General writing fiction discussion thrad.

[Roger]

^ Yeah, but they had a chance to expand upon it in CC but didn't take that opportunity before the Nibelheim mission. They were fixed re: the actual dialogue and events in Nibelheim (minus the Genesis retcon), but they had a lot of freedom in the writing prior to Nibelheim.

I do not deny that some of it is simply my huge dissatisfaction over how "humanity" is treated in FF7, where not being genetically 100% human is apparently bad enough to break a lot of characters.

Not really, it all hitting in one big punch in Nibelheim is what broke Sephiroth. If the truth dawned on him little by little over the course of three years, it'd make him a very different character.

 

[Fangu]

Re: fanfiction as fiction

I've started working on my next piece, which is Balfran smut for Carlie But I've decided to write it slightly crossover re: fanfic/fic - I'm trying to write it interesting and proper while still making it comforty.

It's an experiment, one I'm really enjoying so far because it lets me focus on techniques while knowing I'm writing it for someone. Best of both worlds?

 

[Fangu]

Oh, and

So I have a question regarding parent/child relationships in fiction.

Which hits you harder emotionally: a child being taken from their parent and raised to love the thing they came to hate (and as a result, forget and hate their parent), or the above with the addition of the child actively fighting against the parent?

Modern day example: child being taken by and developing a love for [insert name of terrorist organization here], or the above plus [child decides to actively become member of terrorist organization and trying to kill their parent]?

Which one do you find more likely to build an interesting climax (conflict/resolve)? That's where I'd start.

 

[Joker]

That's actually what I was asking about. I'm not sure which route to go to have a more compelling, and arguably heartrending, story/arc/climax/resolution. I could see it going either way, myself: the first requires a character (who, in this case, is very emotional and stubborn and ANGRY) to accept that they can't change it and let it go (when it's been their driving force for years), and the other requires...well, either the parent or the child killing the other.

I wish I could think of an existing example :'

 

[Fangu]

I'm probably going to sound very obvious again, but it all depends on what kind of story you want to tell. Is it elegiac/sorrowful, or is it more angsty/stressful/thrillery? (= does murder really have to be involved?)

 

[Octo]

I thought it was bad saying 'orbs' instead of 'eyes'...... until I saw someone saying 'orbs' instead of 'balls'

Please don't do that

 

[Joker]

I'm probably going to sound very obvious again, but it all depends on what kind of story you want to tell. Is it elegiac/sorrowful, or is it more angsty/stressful/thrillery? (= does murder really have to be involved?)

Both. Every single member of the cast has something really horrible happen to them, and one of the main points of the story is that things don't always have a happy ending.

 

[Clement Rage]

I think it's not fair to say that the revelations were just 'I'm not human'.

Genesis: I'm the result of an experiment that has left me terminally ill. I'm fucking pissed off about that.

Angeal: I'm the result of an experiment that creates monsters. All my former allies now want to use me for their own ends. Mom killed herself rather than associate with me. Dad died to get me into SOLDIER. I've failed them both, and am now a conduit for destruction. I'm upset about that.

Sephiroth: I was built and designed as a machine made to kill stuff I was pointed at. I have no other reason to exist. This was done by injecting me with alien DNA of something kept in a cage. What do I do now? Let's break out Mom, make everyone pay for what they did to me.

 

[Fangu]

I'D LIKE TO RANT ABOUT FEEDBACK

My story is 566 words. Not long. Posted it on Skype to my boyfriend. Saw he was reading it. Went back into the living room, closed the door. He enters.

Him: I'm getting hungry, was thinking of heating the pulled pork?
Me: ........

I've learned not to expect anything from anyone re: feedback - also there's this whole thing about what kind of feedback you want (I want people to fucking tell me if they don't think it's good - no pussyfooting please, PLEASE GODDAMN PLEASE (at least Kev understands)) - but talking about food?

After that he was like NO IT WAS GOOD - VERY SAD THOUGH - I DON'T LIKE SAD STUFF but by then I was like 'nevermiiinnnddd'

He never reads the long stuff, which I totally understand. But dude, 566 words.

