A Thread for Writers to talk about Writing

[KMC]

I've been looking at this and wanting to write my own story about the Kerbals from their creation of flight and sailing to their colonisation of the stars with my heavily modded game, but have been put off by the fact that my mind thinks on to grand a scale to really successfully write about anything. Hopefully, now I'm using kountries, not individual kerbals, to tell the story I can do something soon. 

 

I don't understand my own mind.

[steuben]

Then write on a grand scale. The ebb and flow of power between countries, planets, and star systems. It is trickier to write... I haven't seen many examples of it. But, you may want to read through Well's "The Shape of Things to Come" as an example of that concept.

[CSE]

On 12/05/2017 at 10:17 PM, KMC said:

I've been looking at this and wanting to write my own story about the Kerbals from their creation of flight and sailing to their colonisation of the stars with my heavily modded game, but have been put off by the fact that my mind thinks on to grand a scale to really successfully write about anything. Hopefully, now I'm using kountries, not individual kerbals, to tell the story I can do something soon. 

 

I don't understand my own mind.

Gombrich's A Little History of the World covers the broad sweep of the history of our world in a style that's as comfortable and approachable as a novel, and a similar size. It's well worth reading to see a gifted storyteller working with a fixed plot, just like a KSP after-action report.

[Alpha 360]

I'm working on a Apollo era story which isn't very NASA like. Its called Advancing Through hardships. It is right now focusing on the early days of space flight, but I plan to include kerbal models of NASA plans for example, project Orion, Sea Dragon, skyhooks and many other things that NASA planned to do after Apollo. Also, if you wonder how in the world so many failures happen, there is a side story that will explain that.

Edited May 15, 2017 by Alpha 360
"Kouston, we have several problems, but that doesn't matter so we want to continue on with the mission."

[KMC]

Arrrrggggggghh. My mind wants to go off and build humongous planes and not stay working on KATS (My story). Anyone got any ideas on how to keep on track?

[KSK]

Do you have access to a second computing device? Preferably one that's portable and either can't run KSP or doesn't have it installed.  If you do, then finding somewhere to write that's out of temptation's way might be helpful. I have an ancient iPad mini and a cheapo Bluetooth keyboard that I can set up pretty much anywhere, whether that's a room at home away from my desktop computer or a local café. Sometimes it's more faff than it's worth but if I'm rattling around the house not really getting anywhere with anything, then I find the change of scenery can help.

And yes indeedy - I am that clichéd wannabe writer sitting in a café, iThing at the ready, working on his first novel. I draw the line at sipping lattes though. Or black polo necks.  

Otherwise - hmmm, not sure. Maybe set aside some dedicated 'writing time' when you're doing something towards your story and nothing else. Doesn't matter whether that's working on the next chapter, scribbling down ideas, planning out summaries of plot arcs, even doing 'research'. Provided it's something concrete and relevant. Once you're done, treat yourself to a humungous plane or two!

Beware excess 'research' though - from personal experience that can easily segue into 'reading random junk on the internet' or 'fixating on that small insignificant detail and using that as an excuse not to do anything else'.  

[Just Jim]

3 hours ago, KMC said:

Arrrrggggggghh. My mind wants to go off and build humongous planes and not stay working on KATS (My story). Anyone got any ideas on how to keep on track?

Can you do both? What I mean is I went thru something similar a few weeks ago with @Angel-125's Heisenberg mod. I didn't really need an airship in Emiko... I just wanted to try and build one because it looked like fun, and something a little different. But after I got one to fly, I ended up tweaking my next chapter a little to include it.

Perhaps you can do the same. If you want to build a humongous plane, go for it. But as you build it, in the back of your head try to think of a way to incorporate it into KATS somehow.

[adsii1970]

3 hours ago, KMC said:

Arrrrggggggghh. My mind wants to go off and build humongous planes and not stay working on KATS (My story). Anyone got any ideas on how to keep on track?

Good question. I do hope my answer helps and adds to what @Just Jim has said:

Three quarters of the story I write involves the styles and types of craft I enjoy building. Try it - take one of your prized "humongous planes" and find a way to justify putting it in the story. Give it a job or a purpose that no other craft can do and then let your favorite flight crew have at it to perform their duties (and this gives you reasons for taking lots of screen shots). It also gives you a reason to refit it as new parts become available from the mods you use and regular Squad updates. For me, this strategy has worked well (and for poor @Angel-125, it creates a world of troubles as he sees some of his mods put through tests and used in ways never intended! ).

