Dusting off your Old Shames

I found my stupid old website.

For my Roblox clan.

I had a special story page for a story I used to think was the shit. Now I know it IS shit.

I wish I still had the account so I can nuke it off the Internet...

My co-author and I have been doing a lot of discussion recently about our old shame. One thing which I've always liked about it, even when it sucked, was the relatively dense and broad scope of the plot. Admittedly, in the bad old days, our desire to be epic was part of what bogged us down. We got so caught up in the worldbuilding and stuff that we forgot the plot and just sort of meandered through the world. Meandering worldbuilding can work, but we just didn't have the chops to pull it off.

I think the most interesting change we've made recently is that we completely changed a certain character's gender. Or at least, the physical sex they manifest as. Her physical form is now that of a motherly CEO with a Joisey accent who constantly peppers her speech with business soundbites.

Her character makes sense in context, we swear. And we both made ourselves laugh with what is probably a horribly stereotypical line:

"Look, Sasha, your career needs to go in a new direction. ...Bagels. You should start making—well, you're not really into making things. Destroying bagels. Yes. You should find some really bad bagel factories, and go destroy them. And lemme tell you, sweetheart, there are a lot of them."

That probably won't be in the final draft.

You do realize that people from New Jersey don't actually have accents like that? Trust me, I know, being from New Jersey.

When I was a teenager, I wrote a story where my main character turns out to be the lost heir to the throne of a kingdom of fire elementals. Unfortunately, I didn't execute it too well, for it was filled with probably more pop culture references than even Seth Mc Farlane could handle, and there were some unnecessarily angry moments to be had (I admit I was one of those "moody & ungrateful" teenagers). One of these days, though, I'm going to sit down and rewrite that story the right way, as it should have been. :)

Just 'cuz it's a Joisey accent doesn't mean she's officially from Jersey. Technically she's Egyptian, after all, and technically-technically, she's old as Time itself and isn't really a part of Earth. It's just part of her Earthly manifestation.

When I was in 6th grade, I wrote a story about the adventures of an action girl and a distressed guy, which (surprisingly) lasted three years.

...Shit was basically unreadable. My writing was horrible to say at least, plot was a stupid mess, secondary characters were almost always forgotten...Reading it will make your eyes melt.

I'm giving the story a reboot after honing everything. Hopefully...

Can't anymore. Many computers ago, most of them are forever lost.

My first attempt at writing a novel is truly atrocious. I didn't even know how to write back then, I just wanted to tell a story. It was about a talking alligator trying to find the secret of the universe. This talking alligator also swore a lot in a cajun accent, breathed fire, shot lasers out of his eyes, and used telekinesis. Most importantly, he is not anthropomorphic. He's just a regular alligator with some powers that just happens to speak English. I had three attempts at writing this.

The first attempt is an abomination. I was only 13 years old at the time and I loved to tell stories, but I didn't exactly know how to write. At all. In fact, I didn't even know that you're supposed to start a new paragraph when a new character speaks. I eventually stopped when I lost interest and started to wonder "how the hell is this alligator supposed to find the secret of the universe" since I had no Call to Adventure or anything. It's just bad. I think I'm going to go exorcize it.

The second attempt was a little better. It still sucked, but it was a little bit better. When I got 30 or so pages in, I somehow lost all of my work. Too bad.

The third attempt I did when I was 14, and I have to say it was... kinda good. I already knew the writing fundamentals, I already had the good ideas of the second and third one, and I set down to write it. Unfortunately, I accidentally created a Mary Sue character and deleted 50 pages of my 80 page book in order to get arid of her. It had to be done. It was pretty good before, though, even though it only consisted of the Storm Drain Alligator (the alligator's name) playing Call of Duty: World at War with two Germans and a massive battle with hundreds of manatees. It was insanely stupid beyond most realms of stupid, but I got away with it because it's supposed to be a parody of Urban Fantasy.

A few months after that, I started to write scripts for the same thing as a TV Show. I have two full episodes, and the people I showed them to thought they were very, very good. (I'm not posting them online, though, for fear of somebody stealing them.)

I have - excuse me, had - an old 30+ page stick figure comic that I did for an English project in 10th grade. I was in the middle of a rather nasty Creator Breakdown at the time, which definitely came across and got me sent to the guidance counselor. After I got better, I put it through the shredder.

That said, there are a few concepts I'd definitely like to revisit - among other things, I'm quite proud of the idea to take advantage of the stick figure format and write down their thoughts inside their heads. That device did get put to good use, and I'd like to use it again at some point.

Here's a really old story that was an old shame back in year 5: (The Female Knights: Part 1 of 3)

"Oh, a emerald-coloured dragon! King Davennihalowolf, as I said before, A DRAGON!" shrieked the king's thick-headed messenger he screamed like an idiot, and fainted right on the soil that was surrounding a farmer's unplowed field. The dragon was as twice the size of the world trade center. It landed next to the man, barbequed him with rainbow coloured mountain-splitting flames, and began to devour him - feet earliest. It barely nibbled his toes when it suddenly decided that he was too minute for a decent meal, so it left him there for tomorrow's breakfast. It stomped off looking for a extensive lake to quench its' thirst. It reached the limit of the grassland and spotted… a coca-cola vending machine (-joke!)! No, what it really saw was an enormous lake, just the right size for it to take a bath! It wheezed heavily, blazes engulfed the lake and the water temperature rose to one hundred degrees celcius! The huge winged lizard tread gingerly in the water and roared with satisfaction.

Meanwhile a poverty-stricken ladylike knight called Steffan in her early twenties was on a quest to defeat the mythical beast. Without warning she spotted a Saxon feminine equestrian warrior, Steffan asked the noble maiden to halt. The lassie had reddish-brown curly locks cascading down her back, slim outline and nimble fingers; she looked like a princess! Steffan however, had straight ebony hair and golden insightful eyes that looked through you then saw your past. The girl stared at Steffan, soon afterward she said, "Hello, how are you on this fortunate incident? My name is Elena; I like being titled El, which is more appropriate. What's yours?" "Steffan, but you could call me Steff, I enjoy Stephen more than my christened name, Steffan. Would you accept to join me on this journey El?" came the reply. "Okay Steve, whatever you say!" cheeped Elena eagerly.

On the same day Elena and Steffan caught and trained a wild male wedge-tail hawk to catch a meal, the falcon screeched and franticly tried to escape from them but eventually relaxed. They named him Lancelot. Mischievous Lancelot occasionally brought unusual stuff back to them. Like the time he brought a chipped carriage wheel.

Legend says that Arrazana, the enchanted amoursmith created the steel Claws Of Regret and concealed it in this prehistoric cave. Whoever is swiped with it will regret that he/she ever attacked the person. "Let's go find the legendary Claws Of Regret El!" Steph shrilled with pleasure. "Okay Steven, is that what you want, as long as we don't get into serious misfortune." El cautioned. "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek, eeeeeeeeeeeek!" Lancelot agreed....

Um... yeah. That was NOT my best effort

edited 10th Aug '12 6:29:01 AM by sabrina_diamond