Writer's Corner: Writing for fun and profit (but mostly fun)

[Zrak]

Even writers who aren't also artists often provide a storyboard. I recall some pretty good self-deprecating humor from Grant Morrison about his storyboards for arkham Asylum in the fancy edition-with-the-script.

[Septimus Faber]

So, out of curiosity: What is everyone working on/preparing to work on/considering to work on some day?

Any ideas what kind of things you'd want to write about?

Me? Expanding this weird-as-hell piece of prose which I've still no idea why I wrote into something rather more meaningful.

Spoiler: Weirdness ahoy!

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When you look at the moon, do you expect it to look back?
Will it stare into your heart on a cloudless night as you divine meanings from the stars?
No.
Yes.
It is for us to decide.

I talked with that creature. I told it of myself, and it did the same. I would lie on a hill, at night, and smile at the moon; and I imagined that it would smile back. What else would a friend do? Answer me that.

I helped with its problems, and it with mine. It told me of how lonely it was. Sitting up beyond the air. All it could do was gaze at the earth, so far away, and know with perfect clarity that every one of us had another of themselves.

But not the moon.

I called it by its name, and it did the same. It had no name for itself before I spoke to it. Who would use it? So I called it the Dreamer, the Watcher, the Watched.

I think it liked that.
But this was long ago.
I do not see the moon anymore.

There was a time when I would talk to the moon every day. I was a child, a dreamer like my friend, and had little else to do; but I grew up. I think. I did not speak to the moon, I did not hear it, I did not see it.

And when I looked up it was not there.
Perhaps it left. Perhaps it fled.
I think it vanished. When it was alone. Maybe it died, maybe it simply faded.

Only I remember.
And when I die, what then?

[Yora]

Is it just me, or does it seem that worlds with plenty of monsters have mostly disappeared from fantasy outside of games? There are the occasional zombies and not-quite-human servants of the Dark Lord, but I can't really think of any books from the last 20-something years that have a broad range of monsters. The only exception would be Andrzej Sapkowskis Witcher books, which do mention a huge amount of creatures, simply because the main character is a professional monster hunter. But from what I've read so far, many of these are only mentioned by name to show characters having encyclopedic knowledge of magical creatures without actually making an appearance.

[Dhavaer]

The Dresden Files has a bunch of different monsters. Sometimes a bunch of different types of a bunch of different monsters.

[Man on Fire]

I've been wondering - what are good ways to easily and quickly tell an origin story and get it out of the way? In MCU thread people brought in how Guardians of the Galaxy did it by quick bits of dialogue, mostly witty remakrs, and pretty much told us all we need to know about entire crew, aside from Star-Lord.

Second, I've seen thread on 4chan in which they tried to tell origin stories the way Grant Morrison did it in All-Star Superman

Spoiler: 1st page of All-Star Superman

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4 captions, two words each. I've remember it actually worked well for some characters and teams

Spoiler: examples

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Runaways:
Evil parents.
Amazing legacy.
Run away.
New family.

Doctor Strange:
Haughty surgeon.
Crippled hands.
Kind mistic.
Sorcerer Supreme.

And parody of that origin for Hawkman (guy whose origin is well, yeah):
Has mace.
Has wings.
No shirt.
Fights crime.

I also like how some olf tv shows could drop you necessary bits of informations in the intro. Like this - quickly explains the origin and we can go from there to the story itself.

So, any other ideas how to accomplish what these methods did?

[BeerMug Paladin]

With regards to monsters, I can understand why having lots of monsters existing within the world is something to keep away from. The more random stuff there is unrelated to the story, the more of a distraction they could potentially become. In my own writing, I once referred to a dragon merely in passing, as a sarcastic joke.

With regards to origins (for superheroes), I think the explanation given for some of the characters in Empowered was pretty good. In part, because it highlights that origin stories don't matter all that much compared to what characters are doing now. The characters with origin stories that are relevant to the story happening now is what matters, so that's when the origin stories are best given.

