A Thread for Writers to talk about Writing

[Mister Dilsby]

I've done that, but activity and feedback is still not present, which isn't very fun.

That's too bad. That's why I think it might be helpful and also more rewarding for you to start a discussion here with the others about what you're trying to do and whether it's working or not. Otherwise all anyone can tell you is how they'd write the story. If you want it to be your own story (only better), you have to be the most active participant in the critique

[Starwhip]

So I've been doing some thinking.

When the time rolls around, (Hopefully soon!), I want to write a short-ish story of my circumnavigation of Kerbin. I've got hundreds and hundreds of screenshots documenting the journey, but this is going to be pure writing format.

Here's the question. What kind of format do you guys think would be best for such a story? A series of journal entries? First person narration? Third person, in game?

[Mister Dilsby]

Here's the question. What kind of format do you guys think would be best for such a story? A series of journal entries? First person narration? Third person, in game?

Unfortunately the only real answer is "whichever one you write best". A good friend of mine is a published author. Her novels are all done in the style of a collection of back-and-forth letters, with occasional dialogue. I don't write well that way; if approaching the same subject I'd do it in close 3rd person of the main characters, because I think dialogue is one of my strengths. Others might do it in first person, or multiple POV first, etc.

That said, based on how you posed the problem I wonder if journal form might work best for you. You pointed out the number of screenshots, and it sound to me like you want to create a travelogue of sorts. But if you were going for deeeeep characterization that might tot be the best form.

TL;dr: Write the story you want to read, not the story you think we want to read.

[Joshwoo70]

I am starting my carrer story soonish.. (basically it is a stale KSC that has many of my random adventures in ksp. I do not intend to have many images. (for those who has little data/ bad wifi)

Kuzzer can you suggest somethings that I can make it more interesting?

link for those who are interested.

PS. (my second attempt at circumnavigation will also bd inside.

[Mister Dilsby]

Kuzzer can you suggest somethings that I can make it more interesting?

The way to make anything interesting is to show people things they have never seen before: either in content (doing missions that are hard or rare) or presentation (showing it in a way that no one has seen). People read "First Flight" because they like to think about the details of all that happens behind the scenes, and prior to Day 0 Year 0. People read "Plan Kappa" because of the unique rules of the game that come from the Kerbin destruction deadline and time travel (and also because it's visually amazing) Apparently people also have reasons for reading my stuff.

I think the first question you or anyone should ask who wants people to be interested in their story is, "what will readers see in my story that they will not see in their own game?"

[KSK]

That said, based on how you posed the problem I wonder if journal form might work best for you. You pointed out the number of screenshots, and it sound to me like you want to create a travelogue of sorts. But if you were going for deeeeep characterization that might tot be the best form.

TL;dr: Write the story you want to read, not the story you think we want to read.

Agreed. The reason for your protagonist to be circumnavigating Kerbin will make some formats easier to work with than others. Eccentric kerbal wandering around the world 'just because'? A journal form might work well for that because most of the story will probably be presented from one point of view. On the other hand a high stakes race around Kerbin, where you might want to include sections from other points of view, might be easier to write in the third person.

Or you can mix and match. The Martian for example did a mix of journal entries and first person narration for the main protagonist and third person narration for the other characters.

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I think the first question you or anyone should ask who wants people to be interested in their story is, "what will readers see in my story that they will not see in their own game?"

Absolutely! I wrote a slightly more long-winded version a few pages back but Kuzzter's pithy summary puts it better than I did.

[0111narwhalz]

Any feedback on Warped Stars? All I've gotten is "MOAR" and that doesn't really help me develop a better writing.

Thanks.

[Generalstarwars333]

Well, just to keep doing what you're doing. To make more of it. That you've got most things right and that we can't find fault with it. that you are now required by law of imperial bowenlandia to write more to it this moment!

[Guest]

Any feedback on Warped Stars?

Need MOAR...

...of an image in my head. Describe the scene a little before getting into the action.

[HippieGold]

Any feedback on Warped Stars? All I've gotten is "MOAR" and that doesn't really help me develop a better writing.

Thanks.

Well, the style is good, the content is good, the mystery is interesting and has grabbed my attention, the only advice I can think of? Just make sure you know how this all ends. I was given this advice a while ago, never listened to it, and regretted it much so down the line. Not only does it allow you to add in hints and themes throughout the story that all line up and come together at the end, (making for an overall better story) it also gives you the motivation to keep going and pursue your goal to get to the end. So you can say, "Oh, I just have to get this much more done" instead of having no idea how long it'll take and just dropping it and picking it up every few months (*cough*storminthestars*cough*). So yeah, since you're just starting out, I'd say figure out your ending, and figure out step by step how you're going to get there.

