|
Post by Emizael on Nov 15, 2006 23:46:24 GMT -5
Boo to taking breaks! Break time over! On with teh writins!
|
|
|
Post by Celera on Nov 27, 2006 12:16:15 GMT -5
I didn't want to break up the mood and momentum of Caspin's story, so I'm adding a note here. It had been a while, so I re-read "Confession" from the beginning. I recommend doing this, even if you have a better memory or are less easily confused than I am. We write this stuff usually over a long period of time, and it is easy as a writer or a reader to lose track of ideas, characters or other thoughts that come into play later (or should be brought back in). Anyway, "Confession" has a consistent, evocative atmosphere to it that I really like. I also came across this passage in an earlier post: The warm sun washing over the wheat as it was gathered, the children laughing and playing in the fallen leaves, and the sharp bells of Moonbrook signaling another couple vowing to die together in a bloody mess of thievery and deceit in a village that was doomed to stand as a testament - not to man's inability to save their own, but man's decision not to.The sudden shift in that paragraph is jarring, which is often not what one wants to do, but here it is extremely effective. Very nicely done! Keep going, man, I know you have a lot of other stuff to do these days. If you don't have an internet connection, heck write it out by hand and I'll type it up for you! Also, in today's post, I notice that Celera is wise and tough and "astonishingly beautiful." Jake, you are my new best friend.
|
|
|
Post by Caspin Mordain on Nov 27, 2006 13:37:17 GMT -5
One of the things I've been struggling with recently is something I call 'emotional shift'. When you're sitting joking in class with your buddy and then the teacher slams down the D- on your midterm right in front of you, suddenly the gregarious becomes the awe struck and horrified. Simplistic descriptions such as 'he was mortified' often don't do justice to the jarring experience of being snatched out of a reverie of peace and tranquility and being reintroduced into the maw that is oftentimes reality. I flipped through a number of people's writings, and since Celera put me on a pedestal and STILL thinks her work is subpar, I'll use her as an example: Thelanya read the letter over twice, and then wordlessly handed it to Icilis. She wasn’t sure why. She wanted to be rid of it more than anything. Since arriving at the farm she had been fairly unemotional – she had almost felt as if she were in some sort of trance. The letter pierced through that, and feelings began to seep in, slowly but inexorably. She was angry with her mother for being so harsh, so inflexible and simplistic in her beliefs, for making all of them suffer under a weight of needless guilt and unnecessary requirements. She grieved for her father – she always had – but suddenly now she was angry with him too. Never before had it been so clear to her how he had relinquished any responsibility for thinking for himself, or for standing up for himself, or for her.
The letter from Hillsbrad, which her mother had thrown in the fire – of course that letter had been from her. She had written from there, and more than once. How could her mother have kept that from him? How could he have allowed it? He must have known. He chose not to know. She despised them both.
And in the next moment, tears came. She had wanted, needed even, to see them, to try to explain. If they had talked together, if they had looked in her eyes and heard her story, they would have found a way to understand, to believe her or forgive her or something. Surely they loved her enough to have tried.
Deep down, she knew they didn’t love her enough to try – if understanding had been possible, it would have happened. Your own parents are supposed to love you more than anything. What was wrong with them? Or what was wrong with her?
This was an abyss she could not yet look into for long, and the anger that was welling up found a new target. The wave of darkness and calm enveloped her again. Someone knew what had happened here. It was time to find them.Cel has done an amazing job here and I honestly find myself envious. Thelanya enters not one, not two, but three COMPLETELY different emotional states in less than three paragraphs, and does it seemlessly and believably. The numbness and almost detached demeanor of this warlock gives way to suppressed anger and then to an unbridled rage used to mask a deep depression. There is a tremendous amount to be gained and learned from each other here. My writing has improved ten fold since I started writing here just by doing what Shakespeare did and stealing techniques and styles of diction from many of you. ..Doesn't help that its easy to get Cel drunk and get her to spill her secrets either..
|
|
|
Post by Celera on Nov 27, 2006 14:14:13 GMT -5
*shocked*
I was not drunk!
I only had two beers! And gave away half of my lunch!
Oh. Yeah, that would do it.
|
|
|
Post by Fechak on Nov 28, 2006 14:26:28 GMT -5
(She was drunk...)
And I'll jump in on this - Caspin said he had a backlog of stuff to put here on the forums, and man I'm really enjoying that. I re-read it from the beginning as Cel suggested, and it really is great. I can't wait to see where it goes.
Cel, you say you can't keep up, but you're keeping up just fine m'lady. I like that we're both pushing each other to do better, and better.
