A Thread for Writers to talk about Writing

[steuben]

I'm am not a very creative individual. When "Wings of Honneamise" appeared during my tropes-walks at work I thought yeah... Jeb as the hero character, and then run the story from there. Though having said that perhaps Val would be better. You know, adapt if you must, but flip something to keep it fresh. Though I'm not sure if just a gender flip would be enough. Even as a direct adaptation it would be a good straight KSP story. Though it would conflict with my general practice of trying to write stories that do not have the potential to violate future kerbal-canon. Though those details could be hand waved away with varying degrees of success. Though if I could get a little itsy-bitsy peak at the Grand Kerbol Canon Bible that would be great. I'll sign an NDA and buy the expansion pack and all <Yiddish accent>the merchandising</Yiddish accent>... <formal Washington DC accent>"We cannot confirm or deny the existence of such a  document" </formal Washington DC accent>... 

Which movies, or novels, would be good to try and adapt to the KSP universe. I'm kind of looking for not mainstream stuff, for the usual definitions of mainstream. For me, at the least, this will be a writing exercise for varying values of exercise. But, if a good story can come of it all the better. And i'm not going to knock the recommendations for decent book/movies in the high numbers of the moh's scale for hardness.

Yeah... go watch [Wings of Honneamise]. It's good. I first saw it on the midnight anime block during the hey-day of anime here in NA. It does not do the movie justice.

Sorry if this one is a little bit more wander-y and ramble-ish than my usual post. It is a big holiday celebration here in Canukistan. The methylcarbinol and ethane hydroxide are fighting with my usual mentality... so more is slipping through than usual. *picks up chair* Back though! *whip crack* Back! I say! *whip crack* 

[KSK]

OK, @Kuzzter's latest Kerbfleet update brought up an interesting point - unreliable narration. Rather than derail the story, I figured I'd bring it up here instead. As in - what do folks think of it?

Personally, I'm not a fan. Charles Stross's Laundry Files series are written using an unreliable narrator and it drives me buggy. The whole premise and worldbuilding behind the series is a bit weird anyway, so I'm never quite sure whether what I'm reading is weird because that's just the way the world works, or whether it's the good 'ol unreliable narrator at work. Gah.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, KSK said:

OK, @Kuzzter's latest Kerbfleet update brought up an interesting point - unreliable narration. Rather than derail the story, I figured I'd bring it up here instead. As in - what do folks think of it?

It's a great topic @KSK and thank you for bringing it here!

So first off I'll admit that I had Kenlie open the chapter like that mostly to set the stakes--reminding the reader directly of the deadly danger everyone's in, which I thought appropriate after the long layoff and the feel-good of the recent musical interlude. Also, to tell a little joke, as I have been known to do, and to re-establish some of Kenlie's character traits along with some of the rest of the crew. (with a dozen just aboard Intrepid, several of whom are mirrored on Despair, I have to squeeze that stuff in whenever I can!)

Right then: unreliable narrators. Loosely defined, it's a literary technique / cheap stunt wherein the author intentionally misleads the reader via the narration. A first person narrator can be unreliable; this can be acceptable, in my opinion if and ONLY if (1) the unreliability of the character-narrator is the main point of the story and makes the story work, and (2) if the reader has a fair chance to suspect the narrator isn't telling the truth. In my opinion an omniscient or third person narrator must ALWAYS be reliable. I recall we had a discussion along those lines way back in Eve: Oder Zero. ("trust Kuzzter!") For a story to work, the reader has to have some confidence that the author is leading them somewhere good. Otherwise why invest the time to read and follow the story? It's one thing if the author is sloppy. Good writing builds to an expectation of a payoff. It avoids introducing unnecessary elements that distract. It follows rules, like 'Chekov's gun', for exactly that reason. 

But for the author-narrator to intentionally mislead the reader--not misdirect, that's useful and good and another thing altogether--that betrays the sacred trust. Once I've found out that what I've spent my time reading and understanding isn't true, once I've invested emotional capital in the characters and seen it all become worthless, why should I read further? 

