General Writer's Block thread

On that note, have you considered finding a beta reader, or two? That's what the Writer/Critic Dating Service thread is for. Just follow the directions pinned at the top and see if you get any PMs.

I don't see what the issue is, but okay.

Okay. Anything to get more readers and improve.

It's one thing to crosspost something for critique to a couple of relatively disparate communities, but it's another to crosspost to multiple threads in TVT's Writer's Block. This is a pretty small community, and posting to multiple discussions in the same community isn't likely to get more people to critique your piece. What's probably happening is that people are seeing your piece once and (assuming they didn't just go TL;DR before moving on to something else) they don't have much to say about it, and then they keep seeing it in other places and get turned off.

It just comes across as annoying, especially since it's been posted to threads that aren't intended for critique (not everyone on Writer's Block is comfortable or willing to give critique) and implies that you haven't tried hard enough to get through the problem on your own. Sometimes, that thing is letting the story sit and going on with your life until you come up with a solution.

Excuse me if I'm being rude and/or overreacting, but I don't think my mind works like that.

I've let stories sit before; all it ever does is leave it unfinished. If I don't actively try to look for a solution I never will.

But apparently either nobody cares enough to help (nobody ever does) or I'm too dense to be a writer.

edited 23rd Jul '16 9:33:20 PM by Sugarp1e1

Discourteous and annoying is just how crossposting for critiques around the same community comes across to people. It's kind of an implicit rule of most writing communities.

It's annoying for the same reason why if you're job-hunting, you shouldn't email a company's HR and every recruiter that you can find asking for an interview. Both actions come across as paradoxically 'needy' in the same way. Every writer wants critique and validation for their work in the same way that every job hunter in this day and age wants a job, emphasis on 'every'. Crossposting just isn't the way to satisfy that desire.

The only reason why I'm not going to help too much is because 24 DS just isn't my cup of tea, and I am not making the same mistake as this person on another community who said that my submission wasn't their cup of tea, insisted that they critique me anyways, and got super-pissed at me when my story wasn't turning out to be something that I had no interest in writing.

But as some general advice, there's not enough information here. I haven't been following your stuff too closely, so I have no idea what this character is going to do for this story, what their relationship is to known characters, what the character was doing before their introduction, why they're entering the story, and probably a bunch of other stuff I'm forgetting. All of that is going to influence how, where, and when it would be most appropriate for you to foreshadow this character.

Just expecting passerby to be able to determine those things from an out-of-context scene that as far as I can tell (and unless someone takes the time to read it) has nothing to do with this other character aside from physical proximity to their introduction in an earlier draft is not practical, nor feasible. For all I know, you'll need to redo this scene, or some previous scenes, or add more scenes, or do something else to make this work. Every time I've rewritten something, it's resulted in changes to entire scenes. The basic plot may be the same, but the precise details of the scenes, and the way we get through it and tie those events together may be totally different. That's the nature of a rewrite to me.

I don't know your story, you know what you want your story to be better than I or anyone else could ever hope to. But a beta reader or two, someone who you can show all of your chapters to and who can get familiar with your story over an extended period can come close. And even still, you're going to run into more problems like this that will require not only intimate familiarity with the story, but that also are not going to have clear answers.

If you say so.

I've already went to the Writer/Critic Dating Service and did what I had to do there. But that thread hasn't been active in 3 months so I don't expect a PM anytime soon.

edited 24th Jul '16 7:26:36 AM by Sugarp1e1

Which internet forums have you been to? Have you visited here yet?

I have.

Besides that one and this one, I've tried Facebook, Twitter, Wattpad, Reddit, Tumblr and Deviant Art.

Deviant Art was the closest I've gotten to letting anyone know that 24 DS even exists; I got three watchers out of it (though only one of them openly expressed interest and favorited). Chapter 2 is the most popular at over 80 views and Prolouge 1 is the least at only 60.

Here's my profile if you're curious.

edited 24th Jul '16 11:28:21 AM by Sugarp1e1

Is there any appreciable difference between "story" and "plot" as literary terms? According to Wikipedia and several other sources, "[p]lot is the cause‐and‐effect sequence of events in a story", and the two can be distinguished through the following example:

1. The prince searches for Cinderella with the glass shoe
2. Cinderella's sisters tried the shoe on but it does not fit
3. The shoe fits Cinderella's foot so the prince finds her

Events #1 and #3 comprise the plot, while Event #2 is part of the story but not part of the plot.