 

[Jacknite3000]

Establish the character traits at the beginning of the story, and must flow within those traits throughout the story

 

[Clement Rage]

Maybe this is the wrong thread for this, I wasn't sure where to put it (It's not quite trivial, but doesn't ruin my day, and doesn't need its own thread), but I came across it in a fanfic yesterday, so...This is probably just a personal quirk of mine, but I really dislike someone trying to complain about a death with 'Maybe he had a family!', whether in a story or in reality.The argument is either economic support or grief based, but the implication that it's more okay to murder people if they're, say, divorcees, bothers me quite a bit. If you kill someone, that is a bad thing, whether they have kids or not.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

^^I think the "argument" you're talking about is more based on the killer then the person being killed. It's become something of a trope (can't find the exact one at the moment, oh well) that finding out the victim has a family they were supporting is one of the things that often leads to murderers not wanting to be murderers anymore. Sometimes it works, but often times it doesn't.

 

[Clement Rage]

It comes up a lot where someone wants someone else to feel regret for something they've done.

It happens once in a batman comic where after Joker takes over the asylum, someone tries to get revenge for 'lots of husbands and fathers', and J responds "So sad... no one ever thinks of the dead singles and divorcees."

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

This reminds me of a discussion we have over at the (RIP) GA - something along the lines of the worst victims of war being the soldiers themselves, and not the families who lost their husbands, sons, lovers etc.... I agree, a life is a life and of equal value whether it's young or old, solitary or connected.

But I think the trope is a shorthand for making the observation that no one dies in a vacuum. When someone is killed, the deed doesn't begin and end with the victim - the evil effects spread out in a web to everyone connected with the victim. There is an additional horror in having our emotional and social networks torn apart, on top of the horror of murder.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Sorry, double post.

I am so CLOSE to finishing DIPOTP and so STUCK on one scene. I can't figure out how to start it. So many possibilities. So many camera angles. The middle of the scene is clear as a film I've watched 45 times (i.e. Toy Story) but I can't find my way into it. Ugh. It's chipping away time. Or maybe I'll go wash all my windows.

 

[Octo]

Sorry, double post.

I am so CLOSE to finishing DIPOTP and so STUCK on one scene. I can't figure out how to start it. So many possibilities. So many camera angles. The middle of the scene is clear as a film I've watched 45 times (i.e. Toy Story) but I can't find my way into it. Ugh. It's chipping away time. Or maybe I'll go wash all my windows.

This is basically every time I ever try and write something. I also think this is why the 'freeform' tag is getting so popular these days

 

[Fangu]

You'll get out of there eventually, Lic. Every rewrite is worth it - YOU CAN DO IT

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Further to what Fangu was saying a while ago about finding the right verb... Why is it that so many verbs for speaking with some kind of emotion in one's voice make the speaker either sound ridiculous or like an animal?

 

[Keveh Kins]

^We're animals at heart, sometimes we snort, sometimes we growl, sometimes we grunt. All the speech verbs that aren't associated with some animalistic quality in us tend to sound very clinical or abstract, like delineated, which I've seen used from time to time. Who, in 'unner o' Jesus, delineates?

I also totally feel your pain with being stuck. So much good stuff ahead, so much difficult to write but necessary detail stuff beforehand ¬_¬

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Something I put up on another forum about how my "writing process" works.

"The way I've always seen this working out in my own head is when I come up with a fictional universe with fictional inhabitants and backstories for those inhabitants and then "leave it" to go do something else for a while. Nine times out of ten, by the time I get back to it the inhabitants have "decided" to do something completely different then what I was planning for them to do and have usually "re-written" their backstories, etc. On one level, I'm the one who's doing all that because it's literally all happening in my head. On another level, I'm not doing it consciously, because the characters themselves are."

 

[Clement Rage]

This reminds me of a discussion we have over at the (RIP) GA - something along the lines of the worst victims of war being the soldiers themselves, and not the families who lost their husbands, sons, lovers etc.... I agree, a life is a life and of equal value whether it's young or old, solitary or connected.

Yeah, I remember. I killed the Genesisawards. Hope Tasha's okay, she seemed really upset that time. I just meant to argue that they were the worst victims of their own deaths, not not they were the worst victims of war period. Better drop it, I guess.

But I think the trope is a shorthand for making the observation that no one dies in a vacuum.

Huh... interesting. Maybe.

