Watcha Writin'?

[Zkribbler]

Easy. The true nature of the universe is pizza.

No, pizza is the ultimate food not the Ultimate Truth.

BTW: If you ever come to the Philippines, do NOT order a pepperoni pizza. The pepperoni here is vile.

 

[Zkribbler]

Remember when i received my proofread novel, which had had enumerable spaces removed by the transmission? I spent four days replacing them, yet was only 1/4 of the way thru the novel. So I gave up. Today I may have solved the problem. I'll try again tomorrow. Maybe I'll get those novels published soon.

...(Edit Friday: I'm copying stuff over onto my Window 10 laptop with Free Office)

As for my Monte Banco parody:

Decreasing the number of chapters from 24 to sixteen really got things moving. New characters are popping into existence; one current character must be renamed to bring her in line with the plot; hot chocolate is now the ubiquitous beverage or my economy won't collapse when I want it to. I have a new city [talked about only]. If I'd have gone the novella route, Mad King Prometheus would have been axed; now he's back. This is like a barrel of monkeys being tipped over with chaos reigning.

I spent today making the above changes. Hot chocolate is now everywhere. The character's name change didn't exactly work: Her original name is still jettisoned, but the replacement name [while wonderful] won't work until the second half of the story. So now' I've given her a third name for use in the first half of the story. I failed to mention in the quote above that I was changing the name of many geographic features and changing two sovereign principalities into kingdoms. That's all finished now.
So, lots of modifications; not much forward progress .

 

[Zkribbler]

Ever since I began this story oh-so-long ago I've had the idea that one of the many malignant citizens slithering through my corrupt city would be a fantasy-world version of Bill Gates. Much to my surprise, he works much better as the ally of my main character. Bill Gates as a good guy--who'd have thunk it?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Having made it through the July Camp NaNoWriMo, I thought I'd take a leisurely break until October, making notes, planning the next stage of the story...

When BOOM! I have become addicted to a new game that is demanding that I write about it. Not in November, either, thankyouverymuch.

The characters and their dialogue are clamoring to be written about NOW. NOW, NOW, NOW!

So I've been writing again, over the last three days.

The game is Kingmaker: Rise to the Throne - at first glance a standard "find the real heir to the throne before the usurpers who killed the king also kill the heir" story.

But I'm not alone in finding these characters and the storyline appealing, interesting, intriguing, (according to some of the reviews and conversations I've had on another gaming forum), and I want to know more about them.

Apparently they want that as well, as I ended up writing pages and pages and pages over the last couple of days.

I've no idea if there will be a sequel to this game, and I wouldn't presume to even try to write one myself. But the backstory that led up to the existing game, the between-the-scenes moments, the expanding of the characters' interrelationships... that's what's demanding to be written.

Since this isn't a NaNoWriMo project, I won't be doing daily updates. It's not even being written in chronological order, just as the scenes and dialogue and situations occur to me. Bits of story just pop into my head and I have to grab my notebook and write them down.

It's a good feeling, to have inspiration like this that doesn't require a daily minimum of words. I don't even know if anyone else will be interested in reading it when it's done (okay, maybe two or three people on the other forum, who love this game as I do but don't have the compulsion to write more about it). I just intend to have fun.

 

[Zkribbler]

I've been poking around on various projects, mostly with my orc trilogy.

I found I could get nowhere in "Scroll 2" of the trilogy. At one point, I even jumped ahead to "Scroll 3," hoping I could use it to suck the story forward. Although I got quite a bit done there, it was of no help to Scroll 2. So I've now sent Scroll 2 to the recycle bin, and have move Scroll 3 up to being Scroll 2. So I need a new Scroll 3.

I want each scroll to have two parts: a personal conflict and an earth-changing conflict. In Scroll 1, my main character had to restore his family's reputation and to remove the Forever Curse from his orcan homeland. In Scroll 2, my female lead will be reunited with her long-missing son, and the orcs enslaved of Ambershire will be freed.

Now, what to do in Scroll 3? I thought seriously of moving the story into the northern mountains, centering on a greedy dragon civilization there. My earth-changing conflict would be dispelling the greed. However, after reviewing my notes on world creation, I concluded that creating a dragon civilization is nigh on impossible. Thousands of carnivorous dragons would exhaust the food supply. If, instead of eating food, they'd eat say magic then they'd be way too powerful. I toyed with the idea of making them the god-creators of the other races, but I could not answer the question why gods who were fire-breathing winged reptiles would create races of two-legged humanoids rather than creations in their own image. Moreover even if I could create a civilization of dragons, this effort would eclipse the orc story, and my story is an orc trilogy. So no dragon civilization.

