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Post by Sorcha'Rei on Jul 31, 2006 2:31:32 GMT -5
I want a place to write about writing. There's an interesting discussion going on, embedded in A Coward's Tale, where Robb's author talks a bit about his process. I love reading about other people's processes. And as you know, my recent decision to move Sorcha and Rheyna was largely prompted by my sadness that they stopped giving me stories to write.
The experience of moving them has jump-started Sorcha's stories again, as you can probably tell. When I get Rheyna settled and get used to her new name (there was already a Rheyna on Hyjal, so I had to respell it, and I'm not used to it yet), I expect her to start up again.
But in this post, I want to tell you about what the move process has been like for me.
The first night that Sorcha was on Hyjal, I got her invited to the guild and introduced to my friends there. Most of them had never run an instance with a moonkin, so five of us decided to tackle Scholo.
After what amounted to a zerg of Scholo, three of us retired to a bar in IF to talk over the run. (We do this in sort of a half IC way, despite it not being an RP server. We're just weird, I guess.)
Anyway, midway through the drinking in the bar, Vlad walked in. You know, the original Vlad. In that moment, I could feel Sorcha waking up. The tank said, "Hey, Sorch, do you know Vlad? He's in love with your buddy Ljanna." This was a weird thing to say -- I have never heard anyone over there refer to Vlad and LJ as being in love, but of course, I agree that they must be, now that I think about it.
I could feel Sorcha trying to make sense of this. Obviously, this guy is not HER Vlad, although he looks just like her Vlad (except her Vlad doesn't have the unfortunate facial hair choices of this Vlad), and talks a lot like her Vlad. But she and he don't know each other, and he's in love with a different druid, and she doesn't even mind that. She just wants to make sense of it. And that's where the idea of another exit from the Dream came from. I'm writing about it now, and when it's ready, I'll put it in Open Mine Eyes.
That idea, and Sorcha waking up when Vlad walked in, have made all the difference. I'm ready to do what we talked about weeks ago and take Ventus into the Dream so he can see that D'ana'no is fine. Sorch2 has leveled once and will do so again shortly, after months of hardly getting played. And the stories are bubbling up everywhere.
I know I created a hard situation for myself by taking the druid to another server while leaving the priest on Feathermoon, but it did exactly what I wanted: it made Sorcha (both of them!) playable again for me as something other than a raid bot, and it made the writing possible again. I'd probably have been okay without playing them again, except that I am not done writing about her. I took drastic measures to try to get that story restarted, and it worked.
Which I am mostly glad about. Now I dream of moving her back to FM in January when her cooldown is up, and the priest Sorcha is 60. By then, I hope that Rheyna will have sorted out the Vlad storyline here, and gone on to her own stories.
What I find most interesting about all this is the difference from other extended writing I have done (I have a couple finished novels filed away somewhere). In writing those novels, the characters took on a life of their own, they talked to me, they argued with me about what *really* happened. But there is nothing I've ever been able to do to jump start one of those characters who has gone dead on me. Once the life is gone, it's gone. Something about WoW let me get Sorcha back, with the stories I knew about, and some that I never suspected.
I think Sorcha has staying power for me as a character to write about in or out of WoW. But abusing her by treating the game character as a raid bot nearly killed her. I'm glad she's back, even if she can't play in game with you all anymore. At least not in druid form.
What's odd about all this is that it convinced me that people who think writers write books and stories are talking about some other kind of writer than I. Because I just write down the stories. I created Sorcha in the first place by asking myself "what would a person be like who made one great mistake with the best of intentions?" Once she came into being, though, she took on a life of her own. It's been that way with all the characters I have ever made.
The ones with staying power, those who I manage to find a strong voice for, I assume they reflect parts of me. I worry sometimes about the parts of me that Deyla reflects. I created her as a joke, but damned if she doesn't have one of the strongest voices I've ever encountered in a character I created.
So I call them into being and then I become their slaves, telling their stories to the best of my ability. In some ways, I experience it as not me writing stories, but stories writing me.
