Watcha Writin'?

[Zkribbler]

So I decided to keep the enchanted crown, but devise a story behind it to account for why it's benign for some people and a deathtrap for others. I'm also trying to come up with a consistent set of rules for how it works so any future readers don't stop and say, "Hey, waitaminute, that doesn't make sense...".

This sounds cool. Good luck.

Maybe use the cliche of nobles having blue blood and commoners having red blood?
Even then, you'd have to give it a lot of foreshadowing.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

This sounds cool. Good luck.

Thanks!

Maybe use the cliche of nobles having blue blood and commoners having red blood?
Even then, you'd have to give it a lot of foreshadowing.

In that case, I'd have to give the heir purple blood. His father was a prince, and his mother was a commoner.

What I decided is that the magical crown can only be worn by people in the direct lineage of Griffinvale's first king. Anyone else who tries it on will die.

That said, other people can touch it with the permission of the current monarch (king or queen; women can inherit in this kingdom). But the kicker is... the crown will not allow itself to be touched or worn by anyone who doesn't genuinely have the very best welfare of the kingdom in mind/at heart. This is to prevent a tyrant from using the crown for nefarious purposes.

I came up with this to explain why the heir could touch and wear the crown, his brother could touch it and carry it around, but two other people died.

At this point some people who have played the game might well point out that the previous king - the one who is murdered - wasn't pure at heart. But the Kings of Griffinvale aren't required to wear this magical crown. Any crown will do, but the magical one is legendary - and this situation is bizarre enough that invoking ancient legends is just the PR necessary to get the people to accept the true heir as the real heir rather than just an opportunist. It's been many generations since the reigning monarch wore this particular crown, so nobody living has had direct experience of it.

As for the matter of blood... I did give the heir some traits that explain why he's a bit different... why the crown trusted him even though he himself was still somewhat confused, unsure, and getting used to the knowledge that he wasn't who he had been raised to believe himself to be. These traits are mental, rather than physical. They're inherited from his mother, and the reason nobody thought much more than "that son of Duke Edvar Ulmer is a bit of an odd one, isn't he?" is because such traits rarely appear in male offspring and knowledge about them in general wasn't common; some of the women displaying them were sometimes accused of witchcraft and killed.

 

[Zkribbler]

I like writing first chapters. In my Thief story, I began with a first chapter. Then I realized I needed something before that, and so I wrote a pre-first-chapter chapter. This morning, I awoke to the realization that I need something before that. So I shall write a pre-pre-first-chapter- chapter. chapter, Ironically, it will center on my blind seer with her powers to foretell the future a power which I obviously lack.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I like writing first chapters. In my Thief story, I began with a first chapter. Then I realized I needed something before that, and so I wrote a pre-first-chapter chapter. This morning, I awoke to the realization that I need something before that. So I shall write a pre-pre-first-chapter- chapter. chapter, Ironically, it will center on my blind seer with her powers to foretell the future a power which I obviously lack.

This is how my prequel material happened. How this story has been built started out with me asking myself questions like "how/why/when/where did this happen? What is the explanation behind certain lines of dialogue - for example, when Duke William says "I knew I could never raise him" when referring to the true heir when he was a newborn baby, I immediately wondered why. Why couldn't William raise this kid, when he clearly had the rank and wealth to provide a home, and the parents were friends of his? The result was really delving into a possible backstory for Duke William, and now I know why he couldn't raise the royal baby and gave him to another family to raise.

Asking the "5-w questions" and adding "how" when you decide on a plot point or character trait or event can help to either reveal contradictions, plot holes, or it can open up new possibilities you hadn't considered before.

So to get back to something I've mentioned before - the question of "Why wasn't Edmund carrying his own sword at the beginning of the game" led to deciding there was a situation that happened in which Edmund found his sword an annoyance - it kept getting in the way and he didn't want it damaged, so his brother babysat if until Edmund caught up with the main group.

But why was there a situation in the first place? That led to a whole lot of prequel material involving getting the hunt organized, dealing with various courtiers and a general air of intrigue (because there are always schemes going on in a royal court even when it isn't the day that some of them know that the king will be murdered and two of the king's knights have no idea it's going to happen and that they will be accused of the murder and executed themselves).

And then... explanations were needed for some of the intrigue that went on, and later this will lead to suspicions as to exactly how widespread the murder plot really was. After all, the new king must mete out justice to his grandfather's murderers, and he knows now that the same man who killed his grandfather also killed his father, both on the orders of the Queen...

I don't know what time frame you're dealing with. In mine, the game itself happens over the course of one day, with occasional references to events that happened over 30 years before. So I have at least 31 years to work with and I'd like to go back another few years because I've been wondering how this Prince/commoner romance and marriage began in the first place. What led to Prince Thomas and Rose even meeting, let alone falling in love and marrying? The game deals with their deaths, but not their lives. I want to explore that, and how this knowledge will affect the other characters 30 years later.