 

[TotallyNotHuman]

1 hour ago, KSK said:

Quote

This. A hundred times this.

Most of my own writing is conducted on my trusty iPad Pro, which has a third-party keyboard installed (the Apple keyboard is rubbish). Per the parentals' rules, there are to be no games installed on the aforementioned iPad. This makes for a distraction-free environment where I can write.

Edited May 16, 2017 by TotallyNotHuman_
grumble grumble forum software grumble grumble

[Just Jim]

12 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

Good question. I do hope my answer helps and adds to what @Just Jim has said:

Three quarters of the story I write involves the styles and types of craft I enjoy building. Try it - take one of your prized "humongous planes" and find a way to justify putting it in the story. Give it a job or a purpose that no other craft can do and then let your favorite flight crew have at it to perform their duties (and this gives you reasons for taking lots of screen shots). It also gives you a reason to refit it as new parts become available from the mods you use and regular Squad updates. For me, this strategy has worked well (and for poor @Angel-125, it creates a world of troubles as he sees some of his mods put through tests and used in ways never intended! ).

One small thing I would add... If you are testing a new prototype humongous plane, do not be afraid to take advantage of test failures and explosions! There have been many times I've had something that didn't go according to plan, and smash, crash, or explode in some unexpected way... and as soon as I realized what was going to happen, I didn't panic or revert back to the launch. Instead I hit the screenshot button as fast as I could, and if possible, try to get the impending explosion from the best angle(s) possible. 

Only after the dust settles do I decide if I want to keep it, or revert and try again... or both. And in many cases, I went ahead and kept the crash!

Here's a good example of an unexpected keeper:

Spoiler

 

[CatastrophicFailure]

4 hours ago, KSK said:

... finding somewhere to write that's out of temptation's way might be helpful. I have an ancient iPad mini and a cheapo Bluetooth keyboard that I can set up pretty much anywhere, whether that's a room at home away from my desktop computer or a local café. Sometimes it's more faff than it's worth but if I'm rattling around the house not really getting anywhere with anything, then I find the change of scenery can help.

Beware excess 'research' though - from personal experience that can easily segue into 'reading random junk on the internet' or 'fixating on that small insignificant detail and using that as an excuse not to do anything else'.  

Second this. I do all my writing on mobile things, usually during my downtime at work. It's very convenient, and a great way to occupy time that otherwise would just be sitting around, but I do have to watch those distractions. It's all too easy when you simply must know this one weird trick that makes Krakens hate him. 

OTOH, I'd never get anything done at home, because I could be Kerballing.

[CatastrophicFailure]

Oh, and as long as I'm here, as I'm also reading Stephen King's foreward to The Gunslinger, I think this is worth repeating: 

[sic] The writer's most insidious enemy is doubt. 

[steuben]

Quote

If it's a bootstrapping facility it would make sense to put it in orbit around Kerbin whilst you're still lifting stuff from Kerbin. It's easier to move stuff downhill from the Mun than uphill to the Mun - or Minmus for that matter.

That was my initial design for the whole project. Build the modules on Kerbin and lift them for assembly in orbit. It lasted right up until I started designing the Cygnus class yard, a large prairie of 2x2 panels with modules hanging off the "bottom".  There wasn't an easy way to lift the shop floor modules to orbit in a decent number of lifts. I was looking at the low triple digit range. It wasn't the mass that had to go up, it was the shape giving me the problem.

This lead to periods 1 and 2 in the cue-card time table. The station modules range in mass from 27 tonnes up to 750 tonnes. Sections of the Cygnus ships will probably mass in that range. While it is doable from the surface of Kerbin; it is six times easier to it from Münar surface. Drop a mining, refining, and yard complex  on the Mün and proceed from there. That first kit would have to come from Kerbin surface, of course. Early on it would be full modules to wherever. Later on it would be a blend of processed metals and specialty modules and parts... to wherever.

So from there...

Having rubber ducked it, it feels like I will need two yards at the start. The first would be an assembly area in Kerbin orbit. This would service the early intra-kerbin construction and assembly. The second would be in Münar orbit. This and it's kin would form the central part of construction of the later stations, orbital yards, and other ships short of the Cygnus, and her kin.

