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I'd like to become a professional writer in the next decade.

7 (29.2%)

Less than videogames.

6 (25%)

I am a professional writer.

3 (12.5%)

More than my health.

2 (8.3%)

I'm not sure.

5 (20.8%)

More than videogames.

0 (0%)

Not at all.

1 (4.2%)

Total Members Voted: 24

Voting closed: April 23, 2012, 11:42:36 pm

[Supermikhail]

Well, it's... I don't know. I get the impression that you feel you need to put a dialogue-tag in the middle of every line. But it's not a screenplay, where every line has to be tagged, and exactly before it, and with such and such space before it. You don't have to tag every line, and you are to decide where you place that tag, if you do.

So, if you don't mind, I'll try to illustrate.

Sandy returned to the table, where Michael was setting his empty tray on the table.  She stood next to him and tried to look professional.

"Who's the lady with the green hair?" she asked quietly.

"Nambala? Rich, like the rest of them. Namibian diamond mine, I hear."

"Well, she's getting cosy with the shipping fleet." Sandy nodded to the blue-suited fat man.  "I guess diamonds do need transport."

Michael snorted.

"So would Bertrand if being drunk was a problem for him. He's had twelve already.  Bloody Sap-Eyes."

"Michael! You know you can't call them that!" Sandy threw her hands up, to her ears, as if not hearing Michael's outburst could make it un-exist.

"I just don't know why Grunt-Eyes don't do this job. Must be the novelty of having us serve them."

Michael rolled his eyes, picked up the fully loaded platter on the table and headed into the crowd.

As he crossed the room one of the lights flickered, and the guests, food and drink flickered with it.  For a brief moment, the mood lulled and a few frowns were exchanged, but soon enough the party went on.

Something like that, although, admittedly, I screwed up, too, but currently I don't have a good enough substitute.

Edit: edit. What about now? Or just pretend there is no blue.

[Iituem]

Well, it's... I don't know. I get the impression that you feel you need to put a dialogue-tag in the middle of every line. But it's not a screenplay, where every line has to be tagged, and exactly before it, and with such and such space before it. You don't have to tag every line, and you are to decide where you place that tag, if you do.

Actually that helps a lot.  Another bad habit my English classes got me into (Damn you, schooling!) was that you DID have to keep identifying the characters and sticking dialogue tags in every line.

Edit 2 in place.  Will try and incorporate these techniques into the DF thing next time.

[Supermikhail]

I guess it's time for a new prompt. Hm. I don't know, write a letter to your dwarf friend. Of course, what's going to be judged is style and authenticity, not emotions of a true fan.

[Supermikhail]

And while we're choosing our friends, I've just discovered this thread with a story idea premise in it, and I think it would be very cool if it was written. I'll go even so far as to say I'd like to write it, because I've suddenly got nostalgized by my old writing-and-drawing-requests thread, but I don't wanna make a new thread for fear it would be bumped. And I, for some reason, don't want to work on my own ideas.

Oh, also, I'd like to congratulate myself in written form on figuring out where I could put a lot of poetry. Unfortunately, that story idea has only two characters in it, and I can't make up any more, despite having written a (rough) outline. They just don't want to be friends with anyone.

[shadow_archmagi]

About the last piece of shadow's advice, I hope you'll excuse me if I say that taking a break is actually for losers. You've got a good chance that you're going to come back to your story or world intermittently, but never really do anything with it. And it doesn't improve either your motivation to write it, or your self-esteem (from personal experience).

Oh, I didn't say TAKE A BREAK, I said "Do something else"

For instance, if you're writing a myth about laser sheep, and you're like 'man this is really dull I hate sheep' then stop writing that myth and start writing a myth about exploding dolphins and then if that gets old start writing about that space cabbage and so on so that way, one of two things happens

1. You get a finished myth! Hurrah, your world is that much more built!
2. You get a bunch of unfinished myths and then eventually you can put them all together to be the story of how the laser sheep eat space cabbage but if a penguin eats it he explodes!

[Supermikhail]

Okay, my bad. If it's about the same world, it's not very losing. And in any case, only if you do it like you said. But if you don't settle on any one myth... Then again, all that advice is probably applicable only to amateur writers. Pro writers can put things off as much as they want, as long as they are things they have to submit to an editor next month.

