General Writer's Block thread

Congrats Vyctorian. ^^ I hope your work goes well.

@ Loni Jay: Though the circumstances surrounding it are very complicated, it's pretty safe to say that this birth is abnormal. Long story short, the mother comes from a race that's supposed to be sterile, so even relatively normal labor/delivery is probably going to be terrifying to them.

@ JHM, Bensen: Both of you make really good points about what should be payed attention to for maximum effect. I think I'm going to try to emphasize emotional reactions more than physical description, (with a few scary details thrown in to add weight, of course.)

@@ Bensen: Your article sounds really interesting, but it just comes up as 'Page not found' on my computer. :C Do you know any other UR Ls that might have it?

I've returned from the depths to continue politely irritating the good people of TV Tropes.(◕‿◕✿)

Hooray writing excuses!

If this one doesn't take you right to it: http://www.writingexcuses.com/2012/01/29/writing-excuses-7-5-sensory-writing/

Try this one for their season 7 archives. http://www.writingexcuses.com/season007/

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@Takwin: how can the whole race be sterile?

edited 3rd Apr '12 3:50:14 PM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

Writing excuses is fantastic :D

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hey would you guys join me if I made a thread to discuss the writing excuses episodes? I think they come out once a week.

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YES!!!

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Thanks for the links, Bensen. C: This website is news to me - I love it!

@joeyjojo: The story I'm working on is a Homestuck fanfiction. Long story short, all of the trolls (alien race) are sterile: young or old, male or female, because they're all mass produced in hatcheries by a queen ant-type creature called the Mother Grub. Basically, the trolls themselves are the barren worker ants, and the Mother Grub is their giant egg factory.

The whole premise of my AU is the idea that if a troll were able to reproduce on their own, it would be an anomaly and therefore a foreign and scary thing to everyone involved. Humans have been having children the same way as long as the species has existed, and even then a lot of women are afraid of pregnancy and childbirth. And for an alien race who normally don't have any more to do with breeding than sperm donors, the whole idea spills straight into Body Horror for them.

-That's why I've been trying to decide how graphic to make it: to convey the uncertainty and panic the characters experience effectively without driving the audience away.

I've returned from the depths to continue politely irritating the good people of TV Tropes.(◕‿◕✿)

If I wanted to write a story where the Abductors decided to raid Deltora after their raids on Vega yielded a 0% success rate after ten years of semi-weekly abductions, what advice do you think I'll need? Lief and co. are currently in Rithmere when Abductors fly in and start abducting people (and this time those abducted actually survive, so they won't just look for another planet).

edited 4th Apr '12 5:54:33 PM by Zenoseiya

Not to mention the fact that a self-reproducing worker ant and her offspring (it does happen) are treated like a cancer by the rest of the colony. Add social oppression to Body Horror.

So this week writing excuses was an April Fools joke show, so I'll have to wait until next week to start a thread of writing excuses commentary.

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On Writing Excuses: Why? It be better to start the topic now, besides people will want to come in and talk about old casts too and Howard's pants.

edited 5th Apr '12 4:30:35 AM by Vyctorian

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Okay, I made a new conversation here

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:D

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@ Bensen: Good point! I anticipated a lot of social persecution for the characters in this setting. The troll in question is already an outcast, so carrying around a very illegal baby is basically wearing a big ring target.

-Also, only tangentially related, but in the rare case of a fertile worker ant, the female in question will not only seek out a male but grab him by the thorax with her mandibles and drag him away to mate with her. Basically, Rape Is Ok If Its Female On Male in the ant world.

edited 7th Apr '12 8:59:57 PM by Takwin

I've returned from the depths to continue politely irritating the good people of TV Tropes.(◕‿◕✿)

Eh, still doesn't seem like much next to dolphins.

Not sure why you shared this fact with us in the first place...

edited 7th Apr '12 9:00:03 PM by nrjxll

I just had the weirdest thought, and it's something I might end up starting a separate thread for if I'm not told I'm just a rambling maniac. But skimming others' works and participating in the CDTs, it's starting to seem like the balance of power between muggle and mage is at least somewhat correlated to the age of the author in question. Younger authors seem to favor the magical, while older ones appear to err towards favoring the mundane. That said, I may just be cherry-picking here, and even if I'm right about the pattern, whether the difference is generational, directly age-related, or from a third unseen variable, is yet another question altogether.

No, it makes sense. Young people tend to like cool stuff.

"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."

That trend makes sense to me. Young people aren't part of the establishment yet, so they imagine a world in which random people are born with fantastic supernatural abilities. Adults have some power in the real world, so they know how awful a population of super-powered teenagers would be. :)

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And there's also the escapism factor; a lot of young teenage writers are living under the thumbs of their parents and the public school system. I know I like to escape life from time to time.

[/is 16]

edited 11th Apr '12 6:01:48 AM by CrystalGlacia

"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."

Not sure this applies to me, although I guess it depends partially on your definitions.

Wow, it's been a while since I poked my head in this forum...

Might as well make a sort-of announcement: I'm not going to continue working on OneTrackMind, nor any other fanfiction projects I may have begun. If anyone wants to use the characters, story, or whatever from the above, feel free to. A PM would be appreciated beforehand.

I seem to be having a gigantic writing block across the board lately; I can't organize my ideas readily and I'm really struggling with putting my thoughts down on (digital) paper. I haven't had this much trouble with writing in six years... It's hurting me in a bad way — with college decisions coming up, trying to finish high schol early, organizing and writing a heavily-weighted research paper for English, even short answer questions in subjects like Government and German. I can't seem to write things, my thoughts, concisely or clearly. Even to me, my writing sounds long-winded and confused and lacking in a definitive point.

I'm very frustrated. I've tried things like freewriting, journaling, etc., to no avail. I haven't done any creative writing for several weeks, though I've had ideas. I can't hold on to those ideas, either. I think that this massive block is very likely stress-related. I believe that things will improve once I make it through the final stretch.

"It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end." ~Ernest Hemingway (American author)

this might not be the right place to post this but I don't know a better one. Aang Ty Lee Theo and Malo being the last air Bendesr has to repopulate the nomads. And since even one quarter Airbenders are so far guaranteed to have the ability realistically how many "partners" would they need to avoid the genetic bottleneck . could it even be done with so few Airbenders?

With the power of a dragon I can make up for my inability to spill.

You already posted this in Random Questions. Please don't repost the same thing in two different places.

"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."

Okay, relatively new here, so bear with me. I have this character who is really "noirey", but I'm having trouble making him relatable. He seems distant upon reading, but I have character development all laid out. His thoughts just seem a bit dull. Maybe I need to rewrite. but anyway, what really makes you like a character instantly? An action sequence? A display of wit? I need help here.

Hello Calloway, and welcome.

'Noirey'? What's that supposed to mean? Is that a typo, or something?

What makes a character likable depends largely on the reader's tastes, but those two examples you gave are kind of shallow reasons to like a character. We don't know if your character is actually as dull as you say he is, what his role in the story is, his situation... so we kind of need to see him in action (read: some writing that shows this supposedly dull thought process) to pass any kind of suggestions on what needs to be done.

edited 22nd Apr '12 8:16:24 AM by CrystalGlacia

"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."

When I said "noirey, I meant that he was like a Film Noir character. It sounded simpler in my head. Thanks for such a quick response. OK, gonna give it a go soon. Will have a small sample of his thoughts for you tommorow. sound good?

edited 22nd Apr '12 9:14:58 AM by Calloway