What Kind of Writers Do We Have on This forum?

My curiosity got the better of me, so I decided to start this thread. Each of those questions could be a thread unto itself, I'm sure, but as long as the answers don't get too Wall of Text-y (hint), it could provide a bit of a bird's-eye view of, well, what the title says.

Background

1. At what age did you start writing? How many years of writing experience do you have?
2. What kind of phases did your writing go through? What's the most important lesson you have learned from each?
3. Which genres do you deal with? What medium? What do you reckon is your target audience?
4. What are your influences?
5. What do you think are the most important things to get right in a work? What do you think a writer should keep in mind if they want to actually get those things right?
6. Did you let any friends read your work? Family? Internet pals? What did they have to say?
7. What do you think is your biggest failing as a writer? In all seriousness, put yourself in place of someone reading your work and, to the best of your ability, complete the sentence: "Wow, this sucks, because _____".
8. (Extra Credit, 5 pts.) Which commonly-given writing advice do you hate the most?

Practice — skip a point if not applicable.*

Quote in quoteblock tags.

1. List the full names of four of your male characters and four of your female characters.
2. Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where you introduce a character.
3. Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where you describe a scene.
4. Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where you drop a big plot twist.
5. Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where a character is facing some kind of difficulty.
6. Copypaste the first line of one of your works...
7. ...And the last line of that work.

Aaand you're done. I'm not giving my own answers here because doing so in the OP would be bad form, but I might do so later if and when a few other people give theirs.

edited 25th Feb '12 5:32:34 AM by TripleElation

Pretentious quote || In-joke from fandom you've never heard of || Shameless self-promotion || Something weird you'll habituate to

This could be interesting.

Background

1. Eleven
2. At first my writing as full of stupid internet memes and bad grammar, but I Got Better.
3. I prefer action/adventure, but I also incorporate mystery into my works too. The target audience is anybody who likes action/adventure and loadsandloadsofcharacters.
4. J.K. Rowling, author of Harry Potter, plays a big inspiration in world building and such.
5. The most important things in a work are having a coherent plot that makes sense, without having any asspulls. Plenty of foreshadowing and chekhov's guns are useful for this, but having a chapter note list can go a long way.
6. My family reads my work rarely. I only show it to them if I'm confident in what I'm writing. On the internet, anyone can give me CC. Usually, it's positive.
7. Pacing is too fast. "Wow, this sucks, because the story moves too fast when you could have fleshed out many plot points".
8. (Extra Credit, 5 pts.) The four deadly words: "You should stop writing."

Practice — skip a point if not applicable.* If the whole section is not applicable, we recommend you take a break from this site Quote in quoteblock tags.

1. Male: Limus Flanch, App Leteford, Indel Ipponga, Helt Tointret. Female: Delly Fleet, Lin Attera, Gust Felm, Cade Lawsend
2.

3.
4. not there yet
5.
6.
7. not there yet

edited 25th Feb '12 6:38:11 AM by Collen

Gave them our reactions, our explosions, all that was ours For graphs of passion and charts of stars...

(I think I ended up writing a wall of text. I really tried to avoid it, but the temptation to elaborate was irresistible.)

I started writing when I was 10. I'm 21 now.

Phase #1, ages 10-12: I wrote stories about little girls. Those stories would constantly alternate between autobiographical slice-of-life and ridiculous melodrama. I'm not really sure if I was learning anything at all at that stage.

Phase #2, ages 13-15: I wrote utterly pointless violence set in the Standard Fantasy Setting WITH GUNS. What did I learn? I guess all those times I sat around forcing out completely boring chapters out of myself taught me that Quality > Quantity. It was also at the end of this phase that I suddenly realized that there is a difference between stories I make up for my own amusement and stories that are meant to entertain a larger audience.

Phase #3, ages 16-17: I got really taken up with drawing and didn't write as much as I used to. In the meantime, I spent a lot of time reading people's critique on other people's stuff (mostly anime). They never taught us anything story-writing-related at school, so it was lurking online that taught me that there were these things called “character development” and “story climax”, which made me look at my own writings differently.

Phase #4 is the one that is still continuing, and that's where I learnt the most. Starting with that 100% coherent and red-herring-free story I wrote soon after I turned 18. It's looking at that story and seeing that even though it's technically okay, there's still something missing, that made me realize what storytelling is REALLY about.

I'm not really sure if I write within any genre at all... As for the medium, nowadays I mostly write comic book scripts. I had a webcomic which ran for a year, until I deleted it off the face of the internet. The target audience I visualise is different for every story.

Every single thing I have ever read in my entire life had an influence on me. Including forum posts.

The most important thing for a story is to have heart and soul. I'll forgive a story anything as long as I can see that it's trying to say something honest to me. I don't think there's any specific thing you need to keep in mind to achieve this, just listen to you heart!

Everything I've gotten out of critique has always been very story-specific, quoting it here wouldn't mean anything.

The thing that always brings me trouble is the fact that I can only keep one thing in my mind at any one time. I can't focus on several things at once. “At once” means “within the span of same few months”. It makes me neglect important things in my stories. Things as important as co-protagonists. Once I get into the head of any one character, I can't get out of their head, and end up with a complex character who lives in the world of cardboard (or close to it). I don't think I will ever truly solve this problem, my brain is just wired wrong, but I always try to remedy it in any way I can.

There's SO MUCH writing advice I hate!!! But if I really have to nominate the thing I hate the most, then it would be: “You can't do X. Yes, I know, awesome author Y does X all the time, but neither you nor I are awesome author Y, which is why you should do as I tell you.” Such statements always send me into a rage, but I never reply to them.

The “Practice” section is not applicable because I mostly write scripts, and since I write them for myself, they would be very confusing for anybody else to read (and listing names is kinda pointless).

edited 25th Feb '12 7:12:21 AM by fanty

Let's see...

Background:

1. When I first started composing stories around 10. (I made a one off that never finished and I threw it away.) First started writing more continuously and much more seriously, 24.
2. Phases: Conception (usually starts with an ending), ad-hoc structuring, improvised production based on a few pre-planned elements. Most important lesson? Don't procrastinate each stage and don't pull things out of your ass very often.
3. Genres: Varied. Sci-fi/Space Opera is Endless Conflict, adventure classic is Towards the Valley of Flowers. I'm not against writing other genres like fantasy either. Media: Primarily either literature or video games. I have a bit of a story behind my mod for Command and Conquer: Yuri's Revenge and a Metroidvania style game called Macrocosm. Target Audience: Depends on the work. Endless Conflict is 17+. Towards the Valley of Flowers is 7-11. Macrocosm would be all ages (well any age 7 or above. It would not be an Early Childhood kind of game).
4. Influences....where do I start? I'll admit Eric Nylund is one of them.
5. Most important thing to get right is a cohesive, established and flowing plot or world. How to get there is by establishing consistent conventions for many things and if need be following a spot of realism to describe some things.
6. Not yet and I'll leave it at that.
7. "...because you either delve too deep in trying to describe things in simpler, easier to understand prose so to avoid offending some readers or your sentence structure is too varied, sometimes too long or too complex."
8. Outline. I hate that advice with a passion. I never do it, I never need it. STOP TELLING ME TO DO IT!

