10369 réponses à ce sujet

[Danijou]

I've taken two weeks to recover from a beta shut-out. But it was all valid criticism... and the writing is looking a lot more mature. I know I owe him thanks, but it's a bit bittersweet that it's taken so long. I feel a little... inferior.



Where do you guys RP? I started to apply at one of the ones that advertises here, Warden's Keep or something, but they were blech and elitist, and I have better things to do than walk that road again >_> but, with that said, RP is something I've wanted to do again..

[LupusYondergirl]

Gilgamesh1138 wrote...

And I am one of those strange folks who write linearly. I can't for the life of me write chapters in pieces! And I am such a right brained sort too. I envy those who can do a piece here, and a piece there.

I usually do.  I'll occasionally get bits where I decide "no, I want them to have this conversation after they go to Denerim" and paste it into a seperate word file for storage since I generally like it, just not at that point in the story.  That, or "I think I want them to do xyz while they're in the deep roads" and I'll try and write it out in advance, just so I don't forget. 

I've got my entire storyline outlined, at least roughly, right up through the end of it, though.  I have to, otherwise I get off track and end up with too many dangling plot lines.  I just wrapped up one I've been kicking myself for including since almost as soon as the chapter was posted, because I had no idea what to do with it.  And the resolution is complete crap, I admit, but I just wanted it done and off my outline.

[Tasmen]

Gilgamesh1138 wrote...

And I am one of those strange folks who write linearly. I can't for the life of me write chapters in pieces! And I am such a right brained sort too. I envy those who can do a piece here, and a piece there.

I used to write that way all the time.  But recently I noticed things change.  I've started writing out dialogue first in a lot of cases and then filling in everything else after.  But then there are times when I'll sit down and bust out an entire part of a chapter in a linear fashion.  

I also have a file for each story I work on called 'snippets'.  I put little bits in there of things that I get inspired to write out of order.  So like for 'Enemy', I have a bunch of snippets in there for things that have yet to happen but I know are going to.

[Tasmen]

Danijou wrote...
Where do you guys RP? I started to apply at one of the ones that advertises here, Warden's Keep or something, but they were blech and elitist, and I have better things to do than walk that road again >_> but, with that said, RP is something I've wanted to do again..

Warden's Vigil?  Is that it?  Because um...  That's the one I'm on.  If that is the one, care to tell me what happened that turned you off of it?

[Miri1984]

I tend to write chapters linearly - but the chapter itself will be chopped and changed around a fair bit. Especially dialogue. I have to be careful, because my chapters would be entirely dialogue sometimes otherwise!

[Tasmen]

Miri1984 wrote...

I tend to write chapters linearly - but the chapter itself will be chopped and changed around a fair bit. Especially dialogue. I have to be careful, because my chapters would be entirely dialogue sometimes otherwise!

Dialogue is one of those things I've been working on adding more of into my stories.  I could go internal monologue and descriptive crazy for.ev.er. 

I think that is part of the reason I started to write dialogue out first.  And hey!  It's been working for me or so I think it has

[LupusYondergirl]

Tasmen wrote...

Miri1984 wrote...

I tend to write chapters linearly - but the chapter itself will be chopped and changed around a fair bit. Especially dialogue. I have to be careful, because my chapters would be entirely dialogue sometimes otherwise!

Dialogue is one of those things I've been working on adding more of into my stories.  I could go internal monologue and descriptive crazy for.ev.er. 

I think that is part of the reason I started to write dialogue out first.  And hey!  It's been working for me or so I think it has

I'm the opposite... I could do ten pages of nothing but chitchat.  I suspect if I went through old chapters there were times I did exactly that.  I'm horrible at non-dialogue bits, I make myself go over everything I write just to eliminate the "hello, I am mr. needless exposition" bits.  I'm tempted to try and force myself to write something with zero dialogue in it but I don't know if I could.

[Miri1984]

With exposition I always try to make it happen through action rather than explanation. I wrote huge amounts of exposition in my first fanfic and re-read it and nearly fell asleep, so now whenever something needs to be explained I try to either show it with action (yay!) or have people chat about it. Often I'll have to write the exposition first, though - sort of "this is what people need to know" then I'll scrap it and make it into action or dialogue if I can.



