Chit-Chat: Random Writing Nonsense

[HollyYoshi]

So, I'm writing a fanfic based on a nuzlocke run of FireRed. And, am I the only person who has trouble beginning a story? Or even individual chapters?

 

[bobandbill]

Veranithas of Pallet Town (woah that's a mouthful :p), stuff like that is certainly fine to post in the main section as its own thread (or a thread for a collection of the such). Poetry and song lyrics have been posted before. Usually if there are some themes of that sort you'd just want to give a word of warning before the actual content (pretty much as you've already done). Go for it!

Rising_Dawn - you're certainly not alone. Even starting a scene in the middle of a chapter can be hard at times. Sometimes it is worth starting as a spot where you do feel more comfortable and then 'working backwards', so you get more of an idea on how you'd want to start the story/chapter.

 

[Nolafus]

Rising_Dawn - you're certainly not alone. Even starting a scene in the middle of a chapter can be hard at times. Sometimes it is worth starting as a spot where you do feel more comfortable and then 'working backwards', so you get more of an idea on how you'd want to start the story/chapter.

Or you could be like me and just keep at the beginning until you're so frustrated you quit for the night.

You know, just throwing out a second option.

 

[moon]

So, I'm writing a fanfic based on a nuzlocke run of FireRed. And, am I the only person who has trouble beginning a story? Or even individual chapters?

God yes. I have this story I've been trying to write and I have parts here and there of it but I can't seem to get the beginning right. I want to convey a certain atmosphere, make the reader really see in their minds what the narrator means and feels. But at the same time I want it to be a really brief chapter, almost like a prologue only it's so important that it has to be a chapter of its own. Sort of. I just can't get the right words out :( maybe I'll just save the beginning for the last, haha.

.. that would actually make great sense, since the person telling the story there has already lived through the whole adventure. Look, I just solved my own problem. Hehe.

 

[IggyKoopa]

Oddly enough, the beginning of a story is the easy part for me and I only start to struggle when it starts to pick up speed and things start happening.

 

[Necrum]

Working on a screenplay for a short horror film, and I need to make sure it's secured. Does anyone here have experience with Creative Commons and similar licenses that can offer advice?

 

[VeranithasVI]

Working on a screenplay for a short horror film, and I need to make sure it's secured. Does anyone here have experience with Creative Commons and similar licenses that can offer advice?

I can't say I do, but I'd like to hear this screenplay, maybe even look at some photographs of it too. You know, for... Entertainment... Purposes...

Stealing the screenplay before you get a creative license on it thus rendering it useless too you

Just joking ^_^' I'll speak too my friend during the day for you and PM/VM you in a few hours if you'd like?

 

[Bay]

Working on a screenplay for a short horror film, and I need to make sure it's secured. Does anyone here have experience with Creative Commons and similar licenses that can offer advice?

Sorry I'm not familiar with Creative Commons. D: I do wish you luck on that screenplay, though! I used to practice writing screenplays on my own back when I was in high school, haha (I would google search examples of screenplays to see how they're written).

As for the topic of hard beginnings, yup been there done that. I usually just write whatever I fancy and then worked backwards as bobandbill mentioned.

 

[Aisu]

Beginnings, I'm straight. Dialogue is where I **** up.

 

[moon]

Oh, dialogue writes itself for me :3 When you've done so much roleplaying, you learn to really make characters come alive inside your head, I guess. I just put them in situations and write what I believe they would have to say to one another. If there's something special I need them to say, I need to find a way to make that seem natural, without using cheap tricks.

... like Steven Moffat. He hardly even uses tricks. He can plant an apple in one scene and have a character mention it randomly and out of context, just because he wants the apple to be important later. But it made no sense for the apple to be in that first place in the first place. Same thing with spoons, apparently. Oh, don't mind me, I'm just grumpy at a silly writer taking a dump at my favorite TV show :p

 

[Aisu]

Aisu can't do that. Aisu has problems with real-world conversations; fictional conversations are out of Aisu's realm of comprehension.

 

[Astinus]

Beginnings were never a problem for me. I always start writing a story with a clear picture in my mind of where I want the story to begin. It's endings that I can never handle. By the time the story is ready to end, I'm just staring at the page, asking myself "How can I possibly end this here? There's more story I want to explore!" And then I give up.

