Writer's Block Daily

Nah, you just need more practice. Keep at it.

Published authors have felt the same way about certain chapters they themselves write in their published works - they just push through it because they're pros and the work needs to get done - they then come back to it to edit it back up to shape, and sometimes they discover it wasn't nearly as bad as they felt it was.

Currently my writer's block is balancing plotting and pantsing. I tend to start writing cause I feel like I should start writing something, but without much of the next scenes plotted out in my head, so it kinda goes nowhere when I don't know where the story should go. Conversely when I plot stuff out a bit I discover that the characters really want to go somewhere completely different - or I don't plot stuff out enough, but it always kinda feels wrong? So I've tried only plotting ahead a few scenes other than the major story beats, but I'm also thinking of doing the Robert Jordan method (it could have been GRRM but I don't think it was), where he would write key scenes out of sequence and then string them together rather than write the book in chronological order.

Edited by GoldenKaos on Nov 13th 2019 at 10:53:54 AM

I think that it seems worth trying that last method, at the least: if it works for you, it may provide an improvement over the methods that you've previously tried; if it doesn't, then at the least you've ruled it out.

That's what I do.

Alright, some confession to make. So one of my stories that I made, "Will" (Not the final title btw), are not a first person perspective story unlike my other story "Dresden's Haunted Forest" so the story ended up having dialogue like this for example:

"Blablablablabla" said Character A

"Blablablablabla" Character B replied with a surprise look on his face

"Blablablablabla" asked Character A

"Blablablablabla" Character B replied

"Blablablablabla" requested Character A

See the problem with the dialogue? (Check the bolded part) The problem is that there's a lot of active words like "said character A" or "character B replied/responded"... What should I do with this? Should I reduce the amount of these things or keep it be so that you could know who's talking in the dialogue or not? I did this because there will be loads and loads of characters in my story. That and the story is not in first person perspective doesn't help matters.

Edited by ElfenLiedFan90 on Nov 14th 2019 at 9:09:32 AM

If I'm not much mistaken, as long as there are only two characters talking, and they speak in turn, it's safe to just omit those tags after the first few; readers will in general understand which line belongs to which character.

If a third character enters during such a conversation, but only speaks seldom, I think that you can get away with the same as above, but with tags indicating the third character's speech and the resumption of the sequence thereafter.

Where such tags are called for, you might be able to add variety by replacing tags with actions, something like so:

(Granted that the below is rough, and hastily-written.)

"It's a cat." Said Char 1.

Char two flailed their arms. "I know it's a cat!"

Char 3 sighed. "Look, will you two stop arguing about cats?"

"NO!" Shouted the other two in unison.

"Meow." The cat's smile was pure, unadulterated smugness.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Nov 14th 2019 at 7:03:12 PM

hmmmm... Alright, I'll try my best to do it (Even if my vocabulary is limited). Also, another question: Is it fine to keep the tags too when a character do something?

Other things to add to break up the back-and-forth of the conversation and keep it from getting boring would be things like (brief) descriptions of the characters' surroundings, or the POV's thoughts as appropriate. We have a trope for what happens when the writer doesn't do those things- the Featureless Plane of Disembodied Dialogue.

It shouldn't be necessary to have both a dialogue tag and an action from the speaker, a la

Do you see how that could be merged? It doesn't add anything to split them out; it's just more words.

Edited by CrystalGlacia on Nov 14th 2019 at 12:12:13 PM

Need some help with environmental descriptions. In the next chapter fantasy story I'm currently writing, the protagonist opens the window to discover that the witch he has recently become servant to has not only turned their cottage into a horse drawn carriage (but only on the outside), but has also driven to this world's Fantasy Counterpart Culture to France while he was sleeping thanks to her forest home being a Portal Crossroad World (he's from the England counterpart, for reference).

My problem is, how do I show the readers that the characters are clearly in another country? Are there any distinguishing characteristics of the French countryside compared to England's? Or maybe 17th century French architecture so I could sell the scene via the protag noticing the towns/villages the carriage passes by? Admittedly, I also have plans for specific landmarks of this fantasy version of France that would clue the character in, but even then it would help to know how to describe this new part of the setting.

I've never really been to either countries, studying their 17th century history even less so. But it's clear that "Show don't tell" can't be applied here. Going with an educated guess(though, note that I have not quite researched much into the 17th century), the countryside for both nations weren't different from each other and I'm guessing that flying a flag isn't going to help.

I really do suggest that you use the architectural design/philosophy of both nations as a simple Google search seems to say that most English villages at the time were built with straws and other cheap material and scattered across from each other whereas most French villages seem to be permanent settlements and were built with stones, bricks, wood, and etc.(though again, I'm no expert.)

That and what about the designs of their military? The armors of both nation are very different from each other with having different designs as well as purposes. It might seem that they're all the same, but perhaps reading on some notes would help you on this.

The languages of both nations are pretty different too. Apologies that I wasn't much help.

Do you have any region in mind? Normandy and Brittany would have looked mostly identical to southern England geographically (i.e. flat plains with a few rolling hills), while the northeastern border and the Pyrenees would have been more densely wooded and the French Riviera would've looked, well, Mediterranean. If I remember correctly, farmers in southern England started enclosing their pastures with hedgerows some time in the 17th century, whereas French farmers in Normandy only followed suit a century later, so that might be one thing to look out for.

Military gear isn't a super useful way to distinguish them. European armour was mostly same-ish at the beginning of the century - plate cuirass and morion helmet for infantry, three-quarter plate and burgonet for cavalry - and though there were regional style differences, they wouldn't have been obvious to the average civilian. Later in the century, armour mostly went away and uniform wool jackets became the norm: the English were uniformly dressed in red and wore small-brimmed cavalier hats (apart from some Guard regiments), while the French had an eclectic mix of colours and headgear (though most line infantry units wore white).