Anyway, I guess I'll just insert my own obligatory request for criticism in here. I've released two chapters over the passed two weeks and plan to release another one this wednesday as well (new record!). If anyone wants to comment on what they think I should try to improve, or just what they think is gonna happen, I eagerly await your opinions.

[Thalamask]

Hey folks

Somebody suggested I post my story here and request comments, so here I am!

Story thread

Fair warning..... long-story is long! Any comments or feedback would be appreciated.

Much thanks, T

[steuben]

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/137870-Tales-From-the-Swan-The-Eagles-and-the-Senator

I'm going to chuck this one out for comment as well.

[Generalstarwars333]

I like it. yay.

[Ten Key]

Since I'm suffering a bit of writer's block on Kerbal Future​, I decided to write a new thing. For now, I'm calling it Warped Space unless and until I get some advice on it. I might keep it anyways. So, some feedback on the prologue and title would be nice. It's a story about the creation of the kraken drive, and what that did to the space program, in case anyone was wondering.

Writing a story in an existing setting solves some problems and creates others. On the one hand, it spares you from having to explain every aspect of the world to your readers. On the other hand, it limits you to the general tone and rules of that world. When you take the Kerbals out of their normal setting (and in this case place them in a heavy sci-fi, combat focused environment) you lose all of the advantages of borrowing the world for your story, and wind up keeping most of the baggage. Kerbal Future is not a bad read, but I think it would be much better if you dropped the Kerbals entirely and used something of your own making instead. Also. . .

The Harpoon-class cruiser hurtled through space at high warp, just another ship in the massive escort of the gigantic Reaver-class supercap. A myriad of dreadnoughts, battlecruisers, and destroyers made small adjustments to keep pace with the behemoth, while smaller groups guided carriers. Their destination: A random blue star, around which orbited several planets. It had been postulated that a great empire called one of these planets its home. This empire, due to various offences, had become an enemy of the Kerbol Federation. And now, thousands of warships came to destroy its heart.

The above paragraph is a little awkward, but mostly it doesn't fit where it is in the story. This is an action sequence, it should start with the action and build quickly from there. It's okay for the reader to not have the full picture right away-- you can infodump after the battle is over. Starting a story in the middle is difficult, and requires trickling out background information only when the reader needs it. It is, frankly, a skill I have yet to master.

Warped Space is, honestly, way too short to really critique in any meaningful way. If you really want to make a go with it, pick up some of the interesting points and expound on them. I guess the one thing I would suggest here is to drop Jeb and friends in favor of other Kerbals of your own making. The original three have been used so many times that, unless you have a specific reason for using them, it's probably better to try something new.

So I've been doing some thinking.

When the time rolls around, (Hopefully soon!), I want to write a short-ish story of my circumnavigation of Kerbin. I've got hundreds and hundreds of screenshots documenting the journey, but this is going to be pure writing format.

Here's the question. What kind of format do you guys think would be best for such a story? A series of journal entries? First person narration? Third person, in game?

Journal entries are very difficult to write-- you lose almost all meaningful interaction between the characters and also essentially limit yourself to internal monologue. Stories done this way can stand out, simply because not a lot of people do it. But I think it's almost impossible to have much in the way of character development.

The Martian (novel) relies very heavily on journal entries, and also on a lot of very 'R' rated language. The Martian (the movie) can't do this, and I was interested to see how they side stepped the language issue. There is a great scene in the movie that lines up reasonably well with the book. The movie never shows you the foul language from that scene in the novel, but it gets its point across with a wonderful facial expression.

In "normal" writing the author is not limited to dialogue-- you can do a lot simply with a sigh, or a glare, or even a pointed silence. You lose all of that with journal entries. If your focus is going to be simply on the events of the trip, all well and good. If you're planning to spend much time looking at the characters, you may want to look at a different kind of writing.

Anyway, I guess I'll just insert my own obligatory request for criticism in here. I've released two chapters over the passed two weeks and plan to release another one this wednesday as well (new record!). If anyone wants to comment on what they think I should try to improve, or just what they think is gonna happen, I eagerly await your opinions.

I've never actually been beyond Kerbin's SOI (working on that), so I've been trying very hard to avoid anything likely to have screenshots of the other planets and moons. At least until I get there myself. And Storm in the Stars certainly looks like it will.