However, the usage of "plot" does not seem consistent with the above distinction, whether on Wikipedia itself or elsewhere.

edited 24th Jul '16 11:17:17 AM by MarqFJA

Might this help?

That was indeed enlightening — moreso than I have expected, in fact. I never knew there were so many terms in literature!

Those two terms are used differently by different groups. The way I think about it is the story is the book, and the plot is the changes that the world of the book goes through from start to finish. This is closer to the common definition and farther from the academic definition.

The academic definition has something to do with movement. The academic definition probably has story being the changes that the world goes through, and the plot being the series of conflicts in the book.

Carpe Diem

Do I dare
Should I dare
To risk on Kipling's Pitch and Toss?
Will I dare
Would I dare
And never speak of my loss?

Do I say
Should I say
Admit to undiscovered care?
Will I say
Would I say
On the hope that we both share?

If I'm wrong
When I'm wrong
Could I lose my closest friend?
When I'm wrong
I know I'm wrong
Can I accept it is the end?

Do I dare
Do I say
Do I, can I, bare my soul?
And if I'm Wrong
When I dare
Will I ever again be whole?

Thoughts- as a poem or *whatever*, as it were

edited 18th Aug '16 1:40:39 PM by Last_Hussar

I like it.

And the ..."whatever"

I'm designing a fictional species where attraction to/arousal by opposite-sex homosexuality is more or less biologically hardwired into it, and thus engaging in homosexuality is an actually valid strategy to court members of the opposite sex; as a consequence, evolutionary pressure resulted in bisexuality being the norm for the species (i.e. the plurality or even majority of the species is bisexual to one degree or another). It's inspired by observations of ruff mating habits (they have a weird sex system, to say the least).

My question here is this: How would you describe the concept of Guy on Guy Is Hot and Girl on Girl Is Hot in the manner that one would do in an article from a zoological encyclopedia in which this species (sapient or not) is being described in Layman's Terms, but without using inappropiately colloquial/slang words?

Accurately mimicing academic writing is very challenging- there really is no substitute for reading a bunch of zoological articles and becoming familiar with both the terms used and the writing style. For something a little more accessible to the educated lay public, the style found in the magazine Scientific American is better.

But I'm not going for a professional tone. Like I said, Layman's Terms-level, but not overly informal/colloquial/slang.

See the way Wikipedia articles tend to be written? That's essentially what I'm going for. Besides, it's just a single line or two that I'm asking about.

edited 21st Aug '16 12:05:02 AM by MarqFJA

So, I'm currently building a fantasy world and the factions in it for my fantasy story. The problem is I want to make at least one of the antagonistic factions and based it on Imperial Japan. Is it acceptable or politically correct if my reasoning is I'm simply bored of antagonistic factions that is essentially theme park version Nazi Germany and want to use other members of the Axis of Evil?

Of course, I'm not only going to use Imperial Japan. I want something more unique, so I also decide to take some aspects from Ottoman Turks and Scythians. What do you think?

cool

It depends on how you write your faction, really. And maybe how you present what you write OOC. If you're not trying to be historically accurate (and a priori there is absolutely no need to be), and don't try to present your faction as such, that's what I believe to be the most important step towards "acceptable" and "politically correct". Now, it's still possible that through your presentation of your faction, people dislike what you're doing, so you should take that criticism in account.

I would also strongly recommend avoiding portraying all of the people of this nation as being interchangeable evil stereotypes. That may seem like obvious advice, but it's a pitfall all too many writers find themselves falling into.

For example, if you're concerned about the potential issues this angle might raise with portrayals of Asian people (assuming that's what the people of this nation are analogous to), there's a fairly straightforward solution - have some villains who aren't Asian, and more importantly, have some Asians who aren't villains.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to have a villainous force that isn't just another Nazi stand-in - so long as you put the work in to make sure that this country isn't populated with nothing but shallow stereotypes, you should be fine.

Yeah, I know. Those guys are pretty much known for three things. Because there is war in this story, the mass murder part is unavoidable. The second part is slavery or rather the exploitation of the inferior races. That part is also unavoidable since it's kinda inherent in their systems. As for the third part, yeah, I'm not going that far. I'm trying to make a war story in fantasy world not torture porn.

I'm actually surprised that so many web novel authors put those three things in their stories so easily. Sometimes even the protag, the protag, do it, too. It's messed up.