Practice:

1. Male: Mathias Watkins, Tenchi Yamanaka, James Jay Jameson, Roy Jansen, Barry Smith, Benjamin Sharon. Female: Mei Lin, Samantha Watkins, Jessebelle "Jessie" Marietta Noland, Jessica Bailey, Ellie Richards. (I did 6 instead of 4.)

2.

3. Does Scenery Porn count? This is but part of the scene.

4. This is probably a bit lengthy for what you are asking but hey. This is a big plot twist for this character anyways. (It's not quite a series twisting Wham Episode but it works.)

5. This scene shows Samantha Watkins at first dealing with the difficulty of going to college far from home and all alone. After this excerpt, let's just say loneliness becomes the least of her challenges.

6. First line first line? First line of a prologue? First line of the first actual chapter? Well I'll just do all three.

7. Not there yet.

edited 25th Feb '12 7:37:20 AM by MajorTom

"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."

Why not?

Background

1. Started writing at about seven, but it was exactly what you'd expect from a (relatively competent but still immature) seven year old. It's been intermittent since than, so I can't truly claim I have fifteen full years experience.
2. My "very clearly in elementary school phase." Middle school, I had the best English teacher I've ever had, tough as she was, and it was mostly spent upon honing a Lemony Narrator style. High school saw more stress and less capable teachers: I became a Nietzsche Wannabe, and while my technical writing skill increased, it was wasted upon utter tripe. Started writing Fan Fiction for Fall From Heaven in early college, where I honed my current, unobtrusive, realist style. (Some of it ascended — if you're ever playing Fall From Heaven, play as Keelyn in Lord of the Balors.) And now, my current style, which is essentially the same save the abandonment of certain eccentricities.
3. I'm writing a novel that is best called Speculative Fiction since it skates the line between sci-fi and fantasy, and am aiming at college aged and higher: my first chapter is a bloody R-Rated Opening.
4. George R. R. Martin, most definitely, plus Bio Ware and my own father, a gifted storyteller despite being nearly illiterate from dyslexia, and the sheer amount of weird and wonderful people I seem to encounter.
5. There is no single rule all must follow, though there are ones I personally stick to. I could say, "you should give a shit about these characters," but Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia mocks that. I would never write an obtrusive narrator, but Discworld's narrator is a character in of himself, and one of the finest I've read.
6. So far only folk on the internet. Showing my family my current gory, twisted tale would be... embarrassing, while my friends are ruthless critics who I'll only show my work to when I'm ready to have it brutalized. (I wouldn't have it any other way.)
7. I'm always worried my own many perversions will become far too obvious and end up squicking or simply irritating my potential readers.
8. "Be original." It's not bad advice, it's just very easy to misinterpret. It isn't the tools you choose to use that shape your story, it's the way you use them. Force yourself to use unusual tools from some misbegotten desire to be unique, and odds are good what lies underneath will be either meaningless, or old shit in a new wrapper. There are exceptions, but such exceptions come from those who have already mastered the old tools.

• Female: Asayu ul'Valmoth, Rachel Hosseini, Alice Snow, Julia O'Malley. Male: Isaac Rose, Frank O'Malley, Sigmund Clark, Greg O'Malley.

• Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where you introduce a character.

• Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where you describe a scene.

• Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where a character is facing some kind of difficulty.

• Copypaste the first line of one of your works...

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be skimming through the others, silently and cruelly judging getting to know my fellow writers around these parts.

Righty-O, here goes nothing.

1. Depends on what you mean. In terms of making up stories, I've been creating stories and little skits since I was very young. In terms of actually writing in earnest, I must have started at around twelve or thirteen, at which time I had discovered Lovecraft. My fiction writing tapered off during high school, giving way mostly to schoolwork and song-writing, but as it were, I picked up the pen again in eleventh grade for a creative writing course. My greatest efforts, however, roughly coincided with my discovery of this site and, interestingly, the realisation at how little I'd been reading over the past few years. It was really almost a homecoming, a return to a secret kingdom that I had long forsaken for a self-imposed exile in strange and distant territories. The joy was and is a great one.
2. My juvenile ephemera leans heavily on what I was reading or otherwise consuming at the time, and so is often lush with verbosity and sinister melodrama, and can be neatly divided into three overlapping phases: Those of arch homage, black comedy and lyrical abstraction, all being far less impressive than they sound. My high school work was much more overtly experimental, wordy but far less intensely so; this presaged my current style, which is more formal but still heavily focused on the interior. The lessons have been simple and sweet with each evolution: Treasure what you know is yours alone, use the right words for the right things, don't obfuscate where clarity would improve the story. Been given tools; have used them.
3. I guess the key words here are "speculative fiction," but not in the sense that most people use it: Of the Big Three, my greatest sympathy has always been to horror, and it shows. Relating to form, I write in vignettes, then expand them into stories. I used to write mostly poetry, sometimes short stories, also monologues, prose poetry, plays, sketches, haibun, film scripts, flash fiction. So on, so forth. Still do. While I have long aspired to write a graphic novel, and the work to which I devote most of my time has potential in that direction, my low skill in repeating drawings and issues with the script format mean that this is a ways off. Audience is a complicated question, as I resent playing to demographics, but, well... I want to reach sympathetic organisms, for a lack of a better term. People like me. Freaks and geeks who read too much and think too much. Connoisseurs of the peculiar. Otherwise, I'm not sure that I care.
4. Lots of things, but in terms of writing: I know that my veneration of Thomas Ligotti has almost certainly crept into it, in addition to, in lesser degrees, the sleepwalking surrealism of William Burroughs and John Hawkes; Angela Carter's baroque fables and Neil Gaiman's simple responses; the antiquarian architectures of Machen and Lovecraft; the wry humour and sense of the innate fantastic common to Borges and Barthelme; the dead-eyed, hollow calm found in the prose of Kosinski, Bowles, Straub; Ellison in his righteous and grandiose fantasies and Nabokov in his fantastic and righteous grandiosity; Vonnegut, Bradbury, Baudelaire, the Gospel of Thomas... I got carried away there. I love reading, and I try not to imitate, but I know that I take from what I read, so I talk about it. Many things, then. Perhaps Ligotti most of all, but still, many things.
5. I'd say, in a word, empathy: A great story makes you feel what the character feels or, on some special occasions—the more impersonal side of horror, for example—what the author feels. A story needs to resonate. This is why some stories, even beautifully written, do not "click" with some people: They do not resonate with those readers. So, how to do this? I cannot say. Of penultimate importance, naturally, is language, though this is often essential to the above and, if lacking, far more easily bettered. Advice? Read more. Write more. Think more.
6. Yes, yes, yes. Mostly I've had compliments for my more refined works, criticisms for my less refined. I've been called "sophisticated" several times, which makes me glow a little. I've also been called "old-fashioned," about which I have been conflicted but ultimately pleased.
7. A few: I ramble. I over-think things. I do not conserve detail. I edit too minutely, too rarely. I am arrogant and self-indulgent. Nothing happens; everyone lives in their heads. Too much happens; there are too many stories, too many people. So it goes.
8. Honestly? Most of it. Especially when people start to talk about how one should structure a book. They talk about how you should always have a climax here, an antagonist there, how X plot build is essential to Y genre, how Z is never done except by the most masterful writers and that's only because they are somehow magically allowed to "break the rules." Worse, when they get theoretical in their justifications as to how a writer should use their formula: How all characters in a given context should be written with a given archetype in mind, and how those archetypes must be filled in order to make your book worth reading. For all their good intentions, such people are, by definition, hacks, and I resent that they should restrain good writers with their presumptions and give bad ones scaffolding on which to build their mediocrity. This is not to say that literary theory and playing with archetypes are bad things; to the contrary, they are things that a great writer knows intuitively, through experience and experiment, and plays with at their leisure, knowingly exploiting or discarding elements where they see fit. Yet so many think that all beauty lies solely within technique, and so damn themselves with narrow expectations. It pains me.