Probably the best way to introduce a character is to show what they are capable of doing, and what motivates them. Origin stories can do those things, but it's unimportant compared to those two things. So there's probably no reason why a character actually needs an origin story. You can think of it later on as long as the what and the why of what they do is communicated clearly.

If you absolutely do need to go through an origin story (and quickly), it's best to keep things as simple as possible. I've always thought that Courage the Cowardly Dog has a pretty good opening. It's helped by being a fairly simple premise.

[Yora]

Why have origin stories in the first place? It's part of the Heroe's Journey plot, which has been terribly overused, but seems quite irrelevant to most stories, especially episodic ones.

In the original works, we never learn about the origin stories of Gandalf, Conan, Obi-Wan, the Emperor, Beowulf, James Bond, Kaptain Kirk, or Indiana Jones. And as a kid, I didn't know the origin story of Batman to enjoy watching him. With early superheroes it made some kind of sense, since they can do impossible things and you would want to know how this one person is able to do this one thing that nobody else can. But for characters who are simply outstanding, but within the normal rules of the world, it seems rather unnecessary.

[Septimus Faber]

Why have origin stories in the first place? It's part of the Heroe's Journey plot, which has been terribly overused, but seems quite irrelevant to most stories, especially episodic ones.

In the original works, we never learn about the origin stories of Gandalf, Conan, Obi-Wan, the Emperor, Beowulf, James Bond, Kaptain Kirk, or Indiana Jones. And as a kid, I didn't know the origin story of Batman to enjoy watching him. With early superheroes it made some kind of sense, since they can do impossible things and you would want to know how this one person is able to do this one thing that nobody else can. But for characters who are simply outstanding, but within the normal rules of the world, it seems rather unnecessary.

This is just my opinion, but I think that you are entirely right, and they aren't necessary. However, certain people want that sort of thing, notably some authors and a number of fans. It helps, like maps and invented languages, to create the sense that the fictional world is in some way real rather than merely somewhere where stories happen.

[Yora]

I tend to feel rather the opposite. By focusing on the heroes life story, the story becomes all about him and the world is just his stage, and everyone else just there to give him something to interact with.
For stories that are about the characters personal development, that probably works just as desired, but most stories really are about specific events. And I think it makes everything feel more belivable if the protagonists just happen to be some of the people involved in the current event, instead of the event existing for them.

[AdmiralCheez]

My general guideline is that origin stories should be left out unless it's absolutely critical to understand the character or plot. Like Yora was saying, it makes the story more like a biography of the character, rather than the story of an event. If that's what the story you want to tell is, then great. Otherwise, I generally don't like reading backstory.

That said, if you absolutely have to include it, I prefer bringing it up through dialogue, or some other way that's integrated into the current events of the plot. Nothing kills the momentum of a story more than pausing it to tell a different, shorter story, then jumping back to where you were and hoping everyone remembers what was going on. Or starting out with an origin story as a prologue and then skipping later to where the actual story starts. It's just clumsy and awkward, and most people don't do it well. In most cases, it's not even necessary.

[JediSoth]

Mike Stackpole's writing seminars at Gen Con are worth the money. I got more from them than I did several of my upper-level composition classes when I was at University. There's a ton of good advice out there, some of which is contradictory. Don't feel bad if what is working for someone isn't working for you. Everyone is different (and we're all special... blah blah) and everyone works differently. Don't be afraid to suck. That's what revisions and editing is for.

If you're going to write for money, make friends with an editor. Or pay one. First drafts are never fit to sell. Self-edited work is rarely fit to sell (though you will find a LOT of people who are deluded and say THEY are the exception).

[Yora]

What are your thoughts on writing stories backwards?

