Writers' Corner

[Original Poster]

This forum is dedicated to the writers of DV. Post your ideas, excerpts and inspiration here, as well as your tips and feedback to the aspiring. Feel free to brainstorm or bounce your ideas off. Discuss Lore for your fiction or Canon for your fan-fiction, providing feedback and criticism at your leisure This thread is intrinsically dedicated to ideas unready for their own threads. Perhaps you're excited about an idea but want assistance with the story or other details. Whatever your cause to post here, remain aware of the guidelines in order to reap the most from this thread. Spoiler for Guidelines: 1. For lengthy submissions, provide the [ spoiler = title ] content [ /spoiler ] heading a. No work requires spoiler tags and a heading, but please be fair to other viewers of this page and encapsulate your work in spoilers based upon your own distinction of how long is too long. b. Repeated disregard to this rule will result in a PM warning followed by a notification to a full-blooded liege lord moderator to tell you to stop spamming my fucken thread. Srs though, wrap your text up. Let's keep this shit organized. 2. No offensive posts or trolling a. I love to troll as much the next guy but this thread depends on constructive feedback and positive reinforcement. Your definition of criticism is mostly left up to your digression but please report any forum violations and mean-spiritedness. Please only break forum rules using clever innuendo and other means to avoid getting caught. 3. Other rules apply here, too a. I'm not very smart and probably forgot to include multiple rules that I should have. As this thread's overseer, I'll report any abusive members and encourage you to do the same. This is a people's thread, if we self-moderate we can keep it so. Failure to abide by forum policy will result in exile from this thread which is obviously sworn to the Protectorate of DV. DV is love, DV is life. Remember your place.

[Original Poster]

(Game of Thrones spoilers) As a send off to promote the purpose of this thread, I'd like to describe my personal writing method, which is basically the Snowflake Effect. How To Write A Novel Using The Snowflake Method As a fantasy writer creating a brand new world and aspiring to create a series, my first step is a sentence that describes the subject and the subject's inevitable outcome. To use Game of Thrones, the heading is, "The Warden of the North is killed by choosing honor over the realistic intrigue of the Capital when the King names him his first counselor" or something like that. However you would write it, keep in mind the detail starts from the end. The method works from the back, forwards, in the sense that the protagonist's character arc is dependent on their final outcome by the story's end. From this sentence, I would then devise a paragraph and from that paragraph, a page, and from each paragraph in that page, another page. Between each step, I would also expand the character bios. Character biographies and lore can enable one to circumvent writer's block by filling in aspects of the story, there's no rule to which aspect to develop first, one fleshes out the story as necessary. Eventually, you land at a scene-by-scene outline of your story.

[Aristaeus]

Hmm, interesting thread. I suppose I will participate. Anyhow, I mainly write fantasy, sci-fi, and contemporary drama. Right now, I am writing two separate series, one of which is drama and romance, the other of which is fantasy and sci-fi. Both stories take place in twenty-first century UK. I also have several other novels on hold. As far as the fantasy and sci-fi novels are concerned, though they do have their share of violent moments, for the most part their main focus is the drama, not the action. When writing in the sci-fi and fantasy genres, I often originally intend to write something light-hearted and comical, but ultimately end up doing something MUCH darker. Unfortunately, I have not had much time to write, due to a very busy schedule. One of mine main issues with writing is mine wording. When it comes to language, I am stuck in the past. For instance, I will often end up writing in a formal, Victorian style dialect for a story that takes place in the year 2012. I really think that has a lot to do with me reading too much Arthur Conan Doyle as a child. As far as setting up the main plot and writing the story goes, mine methods are a little unconventional and difficult to explain. Before writing any sci-fi or fantasy story, the first thing I usually do is flesh out a complex magick system. If it takes place in a fictional world, I anal-retentively map out every little detail, right down to the countries, their laws, their lifestyle, and so on. Typically, I do not like to look for ideas or force mineself to think of any; when I do that, I often end up with a piece of rubbish. I usually just wait patiently for an idea to pop in mine head--like a python that lurks silently until it ensnares an unsuspecting prey. If I think said idea is good, I write it down immediately. If I am not at home, I either write it down on mine memo pad or email it to mineself. Sometimes mine magick concepts and whatnot derive from various mythology, but aside from that I usually come up with mine ideas on mine own. Being the old-fashioned coot I am, I always write down mine stories with pen and paper first, then type them out on the computer. Oftentimes when I am writing, I will listen to a song that I feel best reflects the mood of the scene (truth be told, I do this whilst reading, too). I also sometimes give mine stories and characters their own theme songs. I used to write fanfiction when I was much younger, but nowadays, it just isn't mine thing. When I did write fanfiction, I had a completely different way of doing it than most others. For instance, say I wanted to write a Star Wars fanfiction. Mine story would take place in the Star Wars universe, but instead of using Luke, Darth Vader, or any of the characters that appeared in the movies and spinoffs, I would just create mine own original cast and have them act out their own separate story. I might mention some of the characters that appeared in the movies, but that is pretty much it. I just...cannot use other people's characters. In the end, only their creators know them best. Personally, mine advice to any aspiring writer is to develop your own unique method; something that works for you--as opposed to forcing yourself to adapt to another writer's ways. "I hate that term, 'Method'. My belief is that everyone's got their own 'method', and as long as it works, that's OK." ~Robert Carlyle

