Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

[Gama]

(I still can't quote things, because this laptop is stupid and evil aaaargh I can't wait until I get back to my computer.)

By 'confident' I didn't mean confident in my ability to write, I meant confident in my ability to keep writing the story and not get bored and wander off to do something different. I have a terrible attention span. (I am an extremely mediocre writer, but I am entirely unbothered by this.)

(Also: aaaw, no-one's going to make fun of me? That sucks. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who can be bothered to make fun of me, and it's very lonely.)

FF.N is quite different. Virtually all the reviews over there are some variation of 'cool story, bro. plz write moar', which... doesn't really help. I like in-depth reviews, especially the ones which are largely negative, so... FF.N just doesn't do it for me. And people over there are really hypersensitive when if comes to criticism! Even the ones who aren't hypersensitive don't like to take it - true story, I knew someone over there who near-constantly got told 'start a new paragraph each time someone speaks', and it took her about two years to finally start doing that. The whole place is just impossibly depressing.

I suppose that is somewhat to be expected with the larger communities. Be sure to post in the Review Exchange once you start your story. From what I've seen, reviews garnered through the Review Exchange tend to be far more in depth.

 

[Caitlin]

Question. I've been thinking of posting something new (that Star Trek thing I ranted about awhile back), but there's one thing that has plagued all of my postings that I want to fix.

How do I make paragraphs on these forums? Indentation makes things a lot easier for me to read, but every attempt I've made so far looks silly or doesn't work properly. Using indentations shifts the entire block of text over, which is what I want to avoid. So far I've just been using, for example:

---

- - - - - Andrea and Larson were peacefully sleeping under a palm tree on the sandy coast of Silvermist City. Beside them was Furball, snoring loudly as he was curled around a coconut that was beginning to sprout. The sun had just begun to rise over the horizon, obscured by hazy clouds. The rising tide brought the crashing waves closer towards the rocky cliffs, waking Andrea up.

- - - - - She looked at her R-Kit and groaned. "6:57 AM... <i>greaaaaaat.</i>" She stood up and brushed the sand off of her clothes, yawning. "Hey, wake up." she said, pushing at Larson's shoulder.

- - - - - Larson turned to the side, making a bizarre noise.

---

I still looks quite distracting, and the forum automatically removes tab characters. Or am I worrying about this little thing too much?

Edit: I threw in double spacing, as that's something I don't use when writing but (often) use when posting stuff.

 

[Kelleo]

Question. I've been thinking of posting something new (that Star Trek thing I ranted about awhile back), but there's one thing that has plagued all of my postings that I want to fix.

How do I make paragraphs on these forums? Indentation makes things a lot easier for me to read, but every attempt I've made so far looks silly or doesn't work properly. Using indentations shifts the entire block of text over, which is what I want to avoid. So far I've just been using, for example:

---

- - - - - Andrea and Larson were peacefully sleeping under a palm tree on the sandy coast of Silvermist City. Beside them was Furball, snoring loudly as he was curled around a coconut that was beginning to sprout. The sun had just begun to rise over the horizon, obscured by hazy clouds. The rising tide brought the crashing waves closer towards the rocky cliffs, waking Andrea up.

- - - - - She looked at her R-Kit and groaned. "6:57 AM... <i>greaaaaaat.</i>" She stood up and brushed the sand off of her clothes, yawning. "Hey, wake up." she said, pushing at Larson's shoulder.

- - - - - Larson turned to the side, making a bizarre noise.

---

I still looks quite distracting, and the forum automatically removes tab characters. Or am I worrying about this little thing too much?

Edit: I threw in double spacing, as that's something I don't use when writing but (often) use when posting stuff.

Use indent tags. I do all the time, though I use it to indent the entire chapter so it's separated from the other text in my posts. To intend a single line, just use the tags on that line.

Like this.​

The tags: [INDENT*][/INDENT]

Just remove the asterisk.

 

[TheLlama]

However doing as you say, @Kelleo; the whole paragraph will be indented, and that is what @Caitlin; wanted to avoid. To answer: There is no feasible way to indent only the first line of a paragraph.

' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' Doing like this however seems to work very well. What I have done here is to change the text colour of whatever fill I used to create the indent (mark the indent/look very closely and you'll see a row of apostrophes) to the colour of the forum background. That may be an issue since there are differing forum themes, but for everyone using the standard theme it looks just about right.

 

[Kelleo]

However doing as you say, @Kelleo; the whole paragraph will be indented, and that is what @Caitlin; wanted to avoid. To answer: There is no feasible way to indent only the first line of a paragraph.

Uh, I said SINGLE LINE. Not WHOLE PARAGRAPH.

I'll use a piece of your post to show what I mean.

"Doing like this however seems to work very well. What I have done here is to change the text colour of whatever fill I used to​

create the indent (mark the indent/look very closely and you'll see a row of apostrophes) to the colour of the forum background. That may be an issue since there are differing forum themes, but for everyone using the standard theme it looks just about right."

There you go. It's just a matter of figuring out where to place the end of the tag and that isn't too difficult. Preview the post BEFORE adding the ending tag and you'll see which word you have to put it after.

 

[Pride]

Or you could hit the spacebar 5 times before you post it...

;P

 

[an illegible mess.]

