A Thread for Writers to talk about Writing

[Endersmens]

When I said illustrations, I didn't mean storybook illustrations. I meant an image every once in a while, maybe as a chapter image, or an overall image for the story, like something to put in my signature like Kuzzter. ^^^

Something like the back of Jeb watching a rocket, or maybe the clubhouse or something of the like. Maybe miniature kerbals with big helmets on.

Things like that.

[March Unto Torment]

Hey, everyone!

Out of curiosity, how do you all write the Original Four? I've been going over that myself since I wrote Fire-Forged. I'm reasonably happy with how I've written Jeb, a little less so with Val.

What's everyone's thoughts?

[KSK]

And when I was planning my story, when I started thinking about moving beyond the Mun, I came to the realization that the basic narrative of space flight I had in my head was wholly incompatible with the needs and realities of interplanetary travel. I suspect KSK has run into this himself, in one way or another. But it was jarring, and it took me a while to find a way to deal with it.

Definitely. I actually ran into it in a smaller way once I began thinking about moving beyond LKO. At one point I had the KIS launching Saturn class rockets from out the back of Jeb's junkyard, which seemed implausible, to put it mildly, at least in the context of the story I wanted to tell. Dramatic but implausible. Time for a rethink.

But yeah, interplanetary travel really changes the dynamic. It's such a massive leap in everything - resources required, journey times, complexity of ship required, factors (like life support and radiation shielding) that can be waved away for a Mun shot but which suddenly need to be properly addressed one way or another. Even if you're not planning to delve too far into the technicalities, scaling up a space program to interplanetary missions throws that program, and the reasons for its existence, into very sharp relief indeed.

[CatastrophicFailure]

Definitely. I actually ran into it in a smaller way once I began thinking about moving beyond LKO. At one point I had the KIS launching Saturn class rockets from out the back of Jeb's junkyard, which seemed implausible, to put it mildly, at least in the context of the story I wanted to tell. Dramatic but implausible. Time for a rethink.

But yeah, interplanetary travel really changes the dynamic. It's such a massive leap in everything - resources required, journey times, complexity of ship required, factors (like life support and radiation shielding) that can be waved away for a Mun shot but which suddenly need to be properly addressed one way or another. Even if you're not planning to delve too far into the technicalities, scaling up a space program to interplanetary missions throws that program, and the reasons for its existence, into very sharp relief indeed.

Funny how art imitates life like that, eh? I mentally crafted a ship that could reach Jool that seemed at least remotely plausible. It adamantly refused to exist in KSP and merely attempting to create even a mockup broke the game in ways I didn't know possible.

But on the other hand, good technobabble covers a multitude of sins XD

[Starhawk]

I meant an image every once in a while, maybe as a chapter image, or an overall image for the story, like something to put in my signature like Kuzzter. ^^^

Something like the back of Jeb watching a rocket, or maybe the clubhouse or something of the like. Maybe miniature kerbals with big helmets on.

If you'll excuse the intrusion of a non-writer, I think some eye candy isn't a bad thing. You may attract readers that would otherwise take a pass.

Happy landings!

[KSK]

Funny how art imitates life like that, eh? I mentally crafted a ship that could reach Jool that seemed at least remotely plausible. It adamantly refused to exist in KSP and merely attempting to create even a mockup broke the game in ways I didn't know possible.

But on the other hand, good technobabble covers a multitude of sins XD

And if that fails, there's almost nothing that mush can't fix. On a serious note though, I liked your technobabble interplanetary drive in Shadows!

- - - Updated - - -

Hey, everyone!

Out of curiosity, how do you all write the Original Four? I've been going over that myself since I wrote Fire-Forged. I'm reasonably happy with how I've written Jeb, a little less so with Val.

What's everyone's thoughts?

I've covered my Jeb already on this thread, so I won't bore folks with him again.

My Bill and Bob are completely switched around from the canon versions. My excuse (and I'm sticking to it!) is that I've been writing about them for a while now, certainly before kerbonaut roles were added to the game. Bill is the scientist/electronics guru. He's a bit shy but a good friend, refined and fond of the good things in life when he can get them. If the rest of the team are in a bar sampling the latest beers, then Bill will be the one sipping a good wine, or whatever the kerbal equivalent of a gin and tonic is. Bob is the engineer and he's basically everykerbal. Drop Bob into a situation and he'll just roll with it.

Heck with it - if you don't mind the blatant self-quoting, then this is Bob:

Jeb laughed. “Gene's a fair diplomat too but he's got nothing on Bob. I swear you could drop that kerbal into a meeting of the Twelve Pillars and he'd come out an hour later telling you all about how President Chadwick hasn't seen his youngest for two weeks because he's been working late on a new bill, that President Enemone's been at a diplomatic conference in Wakira and she couldn't tell him much about it but it sounded stressful...â€Â

Wernher joined in “and that it's Ambassador Aldwell's old mum's birthday next week and maybe we could wish her happy birthday from orbit if we happened to be flying at the time...â€Â

“Yep - turns out that one of the Rockomax engineers - Hanbal I think his name was - is into the same kaya-scaring racket that Bob likes. Next thing I know, he's invited along to a lunchtime jam session and it's all we can do to get them back to work in the afternoon. Even then the conversation is one part rocket engineering to one part obscure music.†He shook his head. “I'm positive Bob makes half of those bands up.â€Â

Wernher smiled. “That sounds like Bob,†he agreed.