I'm now toying with a world creation re orcs. Currently I puzzling why orcs have fighting tusks and protuberant teeth. All the animals I can think of with tusks (boars, elephants) and horns (rams, water buffalo) are herbivores. I can't think of a single predator with tusks or horns. Orcs certainly are pacifists nibbling on cucumber salads, so why the tusks?

 

[Synobun]

Maybe one of the orcs freed from slavery gets a thirst for revenge, and it's up to the protagonist to stop them from conquering the known world?

Also, re: tusks, maybe there's a common ancestor? Like a fantastical minotaur.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I'm now toying with a world creation re orcs. Currently I puzzling why orcs have fighting tusks and protuberant teeth. All the animals I can think of with tusks (boars, elephants) and horns (rams, water buffalo) are herbivores. I can't think of a single predator with tusks or horns. Orcs certainly are pacifists nibbling on cucumber salads, so why the tusks?

I have never read any fantasy stories where orcs were pacifists, other than the Dragonlance short story in which Raistlin has an intimate encounter with a beautiful woman and it turns out that a very long time before the orc race was cursed by the gods, they were incredibly beautiful and peace-loving.

There's a subplot in Dragons of Summer Flame where a young woman is thought to be the daughter that resulted from this encounter. For some reason Weis & Hickman opted to retcon the short story so the young woman (Usha) could marry Palin (Raistlin's nephew) and didn't want it to be a cousin marriage.

Personally, I'd have preferred that she be Raistlin's daughter - not because I liked her (Usha is a rather unlikable character) - but because Raistlin isn't wholly evil even after he opts to switch allegiance from the causes of Neutrality to the causes of Evil.


All this said, just because animals with tusks might eat vegetation instead of meat, that doesn't mean they're nice or friendly personality-wise. And consider the Jurassic and Cretaceous dinosaurs. There were plenty of horned herbivores, and the reason for this is because they needed a way to defend themselves from the carnivores. You really didn't want to get one of those mad at you, just as you should avoid an angry rhinoceros now.

 

[Zkribbler]

I have never read any fantasy stories where orcs were pacifists,

That line was supposed to read: "Orcs certainly are not pacifists..." I forgot the "not."

The conundrum I'm wresting with is that orc biology has adapted a herbivore defensive measure even though they are an undeniably aggressive species.

A possible solution. Perhaps over the ages, orcs have developed as a "nightmare" species. For example, although orc mages are few and far between, these shaman would be adept at casting fear spells. Orcs use the fear spells and their horrific visages to frighten off would-be attackers and also to cow races they wish to subjugate.

 

[Synobun]

I've rewritten a premise at least seven times by now. Starting to believe I should just skip ahead and ignore it for now. But it's very important. C'est la vie.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I've rewritten a premise at least seven times by now. Starting to believe I should just skip ahead and ignore it for now. But it's very important. C'est la vie.

If it's a premise for a story, maybe the story is telling you that you have the wrong premise. Sometimes characters just "walk in and take over" (as MZB used to say in her essays about writing; as a result of listening to what her subconscious was telling her, she created some characters who would have been much less interesting and popular if she'd left them alone). Or some situations keep wanting to go a different way than how you intended them to go.


I'm still obsessed with Kingmaker. Thank goodness for people who post walkthrough videos on YouTube; I can stop the playback and study the costumes and architecture in the setting (intended to be generic 11th-century Europe - think England, for the most part; the game is specific that it takes place in 1039, in the autumn), and pick up on details I missed while actually playing the game (when you're trying to figure out the puzzles and find the morphing objects, it's easy to miss some of the actual nuances of the setting, story, or characters).

I've taken so many notes for the stories that are demanding to be written, that my fingers are aching (I've been doing longhand notes all day).

The music is nice and relaxing.

 

[Zkribbler]

I've rewritten a premise at least seven times by now. Starting to believe I should just skip ahead and ignore it for now. But it's very important. C'est la vie.

I've never done anything as formal as writing out a premise ahead of time. OTOH, there's no denying you should no where you're going before you start. So, whereas my premise is never finely focused, I have a good idea of the direction I'm going.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I've never done anything as formal as writing out a premise ahead of time. OTOH, there's no denying you should no where you're going before you start. So, whereas my premise is never finely focused, I have a good idea of the direction I'm going.

A premise can be as short as a couple of sentences, so it doesn't need to be that formal.

