Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Poll

How important is writing to you?

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


Pages: 1 ... 10 11 [12] 13 14 ... 38

Author Topic: Bay12 Writers Guild  (Read 55773 times)

Supermikhail

  • Bay Watcher
  • The Dwarf Of Steel
    • View Profile
Re: Bay12 Writers Guild
« Reply #165 on: September 18, 2010, 02:34:25 am »

JC, Krelos, you're either my hero, or my villain.

Disclaimer: the current reply was written deep in the night, precariously on the verge of sleep.

Awesome, bjlong! I didn't even know poetry can receive such detailed critique. And, obviously, it's a lazy poem, I just thought that a Writers Guild could use more writing, so I picked a random thought off my mind and tried my best to make up some writing (also, I'm currently reading a book full of quite awesome poems, that's another inspiration). Well, and it's apparent that I'm an atheist, here I'll have to apologize for my unwitting offence, because, to say frankly, the poem was not supposed to be offensive. The main thought, from which everything started, is contained in the last stanza - it's my atheistic realization that all in all, our life amounts only to the fact that someday we're going to die, and Christians and other people believing in afterlife, are sort of in a better position. When you believe otherwise, and also not from the childhood (being a convert), there's always a sad side to your existence... Uh, I'm rambling off. More main thought is that religion is great and no one should try to take it away from people, it's great comfort, unless it requires human sacrifice.

Enough, I've fulfilled my quota of theology talk.

So I slapped this poem together, tried to make it blank verse, and only later realized that some lines rhyme. The idea was to produce writing to liven up the thread, and ideally I'd like to make it regular (one poem a day) and hopefully I'll get better at it. Although, with this approach I risque to come up with some more unwitting offence, just because when it's poetry, emotions hard to control are involved.

Edit: Also, I separated it into verses wrong in the first stanza.

...so it may not relieve any offense from that poem

My prompt reply, which may be complete BS, also I wish I made my point clearer.

Spoiler: 4 (!) viewpoints (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: September 18, 2010, 01:45:27 pm by Supermikhail »
Logged

bjlong

  • Bay Watcher
  • [INVISIBLE]
    • View Profile
Re: Bay12 Writers Guild
« Reply #166 on: September 18, 2010, 08:03:26 pm »

Hark! A prompt post!

I will critique your post later, Supermikhail. And I see where you're coming from, in terms of religion. If you want to work on the poem more, the thing that offended me the most was probably a sense of condescension I got, but no worries.

Logged
I hesitate to click the last spoiler tag because I expect there to be Elder Gods in it or something.

Little

  • Bay Watcher
  • IN SOVIET RUSSIA, LITTLE IS YOU!
    • View Profile
Re: Bay12 Writers Guild
« Reply #167 on: September 19, 2010, 12:03:09 am »

I'm involved in another writing guild sort of thing at another forum, and I managed to write a story that covered their prompt and the prompt on here. Two bird with one stone, and I think it's a fairly good stone. I don't think the title is that good, any suggestions? Comments or critcism is always appreciated!  :)


Spoiler: Peace and War (click to show/hide)

Edit: Spotted a comma where there shouldn't have been one!  :o
« Last Edit: September 19, 2010, 12:50:23 am by Little »
Logged
Blizzard is managed by dark sorcerers, and probably have enough money to bail-out the federal government.

Supermikhail

  • Bay Watcher
  • The Dwarf Of Steel
    • View Profile
Re: Bay12 Writers Guild
« Reply #168 on: September 19, 2010, 07:55:05 am »

bjlong, you're brilliant. Cracked me up, and what's more, nothing I could criticise. Simply amazing... Aside from voices possibly not nailed, because I was at first confused that the first section is by a gay. ::)

Little, nice, too. But I've got a piece of advice that may be very subjective, but on the other may be useful. Basically, when I was reading this piece I was annoyed by the fact that everything had an opinion, it seemed. Like, the grass thought Jonal was cool and brave, while the stones turned their backs on the traitor. I think the problem here is that you put your author opinion where no one expects it and, excuse me, needs it. It's not explicitly put into the heads and the mouths of the characters, but you don't say that it's yours, so it, I don't know, sounds like cold war propaganda, or a letter of an angry nerd on Youtube to the unjust world. Or simply amateur. I'd work on adjectives.

