General Writing Discussion Thread | Current Topic: NaNoWriMo

RE: Writer's Lounge

Hmm... I just realized it's been a year to the calendar date since I became fanfic mod. Cool! :)

I've got some more updates coming this week, depending on how well my writings go and whether or not I have time to post them. First and foremost, I'll be re-updating Chapter Four of Feral Twilight with a slightly extended version since Zy pointed out that the dialogue was a bit rushed. Afterwards I'm hoping to finish Chapter Five and post it before the weekend. From there, I'll see how far I get in Chapter Six.
 
RE: Writer's Lounge

Apollo the Incinermyn said:
Hmm... I just realized it's been a year to the calendar date since I became fanfic mod. Cool! :)
Click to expand...
So is it my turn yet?

Btw, did you fix that character dilemma you mentioned to me, Apollo?
 
RE: Writer's Lounge

I decided to keep Ali after all, for the short time he actually appears in the fic anyhow.
 
RE: Writer's Lounge

I was just wondering, how do the expert writers put in a plot twist and hide it so cleverly?
 
RE: Writer's Lounge

It's hard to say. I try to cover some plot twists up with action and minor notes within the context of the narration, but sometimes that could be misleading or overlooked by your readers completely.
 
RE: Writer's Lounge

If you want to include a plot twist, it'll help to run the story by a few people while you're in the process of writing to see if it's obvious or noticeable beforehand, or if it seems like an absolutely ridiculous twist once it happens. You want to hit something that someone won't really think or assume is going to happen, but could, if given time, guess generally what the twist is (so that it's not too unrealistic given the context of the story).

The easiest way, from my experience, is to simply include a twist that's unlikely but perfectly plausible, then go back and add a couple hints to make it seem more realistic and interesting. Just find the balance, even if it takes a couple of tries. If you really want an event in the story to occur - if it's a major plot point, say - you might have to change up a couple things so the reader's thinking, "Wow, what a clever twist!" rather than "Wow, that would never happen in real life!" (or whatever the context is - if it's fantasy, it still has to be realistic to an extent).
 
RE: Writer's Lounge

One method: Take what the reader thinks he/she knows and prove that it's false. They wouldn't expect an event contrary to their thoughts, and the twist would be effectively surprising. Making this realistic, however, is a trouble problem with no good answer.
 
RE: Writer's Lounge

A good plot twist has two major components: the lead-in and the wham. Essentially, the lead-in is where you drop subtle hints towards the plot twist that aren't obvious. This can be really hard to do while writing, but the ability is there; for example, having a character say something odd, but let that go by uncommented on. The difference in speech will sometimes not go unnoticed by the reader, but if they do notice it they'll probably think of it as a mistake (depending on how much you changed the character's speech pattern). The wham is the easier part; it helps to put it in a place where that plot point or a plot point of that nature was not expected to come up. When it comes to the wham, less is more; an effective wham is about one line, or even better, one word, and that single word changes the entire nature of the story.

But here's the most important part: don't add a plot twist just to add a plot twist. I call this the Shyamalan trap - throwing in a plot twist for the sake of a plot twist. An effective plot twist was always planned as part of the story. You are writing the entire story with the idea of the plot twist in mind. You are adding subtle hints at random intervals, not just writing the plot twist and then going back to add hints. Do not create a plot twist unless you've had it in mind the whole time. It will just ruin the entire story.

(note: you can add a plot twist later if you are writing "free-form" - basically, allowing the characters to play themselves out, and then kind of watching them from afar. but this is really hard to do effectively. one form this can manifest is if you notice a bunch of odd parts of your story - almost like you notice while proofreading that you've been almost subconsciously setting up a plot twist. those can work, but again, difficult to pull off.)

[this is the longest post I've written in months. plot and narrative structure is like the one thing I am good at]
 
RE: Writer's Lounge

Attention any and all writers!