[jumpscreamfly]

Personally, mine advice to any aspiring writer is to develop your own unique method; something that works for you--as opposed to forcing yourself to adapt to another writer's ways. "I hate that term, 'Method'. My belief is that everyone's got their own 'method', and as long as it works, that's OK." ~Robert Carlyle I completely agree. I've tried to force myself to write in styles similar to others, but what I've found useful is to take a break and wait for inspiration. Making myself carry around all three of my notebooks and my USB, just in case. Sometimes I don't get inspiration for months and sometimes it doesn't stop. For some reason I also found I write best when I am feeling any emotion except for normal/fine/okay. But then again that's just me.

[EG0CENTRAL]

One of mine main issues with writing is mine wording. When it comes to language, I am stuck in the past. For instance, I will often end up writing in a formal, Victorian style dialect for a story that takes place in the year 2012. I really think that has a lot to do with me reading too much Arthur Conan Doyle as a child. I do this ALL THE TIME. As a result, I usually end up writing things that fit that mood. My #1 recurring character (Egoman) talks somewhere in-between, using ridiculous words like "radical" in down time, but when it gets serious he talks like he came straight from the early 1800's. It creates some fun contrast for the character. And, the way you write out the universe around your story first is a really great way of doing it. (I'm going to keep referencing Egoman because I have been writing that stuff for a couple of years now) Egoman's universe takes place in our own, so that's not to much of a problem, but when I'm writing something large (especially sci-fi) I try to write out a few different stories then the one I want to use; that way, I will have set up a sensible universe for it all to take place. Then I have some "bonus content" to give away later. Also, the method thing no longer applies when you resort to parody or satire. If anyone is interested, I can write some summaries for the main Egoman books. Just if you're interested.

[Original Poster]

If anyone is interested, I can write some summaries for the main Egoman books. Just if you're interested. Sure are. I do this ALL THE TIME. As a result, I usually end up writing things that fit that mood. My #1 recurring character (Egoman) talks somewhere in-between, using ridiculous words like "radical" in down time, but when it gets serious he talks like he came straight from the early 1800's. It creates some fun contrast for the character. And, the way you write out the universe around your story first is a really great way of doing it. (I'm going to keep referencing Egoman because I have been writing that stuff for a couple of years now) Egoman's universe takes place in our own, so that's not to much of a problem, but when I'm writing something large (especially sci-fi) I try to write out a few different stories then the one I want to use; that way, I will have set up a sensible universe for it all to take place. Then I have some "bonus content" to give away later. Also, the method thing no longer applies when you resort to parody or satire. I like to try and mix people with diverse backgrounds and give them diverse speech patterns so I can feel more distinction between them as I slowly flesh them out. Otherwise they blur together at the beginning and it takes a while to get to know them. They'll usually evolve their own dialect and then I get to go back and revise the beginning to remain consistent with the voice I found, but a lot of the time it also starts off very anachronistic. I don't let it bother me because I have faith they'll find their place in whatever world I'm making for them and if I need to change the beginning to fit that then I will. The only problem is sometimes a character does something or says something that I realize later they wouldn't, and whatever it is becomes integral to the story. But it's fun to write out of corners like that, too. I completely agree. I've tried to force myself to write in styles similar to others, but what I've found useful is to take a break and wait for inspiration. Making myself carry around all three of my notebooks and my USB, just in case. Sometimes I don't get inspiration for months and sometimes it doesn't stop. For some reason I also found I write best when I am feeling any emotion except for normal/fine/okay. But then again that's just me. I like to challenge myself and try other styles, otherwise I get stuck in a rut. But ultimately you're right, you have to find your own style. I also think it's important to explore and challenge yourself, corner yourself, force yourself. For me, sparks of inspiration come from making frictional surfaces bump into each other. Hmm, interesting thread. I suppose I will participate. Anyhow, I mainly write fantasy, sci-fi, and contemporary drama. Right now, I am writing two separate series, one of which is drama and romance, the other of which is fantasy and sci-fi. Both stories take place in twenty-first century UK. I also have several other novels on hold. As far as the fantasy and sci-fi novels are concerned, though they do have their share of violent moments, for the most part their main focus is the drama, not the action. When writing in the sci-fi and fantasy genres, I often originally intend to write something light-hearted and comical, but ultimately end up doing something MUCH darker. I get bored trying to write action. It's overly technical and abstract and even terrific action authors like George RR Martin and JRR Tolkien would lose me attempting to describe how a battle unfolds. It's also not the action that makes the story good, but the stakes. I prefer sticking to the drama and the dialogue myself, but I wouldn't say my stories lack for either action or violence, they just lack for fight scenes. I like to keep violence short, abrupt and surprising.