It's not such a big issue with literature where one person is pretty much calling all the shots, but in episodic entertainment there is nothing as annoying as a story with a half-assed ending because the writers didn't really know where they were going the whole time. And there are plenty of writers who did 10-book series and longer, who outright admitted of not really having an idea how the whole thing would end until they got there.
I think in any story that is in some kind about a mystery or about finding a solution to a seemingly impossible task, you really should have a general idea of a clever resolution from a start. That way you can have things build up to the end and when it comes it will look very consistent with what has happening up to that point. If you just write things as you go, the ending will most likely either not be clever, or feel quite shoehorned in.

[JediSoth]

I usually skip around a bit when I'm writing. If I get stuck on a scene where nothing seems to be flowing or working for me, I'll put it aside and write a scene later in the story. Sometimes, an idea for a scene comes to mind and I'll write that, then figure out where to put it before I finish the first draft. Most of the time, by the time I get to the end, I will have already written it and the last week of writing was spent bridging all the gaps.

[Yora]

My personal approach is to first decide what the resolution of the story is intended to be, that is whatever clever solution or reveal there will be, and what the characters have "learned" from it. Once that destination is clear, I try to more or less pin down which stations the story will have to pass through to provide all the elements that will be needed for the conclusion to work and make sense. Once that much is plotted out, I start actually writing at the start of the story and do all the scenes in chronological order, with perhaps some adjustments in the final editing phase.
While it's good to have the path mapped out, doing the actual writing in the real order seems like the best way to make sure you don't forgett mentioning elements that will be important in later scenes, and keeping all your references to previous scenes in order.

[Solamnicknight]

Hey aspiring fantasy writer here. Anyway what is a good way to come up with names both for places and characters? I mean I can't go calling the archmage of a local mage's college joe or a dwarf bob. I could really use some advice on this. I usually come up with a character's or place's concept before the name and it is becoming a problem.

[BeerMug Paladin]

I'm not any good with names, so I can't really give good advice on that front.

I feel that writing stories- particularly longer stories- is akin to setting up a series of dominoes in the first half and knocking them down in the second half.

My main project I've been doing is undergoing a second draft because in part, I've realized that when I did my first run through, I had some of those dominoes missing.

Knowing where I wanted to end up wasn't enough. Once I had something written, I wound up with something a bit different than I expected, and because of that I needed to go back to the beginning to change things around a bit.

[Yora]

Nobody is good with names. I've even seen successful and experienced writers say not to bother too much with good names, they are not that important. Don't see how that helps as advice though.

[AdmiralCheez]

I get really lucky and name things that turn out to be either real world words or really close to one. Whether or not they're good names is debatable, though. So, I guess my advice would be to look up words in other languages and get inspiration from there. Just make sure to double check the meaning of it so that you don't accidentally name anything offensive, or stupid.

As for writing out of order, I like to have a general idea of where the story is going to end up, but often times I don't know exact details until later. Sometimes all I go on is a tone; is the story going to have a happy ending, or a depressing one? Then again, sometimes I know exactly what the last scene is going to be, and I put things into place to get there. It varies from story to story.

[shawnhcorey]

What are your thoughts on writing stories backwards?

One piece of advice I heard, and can't remember where, is to write the climax and then write the story to the climax. I have come to the conclusion that it works for some writers and not for others.

[JediSoth]

... I have come to the conclusion that it works for some writers and not for others.

This holds true for just about EVERY piece of writing advice out there.

I think what throws people is that a lot of writers phrase their advice in such a way that it reads like instructions (or commands) and if you don't do it there way, obviously, you're wrong. Even these people will admit that their advice is just suggestions and that different things work for different people.

There's only one bit I think that is pretty much universal to the path of becoming a good writer: you must read a lot and you must write a lot.

[Yora]

I get really lucky and name things that turn out to be either real world words or really close to one. Whether or not they're good names is debatable, though. So, I guess my advice would be to look up words in other languages and get inspiration from there. Just make sure to double check the meaning of it so that you don't accidentally name anything offensive, or stupid.

