A Thread for Writers to talk about Writing

[Disparia Books]

Hey friends,

for those of you who were interested in my official KSP novel but not following my other thread about it, I'm stepping away from using the KSP IP. I tried so hard to work with PD and T2 for permission to use it, even in a freely distributed capacity, but at the end of the day it was just too restrictive. That being said, I'm moving forward with a new project (Project Departure) through my publisher and will actually be able to publish, print, and distribute the book series beginning later this year. While it's no longer associated with Kerbal, if any of you have enjoyed my "Jeb's Life" missions or the discussion on the other thread, this project will suit you perfectly. Be sure to follow me and a few others over to Discord and let me know if you have any questions. Cheers everyone!

[snip]

Edited May 26, 2019 by Gargamel
Portions Redacted by Moderator

[VelocityPolaris]

Hello again, got another question. And that is: How do you go about giving your characters... quirks and features? Themes, hobbies, pet peeves, whatever gives 'em a bit more to go with than just an archetype. (also could someone list some examples so I can steal them for science)?

[Disparia Books]

34 minutes ago, VelocityPolaris said:

Hello again, got another question. And that is: How do you go about giving your characters... quirks and features? Themes, hobbies, pet peeves, whatever gives 'em a bit more to go with than just an archetype. (also could someone list some examples so I can steal them for science)?

Hey Velocity,

I don't think this necessarily directed towards me, but I thought I'd give you a bit of tips I've found helpful.

The first thing I would say to try when building a character is to find someone you know that is similar to them and go from there. You might find that it's not so much about writing as it is observation. Do you want someone quiet and sullen? Maybe you have a friend, family member, schoolmate, co-worker, etc that is like that. Just observe and see how they behave as much as you can (not in a creepy way, mind, just be mindful of how people act). Most of the time you're creating characters that are actual people-and people are already out there for you to effectively copy. Once you've taken that as far as you can, just start filling in the gaps in a way that fits.

Second, try this, it's worked for me. To start, come up with a strange scenario (like a robbery at a grocery store, or a fire in a warehouse, or a sewer line break in a bank). Come up with one dimensional/flat characters to fill the scenario, like the hysterical lady, the angry man, etc. You can either write the scenario or come up with a detailed one in your head. Either way, make sure you know exactly how the entire thing will play out from beginning to end. THEN, and here's the fun part, come up with a character you are thinking of and insert them somewhere into the situation. You'll find that in extreme scenarios that you already know how they will progress, your characters traits and quirks will reveal themselves pretty easily. It's basically pushing a person to their limits, which is when you see their neuroses and problems, and you can begin to figure out where their quirks and features are.

Third, do the wallet game. Just start by asking your characters what's in their wallet, then ask why. You can learn someone's quirks and features by seeing what's in their purse or wallet. And don't forget to ask them what their wallet or purse looks like. Ask your made up characters to answer that and pretty soon you'll understand exactly how to implement their traits because you'll know deeply who they are.

Hope that helps. let me know if you have any follow up questions.  Cheers!

[Disparia Books]

Hey   @Just Jim@VelocityPolaris @SiriusRocketry, @Kerballing (Got Dunked On), @steuben

and anyone else that's interested in talking about the craft of writing. I've got a question for all of you. A while back I had a live stream AMA session with my publisher talking about everything from writing ideas to getting published, where anyone watching the stream could join in and ask questions. Since this is a thread about...you know, writing, I was wondering if anyone would be interested in me hosting something like that again in the near future? It's a much more direct way of talking about stories and craft than posting to a message board once a week

Let me know if there's any interest in something like that and I can look into it if so. Here's the link to the old one for reference:

[snip]

Edited May 26, 2019 by Gargamel
Portions Redacted by Moderator

[VelocityPolaris]

On 5/24/2019 at 4:10 PM, Disparia Books said:

Hey   @Just Jim@VelocityPolaris @SiriusRocketry, @Kerballing (Got Dunked On), @steuben

and anyone else that's interested in talking about the craft of writing. I've got a question for all of you. A while back I had a live stream AMA session with my publisher talking about everything from writing ideas to getting published, where anyone watching the stream could join in and ask questions. Since this is a thread about...you know, writing, I was wondering if anyone would be interested in me hosting something like that again in the near future? It's a much more direct way of talking about stories and craft than posting to a message board once a week

Let me know if there's any interest in something like that and I can look into it if so. Here's the link to the old one for reference:

[snip]

Sounds neat!

Edited May 26, 2019 by Gargamel
Portions of Quote Redacted by Moderator

[SiriusRocketry]

I would definitely be interested in this. 

[steuben]

1 hour ago, VelocityPolaris said:

Hello again, got another question. And that is: How do you go about giving your characters... quirks and features? Themes, hobbies, pet peeves, whatever gives 'em a bit more to go with than just an archetype. (also could someone list some examples so I can steal them for science)?

