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The Writing (and Artistic) Ranting Thread

V's patron

be loyal to what matters
I finished a short story called "the elusive Mr. Dupin" and my writing coach liked it.

The blurb would be "Vijay and Hitomi endeavor to stop a murderer with a literary fetish and a magical arsenal. They also have to decide whether or not their friendship is worth keeping."

She wanted me to read it out loud which was fun. I wouldn't recommend it if you're fasting.

This counts as me committing to do OC/DOA based fanfiction. But the DOA stuff might be cut.
 
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Morgan

Well-known Member
Premium
Xen-Ace 2021
The total lack of shame it took to write the PPG live-action script, parody or not, is almost enviable.

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V's patron

be loyal to what matters

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The main character of Part Time Spirit Helper- Khalid Tanveer. Done by @absolitude . He has the ability to manipulate his shadow. I was thinking more like Kido from Yu Yu Hakusho than Doppelganger or Shadow but if this ever gets a game adaptation.....there's an angle we can work with.

Part Time Spirit Helper was the first story I completed. Its a 40 page tv pilot and my writing mentors liked it. I had to shelve it for a while because I couldn't rewrite it.

After watching Loki episode 2, I realized i wasn't interested in the retail aspect anymore. So I've been trying to find another hook for the show.

He and Vijay work as opposites which makes me curious about them meeting each other.

I have written him in a short story called "How I met a cat with two tails" and I wrote a ton of monologues where he meets the female cast of DOA. Surely but slowly I'm figuring him out.
 

absolitude

the devil is not as black as he painted

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The main character of Part Time Spirit Helper- Khalid Tanveer. Done by @absolitude . He has the ability to manipulate his shadow. I was thinking more like Kido from Yu Yu Hakusho than Doppelganger or Shadow but if this ever gets a game adaptation.....there's an angle we can work with.

Part Time Spirit Helper was the first story I completed. Its a 40 page tv pilot and my writing mentors liked it. I had to shelve it for a while because I couldn't rewrite it.

After watching Loki episode 2, I realized i wasn't interested in the retail aspect anymore. So I've been trying to find another hook for the show.

He and Vijay work as opposites which makes me curious about them meeting each other.

I have written him in a short story called "How I met a cat with two tails" and I wrote a ton of monologues where he meets the female cast of DOA. Surely but slowly I'm figuring him out.

I'll gonna have a look on Kido. And Vijay was supposed to be from his universe? Damn, i have devil may cry universe in mind when i did him.
 

V's patron

be loyal to what matters
I'll gonna have a look on Kido. And Vijay was supposed to be from his universe? Damn, i have devil may cry universe in mind when i did him.
I didn't think in terms of universe when I wrote Khalid and Vijay. So they could exist together theoretically. I could always write a story where they have to interact.

I could even write a story where they run in the DMC team.

So you are good.
 

absolitude

the devil is not as black as he painted
I didn't think in terms of universe when I wrote Khalid and Vijay. So they could exist together theoretically. I could always write a story where they have to interact.

I could even write a story where they run in the DMC team.

So
yep, it make sense for them to be in any magic/supernatural universes anyway.
 

Angel

Is not rat, is hamster
Admin
Moderator
I have a week to produce my latest work and there is zero chance of that happening.

Having re-read my last two chapters...they suck. Like, terribad. I'm just too out of practice for this to work out.
 

therogis

ʙʟᴏᴏᴅ ғᴏʀ ғʀᴇᴇᴅᴏᴍ
As you probably know, I don't believe in inspiration fairies, lack of "motivation", or "not being in the mood for writing". Neither do I believe in "writer's block". They're easy excuses to say when the problem is something else – usually synonyms for either laziness or self-control issues (yea, been there done that myself), sometimes something else that is just hard to admit. (Insert one of those dozens of quotes by real authors who say a real writer just sits down and writes without trying to find excuses.)

What frustrates me is that I haven't written this looong project of mine for a good while and I can't get a hold on why. Obviously there's a reason, and it's not this ✨ mysterious inspiration fairy ✨. The only thing I can come up with is that this is just not _my_ project. I have some kind of a personal issue with it. I just seek for escapes every time I think of it, such as doing laundry or writing something else than this.