As for writing out of order, I like to have a general idea of where the story is going to end up, but often times I don't know exact details until later. Sometimes all I go on is a tone; is the story going to have a happy ending, or a depressing one? Then again, sometimes I know exactly what the last scene is going to be, and I put things into place to get there. It varies from story to story.

Also, don't look up the meaning of two words in another language and put them together as a compound word. Unlike English, most languages have gramatical rules that change the ending of a word, depending on how it is combined with others. Admited, it's completely redundant and in most cases does not include a single bit of new information or necessary clarification, and I think English did the right thing in dropping almost all these completely (I can only think of the ~s on verbs in third person singular), but if a native speaker sees such a google-translation, it just looks really terribly bad. No "Unausprechlichen Kulten" or "Schweinhunds", please.

[leakingpen]

When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I played the publishing game a lot more, mostly with short stories. Never got any money worth mentioning, but managed to get a few things published. I keep thinking about getting back into it, but inertia is hard to fight.

I have also been getting back into short stories, and poetry, and this is an excellent resource for places to submit. http://writingcareer.com/

[Man on Fire]

Why have origin stories in the first place? It's part of the Heroe's Journey plot, which has been terribly overused, but seems quite irrelevant to most stories, especially episodic ones.

In the original works, we never learn about the origin stories of Gandalf, Conan, Obi-Wan, the Emperor, Beowulf, James Bond, Kaptain Kirk, or Indiana Jones. And as a kid, I didn't know the origin story of Batman to enjoy watching him. With early superheroes it made some kind of sense, since they can do impossible things and you would want to know how this one person is able to do this one thing that nobody else can. But for characters who are simply outstanding, but within the normal rules of the world, it seems rather unnecessary.

I think it's more important for somebody who tries to get into wiritng for comics, considering how many people complain over and over how they cannot get into it wih decades of continuity, even through there are many self-contained books that do not require knowing any of that. With extraordinary people like superheroes you need to one day answer the question who they are and where they came from. And not only with superheroes. I mean, any kind of person who do things who should be impossible by setting rules should be given some background or they come off as ridiculous or even as mary sues. I mean, if in a story everyone use, say, Blood Magic, you don't need to explain it. But if one guy shows up with Shadow Magic, you might want to explain what the heck.

[Yora]

Today I made a word count of all the Conan stories written by Robert Howard, and noticed something quite interesting. The combined word count of all the stories is under 340,000 words, which is about the length of a single book in the Wheel of Time and Song of Ice and Fire series. Or two thirds of The Lord of the Rings.
While Howard wrote a lot more than just Conan, I think it's quite interesting that this popular character with his many adventure only got the equivalent of a single novel, and not a particularly huge one either.

I would tend to say that it feels like there is more than just that, which probably comes from the fact that the format of the story has a significantly higher density of content. It's basically a highlight reel of his 30-year journey through Hyborea. I think if someone where to write down this characters story as a novel series with a single continous narrative today, it would probably be four books easily, if not even six. However, would it really add that much more to the story and would it tell us more about the character and his deeds? I think not much.

I think the format of episodic stories of 10,000 to 20,000 words really should be something that more writers should be aware of as one possible format to tell their stories. Whenever I talk to or hear from people who want to write, they always seem to go with the novel as if it's the only option, often even going for the whole trilogy package on their very first attempt. I agree that writing short format stories is probably not a good way to practice for becoming a novel writer, but why does it always have to be novels? To become popular as a writer and create characters and stories that become cultural icons, other formats can do the job too.

[BeerMug Paladin]

The novel I'm working on has that format specifically because the setting is split into regions where the dominant culture in each region corresponds to a particular human philosophy, and their most natural outcome of political organization. The plot is about the benefits and drawbacks of that particular philosophy. While I only have ideas for fully detailed plots in a few of these regions at the moment, I feel the analysis of each region's culture and what types of characters and events happen within each region deserves its own self-contained plot.

When I finish my work with it, if I write another novel in the setting I'll make it self-contained and about a different region and its corresponding philosophical complications.

