Writing thread!

Discussion in 'Make It So' started by Stophelping, Feb 23, 2015.

  1. rigel

    rigel in a line of late afternoon sun

  2. BaseDeltaZero

    BaseDeltaZero Shitposting all night.

    So, uh, I Did A Thing.

    After deadly terrorist attack, a girl seeks her chance at revenge when she is sent to a secret academy for DRIVERs - girls capable of merging their bodies together to create supernatural weapons. Meanwhile, another young girl pursues her dreams of becoming a champion.

    Rather loosely based on Valkyrie Drive. The first and last segments are still a WIP. Please comment if you like it, or see anything you think could be meaningfully improved.

    Content Note: Fairly Explicit F/F (Underage (mid teens), Public Indecency) Dystopian Government Shenanigans, Violence (R).

    https://drive.google.com/open?id=13o45eiUYyduj1xGacyxD1RZh3exJSH68
     
    Last edited: Jul 24, 2018
    • Like x 1
  3. Sethrial MacCoill

    Sethrial MacCoill Attempts were made

    • Like x 4
  4. Helen of Boy

    Helen of Boy Hugcrafter Pursuivant

    I'm bad at describing my feelings about poems, but that like was for the poem itself, not just the act of sharing it.
     
    • Like x 1
    • Agree x 1
  5. ChelG

    ChelG Well-Known Member

    I can't bring myself to kill characters, and I considered setting up a Battle Royale-style fic to practice. Sound smart?
     
    • Winner x 1
  6. winterykite

    winterykite Non-newtonian genderfluid

    More poetry. This time with an added layer of riddle because I'm not obtuse enough yet


    Fore five and twenty winters now
    And I had feared I'd been too late
    Buried you beneath my cloak of snow
    And bid you there to stay and wait

    But spring has come and from the ground
    A sprout has reached towards the light
    And even though you spoke no sound
    A glimpse of you has left the night

    Now the circle, once torn through
    Mind, by no fault of your own
    Can mend itself, begin anew
    And make you reap what it has sown

    Distant daughter, you know the land
    The sky, the roads, from south to north
    The in-betweens of ash and sand
    And deepest of all, me, the fourth

    Thus go and search one single place
    That which you've hidden is the key
    That which sees, you can't erase
    And kept you long from being free

    The first in deepest slumber rouse
    The second where hill nor sky remain
    The third where, too, the moon is doused
    The fourth deep in midst of my domain

    Be guided by these secrets thine
    Leave your lungs and have no fear
    And go where I keep the treasures mine
    I will be there, my daughter dear

    For you, I know that which you seek
    Keep it safe within my chest
    Come to me and I shall speak
    You deserve to know the rest

    And those who'd search beneath the white
    Who for love nor life would never yield
    Who know not peace to ease their blight
    Shan't get to mine that I shall shield
     
    • Like x 3
    • Winner x 1
  7. ChelG

    ChelG Well-Known Member

    I'm having a bit of a financial emergency, should I set up a thread for commission fics/art?
     
  8. Ben

    Ben Not entirely unlike a dragon

    @winterykite Whoa, that's beautiful..... any hints to the riddle? I started trying to suss it out but I keep hopping back and forth between tactics

    @ChelG Couldn't hurt! I personally have no cash to commission RN but worst-case scenario you just don't get takers, and best case you do, so it seems like a logical bet to make
     
  9. Musarex

    Musarex Active Member

    I can hammer out prose til my fingers fal off, and various people have said that I'm not terrible at it.

    However, the thing I've never remotely understood is how you do the civil-engineering stuff to keep the pacing and distance and tone consistent, balancing the weights of the various stages of the thing at the large scale.

    I mean, I know I have exactly 0 creative-roleplay skills, and creating story is something I'd have to do with a fair amount of deliberation... but that doesn't seem completely insurmountable.

    I can draw you a picture of a house eventualy. I can lay bricks like a fucking champion. But actually making it not wobble and sag and fall down on your head because I don't know what girders are for or how to use them, that's the hard part.

    Can anyone recommend any resources for this particular aspect?
     
  10. Ben

    Ben Not entirely unlike a dragon

    @Musarex It's not about being consistent, actually? Generally, having pacing that varies is a good thing. Some periods of time in a story that you still want to actively describe are much less important than others, and changing pacing to reflect that is a positive. People who have issues with pacing are usually either including too much nonimportant sections or switching from tight coverage of action to long swaths of time passing without a good transition. Having a draft reader to spot those sections can be really helpful.

