A Thread for Writers to talk about Writing

[Mister Dilsby]

On March 19, 2016 at 7:57 PM, SaturnianBlue said:

I've tried to somewhat establish kerbal roles in the newest episodes, and and have their relationships be looked at from their own perspective, but perhaps I've made it too direct. Also, what do you think about the kerbal characters in general? What has worked in series 7 so far, and what hasn't?

I just re-read the last couple of chapters and honestly am not seeing too much emerging for the characters. I think part of the trouble is that you're trying to add depth by adding words--and that doesn't always work. Or I'm just not paying enough attention, that could certainly be a factor as well. 

The exceptions in the last bit were your Bill and your Jeb. Yes, the "Jeb is a maniac" theme is done to death, but at least it's simple to get across, and you do it consistently. You've made Bill an arrogant snarker, which again isn't too new but it works with just a few words so it sticks. Val and the ground crew are just too wordy. Many of them are telling us who they are rather than showing.

Exercise, if you want one: Next time you write a page, challenge yourself to see how many words you can remove from the dialogue and still make it work.

[Just Jim]

7 hours ago, Butterbar said:

Alright, here's more.

 

I'm going to be brutally honest, I've read thru this a couple times, and while the idea is interesting, I'm finding it a bit hurried and confusing.  There is a vast amount to take in fast... much too fast, in my opinion.

Take your first paragraph:

The apocalypse arrived at roughly six o'clock in the evening as the day shift workers of Kerbin were returning home.  It took the form of several dozen thermonuclear warheads reentering the atmosphere in streaks of light that might have been mistaken for stray meteors had the circumstances been normal.  But they were far from it - the Atomic Crisis had extended into it's third week and tensions between the great powers of Kerbin were at an all time high.  So when Armageddon came knocking, it took few by surprise - that is, if there was anyone left to be surprised. " 

OK, it's a common idea in sci-fi, and that's fine.  But this simple paragraph has enough info to build and blossom into a whole chapter.
If it were me, I would start something more like this:

Bob was coming home from yet another exhausting day at the KSC... a bad one. 
As he pulled into his driveway, he spied a shooting star streaking overhead and thought to himself, "I wish for just one nice, long, peaceful night's sleep..."

Three seconds his world exploded around him....

And build on it from there.  But slower, and with more detail.  Like your "atomic crisis".... what crisis?  why?  how did it start?  is there any hope for peace, or is it truly the end???  A lot of questions in those two words that can be explored.

You definitely seem to have a good direction you want to go, and your writing technique is fine. 
I just think you might want to consider slowing down and go into greater detail.

Edited March 21, 2016 by Just Jim

[SaturnianBlue]

2 hours ago, Kuzzter said:

I just re-read the last couple of chapters and honestly am not seeing too much emerging for the characters. I think part of the trouble is that you're trying to add depth by adding words--and that doesn't always work. Or I'm just not paying enough attention, that could certainly be a factor as well. 

The exceptions in the last bit were your Bill and your Jeb. Yes, the "Jeb is a maniac" theme is done to death, but at least it's simple to get across, and you do it consistently. You've made Bill an arrogant snarker, which again isn't too new but it works with just a few words so it sticks. Val and the ground crew are just too wordy. Many of them are telling us who they are rather than showing.

Exercise, if you want one: Next time you write a page, challenge yourself to see how many words you can remove from the dialogue and still make it work.

Hmm, any tips to try and make Jeb and Bill a bit more... Original? I'd imagine with the ground crew and Val I suppose it's that I simply haven't given much to do but talk. I wonder if there's something I don't have or too much of in The Asteroid Sentinels, like keeping the reader engaged or anything. For one thing, I'm rarely consistent with what I do sometimes. 

[Mister Dilsby]

52 minutes ago, SaturnianBlue said:

Hmm, any tips to try and make Jeb and Bill a bit more... Original? 

If I told you how to make them original, that wouldn't be very original of you, would it?  Look at every story on the Forum that you like that has a Bill and Jeb in it. Pick them apart like a watch and figure out how it works. And for Pol's sake be consistent!  

[KSK]

7 hours ago, Just Jim said:

I'm going to be brutally honest, I've read thru this a couple times, and while the idea is interesting, I'm finding it a bit hurried and confusing.  There is a vast amount to take in fast... much too fast, in my opinion.

