A Thread for Writers to talk about Writing

[CatastrophicFailure]

Also @Andem you may have seen this before but it's a very interesting breakdown of WWI. The things that led up to the conflict lend very well to a story. It'd be downright hilarious if it wasn't so unbelievably horrible. 

 

[Andem]

10 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Also @Andem you may have seen this before but it's a very interesting breakdown of WWI. The things that led up to the conflict lend very well to a story. It'd be downright hilarious if it wasn't so unbelievably horrible. 

Well when you put it like that...

[Ten Key]

8 hours ago, Andem said:

I want to ask for your opinions on this before I really commit to it. I want to add some context to my stories' Kerbin, from a different perspective. Something similar of Ussari Space Program to Whispers of the Kraken, and I wasn't sure If I should actually go for it. So, I'd really like to hear your thoughts on this one.

That's kind of what Farlight is, to be honest. It started as a "run of the mill" after action, but the more I thought about posting it on the forum, the more I wanted to add. And then I finally decided to just go for it. It's been a mixed blessing. . .on the one hand, it's greatly increased my enjoyment of the game. And it's taught me a lot about writing. On the other hand, there are days it makes me want to tear my hair out. Feeding one of these things is not always a labor of love. If I had to come up with a brief snippet of advice, I would say a project like this (and it is a project) makes the high points higher and the low points lower. If your enjoyment level is already above average, it's a net gain. If you're already struggling to find the fun in it, doing something like this will just make it that much worse. 

As an aside, I tend to read and write in settings where war is a major element, and I just cannot wrap my brain around the idea of Kerbals shooting at each other. I think KSK does a good job with it in First Flight, and I use it to provide context for my own story, but I find it only works if you don't look at it too closely. There is a "childlike" element to Kerbals that makes a full on war story difficult for me to swallow.  

 

6 hours ago, Spaceception said:

Does anyone have any tips for writing good conversations that can go into some of the details, without going on forever?

Ugh. Dialog and I do not get on well at all. If I let a conversation run on for any length of time things can get ugly, so I usually mix short sections of direct dialog with indirect dialog and/or straight up narration. This is an example of the latter. . .

Spoiler

"This 'trim' thing didn't help."

"No. The controls are just too sensitive, even with the precision adjustments we made. It's not the wings, it's the control inputs. What we really need to do is find a way to adjust the sensitivity of controls on the fly, based on the airspeed of the vehicle."

"Hmph." Bill folded his arms, glared up at the cloudless sky. "That even possible?"

Bob glanced around the work area, the low angle of the rising sun casting shadows that made the clutter look even worse than it actually was. "No."

"Can we slow the thing down somehow?"

"No. Those motors are sealed at the factory."

"I'm starting to think this was a bad idea."

Try as he might, Bob couldn't think of a reason to disagree. Their latest attempt had been another disaster, the flyer shooting upwards in a series of increasingly violent S-curves that had quickly devolved into another looping crash. Jeb's quick reflexes had prevented the prototype from coming down right on top of them, but the junker had disappeared immediately after the test. Bob hadn't seen him since. 

Their remaining prototype sat by itself in the center of the yard. At Bill's insistence, Bob had mounted the vehicle to a gimballed frame so they could engage in some non-destructive testing. And the results had been disheartening, to say the least. Mathematically, at each velocity point, there was a specific pitch setting for the wings that would allow the vehicle to fly straight. But the velocity came up so quickly that there was simply no time to react. Worse, even the smallest adjustment of the control stick was more correction than the vehicle needed, resulting in a deadly oscillation where the operator couldn't help but over correct. That the Farlight team had encountered the same basic problem with their sounding rockets was small comfort-- Farlight had the financial backing of a major corporation and at least one major mining concern. They had their one remaining prototype, a beat up trundle, and a swamp full of junk.

"Makes you wonder, doesn't it?" The scraping flash of a match preceded the pungent smell of tobacco. 

Bob sat down on the trundle's bumper. "Wonder what?"

Bill waved the cigar at the pile of junk. "How they did it. Back during the war. Were they just throwing Peninsulite technology around blindly, or was there some understanding of how it worked?"

"Well," Bob leaned back on the tailgate. "from what I've read, most of the stuff was pretty blackbox. The Peninsulites liked it that way and no one was in any position to argue. Near the end though, a lot of the belligerents started using home brew tech out of necessity. It was pretty primitive."

"And that?" Bill pointed the cigar at the prototype. 

"The original K2 was Peninsula tech, but the block two was a home brew reproduction. They built them right up until the end of the war. The only thing really note worthy about them. . ."

Bob trailed off, lost in thought for a moment. "The autopilot. The block two had a simple mechanical autopilot. But they only used it. . ."

"Son, I don't care what they used it for. Can we use it now?"

