Watcha Writin'?

[Sarin]

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.

Alright, done. Have fun with it.

 

[Zkribbler]

As I was making the switch over to my new laptop, I found my password to my fan fiction stories of long ago. One began in a nautical souvenir shop called Cecil Seychelles Sells Seashells to Seasick Sailors and
Shell-shocked Soldiers. This blossomed into an idea of a multitude of mom & pop shoppes. However, putting this working economy into my current story would expand it into a novel. Although tempting, I don't think I want to go there.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

As I was making the switch over to my new laptop, I found my password to my fan fiction stories of long ago. One began in a nautical souvenir shop called Cecil Seychelles Sells Seashells to Seasick Sailors and
Shell-shocked Soldiers. This blossomed into an idea of a multitude of mom & pop shoppes. However, putting this working economy into my current story would expand it into a novel. Although tempting, I don't think I want to go there.

Why not? Robert Asprin did, several decades ago (a lot of what he wrote was in the fantasy-humor-satire hybrid genre). If you haven't read any of his novels, you should. They're hilarious.

 

[Zkribbler]

Why not?

My target is less than17,000 words. Even a short novel would be four times that.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

My target is less than17,000 words. Even a short novel would be four times that.

Can you not incorporate it into a different project?

 

[Zkribbler]

Can you not incorporate it into a different project?

Sure. I feel uncomfortable that I've yet to name the city. So another project is certainly doable.
Earlier, Thunderhead City appeared in two novels: my high fantasy detective story and my orc bank caper. But it's a riverport. My thief city is on the ocean.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Sure. I feel uncomfortable that I've yet to name the city. So another project is certainly doable.
Earlier, Thunder City appeared in two novels: my high fantasy detective story and my orc bank caper. But it's a riverport. My thief city is on the ocean.

There are name generators for every possible reason you could have to name something - including cities, towns, rivers, planets...

Something I used to do back when I still had my globe is that I'd spin it, close my eyes, and randomly put my finger on some point of it. Wherever I landed would become inspiration for a place-name or some alien character's name.

I have to wonder how many people who play King's Heir think the city of Griffinvale is located on the ocean. I figured out that it couldn't possibly be, because if it was, they'd have a serious problem with fresh drinking water, water for cooking and cleaning, and a significant area of the city would be underwater at every high tide (including the main characters' home). Therefore, it must be located on a vast freshwater lake.

In this picture below, the foreground is a small fishing village across from the capital city. One character rows across the bay from the village to the landing near his home, which is so close to the water that I have the characters joke that they can lower a fishing line out their bedroom window and catch breakfast (okay, it's not quite that close, but it's a very short stone's throw). I had screenshots of the harbor and dock, but can't find them right now. These, plus a map one of the characters finds were all I needed to figure out that they live on a lake instead of the ocean.

The tallest part of the white building in the city is the Tower (prison & torture chamber), the castle is a bit lower, and the main characters live in a ramshackle building on the waterfront that's part residence, part office, warehouse, stable, armory, and gosh knows what else (I'll think of something). This residence is on the right-hand side of the city, just out of view (since we can't see the harbor gates either, and they're visible from the docks close to the residence).

Where I'm going with this is that no matter what geographical features you have in your story, you need to consider the basics: Where do they get their water for drinking, cooking, and cleaning? How do they dispose of waste? (that's one thing I need to work out, since I don't want Griffinvale to be a smelly sewer even if it's more historically correct).

Is transportation via water something that happens? In my story, I decided that the primary industries of Griffinvale are fishing and farming, and there's a harbor, which means there's also a shipyard somewhere fairly close. They have a vast lake, there's a river that feeds the lake, and farmland near the city. There are canals within the city (not huge ones like Venice, but they'd serve as transport conduits for some things).

 

[Zkribbler]

Where I'm going with this is that no matter what geographical features you have in your story, you need to consider the basics: Where do they get their water for drinking, cooking, and cleaning?

