Winner
Diverse in Unity
Tangential question - is there any thread for aspiring "writers" on this forum, where people share their work and discuss it, without necessarily starting new threads?
Is this any good?
- Thread starter hobbsyoyo
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hobbsyoyo
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Dude, I was just thinking of making one on 'the art of writing'! Does that fit the bill? It would be about writing in general, you can post sections of your work to discuss the mechanics of it, but maybe to have in-depth critiquing of complete, separate pieces they should each have a thread. Your thoughts?
Part 1 was pretty well done. I did note, though, that Spaceport America is in New Mexico and the "Arizona" sun would not apply. We have our own sun and it is pretty special. 
Winner
Diverse in Unity
That would require a sub-forum (in order not to get mixed up with normal Entertainment threads), and we're hardly going to get that.
I think Kyriakos was organizing something like that once...? (Being the only real writer on this forum I know of.)
It was allowed to die- a long time ago 
Personally i am not sure if having a Thread here on that would be that bad of an idea though. Some sort of writing methods/plot development/ use of points of view and so on?
And i am not the only real writer here. Anyone who writes (fiction at least) is in this context a writer. It's not like i am famous anyway (yet)
Personally i am not sure if having a Thread here on that would be that bad of an idea though. Some sort of writing methods/plot development/ use of points of view and so on?
And i am not the only real writer here. Anyone who writes (fiction at least) is in this context a writer. It's not like i am famous anyway (yet)
Winner
Diverse in Unity
There is a huge dividing line between writing random pieces of mental refuse for one's one pleasure/relief*, and actually writing something that someone else is willing to publish in some respectable capacity You're a published author, which means that in this context, you're a towering figure of absolute authority 
As for such a thread - it doesn't have to be super active. Simply when somebody posts something (preferably short pieces/excerpts) and wants a feedback, there will be a few others to give it; pretty much like hobbs in this thread.
(* - this is a joke, not an evaluation of anybody's work here or elsewhere. It's just how I feel about the things I very occasionally put to writing )
You're a published author, which means that in this context, you're a towering figure of absolute authority As for such a thread - it doesn't have to be super active. Simply when somebody posts something (preferably short pieces/excerpts) and wants a feedback, there will be a few others to give it; pretty much like hobbs in this thread.
(* - this is a joke, not an evaluation of anybody's work here or elsewhere. It's just how I feel about the things I very occasionally put to writing
)
hobbsyoyo
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I would be interesting in hearing you out if you have the time. Like I've said before, you're not going to offend no matter how harsh you are.
___________
I think I will start a thread on writing. I think it would be useful to anyone that has general questions or need help on specific excerpts. There have been a few comments here that I would like to explore in more general terms, rather than exploring them in relation to this specific work, for instance. And if it dies, it dies.
hobbsyoyo
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Barry and Victoria didnt waste time trying to shore up support for their situation. Victoria, fresh and clean from a sponge bath, entered the cockpit of the mobile hab with a rag, a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a static-cling dusting wand. She sat in the pilots chair and began attacking the blood-like mess she had left on the control surfaces earlier. Barry stood from the co-pilots chair and pulled close the privacy curtain that sectioned the cockpit from the rest of the double-wide RV-sized vehicle. This was as close to a private space anyone in the expedition could get and it doubled as meeting room when the pair wanted to discuss strategy without crew input.
She looked out the window and saw Todd driving one of the pavers out a quarter kilometer ahead of the hab vehicle. About the size of a golf cart with an open-air seat and a wide rectangular microwave at the front, the pavers that the expedition used to melt down the regolith into pavement looked a bit like a riding lawnmower from a distance. It was even painted green though the regolith had long since covered most of it up and had abraded off the rest. A wave of nostalgia and pain washed over her; watching Todd trundle along over the rocky, dust-beaten plain through the windshield reminded her of watching her late husband Alex mowing the grass with his John Deere rider from the kitchen window back in California a decade past.
Barry took his seat next to her and nudged her back to reality with his elbow, So whatcha think about the rad-ream pill situation? Do we have enough to outlast our food if we ration the food or do we have to ration the pills to see us through the next month?
Victoria shook her head and returned to cleaning the console in front of her, Im not sure. Ill have to talk with Sheila about it but I think we can stretch out our radiation-remediation pills to last, I dont know, another four weeks. Maybe more, maybe less, she shrugged.
And here I thought we were careful and brought enough to cover us the full three hundred clicks.
Its not the distance Barry, its the time thats the problem. Weve been out here so far, well as of yesterday, weve been out here as long as we thought we would be out here in total. Were into the excess provisions already because weve been eating more than we thought we would too. Its hard work, she said while she scrubbed at particularly sticky slick of crimson mud, really hard. As for the rad-rem, well remember last week we talked and I had Sheila cut the dosage. We may have to cut it again to see this through.
Yeah, I remember, Barry pointed to his wifes face. Her skin was beat-red and was beginning to flake off her forehead. She looked as if she had been in the sun at the beach for days, even though the only rays of sunshine she ever saw came filtered through protective helmet glass or windows. The cosmic rays were eating her up, cutting right through the protect windows and shielding as if they werent there. Im not so sure you want to cut your dose hun. Now me, well Ive got natural sunscreen, such as it were, he pointed as the chocolate brown skin of his forearm.