The other thing I'm working on is a blog with shorter entries but a serialized ongoing story. I work on each entry until I feel it's complete, then post it and move on. I'll continue with it until I run out of ideas.

[leakingpen]

Today I made a word count of all the Conan stories written by Robert Howard, and noticed something quite interesting. The combined word count of all the stories is under 340,000 words, which is about the length of a single book in the Wheel of Time and Song of Ice and Fire series. Or two thirds of The Lord of the Rings.
While Howard wrote a lot more than just Conan, I think it's quite interesting that this popular character with his many adventure only got the equivalent of a single novel, and not a particularly huge one either.

I would tend to say that it feels like there is more than just that, which probably comes from the fact that the format of the story has a significantly higher density of content. It's basically a highlight reel of his 30-year journey through Hyborea. I think if someone where to write down this characters story as a novel series with a single continous narrative today, it would probably be four books easily, if not even six. However, would it really add that much more to the story and would it tell us more about the character and his deeds? I think not much.

I think the format of episodic stories of 10,000 to 20,000 words really should be something that more writers should be aware of as one possible format to tell their stories. Whenever I talk to or hear from people who want to write, they always seem to go with the novel as if it's the only option, often even going for the whole trilogy package on their very first attempt. I agree that writing short format stories is probably not a good way to practice for becoming a novel writer, but why does it always have to be novels? To become popular as a writer and create characters and stories that become cultural icons, other formats can do the job too.

THey wrote smaller back then. If you suggested a novel of that size to a publisher, they'd laugh at you. 60-80 k words was a good novel.

[Dhavaer]

Grammar question: when writing in past tense do you refer to the 'present' in the narration (as opposed to the present of the narrator) as 'now'? My last story was first-person present tense and I seem to have forgotten how to do past tense.

Quote from the text in question:

Spoiler

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"There's no need to rush," she assured me, "but I was hoping to ask a favour, and I thought you'd appreciate a free lesson. Did you have plans today?"
I did; practise with the aforementioned band. Arjun, our drummer, acoustics geek and general organiser had hinted that he'd gotten a gig for us on Friday night. It was now Thursday, so I couldn't very well skip out.

Bolded relevant portion.

[Yora]

Yes. "It is now thursday" wouldn't make any sense, unless the narrator is telling this story to the reader on that very same thursday.

[Toastkart]

I was wondering what happened to this thread, I didn't notice that it had been moved. Looks like I have some catching up to do.

+1 to this. I don't know what I'd do if I lost my notes in document files on my PC and my thumb drive. I drop (almost) everything and type ideas down whenever I get a brainstorm idea or segment of dialogue, and if I'm not near a computer I jot it down on scrap paper to type it down later.

Keeping everything in one's own head is not viable. She's pitting 15 minutes of forced ideas (sitting in front of her drawing table thinking about what should happen next) against 1 year of brainstorms that could've been written down instead of forgotten.

I've tried keeping track of every little idea I've had and I've found it to be pretty tedious. Especially when there are long stretches of time between writing sessions, going back through notes like that often takes too much time and there have been times I wrote down something that made absolutely no sense later.

I haven't written down ideas I've had in a very long time. If I have an idea that I can't remember when I sit down to write again, then it must not have been a very good idea.

A lot of it comes down to what kind of writer you are. I don't plan out dialogue in advance, sometimes I don't even think about what the characters will say. I plan scenes in terms of events and actions. I have to write dialogue in the moment or it doesn't flow like a natural conversation.

Is it just me, or does it seem that worlds with plenty of monsters have mostly disappeared from fantasy outside of games? There are the occasional zombies and not-quite-human servants of the Dark Lord, but I can't really think of any books from the last 20-something years that have a broad range of monsters. The only exception would be Andrzej Sapkowskis Witcher books, which do mention a huge amount of creatures, simply because the main character is a professional monster hunter. But from what I've read so far, many of these are only mentioned by name to show characters having encyclopedic knowledge of magical creatures without actually making an appearance.