Take your first paragraph:

The apocalypse arrived at roughly six o'clock in the evening as the day shift workers of Kerbin were returning home.  It took the form of several dozen thermonuclear warheads reentering the atmosphere in streaks of light that might have been mistaken for stray meteors had the circumstances been normal.  But they were far from it - the Atomic Crisis had extended into it's third week and tensions between the great powers of Kerbin were at an all time high.  So when Armageddon came knocking, it took few by surprise - that is, if there was anyone left to be surprised. " 

OK, it's a common idea in sci-fi, and that's fine.  But this simple paragraph has enough info to build and blossom into a whole chapter.
If it were me, I would start something more like this:

Bob was coming home from yet another exhausting day at the KSC... a bad one. 
As he pulled into his driveway, he spied a shooting star streaking overhead and thought to himself, "I wish for just one nice, long, peaceful night's sleep..."

Three seconds his world exploded around him....

And build on it from there.  But slower, and with more detail.  Like your "atomic crisis".... what crisis?  why?  how did it start?  is there any hope for peace, or is it truly the end???  A lot of questions in those two words that can be explored.

You definitely seem to have a good direction you want to go, and your writing technique is fine. 
I just think you might want to consider slowing down and go into greater detail.

I'm going to respectfully disagree with this.  

That first section worked quite well for me. It sets the scene (bad stuff just happened), leaves the reader with a question (did that station survive?) and leaves the door open for exploring all the ifs, buts and wherefors in flashback. If the story had been building up to that point then yes - more detail required, perhaps written through Bob's POV as you suggest. As it is, it's just a hook to catch the reader's attention and give him/her the salient details asap.

The second part with Bill - that's the important bit. That starts to set expectations for the story and, as Ten Key, described, there's a lot of potential mileage there in letting Bill be the reader's proxy for coming to terms with the end of the world.

All in all, good start but I'd just echo the comments from everyone else - planning is going to be important. Assuming that there are going to be survivors from the Atomic Crisis, having them survive whilst keeping the story self-consistent is going to be the real trick I think. 

Edited March 22, 2016 by KSK

[Just Jim]

5 hours ago, KSK said:

I'm going to respectfully disagree with this.  

That first section worked quite well for me. It sets the scene (bad stuff just happened), leaves the reader with a question (did that station survive?) and leaves the door open for exploring all the ifs, buts and wherefors in flashback. If the story had been building up to that point then yes - more detail required, perhaps written through Bob's POV as you suggest. As it is, it's just a hook to catch the reader's attention and give him/her the salient details asap.

The second part with Bill - that's the important bit. That starts to set expectations for the story and, as Ten Key, described, there's a lot of potential mileage there in letting Bill be the reader's proxy for coming to terms with the end of the world.

All in all, good start but I'd just echo the comments from everyone else - planning is going to be important. Assuming that there are going to be survivors from the Atomic Crisis, having them survive whilst keeping the story self-consistent is going to be the real trick I think. 

That's cool.... 

It just felt to me there was a lot of good stuff being written here that went by really fast and could have been played with and expanded on more.

Edited March 22, 2016 by Just Jim

[Deadweasel]

On 3/22/2016 at 5:46 AM, Just Jim said:

That's cool.... 

It just felt to me there was a lot of good stuff being written here that went by really fast and could have been played with and expanded on more.

Obviously, you're a Stephen King fan. 

(Two chapters later:) "Yes we get it! Her dress was blue! Holy krap!" 

[KSK]

1 hour ago, Deadweasel said:

Obviously, you're a Stephen King fan. 

(Two chapters later:) "Yes we get it! Her dress was blue! Holy krap!" 

Or possibly a Robert Jordan fan. The dress was blue and she smoothed the front of it meaningfully whilst muttering oft-repeated implications about men.

 

[Just Jim]

3 hours ago, Deadweasel said:

Obviously, you're a Stephen King fan. 

(Two chapters later:) "Yes we get it! Her dress was blue! Holy krap!" 

 

2 hours ago, KSK said:

Or possibly a Robert Jordan fan. The dress was blue and she smoothed the front of it meaningfully whilst muttering oft-repeated implications about men.