Example of an "acceptable" first person unreliable narrator: the story is set in a school, and one by one the students are found horribly murdered. The narrator suspects supernatural forces are at work and begins investigating. More murders happen, and the narrator experiences unexplained blackouts coinciding with the lunar cycle--at the end he turns out to have been a werewolf all along. Works because it's the point of the story, and the blackouts etc. give the reader a fair chance.

Example of "unacceptable" narration: "Ha ha! It was all a dream/simulation/story within a story!" --or-- "But 'he' was really a woman the whole time! Even though that changes nothing and there was no signal of any kind that 'he' was! But hey, makes you think doesn't it? No?" --or-- "forget the last 60+ years of deeply established canon--Cap was a Hydra agent all along!"  

[Just Jim]

1 hour ago, Kuzzter said:

It's a great topic @KSK and thank you for bringing it here!

Wow... there's very little I can add... well said!  

I'm not a big fan of unreliable narration.

And on a slightly different note, I found I don't really like writing in the first person at all, whether it's reliable or not. A couple of my earlier "backstory chapters" were narrated... and I found it... awkward... I guess that's the best word. I don't know why... I just wasn't as comfortable writing like this... and I eventually started doing the backstory chapters third person, like the rest of the Saga.

Unless the narrator is supposed to be disoriented..... or lying... or something along those lines, I don't think I'd enjoy trying to write an unreliable narration either.

 

 

Edited July 10, 2017 by Just Jim

[steuben]

Dang ninjaed... hate that.

The "rules" are similar to the rules of good mystery writing. The Fair-Play UN is the same as Fair-Play Whodunnit. However, your "viewing direction", is inverted. Rather than watching the characters solve the mystery. You are the character solving the mystery. This turns Knox's Decalogue into guidelines rather than hard rules.

Hitchcock's "Stage Fright" is an example that don't follow the rules. At least when it comes to that flashback at the beginning. But given it was the prototype  for such things it can be slightly excused. Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon" I think follows the "rules", but I'm going to have to sit down and watch it to be sure. But, given "Rashomon"-Style hangs off UN, I going to guess yes.

It can be hard to write for, or lots of work. You have to write the story twice. Once for the narrator, and once for reality.

As a trope it can't be the only thing you hang your plot off of and it can't be the whole story. Unless you are either very, very good or working in a very literary genre. But, it is better to be both. 

As long as it doesn't enter mind screw territory or is completely illogical it can up the fridge quotient a fair bit.

 

 

[Just Jim]

22 minutes ago, steuben said:

The "rules" are similar to the rules of good mystery writing. The Fair-Play UN is the same as Fair-Play Whodunnit. However, your "viewing direction", is inverted. Rather than watching the characters solve the mystery. You are the character solving the mystery. This turns Knox's Decalogue into guidelines rather than hard rules.

It's funny you bring this up... and @Kuzzter and  @KSK for the unreliability subject in general. I wasn't going to say anything, but....

Spoiler Alert!!!  But I suppose I don't care... 

Without giving too much away, in my next chapter, I'm sending my girls to a Victorian style "Murder-Mystery" bed & breakfast.... hehehe.

They have a couple around here... you check in like a normal hotel or bed & breakfast... or late night diner... whatever... and somewhere during or after dinner, one of the "Guests" will mysteriously "die"... or something equally strange will happen... And this is where the "murder-mystery" part kicks in, and all the guests get to join in and try to solve whatever is going on... Great fun!

So I wasn't going to say anything at all... and I really don't wan't to say much more than that... but it's so relevant I thought I'd mention it... because that's how I've spent my whole weekend... trying to set up the "Murder-mystery" story part for Emiko and the rest of the guests.... laying out clues... setting up suspects.... and I've been trying to follow most everything in rules of good mystery writing... 