Start here: Develop Character Personality

Then go here: Forty Five Master Characters and here: The Complete Writers Guide To Heroes And Heroines

Depends though on how much detail is needed. For one writing project I got a list of names, hair colour, eye colour, height, weight, [a few other traits. -ed.], and some personal history and told Excel to choose randomly among them. I then wrote based on what excel generated. It works for either quick little characters or prices that are 2 kilo-words or so.

 

 

[Disparia Books]

17 hours ago, VelocityPolaris said:

Sounds neat!

 

16 hours ago, SiriusRocketry said:

I would definitely be interested in this. 

Glad to know you'd be interested. I will start talking with my publisher to see if/when he'd be free later this year. I'd be SUPER happy to do this with everyone, but in order to justify it I'd need a few more people to be interested. Go ahead and spread the word to anyone else you think would like something like this (on this forum or in general). I would probably host it through my twitch channel and have you ask through chat, or a specific Discord channel (I'm still looking into what would be the easiest, so no specifics yet).

The format would basically be my publisher on video/voice answering questions from chat, possibly while showing visuals or allowing visual questions (maybe you could upload a piece or paste some text we could look at, etc).

Spread the word if you're interested and keep letting me know. I will check back often. Be sure to talk about it on my Discord server too, as I'm on there more than I am here

[KerballingSmasher]

On 5/25/2019 at 3:48 AM, Disparia Books said:

 

Glad to know you'd be interested. I will start talking with my publisher to see if/when he'd be free later this year. I'd be SUPER happy to do this with everyone, but in order to justify it I'd need a few more people to be interested. Go ahead and spread the word to anyone else you think would like something like this (on this forum or in general). I would probably host it through my twitch channel and have you ask through chat, or a specific Discord channel (I'm still looking into what would be the easiest, so no specifics yet).

The format would basically be my publisher on video/voice answering questions from chat, possibly while showing visuals or allowing visual questions (maybe you could upload a piece or paste some text we could look at, etc).

Spread the word if you're interested and keep letting me know. I will check back often. Be sure to talk about it on my Discord server too, as I'm on there more than I am here

Hmm... I might be able to make that happen! Depends on when, though, because I have a tough schedule during the school year and living in Hawaii doesn't make it any easier!

[Disparia Books]

17 hours ago, Kerballing (Got Dunked On) said:

Hmm... I might be able to make that happen! Depends on when, though, because I have a tough schedule during the school year and living in Hawaii doesn't make it any easier!

Hey Kerballing (and others),

Hmm, of all the reasons for scheduling to be hard, I think living in Hawaii is definitely the best possible reason. Lucky

I will give plenty of notice and definitely try to work around the varied schedule of everyone around here. I'm in Mountain time, so you're way behind me. As for dates, I'm thinking July or August for the first one. That will give me and everyone else enough time to get a few people together for it and make sure I'm not rushing my publisher. Like I said before, if any of you have questions bout it or want to make time/date suggestions I'm open. Cheers!

[KerballingSmasher]

4 hours ago, Disparia Books said:

Hmm, of all the reasons for scheduling to be hard, I think living in Hawaii is definitely the best possible reason. Lucky

Ha! Yeah, I moved out last summer and the time zone's an absolute kicker!

[VelocityPolaris]

34 minutes ago, Kerballing (Got Dunked On) said:

Ha! Yeah, I moved out last summer and the time zone's an absolute kicker!

Cool! Uh, Hawaii, hawaii, what do I know about that place... uh, you guys still have that angry volcano goddess?

[Disparia Books]

53 minutes ago, VelocityPolaris said:

Cool! Uh, Hawaii, hawaii, what do I know about that place... uh, you guys still have that angry volcano goddess?

I thought they patched that out in a recent update?

[KerballingSmasher]

23 hours ago, VelocityPolaris said:

Cool! Uh, Hawaii, hawaii, what do I know about that place... uh, you guys still have that angry volcano goddess?

 

22 hours ago, Disparia Books said:

I thought they patched that out in a recent update?

Yes and no... Kilauea stopped its violent eruption, but the volcano itself is back to 'slow book's mode

[Disparia Books]

Spoke to my publisher over the weekend and he is on board for another AMA/video/chat session. He just left on a cross-country road trip with his wife so he will be gone for most of June, so it looks like the best time for the event would be July or August. Since it's early enough now that we can make changes and plan, I'd love to hear any feedback from those of you interested in joining in. Here are a few things to consider (and answer):

1. What time of day (using GMT so we can all easily convert) would you like?

2. What format would you like (Twitch stream/audio session in Discord/Audio and text chat in Discord/Something else)?

3. Would you like me to present specific topics or make it more open ended and just go off of questions?

4. Would you be able to help get other writers interested? This is obviously just a fun free thing I'd do, but the more people that join in the better the information would be for everyone. I spent my college years doing writing workshops and presenting because it's something I enjoy. This would be more of the same, and the more the merrier.

