Writing thread!

I saw a few folks mention that they were writerly sorts and thought it might be nice to talk about it with everyone. This thread's for worldbuilding, writings ideas, talking about your characters and getting or giving advice for such things. I will shamelessly use it for feedback on campaign ideas because that's where most of my writing goes. Have at it!

 

yay writing thread!

campaigns like for tabletop games?

 

That's precisely it. I'm about to start a new one, D&D 3.5 in an original setting I've created myself. Nine-god pantheon, made by splitting the three Gods of creation. The creation myth is pretty cool if I say so myself.

 

I've been toying with a creation myth myself, actually. It's been tricky but I think it's finally falling into place.

 

If you feel it's far enough along, would you mind sharing it? Creation myths are awesome as heck.

 

It's exhaustingly complicated (at least for me) with a lot of parallel possibilities where I wasn't quite sure which way to go, but the overall plot is fairly set. I don't particularly want to explain it in this thread, but I can pm you the short version (which is actually the really-short-version, because I don't have access to any of my files right now).

And I agree, they are awesome as heck.

 

Any other fanfic folks about? Seems to be all I write recently.

 

I love fanfics, but I'm afraid I don't have what it takes to write them. I think I started writing one a thousand years ago. One chapter. Haven't touched it since.

I do write my own original stuff though, but I don't know if I'll ever share it xD

 

I read a lot more fic than I write, partially because I find characterization really hard, and partially because I don't seem to have the attention span for much more than poetry these days (if that). All but one of my oneshots are for fandoms I'm either no longer in or was never actually in, which kind of amuses me. I do have a set of twelve characters I've been playing with in various published and original universes - seeing what their storylines might be in this or that circumstance - but very little of that has actually made it onto paper at this point, and I'm still not sure what I'll finally do with them.

 

I write less fic than I used to, although I'd like to get back into writing more? I've mostly written for fic exchanges in the past year or so (& actually need to get on my assignment for the HS Rare Pair swap pretty soon now).

 

My creation myth is a bit less complicated and I'm willing to share it here, so I'll start. Trigger warning for gross biological stuff told in a storytale fashion.

In the beginning there were Two. They loved and took delight in one another, and the Void was filled by their joy. But even Gods need more, so after an eternity of love One gave the Other a seed. The Other cared for and nurtured the seed, and it grew under her ministrations while her lover watched in bemusement. When her time came she gave birth to a Child.

Her lover, fascinated by the act of creation, took the Child's dead birth-twin, its bloody womb-shroud, and from that spun the universe. His family joined him and together they bent the universe to their will. Planets, creatures, plants and beasts they made, until their creation sprawled farther then they could perceive. The God saw that it had grown too large for them to watch and he declared that they had to take responsibility. He told his family to divide themselves, that they might better care for the universe they had made. The Goddess agreed, but the Child was resentful and refused his order.

The Goddess understood her Child was scared of change, and of losing the love of its family. She took it aside and told it, "We have created this thing, and that makes caring for it our duty. You must take that up with us. But to make it easier, I will give into your care the laws of its governance, the secrets hidden in its shadows, and when you tire of this Universe say the word and it will be destroyed so we may start anew." The Child hear her terms and agreed to them. So the three Gods of creation became Nine.

The God became three: The Warrior, god of battle and striving, lord of those who fight for a cause and those who desire strength for its own sake. The Trickster, god of wit and cunning, lord of beggars, thieves, con men and prostitutes. The Judge, god of law and society, lord of cities and justice.

The Goddess became three: The Maiden, both Virgin and Lover, goddess of art, love and beauty. Although her followers are sometimes seen as shallow and flighty, they argue that her gifts are what make life worth living and without which would be pointless. The Lady, goddess of fate and fortune, patroness of the powerless and those with no ability or inclination to act on their own behalf. The Hag, goddess of healing, childbirth and death. She witnesses the beginning and end of every life and she cannot be turned aside. She was tricked once and swore to never be tricked again.

The Child became three: The Stranger, god of magic and secrets. The Scholar, god of knowledge and technology. The Destroyer, god of chaos, change and entropy. All things end. The old must be destroyed to make way for the new. The Destroyer is followed by anarchists, revolutionaries and edgy teenagers who want to piss off their parents.

Couple of quick facts: Trickster clerics often pose as the priests of other gods. There are whispered legends of a Trickster cleric who rose all the way to High Priest - in the church of the Judge. They conceal their temples as brothels or the temples of other gods. The Hag was once outwitted by a mortal who wanted to avoid her touch, and in a fit of rage she cursed him and his entire village to eternal unlife. Their town is now known as Necropolis, or Dead City. In homage to the creation myth, Elves do not designate their children with a gender until puberty. The elves who refuse to accept a gender into adulthood are tolerated, but it's seen as a juvenile act, like living in your parents' basement forever.

I have more but this is getting quite unwieldy so I will stop. Is it obvious that I really like worldbuilding?

 

You, me, write-off tonight?

 

Absolutely!

 

EXCELLENT.

(Any strangers who want to join the word war are welcome too, BTW)

 

The only fanfic I've had any success with is using pre-existing worlds but having all major characters be my own OCs. I seem to have issues writing other peoples' characters except as really background ones.

 

honestly I have to say that for anyone not completely confident with your fic writing abilities, you could do a lot worse than to see if your fandom has an anon kink/request meme? I did a lot of my early fic writing in the Ace Attorney and Homestuck kink memes, and it's enormously freeing to be able to test things out and put your work out there without committing to identifying yourself. (some fandoms only have things like that for porny works, but in my experience a lot of them either have a SFW request meme or allow SFW and gen prompts on the kink meme)

 

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Roleplaying is another good way to get into it (it's where I started) if you have a bias towards a particular character. Sometimes focusing on just the one without trying to wrangle the whole cast is a good way to dip your toes in, so to speak.

 

If roleplaying counts as writing, I do that a lot. It´s just easier if the entire plot doesn´t rest on me. I´ve noticed that even though I frequently start with a canon character, I soon drift towards OCs. Not controlling the characterization just irks me.