Assuming the worst with writers when online.

@ A Man in Black

They are pointless threads, yes, but nonetheless some people enjoy posting in them, and I don't see what's so wrong with that.

Nobody's condemning anyone. They're just not useful, and we can consider methods of making useful threads.

People enjoy candy, but you'll die if you eat it every day.

The topics themselves could probably ask for more information than your basic "did this and that," but unless otherwise stated, there's no inclination to expand heavily on your thought. If you're going to post badly, you'll suffer those repercussions. If you post well and discuss an actual thought in details, you ideally should be rewarded for that.

(ninja Zerg Rush'd)

I suspect we've come to the core of the problem: a lot of the issues with this forum could be fixed if 1) people posted more proper written works (substantial excerpts at least) and 2) everyone else had the time and dedication to give substantial critique and help.

These two conditions are obviously easier said than done.

Oh, and I personally don't want this to be "a place for writers to simply chat about their works", or a forum distinguished by "pointless messiness". If other people want that, sure, more power to them. But I come here to learn about the craft of writing and read other people's work, not for the equivalent of a Chuck Norris joke swap.

edited 20th Dec '11 3:41:55 PM by DoktorvonEurotrash

Also, another matter is defining a "substantial excerpt." Context can't exactly be explained very well at times with an excerpt, sometimes just summarizing your details in a couple short paragraphs is arguably better because you avoid begging a lot of questions from your reader.

My current story has a lot of weird characters, it'd be kind of a pain in the ass to have to explain the justification of their traits. Again, this stems from the inherent assumption that all writers are bad, and constantly need to justify themselves. It boils down to a point where you might as well post the entire story, and even then you're guaranteed to have people who, as I've said before, read what looks like a mistake and judge you for the rest of the story.

Personally, I find Writer's Block more of a community, where writers can hang out and be reassured that there're others out there.

Of course, the problem is that some of us aren't writing...

As I said, that's how I see it too.

Say, exactly how many of us are writing anyways? I am on my 3rd draft. AHR is in the editing stage. Major Tom is also writing.

edited 20th Dec '11 4:48:35 PM by chihuahua0

I smell another thread.

I am not writing anything at present, which is why I post so much here.

I'm a multitasker, so I post here and I write my novel.

I write rather slowly whether I'm here or not. But I am writing.

And yes, I've always thought of Writer's Block as more of a community of writers talking about their work than a "resource."

I'm not writing anything concrete at current. I'm taking a long break from my fanfiction, and my other main idea is still in the roughing-out stage, even though I've shared it in another thread.

I have only one major project I'm working on at present, Integration which could be described as Fantasy. It's still in the developmental stages. I haven't yet actually put anything down to paper.

Okay, new thread!

My irony senses are tingling.

In defense of the "What's the worst thing you've ever done to a character" thread, I started it because I wasn't sure whether I was being too sadistic to my characters, or not sadistic enough, so I wanted to establish a baseline for sadism. I didn't realize how out of control it would get.

^ If there is an actual reason for the sadism, there's nothing wrong with it. If it's pointless, that's the problem.

But if you think the actual content is a problem, there may well be. How can you change it to improve it, giving the same effect through different means?

^ I don't think it's pointless, for what it's worth. My mother's generation would have considered it shocking, but this generation seems far too jaded for that. (Again, one worry was that I wasn't sadistic enough—for instance, I keep sparing characters who realistically shouldn't have survived the trials they've undergone.)

I didn't mean that it wasn't pointless because it wasn't shocking. I meant that it wasn't pointless, and it wasn't shocking—separate talking points. I'm sorry if that was unclear.

(Most often, I have violence in a story because I've created a situation where violence would logically result. It seems pornographic not to have likeable characters suffer and die during a war situation or a battle against a powerful, sadistic villain.)

edited 20th Dec '11 9:05:55 PM by feotakahari

Just saying that it wont have an effect does not make it justified, it actually does the opposite. Violence can be used for more than just a masturbatory aid (No More Heroes is a videogaming example of this) but most of the time it is just used as a masturbatory aid.

The thing I hated about that thread the most wasn't people trying to one-up each other, rather it was the fact that it reeked of one the primary reasons we got rid of Troper Tales - angsty teens trying to show off how edgy and antisocial they were. Though, I guess those two are kinda related.

To be fair, I guess a lot of the assumptions that people are bad writers here comes from the fact that there is more idea-sharing than actual prose-sharing. Said ideas often come across as mind-bendingly moronic out of context. In the actual story, they might work quite well and it's what Better Than It Sounds is all about. People here seem to be way too focused on the ideas themselves rather than finding interesting ways to integrate them into the narrative, which will make or break any idea that you have. Now, ideas are beautiful things, and to be fair the first drafts of most of my stories are just throwing in random ideas I have that I think would be interesting, and that's a-ok. It just seems like a good deal of people here can't move past that stage.

Another thing I've noticed here is what I mentioned earlier, the general teenage world-view a lot of users tend to be all too eager to push constantly. In the samples I've seen actually posted, a common quality a lot of the poorer ones have in common is that they feel like the writer is trying way too hard to stand out rather than spin a good yarn. Dialog tries and fails to be snappy, characters are often snarky rebels with some sort of chip on their shoulder, and the setting Tastes Like Dirt and almost always includes some sort of special powers.

The two last paragraphs are exactly how I feel about the problems with Writer's Block. Thanks for phrasing it better than I could have.

The reason why I don't really post anything at this stage is because of the critiquing.

Anything that is writing that gets posted here is basically an invitation to either "praise my work" or "rip it apart". To be honest, I'm scared I'm either going to be wasting a critiquer's time with a rough post, or face the bluntness of one certain user.

Oh man, facing critique is never easy (at least not in my experience). It's nerve-wracking. Still, the more you get, the better you get at taking it.