Writer's Block Daily

I wrote something today, and it's only six pages! Haha! I often struggle with writing shorter works.

It's a world concept that I've been mulling over for a while but today I had the idea to set it in space! Or wait, I mean, IN SPACE!!!

I found a voice very quickly for the story, it's very important to me that my stories each have a voice. Sometimes I feel like I use the same voice all the time. This one is more experimental. Also it's in present tense.

Here's the link to it. I keep my writing on Dropbox

So, one of my story projects is an Animesque comic that can be basically described as Exalted meets Magical Girl shows. (Well, more Magical Girl than Exalted already is anyway) It takes a good portion of influence from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, in its storytelling (but more lighthearted) and Pretty Cure in its action sequences (only more over-the-top). In it, the Magical Girls are an organized army, and always looking for potential recruits. But not anyone can just pick up a Wish Star and get to kicking ass. There are certain individuals who are more compatible with the Stars than others... The Five-Man Band protagonists are a few of them. A bit more later...

Sometimes I worry that my wip (well, barely in-progress, but still working) is too "adult" for the YA audience I'm aiming for.

Then I re-read Warrior Cats and figure I'll be good.

This made my day

edited 1st Aug '16 11:52:34 AM by BlizzardeyeWonder

Lol, glad I could be of service.

But yeah, my book may have preteens getting possessed by eldritch abominations and some pretty brutal witch-hunts, but at least it doesn't have anyone getting disemboweled, immediately revived with magic, then dying again from the same wound, multiple times in succession in a process that's described as taking several minutes. It's also aimed at people older than ten.

apparently the idea of a teenager saving the world is stupid. i kinda overheard this in subvert and avert trope thread which kinda made me scared about having an idea that has kid heroes in it.

It is not that having young heroes is stupid. It is just that you should justify why adults can't handle it, and not make them useless in order to make your heros shine.

edited 4th Aug '16 8:20:13 AM by EternaMemoria

well of course my adult characters aren't useless. heck one of them ends up aiding them in their adventures. but i'm not sure how i can justify why teens or kids are the heroes of the story.

An idea popped into my head where two characters doing a Fake-Out Make-Out is referred to as "Operation Sucking Face".

Depending on the nature of the story, it could simply be that a Teenager happens to be the one caught up in it. Or that an adult could have handled it, but the Teenager decided to do it instead.

Like, say you uncover some kind of invasion plan or whatever. The obvious answer is go to the authorities with evidence, right?

Unless you're a Punk who believes the authorities are corrupt and expect that they're already in the invaders pocket, then you wouldn't want to go to them.

Any given story is built on coincidence, so it's not difficult to structure those coincidences in a way where the protagonist is unable, or unwilling, to get help.

To give a more solid example: I have a novel plot where shapeshifters have been slowly smuggling themselves into human society and living normally. They're refugees, in essence. The main plot is that their government has sent someone to try and get them back. A young girl winds up getting caught up in it because her Uncle is the one who's been helping the refugee shapeshifters get into human society. She serves primarily as The Heart of the party, but is also a significant viewpoint character in order to act as an Audience Surrogate.

Although her Uncle and the Villain are the main forces moving the plot forward, the girl is still helpful, and ultimately plays a key role in the resolution: She used to be a bully, and got good at weaseling her way out of trouble. In the end, when the Shapeshifters are revealed to the general populace, she uses those skills to keep the Humans from descending into a frenzied Witch Hunt, and keep their opinion of the shapeshifters positive. In contrast, her Uncle has virtually no social skills whatsoever and would have completely failed to keep the Mob at bay.

So, this character is in the plot out of sheer coincidence, and just so happens to have the skills that are necessary in order to solve the major problem. This is a light example because the Uncle still has a major stake in both the plot and the resolution, but It hopefully demonstrates the point.

Well in a series I have planned, my main characters happen to be a bunch of preteen boys ( and a girl) who become older in their gea'kai warrior forms. Is kinda weird to do suck a thing?

edited 4th Aug '16 4:15:49 PM by ewolf2015

Venting: and I now find myself worried that my villains are too cool. A recurring issue.