I read through the first few chapters, and I admit the opening seems a little contrived. But I also think that's normal-- when you have a very long story, I think it's pretty common to just grind out the intro and then go back and polish it up once you really know where the story is going.

Take this with a grain of salt, but it feels like maybe you're setting yourself up for character overload. Unless you're planning on really doing something with all of these characters, I don't think you need to individually track each crew member. One thing that might fit well here (and I'm really late to the party, so this may not help. Or you may have already reached the same conclusion) is treating the ships themselves as characters. That way you can have a bit of a fleet without having to flesh out an army of characters to go with it.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/137870-Tales-From-the-Swan-The-Eagles-and-the-Senator

I'm going to chuck this one out for comment as well.

I really like this one. Again, we're starting the story in the middle, but information on the back story is handed out a little bit at a time, as needed. I think this type of story requires a certain amount of confidence on the part of the writer-- you have to have faith that the writing is good enough to carry the reader's interest through a somewhat murky beginning, and you have to trust yourself enough to not accidentally miss handing out a critical piece of information. You can really feel when that confidence isn't there, but this story doesn't show any signs of that. And we get to see a bit of "ship as character". Very good, all around.

One quick critique. . .

Gilely Kerbin watched the telltale light by the airlock. It turned yellow with the clang from outside. She caught the sight of one of the hummingbirds, the craft used to move cargo pods, as it went back to the cargo ship that had just arrived. The light blinked for a couple of seconds then turned a solid green. She pushed herself over to the door. She uncorked the whistle hole. It was silent. She replaced the cork and undogged the hatch.

This paragraph doesn't "flow" very well. Try mixing it up a bit, both in the phrasing and the length of the sentences.

[Generalstarwars333]

Wow. You're right about that last part. (offtopic: just put an mk1 command pod on a jumbo64 and a twin boar to get out of kerbin's soi. should be able to get to a solar orbit.)

[KSK]

*snip*

I really like this one. Again, we're starting the story in the middle, but information on the back story is handed out a little bit at a time, as needed. I think this type of story requires a certain amount of confidence on the part of the writer-- you have to have faith that the writing is good enough to carry the reader's interest through a somewhat murky beginning, and you have to trust yourself enough to not accidentally miss handing out a critical piece of information. You can really feel when that confidence isn't there, but this story doesn't show any signs of that. And we get to see a bit of "ship as character". Very good, all around.

Ahh - that's a better way of explaining it. When I read The Eagles and the Senator, I definitely got the impression of a whole world in the background ready to be explored as the story went on. It's one of the reasons I liked it too.

One quick critique. . .

Gilely Kerbin watched the telltale light by the airlock. It turned yellow with the clang from outside. She caught the sight of one of the hummingbirds, the craft used to move cargo pods, as it went back to the cargo ship that had just arrived. The light blinked for a couple of seconds then turned a solid green. She pushed herself over to the door. She uncorked the whistle hole. It was silent. She replaced the cork and undogged the hatch.

This paragraph doesn't "flow" very well. Try mixing it up a bit, both in the phrasing and the length of the sentences.

I have sympathy with this! I find paragraphs where a character is stringing a lot of actions together to be tricky to write too. Get the sentences too short and I can envisage my poor readers coming down with a case of Shatner Syndrome*, get them too long and it becomes a case of 'character does x and y and z aaaaand the next thing aaaand the one after that.' which isn't much better.

*Urggh - I thought I was making that up but apparently not.

[SaturnianBlue]

I posted another entry for the Asteroid Sentinels, would any of you like to see the newspaper format again? Do you enjoy the inclusion of Kerbonauts? What do you think about the spacecraft? Would any of you be interested if I integrate a big asteroid plot into the story?

[steuben]

Thanks for the feedback. One thing that I have always needed has been a solid edit. The red green and blue lines in Word can only take me so far. I'm glad the hints of a universe "behind the black" have come through.

Saturnianblue: the paper format was a different break. But it might be best used to facilitate an info dump to move the plot forward.

[Findthepin1]

Can I write a story with KSP but also a bunch of other games' universes in it, without breaking any copyright laws, and post it in this KSP fan works subforum, without breaking any forum rules?

Also, if I post a KSP story here, am I allowed to real-life-inate it to make it not KSP and give it away or sell it, or does the forum own stuff posted on it?