"Maybe. I have no idea how responsive it is. And the controls would obviously be in the cockpit, so I don't know how the probe core could access them."

Bill took a pull off the cigar, blew the smoke off to one side. "That last problem sounds like something a smart kerbal like you can figure out. As for the first, we're going to have to test it."

Bob frowned. "This is our last prototype. Our last probe core."

"I know, I have an idea. Do you have any idea where that good for nothing garbage slinger has gotten too?"

Bob shrugged, looked away. Bill chewed on the cigar. A sudden breeze carried the smoke away and then stilled, leaving the two in silence. A silence that was filled with a long, guttural snore, coming from the prototype's cockpit. 

Bill took the cigar out of his mouth. "Ah."

Bob smiled, shook his head, started for the prototype. "I'll wake him. . ." he stopped as Bill's hand clamped down on his shoulder.

"Oh no, no you won't. This is delicious. I think it's time that junker got a taste of his own medicine."

In this case, I use the dialog to pad sections of info dump narration. And I can use a pre-established bit of grumpy to cut off the conversation believably when I'm finished with it. 

Two other random thoughts about dialog. First, various habits, fidgets and even vices can be used in lieu of "he said/she said" to indicate which character is speaking. Bill's cigars are wonderful for this. Accents can also work well, though they come with their own drawbacks. Second, I've found there are times as a writer when I just don't care which character is speaking. There have been a few scenes in my story where a group of indeterminate size is tossing one problem or another around a conference table, and in those cases I have no problem throwing in a random line of dialog where there is absolutely no indication of who's speaking. Thank you faceless intern! And if the reader ascribes the comment to one of the main characters, no harm is done. Maybe that's sloppy writing, but I'd rather not take up any more space with dialog than I have to. 

Bleh. Dialog. 

[CSE]

19 hours ago, Just Jim said:

The biggest concern I see is you'll have to be very, very careful about the political end of the subject you mention, and handle that aspect with kid gloves so you don't violate any forum rules.

As a tip for handling politics fairly: if you show any side from its own point of view, then try to show every side from its own point of view at least once in the story. Likewise if you show any side from another side's viewpoint.

If you find that your story or your style doesn't lend itself to treating a villain in this way, then maybe use a monstrous villain instead of a personal or political one; maybe get a copy of The Monsters and The Critics if you can - it's beyond my skill to summarize it properly but it explains something of the difference.

[KSK]

13 hours ago, Ten Key said:

In this case, I use the dialog to pad sections of info dump narration. And I can use a pre-established bit of grumpy to cut off the conversation believably when I'm finished with it. 

Two other random thoughts about dialog. First, various habits, fidgets and even vices can be used in lieu of "he said/she said" to indicate which character is speaking. Bill's cigars are wonderful for this. Accents can also work well, though they come with their own drawbacks. Second, I've found there are times as a writer when I just don't care which character is speaking. There have been a few scenes in my story where a group of indeterminate size is tossing one problem or another around a conference table, and in those cases I have no problem throwing in a random line of dialog where there is absolutely no indication of who's speaking. Thank you faceless intern! And if the reader ascribes the comment to one of the main characters, no harm is done. Maybe that's sloppy writing, but I'd rather not take up any more space with dialog than I have to. 

Bleh. Dialog. 

Not sloppy writing in my opinion. Quite the opposite - I've found this to be a really useful trick when you want to conjure up the impression of a large group without being too specific about its size and you really don't want to add in any more bit part characters. For example when Jeb is down on the factory floor about to break some rather significant news...

“So what do you think, Wernher?" Ribory turned her head and realised that she'd been talking to herself for the last two minutes. “Wernh... JEB!"
Everyone's head snapped round.
“Jeb!"
“Hey boss!"
“What happened, boss?"
“What's with the sheets over everything?"

Jeb raised his hands to fend off the jostling throng of kerbals. “Woah, woaaah - everyone take it easy. There's been a little change of plan that's all."

“What plan, Jeb?"
“What do you mean - change of plan?"
“Are we mothballing the ship, boss?"

Jeb gestured for silence. “I'll tell you all about it in a minute folks, once the rest of the team are here.“

 

On a separate topic, thanks everyone for the kind words regarding writing about conflict sans villains. Count me in for the CatastrophicFailure Burning Ears Club!

[Commander Zoom]

On 9/21/2016 at 11:45 AM, KSK said:

OK, so we really need this conversation and we really need these details. How to set about writing that conversation down? I think my big tip would be: write to the characters and not the reader. If you've got two engineers talking about a point of engineering, then going right back to first principles for the sake of exposition just looks clunky. On the other hand, if you've got a character who's job it is to ask questions, then it can work. I use that a couple of times in First Flight - I've written in a popsci level science and engineering TV show called Engines and Engineers. Naturally, they sometimes have guest kerbonauts on the show, for example to commentate on a particular mission or give an update on the Space Program as a whole. The TV presenter is there to ask the layman level questions and the kerbonaut is there to answer them. Used sparingly I don't think it's a bad way of wedging in some exposition here and there.