While we're on the topic of multiple viewpoints, I'd like to express an opinion that applying this term to a micro story is cheating. I mean that it's not a great achievement. The difficulty with multiple viewpoints, I think, is to do it so nicely that the reader's immersion is not broken, and it's kind of hard to speak of immersion when the reader completes the story in five minutes tops.

Afterthought: bjlong, I don't think I'm going to work on that poem anymore - rather I would... FORGE AHEAD. But I'd like to reiterate my great thanks for your criticism.

Edit: Little, would you share a link to that other guild?

Edit edit: Updated the OP and holy waters is it huge!
« Last Edit: September 19, 2010, 08:37:28 am by Supermikhail »
Logged

Supermikhail

  • Bay Watcher
  • The Dwarf Of Steel
    • View Profile
Re: Bay12 Writers Guild
« Reply #169 on: September 19, 2010, 12:56:08 pm »

Not to write "Edit edit edit".

So I decided to look at poetry more closely. Of course, by "look" I mean "abuse Google". So, some of the top hits were

This site with a weird title, its highlights being many forms of poetry collected, described and taught neatly in one place. Especially, the ballade, my doom.

Poetry writing: 10 tips, my favourite currently being #9, that says "Rhyme with Extreme Caution" and "beginners [should] stick to free verse". #10 is a runner-up, and says "Revise, revise, revise."
Logged

Fishbreath

  • Bay Watcher
  • [AVATAR HERE]
    • View Profile
    • Many Words
Re: Bay12 Writers Guild
« Reply #170 on: September 19, 2010, 01:27:26 pm »

Re: The OP, you might consider spoilering some things (past prompt responses, tips, Library categories). In the future we may have to 'archive' prompt responses to get around message length limits by copying the links into a post later in the thread and linking to that post from the OP.

/thinkingahead!

And now, back to writing flavor text for the next version of my RPG rules system. Hopefully I've learned some lessons from the first one. <.<

Supermikhail

  • Bay Watcher
  • The Dwarf Of Steel
    • View Profile
Re: Bay12 Writers Guild
« Reply #171 on: September 19, 2010, 01:43:28 pm »

That's reasonable.

Done, and the OP immediately stretched by the new links. ::) I should have really thought about reserving a few more posts, for links and trivia.
Logged

Little

  • Bay Watcher
  • IN SOVIET RUSSIA, LITTLE IS YOU!
    • View Profile
Re: Bay12 Writers Guild
« Reply #172 on: September 19, 2010, 03:09:43 pm »

Like, the grass thought Jonal was cool and brave, while the stones turned their backs on the traitor. I think the problem here is that you put your author opinion where no one expects it and, excuse me, needs it. It's not explicitly put into the heads and the mouths of the characters, but you don't say that it's yours, so it, I don't know, sounds like cold war propaganda, or a letter of an angry nerd on Youtube to the unjust world. Or simply amateur. I'd work on adjectives.

Edit: Little, would you share a link to that other guild?

I'm somewhat confused as to what you're trying to point out in the quote. Could you highlight an example? :)
Also, are you saying I include too many adjectives, too few, or need to find better ones?

Edit: Little, would you share a link to that other guild?

The other guild is only just starting off, and it only has one submission so far, but here's a link.
« Last Edit: September 19, 2010, 03:13:13 pm by Little »
Logged
Blizzard is managed by dark sorcerers, and probably have enough money to bail-out the federal government.

Krelos

  • Bay Watcher
  • Was nauseated by the sun recently.
    • View Profile
Re: Bay12 Writers Guild
« Reply #173 on: September 20, 2010, 02:21:25 am »

Whew, it's hard getting back in the swing of writing story when I've been doing worldbuilding for so long.

