Writer's Block Daily

i'll be honest with you, i literally have no idea. I just came up with that plot because i realised "hey, its autumn, soon, so it's gonna be time to go to the applefields!" Like i usually did with my family at that time of the year IRL, and then i tried remembering memories of previous times i went to st-hilaire for the apples (and my memory is really bad. I only remember certain buildings and houses near a lake and the fields themselves, which had a farm and cider house and stuff), and then i came up with the idea of Evelyn and Trevor going to the appletree fields and have it tie it up with a previous plot i wrote about the hermit meeting them in the woods in a previous plot idea page on my notes.

But yeah, i just wrote it randomly like that, i didn't put any thoughts in it. It was all based on some random thoughts in my chaotic mind because its autumn...yeah, i need to come up with an actual plot instead of dumb crap like this...

Edited by Kinni454 on Sep 18th 2022 at 11:13:31 AM

Nonsense! You have, I think, a perfectly fine basis for a plot here, with a perfectly fine inspiration for it.

What I'd suggest, then, is spending some time focussing on the obstacles. I don't know (or recall offhand) how you write—whether you're a pantser or a plotter, whether you "just write the thing" or take control over every detail, or something else besides. Whatever your process, I'd suggest turning it toward those obstacles, or even just toward finding interesting occurrences within the plot.

Indeed, perhaps make it overall a plot of loosely-related individual incidents, rather than a single continuous narrative.

But even if you don't, finding some of those elements might help you to find the thread of the story within this chapter.

Of course, the advice to take a step back isn't necessarily bad: sometimes inspiration comes to us when we turn our minds elsewhere, or return after a break.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Sep 18th 2022 at 9:25:43 PM

Yeah, no, in general, i don't really put much thoughts when i write. It pretty much comes out like this. Like, i'm pretty much like "oh, that line sounds good, yeah" or i think about what i know and i'm like "yeah, sure, a marketplace, why not?" Or "yeah, they play soccer" or " yeah, a park with geese and deers like back home, why not?" or "yeah, let's have her try to go to a concert and steal food because she's poor and can only afford to pay the rent" or something like that. Sure, i am afraid that it makes it look to people like i'm making stuff up on the fly, but that's just how i operate. As i said before, the ending of episode 3 wasn't expected cause i realised late that "oh shit, she gets GROPED!", like, it took me a while to realise the seriousness of the subject i was writing.

Who knows, maybe i'll find something interesting in this plot that i could exploit to make the story engaging...like, Evelyn being touch averse, it'd make sense as a logical follow-up to what happened to her in episode 3, but i fail to see how it would play out in this plot...maybe when she sees the hermit grabbing Trevor to get his apple, it brings her like PTSD shit and she goes after the hermit and tackles him away, leading to her taking it personally and wanting to take him down, even though the hermit simply wanted to collect his damn apples for his cave to prepare himself for hibernation?

Edited by Kinni454 on Sep 18th 2022 at 1:02:52 AM

I'm not clear from your description whether you're an "I Just Write The Thing" writer, or just one who follows whim.

If the latter, then, well, just come up with some obstacles and throw them at the characters! It may be that not all will work, but that's fine, those can then be discarded.

If the former, then I might instead suggest that you write the whole thing out as you now have it, and then go back over it for a second draft. In that draft, perhaps focus on bits in which more detail might be more interesting, and skim over the less-interesting bits.

And, as you say, one way or another perhaps you'll yet find interesting things in the plot. At the least I think that it's a plot that has potential.

It may seem dumb but I used to literally interview my characters. Like, go on a walk and imagine them with me, asking questions and figuring things out from there. The more you know your characters the easier it'll be to know how they'd act during certain obstacles or what obstacles they may create through their own character flaws.

So... yeah, haven't been here in a while, but I think I've gone through some breakthroughs with my story, possibly.