I berate myself for being a lazy impostor, but... I get other stuff written, long stuff and hard stuff, no problem with that, so I don't think it's pure laziness towards the craft itself. It must be something about the relation between this project in particular and me. Maybe I'm not skilled enough. I don't know. If I knew, I'd fix it, because I actually believe in this one. I see market value there as well – and I don't give a damn about it myself, just that it's so much easier to find someone to fund the printing of it (aka a publisher) when it might actually sell and cover the printing costs.

*sigh* I guess it's time to accept that it just doesn't work for me. Maybe I'll clip the good parts for use in another project or something. :(
 
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Morgan

Well-known Member
Premium
Xen-Ace 2021
What do you mean by "not my project"? What's it about? Do you think you need something before you get to writing it? (i.e. more expertise writing fight scenes, for example? etc?)
 

therogis

ʙʟᴏᴏᴅ ғᴏʀ ғʀᴇᴇᴅᴏᴍ
What do you mean by "not my project"? What's it about? Do you think you need something before you get to writing it? (i.e. more expertise writing fight scenes, for example? etc?)
That's the problem: I don't know. All I know is that the problem is related only to this one.
There's one thing that comes to my mind though.

It's a dystopian novel set in near future. Nothing new for me, I've written short stories of that genre earlier and loved it.
What is different in it, is that it requires a damn lot of... logical worldbuilding. It's hard to explain. Practically it means that I don't know if my story's setting makes any sense.

Have you seen the movie or read a book called The Martian? The one where this astronaut is left behind in Mars for some years and has to figure out how to survive?
Well, this is a bit similar. I have to figure out ways to survive in a very different world, where no one has actually been before. So it's not only about research: I have to figure out a logical approach by myself, and make it work.

IMO, I've been very considerate in it. Spent a lot of time stating myself questions and answers. I've talked about it with several trusted writers and no one so far has spotted any major errors that I haven't fixed.
But I'm still constantly anxious about the details. What if it's still ridiculously problematic? What if there's still a major error like, "Hey, have you thought about how these people get water? Without it they're not gonna survive long you know" (the water problem was among the first to be figured on my own, but you know, If there's something similarly obvious).

So I think this might be the problem. "Not my project" in terms of self-esteem issues *lol*
 

Morgan

Well-known Member
Premium
Xen-Ace 2021
That's the problem: I don't know. All I know is that the problem is related only to this one.
There's one thing that comes to my mind though.

[Worldbuilding bruh]
Oh good, I actually LIKE worldbuilding and making things make sense.

Never read The Martian but I did watch the movie and appreciated the solution was Sciencing The Sh#t Out Of It.

Sooooo what draft are you on in this story?
 

therogis

ʙʟᴏᴏᴅ ғᴏʀ ғʀᴇᴇᴅᴏᴍ
Oh good, I actually LIKE worldbuilding and making things make sense.

Never read The Martian but I did watch the movie and appreciated the solution was Sciencing The Sh#t Out Of It.

Sooooo what draft are you on in this story?
Off topic/ I saw the movie as well. One of my favourites. "Luckily, in the history of humanity, nothing bad has ever happened from lighting hydrogen on fire" :ROFL:
Also, as a law student I loved the space pirate stuff. Had to dig up my own International Law books to check if it was right. (FYI that mostly, it was. It was just very much simplified.) /off topic

The draft must be considered as a first draft. I've written once around 80 % of it, but IMO that draft doesn't count, because even though the themes, the setting, and the protagonist are all the same, there are a lot of major changes, so I don't use that "80 % first draft" as a reference or anything for the current version. The problematic worldbuilding has been as problematic since the "draft zero", but in this current version, it's a lot more detailed... which makes me even more anxious because "Hey, how do I really know if gamma radiation would work in these circumstances".