Exposition makes me go 'bleh'. Description makes me go bleh too, though. Makes it hard to make things atmospheric sometimes.

[TanithAeyrs]

Gilgamesh1138 wrote...

Okay any one out there have not writer's block but real life block? I had the energy and momentum to write, and real life just wouldn't let me do it! UGH!

Gil, you're not alone.  I really don't know how I find time to write at all - I have these chapters screaming in my head (except for that last transition chapter that I just e-mailed you - it was a ***** to write) and no time to write.  I just put in another 43 hours in 3 days, I have a funeral to attend tomorrow and I work Friday and go back on call on Sunday, my house is a disaster  and I haven't seen my kids in the evening before bed since last Thursday.  I try to skip sleep so I can write, but much less than 4 hours of sleep a night and my witing turns to gibberish.

Okay, sorry for the rant, I just feel bad when I don't update very often, but real life creates havoc with my writing.

[Tasmen]

Miri1984 wrote...

With exposition I always try to make it happen through action rather than explanation. I wrote huge amounts of exposition in my first fanfic and re-read it and nearly fell asleep, so now whenever something needs to be explained I try to either show it with action (yay!) or have people chat about it. Often I'll have to write the exposition first, though - sort of "this is what people need to know" then I'll scrap it and make it into action or dialogue if I can.

Exposition makes me go 'bleh'. Description makes me go bleh too, though. Makes it hard to make things atmospheric sometimes.

I'm self admittedly addicted to weird word combinations at times and seeing how I can make them work in the context of what I'm writing.  But then again, I also write lots of short sentences too.  

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Miri1984 wrote...

With exposition I always try to make it happen through action rather than explanation. I wrote huge amounts of exposition in my first fanfic and re-read it and nearly fell asleep, so now whenever something needs to be explained I try to either show it with action (yay!) or have people chat about it. Often I'll have to write the exposition first, though - sort of "this is what people need to know" then I'll scrap it and make it into action or dialogue if I can.

Exposition makes me go 'bleh'. Description makes me go bleh too, though. Makes it hard to make things atmospheric sometimes.

Totally share your feelings. Except about the falling asleep bit. If you want to point me to that particular part of your fic, I can see if it does the same for me! ;D

I don't mind descriptive stuff or expo here or there, but I don't like either being lengthy or I find it can suck the momentum out of the story (and generate huge blocks of text). I much prefer dialogue/action driven storytelling.

[odiedragon]

I like to paint with words. Sounds a lot more flowery and pretentious than I mean it, but it's true. I feel like if I'm not at least giving some idea of the surroundings, I'm not getting the reader into my head enough. But I do try to balance it out with dialog, and to make it give whatever action is going on make sense.

[Tasmen]

odiedragon wrote...

I like to paint with words. Sounds a lot more flowery and pretentious than I mean it, but it's true. I feel like if I'm not at least giving some idea of the surroundings, I'm not getting the reader into my head enough. But I do try to balance it out with dialog, and to make it give whatever action is going on make sense.

Just so long as you aren't painting walls... *whistle*

I am the same way.  I love to try to draw a vivid picture in the reader's mind of the surroundings as well as the emotional state of the characters.

[Gilgamesh1138]

I love to draw a picture too. And I love to do dialogue. I'm weird.

[soignee]

My usual writing style is heavy dialogue and the occasional visual metaphor to set the tone. A stormy boat ride against a conversation about politics, for example.

Banter is always first, however, and the scenery fits in after. DDW is not exactly subtle due to the "I want to write about a kickass female and it be like an action movie" premise I set myself, so there's not exactly an abundance of lingering, elegiac prose.

I tried my hand at poetic narrative here in a Dalish one shot I did about a Mahariel longing for her Tamlen, which goes against what I usually write. It went down well, so I suppose I should do more! But Missa Brosca won't let me write poetry nonsense, pffft.

