Help with my world — a total confused mess

Spinning off from another thread since it was getting off topic.

---

If there are no "rules", then I want to throw everything into the pot. Simple as that. That's why I constantly question "can X fit in this world?"

For a start though — I kind of want my world to be heavily tech based, and maybe on the dystopian side. Abandoned buildings in some parts, but there are still several populous holdouts. Some sort of thing with a thing would cause it to be that way, rendering the survivors from the thing alive but extremely close to infertile, and possibly mutated to some degree.

Crystal Glacia said the following:

---

You should be asking yourself 'Will X work in my 'verse' rather than 'Will X work in a science fiction work'.

Abandoned buildings point to a Used Future setting on the order of Cowboy Bebop or the Star Wars original trilogy, and we have Post Apocalyptic. Okay, that's a start. There's still a lot of questions left to be considered, such as how realistic you want it to be, or if you want to lean more towards Schizo Tech or an Anachronism Stew. And, of course, the tech level.

---

In response to the above, I say — I'm asking "will this work in my verse?" too. Even something as basic as "would this world have pizza?"

I'm not familiar with Cowboy Bebop, and I haven't seen Star Wars in ages. I honestly have no idea what direction I want anything to take, other than the general vagueness of "sorta post apocalyptic-ish tech-y world-thingy, always populated by furries". How can I get some sort of direction here?

edited 25th Jun '12 8:20:13 PM by Twentington

Some questions you can ask yourself:

• what was this world before the apocalyptic event occurred?
• how much of that old world's ways survived the apocalyptic event?
• is there any form of government/economy, or is it anarchistic?
• what technology do people have available to them? How does this affect their lives?
• how long has the world been in this state? How have the people moved on from there?

Signature? I HAVE NO SIGNATURE.

Another problem I have is, I can never figure out what my characters would do in any given situation. I don't know what *I* would do in any given situation. And even if I do have a character react, I still wonder, "is this how ANYONE would act in this situation? Is this in character?"

It sounds like you're wanting to compile every bit of helpful information before trying anything out. Your best bet is to write something, send it out of the internet like Fiction Press or whatever, and get feedback. Learning the rules of writing is great but unless you make mistakes yourself you won't learn as quickly.

That could be it, too. I absolutely hate to make mistakes, which often locks me up and keeps me from doing anything.

I'm trying to take up that idea — just keep it simple and write a couple short stories with basic settings to figure out what the characters do.

The problem is, I can never just pick one. Even if you just gave me two scenarios and said "Pick X or Y", I'd be Heads Tails Edgeing it for eternity.

This sounds like a self-discipline problem.

My best advice is to pick three ideas and do all three of them.

Also, most of the ideas I've tried to pick from have been suggestions. Just that none of them have done anything for me, or as said above, I can't just pick one.

Likewise with a plot generator. I spam reload like there's no tomorrow, saying "nah" to every single thing it gives me. NOTHING seems to fit. At ALL.

edited 30th Jun '12 12:58:42 AM by Twentington

Oh God do I know this problem.

There's really only one way out of this. Just start writing. ANYTHING. Is doesn't matter if it's good or bad, just get it down and out of your head. Once you're doing that, the creative juices are flowing. You brain starts working. More ideas will spark off, "sure this is okay, but wouldn't it bemore interesting if I tried this?" You can't let indecision stop you from writing. You just need to BE writing, even if you don't exactly know what your writing.

Or at least, that's how it works for me :L

Gimme yer lunch money, dweeb.

I've tried that many times. And the only things I've gotten out so far have been a.) incredibly NSFW, and b.) completely devoid of a setting.

For the record, just because it was NSFW does not mean that it was not beneficial or didn't help you get something out of your system.

To help with the second problem, what I recommend is vignette writing. Just short, 500-1000 word pieces of description that showcase an aspect of your world, such as a day at a setting-specific job, a walk through town, travel, or a popular pastime. No protagonist, hook, ending, or plot needed.

