Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

[Flaze]

They will be fine, trust me I know what the worst case scenario is and I live it and it sucks but it most likely won't happen to Britain.

 

[The Booty Warrior]

Speaking of this issue, I was watching some Young Turks coverage a day or two ago and one of the hosts, Ben Mankiewicz, said he talked to a lot of people in the aftermath about the Brexit victory. I think he said that a lot of them basically told him, "I'm actually surprised. Even though I voted 'Leave', I didn't think it was actually going to happen. I was just mad."

To anyone else who's been following this and talked to a lot of people who voted "Leave", has this been your experience?

 

[Lord Kyuubi]

Here's something - from what I hear, there was a significant rise in people googling the EU and what it was after the vote. So I think a notable amount of it could indeed have just been a protest vote of sorts - I mean, I don't know what proportion of the Leave side was likely to be that, but it'll have helped their case definitely. I know a couple of people who voted Leave, one of whom had done a bunch of research and decided that was the better option, and the other's just the sort of person you never want to mention politics to because he'll rant your ears off. For the record, I voted remain, for all the good that did.

 

[AceTrainer14]

I find it interesting how the result seems to have shown how utterly divied the UK is as a country, both with people on the street and the political parties. When I was younger I used to hate how small and boring NZ is, but now I'm glad we don't have such a problematic class divide or such a divided government. The US and Australia seem to have that problem as well, so I'm just glad NZ is so insignificant we seem to have escaped that.

 

[Beth Pavell]

What this referendum goes to show is the civility of the UK. You can find our divisions everywhere but we solve them by arguing and voting

 

[AceTrainer14]

It may be different as a resident (I assume it is), but from the outside I was surprised how dramatically different the view was from London with the rest of England/Wales - the Scottish/Irish division not so surprising though.

I'm also glad that NZ has such a small government so we don't have these major issues that we have not only seen in the UK (internal divisions with the Tories and Labour) and the US (Trump/Clinton/Sanders, all the gun control issues) but Australia as well (four/five Prime Minister's, depending how you count it, the same amount of time we've had one and the US has had one President)

 

[Beth Pavell]

I expected the south of England to be more in accordance with London, but on the whole it's not surprising. London lives in its own little bubble, and that's been reinforced time and again by successive governments

 

[The Booty Warrior]

It really is something. I figured other modern nations around the world didn't have the problems the US has, but no, it turns out they've got similar issues, too.

And with Brexit winning, I fear what effect that might have on the election in the US. Especially considering it's looking likely that the two most prominent choices are going to be a fascist, bigoted con-artist who looks anti-establishment, but doesn't have a clue what he's doing, who threatened to default on the national debt, or an establishment candidate who, aside from being rather hawkish, supportive of disastrous trade deals and one of the biggest panderers in politics, also, along with her husband, likely bears quite a bit of responsibility for what the Democratic Party has become.

 

[Misfit Angel]

Can I voice my displeasure that politics is being discussed here? I mean, I understand that it's a big topic, but surely there are better places for it. That, and this is my one refuge from having to deal with it, don't take that away from me

 

[Beth Pavell]

Since you're saying that, I might as well also say that it would be nice to have a break from it around here.

I'm sort of reminded of the difference between ff.net and the Workshop - this time, with the attitude towards original characters. The prevailing opinion there seems to be, at best, that they're less interesting than the canon cast, and at worst, readers seem to be actively hostile

 

[The Booty Warrior]

Fair enough.

I didn't think that would be the case on ff.net. Given that ff.net is one of the biggest fanfiction sites out there and given that a large amount of badly written fanfiction is found there, I would've thought the prevailing opinion would favor them.

 

[AceTrainer14]

My apologies. If people are unhappy with a topic being discussed, you are welcome to say so.

I imagien with FF that the canon characters make it easier to get views as people either like seeing different takes on them or just like shipping. I would say that people here are occassionally just as unwilling to do the same for canon characters. I think that any story should be judged on its merits rather than what the characters names are.

 

[diamondpearl876]

To each their own, I guess. Personally I would feel very strange writing about canon characters in my stories. The farther I'll go is writing gym leaders, if only because they're just minor characters that make a limited amount of appearances.

...The above only applies for Pokemon fanfic, though. I absolutely love writing Ace Attorney fic, and I'll only write canon characters for that. The difference is probably that Ace Attorney is so much more in-depth with their characterization than the Pokemon franchise is.

 

[AceTrainer14]

Gym leaders are the hardest to write for me, mostly because I find most of them more of a necessity than things I desperately want to go in. And also because though they are meant to be big challenges in the games, even when your fairly new they are pretty easy to roll over. Except for Whitney, of course.

 

[The Booty Warrior]

Interesting. I wonder if, on ff.net, people generally feel like the only way their story has a chance of getting noticed is if they use canon characters as the focal point of their fics.

Do you think the smaller fanfiction community here means writers feel less pressure to rely on canons to get views and/or reviews and will be more concerned with feedback on their writing and be more willing to take a chance on writing OCs as opposed to there?

 

[AceTrainer14]

I imagine with FF.net it makes it easier to get attention straight away if you have recognisable names, places and storylines in your summary. I think here since we don't have summaries as prominently here people have to go into the thread to see what the story is about.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Yeah, the really short summaries encourage more of a snap judgement. The forum format also allows for easier interaction, I think. You can respond to and write reviews more easily when they're all viewable in the same place

 

[Beth Pavell]

Anyone ever have a moment where they just thought "Why don't I own this yet?"

I just had that, finding out that you can subscribe to an online version of the Ordnance Survey. Sure, I really really like the paper maps, but they are, like, about four foot across

 

[AceTrainer14]

So what have people been up to these last few days. Been pretty quiet around here.

 

[diamondpearl876]

Been busy being stressed, I suppose. My pet birdy's been really sick but she's slowly getting better, and I've been doing some writing and Steam games in my spare time.