I can tell you one thing... it's fun, but also really challenging, and taking me longer than I thought it would.

Edited July 10, 2017 by Just Jim

[Ten Key]

On 7/10/2017 at 1:51 AM, KSK said:

OK, Kuzzter's latest Kerbfleet update brought up an interesting point - unreliable narration. Rather than derail the story, I figured I'd bring it up here instead. As in - what do folks think of it?

Used in moderation, the unreliable narrator can work magic. I love it. 

Bethesda's Elder Scrolls games use this technique religiously, revealing the world to the player with a series of dueling narratives that are confusing and often contradictory. Sometimes these narratives are so different it's not immediately apparent that they're referencing the same event. No one is telling the whole truth-- no one knows the whole truth. It makes puzzling out the setting's history difficult, but in return the biased storytelling serves to illuminate the various factions and luminaries in a way that would not be possible with a single, accurate retelling. In attempting to spin the past, the present is revealed. 

I think our differing opinions here (KSK) might be an extension of the different approaches to writing we were talking about earlier. Generally speaking I don't like world building-- I prefer to leave things vague and gooey for as long as possible so I have the flexibility to more or less do what I want when I want. And I much prefer stories that are heavily character driven over ones that have elaborate settings. Joss Whedon described Firefly as "nine people looking into the blackness of space and seeing nine different things". . .I think a little bit of unreliable narration is an important tool for telling stories like that, and it places an emphasis on character building at the expense of world building. 

It probably goes without saying that I'm not a big fan of mystery novels.  

On the topic of first person narrators. . .I think first person narration is inherently unreliable. And I think this is one of the reasons it's so hard to write. . .first person narration forces you to really know the character. No one is without bias, and no one is omniscient. With a first person narrator, what the character chooses to omit is more important than what they chose to say, and the narration serves to describe the character at least as much as it serves to describe the things the character is talking about. 

Consider an extreme example. . .a story written as a series of journal entries from a lone explorer on an alien planet. Perhaps the general conceit is similar to Interstellar. The entries concern the exploration of the planet, with some general interest stuff mixed in. Some of the entries are very clinical and precise, whereas others are more fanciful, but the tone is bright and hopeful throughout. Of course the journal comes complete with a body, and as the story draws to a conclusion we find out that the writer was terminally ill and had been in considerable pain for a long time. That might call into question the veracity of some of the information presented. . .could this person have even managed some of these outings? Are the more fanciful entries the product of a pain addled imagination? But it also tells you a lot about the kind of person the writer was, with no mention made of the illness at all. That, to me, is more valuable than any of the specific details contained in the journal. 

As always, your mileage may vary.

[Guest]

Yep @Ten Key, in any art form "the rules are made to be broken"--not randomly or capriciously, but in a way that changes the whole game and advances that art. Come to think of it, it's the same rule as for a political revolution--an unforgivable treason, unless you win  

No time for a longer response now, but the key examples given are clearly a Rashomon (multiple viewpoints) and in the case of the erroneous first person, a non-omniscient narrator. Both of these are fine by me, when done right and with "fair play". The reader knows that not all the different viewpoints can be correct, so he can be appropriately skeptical while reading the story. Same with the non-omniscient 1P if the author drops enough signals that the narrator is mistaken (like my werewolf example). It's when the author abuses omniscience and lies--as the author--to a reader that I think the trust is broken and the story fails.

[KSK]

6 hours ago, Ten Key said:

It probably goes without saying that I'm not a big fan of mystery novels.  

I find that really interesting in view of your earlier comment:

6 hours ago, Ten Key said:

No one is telling the whole truth-- no one knows the whole truth. It makes puzzling out the setting's history difficult, but in return the biased storytelling serves to illuminate the various factions and luminaries in a way that would not be possible with a single, accurate retelling. In attempting to spin the past, the present is revealed. 