Victoria looked over at him and said, Well it may not show, but youre feeling the effects too. I heard you vomiting in the washroom this morning.
Who me? Barry asked with a grin.
Yes, you.
Well that was just your cooking I was having an adverse reaction too, he ****led, that or Ive developed a spam allergy.
Victoria ignored his jokes, it was all business with her, Do you have any cans left? Maybe we could signal another rover and do a trade.
Barry shook his head, Nah, that stuffs been gone a long time now. Maybe we shouldnt have eaten the couple of cans we brought along first.
Youre right.
I think its a moot point besides; we couldnt get a fair trade. Rad-rem are worth what, fifty cents a pill? Each can of spam is worth, oh, five hundred times that. And I doubt anyone out here in this, he looked toward the outside, where a dust devil played in the thin Martian breeze amongst the lifeless rocks and endless rusty plains, in this wasteland have any parts we could use or enough food to make up the difference in value between tofu rations and a can of the good stuff.
Victoria was careful to wipe away at the dust that collected around the edges of switches and she gingerly wiped the rag with alcohol on it over the various touchscreens to avoid scratching them with the abrasive Martian sand. Are you going to talk to Todd about the vote?
Reckon I will have to. Better I get to him than our reluctant geologist friend, he nodded to Todd, who had stopped his paver and dismounted it. Oh boy, hope he hasnt broken something else, Todd was kneeling beside the paver but at this distance it was impossible to tell if he was collecting samples or inspecting the machine. A long ribbon of gray, melt-hardened regolith stretched behind him all the way back to their habitat module. Here and there small stones that had stayed in place even after the pavers clearing brush had passed over dotted out of the new road. It wasnt an issue though; the wheels on any vehicle of Mars were built to withstand far harsher terrain than that posed by a few pebbles jutting out of what was otherwise a nice, smooth driving surface.
Todds in back of the cabin working on one of the spectrometers, Victoria said. You might want to talk to him sooner rather than later.
Ill add that to my honey-do list, Barry smiled at his wife but she shot a cross glance at him. Alright, Ill get to it. He stood and opened the curtain.
The way his shirt hung from his frame betrayed the combined effects of the food rationing and hard work. Where once he filled it out with solid muscle mass, it now draped from him like the privacy curtain from the ceiling. His skin was ashy too, more so than Victoria could ever remember seeing it. He didnt look well, but no one of them did.
When she thought he had gone, she reached into a zippered breast pocket and removed a sleeve of pills. She gently pushed one through the foil lining and popped it into her mouth, swallowing the small blue button without water.
Her husband reappeared behind her, Youre going to have to cut back on those pills. They already screw with your metabolism enough as it is and you arent eating enough to replace the energy you burn on them. You look like a rag doll Torrie. Please cut back.
Speak for yourself. You havent got your strapping muscles anymore. You look like a school boy who just finished a growth spurt, she locked an icy pair of eyes on him. He shrugged and left the cabin for good.
She looked out the window and saw Todd driving one of the pavers out a quarter kilometer ahead of the hab vehicle. About the size of a golf cart with an open-air seat and a wide rectangular microwave at the front, the pavers that the expedition used to melt down the regolith into pavement looked a bit like a riding lawnmower from a distance. It was even painted green though the regolith had long since covered most of it up and had abraded off the rest. A wave of nostalgia and pain washed over her; watching Todd trundle along over the rocky, dust-beaten plain through the windshield reminded her of watching her late husband Alex mowing the grass with his John Deere rider from the kitchen window back in California a decade past.
Barry took his seat next to her and nudged her back to reality with his elbow, So whatcha think about the rad-ream pill situation? Do we have enough to outlast our food if we ration the food or do we have to ration the pills to see us through the next month?
Victoria shook her head and returned to cleaning the console in front of her, Im not sure. Ill have to talk with Sheila about it but I think we can stretch out our radiation-remediation pills to last, I dont know, another four weeks. Maybe more, maybe less, she shrugged.
And here I thought we were careful and brought enough to cover us the full three hundred clicks.
Its not the distance Barry, its the time thats the problem. Weve been out here so far, well as of yesterday, weve been out here as long as we thought we would be out here in total. Were into the excess provisions already because weve been eating more than we thought we would too. Its hard work, she said while she scrubbed at particularly sticky slick of crimson mud, really hard. As for the rad-rem, well remember last week we talked and I had Sheila cut the dosage. We may have to cut it again to see this through.
Yeah, I remember, Barry pointed to his wifes face. Her skin was beat-red and was beginning to flake off her forehead. She looked as if she had been in the sun at the beach for days, even though the only rays of sunshine she ever saw came filtered through protective helmet glass or windows. The cosmic rays were eating her up, cutting right through the protect windows and shielding as if they werent there. Im not so sure you want to cut your dose hun. Now me, well Ive got natural sunscreen, such as it were, he pointed as the chocolate brown skin of his forearm.