“That's not the end of it,†said Jeb, “They gave him a tour of their factory floor - which was pretty impressive by the way - and Bob spots a tank valve on a workbench. I didn't catch what he said to Hanbal but it didn't seem to go down too well. So Bob just sets to work stripping down the valve. He picks out a couple of pieces and asks if he can rework them a little. I think Hanbal is getting curious now, so he tells Bob to go ahead. By the time Bob's switched off the mill, he's starting to attract a crowd, by the time he's rebuilt the valve, every engineer in the place is standing round his bench watching.â€Â

Ornie pulled up at an intersection and waited for the road ahead to clear. “I don't get it,†he said, “You're not tellin' me that a factory-full of engineers hadn't seen another engineer tweak a valve before?â€Â

“Of course not,†said Jeb, “but you're forgetting that Bob went up on the Kerbal 1, which makes him a kerbonaut too - or close enough. I didn't ask but I got the impression that the Rockomax flight crews tend to keep to themselves. Having Bob turn up and start bending metal turned out to be quite the ice breaker.â€Â

Now Val on the other hand is a late entrant to the story and is showing no sign of becoming a kerbonaut. Although she was a hot-shot sky racer, now turned military pilot. Or rather, now figuring out from scratch what this 'military' thing is...

[Mister Dilsby]

Out of curiosity, how do you all write the Original Four? I've been going over that myself since I wrote Fire-Forged. I'm reasonably happy with how I've written Jeb, a little less so with Val.

Val:

Jeb:

Bob:

Bill:

[0111narwhalz]

Out of curiosity, how do you all write the Original Four?

What's everyone's thoughts?

You can see my Core Four in Post 84, but if you don't want to go searching that up, here it is:

Jeb

Impulsive, a wannabe comedian. Best damn pilot ever to fly.

Bill

Levelheaded, focused on the task at hand. Clever engineer.

Bob

A bit eccentric. Needs his coffee. Seriously. Once he's had his coffee, the official ambassador of the group. Also, an eminent xenobiologist.

Val

Midway between Jeb and Bill. Tolerates a bit of humor, but not too much. Decent pilot and a startlingly brilliant linguist.

And yes, the story I'm writing featuring this lot will appear on the forums soon.

Edited September 16, 2015 by 0111narwhalz

[Deddly]

If you'll excuse the intrusion of a non-writer, I think some eye candy isn't a bad thing. You may attract readers that would otherwise take a pass.

Happy landings!

Thanks Starhawk! Since non-writers are our audience, your opinion actually matters more than anyone else's.

[steuben]

I'm working to add the correct colouring for my stories. like not saying he's using a left handed hydrospanner to align the fractal-flange when everyone knows it is a right handed sonic-spanner... excepting for percussive maintenance.

what resources should I have on my bookshelf?

currently I have the following

in universe:

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com

for radio comm:

http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/smt-gst.nsf/eng/sf01020.html

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/mission_trans/mission_transcripts.htm

general rocket science:

http://www.projectrho.com/

[Sharkman Briton]

Achieved orbit in RSS, posted a screenshot story of it based upon what happened on the 4 attempts in-game.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/134408-Henry-I-Shepmund-s-promise?p=2198745#post2198745

Thats the thread, more of a writing thing than a mission report, any criticism?

[KSK]

I'm working to add the correct colouring for my stories. like not saying he's using a left handed hydrospanner to align the fractal-flange when everyone knows it is a right handed sonic-spanner... excepting for percussive maintenance.

what resources should I have on my bookshelf?

currently I have the following

in universe:

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com

for radio comm:

http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/smt-gst.nsf/eng/sf01020.html

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/mission_trans/mission_transcripts.htm

general rocket science:

http://www.projectrho.com/

For general rocket science, http://www.braeunig.us/space/orbmech.htm is good, especially if you dig down into the site. For example http://www.braeunig.us/apollo/saturnV.htm gives loads of useful information on the Saturn V launch trajectory, which is very useful for throwing some plausible numbers into a story.

[SaturnianBlue]

Yes, definitely. I think things are going to heat up even more as they actually maneuver the asteroid. We should see pretty clearly why this is hard, what's at stake, and what heroics your characters will perform to save the world!

Feedback on the latest one? I mean, since my asteroid was 200tons or so, and I was still a few weeks from intercept, I didn't have much trouble pushing, but Mortimer does pose a threat... Himself.

[Mister Dilsby]

Feedback on the latest one? I mean, since my asteroid was 200tons or so, and I was still a few weeks from intercept, I didn't have much trouble pushing, but Mortimer does pose a threat... Himself.

