Watcha Writin'?

[Valka D'Ur]

Ow.

Yeah, the SCA people at Pine Creek are more than a wee bit confused when a guy speaking with an odd accent* claims to be the King of Griffinvale, and they've never heard of that Kingdom (there used to be only 12 in the Knowne World, but there are more now). This is just a fun little "fish out of water, displaced by approximately 1000 years" side story that I dreamed up. I suddenly had an image and conversation pop into my mind in which my female Park Ranger finds this guy after he accidentally gets clocked by a stray baseball, and thinks he's temporarily out of his mind when he insists he really was born in the year 1009 and is the king of a place nobody has ever heard of.

*I'm taking creative liberties here, since the English spoken in the 11th century isn't much like ours. King Randall Harding and Ranger Sarah Jones wouldn't be able to understand each other if they were to really meet.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

@Valka D'Ur invited me over here. I don't usually venture outside of off-topic so I hope I don't forget this thread is here.

I'm currently writing a Mass Effect fanfic. (If anyone wants to hear more about the actual plot of the thing, PM me.)

I've actually been working on it since April or May. It was supposed to be a one-shot, but it just kept getting longer and longer and then I started losing track of what exactly was going on (like some characters getting drenched by a rainstorm while inside a building). So I decided to start it over and this time in chapters.

I use Scrivener for Windows and FocusWriter in conjunction. Scrivener keeps everything nice and organized. I split it up into chapters, and then scenes. Then I use the External Folder Sync to send the draft files to another folder, and do the actual writing part in FocusWriter.

The original super-messy draft (with random notes in the middle of the narrative and duplicate rewritten versions of scenes and all sorts of stuff like that) was some 10,000 words. The new one is currently about 5,600 words but I haven't finished rewriting the old stuff yet.

All the starred days are the ones where I hit my daily goal (which was 100 words, and then 200 words more recently). On really good days I can even write something like 300-500 words. That's slow compared to some people but I'm happy enough with that.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

@Valka D'Ur invited me over here. I don't usually venture outside of off-topic so I hope I don't forget this thread is here.

I'm currently writing a Mass Effect fanfic. (If anyone wants to hear more about the actual plot of the thing, PM me.)

I've actually been working on it since April or May. It was supposed to be a one-shot, but it just kept getting longer and longer and then I started losing track of what exactly was going on (like some characters getting drenched by a rainstorm while inside a building). So I decided to start it over and this time in chapters.

I use Scrivener for Windows and FocusWriter in conjunction. Scrivener keeps everything nice and organized. I split it up into chapters, and then scenes. Then I use the External Folder Sync to send the draft files to another folder, and do the actual writing part in FocusWriter.

The original super-messy draft (with random notes in the middle of the narrative and duplicate rewritten versions of scenes and all sorts of stuff like that) was some 10,000 words. The new one is currently about 5,600 words but I haven't finished rewriting the old stuff yet.

All the starred days are the ones where I hit my daily goal (which was 100 words, and then 200 words more recently). On really good days I can even write something like 300-500 words. That's slow compared to some people but I'm happy enough with that.

Welcome to our writing community, Aimee.

You have more discipline than I have right now, in cleaning up the duplicated and revised versions of your story. I haven't done that with mine yet. I'm still deciding where some of the separate smaller incidents fit into the story.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

In one part of the original draft (it was just one big file) there were three different versions of a half-finished scene along with a bunch of text strings that I copied out of the game's subtitles file. I'm not sure what exactly I was doing there.

I just dumped the original file into Scrivener's research folder. The current draft I decided to start fresh, and aside from a few repurposed scenes (and lots of reused dialogue/descriptions) it doesn't resemble the old one much at all.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Shuffling scenes and dialogue among different versions makes sense, if they work in all versions. In my own situation, I suddenly wondered how the story would play out if the pov character in the game (Edmund) was not rescued by Duke William. That would mean there would be nobody to rescue Edmund's brother, Randall, from the villains.

So that meant killing off Edmund, and I decided that the reason Duke William wasn't there to do it was because he never made it to the capital city in the first place (the game events take place in and around the capital city of the Kingdom of Griffinvale; Edmund and Randall are the sons of another duke - William's friend).

This took the story in an entirely new direction. The game events have the king's murder (Edmund and Randall were framed for it), and everything else including the coronation of the true heir to the throne all taking place over the course of a single day. But my version has the "same-day events" only so far. The coronation of the true heir doesn't take place for another 2-3 years.

As for whether there's the part about having to search for the legendary crown of King Edwin the Great... that's in the game, but I don't know if I'd include it in my alternative version. It introduces magic into the story, and my alternative version has less paranormal stuff than the original. But since most of what I introduced (to make things mesh with that unexpected "the crown really does have magical powers" the developers introduced) happens years before the actual game events, I suppose I will have to keep it.

Somehow. I'd love to kill off the villains in some ordinary way, rather than the magic-based way it happens in the game; maybe the developers were squeamish about having traitors actually executed, as they would have been in real history (the game takes place in the early 11th century). I've introduced some of these more realistic aspects even in the version that follows the game events to the end. My version of the villains (the male villains, at least) do end up executed rather than just put in the dungeon. As for the female villains... I'm still thinking about that. The game has only one and she was dealt with magically. My version has more than one, and I plan to have the new king wrestle with his conscience a bit to decide what to do about them.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

My story actually changed a couple of the events throughout the ME trilogy (or if not the events themselves, the context behind the events), because the way they were canonically would not make sense with my version of Commander Shepard. Although the one change I made to the ending of the game seems relatively minor at first, I realized I'd have to figure out what kind of motives and stuff led up to it. Then it started ballooning from there.