Finally... why do my google ads have Betty Boop?
|
|
|
Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Nov 28, 2006 20:54:25 GMT -5
lol Fech. Maybe it's the size of your head (btw, for those who have been wondering where the coward was, I have NOT lost interest in the Tale. Rather a combination of work/work/romance/NWN2/work/plotscripting that has kept me away. I'll be back. Soon, with luck.)
|
|
|
Post by Deyla on Dec 13, 2006 3:52:40 GMT -5
Yeh right. You can't write about food plausibly for Robbyn.. .. .. Pshaw! Next thing you'll say you don't have adequate imagination to fuel a long story about demonic possession.. .. ..
|
|
|
Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Dec 13, 2006 13:13:02 GMT -5
I was sure nervous about it. And I had to consult a few online sources!
|
|
|
Post by Celera on Jan 19, 2007 12:42:29 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Celera on Mar 27, 2007 17:30:40 GMT -5
Kurt Vonnegut's rules of fiction writing: www.americanstate.org/vonnegut.htmlI have to say, I'm not sure I entirely agree with this. (I'm also painfully aware of the fact that for me to disagree with Kurt Vonnegut about fiction writing is probably a bit ridiculous.) I particularly am unsure about rule #6 -- perhaps because I think it is a bit trite in fantasy fiction, particularly, to make sure that almost impossibly dreadful things are constantly happening to every character. However, I've been finding that it is helpful to me to read about writing. Whether I agree or not, it forces me to think harder about what I'm doing. Now if I would just get around to actually writing something...
|
|
|
Post by Annalira Delshannon on Mar 27, 2007 23:03:37 GMT -5
I've actually been doing quite a bit of this recently - I've gotten a few books on writing over the years, so I've been digging them out and going through them. I've also discovered that I left quite a few of them at my parents house, so I'll need to get them the next time Daug and I visit.
Of course, that means I'm not writing much either. I should get back to blogging though - that seemed to help.
|
|
|
Post by Sorcha'Rei on Mar 31, 2007 3:55:11 GMT -5
I am of the firm opinion that rules for writing vary wildly from one writer to another. I like reading what other people have to say about their process, not so I can adopt their rules, but because it helps me clarify my own "rules".
Lois McMaster Bujold (who is one of my favorite authors ever) says that she always starts thinking of a book by looking at a character and asking "what is the worst thing I could do to this person?" Now, I've tried that, and it just makes me cry. But I LOVE her books, adore the results she gets, so who am I to worry about how she gets there?
I myself like to start by asking "what woudl happen if?"
Sorcha: what would happen if someone made a principled decision when she was young that turned out to be horribly misguided?
Deyla: what would happen if someone married a man who had deeply suppressed anger and rage, and she only recognized that he had deeply suppressed emotions, so set out to release that emotion, thinking it was passion?
Malka: what would happen if someone were relentlessy optimsitic in a world that offered little in the way of hope?
Rheyna: what would happen if someone were living an ordinary life but got sucked into someone else's story and then found that it was really her story all along? (alternatively, what would happen if someone living an ordinary life had to untangle the practical consequences of someone else's misguided principled decision?)
Rebekeh: what would happen if someone who hated war but loved honor and duty found herself called to war?
Ventus: what would happen if there was a perfectly good feline character in a series of gentle stories, but SOMEONE wanted to make him more than just the reincarnation of a dead riding saber?
At least one of those would be a good story, you'd think. Maybe I should try finishing one of them.... Besides the one that D'an and Sorcha finished awhile ago, I mean. (Miss you still, Ventus.)
|
|
|
Post by Celera on Apr 3, 2007 10:36:46 GMT -5
Your list is interesting partly because I know people in real life who have been in each of those situations. Well, I don't know any real life riding sabers. But I know people who made principled decisions that turned out to be wrong, and people who thought they saw passion where there was really just rage, and people who spend their lives untangling the results of other people's bad (though well-intended) decisions and people who are optimistic despite all evidence to the contrary. Actually, I've been most of those people, although I'm only optimistic on carefully calibrated doses of Prozac.
I don't remember how I came up with Celera's story except that I didn't want her to be an orphan, because that story has been told. Thel's story was more of a "why" -- why would a nice person want to be a warlock? Where does the need for that kind of power come from? Of course, it comes from fear of being victimized. Again. Larae doesn't exactly have a story, she is just a counterpoint to her sister.
I haven't found the same inspiration even with new characters in Vanguard (I've re-used some of the names over there, but the characters are not the same.) Probably because none of you are over there, telling stories that help me find the right place to start.
Blogging does help because the more I write the more I think of to write about. But then, after a while I get tired of listening to myself. I have a New Yorker cartoon where one dog says to another "I tried blogging but I decided to just go back to pointless, incessant barking." It does start to seem that way sometimes.
|
|
|
Post by Celera on Apr 19, 2007 11:19:44 GMT -5
I think I'm not the only one who sometimes wants to write but doesn't know what to write about. That used to stop me from writing at all -- I was waiting for an idea to come to me. What I've learned, though, is that the more I write, the more ideas I get. So...if you can't think of anything to write about, here's a list of ideas. Some of them are kind of dumb, but the point is to sit down and write SOMEthing. www.jjuriaan.com/Fifteen_Craft_Exercises_for_Writers.htm
|
|
|
Post by Sorcha'Rei on Aug 8, 2007 16:22:21 GMT -5
I'm writing WoW stories again, but they are dispersed among various sites. And Rhaina is about to get her ass kicked from the guild she's in (Litman -- gnomish researcher, chaser of paladins, master mage, and general nuiscane -- already managed that feat), which orphans the current Rhaina and Deyla stories. So, to avoid having my burst of creativity deflated, I've created a blog site for my WoW stories and am moving things there. Slowly but surely. The way it's set up, each story gets its own page, and when I update it, I make a short blog entry to that effect. This way, people can subscribe to the RSS feed and don't have to visit the site if there is no new content. You can find it here.
|
|