[KSK]

19 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Oh, and as long as I'm here, as I'm also reading Stephen King's foreward to The Gunslinger, I think this is worth repeating: 

[sic] The writer's most insidious enemy is doubt. 

Agreed. An insidious enemy that can strike at any time. Making you afraid to get started on that first chapter - or any other chapter for that matter - because what happens if I do it wrong? Or sparking that demoralizing feeling of a story simply being too far along to fix. And for all my previous comments on stories not being written by committee - well that's when you need the constructive criticism. That's when you need somebody to extend you @CatastrophicFailure's greatest courtesy and tell you what you don't exactly want to hear but need to hear if you're going to get things back on track.

I'm naming no names but you know who you are. Thank you.

[Just Jim]

On 5/17/2017 at 8:21 AM, KSK said:

Making you afraid to get started on that first chapter - or any other chapter for that matter - because what happens if I do it wrong?

It's funny, but looking back I find many of the chapters I was most worried about turned out to be huge successes. I just hope it holds true, because I'm really, really nervous about my next one... lol.

[steuben]

I'm trying for a ghost story-ish vibe... don't know if I got it or not.

[NSEP]

So recently, i have been enjoying semi-desinging spacecraft for Back to the Moon. A story about, well the title explains it. I dropped Back to the Moon for a while, i am not really a huge fan of writing a story. BttM was bassicly a spacecraft development story, wich i thought was kind of boring. So im remaking Back to the Moon, maybe as a Realism Overhaul mission report on the forums or something for WattPad. The Mission Report section should be a bit more fun though, WattPad is full of gunk.

[KSK]

Apropos nothing much at all, I've started reading this blog on writing. Example post linked for reference. 

http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2013/05/mailbox-should-i-outline-my-book.html

He tends to be blunt and fairly sweary but he can also be pretty funny and makes some good points. Or at least makes quite a few points which I agree with, which may not necessarily be the same thing.

[CatastrophicFailure]

I'll just leave this here.

Edited June 16, 2017 by CatastrophicFailure
Might help if I actually, y'know, left it...

[KSK]

An admirable sentiment and one I could learn from personally, but I can't help feeling that Mr. Martin has largely defused its impact by taking it to extremes,

For A Song of Ice and Fire it's more like: I've read the book where the hero is walking through a quiet leafy park with her best friend. And is suddenly stabbed in the back for reasons. I'm not afraid for the hero - I no longer care much of anything for the hero - because she's going to be brutally murdered anyway. It's just a question of when.

As @Just Jim is fond of pointing out, to see the Light, you also need the Dark. That applies just as well the other way around.

I should clarify out that I do enjoy ASoIaF but the 'disposable everyone' trope is getting wearing.

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, KSK said:

For A Song of Ice and Fire it's more like: I've read the book where the hero is walking through a quiet leafy park with her best friend. And is suddenly stabbed in the back for reasons. I'm not afraid for the hero - I no longer care much of anything for the hero - because she's going to be brutally murdered anyway. It's just a question of when.

Quite so, and I never really put that thought together in my own mind so clearly. A good character represents a capital investment, both for the writer and the reader. The reader pays "interest" (both meanings) toward that investment over the course of the story. That built-up capital can then be spent all at once for great effect--who will ever forget Spock's heroic death in Wrath of Khan, and let's all just ignore for a moment that he came back. But as with any investment, rarity drives value. Make that play too often and no one is going to contribute any "interest" next time around.

[adsii1970]

1 hour ago, KSK said:

As @Just Jim is fond of pointing out, to see the Light, you also need the Dark. That applies just as well the other way around.

[Edited by adsii1970]

Yes, and this is missing in a lot of writing for novels, movies, and even television shows. And if you're going to have chaos, you also have to have some calm. Even in the most strongest storms, there are moments between the storm waves of quite surprising calm. And then there's the great tool of the false calm before the storm... this is another important tool that a few people here on the forums do quite well, such as @Cydonian Monk, @Just Jim, and @Kuzzter. I am sure there are others, but as I am typing this, I've only had one cup of coffee since completing a 5-mile walk.

3 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

Quite so, and I never really put that thought together in my own mind so clearly. A good character represents a capital investment, both for the writer and the reader. The reader pays "interest" (both meanings) toward that investment over the course of the story. That built-up capital can then be spent all at once for great effect--who will ever forget Spock's heroic death in Wrath of Khan, and let's all just ignore for a moment that he came back. But as with any investment, rarity drives value. Make that play too often and no one is going to contribute any "interest" next time around.