If you've posted or updated a fanfic or poetry thread within the past six weeks, I want to know about it. I intend to revive the Nacrene Archives (fanfic directory) very soon. It will be posted in the OP of this thread and re-updated every two-weeks to make sure that only recent and ongoing stories/poetry threads are linked. However, I'm not going to go through and add every single thread I see as a relatively recent fic (hence why I'm asking for only those from the past month and a half or so). If you want to have your thread or threads added, let me know via PM and please provided a link.

Also, I'd like anyone who's advertising my story Feral Twilight (and any of my other works) in their signatures to either PM or profile message me that you're doing so. I want to compile a list of endorsers like Zyflair has in his fic Disbelief, but I'm not going to check everyone's sig just for that.

Thanks!
 
RE: Writer's Lounge

So, the archives are back? YAY! Now, I just need to finish that chapter :<

Looks like ZY won... because of computer crashing :<
 
RE: Writer's Lounge

Okay I'm writing a story for once, and (surprisingly) I need help. There's a war going on, they just got into battle and this one dude have to get stronger or get himself some equipment. Think like Captain America, except this dude has already gotten help from a soldier.

He currenly only have rags, a bulletproof vest(which wont really work considering this story also includes battle mechs) and a machinegun.

How should I go on with him getting stronger? This war has been ongoing for 10 years. It's futuric(Year 2350) so we can do what we want basically.
So far I got half a page with 351 words. Help? All help will be appreciated and eventually credited.
 
RE: Writer's Lounge

Out of curiosity, what's the point of the war?
 
RE: Writer's Lounge

The point of the war is to get control over an area, which they know there's hidden alien technology. They'll try to get this alien technology to go to their planet, but that's not really what's going to happen... :p can't spoil it all you know.
 
RE: Writer's Lounge

Well, if you really want him to get some equipment, make a secret bunker, (the enemies) he sneaks in, and steals what he wants, and fights his way out. That's all I have.
 
RE: Writer's Lounge

You could make him a test subject for a new weapon– think Portal plot, except they want to see how it does in actual combat. If he's important for any specific reason besides being the main character (eg he's high-ranking or something), you could make it because of that. If not, it could just be a random assignment.
 
RE: Writer's Lounge

Thanks to you both, Martini and Scizor-something. Will take both into the story.
 
RE: Writer's Lounge

I'm making serious headway on Chapter Five of Feral Twilight and, if it's not up tomorrow, it'll definitely be posted Monday afternoon. However, I'm wondering one little thing about how to realistically portray action scenes with paranormal or mystical causes. It isn't all action-based, but there are several critical scenarios in Chapter Five I'm a little skeptical on.

First and foremost, I have a scene in which Darkrai attacks my hero Jay but gets counterattacked by a (normally slow-moving) mechanical horse Fakemon called Zombroken only on account of how Zombroken uses a combination of the pre-existing move Shadow Force and a fake move called Overdrive (which causes its user's attack strength and speed to increase momentarily, but by draining some of the user's energy). Does a sudden speed boost sound like it'd be believable in that situation or no?

A second minor thing I'm wondering is if a Poison-type Pokemon could swim through polluted or toxic water and not be fazed by it whatsoever? Another scene in the chapter deals with a Fakemon that's supposedly mutated to do exactly that, but I wasn't sure how believable it'd sound if I just had it going about wading and swimming through wastewater as though it were just in a stream or lake.
 
RE: Writer's Lounge

I'd say the second one sounds absolutely fine; I can't think of a reason a poison-type wouldn't be able to exist in a toxic environment, considering it's made (at least partially) of a poisonous substance.

The second one sounds alright, but only if you can make it sound completely founded– if there's a specific reason for the sudden speed boost, then it's fine, but I don't completely understand what you plan to happen (does it happen as a result of Shadow Force and Overdrive in combination? Or just Overdrive?). If it's not completely explicable, you might want to just forego the speed boost entirely.
 
RE: Writer's Lounge

I guess it's hard to be specific, but the general idea with the speed boost was that the creature uses it beforehand in order to increase the speed of a full-on charge it goes into before using Shadow Force to vanish momentarily and then ram headlong into its target. I guess I'll just leave it for the time being and see how it works out. If it seems crappy to people, I'll rewrite that part of the chapter.

Thanks anyways!
 
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