Either that, or I am totally nuts.
Anyway, I hope you are also glad that Sorcha is back in these forums, even if she isn't in the game with you anymore.
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Post by Sorcha'Rei on Jul 31, 2006 2:35:30 GMT -5
P.S. Hurry back, Van. Deyla has tons of stuff to say!
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Post by Thelanya on Jul 31, 2006 11:50:47 GMT -5
I think it's excellent! I love Sorcha's story, and you are a very good writer so I'm glad you are still here. I think you are right that these characters express parts of yourself, although when the writing is really good they become fleshed out people -- sort of like you, sort of like people you've known, and sort of just themselves. (I hope that's true. It doesn't bother me that Deyla is part of you, but I hope that Hatch isn't a very big part of Troy). Whatever my "process" is -- I've given it surprisingly little thought, actually. Which is odd, considering how overly thought-out most of my life is. Usually the inspiration comes from something that happens in the game. Like, I wasn't good at playing a warrior, but I thought it would be fun to try a priest, and I like Larae, so I made her a priest. Then I had to think, why would this rather silly, totally light-hearted elf become a priest? I really don't know where Celera's story came from. It is like my own life in only the vaguest ways. Thelanya's story draws on more of my own experiences, although her life is not mine. But I know what it is like to be estranged from one's parents -- to try to reconcile and just not be able to do it. That is where her current story is going, sort of. And as an adopted child myself I know something about the strange situation of being inimately related to strangers. I haven't written much about that yet but it's coming eventually, when she will have to find out what happened to her son. Deyla is a riot! I think there is a lot she can do besides just cause trouble for some old farmer.
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Post by Angoleth Isera'Duna on Jul 31, 2006 13:24:31 GMT -5
I'm going to post this from Angoleth, instead of Annalira, because she's the character I'm actually hearing from right now - but I agree with you in a lot of ways Sorch. ((and I love reading about Sorcha in the forums - I've been following Ventus' story and I really like it))
An hasn't been alive for me in a long time - she was when she was younger, and one set of friends was still here (now long gone). And then she just kind of went quiet. She levelled to 60 and started raiding, and that became something she and I both enjoyed, and Anna was particularly lively, so I just let that sit back and go. Anna slowly faded into the background though, and for a few weeks I thought about working on another character.
I'm not sure what changed, and what woke her up, but just in the last few weeks she's started bugging me again, and I've realized just how much more I can relate to her than to Anna. Not that I dont love Anna, she's really sweet and has good things to say, but I'm just closer to the hunter. Maybe because she's the first character I really played (i dabbled around a bit before her), maybe because of something else - but she sprang back to life. And things that I never thought I'd be doing - like PVP - are all of a sudden on my plate because SHE wanted that.
When I was working on her introduction, I thought I knew what I was going to say with her, what her past was (from what it had been) and all of a sudden it went in a whole new turn, and I learned things about her - if that's possible - that really brought her to life again - like I wasn't even writing the story, just recording it. It's been a heck of a ride and I'm really enjoying it. Hopefully she will continue to poke me towards some other stories too.
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Post by Emizael on Aug 8, 2006 5:47:01 GMT -5
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I'm not much of a writer.
I can tell a story. I can speak the words as the narrator would speak, and tell the images as a person living and breathing in the world would see them.
Gets hard when you have to put that in print. This is primarily one of the reasons that I like these forums so much, and this forum in particular, not only because we here have so many and varied styles, but also, we have so many different originations for those styles.
Sorch, in any version, printed or played, is an interesting, in depth character. She feels to me, like, a real person, which I believe to be one of the defining characteristics of a good writer, which is to make me "believe" that this made up person could really exsist! I gotta hand it to ya sister, you provide some really good entertainment, which , really, is what all of this is all about.