A very couple of points have been made. And in good character writing, it is ok to expose the reality of the main character - their limitations, their fears, their successes, and their failures. Spock is a great example, and for the reasons @Kuzzter has shared. But his capital was not just in ST:TWOK, but created in the original 3 year ST:TOS and ST:TAS. His death in TWOK was HUGE for Star Trek fans... And if you think of the success of the movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, in my opinion, it was the most successful of the four movies. For the first two films, we learned that Indiana hated snakes, but the audience didn't know why... and then we found out. And the revealing of that origin of the character flaw allowed the fan to learn why that incident happened - he was following in the footsteps of his father - Dr. Henry Jones... (and we learned that Indiana was the next man... ) . There were so many great moments of that movie that explained why Indiana Jones was the way he was... and even where his name originated. A lot of capital added, and the fourth movie pretty much flopped because of the genuine discontinuity of the story line.

On 5/21/2017 at 8:01 PM, Just Jim said:

It's funny, but looking back I find many of the chapters I was most worried about turned out to be huge successes. I just hope it holds true, because I'm really, really nervous about my next one... lol.

Don't be. Your writing amazes me.

On 5/16/2017 at 7:59 AM, Just Jim said:

One small thing I would add... If you are testing a new prototype humongous plane, do not be afraid to take advantage of test failures and explosions! There have been many times I've had something that didn't go according to plan, and smash, crash, or explode in some unexpected way... and as soon as I realized what was going to happen, I didn't panic or revert back to the launch. Instead I hit the screenshot button as fast as I could, and if possible, try to get the impending explosion from the best angle(s) possible. 

Only after the dust settles do I decide if I want to keep it, or revert and try again... or both. And in many cases, I went ahead and kept the crash!

[Edited by adsii1970]

Yes. Even improperly installed mods can create a neat - circumstance - for some really nifty things to happen. For the average chapter, I have between 60 to 80 screenshots to weed through. And as @Just Jim has said... things that go wrong can give you opportunities to really bring out the best (or worst) of any character, including your main ones. I've tested some craft designs that flew like bricks but with extra thrust... and when they lose their lift, I always eject the pilot... and some of them you can see in the chapters... One time, I thought it would be fun to fly a craft about three meters above the surface for as long as I could... and when that crash happened (and at 305 meters per second, the debris field was HUGE! ), it was too good of an opportunity to pass up... and I used it! Crashes, parts falling off, explosions, and even those "oh, crap" moments when you realize you forgot a solar panel can become great story material...

[Just Jim]

3 hours ago, KSK said:

As @Just Jim is fond of pointing out, to see the Light, you also need the Dark. That applies just as well the other way around.

I'm dodging T-storms today, so I have to make this quick... I am not familiar with A Song of Ice and Fire, but I totally agree that there has to be some sort of balance. This is also one of the reasons I made my Emiko character fun and a little on the goofy side... to try and counterbalance all the gloom.

 

1 hour ago, adsii1970 said:

And as @Just Jim has said... things that go wrong can give you opportunities to really bring out the best (or worst) of any character, including your main ones.

Yes, never let a good explosion go to waste!!!  

[CatastrophicFailure]

Welp, half a day later and there's absolutely nothing I can add to this discussion, it's all been said. Mission: accomplished. 

[purpleivan]

On 16/06/2017 at 2:36 PM, Kuzzter said:

Quite so, and I never really put that thought together in my own mind so clearly. A good character represents a capital investment, both for the writer and the reader. The reader pays "interest" (both meanings) toward that investment over the course of the story. That built-up capital can then be spent all at once for great effect--who will ever forget Spock's heroic death in Wrath of Khan, and let's all just ignore for a moment that he came back. But as with any investment, rarity drives value. Make that play too often and no one is going to contribute any "interest" next time around.

Well to paraphrase  Donald Rumsfeld you could have "unexpected unexpecteds", i.e the unleashing of the randomness of the universe on a well liked character is fine, as long as it is "random" and not just an "act of author" event.

What I mean it is, if you're going to off a character, make it feel random and not just following the trope.

As always at this time... wine fueled, so treat with caution

Edited July 7, 2017 by purpleivan