P.S. Sorry about the text wall. I know that you didn't want that to happen but, being who I am... well, it happened. I hope that you don't pass on me for want of shorter answers.

edited 25th Feb '12 9:52:53 AM by JHM

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

Ok, cool.

Background

• At what age did you start writing? How many years of writing experience do you have?

I think it would have been around 10. Not sure.

• What kind of phases did your writing go through? What's the most important lesson you have learned from each?

I guess - thematically, at least - there's been a transition between a phase where the basis of what I write is "look at this cool thing, see what it does" and a phase where the basis is "look at these cool people, see what they do". In other words, the ideas that stories originate from are now, for me, more tied up in characters than in the setting.

• Which genres do you deal with? What medium? What do you reckon is your target audience?

Extremely postmodernist takes on Urban Fantasy, with a great deal of potential fourth-wall breakage. My current idea is novel-length, although I mostly tend to write short stories. I had (and have) a great interest in Visual Novels as a medium, but seeing as my drawing skills are roughly on par with those of the Giant Rat of Sumatra, making one myself was never an option for me. As for my target audience...is "TV Tropes readers" specific enough?

• What are your influences?

Anything and everything, but mainly Discworld, the Nasuverse and Charles Stross.

• What do you think are the most important things to get right in a work? What do you think a writer should keep in mind if they want to actually get those things right?

Maintaining consistent characterisation. Probably the most important part of that is how characters talk - their "voice" in other words. Keeping control of that is vital. I have a lot of trouble with this, as most of my characters tend to sound like me when they speak.

• Did you let any friends read your work? Family? Internet pals? What did they have to say?

I rarely do this. One of my short stories won an award, but that was likely because the prize was chosen out of two entries in that category. I find it very difficult to explain my stories to other people.

• What do you think is your biggest failing as a writer? In all seriousness, put yourself in place of someone reading your work and, to the best of your ability, complete the sentence: "Wow, this sucks, because _____".

I was going to put down "procrastination", but since that's not really what this question is asking, I'd have to say an inability to describe scenes well. Dialogue, for me, is much easier than descriptions.

• (Extra Credit, 5 pts.) Which commonly-given writing advice do you hate the most?

I couldn't really say.

Practice

• List the full names of four of your male characters and four of your female characters.

Males:

• Ilariy Nikolaevich Shengelaya
• Halli Annansida Oleifsson
• Sindri Jaurnssaul
• Kermit London

Females:

• Weaver Cavendish
• Valentine Laplace
• Sigre Ahlhilmir Sverrirsdottir
• Fantasy EDGE/Ekajati (no, seriously)

• Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where you introduce a character.

From an unfinished Nasuverse fanfic.

• Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where you describe a scene.

From an unfinished Touhou fanfic, done in the style of a stereotypical pulp detective novel. This is Marisa narrating. If you know Touhou, you should be able to work out who's being described.

• Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where you drop a big plot twist.

Same Nasuverse fanfic as above.

• Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where a character is facing some kind of difficulty.

Couldn't really find one. Sorry.

• Copypaste the first line of one of your works...

• ...And the last line of that work.

edited 25th Feb '12 10:01:05 AM by RiotousRascal

I feel sad to say that this was kind of difficult and depressing.

1. At what age did you start writing? How many years of writing experience do you have?
   • I've been assaulted with plotbunnies ever since I was nine or ten years old, but I didn't start putting them to paper until I was in seventh grade. That comes to about four years.
2. What kind of phases did your writing go through? What's the most important lesson you have learned from each?
   • When I started writing for a reason other than for school, I was a rather straight example of the stupid Darker and Edgier early teen anime fangirl. And it showed. Coming to this forum about a year ago and maturing in general made me grow out of it. I guess you could say that the main thing I got out of it was a sense of perspective, with the realization that I am not the greatest writer to have ever lived, and that my ideas are not 100% original.
3. Which genres do you deal with? What medium? What do you reckon is your target audience?
   • I've dealt with a mix between supernatural, Science Fiction, Urban Fantasy, Slice of Life, Clock Punk, and Bio Punk, so I guess my genre is Speculative Fiction. Though not everything in the world that I've created contains objectionable elements, I plan to aim the works pertaining to that world at adults.
4. What are your influences?
   • I didn't really start getting story ideas until I discovered anime (specifically Pokemon), and I didn't put them to paper until I discovered the likes of Death Note, Bleach, and Darker Than Black. They've had a very strong influence over pretty much everything, but Beach, Pokemon and Death Note have lessened over the years to make room for stuff like Kenshin, Flags Of Our Fathers (the book), and bits and pieces from Real Life.
5. What do you think are the most important things to get right in a work? What do you think a writer should keep in mind if they want to actually get those things right?
   • Maintaining the reader's attention, and making the characters seem like living, breathing human beings deserving of such attention. That means the right balance of description and action and careful characterization.
6. Did you let any friends read your work? Family? Internet pals? What did they have to say?
   • My mother has read my writing before, but her deep-set beliefs on what is right and good and what is wrong and bad have not made her the most constructive critic in the world; based on what she's said, she doesn't want anything I write to be a.) influenced to even the smallest degree by people I know in real life due to privacy, b.) portray fathers and husbands with a competence level higher than 'moderate', and c.) portray anything that she believes to be right as wrong or misguided. So I do not listen to her anymore. On the other hand, I've gotten far better feedback from the internet. I participated in the Fourth TV Tropes Writing Contest and was generally told to establish the characters better and work on prose. I shy away from showing my writings to people around my school because pretty much everything I've seen from the rest of the school seems to be aimed at children or preteens, and here I am writing about politics, evil fairies, and fucked-up fantasy worlds. Seems like the best way to make my already small pool of acquaintances even smaller :<
7. What do you think is your biggest failing as a writer? In all seriousness, put yourself in place of someone reading your work and, to the best of your ability, complete the sentence: "Wow, this sucks, because _____".
   • When I was in eighth grade, pretty much everything that I wrote was in a poorly handled script format without much description. So I can write dialogue, but I'm still working on figuring out how I write description. My biggest failing is doing this for such a long time without even having what could be called a voice.
8. (Extra Credit, 5 pts.) Which commonly-given writing advice do you hate the most?
   • 'Write what you know' when it's meant to mean 'don't write specfic' and various ways of phrasing 'make your descriptions vivid'. Number one, there is nothing inherently wrong with specfic in its various forms, and number two, 'make your descriptions vivid' can be taken by a newbie writer to mean 'use Purple Prose'. One of my English teachers said that Purple Prose-y type descriptions are good descriptions, and she showed us a 'good' description of a sunset that included something about angels spilling jam on the sky. That was... no.