 

[Synobun]

It's a premise slash prologue. It defines the origin of the protagonist. The way I have it right now is that there was a hero who grew to be idolized, and the story "starts off" with the hero finally bringing peace to the realm. There's a parade, weeks of celebration, etc, but the real story begins when the hero is found dead and the protagonist is shipped off to a prison city due to guilt by proximity.

It just doesn't feel right, though. I have a great deal of the worldbuilding done but the premise and cast is shoddy at best. I could skip ahead but there would naturally be several moments where the protagonist is questioned on where they come from and for that I'd need the premise or I'd need to make liberal use of comment flags for revision.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

It's a premise slash prologue. It defines the origin of the protagonist. The way I have it right now is that there was a hero who grew to be idolized, and the story "starts off" with the hero finally bringing peace to the realm. There's a parade, weeks of celebration, etc, but the real story begins when the hero is found dead and the protagonist is shipped off to a prison city due to guilt by proximity.

It just doesn't feel right, though. I have a great deal of the worldbuilding done but the premise and cast is shoddy at best. I could skip ahead but there would naturally be several moments where the protagonist is questioned on where they come from and for that I'd need the premise or I'd need to make liberal use of comment flags for revision.

I wouldn't mind taking a look at it, if you'd like a fresh opinion. Sometimes a writer gets too close to something and doesn't notice where it might need a little rearranging, or maybe that it really is fine as it is.

 

[Synobun]

I might take you up on that when I'm feeling better. I haven't worked on it for a while because of strep throat and work. It may be that I get an epiphany on it once the clouds part.

 

[Zkribbler]

Using Jeff Lyon's Anatomy of a Premise Line:
https://www.writermag.com/2017/07/06/how-to-structure-a-premise-for-stronger-stories/

Premise Line: [When] some event sparks a character to action, that [character acts] with deliberate purpose [until] that action is opposed by an external force, [leading to] some conclusion.

Specifically, in your case:
When [a briefly defined protagonist] finds a city's beloved hero dead and is falsely sent to prison for the murder, he ...acts with deliberate purpose [until] that action is opposed by an external force, [leading to] some conclusion.

Compare with the premise line from Jaws:
When a fish-out-of-water, big-city cop moves to a small, coastal town dependent on tourism, he must team with an oceanographer and a crusty sailor to convince the doubting, money-grubbing townsfolk to close their beaches because a giant, man-eating shark is lurking just offshore, until the shark strikes, forcing the townsfolk to allow the cop and his buddies to take on the shark mano-a-mano.

And from Twilight:
When 17-year-old Bella agrees to move to nowheresville Forks, Arizona, and live with her estranged father, she finds herself powerfully drawn to classmate and bad-boy vampire Edward Cullen, with whom she begins an obsessive love affair culminating in her desire to be turned into a vampire, until the affair and Bella’s life are threatened by James, a predatory vampire who targets Bella for death because she is a “hard target,” as he loves the hunt more than the kill. This leads Bella to unite with Edward and his vampire family, who kill James, effectively bringing Bella closer into the vampire fold.

I hope this helps.

 

[Synobun]

In general, that's something I already have settled. It's more the specifics once you get into it that are tripping me up. But thank you. That's helpful for the future since it's an objective format to stick to.

 

[Zkribbler]

When I began my Count of Monte Banco parody, I envisioned it as an epic. I even looked up the attributes of an epic and incorporated them into my story, e.g. I began with an invocation to a muse (epic invocation) and, horrors of horrors, even showed divine intervention in human affairs.

What I could not do at the time was to begin in medias res [in the middle of things] because my grip on the story just wasn't strong enough. I therefore began at the beginning. Tonight though, I took a whack at reorganizing the story. Former Chapters 7 & 8 are now Chapters 1 & 2. This gives my story a much more exciting and unique beginning. I now have to figure our how and when to flashback to the original beginning.

Another characteristic I am missing is "the setting is vast, covering many nations, the world or the universe." I do mention distant lands and show how they are affecting my central nation, but none of my characters actually go there. I think the story would be stronger if some did.

An annoying gnat: I've never been able to come up with a name for any of my three continents that doesn't make me want to barf.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

When I began my Count of Monte Banco parody, I envisioned it as an epic. I even looked up the attributes of an epic and incorporated them into my story, e.g. I began with an invocation to a muse (epic invocation) and, horrors of horrors, even showed divine intervention in human affairs.

What I could not do at the time was to begin in medias res [in the middle of things] because my grip on the story just wasn't strong enough. I therefore began at the beginning. Tonight though, I took a whack at reorganizing the story. Former Chapters 7 & 8 are now Chapters 1 & 2. This gives my story a much more exciting and unique beginning. I now have to figure our how and when to flashback to the original beginning.