I never hear a character talking to me. Mostly, I think they are me, the person that I am writing for at the time, that is. They're pieces of me, that don't get to come out in any other fashion. Emi, for example, is all my insanity, all at once, all in a ferocious bundle. He gets to do things and go places and act in ways that I would surely get arrested for. He's not my only character, but currently, he's the only one I really have the desire and drive to write about, which brings me to another good point.
When a character has nothing left to say, there's no reason *to* ressurect them. If you have run out of things for your soldiers to fight, then you have to wait for one of them to try something different, like, say, farming. If a story " dies" for me, I just have to let it go..because to force something from that...to make something happen, it just feels wrong, and somehow, disrespectful to the energy and drive that brought the story to life in the first place. This is one of the main reasons that I bounce from alt to alt in game, because I'm always trying to keep from using up a character too quickly, lest they degenerate into a " well, less go get treasure" raid bot.
I will say this, I'm glad that moving Rheyna and Sorcha inspired you again, because it benefits me directly! One, you keep writing good stories, and I am entertained. On the other hand, I don't see you in game, and this kinda makes me sad. On the other-other hand, you could just find that you miss us so terribly that you can't wait to come back and hang out with us...
And thus, write more.
We bare dark and interesting corners of our souls on these pages. Troy( Windy/Robb), if I might drop his worthy name, even admits, that as he pens the tale from certain points of views, he begins to feel as that character feels. He has the buffer of knowing that this is just fiction, but it does give us some keen insight into his character as a normal human guy, too. It lets us know that he is in fact, human, like the rest of us, and! And probably most importantly, we get the feeling that like Robb, Troy is probably not a bad guy. Although, he is a lawyer...
The differing styles here, the different ways we tell our tales, for me, is like ...
Well, not only are the stories entertaining, and about characters that we know, and love, (( Thel, Valandur, Vangelis, Robb, Sorch, Fech and anyone I left out because its 0500hrs and I am sleepy, )) But, we also get to know more about each other, as real, living people.
Plus, most of us are driven to tell these stories. Whether you have a voice whispering in your ear, or just an itch in your fingers, the drive is still there to impart your vision, to tell your tale, and generally, to make the insides of your head, heart, and soul see light.
Besides, if none of us wrote anything...we would all go crazy. Just try not to write something for 24 hours. Just try it. You'd all go mad, like me!
That's my two bits for now, and keep on with the discussions! And the good writing.
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Post by Val on Aug 8, 2006 7:20:01 GMT -5
This has in a sort of way driven me to at least acknowledge why I write.
First off, Valandur, Valand, whatever, he was a mistake.
A big, mistake.
I never meant for him to be created, I never planned on it. I just did.
Normally when a character is made he comes with a predetermined story for him. In Valand's case, that didn't happen.
I never expected to join a guild, ever. Let alone one that encourages me to do the one thing that I have striven to do my entire life, create.
So when Kal found me and ambiguously mentioned DoV, I don't know why I checked the site out. I don't know why I even listened.
But I did, and here I am. The best mistake I've made in a while.
Valand's story is something I have wanted to evolve for a time now.
He, initially was nothing more than a young warrior, as we all know. But I try to mark out, through dialogue hints and other such events, his growing despair, part of which is coming from myself. This is something I want for him, a recognition of his adulthood, but it isn't something that I am ready for him yet.
Valandur will be going through, as I hope, some of the bloodiest battles of his lifetime soon. Things that will change his character from child to man.
Valandur in many ways is a direct reflection of the things, the honor, the strength, that I myself strive for in life. Whether or not I succeed in those designs is one thing. But for now, Valandur is a growing reflection of things that I feel in my life, but rather than printed in a direct mirror, it is blown up into these grandeur tales which I hope are entertaining.
My process is nothing more than realizing what I want for him, and figuring out how to get there.