To me, that's the essence of a good mystery novel and as others have said, I'm fine with mysteries, provided that the clues are there to find. I find Sherlock Holmes stories a little frustrating in that regard - I can never find the clues - so Holmes' brilliant deductions always have a slight air of '....and the butler did it' about them.

 Similarly, for your lone explorer example, that conclusion would be a great twist in the tale but I could see myself getting frustrated by the notion that the veracity of some of the information is suspect. If it's possible to puzzle out which information is suspect that would be fantastic but just leaving the question hanging - not so much.  

But yes, I think our differing opinions here are a reflection, or an extension, of our different approaches to writing. More on that in my next post, just in case anyone finds it interesting or useful!
 

Edited July 13, 2017 by KSK

[KSK]

Okay then.

As @Ten Key mentioned, we were talking about our different approaches to writing and he came out with this comment, which I think is a good summary.

"Here, I think the difference in our writing style is our approach to world building. I tend to glue together what I want to happen and then go back and world build around it. I think you kind of have the opposite approach-- world build first and then find the story."

It occurs to me - although I may be wildly off the mark here - that there's not so much of a difference between a character led story and a world building led story. IF they're going to carry the story then both characters and worlds need enough depth to be interesting and also to generate consequences. A character led story will be driven by how a character responds to circumstances and, ideally, having those responses be consistent and believable. Similarly, a world-building led story is driven by a consistent set of rules or concepts and how those concepts play off each other to generate consequences.

Which is possibly why I enjoy world building. I find building a consistent world to be very satisfying in its own right and also a wonderful way of generating story ideas by taking one aspect of how the world works and following its implications.

As an example, the fact that all kerbals in-game have the Kerman surname, title, or whatever you want to call it. Why? Well my take on it was that there is a second sentient species on Kerbal, the Kerm trees. And so Kerman was a contraction of an older title Kerm-an, denoting a kerbal that lives away from or outside of the Kerm. Following that particular piece of fridge logic led to a large swathe of history for the kerbals and most, if not all, of my First Flight story is concerned with revealing that history and following its consequences. The notion that the word Kerm-an could be swapped around to an-Kerm, which has the opposite meaning to Kerm-an, urned out to be quite important too.

On a much, much smaller scale, I threw in a couple of other words of so-called Old Kerba, mainly as flavor text. Then, following a query from one reader, I thought it would fun to try and tie these words together a bit and give them some level of underlying grammar. That's definitely a work in progress that may or may not get finished, but I've figured out a few cases and how the present tense works. Which is kinda nice because now I have a consistent framework for throwing in the odd kerbal proverb (and having that framework makes them a lot easier to write!). For example:

“Erbabar-beldaonerba ebda berot pilla"

The literal translation is ‘words, possessed by those they rely on for words, are half-truths’. Or in modern Kerba - "the words of diplomats are but half-truths.”

Now, I like that self-consistency of world building for it's own sake. But, my scraps of Old Kerba grammar had some interesting (well I thought they were interesting  ) consequences. Firstly, following up another suggestion from @Ten Key it turned out that I could translate the word 'kerbal' and give it a meaning in Old-Kerba. Better yet that meaning turned out to be entirely consistent with the rest of the story, which was wonderful, if rather serendipitous.

Secondly, I chose the word pilla deliberately. It means 'truths'. Corrupt it slightly (to allow for a certain amount of linguistic drift) and it becomes pillar. Which ties in rather nicely with my Council of Twelve Pillars - the ruling body on Kerbin. But thinking about this on the way to work this morning, it occurred to me that this gets a bit deeper. In my world, a common kerbal oath is 'Pillars preserve me', which would translate roughly to 'truths preserve me'. And that ties in very neatly with a previous notion that my kerbals take integrity in public life very seriously indeed (for good historical reasons which I won't go into ), as shown in a previous chapter in which a statement is being put on the public record:

“By order of this Council, a petition so placed shall be deemed accurate and inviolable. Any false statement made therein, whether purposeful or inadvertent, does constitute a betrayal of these Twelve Pillars, punishable consecutively, to the fullest extent possible by law, in each of the Six Regionalities of Kerbin."