I am so CLOSE to finishing DIPOTP and so STUCK on one scene. I can't figure out how to start it. So many possibilities. So many camera angles. The middle of the scene is clear as a film I've watched 45 times (i.e. Toy Story) but I can't find my way into it. Ugh. It's chipping away time. Or maybe I'll go wash all my windows.

Don't give up, it'll be worth it in the end. Been a long four years. Makes me realise I started writing fanfic in 2006, and then I feel old.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

You didn't kill the GA, Clem. It pretty much stabbed itself in the heart. The old members never really liked or wanted the new members. I'm sorry, but I didn't have a lot of time for Tasha. She was very self-satisfied and quick to anger; she was usually much more offensive to other people than they were to her, and she had little consideration for the feelings of others. Wow, it feels good to get that off my chest. Anyway, I think everybody has moved on to pastures news, and quite a lot of them have moved on to other fandoms or out of fannish activity altogether.

Yes, this will always be known in my family as the DIPOTP years. Even my kids keep asking me when I'm going to finish it and, more pertinently, what I'm going to do with my spare time when it's done. (I think they've been revelling in the maternal neglect.) I told them I might get a boyfriend. They told me they'd rather I just kept writing the fanfiction.

 

[Shademp]

*replying here instead of in the Elena thread*

I think I need to write a fantasy novel in which an older woman has to go on a quest with a younger guy and an older guy, and the younger guy falls for her and she kind of likes the older guy, but she eventually uses her treasure money to buy a small house of her own where she settles down with her kids and cats to write novels, and that's a happy ending.

Do. I've been looking for good female fantasy writers for quite some time now, but I keep finding so many that have the basic plot of 'One specific woman rises through discrimination and/or the noble caste system and overthrows it to prove her worth', rather than 'it was never in question in the first place'.

My knee-jerk reaction is that a fantasy world (the typical one where it is 'Medieval Europe but with dragons') without gender inequality will feel out-of-place.

Then again... I look back at Final Fantasy IX, where the Alexandria kingdom had a female-dominated army. I never questioned this before. Perhaps in a literary version of FFIX I would have wondered "What is the history that allowed for this matriarchy to happen?" The question itself feels inappropriate, but in fantasy settings I usually expect that unless we are dealing with a version of the MUSCULAR EXTREME AMAZON TRIBE, females will be placed below males and thusly the extreme achievements of women will be seen as an astounding rarity.

I'm probably overthinking the issue based on obsolete lenses of thought.

 

[Octo]

Then again... I look back at Final Fantasy IX, where the Alexandria kingdom had a female-dominated army. I never questioned this before. Perhaps in a literary version of FFIX I would have wondered "What is the history that allowed for this matriarchy to happen?"

Well if Steiner and the Pluto Knights are anything to go by 'hideous male incompetence' would be the answer to that one

 

[Fangu]

"The way I've always seen this working out in my own head is when I come up with a fictional universe with fictional inhabitants and backstories for those inhabitants and then "leave it" to go do something else for a while. Nine times out of ten, by the time I get back to it the inhabitants have "decided" to do something completely different then what I was planning for them to do and have usually "re-written" their backstories, etc. On one level, I'm the one who's doing all that because it's literally all happening in my head. On another level, I'm not doing it consciously, because the characters themselves are."

It's really nice when the characters work themselves out. I really like it when they do something completely different, like you say. You'll have something planned out (by your left side of the brain), often being a result of some subconscious process - often including a lot of tropes - and then your characters (subconsciousness/ right side of your brain/ whatevs) starts working, chewing, grinding, and out comes this version of it that somehow feels more real than anything else. I love that.

The question itself feels inappropriate, but in fantasy settings I usually expect that unless we are dealing with a version of the MUSCULAR EXTREME AMAZON TRIBE, females will be placed below males and thusly the extreme achievements of women will be seen as an astounding rarity.

The nice thing about fantasy is that one doesn't have to measure by human standards. Take the animal kingdom, for instance - males aren't always physically stronger than females. And societies/ ways of living comes into play a lot. Which is why I've been wanting to explore Garif and Viera in FFXII more - what are the social and physical results of the sexes living separated?

Oh. And, @Lic, yeah, said: Yelled. Grunted. Growled. Chirped. Snarled. Whined. Animalistic indeed - in fact recently I've just cut out the "," he [said], [doing some action to put more description in] and just done the dialogue alone. idk. Might be a terrible choice - but I just got sick of all those grunts and growls.