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Writing Discussion Thread
- Thread starter The_Wright_Way
- Start date
Peppersalt43
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makes sense. That stuff's always really cool. What have you come up with?
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A good example is in the sci-fi/fantasy style of my series. So I have a version of Elves/Fae, but was able to take it in a fairly unique direction. So I combined tropes from both genres. For instance I used the sci-fi trope of an ancient Precursor species alongside a lot of general fair folk tropes. I think it goes in the New Weird direction for them because they are Eldritch Horrors in a usually humanoid form.
On first glance a lot of Elves look like a significantly taller and more colorful version of humans with pointy ears. But Elves technically don’t have any given form. You can technically call their appearance a cultural style to an extent. They are extreme shapeshifters, descended from gods. A person looking at Elves assuming the appearance couldn’t tell the difference but they could.
They had really weird super senses. There is the less strange like being able to see the entire electromagnetic spectrum. But they can also view souls, consciousness and other things which is actually how they perceive each other. Also the Elves became affected by “The Great Ignorance” where they eventually forgot their own shapelessness and immortality.
On first glance a lot of Elves look like a significantly taller and more colorful version of humans with pointy ears. But Elves technically don’t have any given form. You can technically call their appearance a cultural style to an extent. They are extreme shapeshifters, descended from gods. A person looking at Elves assuming the appearance couldn’t tell the difference but they could.
They had really weird super senses. There is the less strange like being able to see the entire electromagnetic spectrum. But they can also view souls, consciousness and other things which is actually how they perceive each other. Also the Elves became affected by “The Great Ignorance” where they eventually forgot their own shapelessness and immortality.
Peppersalt43
She/Her- 25,901
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Huh, that's a classic elf trope. Having them afflicted by some horrid disaster that weakened them beyond their previous power. Plus elves being very liberal with their form does pop up every now and then
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Yeah it’s a modification of preexisting classical elf tropes. But when I say extreme shapeshifters, I mean they are not humanoid beings, and don’t even have “default forms”. They are explicitly formless. It’s a mixture of Elder Things and classic elves.
Like they actually developed a written language before a spoken one, because they didn’t always have mouths even before their humanoid forms.
Peppersalt43
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Try looking at the D&D page, you can probably find something there
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Honestly, it also gets tiresome just how much nowadays writters try to garner audiences by pandering to them with fanservice tropes and power fantasy to a patronizing degree. I mean, there's nothing wrong with escapism and related elements, but I think it's done to an exaggerated degree nowadays, so much things are more concerned to make the reader/viewer/player feels special that they don't try to tell anything or have genuinely good ideas that take a backseat. I guess one could just stay away from those stories, but audiences become spoiled by this and then complain when they aren't given this sort of crap. A typical example is complaining that the hero is "too flawed", that the female characters had the gall to "not fall in love with the hero", stories worshipping pettiness or revenge, etc. Not long ago Solo Leveling had an episode where Sun Jin Wooh's mother was saved and he broke down in tears out of happiness of seeing her, but the episode was downvoted to oblivion because according to fans that "hurt his aura".
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Clearly they have never read the Odyssey
Peppersalt43
She/Her- 25,901
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That is oddly specific
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Yeeeeh... I've been a negative nancy for a bit too long. I apologize for that. Say, on a more positive note. What works have inspired the stuff you guys write? Could be anything, another series, book, music. Who knows. I personally take a lot from this:
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Say I was thinking about this for a couple of days, lol. Did you manage to write the story in the end?
Peppersalt43
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Death Battle of course! A lot of my characters are often inspired by others from fiction. I did start out writing crossover fics after all, and DB gave new ways to have them interact!
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A lot of my own inspiration comes from different series. (Deltarune, Re:Zero, Infinite Straros, and Darling in the Franxx)
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Does powerscaling affect your writting, out of curiosity? Kinda like when you go for a crossover you stumble thinking "X logically should beat Y or match up to Z" and all that?
Yeh, that's pretty neat as well. How your favorite works also shape your own. Out of curiosity in which way they do? Story, characters, themes, action? You know.