I haven't kept up with popular fantasy in recent years. I think in part it's because the tone of fantasy has changed over time. I also think it is partially because the genre has expanded to have its own subgenres. Urban fantasy may have the same trappings as more traditional fantasy, but the focus seems to be more on the character than the adventure. It's no longer about going to fantastic places and seeing fantastic and wondrous things, it's more about internal struggles with drama and angst, set against a fantasy background.

With regards to monsters, I can understand why having lots of monsters existing within the world is something to keep away from. The more random stuff there is unrelated to the story, the more of a distraction they could potentially become. In my own writing, I once referred to a dragon merely in passing, as a sarcastic joke.

This is a good point. There's also an element of realism here. Large, dangerous animals are often wiped out or severely curtailed as population grows and civilization expands. The same would likely be true of your average monster.

I've been wondering - what are good ways to easily and quickly tell an origin story and get it out of the way? In MCU thread people brought in how Guardians of the Galaxy did it by quick bits of dialogue, mostly witty remakrs, and pretty much told us all we need to know about entire crew, aside from Star-Lord.

So, any other ideas how to accomplish what these methods did?

I think it largely depends on what kind of story you're writing. With all of the super hero movies coming out recently dealing with mostly established characters, the origin stories could have been left out (and sometimes were. Thor, for example, already had Mjolnir). But many were added anyway in part to expand the world and in part so the writers could put their own twist on things.

I'm afraid I don't have good advice for you. The novel I'm writing could be considered to include an origin story, in the sense that the first act details how the main character joins an organization that will have a significant impact on his development and interactions in the future. At the same time, he's a man in his mid-twenties who's already been through a major war and countless minor skirmishes, not to mention his duties and responsibilities, both political and social, as a landed noble.

Probably the best way to introduce a character is to show what they are capable of doing, and what motivates them. Origin stories can do those things, but it's unimportant compared to those two things. So there's probably no reason why a character actually needs an origin story. You can think of it later on as long as the what and the why of what they do is communicated clearly..

I'd agree with this, and have made use of it myself.

Why have origin stories in the first place? It's part of the Heroe's Journey plot, which has been terribly overused, but seems quite irrelevant to most stories, especially episodic ones.

In the original works, we never learn about the origin stories of Gandalf, Conan, Obi-Wan, the Emperor, Beowulf, James Bond, Kaptain Kirk, or Indiana Jones. And as a kid, I didn't know the origin story of Batman to enjoy watching him. With early superheroes it made some kind of sense, since they can do impossible things and you would want to know how this one person is able to do this one thing that nobody else can. But for characters who are simply outstanding, but within the normal rules of the world, it seems rather unnecessary.

Again, I think it largely depends on the kind of story you're trying to write. Only main characters and villains need origin stories (when they need them), and a few of your examples are neither. That being said, I use the Hero's Journey less as a plot structure and more as a character arc.

Hey aspiring fantasy writer here. Anyway what is a good way to come up with names both for places and characters? I mean I can't go calling the archmage of a local mage's college joe or a dwarf bob. I could really use some advice on this. I usually come up with a character's or place's concept before the name and it is becoming a problem.

I use random name generators for people. This one has been most useful to me because you can select multiple ethnic regions and it's tied to a database that will give you the meaning of the name, and alternate forms in other languages.

As for place names, that's what I have a much harder time with. Sometimes I look at a map of a region that has the culture or language I'm drawing inspiration from and pick names that sound good. Or pick several and combine them. This can be a bit trickier, though, because places are usually named what they are for a reason, and that reason can often be difficult to track down. Also, as Yora mentioned, combining words in a language that you don't know can have unintended consequences.

[Yora]

This is a good point. There's also an element of realism here. Large, dangerous animals are often wiped out or severely curtailed as population grows and civilization expands. The same would likely be true of your average monster.

That is a very poor argument against fantastic elements in a fantasy story.