Another strategy that I've used for general worldbuilding, to move back to the original topic, involves simply asking myself questions whenever I decide something. After I get the general feel of a culture pinned down, I will usually decide on a single general fact that can be summed up in a single statement. To use an example from my own work, "The Anakali clan uses prisoners of war as slaves." Okay. Why do they enslave them? Do they target any specific groups? What do they use them for? Are there any rules, regulations, cultural standards, or laws regarding slavery, or is it just a free-for-all? The answers to those spawn more questions, and they gradually help me get to the heart of the story, no matter how long it takes me to come up with an answer.

But it sounds like you need to get comfortable with writing in the first place. To do that, you just write something every day, even if it's only a single sentence or incoherent ramblings. Nobody has to see it, and it doesn't have to be good because it's just practice. 750 Words is made for this purpose and can help you with it, even if you want to start with fewer words a day. Also, assuming that any other commitments that you may have leave you with freetime after your daily writings, start reading some books if you don't do so already. Reading's a pretty big part of writing.

"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."

The NSFW stuff doesn't have any PLOT though. I want plot.

...That would have been nice to know in the first place. I didn't know that your NSFW drabbles were plotless or that you had a problem with them being plotless.

I still haven't developed a surefire way to plot myself aside from that they spring forth from my characters. Since you've mentioned having problems with characterization in the past ('what my characters would do in this situation' in your words), that's probably not where your plots will come from.

But... heh. Let's see here, you've mentioned problems with characterization, worldbuilding, getting yourself to write, and now plots. I guess my last suggestion is to get out there and explore life. You've mentioned that your town has very little to do, but what you can do in a small town is people-watch. Just go for walks, visit little places, chat with your neighbors, watch people do stuff, and expand your horizons. No, I don't care if you're writing scifi. Experience can only help you find things to write about. Oh, and read. Consume a wide variety of genres and mediums. Even the dinkiest little towns have bookshops or libraries.

"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."

I just people watched at the supermarket. And I've found that apparently everyone in town is a.) a fat blob of flatulent ignorance wearing a shirt from the 1980s with a billion holes in it, b.) old enough to be my grandparent, c.) a soccer mom, d.) an emo slacker teenager, e.) a bratty idiot kid who, at age 7, still thinks it's okay to climb up a shelf full of Doritos, or f.) so dense that they need me to explain for a minute and a half how to ring up produce on the self-checkout.

I've tried random plot generators and always find myself just shrugging off every idea it throws at me. Someone's given me a plot idea that I think can work, and even a couple ideas for settings, but I'm still totally stuck.

I know the ideas are in my head waiting to come out, but nothing happens when I sit down. If I just force myself to write, then I'll end up making a shopping list, quoting song lyrics, or just hold down a random key until I get forty pages of R's.

I know I can write, because I used to be able to. I used to do it all the time.

edited 2nd Jul '12 4:58:31 PM by Twentington

So what are the differences between then and now?

edited 2nd Jul '12 7:26:28 PM by EldritchBlueRose

Has ADD, plays World of Tanks, thinks up crazy ideas like children making spaceships for Hitler. Occasionally writes them down.

I have no idea. I used to be confident and have decent logic/reasoning skills. But now I'm afraid to do ANYTHING and have the hardest time understanding anything.

I have no motivation anymore, either, and I'm very afraid of doing anything wrong. At the same time, there's that part of me that wants to shake off the doldrums and stir things up, but every time I try, unmotivated!me crashes back in.

edited 2nd Jul '12 7:35:13 PM by Twentington

Why are you afraid to do anything and have a hard time understanding things?

Has ADD, plays World of Tanks, thinks up crazy ideas like children making spaceships for Hitler. Occasionally writes them down.

As I said, I hate failure. Part of me doesn't want to write because I'm afraid I'll write myself into a corner, spend a long time developing a plot that won't work, or be told that it sucks. Part of me doesn't want to watch a show I've never seen before because I'm afraid I'll spend 30 minutes only to find that it sucks or otherwise isn't my thing.