Peppersalt43
She/Her- 25,901
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I mostly just consider what powerset the characters have and who they scale to. If there's a gap, I try to work around that
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Yeah, that's pretty good. Keep it in mind enough to avoid inconsistencies, but not to the point it becomes an issue.
I actually struggle at moments with it, feeling I made a character too strong for a given situation or drama. Not even that powerful, kinda like, the character can, I dunno, punch rocks to pieces and then I try to come with a situation and keep thinking "can't they just use their superhuman strength to escape?".
Funnily, I was trying to make a magic system of sorts based on Hermeticism and Gnosticism (because the whole idea that humans have a more "elevated" and closer to the divine is a plot point) but when going on it I was thinking... "this translated to VS stuff lingo is kinda broken... or am I thinking too much?".
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powerscaling is my writing, everything else is secondary
tbh, "Powerscaling" ie defining your character's powers and abilities within your novel or fanfic is a huge appeal, knowing and deciding upon your character's abilities and limitations can create a lot of hype and make the readers engaged, especially when you focus on the collateral damage of the attacks made by the character, you can create many dynamic qnd amazing to imagine scenes
slashing hills, slashing a mountain, destroying an island etc, you should also try to implement people saying how impressive the character's feats are without making it seem like too much, it adds to the impact it the scenes and powers will have
you do have to stay consistent tho, ie you should avoid "anti feats"
powerscaling did affect my writing, but ig, in a positive sens rather than a negative one...
Peppersalt43
She/Her- 25,901
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always remember the saying of powerscaling deniers.powerscaling is my writing, everything else is secondary
tbh, "Powerscaling" ie defining your character's powers and abilities within your novel or fanfic is a huge appeal, knowing and deciding upon your character's abilities and limitations can create a lot of hype and make the readers engaged, especially when you focus on the collateral damage of the attacks made by the character, you can create many dynamic qnd amazing to imagine scenes
slashing hills, slashing a mountain, destroying an island etc, you should also try to implement people saying how impressive the character's feats are without making it seem like too much, it adds to the impact it the scenes and powers will have
you do have to stay consistent tho, ie you should avoid "anti feats"
powerscaling did affect my writing, but ig, in a positive sens rather than a negative one...
"Most authors do not know about powerscaling. They put shit in because it's cool and they never expected anything to go beyond building level. Checkmate, calc people".
i legit doubt an author never puts any thought to powescaling, writing without thinking is hard, but i guess consistencies arising fron being misinformed or forgetting gets in the way of a consistent powerscaling chain, that, or the desire for a cool scene transcends their desire to keep the story consistent
How do you even add too many descriptions...
And i mean, it depends on your writing style and what you want to convey?
Because repetition is often times useful in writing since it can build a "rythm" and an "atmosphere".
For example:
"i am"
A dark star.
A star as dark as the darkest night.
In the valley of dead stars.
A metaphysical space where every end manifests and takes form.
The abyss of the black star.
A long deep pillar.
A starlight, trajectory, a light that bites it's own tail.
And....chaos
"The one who chases the darkest star."
You just gotta be a more specifc about that...
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I think there’s a difference between what I call "Functional Powerscaling" and the VSBW approach of "Internet Powerscaling". I think it’s more that writers don’t care about powerscaling beyond keeping stories consistent. It’s just that very few writers will focus on powerscaling.
There’s not much difference between Town level or City level without using calcs. And I think there are things that the author doesn’t consider to be powerful or at least doesn’t think about how much energy it would take.
As people have pointed out, it’s still powerscaling to say Character A is drastically stronger than Character B, but most authors only use it as a function to serve the story, rather than the other way around, like I see at VSBW sometimes.
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I think the best alternative to overuse adverbs is increasing vocabulary, and figure out different ways to say something. Instead of using an adverb, you can describe the action in depth. Though it depends on how you write, I will often leave short notes for myself to change certain thing later, instead of letting it slow me down.
How many of you all listen to music to get the ideas properly running.
I get a creativity boost whenever i listen to specific music or watch edits, I even started making playlists for specific writing categories, wondering how many people are the same lol.
I get a creativity boost whenever i listen to specific music or watch edits, I even started making playlists for specific writing categories, wondering how many people are the same lol.