    Tone can also change from section to section, but I think you're talking more about... feel? I really am not sure what words to use to describe this abstract concept, but you know it when you read it.
    I find that regularly rereading the past ten pages or so and intermittently rereading the whole work helps me keep the same feel in my later writing as my earlier. I also sometimes pick specific texts whose feel I want to emulate, and reread them (or sections of them, if they're longer) right before starting to write. Later revision of wording also helps.
     
  11. Musarex

    Musarex Active Member

    Heh, I started re-reading Feist's Magician a while back, and the constant manic pan-and-zoom is actually what prompted me to think that maybe I had a shot after all :D
     
  12. palindromordnilap

    palindromordnilap Well-Known Member

    I haven't written anything in almost two years and this is probably in no way close to being good, but I managed to finally stop stressing over that and post something so I count that as a victory.
    Link
     
    • Like x 1
  13. Technicality

    Technicality All's fair in love and shitposting

    well i'm taking a creative writing class and i wrote this short piece titled "Saving The World"

    I could tell that I was supposed to talk to the person in the black hoodie.

    He had it written all over him, almost literally. He just appeared one day, and always seemed to be there, staring at me. In the halls between classes, at lunch out of the corner of my eye. Anywhere that I let my guard down. I had asked the administration about him, and they had just given me blank looks and shown me camera footage of the halls. Nobody was there.

    I wasn’t expecting him to ever approach me. That’s not how this kind of thing goes.

    “Excuse me. Are you Skylar?” I was grabbing things from my locker when I heard a voice from behind me. It was the kind of voice that demanded attention, Deeper than a highschool student’s should be. “My name is Emerald. I need your help.”

    I turned around to look at him. He’d taken off his hood. And...oh god, of course he was cute. That’s just how this kind of thing goes, doesn’t it? And the name, too...probably came from his eyes. A bright, unnatural green.

    “The world is in danger. Nobody else can see me, you’re the only one who can. I need your help to save the world and everybody who lives on it.”

    Oh, come on. Saving the world? How much more cliche can you get? I sighed and turned back to my locker. “Nah.”

    He let out a little squeak. It was clearly an answer he didn’t expect. “Wh-what?”

    I turned back to him, trying to ignore how he was making me feel. “I said, not interested.”

    “But...but the world! You’re just going to let it--”

    I shushed him. “The world isn’t in danger, and you know it. Just as well as I do.” His skin was soft.

    He blinked a few times, pulling back. Some of the students passing by, chattering with their friends, walked right through him, not acknowledging his presence. The boy’s form seemed to flicker a little as they did, the universe unsure of how to make these two actions line up.

    “You’re just going to…?”

    “Yes. Because you know as well as I do that there’s no danger.” I turned away, back to my locker, pulling out a small pill bottle. Even though I couldn’t see him, I could see his eyes widening.

    “Sorry, Emerald. Go home.” I opened it, dumping out two small, off-white capsules into my hand. And despite the noisy hallway, I heard him sigh, but then felt him looking over my shoulder at the pills in my hand.

    “What are you doing…?” And he stood, watching, as I swallowed down the antipsychotics.

    When I turned back to the hallway, he was gone.
     
    • Winner x 3
  14. Technicality

    Technicality All's fair in love and shitposting

    • Winner x 1
  15. ChelG

    ChelG Well-Known Member

    Going through dahniwitchoflight's notes on the themes and symbols of the classpects and using them to try to build a plot! I'm quite proud of what I've got for John.
     
  16. Sethrial MacCoill

    Sethrial MacCoill Attempts were made

    Can I get some critique on a piece of poetry?

    7F071809-B49F-4C96-9022-F74B536E051E.png
     
  17. rats

    rats 21 Bright Forge Shatters The Void

    i really really like it :O
     
    • Agree x 1
  18. Sethrial MacCoill

    Sethrial MacCoill Attempts were made

    I took out the “almost alike dances” line at the recommendation of a couple different people. Any other critique for it?
     
  19. TwoBrokenMirrors

    TwoBrokenMirrors onion hydration

    i'm bored and vaguely stifled-feeling so I'm putting here a link to my Unfinished Bullshit google doc
    short stuff of varying lengths of short, mostly fanfic but not all: the topics are Dragon Age, my sad gay roman legionaries, the very beginning of an origfic idea i should really write properly one day, Black Jewels Trilogy, and the Stars Without Number tabletop campaign i have going on. None of them are labelled. Anything in green font actually is finished, but started out unfinished, hence being on the document. There are only two of them. Comments are turned on; feel free, if there's anything you think I should totally focus my energies on more, do please let me know.

    Warning for at least one instance of (unfinished) explicit sexytimes.
     
  20. winterykite

    winterykite Non-newtonian genderfluid

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