I'm not sure what kind of fanfic this would be. Originally I thought it would be a fix fic but I don't think so now. And I'm not sure if I'd call it an alternate universe fic.

 

[Zkribbler]

@Valka D'Ur That's slow compared to some people but I'm happy enough with that.

Good. This isn't a race.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

My current goal is 250 words a day. I've been slowly increasing it. I guess it's kind of like not trying to run a full marathon on your first try.

Current streak: 11 days.

 

[Zkribbler]

I'm stumped right now in Monte Banco. In my head, I've divided the story into fourths, each with four chapters, each chapter being 6-9 single-spaced pages. I'm now working on the final fourth. Due to the Count of Monte Cristo origin, I'm working with multiple villains, to wit three. One villain fell in Chapter 13. The second shall fall in Chapter 14. The final falls in Chapter 15. Chapter 16 is a return to normalcy.

My first draft of Chapter 14 is a minuscule 3 pages. This is where I'm stuck. I haven't been able to stretch the 3-page fall of Villain 2 out to at least 6 pages. An alternative solution is to put part at the beginning of the chapter and the rest at the end of the chapter. In the middle I could insert 3 pages concluding a currently-hanging subplot.

The subplot involves a deranged gnome bank teller who has plans to conquer the world. He has constructed an "army" of golems. But I'm drawing a blank as to what do do with them and how to stop/destroy them.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Sometimes if I find that if I'm stuck on how to get from point A to B, it helps to start writing out B. Sometimes then your mind is able to fill in the blanks.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Current writing streak: 14 days.

Daily goal: 250 words for last five days. Bumped it up to 300.

Why are tenses so hard to get right?

 

[Zkribbler]

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7445800/1/Stealing-Time

I have this recurring delusion that I can exorcise the Terry Pratchett out of "Stealing Time," my fanfic sequel to his Pyramids and use the remnants to build a new, original story which tiptoes around copyright laws. I love my "Stealing Time," because it is so funny, clever, and inventive. However truth be told, the reason it is so funny, clever, and inventive is because of all the Terry Pratchett content. Once that is gone, I'm standing in the Garden of Eden without a fig leaf.

I tried a revision with Ankh-Morpork replaced by Atlantis and a sci-fi version where the stoppage of time is caused by colliding black holes. Didn't work.

I still refuse to learn from my past mistakes and am back at it again.

As an aside, Pratchett cavalierly used the phrase "Smoking Mirror of Grism," without explanation or description. In my "Stealing Time," the Smoking Mirror of Grism is described in detail and is central to the story. I can now use it in my revision if I change its name to, say, the Smoking Discoball of Travolta.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Turning fanfic into original fiction usually doesn't work too well (though it might sell decently, cough...). Because everything's just so intertwined together and you have to change the entire context of the thing and then it may as well no longer be the same story. It might be easier to start your own world.

Current writing streak: 16 days. Up to 300 words now.

 

[Zkribbler]

It might be easier to start your own world.

Admittedly, this would be the smart thing to do, albeit I think you mean "own story" rather than "own world."

E.g. My very first fanfic ever was Casablanca told from Yvonne's point of view. To "un-Casablanca" it, I made it sci-fi and set it on a space station. I sent it to my editor for her to determine whether this was a sufficient disguise. She opined it was clearly Casablanca.

Current writing streak: 16 days. Up to 300 words now.

I'm impressed.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I got a little mixed up there.

What's funny though is that although I like writing, I find it hard. Because a lot of my thoughts actually come in pictures and vague impressions instead of actual words. (It might be an autism spectrum thing.) So trying to figure out how to turn those into words takes a while. It comes out pretty nice when I get it right though.

 

[Zkribbler]

I have plunged heedlessly into my un-facfic-afied version of "Stealing Time," turning out 350 words.
This is where so many of my stories turn to poo because I can't get the voice right. Pratchett uses a mirthful voice as does my "Stealing Time." For the first half of these new 350 words, there is no mirth. But then it kicks in.

Pyramids is set in a Pratchett version of Egypt. My "Stealing Time" sequel begins there as well. For my latest story. I have moved south to Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile. I have made this a highly magical lake...I don't know why. Two nonos in opening a story is to begin with weather or to begin with dialogue. Here, my main character begins by talking about the weather. My writing method here is a little like Mr. Toad's wild ride from "The Wind and the Willows." I'm having a wonderful time doing everything wrong.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I have moved south to Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile. I have made this a highly magical lake...I don't know why.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Tana

There might be something there that gives you an idea of why it's magical. Uh, volcanic activity? Monasteries? Fish?

 

[Zkribbler]

Thanks but I failed to make myself clear. The lake is magical because of various rare minerals in the water (maybe because of a nearby comet strike). What I meant was I don't know why I put a magical lake into my story. My main character isn't a mage, and she's about to leave town anyway.

Real life Lake Tana has only one river that flows away...through a deep ravine and over a waterfall to later converge with the While Nile at Khartoum. As I now think of it, I can have a lot of fun sending my hapless MC down a magical river.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Because it's cool?

Honestly I like it when stories have irrelevant background details. Because if everything somehow becomes relevant to the plot it just becomes painful.

Current streak: 19 days.

 

[Zkribbler]

767 words in, but I'm getting worried. Neither a character arc nor a theme has yet gelled in my mind.

I'm also worried about pacing. My MC has a long journey ahead of her from her home village down the magical [Blue Nile] to [Khartoum] and from there to the pyramids. Once I get to whatever I will substitute in for Ankh-Morpork, there's only a few more chapters until the end of the story.