But here it is, my five viewpoint prompt story.
Based around a very important event in the history of my world.
I really don't know if I like how it turned out. :-\


Spoiler: "Vylena's End" (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: September 20, 2010, 07:04:40 pm by Krelos »
Logged
Quote from: Ravenplucker
Quote from: Aklyon
Quote from: smokingwreckage
In order to improve the universe's frame rate, we must all throw rocks into volcanoes and then do absolutely nothing, worldwide, for a week, to take pressure off pathfinding.
or maybe throw them into the large hadron collider to atom-smash them instead.
Not to mention to throw all available animals into tiny pits.

Supermikhail

  • Bay Watcher
  • The Dwarf Of Steel
    • View Profile
Re: Bay12 Writers Guild
« Reply #174 on: September 20, 2010, 01:34:49 pm »

First, I'd like to congratulate this thread for being a bit more lively at the beginning. ;) (Than the one Little linked to)

Now,
<...>Massive tubes connected to a now-silent 1)architecture of death were his target tonight, and this was a crucial step in the war. The artillery he was focusing had fired a nearly unimaginable distance this afternoon, smashing into Zapatista jungle fortresses identified by Bosnian automated satellites. The People's State of America had declared a total war on 2)‘all those who fight the stable status quo' and Jonal 3)would be damned if he allowed the fascists to win. A chip embedded in his binoculars would send a signal to an illegal satellite operating just above the atmosphere, half a dozen rods crammed with high-density explosive waiting to be launched by his command. 4)The girl he had loved<...>

     The guards, 5)a mere hundred feet from him, were looking bored and smoking black-market cigarettes. The detail the binoculars provided was amazing; he could see the brand of crappy French cigarettes they were smoking. Four of the guards were dragging out a battered table and four stools that looked like they had been through the 6)Russian-Chechnya Wars

<...>A thousand kilometres above 7)the dirty revolutionary<...>

1) Who is calling it that? It appears to me that it's you. Then why don't you say so somewhere? Or say that it's the character. It feels like the narrative itself is trying to force its opinion on us, which I, for example, don't like. Provide me with reasons to hate this building, instead of saying so without any basis except that you think this story should be about bad government, misguided revolutionaries and deceived soldiers. And not #4.

2) That's a dumb thing to say for any realistic government, as opposed to a government in enemy propaganda. Again, the narrative forcing its opinion.

3) Damned by whom? It appears that there's a quite emotional line from a character spoken for him by air or something. Like, strong emotions just floating around... Well, it may be just sloppily put, but it adds to the overall impression.

4) That's an unjustified story-or-something-hole-plug. There's not much Jonal's characterisation to speak of, and you throw in his heroically deceased girlfriend just to make the enemies look like total assholes. What am I supposed to make of her? That she was just dumb to be doing political graffiti in a city on the verge of civil war? With children? Maybe if it wasn't so blunt it could do, but not this way.

5) Just a side-note. I don't think that a hundred feet is such a great distance to make out a cigarette brand, even without binoculars, or even with crappy ones. It might be a problem with distance, or it might be that this passage has no meaningful place in the narrative.

6) Feels like thrown in, I don't know, for the coolness of it. Why should it be Chechnya, if we aren't given any definite reference to the time it's happening? Is it the Russian-Chechnya Wars in 2189? If so, how are we supposed to know what surviving furniture looks like? And if we're not supposed, then why don't a character say this line explicitly?

7) According to whose opinion is the revolutionary dirty? The satellite's? Or if it's about the physical dirt then it's an awkward way to put it.


That should be enough. I've fulfilled my today's quota of being a harsh critic. Hope that my reply has been constructive. ::)

@Krelos: Very good first part, very punchy, if I may, sucked me in right away, and had I not been so tired after a traffic jam, it would have carried me through the piece in one sitting. Well, I finished it, but after a break.