Gamma radiation being only one example of several problems, I've done a damn lot of research about it, but I'm never happy. In addition to reading some physics text books, I've written down everything I can remember from it myself, being a lab assistant by original profession, as well as questioning my husband for it, but some things just... cannot be researched. You have to figure them out. No one can say it's wrong (as long as my dystopian setting doesn't come true), but if it sounds ridiculous, then the whole story is ridiculous. Damn, I've written two complete fantasy manuscripts where I've had to craft my own magical system, and I've never been this terrified of making them sound nonsense...
 

Morgan

Well-known Member
Premium
Xen-Ace 2021
The draft must be considered as a first draft. I've written once around 80 % of it, but IMO that draft doesn't count, because even though the themes, the setting, and the protagonist are all the same, there are a lot of major changes, so I don't use that "80 % first draft" as a reference or anything for the current version. The problematic worldbuilding has been as problematic since the "draft zero", but in this current version, it's a lot more detailed... which makes me even more anxious because "Hey, how do I really know if gamma radiation would work in these circumstances".

Gamma radiation being only one example of several problems, I've done a damn lot of research about it, but I'm never happy. In addition to reading some physics text books, I've written down everything I can remember from it myself, being a lab assistant by original profession, as well as questioning my husband for it, but some things just... cannot be researched. You have to figure them out. No one can say it's wrong (as long as my dystopian setting doesn't come true), but if it sounds ridiculous, then the whole story is ridiculous. Damn, I've written two complete fantasy manuscripts where I've had to craft my own magical system, and I've never been this terrified of making them sound nonsense...

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1, I'm interested.

2, Okay, so you're not counting the 80% first draft as a first draft at all. How complete is the new draft? Regardless of how complete it is or even what draft you're counting it as, write it out anyway. Make completion the first priority, because the entire point of a first draft (or a second first draft, or a third....) is to suck donkey nuts while you hash out what it is your story is saying. After you've gotten what the story says, you can chisel out how it's said. Sometimes it's difficult to think of a problem if it's still in your head, and writing it out is the rubber duck debugging of the plot and its mechanics. Put anything you're not sure of in [brackets] with some text like FIGURE THIS OUT LATER (for goofy bonus points, if you're typing out the draft and can Ctrl+F the text, put [MOOOOOOOO] or something ridiculous in there so you can find it easier.).

3, Put the story in perspective a bit. Is this for a general audience that likes science fiction, or is this aimed at actual experts on gamma radiation and dystopian settings? Because the average reader is A) not an expert on these things enough to call you out: as you've said, they can't prove it wrong, and in general B) they're coming in with a basic suspension of disbelief because the setting is not real life, only imitating it in certain parts. The reader expects at a basic level, compelling characters and a good plot, and that the setting has internal consistency with itself. If teleporters and fast methods of travel haven't been invented, characters shouldn't cross entire continents within a day even under harsh weather because that's "basically teleporting". Something like that.

The average Star Wars fan didn't (and still doesn't) care enough to pull out their nasally nerd voice about how "actually, parsecs are a unit of distance and not time, so there's no way that the Millenium Falcon could clear the Kessel Run in "12 parsecs" because it's like saying it cleared a mile in two feet", but they were still invested in Obi Wan successfully recruiting Han and how well the Millenium Falcon could fly in the interests of getting Luke from point A to point B. Adding midichlorians in the prequels to justify Anakin's power in the Force made the worldbuilding worse. So just don't say anything blatantly stupid like "the west coast of Brazil" and you're good. Don't overexplain worldbuilding that doesn't matter to the immediate settings and the characters, and you're good.

Or you know, figure out what exactly it is you're prioritizing. Is the science a pivotal character in its own right in the plot, more than the people with the names and going the places and doing the things? Some things need to be in the background where they belong. Futurama was great for having actual [ex-]scientists on their writing staff and even then, they bent the rules a bit to land jokes because "one of the first rules that Matt Groening and [David Cohen] agreed upon for writing Futurama was, “Science shall not outweigh comedy.”". Is, and should, the science outweigh the drama of the story? If it's the science, how willing are you to get into contact with physicists in real time and pick their brain?
 
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Angel

Is not rat, is hamster
Admin
Moderator
Thrown it all out.

Starting a new project, may or may not see it to the end.

My gosh this is tiring...
 
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