I have been writing something, with excruciating slowness, but I finally turned back to it and added a chapter: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dvYj99fWjR4zQnOIU6nsY81nHU1PENcq6dcM5GqVPfI/edit It is a noir-themed something or other set in Austin, Texas.
how would people feel about a nanowrimo thread for organizing word wars n stuff? :OO camp nano starts tomorrow!!
Spoiler: herp derp, i'm back with more *vague hand gesture* He smiles, and his teeth feel too big for his jaw. He'd lost one just recently, had held it in the palm of his hand, a chalky light bit of nothing for the cold ragged wet of the hole it left behind. But now they're too big, too wet, and he presses his tongue against the backs of them and hopes they don't spell out his deceit. He doesn't think you can do that. Read the truth in teeth. But he has been wrong before, and before, and before, over and over, the weight of his ignorance as heavy and cumbersome as the grin he wears now. If they can read him, they give him no sign. The cat, smaller than most with fur so shiny rough that he could feel the echo of its touch lingering for minutes after setting it down, stares with black button eyes at the wall behind the boy. The pig's head lolls on it's heavy wooden joint, glass eyes buried under patchy pink fluff. I barely remember it, but being a kid must be weird. You don't got any context for shit.
Shout out to those times when a typo accidentally turns into worldbuilding. (In this case, "shy prince" -> "sky prince.") in other news guess who is fussing with original ideas again.
I wrote an incredibly silly fanfic thing and I am Proud of Myself. A good use of staying up until 3 AM. (I swear everything I write I either vomit out all in one go or agonize over line-by-line for months. This was the former.)
I started another JohnDave fic based on the singular WIP page from 2014 I'd found of it and finished it around 3am I think. First time in ages that I've felt writey productive. It'll be the first time I'm writing "You feel your sins crawl up your back" style instead of "He felt his sins crawl up his back". And I know there's the proper term for that style but I am having some of the worst brainfog I've had in weeks. Ghost boyfriend shenanigans ahoy.
"Second person" is the term you're looking for. As opposed to first person ("I felt...") and third person ("He felt...").
I have a problem, that problem is that I am seriously considering starting my long term writing project with a "no one would notice a man with two arms" line.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa I wrote a thing and I hate it I hate it so much it's so bad but I can't figure out how to fix it would someone please mind taking a look at it and then telling me what they think I can do, even if it's just 'start from scratch because this is too far-fetched' it's here, hopefully this link works
It's not too far-fetched. The setting is good - familiar enough to be easy to slip into without a lot of world-building, with enough interesting elements to set it apart. I really like the descriptions of magic; it feels very grounded and physical, very integral to the character's self. I also like that you don't spend paragraphs explaining the world-building, but instead just put it in as if it's obvious. That makes it feel ... well, obvious. Also it keeps the reader from wondering "where is this set? what's going on?" because immediately the answer is "it's fantasy just take it as it comes". You might want to spend a couple sentences at the beginning (or perhaps the end when they leave the building) describing the surrounding neighbourhood, just to give it a bit more concrete of a setting. What type of architecture is there? How big of a city is this? What era of fantasy are we in? I think the biggest problem is that you spend a lot of time explaining how the characters are thinking, especially Alania. For instance: if they already know that phasing through the window is the best idea, why mention the other option? (and ... if there's a vent, why didn't Alania go through that? They were on the roof long enough...) Also, you use the word "thrust" a lot. Granted, sword-fighting is hard to write, but I often find that less is more when describing action scenes (especially action scenes with dialogue). There are also some jarring moments where Alania goes from cheery and flippant to worried and focused - which is fine, but they're both too genuine at the moment, and so there's this feeling of a lack of integrity in the character. This may be a deliberate choice, and that's fine, I just wanted to mention it because other characters will notice the disparity. Finally, Kadey's really mad all the time. It's understandable in the situation, but it makes her feel a little flat, a bit one-note. Does that help a little?
I could do that, with the scenery bit, I mean. I had not considered that. and yeah....I've always been like that :P I like to focus a lot on characters thinking. or talking. because doing is hard for me to write, and always feels...flat and awkward. and I will try and edit the action scenes--although I had a friend edit those already for me, so hopefully a little more editing and they'll be much better. also, she's intended to be more cheery and flippant, so I will probably have to fix that. I have a tendency to forget what my characters are like and put more how I would react to things? which is not great. and Kadey...yeah, she's kinda one-dimensional right now, although she's going to round out as the story goes on. I'm just not really sure how I can round her out more from the very beginning, because she's really supposed to be very closed off and tightly wound and easily angered, so... but yeah, that does help!
The biggest thing that stuck out to me in the action scenes was the repetitive words. I think splitting those up will help. Re Alania: yeah, she felt very serious because she spent so much time thinking about what she was doing. someone who is cheery and flippant but also thinks things through carefully is a very different character than someone who is cheery and flippant and does not think things through. both are options! :) Re Kadey: what really got me was that she expresses her frustration in so many ways. she shrieks, she hisses, she screeches. At this point she doesn't sound like a person, she sounds like a harpy. :P Opposite problem from the fight scene, i think - let the dialogue speak for itself, you don't have to describe everything minutely.
okay, got it! Alania is cheery and flippant and does not think things through. therefore she needs to think less. I will have to cut some of that thinking. hmmm. yeah, that's true! I can edit some of the description-y stuff. she is kind of...becoming vaguely harpy-ish. whoops. she has a personality, I promise.
I don't know why i haven't crashed into this thread yet, as I'm a writer (hoping to make a career out of it). I'm currently editing my first complete novel (well, longfic turned original novel). editing is hard. Spoiler: novel babble So the story takes place in a world where gods and daemons have been fighting for centuries. The MC, Allie, was abandoned at birth because she was born on the winter solstice (which is when the gods are at their weakest and children born on this day are supposed to be cursed). However, she's found by one of the gods and taken back to the god realm and the god of prophecy to have her future told. Turns out she's supposed to win the war for the gods (no, no come back, i promise it's not that cliche!) She ends up meeting a daemon, Siridean, and the two form an odd friendship (going for pale not flushed relationship). The war between the gods and daemons starts to pick up and Allie and some other gods basically defect. But Allie is still destined to destroy all the daemons... Basically I'm doing a lot of subverting of typical YA tropes. Brooding is not in Allie's vocabulary. She's aggressively positive and idealistic. She doesn't have a cynical bone in her body, which tends to get her into trouble. The dark, brooding guy is not her love interest, and he's only really dark and brooding bc he has terrible people skills. The prophecy actually turns out to be something they are trying to prevent. There are also many gays.
