Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

[AceTrainer14]

So, I just had the strangest dream while having a nap.

I was an avid fisherman with many, many titles, accolades and feats of strength to my name, and I was always looking for the next challenge. During my travels, I met an old man who claimed that he knew the location of the largest Gyarados ever seen, and that he would ferry me and two others out to its location if I dared to risk catching it. I took his challenge and spent two days on the open sea with someone who looks like the character in Beth Pavell's avatar and a strangely silent middle eastern man, boating out to the area the old man instructed me to go to. We arrived at a small island with an inactive volcanic mountain, covered in tropical vegetation, with the only notable feature being a wooden beach hut.

When I got there, I spent several hours casting my lure out into the ocean with no luck, thinking the old man had pranked me. However, just as I was ready to give up, I felt the most monstrous tug ever and the waves started to go absolutely mental. About half a mile out into the ocean, a huge Gyarados, I'd say maybe 250 feet long, surged out of the ocean. It looked different, though, it was green, lacked the fins seen on its face, and was one, long snake-like creature covered in armored plates, rather than segmented. It attacked the island, setting it on fire, and I took cover in the flimsy little hut. I was devising a plan of how to deal with it with the other people, but I woke up before I could enact it.

Sounds like this could be your next story AC

 

[Flaze]

Ace stole the words right out of my mouth xD that sounds like a really great idea for a story, though I wonder how one lone fisherman can take out a gyarados.

 

[Misfit Angel]

I doubt I'd write something like that out, I'm struggling enough with managing Storm Island.

 

[Kelleo]

Haha, that's quite an interesting dream. lol

I'm no stranger to turning my dreams into fics though. Well, sorta. I more or less use them as scenes in stories, with some alterations. For example, I once had this Fire Emblem dream where Ike was fighting the Black Knight on a mountainside cliff during a dark thunderstorm. It was totally epic. Lightning struck the rock above, causing a rockslide to plummet towards the two. The Black Knight shoved Ike to the ground and dashed away, hoping the mercenary would get crushed. Ike was buried in the rocks, but he wasn't killed. He lifted the big rock on top with his incredible strength and hurled it right at the Black Knight. I used this scene in one of my short stories, though instead of the Black Knight, Ike is fighting an entirely new baddie.

 

[AceTrainer14]

A reminder toall judges that judging is essentially due now so can you please post your scores and comments over the next twenty four hours or so. If you need a few more days than please let us know via PM

Hopefully everyone we will have results up by the end of the week

 

[kintsugi]

Yup. Sorry for shutting down nearly entirely on the forums here; I felt bad doing fun things when I'd only finished reading, like, half of the things I needed to for the awards. All finished though, now, so tell me if anything important and--

Mega-Metagross what. Must have.

 

[Elric von Bek]

So there's a few readers here who enjoy A Song of Ice and Fire, myself included. Are there any fans of Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen in the Writer's Workshop?

 

[AceTrainer14]

Unfortunately, we have hit a bit of a snag with judging due to some judges going AWOL without explanation and leaving the rest of us to pick up the pieces. As such, my original hope to have the results posted tomorrow will not occur, but hopefully it will not be long until things are finally sorted.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Related to my equally meaningless thread about authors and age floating around here somewhere, I'm going to try and open up a lighthearted discussion about gender. I am a fool, but I'm going to do it anyway. I spotted a thread on Fanfiction.net (I was bored) discussing whether one can tell the gender of an author based on the way they write, and whether there are observable trends in the way different genders write. Thinking about Bulbagarden, the only trend I can think of is that on the whole I think more of the action-oriented fics are written by the guys

I wonder what gender people would think I am based on my story alone

 

[Misfit Angel]

That's a tricky subject for me, being transgender. I was born and was raised as male, but all as I was growing up, I identified as female, having traditionally feminine interests, hobbies, etc. My parents weren't exactly on board with that (and for the most part weren't even aware of how I felt on the inside), so I kept being shoved into more traditionally masculine circumstances, which has led to a bizarre, self-hating mess of masculine and feminine traits that don't know how to coexist.

I'm not sure if it's affected my writing, however. I absolutely love over the top action, drama, political intrigue, etc, but at the same time, I have a soft spot for romance, touching moments and general moments of friendship. I feel the way I've been taking Storm Island has been a bit action heavy, which I guess would make sense with that hypothesis, as I've been forced into a male setting for much of my life.

As for what people assume I am based on my writing? Doesn't bother me. Man, woman, I am what I am. I'll only care when I've put significant effort and progress towards my transition.

 

[Dorothy]

Unfortunately, we have hit a bit of a snag with judging due to some judges going AWOL without explanation and leaving the rest of us to pick up the pieces. As such, my original hope to have the results posted tomorrow will not occur, but hopefully it will not be long until things are finally sorted.

Sorry to have been part of the problem :/ I got all my devices taken away, then went on a service trip for a week, then came back to things for college. The first bit is what screwed me over, though.

 

[Instrutilus]

I still don't get the issue with genders in stories. Just write someone and roll a dice to figure out if they'll be male or female, there's honestly zero difference between them to me.

Sorry, my brain defaulted to that when I saw the discussion about author's genders. To be honest, it still applies, I don't see why a style of story determines any gender, anyone can write or like anything.

 

[Dorothy]

I still don't get the issue with genders in stories. Just write someone and roll a dice to figure out if they'll be male or female, there's honestly zero difference between them to me.

Well, depending on the kind of story and setting you're working with, there could be a great deal of difference in how males and females are treated and interact with society at large.

 

[Instrutilus]

Well, depending on the kind of story and setting you're working with, there could be a great deal of difference in how males and females are treated and interact with society at large.

Oh, right, people are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and some treat other people based on appearance over the actual personality. I keep forgetting the world doesn't operate how I think it should.

 

[Lugion]

I'm pretty comfortably male, but, having grown up in a fairly conservative Texas town, one of my biggest fears for the past ~8 years was that people would treat me differently because I'm bisexual. So I might not know exactly what it's like to be transgender, but I can sympathize.

 

[Beth Pavell]

I always wondered how you identified @Eliza Prescott. Now I can use a pronoun without giving offence, always a bonus ^^

 

[Flaze]

I was actually surprised xD

 

[Legacy]

I think there's probably many authors out there that write a certain way because of their experiences and how they see the world in general, not necessarily just male vs. female.

 

[Instrutilus]

True, I constantly plan out worlds that are utterly crapsack because that's how I see the world I inhabit, I guess other people would do the same. I just thought I was weird.

 

[kintsugi]

I think the biggest tell for whether a (beginning; don't really see this in seasoned folks) writer is male or female is the gender of their main character. I'm not going to go into some diatribe about how this is secretly internalized misogyny/misandry/whatever, but I find that male writers tend to have male leads, and female writers tend to have female leads. It's especially common on fanfic.net, where maybe three stories out of a hundred have leads of the opposite gender of the writer, but even on here, I think everyone but Ace had their lead as the same gender as they are, heh.

Again, this isn't a bad thing, but I thought it was interesting. ~~

Also, yup, I'm attracted to crapsack apocalyptic worlds like flies to honey.