May 2021's Writer's Support Thread

Take care of that arm! :grimacing:

5 Likes

I have been considering writing the end of the story first. I feel that once I have written the part where everything comes together the ‘transition’ should be easier to write, so basically skipping it too (although my transition is about 5 chapters). I am also writing out the full dialogues with the characters to make everything flow better. So a lot of writing but nothing I can show unfortunately.

May has been terrible for me as I have been traveling a lot. But, as of now and the rest of June I am stationary with more spare time on my hands! I should get an update out next month but I am getting ahead of myself. May these last may days be good to everyone!!

9 Likes

May has been both an extremely productive and unproductive month.

  • I found time to write every day, but it was like maybe a paragraph a day… not a great pace
  • Got a new job
  • busted my leg but doctor bills are expensive so screw that haha
  • beta read a story for my friend, its almost two thousand pages long so that took me a while. two read throughs ate up about two weeks of may
    So not a bad month by any means, but not quite as awesome as it could have been. Still a couple days left of May though, finish your goals if youre close! Good luck!
13 Likes

Alright, quick question. My story will have a lot of setting-specific words. As an example, if I write something like this to describe a character’s attire:

An enormous red shako perched on his head, the polished brass grenade on its front glittering in the sunlight, serving to make this towering man even more conspicuous. The rest of the Legion’s uniform was just as striking, if excessive. The midnight blue tunic, its sleeves beautifully decorated with golden Hungarian knots that ran nearly up to the shoulders. The voluminous zouave trousers, its countless crimson folds miraculously tucked into a pair of gleaming white gaiters over a pair of black, sturdy marching boots. And finally the mark of a legionnaire, the requisite blue ceinture that wrapped around one’s waist over the tunic.

Were you able to visualise this, or did you go “what the heck is a shako and why is there a grenade on it?”

I don’t want to put asterisks on every fifth word, but if this is difficult to understand, I’ll have to think up of something. I think most devices today have built-in dictionaries, but having to constantly pull that up breaks immersion, and these words are often either rare in everyday use, obsolete, or loanwords anyway.

3 Likes

Some readers will find it refreshing and some won’t be able to visualize it. It’s a gamble that you will have to take. I was able to visualize it because I know a bit about the French history (had to study it at school growing up since my home country was colonized by the French.) I also enjoyed watching some Luis De Funes movies and I know what a French legionnaire from your story look like.

As long as the description of the accoutrement is not too repetitive and it’s not the sole focus of the story I think you can leave it this way. What I remember from reading your story was the vivid and detail descriptions of mostly everything. I think it’s your style of writing and it will be hard to stop writing this way, but again describing it once or twice should be enough to not break immersion.

5 Likes

Thank you! I’m glad you liked it. It’s emulating a turn-of-the-century style of narrative where everything is written in almost visual detail. Though that may just be an excuse for me to continue purple prosing :sweat_smile:

I think the descriptions may be useful for today’s audience too - sure, the internet has made it easy to be able to look up and see everything in the world, but unless you’re a 200 year old time traveller, there will be things that’s gonna appear somewhat alien. That passage came from something I wrote for a creative writing course I’m taking (it’s not for Sahara - this one’s set some 15 years before that when the uniforms were sillier), and only now I realised how densely strung together in the narrative those no-longer-common words can be.

4 Likes

I advice you either write some introduction scenes were you explain/give definitions little by little for not expert or you write an in game glossary. If you worry about immersion… well there is even less immersion if the reader can’t understand what’s going on

6 Likes

I’ve been writing what is now chapter 4 of my story a lot this month, wich includes a fight scene, I know how I want it to end… but getting there… is a bit difficult.

Today I also did some work on “showing not telling” in regards to the introduction of Extinction in the “dreamscape”. It’s proving difficult too.

But I have been working on a drawing of Extinction in Adobe illustratior, for an assessment, that has been eating up most of my time. A drawing that I plan on animating, once I lean how to use Adobe animate.