Practice- I feel sort of bad that I can't really fill anything in from my primary long plotbunny because I don't feel that my skill level can do that plotbunny justice. The only thing I can fill in is...

• List the full names of four of your male characters and four of your female characters.
  • Male: Ryu Akamura, Sora Akamura, Doctor Adrian Kunstler, Vinicio Acquati, Matthias Cline, Cyrus Favonius
  • Female: Lien Thi Khang, Bianca Cline, Chiara Aurelia Cline, Marla Kunstler, Kagami Maki, Viviana I

edited 25th Feb '12 10:20:25 AM by CrystalGlacia

"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."

• At what age did you start writing? How many years of writing experience do you have?
  • 11-12 (I'm currently 17).
• What kind of phases did your writing go through? What's the most important lesson you have learned from each?
  • I started out with a silly phase influenced strongly by Star Wars and Dragonball Z, but my writing has shifted from mindless action stories to somewhat more sophisticated fare as I've found a certain love for politics and morality discussion. What I learned, in simplest terms, is that nothing I write ever ends up being just a story; usually, it must mean something. What that "something" is varies.
• Which genres do you deal with? What medium? What do you reckon is your target audience?
  • Typically some form of speculative fiction, though I often segue into historical fiction. My favorite is alternate history, really. As for target audience, I don't really have anything I shoot for.
• What are your influences?
  • Generally it depends on what story I'm working on, but I think my biggest role model for writing has been Stephen King.
• What do you think are the most important things to get right in a work? What do you think a writer should keep in mind if they want to actually get those things right?
  • Integration of themes with the plot; characters that feel like they intrinsically belong to the setting they're in. I think a writer should remember that you can have all the messages in the world, but no matter what they are you should try and get them across without simply stopping and having a monologue on the subject; also, one must remember that people, at the end of the day, are largely products of their environment, and that every character should be different based on their backstory and the wider world around them.
• Did you let any friends read your work? Family? Internet pals? What did they have to say?
  • Friends occasionally. Not my family. Some of my internet friends do. They typically like it, to some degree, but rarely offer anything like sophisticated critiques, etc.
• What do you think is your biggest failing as a writer? In all seriousness, put yourself in place of someone reading your work and, to the best of your ability, complete the sentence: "Wow, this sucks, because _____".
  • Poor integration of dialogue and narrative; I tend to switch back and forth, rather than keeping it coherent, and it comes across as vaguely schizophrenic.
• (Extra Credit, 5 pts.) Which commonly-given writing advice do you hate the most?
  • Write What You Know.

• List the full names of four of your male characters and four of your female characters.
  • I'm going to choose not to do this one, because a lot of the time my characters go nameless until I actually get to the point where I write their first scene, and thus many don't have names at the moment, while most of the rest of their details are done; in addition, many of my characters are actual people (for example, Theodore Roosevelt).
• Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where you introduce a character.

• Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where you describe a scene.

• Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where you drop a big plot twist.

• Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where a character is facing some kind of difficulty.
  • At the moment, most of my examples are too long to qualify as an excerpt, so I'll skip this one.
• Copypaste the first line of one of your works...

• ...And the last line of that work.
  • (It's not finished, but this is the last line of it I have written currently:

edited 25th Feb '12 10:29:24 AM by Flyboy

"Shit, our candidate is a psychopath. Better replace him with Newt Gingrich."

Middle school. I can't honestly remember the exact year, though it was eighth grade. 14/15.

...god, has it really been that long? That's over a decade.

There was the early days, among the Battle Tech and Gundam Wing fans. (To an extent, I never left BT.) I learned that the first x words I'm going to spew out when I create a new story are bad, and should be regarded as a form of filter-cleaning rather than something to be preserved. I also discovered my counterrevolutionary side.

After exiting that phase there was a period of wandering in the wilderness that lasted years, where nothing was completed nor published. Through high school, most of college. The only works of note were my two Free Space campaigns, Cleaning Crew, and the experimental (devise, write, FRED, and release in 24 hours) campaign Operation Savior. Which was actually delayed three weeks due to a bug I discovered in the process. In reality, this was more of an oasis along the way. The campaigns were not good; nor, really, were they meant to be. They were quick, relatively unique ideas, relative unique implementation of some things (nobody worked so hard to treat warships as actual warships again until the Blue Planet guys), but ultimately not that long or well-done. What I learned, if anything, from such an Out-of-Genre Experience, I could not say. What I learned from the numerous failed works along the way was that I hadn't found the setting to hold my interest or the method to sustain writing over a long term.

Today, the current phase, is most probably marked by the release of Monsters about a year and a half ago. Trying to sum it up is obviously premature.

I have traditionally been a writer of science fiction, but by now most everything has been tried once. I am unsure of what you mean by "medium" in this context, I suppose it's for the comics sorts among us, but I can't be sure.

Target audience? What's that? No, I'm not quite that bad, but I have counterrevolutionary tendencies when it comes to writing. Many of my first works resulted from identifying a current trend and writing something opposed to it. My current works, too, were counterrevolutionary in some ways, though they have outgrown it.

I started with Stackpole and Loren L. Coleman, I expect. (I probably still owe something to the former.) Today, there's more owed to Stuart, Banks, Zahn,

I tend to be stickler for basic continuity over other things, but only as it reaches the audience. (As long as they don't see you breaking the rules, you're not breaking the rules.)

I don't know that anyone who knows me personally has read my work. I don't make a deal of it to people who actually know me and never have.

I'm not sure. I suspect it'll come down to "this is not the style in which this should be treated". Or they'll be annoyed with my counterrevolutionary bit. (God knows that's happened before.)

I don't know. No, really. I go through cycles of hating pretty much each in turn, but it's never particularly intense.

Micheal Sanderson; Samuel al-Faddil, Muhammed al-Faddil, Bei.

Nara Rajinderpal; Carolyn Altima, Kate Sentri, Samanatha Heinrichs.

I could pretty much use the one below this, but I won't.

Night Life.

edited 25th Feb '12 1:08:55 PM by Night

Nous restons ici.

1. I began writing when I first read the Harry Potter books, around the year 2000. It was fanfiction. I segued into original fiction around 2005.

2. I went through a purple-prose phase, a bare-bones phase, a drama phase, and am currently stuck in humor. I learned that the first one takes too long, the second is unsatisfying to write, the third one is what everyone is doing, and the fourth one might be what everyone else is doing but it is way more fun.