However, the break didn't help my brains, apparently, because I had a hell of a time figuring out what was happening. I think it's one of those stories that could use one viewpoint fewer. The last part was especially confusing. A seemingly simple fantasy war story turned a literary mystery about figuring out which character is on which side. :-\

I've got a linguistic question. Is the language authentic and native? I believe "Sojesal Loro" means something. Possibly a title (maybe just a name), but I'm curious.
« Last Edit: September 21, 2010, 01:35:56 pm by Supermikhail »
Logged

Krelos

  • Bay Watcher
  • Was nauseated by the sun recently.
    • View Profile
Re: Bay12 Writers Guild
« Reply #175 on: September 20, 2010, 06:58:54 pm »

Indeed it's a title, Sojesal means... ohh my, hah, I switched terms. Sojesal is a bastardized hereditary leadership title, simply meaning "Son of Sojec" and having nothing to do with Loro in that story.
Of course, I used that term in the story of Vylena, instead of the one I meant to use, Sejisec, which is the Evari word closely meaning "Regent Master" who rules over an appointed province.

You're definitely right about the viewpoints though, I think normally I would have returned to Sarot the Huslal pilot at the end, instead of going on to the 5th view.
Logged
Quote from: Ravenplucker
Quote from: Aklyon
Quote from: smokingwreckage
In order to improve the universe's frame rate, we must all throw rocks into volcanoes and then do absolutely nothing, worldwide, for a week, to take pressure off pathfinding.
or maybe throw them into the large hadron collider to atom-smash them instead.
Not to mention to throw all available animals into tiny pits.

Supermikhail

  • Bay Watcher
  • The Dwarf Of Steel
    • View Profile
Re: Bay12 Writers Guild
« Reply #176 on: September 22, 2010, 05:49:01 am »

So your one viewpoint over mine doesn't really count, right? ;)

Fishbreath, after the new update, I've come up with some more advice. I think that you might be approaching your story in a too documentary style - this council's been going on... like in real life, and I don't think many people like to read real council or senate, for example, meetings' transcripts. And while all the little details add to believability, they subtract greatly from the number of interested readers.

Time for another poetic "masterpiece".

Why make something if nothing endures? -
You can lose everything in an instant.
They say “Aren’t the moments of brightness,
And the goodness born by your doing
Worth it?"

They just lie, and may be unknowing.
They just offer a consolation
To have something to keep us from thinking
Of our place on this pointless journey.

But I want no consolation,
No more hide’n’seek playing with Reason.
The truth!

May be continued.
Logged

Fishbreath

  • Bay Watcher
  • [AVATAR HERE]
    • View Profile
    • Many Words
Re: Bay12 Writers Guild
« Reply #177 on: September 22, 2010, 07:32:15 am »

Fishbreath, after the new update, I've come up with some more advice. I think that you might be approaching your story in a too documentary style - this council's been going on... like in real life, and I don't think many people like to read real council or senate, for example, meetings' transcripts. And while all the little details add to believability, they subtract greatly from the number of interested readers.

This is fair. On the other hand, I submit that if I were to have action (as opposed to talking (as opposed to stalling for time)) in every single entry, it would sound really forced when I put it all together at the end.

Vector

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Bay12 Writers Guild
« Reply #178 on: September 24, 2010, 01:38:59 am »

Time for a... prompt!

Prompt: Go out into the world somewhere and describe the setting around you.  Do not allow your own perspective to intrude in the writing at any point.  This is an ultimate exercise in showing, rather than telling.  So: no simile, no metaphor, no comparisons, no poetic/flowery language, and no personification or use of any other author-intrusive literary device.

Here is mine... note that I screwed up a couple of times, but I left it anyway.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Logged
"The question of the usefulness of poetry arises only in periods of its decline, while in periods of its flowering, no one doubts its total uselessness." - Boris Pasternak

nonbinary/genderfluid/genderqueer renegade mathematician and mafia subforum limpet. please avoid quoting me.

pronouns: prefer neutral ones, others are fine. height: 5'3".

mendonca

  • Bay Watcher
  • [CLIVE]
    • View Profile
Re: Bay12 Writers Guild
« Reply #179 on: September 24, 2010, 02:54:10 am »

Vector ... I like that a lot.

It is interesting that you can present things on a very simple factual basis, but with the structure / development / choice of words it can still appear somewhat poetic.

highlights (for me):
'large and square and American'
'the white arrows still offer direction'

Probably because they suggest a different meaning in addition to the purely factual one.
Logged
Pages: 1 ... 10 11 [12] 13 14 ... 38