Let me know what you think. Cheers all!

[steuben]

2. My preference is text chat. I probably won't be able to watch. But, I have always found it easier to chew through a text after action vs audio. And the voice to text softwares have gotten fairly good these days. They can  transcribe my French fairly well, and I speak comme un renard russe (moderne, pas napoléonien). J'aspire à la vache espagnole.  That being said, I'm willing to bow to the preference of the experts/hosts.

3. a couple of core topics with suggestion towards... "technical" level, to start and then go with the flow. If you can pre-post the topics some seed questions from the galleries can be chucked into the hat.

4. Wish I knew some. I should probably go digging for a writer's group out my way. The inter-webs and books can only get you so far, before your mental echo-chamber starts to dominate.

[roboslacker]

I need help finding an image editor. I've been working on a [graphic novel?] in my spare time, and I want to replace the handwritten text in an image editor. I'd been planning to just use MS paint, but I just found out that you can't center text in MS paint. So, does anyone know any free image editors with good text support?

[CatastrophicFailure]

38 minutes ago, roboslacker said:

I need help finding an image editor. I've been working on a [graphic novel?] in my spare time, and I want to replace the handwritten text in an image editor. I'd been planning to just use MS paint, but I just found out that you can't center text in MS paint. So, does anyone know any free image editors with good text support?

Paint.net or GIMP. Both free, and quite powerful editors. Learning curve is a bit shallower on Paint.net. 

[Nivee~]

On 6/4/2019 at 6:28 AM, roboslacker said:

I need help finding an image editor. I've been working on a [graphic novel?] in my spare time, and I want to replace the handwritten text in an image editor. I'd been planning to just use MS paint, but I just found out that you can't center text in MS paint. So, does anyone know any free image editors with good text support?

If it's only text that you need help with, have you tried PowerPoint? Kuzzter used PowerPoint for his graphic novels, I think...

[steuben]

On ‎6‎/‎3‎/‎2019 at 8:58 PM, roboslacker said:

I need help finding an image editor. I've been working on a [graphic novel?] in my spare time, and I want to replace the handwritten text in an image editor. I'd been planning to just use MS paint, but I just found out that you can't center text in MS paint. So, does anyone know any free image editors with good text support?

Depending on how you define free. Ado[Redacted, for reasons of highly questionable legality. Aside from them being very old. -ed. ]ring.

I know you said free, but if you are going to be doing this frequently you may want to break down and buy something. If you rummage around you can find an older version of the various heavy weights for cheap. One of my usual sources (The Trailing Edge)has the CorelDRAW X6 Graphics Suite Home and Student for 100$ CAD. And a new version of PaintShop Pro is on sale for 60$ CAD, usually 100$ CAD. There are free trials available for both.

But, you will probably want to try out several to get a feel for what works for you. Me, for my various works I work in Paintshop Pro. Been using it for years. I wasn't willing to deal with the learning curve of Adobe Photoshop, and GIMP wasn't available for Windows at the time.

<audio effect: old timey AM radio>Who knows what lies beneath the redacts of Steuben? The Editor knows!<thunder sound effect></audio effect>

[Disparia Books]

Hey everyone,

the writing/publishing AMA podcast is shaping up nicely. I've been working with a few others on the forum and Discord to get details, so thank you for your ideas. I have a FAQ page up that stays current with any changes. It's on my website and Discord if you're interested. In the meantime, for those of you who want to join in, let me know what types of topics or ideas you want to discuss or have covered. I'm creating a bit of a plan on what/when/where to address things. This can be everything from better sensory details in stories to grammar and punctuation. It can also include publishing options, formatting, cover design, etc. Really anything you can think of, we can cover (pun intended). For example, my book cover was designed and then hand painted. I have the original painting in my house. That process was really interesting and quite enjoyable.

And remember, this will be a regular twitch/discord stream, so all you need to do to join is watch and chat, no payment or subs required.

Cheers!

[Disparia Books]

Writers/readers/creators:

I just wanted to let you know that the official discussion for the upcoming AMA/Stream has moved to my discord channel. The event will take place sometime between July 20th and August 3rd (picking a time that works for a global audience). I will host it on Twitch and through my discord server. You can find all the specific details HERE.

This will be a fun way to talk about writing, creating, and stories in general, and all it requires is a connection to the internet. I'm currently building a list of talking points or ideas to address, so I encourage you to come up with questions you want answered or topics you want discussed (everything from how to write dialogue to the best programs and tools for creating a story). I hope to see you there.

[SiriusRocketry]

Hello everyone, just a wee bump for this masterful thread

 

[JERONIMO]

sup, trying to find how to continue to write my next chapter of the veneium, which is my ksp "saga"

[Disparia Books]

16 hours ago, JERONIMO said:

sup, trying to find how to continue to write my next chapter of the veneium, which is my ksp "saga"

What are you working on next? Any specific issues or ideas?