General Writing

[Kinokokao]

Oh, Gundam Wing. My first and true love.

[noodles]

I only ever wrote fanfiction, starting out. I don't know what changed, but now, I also feel like it's a lot harder to write than making my own stuff up. I can't conceivably know enough about the characters to write them convincingly. And any creative liberty I take feels offensive.

[Akarshi]

I'm getting more used to writing fanfiction now...though today, I just wrote a story on a lark that I read and went "okay this is kind of bad, I'll post it on that other account I never use with no other stories on it".

Imagine my surprise when that really bad shitty story turned out to be my most popular one. I'm just like, what? Seriously? It was so bad! It's so weird....now I regret not uploading it on my main account haha....

[Kinokokao]

I'm embarrassed by my older stuff, like from 2002-2003, but I'd feel weird setting up a new account. I've been tempted, though.

Incidentally, I saw this image almost fit and did the necessary incredibly bad MSPaint edit skills to make it fit perfectly:



this is main character from the original story I'm currently writing.

[ClefdeSoll]

[Kinokokao]

Don't feel like you need to read all 78 pages of this nonsense to join the conversation!

I'm pretty shy about showing my work. :3

Also, recently I've considered trying to be more serious about my writing, maybe actually work hard toward producing a complete, original novel. I have an idea I like, so.

Who knows.

[ClefdeSoll]

Oh, do tell! I'd really love to read it and give you some tips and what I like most about it if you'd want! ;v;

Most people who've read MY novel loved it, but they were all artists... So if any of you has tons of useless free time and feel like reading it, that would be awesome. I'd like to know if it would appeal to anyone else...

But yes, what's the idea you have in mind? You could develop it a little without actually writing it and when November comes, you enter the NaNoWriMo? It's a fun challenge and it's really motivating. I've never been as happy as last November when I was writing. <3

[Kinokokao]

Well, I don't want to wait until November to develop it. I've casually done NaNo a little bit, but never with much enthusiasm for real effort. My first NaNo attempt was with a GW 'fic anyway. Recently I did about 120K worth of words toward a different GW 'fic over a 2 month period, so, whatevs.

The original novel idea I'm wanting to do I actually have quite a bit plotted out. I'm bad at story summarizes (I always ramble on too long with them).

Oh, something else you should know about me: I'm a fujoshi. Like. Incurably. So my writing features gay protagonists and gay romances. There's actually a somewhat burgeoning market for that sort of writing. I certainly read enough of them myself.

Anyway, with that caveat in mind, the story is a light fantasy set in a desert/mediterrranean type world. The main character is a bed slave with ESP-like magic powers. He serves a king who has become corrupt and paranoid. The city in which he lives is besieged by this great conquering hero (ala Alexander the great, almost). Within the first act of the story, the king is murdered by his own advisers, the city falls, and at the end of the chaos, the bed slave falls into the possession of the conquering hero. His romantic interest is the Captain of the conqueror's private guard.

When I was planning the story, I didn't bother with names, so even though I've tentatively named the three principal characters, they're still Bedslave, Conqueror, and Captain. Heh. I've got the three acts of the story mapped out and quite a bit of the minor scenes and stuff like that. The first act is the most solid in my mind; I'm fuzzy on the third act. Like I said, it's a work in progress kind of thing.

[ClefdeSoll]

Well, that still sounds pretty promising! o: I'm not a hardcore fan of yaoi or boy love, but if you want, I'd still like to read it. c:

[Drathi]

So, I'm working on a little subplot that will eventually work its way into my character's mainplot, once things get freed up in this RP I'm in. So, I wanted some feedback on how to make this type of foe something people would feel like they were up against something truly unstoppable with no real hope of actually defeating it.

The concept of it is that this thing is the bane of magic. It's either last of its kind, or one of a kind (nobody quite knows) and its way of cancelling out magic is by eating the spells or items thrown at it (I will warn the friends using magical weapons of this property, beause some are close range.). Sealing it can work somewhat, but it will slowly eat away at the seal(the last one breaking after possibly 1000 years.). It also has adapted so that most mundane weapons cannot harm it much either. Due to its last appearance being during the Middle Ages, it's skin is very goopy and can easily resist attempts at close combat with swords and spears, or ranged with arrows. Another defense it has is this thick fog that follows it from its mouth. I'm thinking of giving it more of an effect on how people fight it. The fog is hazardous to magical beings (anything not human or being supported by magic).