I don't know if it's the absolute best option, but I feel like killing off my main dragon prince character might be the best option near the end. It could potentially be a bit of a full circle moment with how he was the one to kind of be the catalyst for helping my main character with her struggle. Right now I'm thinking of how best to foreshadow it and make it not seem like a cop-out, let alone handle the themes of the story, but overall it seems to somewhat work.

Huh, that sounds interesting! Plus it seems that a decent amount of works don't have the guts to kill off their main characters (or keep them dead), so that adds to it since you plan to kill off a MC and trying to build it up along the way.

Edited by Cutegirl920fire on Sep 18th 2022 at 8:13:28 AM

Hey guys. I'm gonna put episode 4 of Evelyn on hold, cause i need to see the doctor. I've been having those pains from the left side of my stomach for a while and it's so annoying. Its gotten to the point where i don't even want to eat anymore. So yeah, until then, "Evelyn" will be put on hold.

Edited by Kinni454 on Sep 19th 2022 at 9:59:51 AM

Ouch, that's understandable. Hope you get better!

Edited by Cutegirl920fire on Sep 19th 2022 at 2:26:55 AM

Oh dear! I do hope that you recover well and swiftly, then, and that the visit to the doctor is a helpful one!

Of course dude, your health always comes first! (Besides, maybe a break from the story is what you need to help you figure out the direction you want things to go in)

Does this quote risk of Narm due to how corny it sounds or could fit well the scene? (Context: It's what one of the cybernetic Humans says in response after getting a nuked dropped on them and getting a shield strong enough to block it.)

"80 years of work, and can't even scratch something done in a day."

Or do you think there should be an alternative?

I might tweak the exact wording a bit, but overall I think that it sounds fine. ^_^

My character's text each other a lot so I have to keep trying to write believable text messages without making them incomprehensible to the audience. It's funny because it means I can use text-speak and a small dose of Stylistic Suck every so often, but I always have to stop myself from making them all perfectly grammatical.

Or you could have at least one of your characters be anal-retentive old-school like me and have them write all of their texts in complete sentences with text emoticons instead of emojis.

Some do. It depends on the character.

Warning: long post ahead

Hey guys! Hope you're doing fine!

My pains havs stopped ever since i started eating more slowly and taking probaclacs and digestive enzymes. I'm still gonna go to the doctor, but the appointment is in early october.

Anyways, i've finally got a story for episode 4 of "Evelyn of the valley".

Basically, the story is that Trevor convinces Evelyn to go to the Appletree fields at the nearby city of Dumbledon in order to get her mind off of what happened in the last episode. When they reach Dumbledon, they hear from citizens and the cider maker that there is a "ghost" that haunts the fields, stealing apples by the dozen.

While Trevor do believe the story in his child's mind, Evelyn, being older and more cynical, naturally doesn't believe in the paranormal, and the siblings still enter the fields to collect apples. However, when Trevor tried to grab apples on a tree branch, he heard a disgusting snorting sound on the other side of the tree and almost falls down the tree, thinking he just heard the ghost.

Obviously, Evelyn doesn't believe his story, and the two would then go to the central parts of the field, where they find a dead tree with tons of apples surrounding it on the ground. Their smell then catches a foul odor, prompting them to investigate where it came from. Eventually, Evelyn found the source. To their horror, the siblings realise that it was a dead body torn in half, hiding behind the bushes.

Thinking that there's a killer in the fields on the loose, Evelyn grabbed trevor and turned around to go back to the cider house, only to witness somebody stealing the applebag! Trevor runs after him, which prompts Evelyn to run after him.

The chase would lead to the deepest parts of the forest, where the siblings saw the thief enter a cave. Since they never voyaged beyond the appletree fields in the forest bemeath mount Bedard, Evelyn and Trevor had no choice but to wait untl the thief leaves the cave to get their apple bag back.

Eventually, the ghost came out of the cave, revealing himself to be a hairy hermit. As he left to hunt deer with a bow and arrows, Evelyn and Trevor sneak into the cave, where, to their surprise, they found the cave to be a rather cozy self-made home, complete with couch, an improvised kitchen, lanterns and a fireplace.