So if prequel chapters keep happening, just go with them even if you don't include them in the final draft. At the very least, they're useful for teaching you how your in-universe world and characters got to where they are in the opening chapter.


And now I've just had a couple of lines of dialogue pop into my mind about some of the prequel material I mentioned in my story...

 

[Zkribbler]

This is starting to remind me of the Seinfeld episode which was told backwards.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

This is starting to remind me of the Seinfeld episode which was told backwards.

I haven't seen any of that series.

My point is that the other four "w" and "how" questions are every bit as important as the "what" question when it comes to creating a story. You want it to make sense to your readers.

I have an advantage in this, in that it's okay to have characters explaining stuff because the main character (and most of the people he knows) has lived the first thirty years of his life completely oblivious to his true identity - which was by intention of the people who want to put him on the throne after the old king is murdered, so it's no wonder that he, the rest of his family, his friends, and nearly everyone else is confused by the sudden turn of events. There is a lot of explaining that needs to happen.

 

[Zkribbler]

My 3rd first chapter is only 1/2 as long as it should be.
[Edit]: now 2/3

 

[Zkribbler]

I had only finished a page or more of Chapter 5, but somehow I obliterated it.

 

[Zkribbler]

Having written my four "Thief" chapters in the order of: 3, 4, 2,1 , I went through it last night to check for continuity. I found only two phrases that were needlessly repeated, and was happy to see the story flows smoothly. I noticed that some of my characters lacked physical descriptions when they appeared (a weakness of mine ), which I fixed, causing me to notice my characters are all Wonder-Bread-white guys. I need more diversity.

I believe I have four more chapters to write. I'm aiming to keep in under the 17,000-word limit allowed by the Writers of the Future contest.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Physical descriptions are an issue for me, as well. I started to replay the game, and after nearly 2 years, I only just now noticed what color the old King's eyes are. They're blue, so that tells me that his late wife (his first wife, the grandmother of the heir in the game) must have had brown or black hair and brown eyes. We don't see much of her other than a portrait that most players miss noticing; I'm going to have to double-check that. The developers made a continuity error that's annoying because it means I have to explain why the mosaics of the Prince and Princess at the burial grounds show them as blond, when the royal portraits show them with dark hair.

 

[Zkribbler]

My excuse is that in college I studied to be a screenwriting. A screenwriter's job is mainly to provide dialogue. Sets are designed by the set designer. Clothes come from the costume designer. Characters come from the casting director. When writing the script, you don't know if the star will be Tom Cruise or Denzel Washington. So one must keep descriptions of these matters minimal.

This training stuck with me when I switched over to prose. Some readers are okay with this. Others need details or they "see" only a formless blob.

I dislike extended descriptions. Instead I compromise by borrowing from the French Impressionist painters: Describe what you'd take away from a first glance. E.g. "He was a gaunt man with a sadness in his eyes and a broken nose." Eye color is an anathema to me. Who glaces at someone and remembers eye color...unless it reveals something else? My characters don't have brown eyes but rather hazel or mahogany eyes to imply hardness or fawn to imply gentleness.

From the opening of my current story:

Hickory Hana hobbled along on an ancient body twisted by arthritis. ... The guard looked down to see a homespun cowl around a thin, pasty face with an elongated nose, flaring nostrils, and wide mouth with thin lips. Hickory Hana was ugly enough to be twins.

 

[Zkribbler]

I'm not going to do anything about this now, but I was reflecting on my Pizza Delivery Guy story. My initial bad guy is a former beauty contestant out of Orange County. I'm going to move her to Imperial County. the agricultural arch-conservative south-easternmost county in California. Moreover, her last name will be Imperial, being that's she's s scion of the all-powerful fictitious family after whom the county is named.

 

[Zkribbler]

I believe I have four more chapters to write. I'm aiming to keep in under the 17,000-word limit allowed by the Writers of the Future contest.

I haven't been pushing forward with my "Thief" story for more than a week. I've been doing a lot of internal adjustments: e.g. my crime lord, my almost-a-witch character, and various guards are now black. This leaves only my burglar's family, the city's noble family, and various guards as white. One of my characters now has a cat.

Today, I'll be heading into Tag to do banking and shopping.

Tomorrow, my thief and his brother the cleric will be burglarizing the church. I'm going to try and get the city's earl into a confessional to be overheard by the two. [The earl is now married to my thief's ex-fiance, which causes some friction. ] Ultimately, my crime lord will have my thief steal a cursed statuette from the earl's study.

