Writer's Block Daily

Interesting. Certainly lots of material for inspiration there!

I'm procrastinating, but I'll close Chrome after this point.

This name popularity page popped up because I gave a (relative to me) young writer some advice about their characters' names. My general advice? "If you want your characters to sound like they came out of the Maximum Ride series, at least make it a conscious decision."

...You've heard of ''Maximum Ride'', right?

EDIT: I'm reading through the writer's beginning. Voice's pretty shaky, but one line made me laugh out loud. It's a good sign of a good character dynamic.

Okay. Back to no-Internet.

edited 25th May '15 10:31:04 AM by chihuahua0

Giving characters cool-sounding names is a delicate thing; do it too much and it will look tacky, but it can work wonders if used in moderation.

And, you know, if the character is cool enough, eventually their name will become cool by association.

Then again, 'coolness' of certain names is very subjective.

I'm myself rather into meaningful and punny names, as long as they fit to the story.

edited 25th May '15 1:37:17 PM by Xeroop

I don't like meaningful names at all, and have been vocal about it in the past. Too contrived.

I think naming conventions in my own story are going to look really weird, since there's intentionally a lot of different approaches.

I give my characters names that sound authentic, reasonable for their culture and time period. If it ends up being meaningful it'll be mostly by accident. (Or if they named themselves, I guess, or if it's a code name of some sort.)

In my current story (which I spent time outlining since my last post), I'm going to try this approach to symbolism: Symbolism should have significance to the characters. If it only matters to the readers, it's Faux.

It's a principle that's not gonna work for every story, since symbolism's too complex of an element to rule out entire approaches, but at least it'll make me implement symbolism more naturally.

For example, a name's meaning goes beyond its word origin, since ultimately, Behind the Name hasn't given me too many fruitful opportunities there. However, it still has significance when it comes to their backstory and circumstances, so I'll likely take that approach for most future names where the character didn't decide it for themselves.

Also, my protagonist is named Clark. I am not going to call any other main character Lewis. Or Louis. Or Lou. Clark's already kind of a traveller, so it's an easy joke to not use lightly.

edited 25th May '15 1:48:35 PM by chihuahua0

Ugh, only 5k in 4 days. I've fallen behind. Need to get my rear in gear.

That generally happens when you write a lot in a short period of time. It's easy to burn out if you push yourself too hard.

So apparently 73k is my burn out limit.

alternatively I lost my mojo cause I went to stay with my parents for a few days.

Once I got up to around 48,000 in 10 days, before I ended up losing all motivation to write. Since I was doing Na No Wri Mo, I had to physically force myself to write the last two thousand words just to say I did it. Never again.

My record is 10k in a day. that burned me out. Otherwise I can usually average 5k and feel no ill effects.

That's one of the reasons I'm actually writing a novel "for fun."

I wrote a 43k larp story in a week, just because I wanted to. I have no excuse to NOT be writing by this point.

@Meaningful names:

I'm actually okay with meaningful names, so long as they're not too on the nose and aren't used too liberally. Perhaps I'm not serious enough about writing, but when I'm naming characters I can get a sort of joy from connecting names to characteristics.

I genuinely wish there was some advice to do so, since it's all well and dandy having the big, "grand" concepts of your culture planned out, but it might feel a bit sterile if there isn't a more immediate culture for its children to latch on to as it were.

I'm getting really hung up on the short story assignment. I have a couple ideas in mind, and I'm willing to write, but I have to present the story. Like, read it out loud.

I'm thinking the first page will be sufficient, but it's the thought that I have to tell what my mind comes up with to a whole class. Will it be too confusing, and too hard to follow since they don't have a copy in front of them to read? Will they be mature enough if something more 'mature' comes up (this is high school, btw)? And I also feel like none of them will care. No one in class will appreciate my work, 'cause I know how apathetic they are when we read books and short stories.

I know I shouldn't be bothered by it, but I am.

After looking around, I'm actually really, really surprised that we don't seem to have a trope for the lack of future pop culture in a lot of science fiction.

I think it's considered a subset of No Such Thing as Alien Pop Culture.

A reread of some of the pregenerated adventures for the Laundry Files RPG—which is basically Call of Cthulhu in a modern setting, plus spies and government bureaucracies—has given me the inspiration to fit a beginning and an end to a concept and to turn it one step closer to being an actual story.

Granted, it's a little worrying when the plot points in question boil down to "Ia! The Black Pharaoh, N'yar Iath-Hotep!" and analogies to nuclear deterrence via Elder Gods, but that's part of the fun of writing: you never know where it'll take you.

...How did I not know until now that there was a Laundry Files RPG?

I'm finding that even though I adore Weird West as a genre and as an aesthetic, I have basically no understanding from examples and only really know the core idea of how it's described.

edited 25th May '15 6:40:27 PM by DarkbloodCarnagefang

It's the Wild West, but with GHOSTS/ALIENS/ZOMBIES/WHATEVER!

I know that, but it basically breaks down to that even though I know about it at its core, I've never really explored any good examples.

Well, there is one, but it's a board game and I've yet to play it for an extended period of time

I've been working out the finances of the fairy castle that my protagonist ends up with, thanks to her dad killing the previous owner.

After nearly ten million euros' worth of repair costs, there's still eight fucking figures in the vault, and the bookkeeper mentioned that after 1000 years, this is actually only a THIRD of the money they should have. Which itself is excluding the very highest 10% of prominent nobility, who are ALSO supposed to give a collective few million every year (so she can keep them all from killing each other in feuds or herself from being killed by enemy factions).

Thanks to the previous owner's tendency to raid people for fun so much that he actually expanded the storage quite a bit, they have supplies and valuables which would probably be worth another six to eight figures, given that it's going to last about five years even if they cram the castle with servants and don't get any additional money at all.

I can't fucking comprehend eight figures' worth of money.

edited 25th May '15 6:59:05 PM by Sharysa

Well, to be honest, the only stuff I've seen of it I'd consider good was RPGs anyways.

edited 25th May '15 7:54:59 PM by Night

And meanwhile, I've created a protagonist who doesn't like books. This detail can be easily overturned as I flesh out his backstory and figure our what he did in his freetime.

Hmm...music, audiobooks, or both? ("Why Not Both?")

Draft-wise, I used the word "DayDay" as a placeholder for the day of the week. It's a good thing I got a proper scene out before bed. It's a little low tension at the moment, but it might survive once I refine the banter, make the waitress remember my protag more strongly, and then make her a target of possession.

Does anyone remember Manifestation Files? Same universe, different characters.

edited 25th May '15 7:52:19 PM by chihuahua0

My psychic powers tell me that you're specifically talking about Deadlands? I could be wrong, but that's usually the first thought when Weird West and RP Gs are used in the same breath