Just wanted to chime in that Apollo 13, the movie, used this to good effect to explain some things - while the astronauts and ground crew worked on a problem, the film would cut to a segment staged to look like a part of the ongoing network news coverage, where an expert would explain to the newsman and his audience what the problem was.

[Mister Dilsby]

7 hours ago, Commander Zoom said:

Just wanted to chime in that Apollo 13, the movie, used this to good effect to explain some things - while the astronauts and ground crew worked on a problem, the film would cut to a segment staged to look like a part of the ongoing network news coverage, where an expert would explain to the newsman and his audience what the problem was.

Switching narration styles works for a lot of reasons: giving different perspectives to the situation, allowing the author to dump some info without it looking too much like an info dump, and simply providing the reader with a different and more refreshing "look" from time to time. Some narration styles I use in the Kerblfeet comic include:

• Default--regular comic panels with dialogue coming from word balloons, no narration
• Log Entries--"captin's log" entry as used in Trek, to give a character's internal perspective and often frame the coming scene. Same function as a monologue in a play.
• Kenlie stories--in the present story where mirror-world Kerbulans menace Our Heroes, there is a character in each crew who can "see" the other side to some extent through the bad fanfiction stories they're writing. Narrative style, no word balloons, used to frame basic plot elements and to show what each side knows and is plotting with respect to the other.
• Songs--When ships in an otherwise grindy situation need a little "traveling music", I'll often make up a parody song and have the characters play it over the ship's sound system. This lets me add an entertaining dimension to what might otherwise be boring screenshots of a craft getting from point A to point B. Some favorites of mine include "Kerbin Bound" by Simon and Kerbfunkel, and a Johnny Cash cover that included the line, "I shot a kerb to Eeloo/Just to watch him fly."
• Interlude/Anything Goes--I do like to mix it up. Sometimes a scientist has a conversation with her instruments, which I render in the style of in-game science data reports. Or I'll show a page from an in-story publication; I can remember showing a corporate-style Annual Report brochure during the "Chairkerb Mort" period, and I used a newspaper's "standing obituary" file to establish Jeb's daredevil bona fides early on in Duna, Ore Bust!

That's one of the great things about working in a visual medium, the style options one can use to get information to the reader are practically limitless.  

[CatastrophicFailure]

Sigh... that feeling when you're going back re-reading something and find a typo that completely kills the gag. 

Quote

Edgas looked at him confused. The Temple of Nahtdahtunkhamun, the Boy King, and his bride, Queen Ahmahoyep the Ferile. According to legend, she bore thirty-three sons, none of whom bore the slightest resemblance to Nahtdahtunkhamun. The succession crisis upon his death was... interesting, to say the least. But what did that have to do with...?

Fertile. Fertile. FERTIKE!

 

 

[0111narwhalz]

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

FERTIKE

...

Another one?

[CatastrophicFailure]

59 minutes ago, 0111narwhalz said:

...

Another one?

*squishy headbanging noises*

[KSK]

You know - I think I just blanked out the typo and read it as 'fertile'. It could have been worse though - Queen Ahmahoyep the Feral would have been an eyebrow raiser for sure.

[Kosmonaut]

I haven't ever written FanFiction, especially for KSP. I love writing though (especially atmospherics and big scenes), and I should give this a shot, Thanks!

[SaturnianBlue]

Recently in The Asteroid Sentinels I've been focusing on Jeb and the crew in general. However like I did when I first unveiled the asteroid, I want to sort of bring up what the many other "non-KSC/Space" people have to say. 

Spoiler

The next episode I plan to cover the launch of the asteroid destroyer, but I want it to sort of be in a TV news format and bring the many people of Kerbin's opinions to perspective (such as those who think all this is a fraud, those who think launching a nuke carrying ship is wrong etc).

The problem is that I even though I think it would be cool to do it, I don't know if it serves any "purpose" especially to the mission itself. 

I'm also wondering how I might do world building and character development. Right now i'm sort of wondering what direction to take my characters toward. I had a rather large moment for Jeb, and that he (might) have learned better than to make bold rash decisions, and I can apply that to the future, but I wonder where to take the other characters in my story, (that are pretty likely to fly on the asteroid mission), Bill and Valentina. Another problem is that I fear the story sometimes just falls into a lengthy debate, that while gives lots of info and reveals something about the kerbals, that in the end it's just a page lengthener and that it just prevented "showing" and just amplified the telling of the story.

There's also an idea that might be good to play with, which is world building. The problem is how to do it, and if its actually necessary or useful to the current story. I've felt that there hasn't been much of a sense of culture or what kerbin really is like.

