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Author Topic: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___  (Read 312913 times)

Cheesecake

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1650 on: May 04, 2016, 08:40:46 pm »

Thanks, man! ^^ It's been a long, long time since I wrote in that kind of format, it seems I kinda forgot how to.

Spoiler: This thing, though (click to show/hide)

I don't believe it needed a new indent, since it's still the same dialogue. It was just a pause, to show he started smiling. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate you fixing it up and everything. (And for the record, I do take my own writing seriously :P)
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sjm9876

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1651 on: May 14, 2016, 04:40:16 pm »

Just dropping in a thing I've been working on that may form the introduction to a forum game at some point or other.
Not especially pleased with it, but staring at it for the past three days has made no difference, so any feedback is obviously welcome.

Spoiler: Scene (click to show/hide)
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My dreams are not unlike yours - they long for the safety, and break like a glass chandelier.
But there's laughter and oh there is love, just past the edge of our fears.
And there's chaos when push comes to shove, but it's music to my ears.

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Insanegame27

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1652 on: May 26, 2016, 04:39:19 am »

So I'm terrible at writing scenes without action in them so I decided to make a story which revolves around complex social interactions as the driving point.
What I have of the plot so far is below:
Spoiler: plot (click to show/hide)
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GiglameshDespair

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1653 on: May 29, 2016, 03:12:15 pm »

Just dropping in a thing I've been working on that may form the introduction to a forum game at some point or other.
Not especially pleased with it, but staring at it for the past three days has made no difference, so any feedback is obviously welcome.

Spoiler: Scene (click to show/hide)

This is rather late feedback, but eh. :P
As per normal check in the spoiler.

So I'm terrible at writing scenes without action in them so I decided to make a story which revolves around complex social interactions as the driving point.
What I have of the plot so far is below:
Spoiler: plot (click to show/hide)
That is not enough writing to make a worthwhile judgement, but my personal opinion on self-inserts is that they are typically pretty awful.

-----


Anyway, my own writing:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)



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TD1

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1654 on: May 29, 2016, 03:20:40 pm »

I liked the premise, and the writing style was immersive.
Quote
With fire, Man found the secret of the world.
 
Man remembered why they once feared the dark.
This felt a tad abrupt to me, though.
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sjm9876

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1655 on: May 29, 2016, 03:37:46 pm »

@ Gigla: Cheers :)

Quote from: @ Gigla
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Well written as per :P Couple of small thing in the spoiler.
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My dreams are not unlike yours - they long for the safety, and break like a glass chandelier.
But there's laughter and oh there is love, just past the edge of our fears.
And there's chaos when push comes to shove, but it's music to my ears.

Sigtext

GiglameshDespair

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1656 on: May 29, 2016, 04:31:52 pm »

I liked the premise, and the writing style was immersive.
Quote
With fire, Man found the secret of the world.
 
Man remembered why they once feared the dark.
This felt a tad abrupt to me, though.
It was kind of meant to be. I didn't really want to get into what they found or what it did, since it's the intro lore for a game I'm planning, but perhaps it's too abrupt.
"Then shit got real" doesn't quite fit, though. :P

@ Gigla: Cheers :)

Quote from: @ Gigla
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Well written as per :P Couple of small thing in the spoiler.
Ah, brilliant. Thanks.

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Solifuge

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1657 on: June 03, 2016, 01:34:29 am »

Hey y'all. I'm here to bemoan some writin' problems of mine, and maybe hopefully find some pointers?

I have a Fiction problem; specifically, I have extreme trouble whenever I want to imagine a setting that operates on non-realistic or magical rules, or which ignores the rules and elements of our universe, or which is otherwise set in a simplified fictional reality. When I start writing characters or creating a setting, I keep getting caught up in thinking about things in terms of Planets and Biology and Conservation of Energy and Things That Happened and other forms of realism that I can't help but take for granted. Some of the time, this style of setting works, but it's more often been a hurdle for me as a writer. I LOVE simplified, imaginative settings that are a significant departure from the one we know, and that's closer to what I want to be writing most of the time. That aside, it seems like avoiding Mostly Realistic ideas frees up a bunch of room for stronger archetypal characters, unexpected worldbuilding and situations, and that whole sense of discovery and surprise that sort of fiction conveys.