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Post by Thelanya on Aug 8, 2006 11:02:23 GMT -5
Emi, I don't know what you think a writer is, but I think a writer is a story-teller who makes people have thoughts and feelings they would not have considered if they had not read or heard the story. By that definition you are certainly a writer, and one of the best ones here. Just deal with it. And Valand was not a mistake. He has just turned out to be more important than you expected. It's sort of like being "just friends" for years with someone and then realizing they are the person you really love after all. The "just friends" wasn't a mistake. It was part of the process. Maybe it is -- as one of my good friends would say -- God working in your life. Or it's fate or Elune or however you see things. The transition to adulthood is a tough time for most people, and you've had a few extra challenges thrown into the mix. Valand (and the DoV) came along at just the right time for you.
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Post by Emizael on Aug 8, 2006 20:03:01 GMT -5
Ooo! Another good point, and we can continue our conversations about Meta-writing Using these various illustrations, to guide us in our search for ...well, whatever we're really searching for here. Its about writing, in general the topic, how we do it, what we do with it, and how we present it.
For example, I primarily find myself using more and more the first person perspective, speaking how the character would speak, or in the more monolouge aspects of my central character, I find him talking to himself, and describing to himself what he's doing..not for the benefit of the reader, but rather, that's just what the character happens to be doing. Rarely a structured thing, and without the benefice of my colleauges here in the forums giving me some editing tips, would be difficult to read!
So, lets hear more about "what" you do, versus the how you do it...and lets get specific, to the point of context, because it interests me.
Like, what are "you" thinking about when you write? How does it make you feel when your subject takes a turn towards the unexpected? And of course, more mechanically, how do you make the words work together?
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Post by Sorcha'Rei on Aug 14, 2006 19:05:14 GMT -5
I'm in the process right now of re-visiting the trip Sorcha made into the Dream to get Ventus in the first place, needing to remove all WoW references. This is requiring me to construct a world for the stories to take place in. This has good points (I can remove lore that I find inconvenient) and bad points (it's a freaking lot of work).
But as a result of doing that, I've been thinking about why and how these stories flow out of me. It's partly a result of playing the characters in this richly imagined world. I don't have to make up the world -- it's there. And yet, it's not the world I personally live in. I find that this changes the way I experience the writing process.
To tell you the truth, I've always written fiction in historical real world settings before, largely so that I could do research instead of world-building. I'm struck by how may things I have to re-vision in order to make Sorcha's story work.
From little things: if the DoV don't exist, what kind of place was she sleeping in when she left to go wander? and how does she know (or not know) these two other people she meets in the glade?
To big things: okay, Elune and the Earth Mother are out. But I need similar roles filled. Yeesh, I have to invent a whole pantheon, which means figuring out how magic works, which means . . .
What do I have to say to make the reader grasp enough of D'ana'no's situation to make the rest of Sorcha's trip make sense? How do I do this without twisting his story to my own purposes?
Luckily, both Sorcha and Ventus are such strong characters in my mind that they aren't getting lost in the transition. I hope.
Meanwhile, Malka tells me she has a tale to tell already . . . so stop with the Sorcha stuff and write about HER.