[EG0CENTRAL]

I only asked because there's a lot of Egoman stuff. I'll put in in chronological order, as opposed to what order I wrote them in. Also, some of these titles are really bad and probably going to be changed if I ever decide to do anything with these. ALSO, I don't have too much time tonight, so I'll post more tomorrow (sorry). Spoiler for Egoman: First off, a broad summery of the character himself. Egoman's thing is that he is a god with immeasurable amounts of power. The world that Egoman exists in is supposed to be the same as that of our own. Many times real life characters and events are brought up and my own opinion on those topics are shown by the way that I write about them. Most of the earlier Egoman short stories (nothing I wrote then was long enough to qualify as a book) were written in first person from the point of view of Egoman himself. Egoman stories are mostly about humor and characters. Some Egoman stories I wrote simply to make jokes about a certain topic, and others were made because I truly thought that it would make a good tale. I think that the rest can be explained in the summaries themselves. (I may leave out some of the more filler-ey short stories and the ones that aren't even close to being done) Egoman Prequel: This is (as the title would suggest) supposed to explain who Egoman is and where he actually came from. This novel (one of the first long enough for me to honestly say that) centers around two men in their (if measured in our time) late teens. They live in a parallel to that of our own ancient Greece. These men (known as Alpha and Beta) have a God who is very open with the residents of this place. He lives in a shrine that looks over the entire village (similar to Mount Olympus). Beta is, as the name would suggest, more of the loner type and doesn't have any real friends apart from Alpha, who is the complete opposite of Beta. There has always been a rumor that a world outside of their village exists, and Beta wants to see it all. This is, however, impossible due to the tight leash that everyone in the town is kept on. Beta manages to find a way out of the village through the shrine (that nobody but the god and a select few are allowed in) and decides to invite his best friend along with him. Upon exiting the village they are attacked by several monsters based around Greek mythology and Alpha is taken down. Beta, panicking, somehow manages to shoot fire from his fingertips at the monsters scaring them off. Neither of them had any idea why, but it seemed as though they had the power of gods whilst outside of the village. After this incident, they would sneak out of the village everyday to practice using their new found powers. Until one day, somebody saw them and reported them to the God. The god banished them from the village, never to return for (what would be) 10000 years. Beta was not too upset at this, but Alpha was livid. He blamed Beta for all of what was happening. From this point there is a lot of stuff unimportant to the main plot. They meet, and fight, quite a few different deities from several different ancient religions, getting more and more powerful with every victory. The God hears word of their tales from some of his outside sources and decides that these two are getting much too powerful. He finds them and invites them to come back into the village, but in return they must pledge to never use their powers again. Before Alpha can respond 'yes', Beta steps up and says 'never'. The God, upset by this turn of events, sees no other option but to banish them from this reality all together. Alpha and Beta awaken in a place that is nothing but darkness and, using all of their power, create as much matter as they possibly can (the Big Bang). From this Beta and Alpha split up. Beta works to create a world where everything is in balance. He crates life and shapes in the way the he sees fit. He notices that certain types of apes look similar to what he does and shapes to to be intelligent. Once he notices that they can evolve without his help, he goes into hiding to regain his power. Alpha comes back from the world that he tried to create (it was a failure) and notices that Beta was doing well. He decides to help Beta create his world better (I'm not going to go into too much detail because this is explained in a different story). Beta wakes up somewhere in Eastern Russia in the year 1974. After some searching he discovers a bar with a bartender who tells him to go to America: the land of the free. He goes there and discovers cinema. He realizes what amazing inventions the animals that he made have come up with and is taken aback. The things that they had made were far beyond anything anyone from his little village could ever have created. He realizes that Alpha will want to ind and fight him in the not to distant future, so he decides to start working on getting together a crew to help take him down. He says that he is the strongest man in the world, and some passerby says that he might be the most egocentric, thus fully dubbing him: Egoman. When Alpha hears of his return and his name change, he dubs himself Alter-Egoman and dyes his hair white to contrast Egoman's black. That's where this one ends. This story was written to flesh out the characters Egoman and Alter-Egoman and introduce the God as a "possible" returning villain character. It creates some good parallelism for the planned ending and helps to tie in this world with the real one a little better. This is (probably) the most serious Egoman to date, with very few jokes or references throughout. It, kind of, introduces Egoman as a very cynical person. It shows that he doesn't like people and the way that they all bow down to one true God. He believes that everyone should have a say in what's going on. What it doesn't properly introduce is Egoman's sense of humor and just how powerful he really is (obviously due to how weak he is at this point). Here's a few points about this story that I didn't bring up but are pretty important to the lore: -The entire story is supposed to be in a language that isn't English -The reason certain ancient mythologies exist is because Alter-Egoman tried to teach them to humans -Alter-Egoman being separated from his wife was one of the main reasons that he was so mad at Egoman (can't believe I forgot that one) -There is never any explanation as to what created the God -Egoman used to study swordplay before any of this happened I get bored trying to write action. It's overly technical and abstract and even terrific action authors like George RR Martin and JRR Tolkien would lose me attempting to describe how a battle unfolds. It's also not the action that makes the story good, but the stakes. I prefer sticking to the drama and the dialogue myself, but I wouldn't say my stories lack for either action or violence, they just lack for fight scenes. I like to keep violence short, abrupt and surprising. You've got the idea. You can't spend too much time on the action itself because describing it can be extraordinarily awkward. Focus more on the setup; make the stakes high and the action suspenseful. Try to have people on the edge of their seat.