So yeah, kerbals take the truth seriously, so 'truths preserve me' would seem to be an appropriate oath.

 

Edited July 13, 2017 by KSK

[Just Jim]

One thing I've found myself doing a lot lately is going back and re-reading Emiko before each new chapter to try and make sure I'm not accidentally turning someone or something I wrote earlier unreliable. It's actually quite easy to forget some detail I wrote 30 chapters ago, and write something new that totally contradicts it. 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, KSK said:

To me, that's the essence of a good mystery novel and as others have said, I'm fine with mysteries, provided that the clues are there to find. I find Sherlock Holmes stories a little frustrating in that regard - I can never find the clues - so Holmes' brilliant deductions always have a slight air of '....and the butler did it' about them.

To me, a Sherlock Holmes story is really not a mystery at all but an adventure, for the same reasons you cite. No one else can find the clues--not Watson, or anyone else. Well, they're in plain sight, but only Holmes, and only Holmes as written by Doyle, can look at a bootmark and say with all certainty that the man who made that mark got his limp on a particular bluff in Afghanistan and no other place. 

3 hours ago, KSK said:

As @Ten Key mentioned, we were talking about our different approaches to writing and he came out with this comment, which I think is a good summary.

"Here, I think the difference in our writing style is our approach to world building. I tend to glue together what I want to happen and then go back and world build around it. I think you kind of have the opposite approach-- world build first and then find the story."

Well I might have to check out of this conversation as I wouldn't call myself any kind of world builder, I'm more of a world explainer. My goal is to tell a story that faithfully includes the familiar features and shared headcanon of the KSP game itself, as the readers play it. For example with regard to Kerbin politics, I don't divide the world into regions with governments--there's nothing in the game to suggest anything like that exists. But there are various agencies like Rockomax and Maxo, so I do talk about them and how they relate to the main Space Program. You might ask how I get from there to Kerbfleet, with its own set of uniforms, traditions and history which are not in the stock game at all--my answer is that Kerbfleet represents one plausible structure--call it a "skin" that explains the game as we all see it and play it. And I think everyone who plays the game, whether they're writers or not, consciously or unconsciously projects such a skin onto their gameplay. 

By now you're screaming, "WHAT ABOUT THE KERBULANS? YOU LITERALLY BUILT A SEPARATE WORLD! WAIT YOU DIDN'T EVEN DO THAT YOU HAD @GregroxMun DO IT FOR YOU!!!"

Yeah, OK, that. Hey, writers gotta write sometimes  But I'd still maintain that I haven't built a world there so much as presented an alternate and opposite "skin" that could also plausibly explain stock gameplay. You could play an entire career save as the Kerbulans, shooting down rescue contracts, refusing to explore beyond your homeworld, and getting your science from some as-yet-unexplained source. 

 

Edited July 13, 2017 by Kuzzter

[Whirligig Girl]

18 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

You could play an entire career save as the Kerbulans, shooting down rescue contracts, refusing to explore beyond your homeworld, and getting your science from some as-yet-unexplained source. 

Yes. You, yes, you, as in: "people who are not necessarily Kuzzter" can play as the Kerbulans.

Which reminds me, I need to add displayName = Kerbulus for career mode.

Now in order to contribute to relevant discussion: my worldbuilding with respect to Kerbal Space Program is only to be taken literally. My approach is to make sure that any hypothetical authors covering my work have as little freedom as possible as little confusion about the world as possible, through science definitions and planet descriptions. Kerbulus excluded, of course.

Edited July 13, 2017 by GregroxMun

[adsii1970]

21 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

One thing I've found myself doing a lot lately is going back and re-reading Emiko before each new chapter to try and make sure I'm not accidentally turning someone or something I wrote earlier unreliable. It's actually quite easy to forget some detail I wrote 30 chapters ago, and write something new that totally contradicts it. 