As for offense, I'm still working on it. It's not a shapeshifter-type of thing; it's a passive monster who probably won't even notice its being attacked. It will just see food in front of it and just slowly walk towards it.

[Maxine MagicFox]

^_^ Getting myself sunk back into The Little Questors. Went back through some old chapters and feel like I seriously need to clean up a lot but then I remind myself, this is NOT the final rewrite, that seriously I'm just setting the facts down permanently and that it's only natural that it is going to need more clean up.

:\ I just feel like I'm really missing out on getting my characters' emotions in there. I feel like I'm being too static with them. A lot of he does, she saids, but not what they are FEELING. I'm missing character connectivity which is strange considering how vibrant my characters are.

[noodles]

http://bixnoodles.tumblr.com/post/24056665424

[SirthOsiris]

Main character of what I'm probably going to be writing first:

[Maxine MagicFox]

*sigh* My poor writing. Actually, though, I'm feeling very inspired. Now if I can get off work and not be tired, I might actually accomplish some writing.

I'm feeling I might need to add a minor scene in somewhere. I'm wanting one of my characters to have BEGUN developing feelings for another by another scene but nothing in between warrants it. Maybe I'll edit the current scenes in some way to include something a little bit touching for my character.

I'm still having troubles writing this damnable action scene. Its an epic scene: Maxine vs Dragon... WHY am I not inspired with it? I should be having a blast. I need to analyze myself and figure out where the source of this discouragement is stemming from. :\ GRRRRR

[Maxine MagicFox]

So, I figured out the source of my non-inspiration. I just didn't like how the scene was suppose to play out. It didn't feel dramatic far enough.

The problem was that in the original the dragon battle was far more shorter. However, in this version I wanted it be dragged out a bit longer so I had rearranged it. So, so some scenes got altered in the process: one of which included Maxine dropping her sword.

Maxine NEEDS to drop her sword, because the sword has a very special trick to it that I'm not revealing in this book - which is sort of funny because that trick is how she survives in the final chapters. It becomes a major plot point in the next book that she stars in. So, the sword has to get lost for a while or I'm writing myself into a plot hole. Which is fine... except for the problem of: how the hell does she get it back?

The original chapter, the flight was short and it was plausible that it wouldn't be too far from her. In this one, I was having trouble with the return of it. :\ And it was forcing me to include something along the lines of how in Kingdom Hearts the blade always runs back to Sora, or even in Percy Jackson the sword returns mysteriously inside his pocket.

This sword has enough going on for it and this is NOT a property I wanted to instill in it. Especially when one of the ideas I have for a later book includes this sword being stolen as a plot point. I don't mind giving up a future book storyline like that, but seriously... I didn't realize how much I did NOT like having this be a feature of this sword. It just doesn't make sense and there's several points when I sit back and think that could cause plot holes - one of which goes back to the idea that she needs to drop this sword in the first place!

And if this wasn't enough, I had another scene where "a memory triggers". Maxine's the reincarnation of a Fallen Angel and the memories are in her head and I've got several scenes where she remembers things, but after sitting back, I felt that this memory triggering at this very moment was very "deus ex machina". I feel Maxine needs to figure this out for herself.

Especially when I've already created a deus ex machina moment a few pages before.

One of the difficulties I have with writing this story is that Maxine has god-like powers and sometimes things do happen, but I do NOT want these moments to be close together and I want there to be as few of them as possible otherwise it just seriously cheapens the story. "Meh, don't worry. Maxine will survive. Either she'll remember something or her magic will work by itself." <-- I do not want my readers to feel this.

So, after I analyzed those problems, I reworked the chapter and in the end I am FAR more happy and content with the result. I still wish I could have devised something a little better with the sword. I wrote the original chapter back into it, so now it's a miraculous find: "Oh, hey, what's that glittering in the grass? Yay! It's my sword! ...Somehow so close." but it's far better than her sword just mysteriously popping back into her hand. At least I am now half way through the chapter and am finally writing the scene I want. Maxine vs Dragon! :3

I'll just keep hammering my head and maybe on the next rewrite I will have come up with something a little better or I can rework something and make it come out a little better. One of the ideas I'm still not dumping is the idea that instead of the sword coming loose from the dragon's back finally and flying off into the night sky is that it remains in the dragon's back, she can't get it out, and she jumps to save Kriss. She doesn't need this sword until the epic scene where she cuts the dragon's head off with it.... but the gives me the new problem of how does she get it from the dragon's back.... this is suppose to be a luck kill of hers! She doesn't have time to retrieve the sword from its back! UGGGG!!

My head hurts.