[Darkmatters]

Excellent thread idea OP! I've been wanting to contribute something, and today I get a chance at last. I've been reading a book about Nietzsche and the Nazis (apparently they twisted his philosophy pretty badly actually), and it started me once again thinking about master/slave morality. That links to an old thread I started about it, just for some back story if anybody's interested. Essentially his concept of master morality is rule by the strong, in which strength, personal charisma, and ruthlessness are valued, and weakness is seen as pathetic, while slave morality is the concept behind Christianity and Democracy - valuing humbleness, gentleness, submission, the golden rule etc, in which the strong are seen as evil. I'm not advocating one over the other, so don't misunderstand, I'm just using his concepts as a framework to view things through, and when you do, you start to see certain things very clearly. For instance, you know that old saw that the good guys in stories are always boring, while it's the bad guys who are more fun to play and for the audience? It's because the protag's hands are always tied by morality - specifically slave morality, whereas the bad guys and certain supporting characters embody master morality, which makes them a lot more fun. Today this is almost canon in fiction, and in the presentation of historical fact as well - strong ruthless characters (except for that one wacky supporting character who turns out after all to have a heart of gold underneath it all) are seen as evil and must be defeated by the humble protector of the meek and mild. It's why there always has to be that sequence of unendurable torments for the hero, he needs to be pushed beyond all limits before he's allowed to get angry and react with any violence (and even then the violence usually has to be within acceptable limits). Unless of course he's an anti-hero, like the Clint Eastwood character from the Dollars trilogy - strong and self-centered, not defending anybody and using the weakness of the humble against them as freely as he uses the strength of ruthless characters to defeat them. These opposing concepts of morality are seen all throughout society - and speaking in very broad generalities it's usually the middle class who are driven by slave morality (even though the lower class is filled with devoutly religious people, they grow up in areas where strength is valued and weakness reviled). And of course the upper class consists of the rich and powerful - and you don't get that way by being humble and meek. Keep this in mind - it's a nice meta-device to help you understand the motives of various characters and why they almost always have to be written in certain ways - or to help you mix things up. What's fascinating to me about it is that you can write a character that will universally be seen as evil because he fits most of the criteria according to the standard slave morality code, but when examined he's actually not evil at all. He just fits the stereotype so people will make assumptions. And the opposite holds true as well of course - you can create a main character who will be initially assumed to be good simply because he's meek and humble, but it can become clear (subtlely) that his real motives are less than altruistic. When you understand the tropes you can play around with them. Additional Thought: One thing accomplished by thinking in terms of master/slave morality is that you're not falling into the stereotypical good/evil polarized thinking, so you're not just creating stereotype characters. When you understand slave morality doesn't = good and master morality doesn't = evil, but instead they're two opposed modes of thinking, then you see that your 'bad guys' actually are people with real motives that aren't understood properly by the 'good guys'. This allows you to write them much more 3 dimensionally (assuming this is your goal).