Victoria looked over at him and said, Well it may not show, but youre feeling the effects too. I heard you vomiting in the washroom this morning.
Who me? Barry asked with a grin.
Yes, you.
Well that was just your cooking I was having an adverse reaction too, he ****led, that or Ive developed a spam allergy.
Victoria ignored his jokes, it was all business with her, Do you have any cans left? Maybe we could signal another rover and do a trade.
Barry shook his head, Nah, that stuffs been gone a long time now. Maybe we shouldnt have eaten the couple of cans we brought along first.
Youre right.
I think its a moot point besides; we couldnt get a fair trade. Rad-rem are worth what, fifty cents a pill? Each can of spam is worth, oh, five hundred times that. And I doubt anyone out here in this, he looked toward the outside, where a dust devil played in the thin Martian breeze amongst the lifeless rocks and endless rusty plains, in this wasteland have any parts we could use or enough food to make up the difference in value between tofu rations and a can of the good stuff.
Victoria was careful to wipe away at the dust that collected around the edges of switches and she gingerly wiped the rag with alcohol on it over the various touchscreens to avoid scratching them with the abrasive Martian sand. Are you going to talk to Todd about the vote?
Reckon I will have to. Better I get to him than our reluctant geologist friend, he nodded to Todd, who had stopped his paver and dismounted it. Oh boy, hope he hasnt broken something else, Todd was kneeling beside the paver but at this distance it was impossible to tell if he was collecting samples or inspecting the machine. A long ribbon of gray, melt-hardened regolith stretched behind him all the way back to their habitat module. Here and there small stones that had stayed in place even after the pavers clearing brush had passed over dotted out of the new road. It wasnt an issue though; the wheels on any vehicle of Mars were built to withstand far harsher terrain than that posed by a few pebbles jutting out of what was otherwise a nice, smooth driving surface.
Todds in back of the cabin working on one of the spectrometers, Victoria said. You might want to talk to him sooner rather than later.
Ill add that to my honey-do list, Barry smiled at his wife but she shot a cross glance at him. Alright, Ill get to it. He stood and opened the curtain.
The way his shirt hung from his frame betrayed the combined effects of the food rationing and hard work. Where once he filled it out with solid muscle mass, it now draped from him like the privacy curtain from the ceiling. His skin was ashy too, more so than Victoria could ever remember seeing it. He didnt look well, but no one of them did.
When she thought he had gone, she reached into a zippered breast pocket and removed a sleeve of pills. She gently pushed one through the foil lining and popped it into her mouth, swallowing the small blue button without water.
Her husband reappeared behind her, Youre going to have to cut back on those pills. They already screw with your metabolism enough as it is and you arent eating enough to replace the energy you burn on them. You look like a rag doll Torrie. Please cut back.
Speak for yourself. You havent got your strapping muscles anymore. You look like a school boy who just finished a growth spurt, she locked an icy pair of eyes on him. He shrugged and left the cabin for good.
)
hobbsyoyo
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I have a question for the audience:
I'm kind of at a cross-roads and wondering how to proceed. I have one more 'character development' type of scene planned. I want Victoria and Sheila to interact, to show more of Sheila's passivity and Victoria's assertive aggression. After that, I'm moving all of the characters outside and things will quickly escalate to the climax in a cascade of violence.
Now I know I need to rework the previous sections, tweak the dialogue and so forth. But do you think I'm rushing things a bit by moving toward the climax in one more section. As it is, with all it's flaws, is any of Victoria's underlying issues coming through? I'm really kicking myself for not including more drug references sooner as it's a big part of her problem. But should I spend a couple more scenes with the characters (plus the one I have planned out) before stuff hits the fan?
I'm kind of at a cross-roads and wondering how to proceed. I have one more 'character development' type of scene planned. I want Victoria and Sheila to interact, to show more of Sheila's passivity and Victoria's assertive aggression. After that, I'm moving all of the characters outside and things will quickly escalate to the climax in a cascade of violence.
Now I know I need to rework the previous sections, tweak the dialogue and so forth. But do you think I'm rushing things a bit by moving toward the climax in one more section. As it is, with all it's flaws, is any of Victoria's underlying issues coming through? I'm really kicking myself for not including more drug references sooner as it's a big part of her problem. But should I spend a couple more scenes with the characters (plus the one I have planned out) before stuff hits the fan?
Couple of thoughts on the start piece. 1) don't use the name Elon Musk. Unless you're writing historical fiction, don't ever have a real person as a character. And only use the names of real people if they're dead or historical. As in doing a piece on space exploration, Neil Armstrong is fair game as referenced as a historical figure, even if the piece takes place while he is still alive. He's not fair game as a character, not even as a peripheral one. You can use Kennedy, but not Obama. That sort of thing. This is your own world, not the real world. And if you ever reach a point of trying to publish, having a character who's a living person may have legal issues.
2) in the first part I thought Victoria was just too stiff and formal for the type of situation, even if she's not all there, mentally.
2) in the first part I thought Victoria was just too stiff and formal for the type of situation, even if she's not all there, mentally.