[Fishbreath]

First off, I'd like to wish myself a happy birthday.

Second, it's time to take the jumper cables to this thread. We've had the same prompt now for a week with no responses, so I think that's a good place to start.

A few nights ago I finished the second book of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, which is an interesting study of the problems of colonizing a new world for one, and more importantly for us, an incredible piece of multi-character writing. I was most struck by how well the author wrote his dialogue; I feel like some of the better parts could be stripped entirely of tags and narration and still be intelligible.

So, in that spirit, here is my challenge to you, along the lines of Vector's (at least I think it was hers) last one in that it's more an exercise than an opportunity to tell a story: write a conversation between three people, without using dialog tags, narration, overuse of given names, or transcribed accents to set them apart. Make it obvious who's speaking based solely on the pattern and rhythm of their speech.

Probably a bit difficult, but we improve through hardship!

EDIT: Corrected a detail pointed out to me by someone downthread. Oops. <.<

[lordnincompoop]

Hey, what about having a community succession story type thing? Might be fun.

And I'll try to think of something for the prompt soon.

[Supermikhail]

It's a good idea to make Fishbreath the Prompt Guy, as I seem to be crap at coming up with good ones.

So, the person who not so long ago (by sociological standards) advocated his fancy word tags, wants to get rid of them entirely? The world is changing, indeed. Well, I feel like I haven't written anything creative for ages, so I'll probably try taking this prompt on.

And now, as we're a few lines into this post, I'd like to ask the opinion of all reading this on the matter that drove me to feel alien to this forum and almost abandon (but not entirely, thanks to Fishbreath) this thread. Do you think that the writer is a servant of readers, that he/she should leave his/her personality behind when getting into a story, and actually what he/she thinks of his/her story is irrelevant as its quality is for readers to decide?

And. I hope somebody agrees with me that critique isn't, at least always, to expose the flaws of a piece, that it may be educational for the writer. Just on that point that you should do to others as you want others to do to you. People learn their whole lives, and writers are among the hardest learners. And if you aren't a writer, and you're learning some new skill, you don't really want people to laugh at you, and much rather want them tell you how you could improve.

Edit: Oh. A community story, as I see it, needs a strong writer to lead it. If someone would like to lead such a project, then speak up.
Although, a community story could be combined with prompts, and then we would only need our dear Fishbreath to provide prompts, and then together wrangle the story through next impossible plot twist brought about by the prompt.

[Fishbreath]

I still advocate in favor of the occasional fancy dialogue tag. I just think it's also a good exercise to make dialogue distinctive.

Community stories are entertaining but difficult. As a theoretical exercise I might suggest something along the lines of a golf scramble, where everyone interested submits a segment and there's a vote on which is the best, but that's rather organized and might also bruise some egos.

[Acanthus117]

((Vector's a girl))

Also, I'm joining NaNoWriMo!

I think it'll be a good exercise, what do you think?

[mendonca]

((Vector's a girl))

Also, I'm joining NaNoWriMo!

I think it'll be a good exercise, what do you think?

I'm sure it will be brilliant exercise. I did Script Frenzy this year and it gave me a great sense of satisfaction to complete it, as well as teaching me a bit about writing large amounts of text whilst having some sort of contained story.

Be prepared for some intensive writing though! and discard any quality checking procedure! It's all gonna be about the numbers of words, not the quality of writing. And good luck!

Anybody else signing up? I said I would, so I suppose I will. I'm in the process of outlining a story now, so that would provide good fodder ...

[Acanthus117]

Yeah, if the story turns out well, I'm thinking of refining it and stuff.

[Supermikhail]

Well, good luck to you all. I've currently 3 stories at some degree of outline, and about a dozen other ideas not always related literature, and I can't get working on any one of them because I feel I haven't tucked in all the holes, that I don't have enough detail for the actual writing to be a breeze, etc. I feel like these ideas are pounding on my skull from the inside and cursing me in different voices for my laziness, lack of practice and general incompetence. I don't think I'm going to be doing any writing in the near future, because I won't have access to writing implements in my neat room at a local asylum.

So, does anybody know of a good outlining software?

Or is anybody interested in collaboration?

Or is anybody a professional psychologist?

[lordnincompoop]

I'm hoping you're joking, Supermikhail.