That is not a problem. I already prepared at least two characters for that purpose. I also don't like Always Chaotic Evil trope. It's too unrealistic. A nation is a very large group of individuals not a hivemind. Unless we're talking about something completely out of this world like demons.

First is a general in their army who isn't as blinded by the state propaganda like his colleagues and is suffering a crisis of faith. Unfortunately, he is also too loyal to his nation to oppose it. However, his small reluctance to go to war is enough to make the secret police mark him as unpatriotic and even a potential subversive element to be taken care of.

Second isn't exactly a character but a refugee group that is consisted of those who object to the militant nationalism, imperialism, and the war. They are forced to escape from their homeland after their government decide to silence dissident voices in the nation. I will pick one character from this refugee group to act as its main representative in the story.

How about it so far?

Sounds good to me - actually sounds pretty interesting. Like I said, my initial concern with these sorts of things is always going to be "are these people going to be actual people?" Both of the concepts you've described sound well fleshed-out and realistic, and when that's the case, you'll never hear any complaints from me.

So, I have a major plot point where one of my villains attempts an unorthodox plan to deliver a huge blow to the numbers of a band of freedom fighters which the heroes of the story are a part of. Only problem is I'm unsure of how logistically sound its execution is as it is right now.

The first thing to know is that the time period of this story (in terms of technology available that is, the world itself is purely fictional) is supposed to be around the 1880's. This is important because the villain's plan is basically the first ever large-scale gas attack in this world's universe. Before going into the plan's details, I should mention that the villain pulling off this plan is essentially a Dragon to the Big Bad within a huge organization of Bomb-Throwing Anarchists. As such she has a fair amount of power within the organization, having authority over and the ability command a large amount of men (even though she prefers using the smallest amount of other people necessary).

Now, I'll begin with the preliminary events to this big plan. The villain starts putting things into motion once she looks at the patterns of the heroes' major movements and comes to the conclusion that they'll soon be going after a particular town that the villain's organization took over. This town has been a pivotal base of operations which doubly serves as a blockade on a very important road. If the town were recaptured, the heroes would gain a decisive advantage. The villain promptly leaves the location she was at upon realizing what the future holds, taking well over a dozen men with her. They make a bee-line for the important base-town... but on the way they make a pit-stop in a large city.

The villain and her men keep low in this city while the villain makes contact with a chemical researcher at the city's university who has frequently supplied her with poisons in the past. She organizes things with him so she and her men can break into the university and steal the huge stockpiles of chemicals in there without a hitch in the middle of the night. Chloroform, in particular, is taken in huge quantities and completely cleared out.

The reason she wants chloroform specifically is because she's done a lot of research on the poisons she's used throughout her years of work for her organization (aided by resources from her chemist mole). Within these resources was a particularly useful piece of information for her current situation: Chloroform can become the extremely deadly gas phosgene if exposed to sunlight. Knowing this, she takes the huge stockpiles of chloroform to the base-town, keeps the chloroform in sealed clear glass containers which are purposefully kept in direct sunlight, and waits for the inevitable attack on the town (which does indeed come).

The one problem I'm having trouble with in the formulation of the villain's plan is how the gas will be released effectively upon the heroes. One option I have is baiting the heroes into one large building where the glass containers will all be thrown and shattered from the floor above right on top of the heroes, with the villains having a quick means of escape from the building like a window. This I think would ensure a lethal dose of gas for the majority of the victims, but I also think that it could be unlikely that the heroes wouldn't notice they're being baited into one spot. Another option I'm considering is having the chloroform containers positioned on top of a steep hill. The containers would all be shattered at once on top of this slope when a sufficient number of heroes are near it, at which point the gas (which is heavier than the surrounding air) would roll down the slope and reach the lungs of the freedom fighters. This is something that I think the heroes would never anticipate because the "death zone" for this plan should be both larger and less suspicious than the inside of one building, and of course a gas attack has never been done before in this universe. However, I'm worried about the fact that the gas being outside might not really result in a lethal wave of fumes rolling down at the heroes, but rather the gas dispersing in a way that makes its realistic effects rather minimal.

So, my question to you guys is which execution of the gas attack (the house or the hill), if either, is better in your eyes? If neither is good, is there a better way of executing the gas attack that I'm missing?

edited 29th Sep '16 1:07:26 PM by Stegomasaurus