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Yeah, I actually get ideas for scenarios and such precisely by listening to music. I usually listen to music when working or writting other stuff (even got Spotify precisely for that, lol) and a specific track may spark something I think I can use. Also listen when writting a scene, but it's awkward that the track ends before I finish writting the scene so I have to loop it like 30 times.
Youtube and Spotify playlist are great in that regard. Made me realize I'm into Trip Hop and Nine Inch Nails for some reason, lol.
Peppersalt43
She/Her- 25,901
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So that's what those 10 hour videos are for
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Jokes aside? Yes, they are helpful in this kind of scenario. Though putting a song on loop achives a similar result.
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It's not just music, but I have a few playlists for writing.
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Did you work in the end on that story about that streamer girl with science powers to fight an evil alien empire?
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I got through the first two chapters and decided I actually wanted to start with her already being a hero, instead of starting with an origin story. Like how the new Batman starts a year in.
For now it’s on hiatus in favor of an isekai fanfic I was working on which I ended up just making its own thing.
Nice to hear it's not just a me thing
Man i owe a lot of cool scenes to music artists and editors lol.
Man i owe a lot of cool scenes to music artists and editors lol.
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That’s cool. I ended up doing something similar. Not that origin stories don’t have a place, but I was inspired by the original Star Wars, and decided to start later than my original beginning. So my main character is already semi known as a hero but isn’t super famous yet.
I figured out a way to balance easing readers into the world without having to dump a shit ton of exposition. I took a note from KotOR and my mc has amnesia which allows me to drip feed lore in an interconnected way to the plot.
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For me I just didn’t want to have to go through a whole training arc immediately to start the story, on some demon slayer (Her origin would necessitate that). I want to immediately jump into Floodman Arc, who is supposed to be her first arch nemesis/super powered being as a sci-fi superhero.
Edit: Floodman is gonna be a direct commentary on some of the complaints people pointed out about her being a “Mary-Sue”. I always planned that, but the response I got from someone before made me decide to push that up.
Still gonna tell the origin, but I’m now reserving it for a flashback.
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What symbolism did you weave into your work that you’re most proud of?
cause i have 2 and one of them is the name of this account
tho it isn't all of it.
Really curious if anyone could share lol.
cause i have 2 and one of them is the name of this account
tho it isn't all of it.
Really curious if anyone could share lol.
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Damn, they revived this thread
Just want to point out that writing and thinking about writing are completly different things.
I tried to do a small funny comic and it took me a whole day to make two pages out of 4, and most of it was thinking about panelization
It's almost a puzzle
You won't really know how good you're once you try it fr cuz you will never be capable to materialize your thoughts 1:1, and sometimes it only looks good in your head
Just want to point out that writing and thinking about writing are completly different things.
I tried to do a small funny comic and it took me a whole day to make two pages out of 4, and most of it was thinking about panelization
It's almost a puzzle
You won't really know how good you're once you try it fr cuz you will never be capable to materialize your thoughts 1:1, and sometimes it only looks good in your head
yup, when i first started it was also quite challenging at first, tho i did get the hang of it as i wrote more.
Not the greatest work but i guess it was good for me lol.
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There is the recurring theme of fate and choice, because the setting runs on what I call semi-predestination. This is directly inspired by Norse Mythology, but even the gods of the setting can be subject to the whims of Fate. But it's really complicated. It's a blend of bunch of stuff, but the lore is also pretty heavily Zoroastrian coded. I use overarching themes to create different groups of gods, but they aren't the apex of the lore, but they are the highest people that are interacted with in the setting.What symbolism did you weave into your work that you’re most proud of?
cause i have 2 and one of them is the name of this account
tho it isn't all of it.
Really curious if anyone could share lol.
But going back to the motif of fate I've been toying around with the theme of being trapped by destiny. In my story, it used as element of horror, because my mc is kinda chosen and it's not a good thing. It's like the Dr. Manhattan quote, he is born with "divine/true sight" beyond the other mortals in the setting, but this means he is only person who can clearly see they are not free.
I will also admit that that its probably the biggest story element in the my current lore that can be traced back to Berserk.
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