Writer's Block Daily

I started a new script this week. Sort of an Urban Fantasy Film Noir. So far I've got a little over 20 pages and I'm absolutely loving the characters, the world, and so many scenes.

This is a good feeling. This is what I like.

congrats!

Hi, I've been hanging around here for a few years, and contributing profusely to the trope page of whatever happens to be my current pet work at a given time.

I once tried to write a trans character in a fanfic of my current pet work, but it resulted in me getting into a dialogue of the deaf of sorts with one of the trans members of the fandom who wanted me to change some things, and eventually abandonning the story because I was afraid that the storyline I had in mind for the trans character would get deeply misunderstood by some of my readers.

I just fond a good spot for a trans side character in that fic's spiritual successor, so I'm thinking of using the LGBTQ character subthread to avoid the mistakes I made last time. I already asked my question there and am posting here because a PM I got suggested I do so.

Edited by Nazetrime on Apr 17th 2019 at 6:05:48 PM

I have two whole fanfic on ffnet and that's the coolest thing to me.

So, I'm editing my very first full novel right now.

And my God, I never noticed until now just how many fistfights there are. This isn't even a crime, action, or sports novel, it's a Slice of Life story focusing on an Ivy League college student. It's 266 pages in Word Document and there are total 13 fistfights.

One of my proofreaders actually commented that my main character is a very violent person.

Hi there.

I did ask this question before but since I'm a truly novice writer, I wanted to ask something. How to write a good dialogue when it comes to writing my own story?

I'm currently trying to make a fantasy story but I have to admit it wasn't very good and I seek to revamp the story a little bit. Any ideas?

For starters, listen to how actual people speak. Go to a park or sit on a bus, get out a pen and paper, wait for someone to start speaking, and go to town. Admittedly if you're writing a fantasy novel then you might want to make your dialogue simpler and more formal, but it'll still help.

Another way to do it is to read plays. Plays are all about dialogue and character, and there's a reason you still have people reciting monologues and solioquies all these years later. August Wilson and David Mamet in particular really know how to turn a phrase.

Makes sense. I still think that the dialogue that I write in my story are a bit awful. Here are the things for example actually:

• From Chapter 1 of my story:

"Hey Haman! Let's talk about something important." said Svelkar Citizen A while waving his hands.

"What is it again man? Is it about King Aryessta again?" muttered Svelkar Citizen B while being irritated.

"Yeah, and I would like to talk about him getting married with other woman again and it's his 40th wife by the way." Svelkar Citizen A responded. "Again?! How will this guy be satisfied with just one woman? I mean, how many Svelkar girls that he married? King Aryessta even persuade my own sister to marry him with his manly charm and he said that he will give any lavish things that she never saw before but after she married that predator, she never contacted me again." said Svelkar Citizen B angrily while clenching both of his fists.

"Relax man, while he does somewhat have his flaws, at least he does tries at his best to follow his father's footsteps and try to be consistent in our glory. I mean, he does have a decent skills at decision making just like his father and if it weren't from him? Yea, we'll be busted for sure and just try to ignore his wives that he had man." said Svelkar Citizen A.

"That's what I'm concerned about! I'm afraid that Aryessta's polygamist tendency could led this empire's to its downfall. What if one of the concubines is a backstabber who tries to usurp our land and made it even worse in the future?" said Svelkar Citizen B with a concerned note.

"Naw! That's just you being an utterly pessimistic guy and just assuming some things that won’t happen. I’m sure the things that you said to me won’t happen in the future. I mean, sure, our king does have an erotic passion with women, but he's nevertheless a decent king like his father did." said Svelkar Citizen A.

"Ugh! Fine! I'm just warning you that his one minor but fatal flaw could crippled this entire empire in the future. I mean, the guy indulges some huge erotic passion with a seductive woman no matter how good or evil they are. Also if things ended up just the way that I concerned, I won't going to bother anyway." said Svelkar Citizen B who left with a bitter note.

• From Chapter 3:

“But why?” Hou Ghar pouts. “I really want to participate in this battle now grandpa! I want to become the greatest warrior in the world!” begged Hou Ghar enthusiastically.

“No. You’re still not ready yet. I’m not letting you taking this battle that will risk your life my boy.” Reprimand Youzakun.