 

Actually, no, I'm not a huge King fan... or Jordan.  The first Stephen King book I ever read was Salem's Lot... and in my humble opinion, the rest of his books went downhill from there... 

 

 

[Butterbar]

On 3/21/2016 at 1:59 PM, Kuzzter said:

"takes off cavalry hat... puts cavalry hat back on"

Ok, now we're getting somewhere @Butterbar. The "hook" of this story is that somebody who did not expect to be in charge is now in charge. That could work--but there are some questions you need to answer for yourself first. What will President Bill's main conflict be going forward? Is it to survive post-apocalypse (i've been typing that word a lot lately) or to defeat whatever enemy nuked his government? Are you sure you want to make Bill a Marine general and not, say, Secretary of Billitude? Because if you want the story to be about his struggle to handle something bigger than he ever dreamed handling, that may be a better direction. I would imagine that commanding a brigade of Marines is quite good preparation for all sorts of things, especially in a story that starts with everything getting nuked. Also, how does a general officer not know there's a war on? And what is he doing on the far side of the Mun, unless there is also a brigade of Marines there? Etc.  

Don't think I wrote the second passage too well, so I'll probably rewrite it.  

However, I think it would be better to move the base to Duna and to begin with Bill meeting with his officers.  This, instead of a solitary EVA, would establish him as the center of authority as well as placing him into a position where he is aware of the war but at the same time unable to intervene.  It would also have the added effect of the Duna garrison watching their homeworld be destroyed, and open up the concept of how the Mun and Minmus colonies would react to the seat of government now being half a light hour away.

[Andem]

4 hours ago, Butterbar said:

Don't think I wrote the second passage too well, so I'll probably rewrite it.  

However, I think it would be better to move the base to Duna and to begin with Bill meeting with his officers.  This, instead of a solitary EVA, would establish him as the center of authority as well as placing him into a position where he is aware of the war but at the same time unable to intervene.  It would also have the added effect of the Duna garrison watching their homeworld be destroyed, and open up the concept of how the Mun and Minmus colonies would react to the seat of government now being half a light hour away.

Will your tale be told only from Bill's POV, or will it switch to any other characters? You could rewrite your second passage with another character on the Mun being notified that he or she is the Vice President and use it before we meet Bill. Something I've learned the hard way is to never definitively cut anything, to keep it on the back burner for a while to use later.

[SaturnianBlue]

@KuzzterSo for the newest episode, i've tried to cut down on the dialogue length, but at the same time I may have made it too long. I fear that the whole portal thing might be too weird or confusing for readers. Lastly, I wonder if there's something fundamental that's missing from the story that plenty of great stories have, and having it would help my story along.

Edited April 9, 2016 by SaturnianBlue

[Gojira1000]

How to write well, the real rules:

Avoid exposition. Show, don't tell.

Omit needless words.

Avoid adverbs.

Write what you know.

Remember that characters drive stories, not the reverse.

When it's done, edit. Edit again. Every time you do, make it shorter. Edit more.

[Ehco Corrallo]

3 hours ago, Gojira1000 said:

...Write what you know.

I spent the longest time misinterpreting that rule; confusing experience with knowledge. You don't have to have been an astronaut to write books about astronauts, but you do have to learn about space, and astronauts, and anything else that comes along with that. Reading is one of the best ways to improve your writing. 

On a side note, I'd like to add an entry to your list: Read The Elements of Style. It's pretty formal, but it's still very helpful. 

[Gojira1000]

1 hour ago, Ehco Corrallo said:

I spent the longest time misinterpreting that rule; confusing experience with knowledge. You don't have to have been an astronaut to write books about astronauts, but you do have to learn about space, and astronauts, and anything else that comes along with that. Reading is one of the best ways to improve your writing. 

On a side note, I'd like to add an entry to your list: Read The Elements of Style. It's pretty formal, but it's still very helpful. 

Strunk and White should be your bedside reader. 100% in agreement.

[Ehco Corrallo]

3 hours ago, Gojira1000 said:

Strunk and White should be your bedside reader...

Especially if you have any confusion about the difference between affect and effect, or any preconceived notions about where periods should go within parenthesis. 

 

Edited April 2, 2016 by Ehco Corrallo

[Ten Key]

19 hours ago, Gojira1000 said:

Write what you know.

And hide where you're weak.