3. Fantasy, usually of the present-day urban type. Occasionally I delve into plain old literary fiction. Once I wrote a Western and it was fun. I usually write short stories and attempt novels. Right now, I am stepping into screenplays. My target audience: "Adults who like dead foreign authors, really detailed clothing, traveling (or just reading about travelers) and/or terrible puns".

4. CLAMP, Daniel Handler, Diana Wynne Jones, Diane Duane, Disney, Emily Dickinson, Evelyn Lau, Garth Nix, Gary Paulsen, Hayao Miyazaki, Harper Lee, Isabel Allende, Italo Calvino, J. K. Rowling, Joanne Harris, Joss Whedon, Kevin Smith, Laura Esquivel, Lemony Snicket, Lewis Carrol, Louisa May Alcott, Louis Sachar, Margaret Atwood, Margot Lanagan, Mary Stanton, Meredith Ann Pierce, Natalie Goldberg, Neil Cicierega, Patricia C. Wrede, Peter S. Beagle, Pixar, Robin McKinley, Sara Gruen, Sappho, Shelley Wollstonecraft, Tim Burton, Tamora Pierce, Willa Cather, Zora Neale Hurston

5. Whatever gets the most important part of the story across. Plot, characterization, gender equality, the fact that you can write a novel without any vowels besides the letter E. They need to have the drive to write from their heart, discipline to write every day, the ability to take criticism well. Also, it's nice if they have fun.

6. Yes. I experiment 99.9% of the time, so my reviews are mixed.

7. "Wow, this sucks, because she likes clothes too much, uses present tense, sometimes nobody talks for pages, her jokes don't make sense, and I have to find a dictionary to understand her titles!".

8. I don't particularly like it when people tell me to use past tense, especially not when there's no reason other than the reader has a personal preference towards past tense. If it sounds "awkward", I will do my best to change it so that the wording flows better, but I will not change the tense.

I could fill out the first half, but all my previous works are old enough now that they're not on my current computer beyond my entry for the writing contest, since I spent the last three years working two jobs and being too exhausted for hobbies.

to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee

1. Um, I think I first started trying to write around 14. But I never wrote much. I've probably only been really writing since August. 2. Well, I mostly tried to write a fantasy novel until recently. When I first tried, I just started writing and figured stuff out as I went along. Later on, I tried making outlines, and never liked them. Then I recently switched to a superhero serial, following an outline. I've learned I can't write novels for shit. 3. Superhero webserial aimed mostly at adults (I use casual profanity). 4. Comic books. 5. Interesting characters. And whether the characters seem like real people. 6. I have no friends with an interest in superheroes. I've been posting it online, anyone can read it. 7. Said Bookisms, lack of an overarching plotline, mediocre writing style . . . I can totally understand why anyone would dislike it, frankly. 8. No idea.

1. Alvin Perkliss, Victor Burling, Eddie Evans, Will Mills; Melissa Lenard, Julienne Bourbannais, Janet Lawrence, Karah No-last-name-ever-given.

And I don't actually feel like doing the rest. Maybe later.

X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.

1. At what age did you start writing? How many years of writing experience do you have?

• I've been writing for fun since at least second grade, so that would be... 7 or 8? I've considered myself a "writer" for the last decade.

2. What kind of phases did your writing go through? What's the most important lesson you have learned from each?

• I started off (naturally given my age), as primarily concerned with "cool stuff", and what I wrote at the time primarily involved Stuff Blowing Up and action at the expense of anything else. I didn't really learn any "lesson" here - the writing is what you would expect from an elementary school student, and it doesn't embarrass me the way some later works do. As I grew older, there was a brief period where I tried to base my style after whatever author I liked most at the moment, but that quickly ended. By my teens, I had picked up a fair amount of my modern style, but this also featured the works I flinch most from remembering - my problems tending to include incoherent plots and still too much focus on "cool stuff". The biggest change since has been my shift from liking fantasy to science fiction, which has gone along with a different attitude towards writing.

3. Which genres do you deal with? What medium? What do you reckon is your target audience?

• I'm largely a science fiction writer these days, though I'm not prepared to rule anything else out (short of pure romance). My preferred medium is literature, but both my longest and (in my opinion) best finished work, and the first thing I'm likely to "publish" (in the TV Tropes sense) are actually comics. I disagree with the idea of having a specific target audience - I like to think the best works should appeal to everyone - but I suspect in practice most of my audience will be people roughly like myself (college-age with a nerdy bent).

4. What are your influences?

• It might be easier to say what aren't my influences - I've been influenced by just about everything I've ever read/watched/played, whether I liked it or not.

5. What do you think are the most important things to get right in a work? What do you think a writer should keep in mind if they want to actually get those things right?

• The most important thing to get right, I think, is characterization. Everything else is important, but if your characters aren't convincing, then you've failed as a writer. Unfortunately, there's no one catch-all piece of advice on how to write characters - all I can say is that the best thing to do is try and write from life, not make them over-the-top.

6. Did you let any friends read your work? Family? Internet pals? What did they have to say?

• Not for a long time, but yes. I remember my girlfriend liked my Harry Potter parody a lot, and my friends wanted me to "put more action" in my comics, but it's been a while since my works have really been open to criticism.

7. What do you think is your biggest failing as a writer? In all seriousness, put yourself in place of someone reading your work and, to the best of your ability, complete the sentence: "Wow, this sucks, because _____".

• Let's see here:
  • On a general level, I think my biggest problem is failing to properly convey my ideas. In recent years I've noticed I have a problem with leaving too much in subtext. I'm generally very confident in the basic ideas behind my works, but I tend to worry about properly executing them. I also think some of my characters are unrealistic.
  • As far as specific stylistic flaws, I think I use way too many sentences with dashes - like this - and parenthetical asides. I also still have a tendency towards info-dumping whenever I need to deliver exposition.

8. (Extra Credit, 5 pts.) Which commonly-given writing advice do you hate the most?

• "Write what you know" - it's not always bad, and can be helpful, but if interpreted wrongly can produce self-insert stories, which I tend to hate.

I'm going to ignore the Practice section, because I don't think comics translate onto the forum very well and nothing else I've written really feels like it deserves to be here.

edited 25th Feb '12 4:11:54 PM by nrjxll

At what age did you start writing? How many years of writing experience do you have?

Mid Teens. – 25-28 years

What kind of phases did your writing go through? What's the most important lesson you have learned from each?

Initially too hurried to finish, to get to the end. As I’ve got older I have learned to enjoy each scene, not see it as just something to be got through.

Which genres do you deal with? What medium? What do you reckon is your target audience?

Usually SF or fantasy/ Current is 'Romance', but really about the leads struggle with identity.

What are your influences?

Usually High Fantasy/Pratchett/Leibner, or comic Sf/Rankin/Holt/Adams. However latest one is a full romantic book (85k words, and counting) set now.

What do you think are the most important things to get right in a work? What do you think a writer should keep in mind if they want to actually get those things right?