I wrote an entire scene of a pair of Pop-Cultured Badass Corrupt Corporate Executives at their day job. What I'm trying to do is draw a sharp contrast between how passionately into staying up-to-date with the latest pop cultural turns, trends, and memes they are, contrasted to how callously they regard "irritations" like civilians killed by an assassin they sent or people dying in a country they destabilized. Trouble is, it's limited third-person perspective, so, because they don't care about the people dying, the narrative currently doesn't emphasize it either. And I'm simultaneously worried it's already too blunt, so I'm wary about stepping out of the limited third-person to hammer home what's going on.

I'll hopefully find some sort of compromise, but apologies in advance to any alpha readers who must suffer anything too horrendously unsubtle.

edited 5th Aug '16 10:01:27 PM by KillerClowns

Got a quick question regarding phrasing. A character is thoroughly abusing Wrong Context Magic to get around Anti-Magic, and a description of her tests ends thusly:

For the last sentence, is it clear that I'm referencing the phrase "all's fair in love and war"? Or should I just do some editing to put the full phrase in?

I knew what the line was referring to instantly.

yeah I understood the reference easily. It's pretty common! I think you'll be fine, but the earlier part of the sentence may have a typo in it.

That's not an obscure phrase. Most people would likely get it.

My fans have declared I should start shipping two characters, with varying degrees of subtlety, from "Ship them! *kiss kiss*" to "(Couple name) sounds like a dessert. I like dessert." I'm not going to do it, but I'm thinking of trolling them. Character A is nervous about the implications of a certain event, and character B is a bit of a gadfly, so I'm thinking of having B kiss A as a joke to distract her, and then joke about whether or not she simply likes A or likes likes A.

Don't do it! That's a doorway that you're never going to be able to close.

For a month I struggled to find a good opening paragraph in order to hook myself into writing (and yes, just I can't write without a good hook to give me focus), before finally succeding.

What was that paragraph about? Well, it is just about how placid and sleepy the morning was... while the focus character for the prologue rowed his boat up the river to sell the human corpses he was carrying, in order to still take some profit from a failed robbery, all the while thinking about his childhood and philosophing about the nature of time and life.

Yeah, there's noting quite like those quiet mornings in contemplation, while lazily taking those human corpses to market.

That sounds healthy.

Seriously, though, done properly, sounds like it has potential to be quite an Establishing Series Moment.

edited 8th Aug '16 6:38:19 PM by KillerClowns

Actually, it is more of a Establishing Character Moment as it is suppose to cement how the character does not really care about his own horrible actions.

Said character dies at the end of the chapter, by the hands of his captive/apprentice, who is one of the protagonists and is less than stable due to the influence.

EDIT: but the chapter as a whole still works as an Establishing Series Moment, in the sense that during it happen many things common in my writing: the big action scene is skipped, its aftermatch being the focus, there is philosophy , a degree of humanization for even the darkest characters, and the deaths that follow are treated as close and personal. But most of the story isn't quite as dark, even if there are still points that do the opening justice.

edited 9th Aug '16 11:08:32 AM by EternaMemoria

I didn't know there's a Trope for that.

The rest of the evening goes with me wondering where the exact Series Establishing Moments are in my projects.

edited 9th Aug '16 2:11:45 PM by Xeroop

Ah, serendipity. My Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist of a villain justified the deaths to make his utopia by saying, "You Can't Make an Omelette..." The heroes criticized this with other cooking metaphors, eventually metaphorgetting the original point. ("So where's your omelette? You've broken a lot of eggs and I don't see an omelette yet. I want my frigging omelette." "You're an inexperienced cook. Why are you starting with an omelette so big? You'll mess it up." "I don't even like omelettes. I prefer my eggs hard-boiled.") Then I realized that I could tie that last bit back in to the point, as most people would find the villain's "utopia" extremely distasteful; it relies heavily on eugenics and killing off the weak. ("You know, she's right. What about all the people who like hard-boiled eggs? You don't need to break an egg to hard-boil it. I think you're overestimating the demand for omelettes.")

how can i write a romantic subplot that's relevant and not bullshit?