Yup, good few panels. I think you may want to pick up the pace a bit; the ratio of panels to mission events seems high. Your mission control guys are getting funnier and funnier.

[Sharkman Briton]

Any criticizm on my little thing? (The RSS orbit thing.)

[Mister Dilsby]

Any criticizm on my little thing? (The RSS orbit thing.)

Sorry, not much I can say here. It reads more as a foreword to a story than a story per se.

[Sharkman Briton]

Yeah, less of a story more of a little text thing for some pictures.

[SaturnianBlue]

Yup, good few panels. I think you may want to pick up the pace a bit; the ratio of panels to mission events seems high. Your mission control guys are getting funnier and funnier.

It's been a while, but are there any more ways to improvise on the series?

[0111narwhalz]

Does anyone have any ideas as to pronouns to use for an AI? "It" seems demeaning, but a very utitlitarian AI probably wouldn't take a gender. "Zhe" is a bit too obscure, and would interrupt the flow if someone doesn't know it. Addressing the AI by name every time is also cumbersome. Any other ideas? Additionally, are there any suggestions as to posting ongoing stories which are more of monolithic blocks of text? I've got one such story I'd love to post, but it's long, with no chapter breaks, and not even slightly done. It's already over 16000 characters, and just getting started.

Edited October 6, 2015 by 0111narwhalz

[Deddly]

In nautical terms, we refer to ships as "she". I personally think it works well with spacecraft.

[KSK]

Does anyone have any ideas as to pronouns to use for an AI? "It" seems demeaning, but a very utitlitarian AI probably wouldn't take a gender. "Zhe" is a bit too obscure, and would interrupt the flow if someone doesn't know it. Addressing the AI by name every time is also cumbersome. Any other ideas? Additionally, are there any suggestions as to posting ongoing stories which are more of monolithic blocks of text? I've got one such story I'd love to post, but it's long, with no chapter breaks, and not even slightly done. It's already over 16000 characters, and just getting started.

I would just give your AI a gender and hand-wave it away as 'something that makes the computer easier for kerbals to interact with.' I'm not a big fan of 'zhe' and similar agendered pronouns either - I was going to use them in First Flight (this was back when kerbals were 'officially' genderless) but gave them up as a bad job and just went for male/female kerbals.

For the wall 'o text, proper use of paragraphs will solve most of your problems or you could use rows of dashes

-------

to indicate a point of view change, which can also help break things up a bit.

[0111narwhalz]

For the wall 'o text, proper use of paragraphs will solve most of your problems or you could use rows of dashes

-------

to indicate a point of view change, which can also help break things up a bit.

I was specifically talking about a story with no chapter breaks. It has plenty of paragraph breaks, and a few scene changes. But it's not really designed for chapter breaks; I've been writing it in sessions of about two minutes, distributed over several months. That makes it awkward to post.

...give your AI a gender and hand-wave it away...

I've decided to have the AI take a name from the kerbal's made-up-on-the-spot mythos, and the pronouns associated with it. But now I have a new problem. We have an AI, in an alien vessel, calling itself by the name of (one of) your gods. Maybe I should've thought about this further. Time to explore unintended consequences!

Writing by the seat of your pants is fun.

[Mister Dilsby]

Late to the party here, but I think giving the AI a gender is perfectly OK, in fact I would encourage you to do so unless you specifically choose to identify the AI's speaking personality as androgynous. After all, many languages give inanimate objects gender whether they have personality at all.

Regarding Great Walls o' Text--breaking up a story into scenes, chapters or whatever helps to keep the reader's attention. As a reader, you know that each chapter (of a well built story) will advance the plot towards its conclusion by some quantifiable amount. As a writer, chapters help organize the story: this chapter is going to be these three characters and I'm going to advance to such-and-such plot point... next chapter I move the action to Starbase Upsilon, where we see the effects of the big decision Jeb made way back in Chapter 4... etc.

[Guest]

Does anyone have any ideas as to pronouns to use for an AI? "It" seems demeaning, but a very utitlitarian AI probably wouldn't take a gender. "Zhe" is a bit too obscure, and would interrupt the flow if someone doesn't know it. Addressing the AI by name every time is also cumbersome. Any other ideas? Additionally, are there any suggestions as to posting ongoing stories which are more of monolithic blocks of text? I've got one such story I'd love to post, but it's long, with no chapter breaks, and not even slightly done. It's already over 16000 characters, and just getting started.

Give the AI an assumed gender and stick to that pronoun. The reader doesn't really care what pronoun you use.

Think HAL 9k. Everybody knows that's a male.

Edited October 9, 2015 by spink00
cuz brevity

[Generalstarwars333]

Depends: Is it a 'Smart' AI, like, say, Cortana, or C3PO, or is it a 'Dumb' AI. Can it engage in conversation? Or is it just a more powerful version of today's computers? If it's a smart one, then probably just use she or he; if it's a dumb one, the you can use it.

- - - Updated - - -

Edited October 11, 2015 by Generalstarwars333