Writer's Block Daily

Found out that 40 mm buckshot exists. Did some calculating, and it'd be like 1.2 gauge.

Unfortunately, an M576 buckshot round also has less than half as much muzzle energy as a Winchester 12 gauge round and is extremely short-ranged.

Like a lot of shotgun-esque ammunition (canister shot from tank guns, flechette rounds for helicopter rockets), 40mm buckshot fired from things like the Mikor MGL is last ditch, emergency type situations. You don't expect to use it as a first resort unless the mission believes such scenarios to happen with a high probability.

I just had a great brainstorming session. I was able to create a single events which not only helps push both my main characters forward toward the end of their character arcs. It also brings the central themes of the novel more to light without seeming like an anvil drop. And said events happens to be one of my favorite tropes.

Though with these answers come new questions. I'm torn between two directions; one is keeping a character around but allowing a bit of idealized unfortunate implications to the story, that might take away some of the impact of the central themes but on the other hand I'd have to loss a character who helps my main characters tether themselves to the material world in favor of driving home a theme.

A joke I just wrote contains a rather large amount of foreshadowing.

Indirectly, yes. Yes, it did.

edited 14th Oct '12 6:01:49 PM by TeraChimera

Apparently, I should write what I like, because otherwise the story won't be any good.

Who did you hear that from?

Well... yeah. Writing is always, to some degree, an extension of yourself and your thoughts. If you don't like or care about what you're writing, your thoughts towards the topic will show on the page.

edited 14th Oct '12 7:37:19 PM by CrystalGlacia

It is a personal revelation.

Obvious in hindsight: Writing one person's side of a telephone conversation is easier if you write the whole thing, and then drop the unused half.

edited 14th Oct '12 8:03:55 PM by fishsicles

I've just noticed that my other WIP is basically Romeo And Juliet, if Romeo was a Bedouin and Juliet was Latina. And if they actually were alive at the end.

edited 14th Oct '12 8:37:10 PM by MorwenEdhelwen

I finally nailed down my opening, I think. I can edit it later, but it is nice to have something.

In related news, not knowing what the person on the other end is saying makes Valenze seem a bit... unhinged. All things considered, I think I will leave it that way.

edited 14th Oct '12 8:59:34 PM by fishsicles

...Intriguing. I may have to borrow that idea.

That's actually just a pretty standard romance plot.

Right, take away the infiltration bits and it's boy meets girl and is conflicted over her and his duty.

My interview of a webcomic artist is now up! :D

She looks like a friend of mine, weirdly enough. Longer, thinner face, but that's basically the biggest difference. How curious.

My comic relief characters are bringing all the creepy, vaguely pessimistic Gnostic subtext that I wrote into the earliest stages of my story back to the fore. While this is great for thematic consistency, the fact that Parish Quisser and Shamash of the Golden Plume seem to be doing so much of the philosophical heavy lifting of their own accord is... indicative of disturbing facts about my own mental state? Hilarious on a metafictional level? Tonally appropriate? Random as all hell?

Had a random idea for a scare in a survival horror game. You're walking down a hallway or something, no monsters anywhere. It's been a while since the last fight, so you're busy thinking that there's going to be one soon, and you're just waiting for something to jump out. Then the achievement/trophy thing pops up, with the name, "Behind you."

Now, would this be an actual achievement, or an in-game thing, so that when you go to the console menu to look at it, there's nothing?

Clever.

It'd have to be an in-game thing though, since achievements/trophies only pop up once per account. Better that way anyhow, keeps it psychologically twisting.

I partly came up with the idea from the last Scarecrow scene of Batman: Arkham Asylum and the loading screens of Silent Hill: Downpour, which sometimes contain helpful tips like:

So then I thought, why can't we use achievements in the same way? We almost never think about them, so to have one suddenly say something like that would be shocking.

I suppose there's nothing keeping it from being an actual achievement and in-game; the first time through, you get the actual achievement, with the description, "Made you look." Every other time would be in-game. However, I'd prefer keeping it solely in-game, for the reasons you mentioned.

edited 15th Oct '12 7:05:48 PM by TeraChimera

How do you write a slapstick scene without making the audience cringe?

Alright, now I have a much better version of the chapter part I'm writing. (Had to write down some notes beforehand to keep reminding me since the section was supposed to be heavily planned, not pantsed.)

Keep this pace up for the rest of the year and maybe just maybe I'll squeak out completing the draft of the book by year's end. Maybe. It'll be close either way.

I just wrote

FO

UN

DY

OU

on someone's door's whiteboard that seemed to have the operator symbol on it.

Hehehe.

Happy Cuban Missile Crisis Day, everybody!

Hello everyone. I'm Murazrai and an amateur writer. Currently I am thinking what kind of characters to write in my Na No Wri Mo entry this year. The thread can be viewed here. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

edited 16th Oct '12 5:56:08 PM by murazrai

Tera - it might be better to have it only once per account. It'd lose its value of surprise on subsequent playthroughs anyway.

Wilkommen, murazrai!

edited 16th Oct '12 5:59:31 PM by Noaqiyeum