The initial Hook, and pacing

Did you let any friends read your work? Family? Internet pals? What did they have to say? I have a friend at work who is helping with my latest MS, checking it is working as I hope it is. Years ago I had some short stories published, and some thought it was an unpublished Douglas Adams, so that was nice

What do you think is your biggest failing as a writer? In all seriousness, put yourself in place of someone reading your work and, to the best of your ability, complete the sentence: "Wow, this sucks, because _____".

Writing in the female voice/Thinking as a woman.

(Extra Credit, 5 pts.) Which commonly-given writing advice do you hate the most?

“Use Said”

Practice —List the full names of four of your male characters and four of your female characters.

Gabriel Wright, Richard Gibson, Jason Hardie, Gary

Lucy Castle, Lizzie Gibson, Charlie Hardie, Jennifer Wright. (‘Promises’)

Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where you introduce a character.

Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where you describe a scene.

Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where you drop a big plot twist.

Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where a character is facing some kind of difficulty.

Copypaste the first line of one of your works...

...And the last line of that work.

edited 25th Feb '12 3:42:59 PM by LastHussar

Do the job in front of you.

1. At what age did you start writing? How many years of writing experience do you have?

• First grade, if you mean writing stories age 20 Before that I was more into drawing. I have two years of experience.

2. What kind of phases did your writing go through? What's the most important lesson you have learned from each?

• I have a few: pre-Na No Wri Mo*
  Basically it was a new years resoultion.
  , Nano, Writing group Phase, Writing Excuses phase, Now.
  • From Nano: writing 50k words in a month as an emo perfectionist is hard. Every time I needed a refresher I'd read the last chapter then start editing it, by the time In finished editing I was too exhausted and depressed at how much I sucked, to write for very long so I dropped out 20 days in with like 25k down. To this day this is my biggest flaw as a writer.
  • Writing group: Fun and frustrating, and a must do for every new writer. You will learn more about writing, others and yourself than you will reading any blog or article. Seriously, stop reading this and do it. I did it here on TV Tropes.
  • Writing Excuses phase: I found this and still use it to this day, This combined with being in a writing group increased by ability to write ten fold.

3. Which genres do you deal with? What medium? What do you reckon is your target audience?

• Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Post Cyber Punk, Sci-Fi and Romance.
  • I write Novellas and Short stories, as well as work on Cmapaign settings and table top stuff.
  • I don't target audiences, I just write. Let my editor/publicist figure who to market me too.

4. What are your influences?

• Mostly Tv shows and Anime as well as real life. Sadly I have little to no actual literary influences sadly.

5. What do you think are the most important things to get right in a work? What do you think a writer should keep in mind if they want to actually get those things right?

• Characters, but I'm a character driven writer.
  • Make sure they are consistent, and don't bouce off the walls from one personality to another, I'm looking at you Bella Swan. Even a chaotic character like Dead Pool has a consistent personality.

6. Did you let any friends read your work? Family? Internet pals? What did they have to say?

• I've only let a few people read my work, and it's generally just people going over it for edits.

7. What do you think is your biggest failing as a writer? In all seriousness, put yourself in place of someone reading your work and, to the best of your ability, complete the sentence: "Wow, this sucks, because _____".

• It's not finished. Not descriptive enough is another one.

8. (Extra Credit, 5 pts.) Which commonly-given writing advice do you hate the most?

• Read more.

edited 25th Feb '12 4:03:12 PM by Vyctorian

Rarely active, try DA/Tumblr Avatar by pippanaffie.deviantart.com

Background

• 1. I don't remember when I started writing. Probably when I had to write essays for school.
• 2. I've been through some tense issues (past or present) before settling on past because present reads terribly with long stories imo. That and the necessity to mold each scene before I write it, then rethink my ideas as I keep going. Otherwise there's no flow in the action and the characters make no sense.
• 3. Fantasy / science fiction in text. I aim at a younger demographic, but don't want to be considered YA fiction too much.
• 4. Music (instrumental/soundtracks) helps me build scenes and determine how the characters would get there. Problem with that lies in how I may be cobbling similar scenes from other works into one, but hey, what is originality anyway?
• 5. Scenario. Without proper scene planning, characters just end up places with no excitement or interest from the reader. I'd keep in mind what the reader knows and what they might suspect, then slowly feed them information to fuel suspicions about questions you've raised. Three lines some waiting can really bring the reader into the story, and makes the part where they converge all the better.
• 6. No.
• 7. "Wow, this sucks, because these characters are boring."

Practice

• 1. Male: Quint Lallister, Carmen Verlow, Avery Bordan, Handle Perot

Female: Evelynn Jones, Lilljan, Alex Norwood, Queen (haven't decided her first name) Ruzic

edited 29th Feb '12 8:17:39 PM by Timpani

Background

1. :I started writing my own stories at around age 8, but mostly out of boredom than anything else. I started writing my first Fanfic on 2/22/09, by all appearances.
2. : Phase 1: Online RPG- Learned general character things. Phase 2: Fanfiction- learned a lot of things; plotting, developing humor, use of character motivation, etc. Phase 3: Current- Not sure what I learned yet.
3. : I mostly do romance, humor, and action. Not sure about media, but I think I write for around age 15+
4. : Brian Jacques; I grew up on the Redwall series.
5. : Characters. If you're gonna have a narrator following someone around, that guy/girl better be worth following. The best way to write a character is, indeed, to write a person.
6. : Friends? No. Family? Don't even know I write. Internet Buddies? sure!
7. : "Wow, this sucks, because you don't think about the background of your plot as much as those of your characters."
8. : "Stop using so many Said Bookisms"

Practice

1. :
   Male: Bai Mao Akihito, Raymond Daniel Mason, Chadrey Donwick Wintomery Claudsten II (Redwall Fanfic) Blake Kwan Rock
   Female: Takeo Bei Fong, Rieji Takero, Tae Hyun "Tyra" Rock, Mei Lin Min Jee-Rock.
2. :
   The punches came toward him with great speed, first the right, then the left. He deflected both with his forearms and created an opening. Gritting his teeth against his mouth guard, he leapt in on his surprised foe, delivering a straight jab to the challenger's temple, followed by a powerful right hook to the jaw than knocked off the padded helmet. Long brown hair that was trapped underneath it now flowed freely. Raymond retreated again, smirking at the effect his punches had; the girl was kneeling, one hand on the ground, the other reaching to pick up the padded helmet.
3. :
   When he opened his eyes, he was in a dry wasteland. Besides the scattered bones and a single gnarled, dried out tree, the only sign that any life had been to this place at all was the cage. And it stood out like a sore thumb. It rattled and rolled along the ground like a tumbleweed, spewing angry growls and snarls at every occasion.
4. :It's from a fanfic; you wouldn't get it.
5. :
   "... I'd figured that telling her loved her would help somehow, but now I don't even know what I thought it would accomplish."
   Raymond leaned back. The cold of the headstone somehow managed to seep through his thick shirt, but he didn't mind too terribly.
   "I just feel like a total jerk. I mean, what if I'm forcing her to make a decision she's not ready for? Or if she thinks that she's obligated to love me back? I mean, I love her and everything, but she's been pretty messed up since you died. I can't really put my finger on why exac-"
6. :
   It had started out as a routine alarm.
7. :
   "Wouldn't have it any other way."