 

Edit-Do you think that the conversations seem "unnatural"?

Edited September 25, 2016 by SaturnianBlue

[Ten Key]

1 hour ago, SaturnianBlue said:

Do you think that the conversations seem "unnatural"?

Saturn, I have a question. What were the names of the last three books that you read, and how long ago did you read them?

[SaturnianBlue]

42 minutes ago, Ten Key said:

Saturn, I have a question. What were the names of the last three books that you read, and how long ago did you read them?

2001 A Space Odyssey, Around the world in 80 days, and I forgot the last one, but I read the first one this week, the earlier one the week before, etc...

[TheKosanianMethod]

I'm thinking of writing a little war story of Kerbals, but I've never written any stories before, and most of my writings I have written were rather... lacking,  to say the least.

EDIT:

 

Well, here is the first part:

I feel like I'm advertising it, and not in a good way. 

Edited September 26, 2016 by TheKosanianMethod
Link

[Andem]

Well, I made a new thread:

Anything noteworthy anyone would like to point out for the next update?

[Andem]

2 hours ago, TheKosanianMethod said:

I feel like I'm advertising it, and not in a good way. 

It's not advertising if you're asking for criticism. 

[TheKosanianMethod]

2 minutes ago, Andem said:

It's not advertising if you're asking for criticism. 

Yay, I don't feel like "that guy" anymore! 

[Kosmonaut]

On 9/21/2016 at 3:25 PM, CatastrophicFailure said:

Also @Andem you may have seen this before but it's a very interesting breakdown of WWI. The things that led up to the conflict lend very well to a story. It'd be downright hilarious if it wasn't so unbelievably horrible.

Except they totally forgot about Canada. Since we did more than the Americans, if you mention them you have to mention us. 

[Andem]

So, the forums have a very limited notification system. And, depending on how active you are and how many threads you are watching, you can easily get hundreds of notifications daily. @Kuzzter and @Just Jim have enough activity on their threads that, even if you miss an update, you can usually get a notification from a reader, scroll up and catch the chapter. So, outside of that, how do you deal with "distribution"?

[Mister Dilsby]

31 minutes ago, Andem said:

So, the forums have a very limited notification system. And, depending on how active you are and how many threads you are watching, you can easily get hundreds of notifications daily. @Kuzzter and @Just Jim have enough activity on their threads that, even if you miss an update, you can usually get a notification from a reader, scroll up and catch the chapter. So, outside of that, how do you deal with "distribution"?

I'm only watching a couple of threads outside of Mission Reports, so it's not so bad for me: really, I use the Notifications tab to see whether there's a new comment I should respond to, and I do most of my reading by scrolling the Mission Reports page itself.

I recognize that people don't always get notifications of an update, or that it can be missed due to the healthy amount of chatter on my thread, which is why I always change the thread title whenever I add new primary content. I don't know if there are any readers out there who ignore notifications from the Jool Odyssey thread until they see the title change, but I image there might be  

[CatastrophicFailure]

34 minutes ago, Andem said:

So, the forums have a very limited notification system. And, depending on how active you are and how many threads you are watching, you can easily get hundreds of notifications daily. @Kuzzter and @Just Jim have enough activity on their threads that, even if you miss an update, you can usually get a notification from a reader, scroll up and catch the chapter. So, outside of that, how do you deal with "distribution"?

I post it, and they come. 

Sometimes I still don't quite understand why. 

[Andem]

Hmm... Perhaps I've just gotten spoiled by what the "Follow Thread" says vs. what it actually means. 

[Just Jim]

47 minutes ago, Andem said:

So, the forums have a very limited notification system. And, depending on how active you are and how many threads you are watching, you can easily get hundreds of notifications daily. @Kuzzter and @Just Jim have enough activity on their threads that, even if you miss an update, you can usually get a notification from a reader, scroll up and catch the chapter. So, outside of that, how do you deal with "distribution"?

 

12 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

I'm only watching a couple of threads outside of Mission Reports, so it's not so bad for me: really, I use the Notifications tab to see whether there's a new comment I should respond to, and I do most of my reading by scrolling the Mission Reports page itself.

I recognize that people don't always get notifications of an update, or that it can be missed due to the healthy amount of chatter on my thread, which is why I always change the thread title whenever I add new primary content. I don't know if there are any readers out there who ignore notifications from the Jool Odyssey thread until they see the title change, but I image there might be  

I'm following a few other stories, but I don't seem to get notified if they update. I'm not sure how it actually works for people following Emiko when I post a new chapter either, so I do like @Kuzzter and make sure to change the title to reflect when I've posted a new chapter.

And I also scroll thru the mission reports at least once a day to find any updates, or new stories to check out.