“But grandpa! You said it yourself that a great warrior doesn’t afraid to take some risks and I’m still trying to participate on this battle to proof myself worthy for other animals to defeat the Evil Queen.” remarked and groaned Hou Ghar.

There's a lot coming from but these are just the examples. I know my grammar is shit and all and I know jack-crap about writing dialogue properly

Edited by ElfenLiedFan90 on Apr 23rd 2019 at 8:05:05 PM

Again, listen to how actual people speak. It'll do you a world of good.

Thank you... I'll see what I can do at a later time. Really need a huge feedback actually especially due to the fact I'm a bit crap at writing something

I always say my dialogue aloud. Dialogue is literally something a character says- if I say it aloud and stumble through it, or it sounds funny, it needs to be rephrased, at minimum. I read everything I write aloud, not just dialogue, and it's remarkably good at catching both flow issues and grammatical mistakes that don't logically appear in spoken language.

Looking at your sample, another problem with your dialogue is that it doesn't really match the situation. In addition to saying your dialogue out loud to review it for flow, also consider the place where the dialogue is being said, and the people saying it.

In the very first line- "Hey Haman! Let's talk about something important." said Svelkar Citizen A while waving his hands. -the mental image I'm getting, from the fact that SCA is waving both hands, is that SCA is trying to catch SCB's attention from a distance, and is presumably also calling out to SCB. I don't know about you, but calling out to someone, presumably with others around, and directly saying that it's important is a strange mental image- can you imagine someone using that sort of wording in real life?

It also completely breaks the suspense of what SCA could possibly want SCB for, however minor that suspense might be, and it TELLS the audience it's important as opposed to letting the audience SEE it's important for themselves. Simply removing the "Let's talk about something important" bit improves the line a good deal.

Reading the rest of the Chapter 1 passage as well as the Chapter 3 passage reveals that it's mostly just an Infodump as well, albeit largely for the same reasons as the first line.

The other major issues I saw are peripheral to the content of the dialogue, but are important all the same.

The adverbs and other actions accompanying the dialogue tags are either redundant or just telling. Good dialogue, placed in context with character actions and known characterization, should be able to convey its emotion without stuff like "said angrily".

There is no physical description of where the conversation is taking place, and the dialogue is not strong enough to carry the scene by itself. Maybe there is description in the original text and you just omitted it so we could focus on the dialogue, but physical description should contribute to, and elevate dialogue. Whether the scene is taking place in an alley in a slum, a mess hall for common soldiers, or a fancy nobility party, and who the characters are to each other dramatically changes the conversation's context and by extension tells us more about the king. Making a queen or concubine of a poor woman from a slum, the sister of a common soldier, or a woman from the nobility are very different things.

Hope that helps. Like all art, this stuff takes practice.

Edited by CrystalGlacia on Apr 23rd 2019 at 11:57:05 AM

Appreciate the advice. I'll see what I can do. Have to admit that I need a massive improvement when it comes to writing.

There is only one way to achieve that, and that's to practice your writing.

Just posting for the purpose of introduction. I'm working on my third novel-length elsewhere fic, and obviously still have a lot of writing practice still ahead of me. (Bit off more than I could chew? Naaah...)

removed - wrong discussion

Edited by Merseyuser1 on May 25th 2019 at 2:01:26 PM

Welcome to the thread.

I sometimes have a lot of problem transitioning during scenes. Like in my current WIP a wagon with passengers has reached a city that's under curfew, and the guards will order the passengers off so they can search/question them before letting them in - I guess I get a bit stuck on how much detail to include. Do I say "they got off the wagon and lined up" or do I describe the actions in more detail "she stepped off the wagon, her foot sinking into the muddy ground before turning to join the..." and so on. Or when someone moves from one room to the next - how much of the corridors/journey inbetween do I include?

Would your viewpoint character logically be paying attention to such details in the moment? Can you arrange them well enough to keep the story moving? What are you trying to say with these details, or what sense of place are you trying to cultivate?