Age

• I consider my current writing to be in some ways an outgrowth of the stuff I've written for school assignments since third grade, and to be in many ways an outgrowth of the poetry I wrote in middle school. However, the very first story I wrote that wasn't for school and was longer than two pages was for the first of the TV Tropes Writing Contests.

Phases

• I moved away from the standard "cool but implausible stuff" phase as early as ten years old, instead occupying a "cool but meticulously well-constructed" category that's most directly comparable to the Codex Alera. The older I get, the less cool my stories get, but I'd like to think I maintain that sense of realistic usage of completely unreal premises. Also, somewhere in the teenage years, I started to write a lot less stories about loners.

Genres, medium, and audience

• Medium's the easiest to answer, since I currently don't work with anything other than print, although I have a variety of ideas for other media. As for genre, I write about human bonds tested by unusual circumstances, which usually equates to Paranormal Romance, but doesn't have to. I'm not sure who my audience is, although I try to write things I'd want to read.

Influences

• On the one hand, we have tender love stories like My Lovely Ghost Kana. On the other hand, we have the worst grotesqueries the Internet can offer. Mix thoroughly until the reader can't tell what's Fanservice and what's Fan Disservice. (More recently, I've been hugely inspired by Drainage City, but I was already writing in a similar style before reading it.)

The most important things

• I can't say what these are, but the most important thing to me is to never give something more glamour or more hatred than it deserves. Examples of excessive glamour include portraying violence as fun and cool, writing sex between virgins like they're both porn stars, and specifically designing your setting to emphasize the real-life good aspects and eliminate the real-life bad aspects of whatever philosophy you promote. Examples of excessive hatred include making everyone evil who dislikes your protagonist, making everyone evil who disagrees with your philosophy, and ever, ever outright telling the reader to hate someone they might have even the slightest chance of sympathizing with.

Friends and family

• Only when it's finished. My mother and my brother have liked some of my stories, though.

Your Biggest Failing

• I'm really, really bad at describing locations, and somewhat awkward at describing characters.

Writing advice you hate

• Advice to follow some form of act structure.

Full names of four male characters

• Mack (no surname given), Harry Travers, Lucas (no surname given), Archie (no surname given.)

Full names of four female characters

• Trisha (no surname given), Leila Travers (AKA Ghost), Claire (no surname given), Shannon O'Reilly.

Unless otherwise specified, all the below are from Eternal.

Introducing a character

Describing a scene Dropping a big plot twist

• This is from the end of the first chapter of Powerless. The beginning stars Sandra, a rich socialite who has recurring dreams of a life in which she fights crime as a masked illusionist called the Enchantress. After an encounter with a strange grey-eyed man, she forgets these dreams.

Facing difficulty

• This one's from Cold Steel (the story I keep referencing as my worst work.) I'm sorry, but I don't have many other examples of people thinking about how to solve a problem, rather than just attempting to solve a problem and succeeding or failing.

First line Last line

edited 25th Feb '12 10:05:04 PM by feotakahari

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

Background

1. At what age did you start writing? How many years of writing experience do you have?

Uh... when I was 0?

Jokes aside, I feel as if the first worthwhile story I actually got around to writing was written 2 years ago, when I was 16. I had tons of ideas before then that I have not yet used.

2. What kind of phases did your writing go through? What's the most important lesson you have learned from each?

...I don't know how to describe it. Let's just say it's weird and call it a day?

Fine. I started with a cool idea and wrote as I went along, then polished it several times to get a good story.

3. Which genres do you deal with? What medium? What do you reckon is your target audience?

I usually deal with Fantasy/Sci-Fi stuff. Mainly games, though I've recently started trying to write a story in text form... let's just say it was a wonderful failure, though I'll keep trying to work on it.

Nearly everything I write has heavy amount of comedy.

4. What are your influences?

...Can I not answer?

Stuff I like, if anything. That said, that's so undefined that even I don't know what I like until I try it, unless it's really similar to something else I like.

5. What do you think are the most important things to get right in a work? What do you think a writer should keep in mind if they want to actually get those things right?

Pass. The correct answer depends on the work and its goals.

Clarity, if I must say something, but I haven't mastered that myself.

6. Did you let any friends read your work? Family? Internet pals? What did they have to say?

Yes, yes and yes. Their responses are generally indifference, "your story sucks", and "this is gloriously awesome, everyone's computers will explode from the awesomeness", respectively.

7. What do you think is your biggest failing as a writer? In all seriousness, put yourself in place of someone reading your work and, to the best of your ability, complete the sentence: "Wow, this sucks, because _____".

I don't even try to have a non-ridiculous premise. As such, many people would refuse to read my work based on that alone, despite how I take the ridiculous premise and run with it with a ridiculous level of seriousness. It's my style and it can backfire horribly. I know.

8. (Extra Credit, 5 pts.) Which commonly-given writing advice do you hate the most?

"You must outline."

My stories are made by writing the whole thing in one go without thinking, then polishing it 20 or so times over to make it seem natural. Sure, the early drafts have a lot of problems when I do this, which makes me at least a little hesitant to show them to people, but at least I write stories that at least some people like and not a single person aside from my younger brother has expressed hatred for without outlining.

Practice

1. List the full names of four of your male characters and four of your female characters.

Males: Magnet Zakame, Shock Fulgur, Ruyo de Goza, Torn Nado

Females: Spark O'Flaime, Paisonya Lablanc, Shi Nai, Milly Giga

2. Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where you introduce a character.

3. Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where you describe a scene.

N/A

I work with games, descriptions are meaningless.

4. Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where you drop a big plot twist.

5. Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where a character is facing some kind of difficulty.

6. Copypaste the first line of one of your works...

7. ...And the last line of that work.

edited 26th Feb '12 1:33:06 AM by burnpsy

1. I've been writing since elementary school. I wrote a few stories on and off. I wrote my first "official" story when I was 11. It sucked, but I was trying to write a novel for once, and it actually had a plot that wasn't fanfiction or really generic.

2. Pfft. I dunno. I guess the first time I wrote, I just finished reading Peter Pan, so I introduced characters in a similar way. Later on, I briefly wrote like Douglas Adams. And of course one time I listened to too much Yahtzee, so my blog entry sounded like it. Never really learned any important lessons from my writing styles. Just that I'm not much of a writer.

3. Fiction. Fantasy. Urban Fantasy. I'm a boring person.

4. Blurf. Pokémon, Harry Potter, my Harry Potter LEGO sets, my parents, Naruto, One Piece, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Ouran High School Host Club, Shaman King, Greek Mythology, Wikipedia, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, my high school, aaaaaaand other stuff.

5. Readability. No matter how good your ideas are, you need to give the reader something for them to stay hooked on. Make them want to continue through the slow or lame parts, because despite that, there is something endearing about it.

6. Yes. I rely heavily on responses. Usually got positive to neutral, until I got older, and I tried the internet, and got a bunch of negative responses.