Hahaha - and to be honest, I've done this once I hit the third chapter. It was also with my third chapter that I created an Excel spreadsheet and began tracking certain things, such as crew assignments, character identities and specialties (if you go back and read the early chapters, I actually have both a Dr. Haywood Kerman and a Dr. Floyd Kerman - oops! ). This way I can use the reference and can remain consistent in characters. More recently, I've made a decision to begin to record any out-of-Kerbin's-atmosphere missions - and the reasoning will become clear why this was necessary within the next ten chapters.

8 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

Well I might have to check out of this conversation as I wouldn't call myself any kind of world builder, I'm more of a world explainer. My goal is to tell a story that faithfully includes the familiar features and shared headcanon of the KSP game itself, as the readers play it. For example with regard to Kerbin politics, I don't divide the world into regions with governments--there's nothing in the game to suggest anything like that exists. But there are various agencies like Rockomax and Maxo, so I do talk about them and how they relate to the main Space Program. You might ask how I get from there to Kerbfleet, with its own set of uniforms, traditions and history which are not in the stock game at all--my answer is that Kerbfleet represents one plausible structure--call it a "skin" that explains the game as we all see it and play it. And I think everyone who plays the game, whether they're writers or not, consciously or unconsciously projects such a skin onto their gameplay. 

[Edited by adsii1970]

I made the conscious decision to dabble in Kerbin politics and government for a reason. As a professional historian, that's what I do - study things. So when I began this project, I decided I would build Kerbin with the best (and worst) social attributes out there. Yes, I chose to use a global government - and the Kermen "decided" this after five Great Wars... But again, it's my desire to bring the reader completely into Kerny's world but in a way that it's easy to understand why he and the other Kermen act as they do. I guess it is part of the "skin" mentioned by @Kuzzter. 

[0111narwhalz]

Ooh, worldbuilding.

Atomic Rockets advises that you start with effects (based on the kind of story you want to write) and work backwards to their cause. But that's not as much fun, I feel, as starting with causes and letting the resultant world tell its own story. That's why I started Warped Stars, in particular.

I also enjoy making a world, and then telling the story of that world through the eyes of a normal person in that world. Which is why, in Kerbal Future, Wehrcan is just a gunner instead of an officer and Edrim is just a businesskerb rather than the CEO. It doesn't mean that person has to stay average, though–if so, you'd have no story. You might also note that I seem to enjoy making a world more than actually writing in it, given the large quantity of stuff in the Kerbae ad Astra Wiki.

[CatastrophicFailure]

6 hours ago, Just Jim said:

One thing I've found myself doing a lot lately is going back and re-reading Emiko before each new chapter to try and make sure I'm not accidentally turning someone or something I wrote earlier unreliable. It's actually quite easy to forget some detail I wrote 30 chapters ago, and write something new that totally contradicts it. 

This is me, right now.  I live in constant fear that some especially astute reader is going to come along and say, "wait, you just said this, but way back there you said that," and I'm going to have to make like an epileptic jello mold with the handwaving. No time to expound on world building ATM but in the mean time, @Ten Key, how bout hitting us up with your "guy in a rubber suit" metaphor about all this?

[KSK]

3 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

No time to expound on world building ATM but in the mean time, @Ten Key, how bout hitting us up with your "guy in a rubber suit" metaphor about all this?

*blinks*

*opens mouth*...

*closes mouth*

Does this involve trashing Tokyo or dubious Dr Who villains at any point? Enquiring minds need to know.

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

This is me, right now.  I live in constant fear that some especially astute reader is going to come along and say, "wait, you just said this, but way back there you said that," and I'm going to have to make like an epileptic jello mold with the handwaving. 