TL;DR, science and pre-existing knowledge is bogging down my writing, and getting in the way of my ability to think magically, and/or create certain kinds of surreal/imaginative situations and settings. Moreover, not only is it hard to challenge this taken-for-granted realism all the time, it's also using up a bunch of mental cycles I'd rather be using creating meaningful situations and characters. How do you compartmentalize realistic elements or scientific understanding of Earth, people, physics, the Universe, or whatever when creating settings? And how do you foster that ability?
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Parsely

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1658 on: June 03, 2016, 02:53:50 am »

I think I'm a lot like you. I've tried writing hard sci-fi and it didn't work out so great. I still want to write hard sci-fi, but I also want to write fantasy that's grounded without being restrained. So what I do when I want to write magic is think about magic not always in terms of actual science, but always with RULES in mind. Not only is this a good narrative practice, but creatures and magical things that rely on rules are not far from actual science, without going full: doing back of the envelope calculations to see if this is allowed to happen. Whenever you feel like breaking out the calculator or doing research (VERY tempting when you're sitting in front of a computer and you know how to use it), just stop yourself and think about what's logical within your frame of mind. Not writing down the scientific explanation, even if it's only for you and never intended for the readers, can also help divorce you from that way of thinking.

Edit: Me and GiglameshDespair have been writing a setting together that's about medieval people who find mechs buried underground and start using them. It's super liberating after crunching so much time into my hard sci-fi comic just to make sure all the space travel and shit was legit. By the time I got to the actual storytelling I was completely exhausted. We're telling this story from the perspective of the medieval characters, so there's never any science involved. We can come up with plausible explanations that make us happy without needing to explain it to the reader, which IMO is the reason I focus so much on science in a story (for the READER's sake; the reader is also me, because I want to write stories I would like to read) If you adopt the mindset of an ignorant character, it helps you to distance yourself from the science behind the scenes.
« Last Edit: June 03, 2016, 03:01:14 am by GUNINANRUNIN »
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sjm9876

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1659 on: June 03, 2016, 05:19:43 am »

To echo GUNIN, rules for magic would be my number one point. Your fantasy world doesn't have to be completely fantastical, but if you decide beforehand what rules you're allowed to break, under what circumstances, it's a huge help, and gives the world quite a strong grounding. What I often do is come up with a cool fantasy scenario I want to happen, figure out what rules I need to break to get there, and then - and this is the important point - rewrite them so that there's room for it to happen. If your brain can't deal with empty rule space, don't make it, just give it more space to work with.

For example, there was a world of mine, The Lone Isle. It was essentially a hunk of land floating adrift in the endless void, yet still functioning like a normal world, with day/night, gravity etc. The main fantasy element was runic magic v free magic, with incredibly powerful beings being able to harness free magic to basically do anything, because the world's magic = power to break all the rules. Rune magic let this be controlled. My solution to making this all work in my mind was to make one of the first beings, back when free magic was all the rage, actually inscribe runes on the underside of this hunk of rock. In the very centre it created a sort of lexicon that contained all the runes. Said being then basically poured his own power into it, so people harnessing rune magic were basically harnessing the being's power.
The key point is, that to the people in the world, it was basically earthlike + rune magic + creatures of great power. The rest of it was just there to satisfy my brain and maybe reward really scientific players (as this was for a game).
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My dreams are not unlike yours - they long for the safety, and break like a glass chandelier.
But there's laughter and oh there is love, just past the edge of our fears.
And there's chaos when push comes to shove, but it's music to my ears.

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GiglameshDespair

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1660 on: June 03, 2016, 07:03:10 am »

To echo sjm and GUNIN...