7. Readability. I lack it. My characters are not endearing enough. My pacing is out of wonk. And I can't draw.

8. Advice that would help in a book, but not in a graphic novel script. Bonus points for when I mention it, and they still reiterate it anyway.

---

1. Nicholas Cuantine, Leo Sireir, Jonny Klausberg, Trenton Locke.

Jennifer Cuantine, Nia Mollo, Renee Veneaux, Charly Mc Claine.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

edited 26th Feb '12 6:59:08 AM by MrAHR

Read my stories!

OK, this seems to be going well. My turn, then.

---

Background

• At what age did you start writing? How many years of writing experience do you have?
  • I wrote my first poem at 3. It was a very stupid poem about how I met a friend on my way to kindergarten. I wrote on and off until I was drafted to the army at 18, and then started again when I was 20. I'm 26 now. So this gives me plenty of years of experience, during most of which I was young, foolish and clueless.

• What kind of phases did your writing go through? What's the most important lesson you have learned from each?
  • Okay, here I'm going to totally ignore my own directions and elaborate a bit, if only because that's what everyone else did at these points and others. As I said, first there was the silly poem phase which lasted until I was about seven. The best poem from that phase (in a strictly technical sense of the word) was full of random chess metaphors and its punchline, out of nowhere, was: "But the power greatest of them all is THE POWER OF LOVE". You may recognize this as also being the punch line of the Harry Potter series, and if this isn't proof that Concepts Are Cheap, I don't know what is.
    During ages 10 to 14 I wrote lots of crappy self-insert video game fan fiction involving me and my best friends, and of course I was always the best, smartest, most important etc. etc. in these stories, for which I hate myself to this day. I figure this is where I started caring about characters and the relationship between author and character, because I remember deeply feeling that something was wrong, and at some point I just unceremoniously deleted the whole folder and vowed to never write a story with me in it again.
    During ages 14 to 16 I wrote my great Old Shame- an epic piece of fan fiction(???) centered around the Dogz franchise called "The Dogz Fighters". Dogz had super powers, shot lasers at each other, and there were cardboard rivalries and cardboard political intrigue, and overstated drama, and tons of pointless action, and ungodly levels of accidental homoerotic subtext between the two male leads, and dogz constantly dying and coming back to life. I had, unknowingly, written Dragon Dog Z. Nothing was ever the same after that. My sister, 7 years my junior, still occasionally taunts me with proclamations of "Woof! Woof! Pew! Pew!". This is where I learned about restraint in form and content — not the whole lesson, but some of it, definitely.
    During ages 16 to 18 I wrote a few pieces of Harry Potter fan fiction and Tekken fan fiction. I don't think I learned anything from that, because fandom is kind of a hugbox and there was no one to call me out on the overindulgence in drama, purple prose and ill-conceived "meta" stuff. I had to learn these things were not cool by seeing them years later and thinking "ouch, this is horrible".
    At 20 I had a huge wake up call. My best friend was seriously getting into the guitar playing business (these days he's already a certified sound technician) and I felt like I'd neglected my craft. That's when I started writing. You could say that in earnest, I only have six years of actual writing experience.

• Which genres do you deal with? What medium? What do you reckon is your target audience?
  • This thread makes "Speculative fiction" sound like nothing special, and I really would have loved to say something else, but alas, that's what I deal with. In my defense, Israel has no history or culture involving speculative fiction at all. On the other hand, it has a towering tradition of Lit Fic in all its myriad forms, which is a big influence for me. The biggest issue I deal with is that "Israeli Speculative Fiction" is not something that exists. No one has done this before, at least not with any degree of success. I'm stumbling in the dark.
• What are your influences?
  • To my great shame, I don't have a pretty-looking list of Authors That I Have Familiarized Myself With. I've read and watched a lot of stuff from all sorts of places, and it's became a great mishmash of themes, ideas and plots in my head. I think my greatest influence is thrillers, psychological and otherwise. I like how a good thriller needs tight execution and pacing that hooks the reader and keeps them reading.
• What do you think are the most important things to get right in a work? What do you think a writer should keep in mind if they want to actually get those things right?
  • The important thing is to tell a story that people will buy and make it a story that they care about. The way to do it is to choose your lies well and to round them out with plenty of verisimilitude.
• Did you let any friends read your work? Family? Internet pals? What did they have to say?
  • I've let some friends, family and acquaintances read stuff I have so far. Responses have been mostly positive, but I also got criticism that sent me back to the drawing board. Things like "this character is veering dangerously close to Mary Sue territory" and "I don't get to know this character properly and you already expect me to care about him".
• What do you think is your biggest failing as a writer? In all seriousness, put yourself in place of someone reading your work and, to the best of your ability, complete the sentence: "Wow, this sucks, because _____".
  • "Wow, this sucks, because clearly what you want is for everyone to sit down and have a gigantic collective therapy session. Everything else is just throwing the reader a bone- your heart is not in it, and it shows".
• (Extra Credit, 5 pts.) Which commonly-given writing advice do you hate the most?
  • I don't hate any of it, but I think a lot of it is simplistic, and is more about good writers being smug about their skill than about actually trying to help bad writers. Critical soundbytes antagonize people; to an amateur, "This sucks- Show, Don't Tell" sounds like "This sucks, because — well, because I say so". People come to an understanding through dialogue, when they are allowed to express their misgivings and have reasons and motivations explained to them. Socrates knew this much.

Practice — skip a point if not applicable.*

Quote in quoteblock tags.

• List the full names of four of your male characters and four of your female characters.
  • Male: Raphael (Raffi) Spring, Dov Berner, Uzi Inbar, Rammad Imsikum
  • Female: Marina Tsvetkova, Sharona Shine & her two daughters Katya and Helen, Sigal Feryinian.

These are actually a lot less quaint than they probably sound to you. "Sigal", for instance, is totally run of the mill- if you ran into one here you wouldn't bat an eyelid.

• Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where you introduce a character.
  • Well, this is not copypasted- rather, it's translated. You better appreciate the effort

• Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where you describe a scene.

• Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where you drop a big plot twist.

• Copypaste a short excerpt from your work where a character is facing some kind of difficulty.

• Copypaste the first line of one of your works...

• ...And the last line of that work.

edited 26th Feb '12 11:57:11 AM by TripleElation

Pretentious quote || In-joke from fandom you've never heard of || Shameless self-promotion || Something weird you'll habituate to

So far, my "least favorite criticism" is my favorite section to read.

Now, who here can actually answer the question in the title?

Read my stories!

Judging by when you placed your post, you at least know that the answer is "the kind that has not yet quite grasped TV Tropes forum markup".

The edit button is my best friend in the world.

edited 26th Feb '12 9:02:59 AM by TripleElation

Pretentious quote || In-joke from fandom you've never heard of || Shameless self-promotion || Something weird you'll habituate to

We've all been there. I still don't know half the proper mark up in this place.

Also, I like the parallelism stuff you have in your first and last lines.

edited 26th Feb '12 8:47:04 AM by MrAHR

Read my stories!