For instance, a quick mention of the ground being muddy before she lines up for inspection probably wouldn't hurt anything. It also quickly tells the reader it's been raining and might give the scene a wretched sort of feel, and the poor start might serve as an early tell to the audience that there's shit on the horizon. Seeing banners with the city emblem in the corridors might give the characters something to regard with distaste, or they might note if the walls are stone or wood and their design, or if there's hardware holding the banners up that they might be able to use in case of an emergency or something of the sort. Little details like that are valuable for creating a sense of place and grounding the characters in their world, and placed well, they won't grind the narrative to a halt like an Info Dump will.

Edited by CrystalGlacia on May 31st 2019 at 8:18:52 AM

So, I started to write a fanfic about a year. It has the lenght of a short novel, and that's including all the author notes, which I think I should get rid of. I'm close to finishing, but I must say I feel ashamed of myself for the epilogue. The last 6 chapters are a retelling of an arc from canon, and I'm even taking dialogue from the series itself.

I'm committing plagiarism! Or, just a novelization of the events and I feel bored out of my mind for doing so.

Likewise, I seriously want to edit all the fanfic. I regret creating a character. I like his concept, his personality and everything, but he is a blatant expy of someone else and I think I wasted him as a character.

I also wrote a children's book, which I admit takes some influence from the fanfic. Mostly two chapters inspired me to write the entire story. Sadly it wasn't accepted in the book contest I sent it, and we couldn't even draw it entirely.

I'm also writing a comic book script for a client. Seeing my ideas for his project come alive fills me with optimism.

Edited by Tomodachi on Jul 15th 2019 at 6:15:16 AM

I got a small job writing some stories for a client. Is a yaoi story involving two characters, so, I guess I will have to try my best in getting that magic on.

Sadly, the client told me I had grammatical mistakes. Need to find someone to help me with it.

I would try the "Uncle Drunkie's Writer/Critic Dating Service" thread, and mention specifically that English is your second language and you need a native speaker to beta read.

I'm trying to write a (mostly) canon-compliant fic based on Part 6 of Jojos Bizarre Adventure, fleshing out Jotaro's canon wife, how she met Jotaro, and how their relationship developed.

1. I'm stuck because Jotaro canonically did not tell his wife a lot of things about what he was doing, but I worry if I have him explain himself and have her magically forgive him because he did bad things for a good reason, it'd betray their daughter Jolyne, and make his wife look like a hypocritical doormat.

2. I want to write Jotaro as bi, but I worry if I write him as having a brief fling with a man in college before meeting his future wife (and staying monogamously with her for most of his life), that it won't be good bi representation.

I think I'm just stressing myself out because I have no real experience writing anything except research papers for school (we didn't really do creative writing), and I'm putting pressure on myself to 'redeem' a character a lot of people dislike or treat as a joke, when I don't think she deserves the hate.

Hey there! Just wanna ask something.

If you write a story, do you need to describe the character appearance in detail especially if you want to wrote in novel style format? Like when writing a character, do you need to describe his/her facial appearance, body structure or the outfit that he/she wears? Or just describe the important details for that character

For your own notes it's good to have a detailed description. How to approach writing with the description will depend on the genre, perspective, and the setting.

People only tend to focus on what's eye-catching about another person, so going on about someone's pale skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair isn't very useful in a story set in 19th c. Sweden.

Try to stick to characteristics that can be perceived by the characters in the scene. It's very jarring to get a detailed visual description of someone who's invisible.

No, you don't need to, generally speaking. But depending on what you're going for, you may make the deliberate choice to do so. Appearance might not play an important part of who the character is, maybe their clothes will show their social status, maybe their skin or hair colour will note them as a member of a particular family or ethnicity, maybe their clothes display their profession or maybe you want to give them a Color Motif. Sometimes you just want to put a specific image of them in the reader's head.There are specific reasons to do it, and IMO you should at least be somewhat deliberate in how you do it.

Featureless protagonists often happen too - usually when the protagonist is meant to be a self-insert/blank slate character or somewhat of an everyman, sometimes in order to hide some big twist later on (I think Octavia Butler has done this with race and gender in one of her books - only revealing halfway through the book that the POV character is a black woman).

How much detail is too much detail is always going to be a little YMMV, but stick with the main eye-catching details that would distinguish the person from a crowd. You don't necessarily have to describe that many physical characteristics if you don't want.