Writer's Block Daily

Seventh chapter out of a possible twenty-something has been published of my latest work.

My next chapter will involve someone from the first chapter.

Edited by SkyCat32 on Nov 3rd 2022 at 4:48:27 AM

That's awesome!

Anyway, wrote 3k words last night and got 7024 words in my Nano now.

Nice!

I've been feeling blah all day and I know if I skip a day I can just do double the next day but I'm debating on if it's worth it.

How's "Phoenix" coming along?

Congratulations on your progress, Cutegirl920fire! ^_^

WarJay, what did you decide in the end, if I may ask? Did you skip, and have you caught up?

SkyCat, congratulations to you on getting that chapter done and posted! ^_^

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Nov 6th 2022 at 10:37:41 AM

Oh, my friend and I haven't touched it in ages, haha. She's busy af and when we write we're both working on separate projects. But we swear we'll pick it up again!

I skipped and caught up, yeah.

Excellent then, on both counts. ^_^

Sorry if there hasn't been anything new under the sun. I pretty much bailed out of writing and concentrating on other things. Even then, i don't really know what to do with "Evelyn" going forward. Like, the episode 4 first draft is done, but i have la flemme, as we say in french. Flemme means laziness, btw.

I guess i could send it to the concrit thread, but i dunno, i don't think i feel good enough these days to work on it some more. Plus, i kinda want to write another episode that would be more satisfying to me, but like i said, i don't know what to do with this...not to mention the low view count...

Yeah, no, i don't want to do this.

Edited by Kinni454 on Nov 9th 2022 at 8:49:36 AM

Don't worry about views! Write what you enjoy! If you still care about views, maybe upload them to another site. AO3 is a predominantly fanfiction site, so it's natural original stories are gonna be overlooked there.

oh, the view count is not that important. Its more having the will to continue the series and knowing what to do next. Also, there really isn't any website where original stories are, like, popular. Its almost exclusively fanfics. There is fictionpress, i guess, but i dunno, i don't like the vibes over there...

Another thing that is rather important to me is comments. I actually really like it when people tell me that they liked the story or that it made their day better. Especially the latter. So having no response tells me that nobody cares about what i do...i mean, it isn't that troubling,but it actually troubles me a lot, cause i put a ton of effort into it and i fight my own laziness, weakness and limitations when i write, so i dunno, showing you care would help me greatly...

Yeah, i dunno...i can't decide.

Edited by Kinni454 on Nov 9th 2022 at 3:17:18 AM

Maybe as a compromise, join writing Discord servers to share your stories there. I can send you an invite to one I'm in.

ah? What is that server?

I PM'd you the invite to it. It's called Snippets Uncensored.

I have done it. I have made an Expy of one of my dystopian characters and put her in the fantasy. I have become one of those writers

So, skin colours of characters. Amazing how ambiguous even photos of actual people can be when it's not lily-white or coal black. Apparently this can be a problem for artists when translating textual descriptions of fictional characters to art (and in my case, visualizing my characters)

For me, when writing my characters in my story I imagine their skin tone easily. It helps that I have a very visual imagination and that I draw frequently, so I always have the characters' designs in my mind. However, I admit the black and white pictures of Josephine Baker make it difficult to determine her actual skin tone, which can be inconvenient when trying to include her in my webtoon and avoiding accidentally lightening her skin in the process.

Edited by Cutegirl920fire on Nov 14th 2022 at 5:31:08 AM

I do take inspiration from people I've met or seen photos of. Sometimes years-old meetings/photos. That can make it tricky if lighting conditions aren't good etc.

I got around that issue by designing certain charterers first, but ATM they are the only charterers I've designed so far. But as it stands I least don't have any issues visualizing a set of protagonists.

In other news I wound up writing a short story at work today.

I skirt the issue by just not describing characters until necessary, mostly because I can't figure out a natural way to have POV characters describe themselves and it also seems unrealistic for people to just exposit about what their friends and family members look like... so I can get away with it when it comes to people who look unusual or when characters meet for the first time.

Makes sense.

Would prolly go with illustrations with nameplates myself (again I did use V Roid Studio so making charterer designs is not an issue for me), but I would also go with having them be described before their introduction, but that would require specific contexts (for example: "Have you seen <person>, <they> have <insert psychical characteristics here, namely hair and eyes>"). the idea being to weave the description into the dialogue in cases where narration makes it out of place and do it from a POV away from the person begin described.

Another option would be to describe their current looks in the context of the changes being recent. For example, a child sees that their father had got a haircut, a character being introduced with She Cleans Up Nicely, an amateur imposter getting some minor details wrong, etc.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Nov 15th 2022 at 6:47:47 AM

One of my characters does describe himself and his fraternal twin as part of the first-person narrative. The other (fraternal twin, actually) does it as well, when addressing someone else who just compared him to a real person.

As far as I recall, I think that I've tended to describe skin colour only when there's a contrast at play: offhand, when an adventurer shares narration with people of other races, or is compared to her city-dwelling-and-thus-less-tanned relatives.

(Or when describing certain undead, whose skin is brown for reasons other than race... :P)

Otherwise, I don't think that it overmuch comes up, especially when compared to eye colour, particulars of hair, or physique.

I guess part of it is that the cliche of having their protag discuss their looks through a mirror has become something that people make fun of, but at the same time, I'm not sure how to fit it in more naturally.

Then again, I'm also not great at describing things in general. That's definitely my weak spot. Adding visualizing details has never been my strong suit because I tend to focus more on the plot and dialogue than the setting and imagery. I need to practice that more.

Meh, I plug these things in where it fits the narration.