KADSA. wait what are we talking about i wasn't listening lol.

i'm slacking off and being lazy. summer break=laziness and being a derp. i'll try to get some motivation to write today or something ffffff. ever since the awards my passion has flattened pretty much.

ugh. i just keep thinking that what i'm doing is all for shit and that i'm a terrible writer and that i should just give up. everyone on here practically ignores my stories; even the pokemon fan-fictions. pfffff.

sorry for being all emo and b'aaawwwing it's just a gloomy day and i'm disappointed with everything right now. auuugh.

brb writing up my shitty fan-fic. asdf. *flops over*

 

[Lugion]

Oh my God, Navi is the worst thing in any video game ever.

 

[Pride]

Why? I mean, it never REALLY bothered me, but it was quite a bitch.

What'd do this time?

 

[Kelleo]

Why? I mean, it never REALLY bothered me, but it was quite a bitch.

What'd do this time?

Navi has a gender, you know. xP

Anyway, I like her, honestly. I've never found her annoying in the least bit. Now Tatl is a different story. >_>

 

[TheLlama]

However doing as you say, @Kelleo; the whole paragraph will be indented, and that is what @Caitlin; wanted to avoid. To answer: There is no feasible way to indent only the first line of a paragraph.

Uh, I said SINGLE LINE. Not WHOLE PARAGRAPH.

I'll use a piece of your post to show what I mean.

"Doing like this however seems to work very well. What I have done here is to change the text colour of whatever fill I used to​

create the indent (mark the indent/look very closely and you'll see a row of apostrophes) to the colour of the forum background. That may be an issue since there are differing forum themes, but for everyone using the standard theme it looks just about right."

There you go. It's just a matter of figuring out where to place the end of the tag and that isn't too difficult. Preview the post BEFORE adding the ending tag and you'll see which word you have to put it after.

That doesn't fit in at all with my forum size - the line ends way before the border of the post, so it looks extremely weird. And therein lies the problem - your method fails because people view the forum in with different sizes, my method fails because there are differing colour themes (as far as I remember, anyway). So, like I said, there is no feasible way. Mine is as good/bad as yours ;P

Oh, and when you said "line" I thought you referred to a single line standing alone (since that's what your example looked like), not the first line of a paragraph. It seemed kind of implied in what you said, thus me misunderstanding what you meant to say.

@Red; it deletes those spaces upon posting, so no, that doesn't work.

@Lady Lucifer; well, if you're writing for your own enjoyment then people's attention doesn't matter. And if you write to get attention, well... there's no use in doing anything for that sake alone; attention comes naturally from doing what you enjoy; someone's bound to notice eventually Moreover, even if it's all "for shit", so what? If you enjoy writing then that's all that matters; take that enjoyment. And if you don't enjoy writing, well, there's absolutely no reason to do it in the first place

@Lugion; Oh God. HEY LISTEN! HEY LISTEN! HEY LISTEN!
Someone on my morning bus has her as a message tone I so wanna kill that person

@Kelleo; Oh? Tatl had a slightly annoying personality, but I generally enjoyed seeing her character develop through the game. What about her didn't you like?

 

[Kelleo]

@Kelleo; Oh? Tatl had a slightly annoying personality, but I generally enjoyed seeing her character develop through the game. What about her didn't you like?

The only thing Tatl had over Navi was having more of a personality. I just didn't LIKE that personality. I found it annoying. I also didn't like the ringing noise she made. Also really annoying. And if you're in Ikana Canyon and wearing the Garo Mask, she says that she senses their presence and repeats this like every five seconds. WAY more annoying than Navi repeating something every hour or so.

 

[Lugion]

The thing about Navi is she has been useless when I really need her. I just died against Barinade earlier, because she's wouldn't lock on to the damn thing while I was trying not to lose my last heart to his electric attack.

 

[LightningTopaz]

Navi's also a big help when fishing too

 

[an illegible mess.]

i know, but it just makes me feel like a terrible writer. i love writing and all, but i want to know that i'm good at least. :x

*sigh* whatever, it's complicated and i am just not feeling good today so... unno...

i got a little bit of work done on the fan-fiction at least.

 

[ShinyFlareon]

@Lady Lucifer; On days like this, when you feel like nothing you do is validated, you kind of have to just give two giant middle fingers to the world and go "fuck you, I'mma do what I want" hypocritical advice ftw

 

[Pride]

Ah, Feliciano, filling threads with woman-holes and middle fingers. I approve.

Anyways, I finished reading Chapter 6 of Pocket Monsters Book 1 today by Legacy. That dude deserves a golden taco. His story's fantastic.

 

[TheLlama]

@Lady Lucifer; attention does not quality make; quality makes quality. If people don't recognize it, or if they never discover it, it says nothing, whatsoever about your qualities. Often some of the greatest musicians, some of the greatest authors, artists, whatever - they're all obscure, they're unknown. Even if people don't take a subjective interest in something, its objective qualities can still be up there.

And yeah, I know it's not easy to realize and that some days just feels like crap, but it's true. And hey, you are a good writer, trust me.

 

[Kelleo]

Llama_Guy is right. I bet if more people read my Fire Emblem fic, it would've gotten the Best Non-Pokemon Fic award instead of my Zelda fic. It IS my most popular work, after all. My Zelda fic hasn't gotten half as much attention as this story has, in fact. I'm told that Fire Emblem: Dawn of Darkness has an excellent story, and a good portion of the original cast is made of very good characters (I can see how, too. I've reread this and I can't believe I came up with the whole thing. I've really outdone myself here).

Some people have even told me that my fanfics should be made into games. What an honor that would be, would it even be possible. Of course, it isn't, but yeah.

 

[Legacy]

I want to start a new fic, but I don't want to abandon Pocket Monsters, and I know I won't be able to stay active writing two fics. I can barely update PM more than once or twice a month.