Edited November 2, 2015 by Findthepin1

[Generalstarwars333]

I think that they'll only sick their attack lawyers on you if you try to make money from it without letting them know you're doing so and giving them a sizable fraction of the money. Otherwise, I personally have no objections. I do it all the time-it's called my mind.

[Mister Dilsby]

Can I write a story with KSP but also a bunch of other games' universes in it, without breaking any copyright laws, and post it in this KSP fan works subforum, without breaking any forum rules?

Also, if I post a KSP story here, am I allowed to real-life-inate it to make it not KSP and give it away or sell it, or does the forum own stuff posted on it?

Fanfiction is generally considered to fall under "fair use" when done not-for-profit and especially when the work is a parody. A key element is whether or not the fanfic competes with a product made by the copyright holder.

I believe SQUAD does 'own' the forum posts, and you've already 'given it away' if you do post it here--but no chance they're going to publish a work of fiction posted here and try to profit from it.

- - - Updated - - -

I posted another entry for the Asteroid Sentinels, would any of you like to see the newspaper format again? Do you enjoy the inclusion of Kerbonauts? What do you think about the spacecraft? Would any of you be interested if I integrate a big asteroid plot into the story?

It's good for an info dump, as you, Parkaboy and I have all done recently, but I wouldn't make it a regular occurrence. No one wants too many walls o' text in a graphic novel

[SaturnianBlue]

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It's good for an info dump, as you, Parkaboy and I have all done recently, but I wouldn't make it a regular occurrence. No one wants too many walls o' text in a graphic novel

Anything else? Such as format and plot?

[Mister Dilsby]

Anything else? Such as format and plot?

*sigh*

Well, it's a bit hard to follow in a lot of ways. I lose track of who has which word balloon color. (I wonder if people do the same thing in my story sometime--so I do try to use the name-labeled portraits and have people call each other by name when I can) Also the plot doesn't really have a strong enough hook. Jeb has a master plan to explore space and Mort is against it... OK, a classic setup, I know because I used it. But what does it mean? What consequences does any of this have for the main characters? These aren't things you can just explain with a couple of words in a panel--you have to give your characters enough depth for them to stick in the readers' minds and then the readers will care about them as much as you do. And I know you're going to ask how to do all this, but I can't tell you. No one can. My recommendation is to simplify and focus your story on one or two--no, one key theme and build everything clearly around that. Once you see from reader feedback etc. that it's working, then maybe you're ready for something more complex.

[0111narwhalz]

I guess the one thing I would suggest here is to drop Jeb and friends in favor of other Kerbals of your own making. The original three have been used so many times that, unless you have a specific reason for using them, it's probably better to try something new.

Would you suggest I retrofit the existing story in favor of whitesuits? It'd be easy enough to do, I just don't want to jar existing readers too much.

Oh yes, and point taken about the whole "describe the scene before getting into the action" thing. Already integrated into the next chapter, whenever that actually gets finished.

[Ten Key]

Would you suggest I retrofit the existing story in favor of whitesuits? It'd be easy enough to do, I just don't want to jar existing readers too much.

Maybe.

There are two basic issues at work here. First, your story is jostling for space (no pun intended ) with a bunch of other stories that are also using Jeb, Bill and Bob (and to a lesser extent Valentina). Using characters of your own making is one way of getting your story to stand out a bit from the crowd. Second, those other stories have taken a lot of liberties with these characters, and your readers will arrive at your story with their own preconceptions. The problem is, each reader will have a different "default" view of the characters. Some may naturally "read" Jeb as a steely eyed missile Kerb, others as a shrewd businessman or even as a feckless, disaster prone screw up. Using the Big Three means spending a lot of time reinforcing your own version of the characters, and that's a lot of extra work that can be avoided by just using original characters right from the beginning.

Now, for the hedging!

It is entirely possible that Bill, Bob and Jeb are not going to be major characters in your story. They don't appear in your latest chapter, and it does kind of feel like maybe we're pulling away from them. And I think that's fine. We start with vanilla KSP (which will mean different things to different readers, but in this case that doesn't matter), one of Bill's experiments literally gets away from him, and it goes on to have a life, and a story, of its own. And if the Big Three appear right at the beginning and again at the end to sort of anchor the whole thing, I think that would work out nicely.

But I can't tell you how you should write this. I can only tell you how I​ would do it, based on where my brain wants to take the story given the limited information I have. Only you truly know where you're going with this, so if any of this resonates, great! If not, it wouldn't be the first time I've been completely off base.