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Aug 14, 2006 19:36:01 GMT -5
((ooooo. I love proof-reading and editing. It's sort of a compulsion, actually, so I try not to get started here on the forums. Occasionally I see something I think really makes a difference and I send a private note. I think we all need encouragement more than we need to know where exactly to put all the apostrophes. In fact, this story is in much better shape than Into the Dark. Even the technical aspects of writing improve with practice -- you just start to know what sounds right. That said, I'm always happy to offer my suggestions in this regard. Off-line of course. If you think that would be useful -- I'm right here with the rest of you just trying to figure out how this story-telling deal works. I just happen to have a knack for punctuation and stuff. I think.)) hee -- modified to correct a punctuation error! As some of you know, I only started writing, really writing creatively, about a year ago. Into the Dark was a watershed for me, and I keep 'riding the wave' of creativity that feeds me so much personal life satisfaction. When I started, I was terribly needy. I needed to be told that my writing was good, or moving, or funny, virtually all the time. But a funny thing happened somewhere in between the end of Into the Dark and the first few chapters of A Coward's Tale. I stopped needing to be be stroked. I recognize that I still get a lot of positive feedback, and it always makes my day, I assure you. But somewhere in there I fell in love with the characters in A Coward's Tale, and I stopped needing positive reinforcement to keep writing. Maybe I just became more confident in my writing. Maybe the characters were talking to me, and they fed that need for reward. Maybe both. In any event, I know now that I will keep writing the Tale until it it done whether or not anyone is listening. I have even considered losing the episodic format that the forums encourage, and writing the whole next chapter in a piece. I wont though, because I don't want to mess with the magic of the forums that got me writing. Anecdotally, I have learned something important from WoW. And that is that if you break a huge task into tiny little easy to accomplish tasks, you can accomplish great things. writing a novel is something I have always wanted to do - much like some people dream of running a marathon, or swimmin ght e English Channel. It was always too daunting until Defenders of Valor showed me a way that I could just write bit by bit and the unreachable would come into my hands. So, don't ever hesitate to criticize or correct. And particularly the small things... they are so sneaky. I now re-read each post 3 times and I still find sneaky errors that slip past me. I read each passage out loud and find more. Don't hesitate to help. Robbyn, Copper et al are giving me lots of positive feedback, don't worry.
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Aug 14, 2006 19:40:02 GMT -5
I'm in the process right now of re-visiting the trip Sorcha made into the Dream to get Ventus in the first place, needing to remove all WoW references. This is requiring me to construct a world for the stories to take place in. This has good points (I can remove lore that I find inconvenient) and bad points (it's a freaking lot of work). But as a result of doing that, I've been thinking about why and how these stories flow out of me. It's partly a result of playing the characters in this richly imagined world. I don't have to make up the world -- it's there. And yet, it's not the world I personally live in. I find that this changes the way I experience the writing process. To tell you the truth, I've always written fiction in historical real world settings before, largely so that I could do research instead of world-building. I'm struck by how may things I have to re-vision in order to make Sorcha's story work. From little things: if the DoV don't exist, what kind of place was she sleeping in when she left to go wander? and how does she know (or not know) these two other people she meets in the glade? To big things: okay, Elune and the Earth Mother are out. But I need similar roles filled. Yeesh, I have to invent a whole pantheon, which means figuring out how magic works, which means . . . What do I have to say to make the reader grasp enough of D'ana'no's situation to make the rest of Sorcha's trip make sense? How do I do this without twisting his story to my own purposes? Luckily, both Sorcha and Ventus are such strong characters in my mind that they aren't getting lost in the transition. I hope. Meanwhile, Malka tells me she has a tale to tell already . . . so stop with the Sorcha stuff and write about HER. I could not agree more, Sorcha. World-building has little appeal for me, to date. What a huge amount of work! I would much rather research the world of Azeroth for inspiration. Don't worry about Dan, though. I'm not sure how you could make it work without WoW, but if he needs to be modified, go ahead! All I ask is that you post it here for us to read! Assuming that you can. I am very interested in the project. Twist away.
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Post by Fechak on Aug 14, 2006 22:55:58 GMT -5
I have two extremely epic stories that I've created a whole universe around. One fully fledge fantasy, and one growing scifi. For both of those stories I've spent probably a good 4 years and 2 years respectively fleshing out the universe... a few weeks of that was actually writing anything. That said, it's probably one of my favorite things to do... religion, politics, geography, anthropology... I love it all so much, so wait... I get to play god? Sweet!
When I sit down to write I typically just pour it out without much thought or thinking. Then I'll let the idea simmer and then I'll think about what I'll do with the rest of it. My characters always take over and do what the want... I'm great at beginnings and endings, but horrible at the middle...
That's the reader's digest version anyway.