It's the Star Wars dilemma... A New Hope is actually the middle of the story, and eventually Lucas went back to tell the beginning... and it wasn't as good.

Star Trek's current and immediately previous series are "prequels" but neither is a true prequel to TOS (either in plot, characterization, background, writing style, aesthetics...).

I'm not saying prequels or starting at the beginning is bad - I'm just mentioning the above two examples as how not to do it.

Robert Silverberg made reference to people and events from centuries and millennia in the past on Majipoor, when he wrote his epic Lord Valentine's Castle (which will never be filmed, because Silverberg doesn't trust anyone in Hollywood to do it justice). He wrote a couple of sequels to Lord Valentine's Castle, and then went back and did some prequels, about some of the people he'd mentioned in passing in LVC, and explaining how the political system had developed (the four major powers of Majipoor were, up to the end of Valentine Pontifex, the Coronal, the Pontifex, the Lady of the Isle, and the King of Dreams. Silverberg decided to write about the King of Dreams, and how that came about. This is an example of how to do prequel material right - the pre-LVC material is interesting, and doesn't contradict what came later (in-universe chronology-wise).

This "go back to the beginning" idea is something I've been thinking about in some of my stories, as well. If the main story is any good, people are going to want to know what led up to it. So when I started my Park Ranger fanfic (this year's NaNoWriMo project), I didn't start at the actual campground. The story started with the character still at home, packing to leave, and I created her family (since I plan to throw in a chapter somewhere along the line where they come out for a visit).

Doing "back to the beginning" through flashbacks isn't a bad way to do it, provided it doesn't distract people from the main story. The Handmaid's Tale makes extensive use of flashbacks, where the characters remember something in their pre-Gilead lives. The flashbacks serve as a way of explaining to the audience how the characters interacted before they ended up in a repressive fundamentalist, totalitarian hell, and how that was created. As long as they're done sparingly and appropriately, flashbacks work nicely.

Another characteristic I am missing is "the setting is vast, covering many nations, the world or the universe." I do mention distant lands and show how they are affecting my central nation, but none of my characters actually go there. I think the story would be stronger if some did.

Good point. It helps make those places more real and gives the reader the impression that the immediate setting is part of a vaster whole. My current Kingmaker: Rise to the Throne project is based on a game that takes place in the kingdom of Griffinvale, and there's a mention that 30 years before the game starts, the young Prince (sole heir to the throne) was sent to lead a crusade against... some enemy that isn't named, and we're never told where, exactly, the crusade happened. The game is loosely set in 11th century England (though the surname of the main characters is German).

So while I've fleshed out a lot of what I think happens between the game scenes (such as exactly how the heir to the throne found out he was heir to the throne - by that point in the game everyone knew it but him - and how he reacted), I have yet to tackle the question of who the crusade was against. Time is a bit skewed in this game, and while I haven't spotted any glaring 20th/21st century anachronisms, I did spot a pair of 19th-century suspenders on one of the dead characters. Going by the religious images and the fact that the main characters wear trousers instead of hose, I'm guessing this is a mix of British, Celt, and German cultures and so I'm not even bothering to consider that the crusade had anything to do with some "holy land." Or at least not as it was in real history. So I'll need to make up some place. I've already created a couple of neighboring kingdoms for the story to expand into (after all, when one kingdom gets a new king, it's going to be of interest to other kings as various treaties will need to be reviewed and since the new king is 30 and unmarried, there are possibilities for a marriage alliance).

An annoying gnat: I've never been able to come up with a name for any of my three continents that doesn't make me want to barf.

There are some websites that have really good name generators - everything from modern real-world people to names of taverns, cities, and there's no reason why you couldn't flange up or even find a generator for continents. I'm going to have to look them up myself soon.

 

[Zkribbler]

Oft times when I write here about a problem, a solution will soon thereafter present itself. Although not an exact carbon copy, my world is inspired by our Old World. I've now decided to give my continents Latin names. At first my Africa [where the pivotal Cocoa Wars take place] was going to be called Viriditerram for Greenworld, but I realized that name ignored the Sahara, so I've changed it to hot: Calidum. This makes Europe cold: Frigus. Asia is endless:Aeternum.

My main character was about to go to the palace, where he would bump into the King, who is an ex-slave and adopted son of the now-late King & Queen. My new plan is to break the narration, and devote an entire chapter to his history: being orphaned in the First Cocoa War, captured & enslaved; shipped off to Sugar Island [Zanzibar or Seychelles Island], where the king & queen adopt him. etc.]