Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Caz]

Some sort of writing that may or may not materialise some time in the future.

Also there should be more stuff here, but it's outdated and I haven't done a more recent explanation post yet. Welp.

[Grakelin]

Write something substantial and filled out. Then send it around. The best way to know if your idea is good is if you can stand to spend time writing it in the first place.

[Caz]

Write something substantial and filled out. Then send it around. The best way to know if your idea is good is if you can stand to spend time writing it in the first place.

Thanks. I'm about 70% finished the first draft (230 pages) and it's going well. Just wanted to see what others thought of the idea or if it could be improved some. If you guys want I could expand on the ideas in this thread. 

[Willfor]

Thanks. I'm about 70% finished the first draft (230 pages) and it's going well. Just wanted to see what others thought of the idea or if it could be improved some.

You're currently in the phase of writing where getting any input from other people should be avoided. You need to focus on getting the story finished, and once the story is finished, THEN you can ask these questions. You will kill your motivation to finish if you try to get input at this stage.

Finish your first draft, and get that great sense of accomplishment. Then show your entire first draft to people in your real life who like to read. Tell them to rip it apart; most of them will tell you that it's great or not even read it. Ignore those people. Listen to the people who are ripping it a new one. Read over your draft again, and see if you can identify what they are talking about. Chances are that they have at least some (or a lot) of truth that you will have to face honestly. HOWEVER, at this point you will already have a full finished first draft of a book! Go you. And so going over the entire thing once more won't be as scary, and you will have a lot to work with if you decide you need to write the entire thing again but a little different. Or you can use entire sections unchanged if they were good. Or you can edit sections that were a little weak.

So yes, ignore any input you are getting at this stage of the game, and write your heart out. Go on! You only have 30% left! Go to it! Damn I wish I could get to 70% you lucky devil.

[Caz]

So yes, ignore any input you are getting at this stage of the game, and write your heart out. Go on! You only have 30% left! Go to it!

Alright. I'll come back when the first draft is finished, and spam more lore stuff then. 

Thanks.

[Caz]

Well, I'm still writing the book but I'm going to use this thread as a place to dump lore/world building stuff I have going on. (Post above)

Fun fact... I used DF's world generator to make the original landmasses, and edited it so many times over the months that it turned into this. O_o

[Supermikhail]

Fancy. You've got an awful lot of barren wasteland on your map.

[Caz]

Fancy. You've got an awful lot of barren wasteland on your map.

The barren lands are mostly what used to be high-population areas in the old empire before the Cataclysm. They got the worst effects from it, any living thing in those places gets mutated terribly and dies, even if clouds drift over to water the ground they'll just fizzle out or start raining fire.

[Caz]

Small update on this, though I doubt more than a few people even read this thread 

I'm not forgotten about the project and have been slowly working on it... the draft is up to about 324 pages now, but it's longer than I expected and might stretch another 100 before it's done. The main reason I'm posting is to show the new map I've finished while procrastinating yesterday. I'm hoping that it will give me the mettle to continue - at the stage now where I look back on what I've written and try not to hit 'delete all'.

I've also been working on the concepts, a character sheet and the noble factions of the world. The Empire is split into seven houses each with their own territory, families, interests and magical talents. I hope to make them interesting enough so that they're not the cardboard cut-out scheming, corrupt bad guys.

Will add more on the nobility and the locations in the world later.

[Supermikhail]

Pretty.

Is that light-blue-green ice on the island (continent?) in the upper-left corner? e: Yes, it is (compared it to the earlier map, where it's clearer).

Also, are those huge straight mountain ridges? Especially the one under "Sarkoth". When I look at it Larry Niven's Ringworld comes to mind.

Also also, there's a bit of a cloud layer, right?

Again, very pretty.

A bit of a nitpick - don't rivers look a bit rail-roaded? I mean if you look at the Earth's map, rivers subdivide (or whatever the right word is) very frequently. And vary in width. True, there is something going on around Antlau but the rest of the rivers appears highwayish.

[Caz]

A bit of a nitpick - don't rivers look a bit rail-roaded? I mean if you look at the Earth's map, rivers subdivide (or whatever the right word is) very frequently. And vary in width. True, there is something going on around Antlau but the rest of the rivers appears highwayish.

You're right. They are only the 'main rivers' though. Admittedly I know next to nothing about geography so the map probably makes no sense in real-world terms. My go-to excuse for when anyone realises this will be 'a wizard did it'.

[Caz]

snip (old post now defunct)

[Caz]

I want the world's placenames to have some kind of uniformness. Too often you see in fantasy that names are just picked out of a hat and mean nothing. Since there was an old advanced Empire in the past, my idea was to have many of the placenames derived from that ancient language, but twisted and bastardised. The others will get names on their own merit, of what recent peoples have taken to calling the land etc.

The problem is that I have no bloody idea how to wrangle the linguistic side of it. So I'm researching that too. Also, some graphic-ish things to get my inspiration back going again. Art always kindles the mind. Or at least I hope so. 

The draft is resting now at almost 95,000 words. I don't know whether to throw some of the minor plot elements away or to add to them and weave them into the main story. I wish there were signposts for this kind of thing.

[Caz]

Well, I think I can tentatively say the first draft is finished, at 400 pages. It's a cobbled together nonsensical mess of a novel, but a novel at least.

Now begins the editing. I feel like Urist trying to smooth the walls of the entire mountainhome with her beard. Writing must be for masochists.

[Caz]

snip (old post now defunct)