7 Likes

An in-game glossary eh? That can be done. Probably many of these terms will be italicised since they are loanwords.

2 Likes

Well after finishing up my one WIPs update I had a hard time getting started back on updating my first WIP, which is an incomplete first chapter, so I took a break for two days and getting into a decent stride. I only have 3 more major sections to write and finish a couple of social interactions to have the first chapter complete. May seem like a lot still but it was 6 major sections to write at first, so I’m roughly about half way done with my targeted goal. Which once I get through with some personal matters I should be able to finish out the social interactions tonight and then hopefully knock out one major section a day if not more :crossed_fingers: by this weekend. My original goal was to have it updated this past weekend but my new goal is either Saturday or Sunday. Wish me luck.

4 Likes

If it’s not too difficult for you to do, perhaps a glossary in the stats menu.

1 Like

There’s a mini-encyclopedia of the story’s world in the stats page, I could add it in there. The stats page is already huge now, a list of words will be easy to add in.

3 Likes

Hi folks.

I am in a very busy part of life currently this upcoming month.

Due to this fact, I might not be as active in June’s Writer Support Thread, but that does not mean I am ignoring you all or abandoning this effort to provide positivity and support.

I will be making the June Support thread on Monday (even if I have to do so at 3am) so it will be ready for everyone on Tuesday. I ask that everyone make an extra effort at keeping the thread positive, on track and focused on writing support.

Remember you may always call in other moderators to help, if I am not here when help is needed.

I am very proud of a bunch of you and I encourage you all to keep working towards publication. There are many out in this world that do not believe in the efforts of you all, but I do, and I hope this helps you achieve your goal of writing a Hosted Game or to eventually get a contract with CoG.

:two_hearts:

26 Likes

After my bad performance in the last contest and the lack of any feedback on it, I was depressed, and I spent several weeks without being able to writing. I am 2k on another story for another contest.

I am still a bad writer that is not deemed to be published. But I am determined to write something someday that people can enjoy.

Still, I am sad about my lousy performance and how I let everyone down.

Someday… I hope.

11 Likes

Writer Struggles #24601:

What my brain wants to write? - A big sprawling fantasy RPG, with a broad scope and customizable character backgrounds.

What my brain comes up with plot ideas for? - Limited scope, character-driven stories with a fairly set PC.

:sweat:

14 Likes

That could be one route (of one type of PC) out of many of your sprawling fantasy RPG. :slight_smile: :tea: Now the struggle is to write the rest of the iterations. :sweat_smile:

(I’m in branching abyss, despite a large spreadsheet with variables for past choices in the routes, I keep forgetting what has happened before and needing to add more if/elseif/else… some comparisons are so long temp variables must be used to make the code somewhat readable… :dizzy_face:)

5 Likes

Never get discouraged and always think of every experience as one for learning. We all have room to grow. The greatest of writers never achieved their success over night, there’s a reason for the saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Find you a good support group to critique your writing, so you can improve it. I know it’s difficult hearing about where your weaknesses are and even though you may have the “I suck,” take away from any criticism at all, don’t. Focus on your strengths and improve your weaknesses and NEVER let them bring you down (I know easier said than done) hone your craft and good luck. :pray:

5 Likes

So, I took a bit of extra time to get this second RO one-on-one scene done for my WiP (wanted to get it done in a week, but it ended up taking two) but it had two separate scenes that happened inside that one conversation, so I put in a little extra time for character exploration/replayability, so I’ll give myself a break there. Still got it done before the end of May though, so I’m super happy about that! It bumped up Chapter two of the WiP from 18,000 words to a whopping 44,300. Next month is my birthday month, so I am definitely aiming to get the other two RO scenes done before then!

Keep up the great work everyone and I hope people are doing well!

9 Likes

Just want to say that all of y’all are great. Proud of those who make their goals, and proud of those who fail but get back up on the horse and try again the next month. Both are hard to do. Keep rolling, gang.

12 Likes

This was a good month for writing fanfiction, but less good for writing original stuff. It’s good practice, at least.

8 Likes