*goes back to writing chapter 21*

[Gilgamesh1138]

Missa would punch you, and not in the arm either. WOOT!!!! More Missa! Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! *does happy dance of sublime joy*



*slaps self in the back of the head Gibb's style, and goes back to writing chapter 87*

[odiedragon]

I think my "problem" is that I see things so visually in *my* head that I feel I'm doing the reader a disservice to not at least try and tap into that somewhat. I'm not very good at bare-bones minimalist one-two punch type stuff. Maybe in dialog, some, but it's certainly not my strong point for action. I often err on the "lets show this bit for character development/interaction, even though not much happens" side, which isn't always correct, but there it is.

In my last chapter, I spent a lot of time wondering whether or not the beginning of the Alistair POV part was necessary, and I kept it because I wanted to show a) his mental space with reguard to Cailan, and that he'd been putting off fulfilling the promise he made to himself to try and find out more about his mother (which in game he refers to as the "did some checking" and found out about Goldanna). I wanted to establish a reason for why he hadn't gone to see Goldanna himself before leaving Denerim for Ostagar, outside of "Golly gee whiz, Alistair needs a personal quest! Lets write one." Sorry Bioware, love ya, mean it, but we all know that was the real reason.

Modifié par odiedragon, 17 juin 2010 - 06:24 .

[MireliA]

I keep writing my chapters as if they're short stories - a bit of description and lots of thought/dialogue. That's fine when it is a short story, but when its a novella-size fiction (which the warden commander was) you need a more description than that. Its a bad habit I need to get out of.

I wish my characters would talk to me as much as some of yours. Honestly, I swear some of them are mute at times *visualises mimes in imaginary lifts*. 

Modifié par MireliA, 17 juin 2010 - 06:42 .

[Gilgamesh1138]

Aw, MireliA, sometimes they are mute to me too. It really helps when friends who are FF writers need me to help them with dialogue for characters, then I can channel them. Though the last one I channeled, Howe, for his Whispering chapter, made me want to vomit and bathe myself in bleach. So there is a downside...

Modifié par Gilgamesh1138, 17 juin 2010 - 07:00 .

[MireliA]

*hands over the mental floss*. I'm really not surprised about Howe. You channelled him very well but it turned my stomach to read. But that means you did a great job. Tim Curry plays awful characters brilliantly.

[Gilgamesh1138]

I know, I love Mr. Curry, he does bad so good!

Thanks for the compliment, and the mental floss. I need it! At least I don't have to crawl around in that cesspit of a swamp called Howe again.

Modifié par Gilgamesh1138, 17 juin 2010 - 07:16 .

[Maria13]

Are stories on FF.net restricted to 15 chapters? How do you convert docs you've downloaded as stories into chapters? Very confused...

[odiedragon]

No, they're not Maria What you're looking at is just the uploaded files section, which does have a limit. Once you associate those chapters with a story, they technically no longer need to be in that section.

Don't feel bad, this confused the heck out of me when I first started using the site!!

I know of one DA:O story that's over 100 chapters long!

Modifié par odiedragon, 17 juin 2010 - 07:49 .

[LupusYondergirl]

Maria13 wrote...

Are stories on FF.net restricted to 15 chapters? How do you convert docs you've downloaded as stories into chapters? Very confused...

Once you hit fifteen you need to go through and delete some of the items in your 'document manager' section.  There's no chapter limit, but you can only have fifteen saved documents at once.  It won't delete the chapters, just the edit-capable file.  They expire after... sixty days?  Something like that.  (Not sure, I've never gone that long without needing to delete some of them), but you can manually remove them, too.
Just click remove, it'll ask if you're sure, and then you can update a new chapter. 

[Gilgamesh1138]

I know I had that same problem Maria! You just have to remove them from the uploaded section, to the right is a remove link. Just take out your earlier chapters, it will ask you if you are sure, click ok. Then you will have room. As odie said, Alairas has over 100 chapters, and I have soon to be 87, I am guessing there is no limit (the never ending story!)

LOL I was too slow for Lupus!  So what LupusYonder said.  And it is 60 days, though I have never gone that long.

Modifié par Gilgamesh1138, 17 juin 2010 - 07:55 .