See, this right here is why I don't tell complicated stories. But then again I find that many readers (present company excepted!) aren't paying enough attention to remember the stuff they actually need to remember, so maybe it's not something to get too worked up about. I get more trouble from "astute" readers who want to argue about physics (e.g. the recoil incident...the 'gravitational lensing' incident...)  But yeah, this is all part of what goes along with the territory when you publish an ongoing work of fiction inside its own comments section. We should all take it as a positive thing--I'd rather have readers engaged than not, even if they're only engaging to show they're smarter than me.

Edited July 13, 2017 by Kuzzter

[Cydonian Monk]

11 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

I live in constant fear that some especially astute reader is going to come along and say, "wait, you just said this, but way back there you said that,"

This definitely happens. Not much you can do about it except go back and edit the old stuff to bring it in line or just hand wave away. I'd guess serialized publication makes it worse/more common, and in that it's somewhat forgivable. If we'd written all of our works out completely and run them past an editor before posting it'd be another thing entirely. 

Edited July 13, 2017 by Cydonian Monk
Edit: All hail the ninja.

[Just Jim]

3 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

But yeah, this is all part of what goes along with the territory when you publish an ongoing work of fiction inside its own comments section.

yeah... if I knew then what I know now.... 

[KSK]

3 minutes ago, Cydonian Monk said:

This definitely happens. Not much you can do about it except go back and edit the old stuff to bring it in line or just hand wave away. I'd guess serialized publication makes it worse/more common, and in that it's somewhat forgivable. If we'd written all of our works out completely and run them past an editor before posting it'd be another thing entirely. 

Hmm, I'm not sure, or at least it hasn't happened to me and I doubt that's all attributable to painstaking care on my part.

I'd have thought that serialized publication makes it less likely that your readers are less likely to pick up on the odd snafu, simply because they're (with the best will in the world) usually getting a bite sized piece of the story every week and quite often less frequently than that. Makes it hard to keep track of everything. But either way it's completely forgiveable.

Mind you, the tried and tested KSK method of avoiding continuity censor is to place the real howlers at least two years apart. I'm not claiming its a good method.   

[Cydonian Monk]

3 minutes ago, KSK said:

I'd have thought that serialized publication makes it less likely that your readers are less likely to pick up on the odd snafu

Less likely someone will notice, more lilely that a mistake will happen. I'd guess it's more noticeable when folks read the bulk of a serialized story in one go. 

Edited July 13, 2017 by Cydonian Monk

[CatastrophicFailure]

47 minutes ago, KSK said:

*blinks*

*opens mouth*...

*closes mouth*

Does this involve trashing Tokyo or dubious Dr Who villains at any point? Enquiring minds need to know.

I best let Ten Key lay that one down, since I'm probably misinterpreting it anyway.  But still...

[Ten Key]

1 hour ago, KSK said:

Does this involve trashing Tokyo or dubious Dr Who villains at any point? Enquiring minds need to know.

You're not too far off the mark actually. . .I think the comment was along the lines of ". . .I feel like a special effects modeler slaving away on a miniature city, knowing all the while there's a guy in a rubber lizard suit waiting to come in and knock it all down."

[Tw1]

Hey guys, I wonder if I could get some opinions on merging characters. 

My glacially updating story From a Childhood Dream is slightly unique, in that it is an origin story based of the actual game's origin- so some real live people are going to pop up in it.

5 hours ago, Tw1 said:

In a previous upload, I created one character to represent both Adrian Goya and Ezequiel Ayarza. Now I'm considering editing, and doing them as separate characters. Any thoughts on this?Adrian Goya 

 

I used one character "Goyarza" to roll them into one, and be a separate, fictional entity. The story is somewhat minimalist, and only one means easier illustrations, less to think about in the dialogue. 

Using both of them is more accurate, and I did think about sending this to squad when done maybe, but I didn't approach them for permission to use their likeness. (I did for Harvester, a main character). 

I'm not so interested in legal issues, they're bit parts anyway, more about  how it works as a story thing? 

Edited July 14, 2017 by Tw1