General Writer's Block thread

Come work for me, Loni's scientific side! I'll give you plenty of use!

This looks so awkward with no context...

edited 7th Apr '11 4:37:07 AM by CyganAngel

Do you know how complicated a bird's lung system is? They've got air sacs anywhere they can squash them. And their air current goes in a circle.

Hmm.

edited 7th Apr '11 4:38:35 AM by LoniJay

They should have bigger bellies.

Loni — why not give it to them, if it makes sense, scientifically speaking? You don't need to include it in the story, just the manual.

I know, but... I'd need to understand it a bit more thoroughly, how it fits into a roughly humanoid torso while still leaving room for the other organs...

I think I'll leave it as a possibility. In the manual, as you say. I don't know how something like that would come up in-story anyway.

It would explain how they're light enough to fly, I suppose.

When ever I work on a Kim Possible mission an I come to a part were a mission should go I can never think of what to have the villain doing. Right now in my story it's part of Shego's Probation to replace Kim while on maternity leave. But what should be going on. I kinda want to send her to Germany if that helps.

Blargha blargha. I may not be able to make Script Frenzy.

So I'm writing a short story about an elderly widower in mourning who invents (or invented) a time machine and uses it to go back in time several years to kill his past self (or selves- he does it several times) and take his place. I've established that the man is considerably knowledgable and practiced in quantum mechanics and mathematics... I just need to make the whole "invented time machine" thing plausible. Just saying he did it kind of makes me commit Face Palm.

Technobabble then. Or make up your own science rules.

I know this sounds a bit weird, but...

My story is set in the underworld. I'm thinking of creating a (fairly important) character but... I don't know if the idea makes any sense. This isn't everything about the character, just a rought sketch of her personality.

Character in question is Cercis, a teenaged elf. Cercis was very sickly when she was alive, so she spent a good chunk of her life reading in her bedroom. Because of this, she's a bit lacking in the social interaction department. She's good nature, curious (displays a strange curiosity about humans as well) and enthusiastic but a bit naive.

She kicks the bucket due to her illness an year before the start of the story.

Because she spent most of her life locked inside her house, after her death, she's not very crazy about staying at one place. She's particularly fascinated with observing plants, as before her death she could only read about them in books.

Does she get to leave the underworld to look at these, or do they have plants in the underworld too?

They have plants in the underworld/spirit world. I could have them to completely different from the ones from the world of the living and have her curious about 'em.

I certainly see potential in that character & situation. What matters, really, is whether you can really get into her head and portray her well — and for her being an elf to work, you have to play her different from just a human.

Hum... Different from being human? I didn't really get it.

An elf won't behave exactly like a human and won't think exactly like a human.

She is an elf.

Different culture, different values, different ideals.

In short:

Humans and elves think differently.

^ 4 seconds. What the hell.

edited 8th Apr '11 7:15:58 PM by CyganAngel

Wow, this battle sequence is going to take up a ton of the script.

And it's the first one, to boot.

Good thing it's just a first draft.

edited 8th Apr '11 7:28:32 PM by Jackerel

There are two images which I constantly return to every time I feel like writing something, but cannot justify shoehorning into either of my novels as they are far too specific. I hate this.

Image #1: People lean out of the windows of their elevated houses, watching as water rushes through the streets below.

Image #2: Two children play in the ruins of a castle at dusk, with yellow light shining out of a river nearby.

Have you considered writing them out and seeing where they go? You don't have to use them later, but it can be a good exercise if you have writer's block or something. And maybe they could even come in handy later on.

Ugh. That's happened to me before.

For some odd reason, I keep visualizing my hero's father in the role of The Dragon, losing to a poorly defined hero of some kind who finally figured out how to kill him- destroy the crystal in his chest to turn off his incredibly fast Healing Factor. By shoving a grenade into his abdominal cavity.

Yes, that would be really gory. It's so vivid, yet it does not fit into any sort of continuity that I have.

Going to bed now.

I've partly resisted writing them out because if I do, I know I'm going to come up with character dynamics and backstory and end up writing entire novels around those images. It's happened already with my first two sets of novels.

I might draw them instead.

Hum... How would an elf see being sickly to the point of never leaving home? And death, in general?

Wouldn't that depend on what the elves in your universe are like?

I guess so. Elves live isolated in the forest, running away from humans due to the extreme Fantastic Racism against magic users.

Elves see magic as natural, probably because every single elf is capable of using it. Elves once saw themselves better than humans, but now they either fear them, pity them or some who live particularly isolated don't know wheter they're still around or not.

Hierarchy doesn't exist in some group of elves, which leads to weird situations when dealing with other species. All elves also very conected to nature and respect it profoundly. They also see death as natural.

I don't know how they could see disease, though. Possibly natural too?

edited 8th Apr '11 9:26:05 PM by risingdreams

So I guess she'd be sad that she can't go outside and enjoy nature, and be paranoid that she'll be found by humans and be too weak to escape. Death might be a welcome escape for her.