After searching the cave, Evelyn and Trevor find their applebag, only to hear the hermit coming back with the deer he killed. After they hid, they hermit then notices a missing applebag, and his smell catches an unfamiliar body odor. As he found Trevor hiding behind his couch, Evelyn whacks him with the butt of his hunting rifle, and the siblings run away from the cave with the applebag, the hermit chasing them with his rifle.

He then notices that they were running right into the bear trap he set up, shouting at them. Evelyn and Trevor barely misses it and fall down. When the hermit caught up to them, Trevor pleaded to the hermit not to kill them, much to the hermit's confusion. Evelyn then told the hermit that he saw the dead body in the fields, to which the hermit explained that he didn't kill him, that the bear did it, to which Evelyn didn't believe him, for she never saw a bear in the fields in all the years she went apple collecting there.

The hermit then points behind them. The siblings turned around, witnessing a nasty brown bear grunting at them! The trio ran for their lives, Evelyn dropping the applebag in fear as she stumbled and fell down. As the bear was about to strike, The hermit shot him dead in the eye, stunning him long enough for Evelyn to get back up and run away.

The trio then stopped at a set of trees. The hermit told the siblings to push a fragile one with him. The tree eventually falls down and hits a much bigger tree, making it fall down like a domino. The bigger tree then landed onto the bear, crushing it with all its weight.

The hermit then finishes off the bear with a cold-blooded headshot, to the horror of the siblings. He then faces them and tells them that he's got plenty of applebags back in his cave and that they should've just asked him.

Back in the cave, the hermit gives them a large apple bag and tells them that, since they never ventured that deep into the forest before, that he'll escort them back to the cider store. Meanwhile, Trevor couldn't help but look at a portrait of a reubenesque woman in the living room. The hermit tells him that that is a portrait of his wife, and that the handsome young man wearing the regal uniform in the portrait nearby was him before their wedding.

Evelyn asks the hermit about who he really is, to which the hermit replied that it was none of her business. The hermit then escorts the siblings back to the cider house and disappears into the wilderness. Evelyn and Trevor then walks back home with the applebag in hand. The end.

So yeah, what do you think of this plot? I just finished the (very, very) rough draft of it. I'll work on an actual first draft when i'll feel like it.

Edited by Kinni454 on Sep 23rd 2022 at 4:16:23 AM

It's great, but I strongly suggest you put the chapter into the Constructive Criticism waitlist. If you haven't finished writing the chapter, then please write it down as soon as possible and post it on the waitlist.

So, I may need to rewrite so many chapters of my latest fantasy work because I had a better idea. I was innocently doing some research on Orichalcum when all of a sudden I thought "what if I base the whole magic in my world around fantasy metals like Orichalc, Mithril and Galvorn?"

So now I'll have to put my story on hold while I learn all about metallurgy, blacksmithing, etc.

Edited by Cid on Oct 3rd 2022 at 9:40:49 AM

Metallic, non-oxidized iron is potent Anti-Magic in my setting, so I know the pain.

Edited by CrystalGlacia on Oct 3rd 2022 at 10:04:43 AM

Make sure you read Mistborn as research.

Oh, oh, can I point you towards the seven metals of antiquity for inspiration? (Or eight, in India and possibly pre-Columbian America)

In part of my never-ending quest to always be working on a billion projects at once I'm trying to figure out a Warrior Cats fanfic, the issue is that I always have more fun when I'm just creating some randomized allegiances from scratch (literally, I don't sit there and carefully craft out each cat, I just let fate decide for me by randomly assigning roles and names and what have you) and I can't figure out a good way to actually start the story so I'm just stuck in an infinite loop of restarting, getting stuck, and restarting.

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 16th 2022 at 5:37:22 AM

Have a random cat burst in with a gun? :P

That would make for an interesting opening admittedly