 

[Synobun]

I've been waffling a bit about writing again. The urge has grown, but I'm facing a problem where all the connections between my thoughts are broken, and piecing them together and organizing them has been insurmountable. So outlining, even to the most rudimentary extent necessary for pantsing, has been flat out. I did consider writing a Star Trek fanfic, but quickly bailed on the idea.

Surprisingly, I find myself remembering details about an old WIP, which is exceedingly rare for me. I usually have issues remembering details of something I am actively writing, so remembering details over a year after the fact...

I abandoned it when I couldn't figure out a proper second act. No matter what I outlined, I couldn't come up with something that would properly tie together the first and third acts without being a hindrance to pacing. Also, I got sidetracked into a side plot regarding a third gender in the world, and I was really dissatisfied with how I pieced it together. It was so disconnected from the real story that it could have been entirely removed and not mattered at all, and that's a bad sign when it makes up 7,000 words out of 30,000.

I haven't figured out a good solution to the second act, but I did think of one for the side plot that would make it matter and also not involve removing what was already written. Mostly, I think if I were to write again, I might return to this WIP since the connections and such are seemingly intact. I can rewrite what I have (maybe; most is in solid initial shape) and then continue from where I left off, in theory.

 

[GenMarshall]

My excuse is that in college I studied to be a screenwriting. A screenwriter's job is mainly to provide dialogue.

I'm wondering if writing for a comic, even if it's an indiependent self made one, is similar to screanwriting since all I've basically done was writing diolouge for my characters while I construct the scene in SFM/Garry's Mod.

 

[Zkribbler]

I construct the scene in SFM/Garry's Mod.

I don't know what that is.

 

[GenMarshall]

I don't know what that is.

Source Filmmaker is bascially a software I use to make images and films using assets from other games within Source/Half Life 2/TF2.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Yesterday I found something I didn't expect: My first attempt at a Star Trek fanfic, written at age 13.

It's horrible. It's one of the dumbest things I've ever read, and I wrote the thing! It's proof that I can't write a serious Star Trek story to save my life.

I have no idea if I should trash it or keep it as a perfect example of how not to write a story.


On the other hand, I found a scrap of a Borgias/Doctor Who fanfic I started a couple of years ago (Jeremy Irons version of The Borgias + Fifth Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa)... and added a sentence to it. That one's a keeper and will be finished some day.

I'm wondering if writing for a comic, even if it's an indiependent self made one, is similar to screanwriting since all I've basically done was writing diolouge for my characters while I construct the scene in SFM/Garry's Mod.

I think it is, as I've taken a crack at a Fuzzy Knights script. The creator, Noah Chinn, posted a slew of blank panels on the old Yahoo! group we had, and gave his blessing to anyone who wanted to create what we call "home-brew" Fuzzy Knights stories.

Yahoo! deleted their groups, but thankfully the original owner had transferred ownership to me so I had notice that the groups would be disappearing - and spent 2-3 frantic days making multiple copies and downloads of everything in that group - panels, home-brewed stuff with non-standard characters, basically everything.

So it's all safe, and now I'm debating what to do with it. I've got ideas for my own home-brew comic, but it's a very ambitious project that can't even begin unless I learn better photography skills than I have (not to mention a camera more modern than the one I used back in the '80s). But the story itself is in progress.

(For those unfamiliar with this comic, it's a plush toy parody of the gaming comic Knights of the Dinner Table, in which four humans sit around a dinner table playing RPGs. In the comic, it's four plush animals - two bears, a cat, and a bunny who do this, with occasional appearances of other characters.)

Even with the story I've been working on for the past couple of years, I tend to have dialogue pop into my head and then I have to think of what the characters are doing when they say it. It's playing in my head like it's on TV, complete with background music, various camera angles, and so on... but translating all that to prose is proving a challenge.

So dialogue isn't the problem for me. Action is, which will be problematic when it gets to the point in the alternative version of my story where I will need to write several battle scenes and decide which of the villains will die there and which will be executed later (I'm working on two at the same time, plus a side adventure that takes place in another alternate universe as a crossover between King's Heir and a totally different gaming franchise).

Oddly enough, I've found that writing torture scenes isn't that hard (it's hard on the characters, of course, but there are a couple of sanitized scenes in the game that annoyed me because they could have been a wee bit more realistic while still keeping it family-friendly). I've been doing research as to how some of the methods wand from watching various medieval/Tudor shows and movies, I know my own tolerance level for blood/guts/gore, and I do realize that there are times when horror is best left to the imagination, as the imagination can make it seem more awful than the writer may have intended.

 

[Sarin]

Hm...all that talk here makes me want to share a little story I wrote few years ago, to see if I can write at all...now where can I put it?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Hm...all that talk here makes me want to share a little story I wrote few years ago, to see if I can write at all...now where can I put it?

Make a new thread for it. A&E isn't as rigidly structured as OT is; if you have a story to share, post it in a new thread and let us read it.