Make your magic systems internally consistent. That it can do impossible things should be a given - it's magic - but internal consistency is absolutely key in making it feel like you're not just pulling it out your butt.
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Solifuge

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1661 on: June 03, 2016, 10:23:08 am »

Ah, sorry. I wasn't really talking Magic or Magic Systems, so much as developing my own capacity for Magical Thinking; something like old world mythology, or the way historic people viewed the world when it was largely unknown and ill-defined. Anything could be across or under the ocean, gravity could be invisible intangible bungee chords tying living things to the center of the earth, etc. In fact, all that thinking about the elements of plot and setting and story in terms of causality and science and rules is pretty much precisely the problem I have!

What I was trying to say, in another way; having learned a lot about how and why the Universe and Earth is the way it is, it keeps getting in the way of my ability to imagine simplified, surreal, or non-realistic settings.  I want to develop my ability to step outside the realm of rationality, or away from the assumptions and For-Granteds that I carry everywhere in my day-to-day life. I'm not saying "throw out all rationality" either; introducing consistency and rules (when it actually -does- help rather than bog down the story) is easy enough later, once I have a good foundation that's significantly removed from Stuff-As-It-Exists, you know?

The main thing I'm working at is developing an ability to step outside that whole Rational, systematic, causality-minded mindset, and get closer to the sense of confused wonder and awe that inspired early humans to think about mythology and magic in the first place, so I can use that mindset as a tool for creating things. I'm often not even aware of half the assumptions I make about the nature of everything; fundamentally surreal or Magical Thinking is a headspace I only seem to be able to access well when I'm dreaming, but it's been a really helpful and liberating creative tool the few times I've been able to use it. In a nutshell, I'm hoping to be able to get better at creativity where I don't start from a Real World baseline when I'm awake.

Sorry again if this is horribly vague again. I don't know how else to convey this. >_<;
« Last Edit: June 03, 2016, 10:42:13 am by Solifuge »
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GiglameshDespair

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1662 on: June 03, 2016, 11:24:52 am »

Take acid

Not sure really how to help with that. A lot of magical thinking seems to just be connecting things based on similar elements.

Hmm.

Maybe you could try it from the opposite direction? Make a fantasy pantheon, healing herbs and magic rituals, and then reverse it - why is this herb good for the blood? Maybe because it's a similar red, or looked like a heart when it flowers. Why did that mountain form? Well, it was where a giant sat down and died - see, that rocky crag looks like his face.
Whether or not that pantheon and magic is real is besides the point. For the purposes of belief, treat it like it did.

But as I said, I don't really know hoe to help with getting into the mindset. It's not something I've ever personally had trouble with.
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sjm9876

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1663 on: June 03, 2016, 11:42:26 am »

So, for want of a better term, it's a lack of imagination? (Not in the insulting way :P )

Yeah, that's a bit of a bugger to fix.

As an exercise. maybe introduce a single fantasy element - doesn't have to be original, you could easily nab one from elsewhere - and think through how that would impact a non-fantasy world when you added it. Rinse and repeat. Not really sure how helpful this would be, but seems like it might help?
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My dreams are not unlike yours - they long for the safety, and break like a glass chandelier.
But there's laughter and oh there is love, just past the edge of our fears.
And there's chaos when push comes to shove, but it's music to my ears.

Sigtext

Solifuge

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1664 on: June 03, 2016, 07:31:07 pm »

Nah it's not insulting/rude at all; aphantasia seems to run in my family, and I have problems with certain kinds of imagination, including a weak/fuzzy ability to visualize imagery and such in my mind's eye. Example: I learned to do visual art by externalizing my imagination on paper/digitally and iterating on it a lot. Don't think starting a drug habit is the way to cheat at magical thinking either. :3

Anyway, posting here was kind of a desperation move. I'mma just keep working at it until I find a process that works, and see what I can do. Much obliged for the pointers!
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