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Post by Celera on Aug 14, 2006 23:15:22 GMT -5
Ok, I'm putting this here because it is sort of about writing. I'm still having a lot of fun with the stories here about Celera and Thelanya, who both still have a lot to say -- if only certain other people would post more often (you know who you are!). However, it has occurred to me that this is not the only thing I ever want to write about. Having a character and a universe and a set of circumstances handed to you does, as Sorcha points out, save you some time and effort. In my case it gave me a place to start, which I never really had before. But in the interest of branching out, I have gone back to my blog (Finney's right -- it's a dreadful word) and have been adding some stuff. I don't know that it is particularly interesting, or particularly good, but I am determined to keep writing about whatever I can, until I find what it is I'm really supposed to be writing about. Anyway, y'all can see it if you want at celera.eponym.com/blog
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Post by Emizael on Aug 16, 2006 9:45:48 GMT -5
I will agree with Fech on the world building. Your characters have to live somewhere...
I was introduced to reading, writing, and better math skills by a funny little game called dungeons and dragons, a very long time ago. Over the years, as I have matured as both a person and a player, I have developed the ability to explain more about the fine details of my characters, and the ability to put all that down on paper. When I graduated to Dungeon Master status and I began running games for the hordes of gamers that are still my friends to this day..
When I began running those games, I found the burning need to always be trying something new, and fresh, and never let our games just turn into the same old thing. We had a million dungeons, and there were literally thousands of published adventures at the time, but we strived to keep each one unique and special...and to never let the games get stale.
So, me, like thousands of storytellers the world over, began inventing. I dreamt of new worlds, and whole universes, I sketched out gods, whole pantheons, and created systems for magic, worship, and beliefs. I built worlds wholesale, from geo-politics to geo-forms, and, I tried to make them believable, and workable, as individual entities. Most of the time, I collaberated with my players, asking them which races they liked, and disliked, what they would want to see here in there in thier games, and then, using those feedbacks, I would spin the tales, and have a blast.
All of my writing for those worlds, involved mostly game stats, what could be found where, what kind of treasure, monsters, ect. I never really wrote about the stories of these worlds, never wrote tales set in them, and some of the more bizarre stuff, never even saw the light of the gaming table. Such is the way of the game, I suppose, that you can never use all the ideas.
The point is, you don't have to be specific. Generally, I write about things that happen on a single world, (( either earth or azeroth, depending on the topic..)) and , although the balance of what you right has to be believable to the reader, alot of times, the reader isn't going to be picky and wonder why your system of magic works like it does. Its enough to know that it works, and things happen.
The creation of a world though, and an explanation for the Gods and whatnot..well, take a setting such as the Thieve's World setting. Tempus and the Stepsons, the Vulgar Unicorn, the Blue Adepts...lots of great stories, and not a whole lot of background on the world itself. We know that most of the stories center around the most famous city of that world, and we know that there are gods, and magic, but, they never tell us why the gods are pissy, and how magic works. Still, they tell awesome stories, and you don't have to worry about the little things. There is enough generic fantasy in the world, that if you say your character is a druid, generally , people understand a bit about what that means. Anyways, just spin your tale, and post it...
That way, we can all enjoy it.
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Post by Annalira Delshannon on Aug 18, 2006 22:16:49 GMT -5
On the topic of world creation - there are two ways to create a story and the world in which it exists. Top Down (write the story, and then build the world around it as you need it) and Bottom Up (start with the world, and see what kind of a story you get).
Somewhere in the back of my mind/scratched on old notepads/in an old binder somewhere/in a spiral from my study abroad in France is the beginning of a world. Ironically, this world started with a map (that now, looking back on it, has to be totally redone because the geography doesn't work!) that I doodled while listening to the worlds most idiotic French professor drone on about bidets. Every once in awhile it will bubble back up in my brain and I"ll bust it out and put together a bit more of the culture. Someday, it may turn into a book. Or it may just remain a collection of doodles, invented names (with systems behind them, so they fit "implied languages"), and political systems that are entertwined with culture and geography and history.
In any case - it's fun! But Bottom-Up is definitely the longer way to go about writing a story (if a story is the product yo'ure aiming for - especially if you have some kind of deadline or something!)
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