One of the main characters in my story is a professional scuba diver, but I don't know squat about diving. So I spent some time on the internet reading about the basics, and put just enough into the story (I think) to convey the general feel of it. The reader's imagination can take over from there, to whatever level of expertise they may have. I don't have to know the whole song, just a few notes from the chorus. That works well for flavor, and it lets me expand the story beyond my own limited life experience, but I don't want to rely on that character's scuba diving skill too much. The last thing I want to do is use it for a major plot point and end up getting something wrong. 

[Ehco Corrallo]

8 hours ago, Ten Key said:

And hide where you're weak.

One of the main characters in my story is a professional scuba diver, but I don't know squat about diving. So I spent some time on the internet reading about the basics, and put just enough into the story (I think) to convey the general feel of it. The reader's imagination can take over from there, to whatever level of expertise they may have. I don't have to know the whole song, just a few notes from the chorus. That works well for flavor, and it lets me expand the story beyond my own limited life experience, but I don't want to rely on that character's scuba diving skill too much. The last thing I want to do is use it for a major plot point and end up getting something wrong. 

If you do enough research, you don't really have to pretend you know what you're talking about  

I've learned quite a bit because of being a writer. I know the medical difference between evisceration and disembowelment, for instance. 

[KSK]

It's amazing where that research can go. I never expected to need to read up on lumberjacking when writing a story about small green aliens and their space obsession.

 

[Ehco Corrallo]

4 minutes ago, KSK said:

It's amazing where that research can go. I never expected to need to read up on lumberjacking when writing a story about small green aliens and their space obsession.

I "accidentally" memorized the progression of firearms from matchlock muskets to the modern assault rifle, just while trying to figure out where a novel would be set...But lumberjacking? That's digression at its very finest  

Edited April 3, 2016 by Ehco Corrallo

[CatastrophicFailure]

 

22 minutes ago, Ehco Corrallo said:

I "accidentally" memorized the progression of firearms from matchlock muskets to the modern assault rifle, just while trying to figure out where a novel would be set...But lumberjacking? That's digression at its very finest  

Have to give this a nod. I started brushing up on some random history a few days ago, and now I know all about cog railroads in Switzerland. 

[Andem]

8 hours ago, Ehco Corrallo said:

I "accidentally" memorized the progression of firearms from matchlock muskets to the modern assault rifle, just while trying to figure out where a novel would be set...But lumberjacking? That's digression at its very finest  

Or you know... Learning every possible detail about the first world war possible... normal stuff... yeah... and I didn't even need it in the end...

[KSK]

On 2 April 2016 at 6:45 AM, Ehco Corrallo said:

Especially if you have any confusion about the difference between affect and effect, or any preconceived notions about where periods should go within parenthesis. 

 

So in effect you're telling me that this book will positively affect my writing?  Sounds good.

[Ehco Corrallo]

1 hour ago, KSK said:

So in effect you're telling me that this book will positively affect my writing?  Sounds good.

It doesn't cover any of the subtleties of writing, but it's fantastic if you want to touch up your basics without much trouble. And it covers some obscure punctuation rules; there's a very comprehensive section on capitalization, for example. It's very fun to read if you're the kind of person who notices misused apostrophes. 

1 hour ago, Andem said:

Or you know... Learning every possible detail about the first world war possible... normal stuff... yeah... and I didn't even need it in the end...

I've been there. It was with the Second World War, but still...

Oh, yeah, I know a ton of sword names, too. Writing is weird.

Edited April 3, 2016 by Ehco Corrallo

[NorthernDevo]

Hello, folks

I'm very glad you have a writing thread; it's likely I'll be spending the majority of my time here. I'm about 50 pages from finishing the text - which means less than halfway completing - my first novel. It's an exciting time, and I'm at the stage where I'm running around shoving it into everybody's faces and shouting 'Read it! Read it!' (Which would be a whole lot more effective if I lived and worked in a community where people actually read for entertainment. In MY neck of the woods the only thing people read with interest are the hockey stats and what's under the rim of a coffee cup...shudder.)

I'd love to offer bits of my work, but I'm acutely aware that as a newcomer, I have a while to go before I can be called a real member of this community and I wouldn't want to impose myself on anyone. So if you don't mind, I'd love to join your writers' circle and chat, compare notes and share thoughts for a while.

Thanks!