By understanding things — well, I don't know. I just can't pick up on much of anything when I read something new, watch something new, etc. I tried watching the pilot of Firefly and even with two people explaining, I didn't have the slightest clue what was going on. Any work I try to get into, characterization and plot are just a blur.

edited 2nd Jul '12 7:43:55 PM by Twentington

I think you need to go see a counselor or some other professional, because it sounds like your problem is greater than just your story. If you'd ask me it sounds like some problems are going on in your personal life that need to be addressed. I could be wrong, but that is my opinion.

Has ADD, plays World of Tanks, thinks up crazy ideas like children making spaceships for Hitler. Occasionally writes them down.

Yeah, this sounds like it goes beyond writing habits. You should talk to someone- it doesn't have to be a professional but someone you can trust and someone who will help you.

I haven't been feeling as down this week, so I did get a bit done. I decided that writing a bunch of short stories, at least some of which have overlap, would help me get a feel for my universe and characters.

I showed my opening paragraphs to two people, both of whom said it was really good. I'm still afraid I'm gonna screw it up along the line, though that doesn't seem to have cut me down much yet.

I can't share it here, though, since almost all of it is NSFW.

75% of all writing is editing. If you screw up you go back and edit it. Maybe not right away, but my point is you're going to make mistakes- especially since you're fear of failure has discouraged you from writing a great deal and you haven't done a lot of on-hands mistake-making that most people use to learn quicker.

I've sat on this a while and I'm still lost. I've decided to focus on characters instead of setting for now, but I have no idea what I want from my characters — what they act like, how they talk, etc. I mean, I have vague little snippets here and there ("This character likes to cook Mexican food"), and a general idea of what they look like and wear, but nothing that coheres into a character.

And I don't want the characters to be much like I am in real life, since I'm a lazy, careless, ill-tempered jerk who finds basic things like "Throw trash in the trash can, not on the floor" too taxing.

As I've said, I've tried the "What would your character do in this situation?" exercise several times, but can't come up with anything since I have no clue how I would act in a certain situation. Car accident? Never been in one, nor have I known anyone who was in one. Death in the family? Just had one in March, but I didn't really react too much — but does that mean I'm comfortable with death, or just jaded and emotionless? My pizza's late? Well, it was so much effort calling the pizza place once, why do it twice?

Why is this so hard for me?

I don't want to sound dismissive, but it sounds like your problem might be something which goes beyond writing. I really would advise talking to someone. And if it is something beyond writing, no amount of writing advice is going to help.

But in terms of the actual writing of characters, I would try just having them do something. Anything, if you don't have a specific plot in mind yet. Have them go to the store. Or get in an argument with their parents. Or whatever. But don't focus so much on "what would I do?"; instead, just have them do something, act in some way. Get them moving. And if you're unhappy with the results, try again. And again. And again.

I know I generally discover my characters' precise personalities and thought patterns and whatnot through writing them. The starts of my books in the first draft generally feature a bunch of bland characters with very little to differentiate them, but as I write them and think about what defines them and how that would affect what they would do, their personalities, speech patterns, and the like crystallize.

Now, you've said earlier that you fear mistakes, because you feel like you 'wasted' your time.

You're going to have to kill this thinking sooner or later if you want to succeed at writing.

What you have to understand about writing- or any craft in general -is that it is primarily a trial-and-error-based craft. No amount of advice, whether from other writers or writing help books is going to change that fact to any appreciable extent. You have to be willing to work hard- writing, rewriting, editing, rewriting, proofreading, rewriting. But we fight through that tedium, because those moments of seeing your mind's eye reflected in the words just like how you want it to, and watching others see what you saw and feel what you felt makes it all worth it in the end.

And, as I've indicated before, it takes hard work and learning from mistakes. If you're not willing to put up with the work and the blunders to get to those moments, then, I don't know how we can help you. As others have said, your problem may be beyond the scope of writing, something that we, as a bunch of strangers on the internet who barely know you, are not qualified to fix.

"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."