Writer's Block Daily

I think I have the exact opposite problem. My screwball space comedy seems to turn into Game Of Thrones no matter what I do.

For anyone who is worried about how to write cover letters for story submissions, Inkpunks has an article that I found rather useful, and rather a relief: Lessons From the Slush Pile: Your Cover Letter and You.

It turns out that cover letters for story submissions aren't as difficult as I had thought. ^_^

On another note, the story that I'm currently working on is not a horror story.

It follows a small group of people trapped in a hidden under-mountain complex, a tomb-city peopled almost exclusively by sorcerous undead. A good portion of the complex is unlit, and thus pitch-black. The party attempts escape, resulting in pursuit by hunting parties using twisted undead "hounds" to follow the group's trail. One by one the party-members are killed, all save one (perhaps two—one character's fate is as-yet unwritten); that one happens to be a woman.

But it's not a horror story!

On horror, I'm running into a heretofore unfamiliar challenge: describing a glance of a Lovecraftian Old One for maximum horror before the memory of the character describing it gives out.

This is a bit more challenging when the Old One in question is God's Own Soap Bubble. Nothing Is Scarier, I'm fully aware, but actually writing that into context will be hard.

(Seconding the whole "this isn't horror, though you wouldn't know it from the description" theme: the events are kicked off by someone invoking Yog-Sothoth to bring about the end of the world, as a final "screw you" to another lesser entity who is set to destroy the world anyway: when you've got the noose around your neck, you may as well trigger the dynamite vest. But it's not horror, I swear.)

@Xeroop: You could always Fargo it up and make it a Black Comedy.

Oh boy, I'm analyzing whether a soon-to-be-released album has a thematic story arc or not. I'm seeing if the lyrics suggest it such, if I'm just trying to squeeze it into a medium more inclined to musical short story collections.

5k away from 50k. Must write faster.

Are you considering enlisting beta readers later?

edited 28th May '15 4:18:23 PM by chihuahua0

I already have some friends look at it. Why?

Just wondering.

Writing fanfics that rely far too much on obscure in-universe lore may not be such a good idea now that I realize it.

This didnt occur to me at first because I'm such a lore sponge that I'm far too immersed in looking up lore, than recognizing that not everyone is as well.

Don't you explain any of the lore in the fanfic?

Yeah, but I also have a hard time keeping it simple and fully explaining it without making things too overly complex.

Basically writing fanfics with involved lore becomes more of an info dump than a fanfic.

EDIT: It's worth noting, that I don't mean "Info Dump" in a writing way.

edited 28th May '15 6:07:53 PM by DarkbloodCarnagefang

@Aw Sam Weston: That's exactly what I'm planning to do.

For example: One of the characters gets hit to the head with a stun club that essentially melts your brains inside your head. The man collapses, and his companions have this dramatic moment. Then they proceed to slaughter the assailant. After that the man hit with the club wakes up. His companions have a dramatic moment of Tears of Joy and whatever. Then the hit of the stun club actually starts taking effect, and the man collapses again, this time for real. At this point everybody is sort of over the initial shock of his death, so they just dump him in the closest dumpster and carry on with their mission.

Apparently I have at least one tweet, dated to July 2011, which links to a blog post where I ask whether I should write a Dungeon Punk or Space Fantasy story. In that article, I link back to the TV Tropes pages for Dungeon Punk and Magitek. Which means I've been reading TV Tropes (at least casually) since the summer of 2011.

And I know I had a friend who introduced me to the idea of TV Tropes maybe a year before then. Timelines!

Also: That "Dungeon Punk or Space Fantasy" question? I ultimately chose Dungeon Punk. Since then it's morphed into one of my biggest story projects ever.

Gee thanks, TV Tropes.

The setting I'm currently worldbuilding is Dungeon Punk, actually. It's a pretty fun genre when done right. Although, I am having some trouble with worldbuilding the "punk" part. I've had to do some modifications to make the world less idealistic, since it was mainly unintentional on my part.

edited 29th May '15 6:33:11 PM by Collen

Yeah, I could never get into the "cynicism"^note Fun fact: "Cynical" as we use it isn't actually cynicism. It's just a pessimistic worldview. Diogenes of Sinope, the Greek philosopher known for starting Cynicism, was more about how "all people are equal in the world: kings and commoners alike," which was pretty radical at the time. In that respect, many of the world's countries have become more Cynical. implied in "Punk" genres. My worldview is too optimistic for that. But I like the aesthetics, so I just ignore the cynicism and focus on the story.

edited 29th May '15 7:18:28 PM by AwSamWeston

So, since I'm writing a Skyrim fanfic and the protagonist is an Argonian, I felt it important to do some searching on their native language, Jel.... and I'm finding it hilarious because, the word for "yes" (Xhu) is very similar to the world for "f**k" (Xhuth), at least within context.

From what the wiki is saying, Xhuth is specifically meant to be an interjection, while Xhu is meant to be an affirmative response. I'm mostly wondering if there's a transition point between the usage of the two words, but I may be thinking about it too hard.

Regarding my join-date, looking back, it seems that I first joined under this user-name at the end of 2011. Quite how long it took me to become terribly active I don't know, however, let alone when I first started spending time in this particular part of the forum. There was also at least one period in which I didn't visit the forum, as I recall.

In writing news, I recently completed my first draft of a story that I've had in mind for quite some time. That feels rather good. ^_^

Well, sort of completed: for a few reasons (one of which being the load-shedding rolling blackouts that we've had of late over here) I ended up writing a good portion of it on paper, while the main of it is written electronically, as is my usual practice.

... I've been somewhat putting off sitting down and typing it up. I mean to do it today, however!

... Or start in on it, at least.

I'll probably play a little Shattered Pixel Dungeon first...

edited 30th May '15 8:39:21 AM by ArsThaumaturgis

There are a lot of kind of sly nods in the Bethesda games towards a much less rateable world, where people do what they do, occasionally in the street. It was always A Less Rude Song, and if that doesn't make you wonder what the hell it's less rude than...

When you started talking about a fanfic being overly dependent on obscure setting lore, my thoughts went immediately to The Elder Scrolls.

I'm glad I'm so readily understood.

But yeah, Elder Scrolls lore (and by a small extension, Fallout lore, but I don't sponge up that as easily), is the only thing I consider plumbing the internet and going on "wiki-walks" (as an old high school friend put it) for.

I personally find it to be helpful for fanfics in its own way.

Random fact: Sometimes, when I'm not paying attention, I see the word "Greek" and read "geek." This has conjured up some really weird images of nerds messing with humanity from atop a mountain.

You mean that isn't how it works in real life?

Obviously a bunch of geeks went back in time and created the Greeks somehow. To cover their tracks they added an extra "r" in there to ensure nobody would suspect a thing.

Well, Greek culture did encourage intellectual pursuits. Like, all of them.

But then there's wrestling. Not sure what kind of geek would encourage that.