I was told that my dialogue has always sounded natural. Even though I really don't talk to people in real life, I listen in on conversations. I just sit in the room, seeming to not pay attention, but I'm listening on what other people are saying to others. It's that skill that's helped with writing dialogue, since I can pay more attention to the flow of how people talk, rather than trying to think of a response.

 

[Bay]

Dialogue I have a bit of trouble at times, but it's more because lately I'm using characters from other sourced materials and trying to not make them act out of character. Luckily I have betas letting me know when I slip up so that I can fix those right away.

 

[Nolafus]

Dialogue content has never really been an issue with me. Once I relax with writing, it's pretty easy for me to think of what people would say. It's even crossed over into my essay writing, as I kept getting the, "Too conversational" critique in college. Oh well, they just teach writing for a living, what do they know?

But if you've ever read any of my stories, then you know that I just can't get dialogue punctuation to save my life, haha.

 

[ShivaDF]

If you love analyzing character personalities as I do, you will find that getting into your characters' heads becomes easier. As a result, you will know what they'll say, so dialogue becomes easier to write.

Unfortunately, this sometimes means that I will have to get into every single character's shoes.

 

[Venia Silente]

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I would not be one even if I was paid off handsomely. Too much trouble. I haven't even played one on TV. I haven't played anything on TV but a Matrix-esque Agent. I'm not a Matrix-esque Agent. Nor a Nidoran, unfortunately. I'm not a doctor either. Also I'm not from the US so legal aspects will strongly differ. Timezones as well.


@Necrum, re Creative Commons - I have some minor experience with it. Of course, whether it'll work depends on what do you mean by "secured". Just like any license, CC is only useful if you have means to enforce it, ie.: you have the time and money to pursue infringers.

Regardless of license the first step to protect your work against some forms of intellectual theft is to record it in a public or protected registrar of licensed works, such as a patents office, or to record it in a place where there will be a public timestamp that will protect you from "prior art" accusations, such as a personal blog.

 

[Lucky#13]

I'm a little curious of other people's writing approaches. I personally write character based, and develop everything around the characters and their interactions.

 

[pkmin3033]

I'm the opposite - I start with an idea for a plot, then I build the world up around it, starting with key locations and then filling the rest in as I work on the rest of the story (for some reason, I start with the ending or the key plot revelations/twists and then construct it from there) to give it some substance.

Individual characters - their personalities, relationships to one another, etc - come last. They're just the pieces that carry out the story for quite a while for me. The characters are always important, but I like having a fully formed world and plot before I work on them; they fit the story, not the other way around. I'm not sure why I do things this way...might be a product of my early roleplaying days, where we'd design the world first before deciding what our characters were going to do in it. Or maybe it's normal; I dunno, I've never really discussed my writing with anyone, because it's often kinda spontaneous and difficult to explain. xD

 

[gnmmarechal]

I'm the opposite - I start with an idea for a plot, then I build the world up around it, starting with key locations and then filling the rest in as I work on the rest of the story (for some reason, I start with the ending or the key plot revelations/twists and then construct it from there) to give it some substance.

Individual characters - their personalities, relationships to one another, etc - come last. They're just the pieces that carry out the story for quite a while for me. The characters are always important, but I like having a fully formed world and plot before I work on them; they fit the story, not the other way around. I'm not sure why I do things this way...might be a product of my early roleplaying days, where we'd design the world first before deciding what our characters were going to do in it. Or maybe it's normal; I dunno, I've never really discussed my writing with anyone, because it's often kinda spontaneous and difficult to explain. xD

I like the way you think, I also do it like this.

 

[Astinus]

The plot always comes first for me. Once I know my starting point and where I want the story to end, the players come into action. Any actual development about the characters outside of the basics come along as the story gets written. It's the same with any development about the world. That gets discovered as the story goes on, and once I hit the end of the story, then I go back and fill in any holes or anything.

Very rarely, I decide that I want to write about a particular set of characters. Right after I decide who to write about, I need a plot to work towards so I can actually write anything.