Water isn't much of a concern in my current story, in that most of it takes place inside or underground. But if I write a sequel, based upon the city's mom & pop economy, then I'll have to think about this a lot.

This concept does have an application vis-a-vis my crime lord. Chap 1 establishes my main character is in prison (leaving his family destitute). In Chap 2 his kid sister seeks out the crime lord seeking to replace my main character. Originally, I envisioned my crime lord as an Al Capone type (but with class). If so, his army of crooks wouldn't be in dire need to replace a single burglar. Moreover, a crime-ridden city would be a nightmare worthy of Charles Dickson, a bleak slum of hopelessness. I want something prettier. So my crime lord must import wealth [like a river]. He will be a pirate king, bringing in wealth from outside the city, retaining only a few burglars for special jobs.

How do they dispose of waste?

I'm an expert. My part of the Philippines has no sewers. Each house has its own septic tank.

Is transportation via water something that happens?

There's a harbor for pirate sloops.

There are canals within [my] city (not huge ones like Venice, but they'd serve as transport conduits for some things).

My story is inspired by the "Thief" computer games. In one of the episodes of Thief 2, Garrett swims across the city in the canals to evade the city watch.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I'm an expert. My part of the Philippines has no sewers. Each house has its own septic tank.

Lucky you. They don't have septic tanks in 11th-century Griffinvale. So I might borrow an idea from C.J. Cherryh's Merovingen Nights shared-world series. A group of renegade scientists develop some totally organic way of cleaning up the filth in the canals.

Mind you, that series takes place in the 33rd century... but Merovingen has been scoured of most advanced technology (the most advanced they got is an illicit telegraph system, and the wealthy have basic electricity, basic revolvers, and basic motors for their boats; the common people still make do with candles, swords, knives, and poles and oars).

 

[Zkribbler]

There are name generators for every possible reason you could have to name something - including cities,

My generation of Medieval city names created only 16 lame-o names. My city is going to be a pirate haven, albeit with a "good" governor and a reasonably powerful church. (They both secretly welcome pirate doubloons.) Scanning pirate ship names, I derived Doubloon Bay.

From Steam, I am installing FlowScape for geography and 3D Home Design for buildings.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

From Steam, I am installing FlowScape for geography and 3D Home Design for buildings.

How much are they, and will they do castles, moats, etc.? Not that the castle in Griffinvale has a moat, per se. It is nearly surrounded by a huge lake, though.

(this would be easier to verify if the game developers had shown a couple of scenes from different angles, but they couldn't have known that one of their customers would become addicted enough to want a proper map and blueprints for the major buildings mentioned in the game)

 

[Zkribbler]

How much are they, and will they do castles, moats, etc.?

3d home design ~$5; flowscape , $8. But prices in the Philippines tend to be less than in the 1st World.
IIRC, Flowscape has the outside of castles, but it's been a long time since I put it in my cart, so

 

[Zkribbler]

Flowscape has the outside of castles, but it's been a long time since I put it in my cart, so

I just checked YouTube, and yeah, this is correct.
The other just does modern houses.

 

[Zkribbler]

Oooooh, here's a deliciously deranged idea for my sequel: Blend in my cursed airship story. It begins in the prospering city of Cornucopia on the shores of the Godforsaken Sea. No ship dares to venture out into those towering waves so fishing is done from the shore using trained seabirds. Trade is carried on via huge airships.

My crime lord would still be a pirate king, but his pirate sloops would prowl the skies instead of the seas.

 

[GenMarshall]

Right now, I’m just laying down my ideas on creating a form of comic book therapy for myself after leaving and abandoning the Anti-SJW community and the Alt-Lite.

The general overall plot centers around a high/blood elven woman, who is serving as an author avatar and a surrogate character for me, who’s been seduced by the Nationalist Party (I’m sort of spinning this off from DYOS and having it be like a stand alone like Solo and Rouge One). In the process she alienates herself from her friend (She saw her sister fell sway to the Nationalists and is deeply upset seeing her friend follow in her footsteps). Down the road, she finds the errors of her ways and leaves the Nationalist party and reunites with her old friend.