Architecture comes in two flavours: vernacular (i.e. everyday) and monumental. I can't really help with the former, but the Catholic/Protestant divide played a huge role in the development of monumental architecture through church designs. English architecture was still at its late Renaissance/Elizabethan stage, with blocky shapes, flat roofs and big windows, while French architecture was moving into the Baroque - striking colours, rounded corners, and lots and lots and lots of domes. You'd see the difference mainly in aristocrats' manors and some town churches, but I don't know how common rural houses would've differed in both countries, sorry.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Nov 18th 2019 at 3:34:01 AM

Don't worry, your post gave me more than enough inspiration to write the description I was looking for.

I'm gonna bookmark this page or at least copying the link regarding how to write a good dialogue to get the gist on how to write a novel that are not in first person. Thanks for the help. Though I might use this thread again if I have trouble ^_^

How to write dialogue in fiction:

Rule 1: Keep it tight

Rule 2: Watch those beats

Rule 3: Keep it oblique

Hi, all! Former lurker here. Just wanted to say that I'm starting work on a set of poems. Although, I don't think they're at their best yet.

I need some help with making cool evil organizations.

So in my story, I'm going to be constantly throwing new Evil Organizations at my protagonists. This story takes place in a Modern-Day Masquerade (certain individuals may manifest magical abilities, which they have to hide for you know, superspy Government Agency of Fiction, Beware the Superman and The World Is Not Ready reasons, therefore enhanced abilities isn't common knowledge, like Pre-Chitauri MCU.)

What kind and types of evil organizations do you think works best with this?

There's three types: evil government acronym agencies (who are bound and determined to control the supers "for the good of society"), evil private criminal conspiracies (led by one or more super-villains), and roving gangs of super-villains. IOW, you can go all X-Men, James Bond, or Batman. Any or all of those could work.

Note that you can, I think, mix those types: you can have a government agency that's being run by a private concern, pulling the agency's strings for their own benefit; or roving street villains propped up by a government agency; or a what seems to be a private concern that devolves into a chaotic mess of street criminals under pressure (whether by lack of cohesion or by design, the latter perhaps as a means of distributing or redirecting the pressure); and so on.

I have a collaborative writing setting called The Wraith Isle.

The Wraith Isle is a large uncharted phantom island located somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It's island shrouded in thick, swirling mists, dangerous maelstroms and an impassable stormwall.

In the island's jungles, reefs, mires and valleys - lives a isolated, self-sufficient ecosystem of unique, bizarrely-evolved flora and fauna and creatures that never went extinct. These creatures have lived on the island for eons since the Cambrian period.

The island has a wide range of biomes, ranging from normal like jungles, deserts, mountain valleys, to the prehistoric like coal swamps, rudist reefs and moss forests to completely alien like fungi forests.

There are signs of an ancient, advanced civilization referred to as the Kavii. They are masters of ancient magic and science beyond human comprehension. They discovered a extradimensional energy source within the island that cannot be explained by magic or science. These people built colossal buildings, monuments, statues and edifices out of stone and other alien materials that are built in alien but familiar architecture.

Here, the island is the center of a dimensional distrotion. Wrecks of ships and planes litter the landscape along with appearences of human and alien activities, science and magic, architecture and creatures from other timelines and dimensions.

a cliche would be like a witch having a cat for a familiar,I suppose having something like a lionesses (a big cat technically) would be more interesting take

I'm all for varying climates and biodiversity, but if this island has prairies mixed with forests and swampland, exactly how "large" is it going to be? California has a vast range of climates: Temperate rainforests in the north, alpine climates in the mountains, a gigantic farming-suitable valley right down the middle, and a desert in the south. While it's partly because we're so mountainous and there's tons of small-scale rainshadows to muck everything up, it's also because the state is gigantic itself—770 miles north to south, and only 250 miles east to west.

If your island is sufficiently "large" enough for the biodiversity you want, it would need to be twice the size just to have room for all those climates (which means Greenland, the largest real-life island). And then you're getting into a magical masquerade, because you specifically put this in the PACIFIC Ocean, where one of the world's most well-known seafaring cultures are located.

Bad weather to wreck the ships and "monsters" who like to eat people can only go so far, because if a bunch of Austronesians have all encountered the same dangerous island over the centuries and warn people not to go there or not to stay too long, it's probably going to take the role of a Death World or the Underworld itself in mythology. SOMEONE is going to have just enough wanderlust mixed with a death wish to see what lies farther inland.

Edited by Sharysa on Dec 12th 2019 at 11:23:35 AM

Is it a ghost island in the sense that it moves in and out of our dimension? Think in terms of a circular portal to an entire alien continent. That would open up a very wide range of possibilities.

@sharysa & @DeMarquis

Wraith Isle is an anomalous large island that acts like a "ghost" island in a literal sense. The nature of the island is unknown and bizarre since it cannot be detected by terrestrial satelites, communications with the outside world is jammed except for certain conditions or usage of special device, several artifacts are considered between alien/human and other strange phenomena.

Now, Wraith Isle is basically a setting for an adventure-horror collaborative writing project that anyone can contribute by adding lore and short stories to flesh out the setting. Right now, I'm drafting the early parts of the first story but I need to complete the second revision of The Amida short story.

Writing feels like a game of whack-a-mole. I just fixed the part of my outline where my protagonist realizes something's up by having her not immediately know what that something is and instead start looking for information that would help her find out. It feels a heck of a lot more natural than before, but now I have to rearrange a significant chunk of what happens next as a result, and some of that stuff was already tricky to work with. It'll be worth it, though, once I figure it out.

Heh, heh. That sounds so familiar.