Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

[Beth Pavell]

Anyone know of any good external disc drives? The one I've got's driving me mad with its incessant clunking

 

[AceTrainer14]

First chapters are pretty difficult to get right. You have to sell your story straight away, and if it is the beginning of a journey-style fic, you have to sell the characters and the world quickly so it looks new and different and people will want to invest time into reading dozens of chapters and not skip it in favour of something else, so they are quite demanding.

@Beth Pavell: You should try asking in Video Games and Technology, the people there will probably have more knowledge than us

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Speaking of Artefact Titles...

The English language has so little to do with England nowadays that some commentators have suggested it may be time to start calling it something else.

 

[canisaries]

that's majorly confusing

i know english is a frankenstein's monster of a language nowadays but they still speak english in england so

 

[Beth Pavell]

Aha. This was the subject of my Uni work for last year. The fact is, by whatever measure English, or even British speakers are in the absolute minority. I think it was Braj Kachru that suggested it should be more accurately called "Global". In terms that English is the global lingua franca it does make a good degree of logical sense. There's also the issue that British Standard English hasn't been considered the gold standard of English for a long time

 

[Misfit Angel]

There's also the issue that British Standard English hasn't been considered the gold standard of English for a long time

It's always nice seeing English represented by the American flag when it comes to choosing a language for something!

 

[AceTrainer14]

Since there seems to be such interest in this topic, I think it would be better to move it into it's own thread if people are keen

Everyone preparing their stories for the awards? Planning this thing, I should have known to be more prepared, but looks like I'll be cutting it very fine this time XD

 

[Beth Pavell]

Could a moderator move the relevant posts to their own thread, then?

 

[AceTrainer14]

Done and dusted

 

[Nitro Indigo]

In the Trope Launch Pad, there's a draft called Adaptation Backstory Change... Which says that Lillie owns an Eevee in the anime. And I don't want to make a TV Tropes account.

 

[CrystaI]

Only one single interpretation is allowed, or many different interpretations are allowed as long as it doesn't mess with its "first origin". Those are the different takes of adaption of a fictional work. Though either has their advantages and disadvantages, so neither way can be said as better than the other way.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

@Crystal I was talking about a factual error I couldn't correct. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

The problem with me trying to come up with stories is that eventually I come up with two mutually exclusive ideas about how it should end, and I can't decide upon which one, so I get bored. And one of the ending options usually resembles Door to Phantomile.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Slightly odd experience today - I was wandering round Westminster with the vague notion of getting something to eat when I realised I was walking right past the Athenaeum Club - one of the buildings I looked at for inspiration when I was describing Cinder Bank Bathhouse. It's looks much better on Wikipedia, put it that way

 

[Misfit Angel]

Yep, pretty much every building I've ever been to has looked better in a photograph. I think the only exception to that rule so far has been the Lincoln Memorial which, for some reason, is just so much more majestic in person.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Neo-Classicism has a lot to answer for. Some of those mansions are perfectly ghastly, like something off the top of a wedding cake.

Although, I will admit this - Nelson's Column does actually look quite impressive in the. Er. Stone. And metal

 

[diamondpearl876]

Guys, I'm no morning person by any means, but it's so much easier for me to get writing done when it's the first thing I sit down and do when I wake up. Even if I wake up at, like, 2PM, I can manage about 1k words instead of my normal ~300 per day. 10/10 would recommend writing over eating breakfast

 

[AceTrainer14]

I'm the exact opposite. I always am able to focus best in the hour before I go to sleep. I don't know where it comes from, I think just simple tiredness with everything else I just sit down and bash out some words. I'd love to write more in the mornings but my eyes don't like it when I go on my computer first thing in the morning.

 

[Arkadelphiak]

My best writing occurs around 3:00 am after I've procrastinated on my work/studies/etc all day. There's no writing quite like that.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

My best ideas come to me at school.

I'm still procrastinating upon doing a Cars 2 review. My biggest hurdle now is trying to find a good way to explain how the movie feels naive about how dark it is.

 

[Beth Pavell]

There's nothing quite like an essay about something you don't care about to motivate writing fiction. I've certainly knocked out most words when I really didn't want to write about identify formation in creative writing