 

[Zkribbler]

GenMarshall, sounds most interesting.

Oooooh, here's a deliciously deranged idea for my sequel: Blend in my cursed airship story.

I'll have to modify Chap. 2, in which my MC's kid sister is taken by rowboat to a cavern which leads to a secret entrance into the palace. Because travel in the Godforsaken Sea is impossible, she will have to use the method utilized by my evil Inquisitor in my Cursed Airship story, fly in on the back of a wyvern.

In Chap 4, my MC and his brother walk along the sea; now, they will walk along the top of the sea levee wall against which giant waves crash. They pass a ship unloading ice from the arctic; now, it'll be an airship.

Edit:
I was watching a YouTube video by Meglatorre, in which she discusses overused fantasy tropes. One was overusing medieval European settings, e.g. nobility. I remembered that historically Holland lost its heirless King during the Age of Exploration. The rising merchant class set up a republic with themselves in charge. My current big bads are the earl & his lady. There's no reason they can't instead be part of a plutocratic republic. Indeed my crime lord would fit right in.
I rewrote Chap. 1. This didn't work at all.

 

[Zkribbler]

From Steam, I am installing FlowScape for geography.

Of course, as with all modern games, there were no instructions. So I started randomly clicking. Everything went blurry, and I couldn't get back to normal.

So another project is certainly doable.

Oooooh, here's a deliciously deranged idea for my sequel: Blend in my cursed airship story. It begins in the prospering city of Cornucopia on the shores of the Godforsaken Sea. No ship dares to venture out into those towering waves so fishing is done from the shore using trained seabirds. Trade is carried on via huge airships.

I toyed around with a second project set in the same city. It begins on an sky ship over the Godforsaken Sea approaching the rich trading hub of Cornucopia. I turned out about 500 words.

 

[Kyriakos]

Reworked this flash fiction:

The Stir



When I was little, I used to lie in bed at night looking at images in my encyclopedia, of monstrous fish which live at the bottom of the oceans. I was oblivious of the underlying meaning of this persistent habit, for in reality my childish interest was not about the actual sea, but what it symbolized: I was concerned by my inner sea and the deep abysses within myself.
I’ve had the sense of being below sea level for many years now... Everything in my thoughts is in flux, swimming about on its own in the deep, while I, almost incapable of autonomous movement, am swept by powerful currents and lulled by passing, magnificent sea creatures.
It is as if I dwell below the surface, in secret caverns of the sea. I feel no intimacy with anything sensual, those things almost repel me. To me the sensual forms become diminished and distorted and my connection to the world of the senses is almost severed: only a few worries, vague hopes and indistinct ends remain.
In stark contrast to that, to the deep, where my thoughts perpetually wander, I am bound by a very sturdy rope which stretches out the full distance, with its other end firmly tied around my waist.

Sometimes I think that I am only expected to touch that rope, and pull it even a little bit towards me: Whatever lies at the other end will thus be signaled and begin its journey to reach me. Then, regardless of the massive distance originally separating us, the gravest of stirs will be instantly felt in the waters around me...

Spoiler :

I also narrated it:

 

[Zkribbler]

I'm back to working on "Yule," my Viking Christmas story. It's about this time of year, editors choose their stories for December editions.

 

[Zkribbler]

Oooooh, here's a deliciously deranged idea for my sequel: Blend in my cursed airship story. It begins in the prospering city of Cornucopia on the shores of the Godforsaken Sea. No ship dares to venture out into those towering waves so fishing is done from the shore using trained seabirds. Trade is carried on via huge airships.

My crime lord would still be a pirate king, but his pirate sloops would prowl the skies instead of the seas.

Erase, erase, erase. I'm reverting back to my original story.