[Aristaeus]

Excellent thread idea OP! I've been wanting to contribute something, and today I get a chance at last. I've been reading a book about Nietzsche and the Nazis (apparently they twisted his philosophy pretty badly actually), and it started me once again thinking about master/slave morality. That links to an old thread I started about it, just for some back story if anybody's interested. Essentially his concept of master morality is rule by the strong, in which strength, personal charisma, and ruthlessness are valued, and weakness is seen as pathetic, while slave morality is the concept behind Christianity and Democracy - valuing humbleness, gentleness, submission, the golden rule etc, in which the strong are seen as evil. I'm not advocating one over the other, so don't misunderstand, I'm just using his concepts as a framework to view things through, and when you do, you start to see certain things very clearly. For instance, you know that old saw that the good guys in stories are always boring, while it's the bad guys who are more fun to play and for the audience? It's because the protag's hands are always tied by morality - specifically slave morality, whereas the bad guys and certain supporting characters embody master morality, which makes them a lot more fun. Today this is almost canon in fiction, and in the presentation of historical fact as well - strong ruthless characters (except for that one wacky supporting character who turns out after all to have a heart of gold underneath it all) are seen as evil and must be defeated by the humble protector of the meek and mild. It's why there always has to be that sequence of unendurable torments for the hero, he needs to be pushed beyond all limits before he's allowed to get angry and react with any violence (and even then the violence usually has to be within acceptable limits). Unless of course he's an anti-hero, like the Clint Eastwood character from the Dollars trilogy - strong and self-centered, not defending anybody and using the weakness of the humble against them as freely as he uses the strength of ruthless characters to defeat them. These opposing concepts of morality are seen all throughout society - and speaking in very broad generalities it's usually the middle class who are driven by slave morality (even though the lower class is filled with devoutly religious people, they grow up in areas where strength is valued and weakness reviled). And of course the upper class consists of the rich and powerful - and you don't get that way by being humble and meek. Keep this in mind - it's a nice meta-device to help you understand the motives of various characters and why they almost always have to be written in certain ways - or to help you mix things up. What's fascinating to me about it is that you can write a character that will universally be seen as evil because he fits most of the criteria according to the standard slave morality code, but when examined he's actually not evil at all. He just fits the stereotype so people will make assumptions. And the opposite holds true as well of course - you can create a main character who will be initially assumed to be good simply because he's meek and humble, but it can become clear (subtlely) that his real motives are less than altruistic. When you understand the tropes you can play around with them. Additional Thought: One thing accomplished by thinking in terms of master/slave morality is that you're not falling into the stereotypical good/evil polarized thinking, so you're not just creating stereotype characters. When you understand slave morality doesn't = good and master morality doesn't = evil, but instead they're two opposed modes of thinking, then you see that your 'bad guys' actually are people with real motives that aren't understood properly by the 'good guys'. This allows you to write them much more 3 dimensionally (assuming this is your goal). This is a very interesting post, and it made me reflect upon many of mine novels. Personally, I've never liked the typical selfless do-gooder, nor have I liked the typical greedy tyrant. In mine sci-fi & fantasy novels, the main protagonists usually aren't the nicest of people, due to their upbringing or some other trauma. In the beginning, they usually have their own personal agenda, but under a twist of fate get dragged into something much grander. All of the major villains I create have very profound reasons for doing the things they do. In their mind, they're doing what they genuinely believe is the right thing. They often start off kind-hearted, but something happens which, bluntly put, makes them evil--or at least evil in the eyes of everyone else. The shallow villains are usually puppets in a grander scheme. Anti-heroes are mine favourite type of characters to create and read about, because they're never really 100% anything. One moment, they're helping the protagonist, the next moment they're the protagonist's worst enemy. One of mine favourite anti-heroes is the crime lord Johnny Marcone from the Dresden Files. In fact, "anti-hero" is the best way to describe most of mine characters, no matter what side they're on. Most of the people I create are tough, dangerous female characters. I just find them much more interesting to write about than the typical knight-in-shining-armour. [Shrugs] Perhaps it's simply because I hate clichés.