Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

[Beth Pavell]

I tend to forget that it's actually ok to have scenes consisting mostly of dialogue, funnily enough.

The planning stage should help with it. If you're only outlining your plot then you're missing some opportunities. The planning stage is also where you can plan out the structure of a chapter - where and how you're going to set the scene, where you're going to break to build atmosphere, etc. It may also be symptomatic of your plots being driven too much by conversation. Ask yourself if you're having characters explain the plot to each other instead of you, the author, narrating it to the audience

 

[Lord Kyuubi]

Merry Christmas, everyone. Hope you all have a good time, whether you've got big celebrations or just a fairly simple day lined up.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

I hope everyone's had the kind of day they wanted to have. Best wishes to all. x

 

[BackSet]

Merry Christmas.

You know, all I really wanted for christmas was some motivation to write and an actual beginning to my fic.

But I guess Video Games are cool too, haha

 

[Daren]

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and will have a great New Year.

 

[Greninjaman]

I have so many ideas for stories in my head, that it's hard to focus on one. I would start something, then stop, then start something else and so on.

 

[BackSet]

Ouch. I know that feeling.

 

[Greninjaman]

I decided to write a brief plot summary for my stories. That should help. One of them does have my attention. It's the old 'Sucked into a Video Game' trope, but instead of the person being forced, they go in willingly because they want to save someone who is trapped inside. Now the question is: What game do I use? There are so many out there to pick from. It's hard to pick.

 

[LightningTopaz]

An RPG seems like the logical choice--a Mario-esque platformer or a Zelda-esque adventure game could also work.

 

[Greninjaman]

An RPG seems like the logical choice--a Mario-esque platformer or a Zelda-esque adventure game could also work.

Pokemon could also work.

 

[Misfit Angel]

I hope everyone's had the kind of day they wanted to have. Best wishes to all. x

I've actually forgotten the finer details of that day. I was hoping for something uneventful, evidently that's what I got. So, no complaints here!

I also got this badass goth fairy statue, too bad the face looks like something out of a low budget PS2 game.

 

[Ryoma Maser]

I also got this badass goth fairy statue, too bad the face looks like something out of a low budget PS2 game.

That looks like something straight out of Dungeon & Dragons, like a Dark Elf ranger.

 

[Greninjaman]

question concerning chapters: How many is too much?

 

[BackSet]

There are, like, 8000 fanfics out there that have more chaoters than I have the ability to count (literally, I am incapable of counting past... maybe 50. I dunno. Bottom line is I can't count very high, okay.) some of which are quite popular so I'm not sure there's such thing as "too many chalters".

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Chapters can have variable wordcount, so it's not a meaningful consideration.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

How early in your planning process do you come up with a title for your story? It's one of the first things I come up with, but I'm prone to changing it during preparation.

 

[Lord Kyuubi]

I'm incredibly poor at naming pretty much anything, so I tend to put off giving anything a title for as long as possible. Most of my works are just saved as 'The one with these characters', or 'The one where a Leafeon goes into town', or something along those lines because it works for me and good titles are hard.

I think if I were planning to share something online I would need to come up with something a little sooner, though. Probably I'd have some vague ideas of what to call a story from the fairly early phases of thinking about the characters and plot, but I doubt I'd be satisfied with anything I'd think of at that stage. I expect the only way I'd absolutely finalise a name would be once it was online and therefore too late to change any further.

I don't know, there are times when the 'right' name for something seems so clear it pretty much names itself, but that's very rare in my experience. Normally titles just aren't something I think about very much.

 

[canisaries]

i usually try to think of a pun (Dragony) or something vague but snappy (Hunter, Haunted; Seiren), but when those don't work, i just try to think of some object or place or character in the story and name it after that, like Mail for Welltown (there is mail that needs to be delivered to a place named Welltown), Pletora's Story (it is a story and its protagonist is named Pletora) or HIM (the all caps pronoun Red ends up using for the god he meets in this oneshot). anyway i usually either come up with it along with the premise, near the end when i have to call it something to post it or during writing if i happen to get a good idea.

 

[Beth Pavell]

I tend to write the chapter first, and think of a name later, based on how the finished piece comes out. As far as story titles are concerned ... it's hard to say. I remember being inspired by the title of The Long Earth when titling The Long Walk (In hindsight it's turned out to be more appropriate than I thought it would be, although I wish I'd known it was also a Stephen King novel).

 

[J Bouken]

Anyone else get the urge to expunge their entire writing history from the internet?

I used to keep my older works on the internet as a reminder of where I've come from and the changes I've made in my writing style, but I've developed this strange feeling of detachment to it, like none of it really represents me anymore. Problem is, I'm struggling to replace the old works with new works.

I have this annoying issue of thinking up an idea, lingering on it (or being pulled away by work or something), and then whenever I get around to developing the thing, I feel like it's out-of-date and people won't be interested anymore. I guess that's why I admire writers who can work on one thing for such a long time, even as the world goes on.