April 02, 2013, 05:16:56 pm »

The idea is great and provides endless possibilities. I even feel inclined to do it in real life.

Some suggestions, you might want to actually write the "Notebook of Musing". I'm not saying do it in real life. I'm saying treat it as a (fictionally) real book in the story (if you are planning to have a story, not that you need one). Establish a fourth wall and never break it. Don't use things like "(A completely incomprehensible scrawl that's supposed to read “Hadraniel” in Hebrew, but it appears to be written by someone who has no clue how to actually write in hebrew....)". If you want to go for things like that, try writing it yourself in the alphabet of the language. Besides, not every entry has to be about words. Some can be drawings. Some can be seemingly meaningless words written by a random dude. Maybe someone throws the book away and it's found by someone a year later. Maybe someone picks this book up, reads it, and throws it out of the window and it lands on some guy's head and the hilarity ensues in the next entry. I'm just throwing some ideas around but you are free to use these suggestions if you give me a credit when this "piece of old comedy" becomes a bestseller :P
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Doomblade187

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #559 on: April 05, 2013, 10:55:08 pm »

Here's another mostly unedited blurb.

Spoiler: Blurb (click to show/hide)
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HFS

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #560 on: April 06, 2013, 11:12:32 am »

I improvised this in about a minute in Skype. The "gemstone" is an item created by my friend for a Terraria mod. Don't except good formatting. It was posted in more than one message, after all, and beyond removing things like my username and timestamps, it is unedited.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The gemstone is called the Perfect Gem of the End, and it's incredibly destructive and incredibly difficult to make - you have to find 8 unique gems that are incredibly rare (and by "incredibly rare" I mean "1 of each and one of them can spawn in literally any block of stone in the world") and craft them together - the end-result is...world-destroying.
« Last Edit: April 06, 2013, 11:15:17 am by HFS »
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WillowLuman

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #561 on: April 07, 2013, 01:23:53 am »

Just an idea for historical fantasty:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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Devling

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #562 on: April 08, 2013, 02:45:07 am »

I'm a pretty shitty writer, but I think I'll start writing stuff here.
If that's a thing you can do. In this thread place. And I guess I would prefer to not be a shitty writer.
And practice makes perfect. And things. So yeah.
Consider this a Posting to write post.
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Fishbreath

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #563 on: April 08, 2013, 08:37:57 am »

Awesome. Welcome aboard.

HugoLuman, that's a nifty idea.

Chagen46

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #564 on: April 08, 2013, 02:21:55 pm »

A short piece of ergodic literature I wrote. Pretty self-explanatory.

http://fictionpress.com/s/3115622/1/A-Bench-for-Two

I tried getting a little experimental with the format of the story.
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rabidgam3r

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #565 on: April 09, 2013, 03:02:19 pm »

Hey. Aspiring writer here. I'm probably gonna write up a short story for you guys sometime, but for now I have a question: How do you generally get a COMPLETE story of some sort? I only really get concepts and about one scene down in my head and I can't really progress.
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fqllve

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #566 on: April 09, 2013, 06:55:43 pm »

The way I do it is by focusing on problems and their resolutions. So each successive scene is either going to address an existing problem or introduce a new one. If I still can't figure out where to go next I typically do one of two things. Either I just start with something I think would be fun to write or I list down every possible place I could take the story, elaborate on them a bit, and then choose the one I like the best.

So if I write a scene about a husband and wife who get into an argument, and end the scene with the husband deciding he wants to become a groundhog, well there are two immediately obvious problems there to address in the next scene. It could start with his strained relationship with his wife, how it got that way, maybe change to her POV and show what she does to relieve her stress after the fight, or something like that, or I could address how he is going to turn himself into a groundhog. I could also create a new problem, such as how this affects the children if they have any, maybe their argument causes the next door neighbor to fall off a ladder while changing a lightbulb, maybe the aliens who are observing the family try to grant his groundhog wish and end up turning everyone on Earth into one. And once you have an idea for the core conflict of the next scene you're pretty much set to write it.
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MaximumZero

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #567 on: April 10, 2013, 02:30:16 am »

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Skyrunner

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #568 on: April 10, 2013, 03:09:12 am »

O.o

* Skyrunner claps

Also, you have three video cards?!
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MaximumZero

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #569 on: April 10, 2013, 11:50:02 am »

O.o

* Skyrunner claps

Also, you have three video cards?!
No, if I used a mini displayport switch, the miniDPs in my Radeon 7850 HD should hypothetically support 6 monitors thanks to ATI Eyefinity.
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Holy crap, why did I not start watching One Punch Man earlier? This is the best thing.
probably figured an autobiography wouldn't be interesting
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