The Writing Thread

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Garth Ennis solidified my prejudice against anyone with the name Garth, it’s an untrustworthy and scummy name. I hate everything the man’s ever made and have the opposite opinion regarding capes.

As the reality of war is shown to more and more people, the myth that being a soldier is in anyway heroic or noble is widely acknowledged as a tool to control and idealize a lie to be propagated to children by their parents. His military fetishism being idolized by jarheads, cops and boomers was inevitable and no “HUR DURRRRR FRANK WOULD HATE YOU,” cope will stop that. It’s funny that Frank Castle, his version no less in MAX is idolized by people Garth hates.
One definitely gets the impression that he's the kind of tedious queermo who dildoes himself raw to History Channel dubya dubya two documentaries.
 
Half way done with the rough draft of plot points, you guys were right about focusing more on the actual story first. I'm actually getting excited to write again for the first time in months.
 
I would've probably liked comics more if I was exposed to them more often as a kid, but trying to read almost any of them now bores me and I end up skimming through pages if not chapters at a time or losing interest entirely. The last one that actually held my attention from start to finish was The Boys and that was more out of morbid curiosity/comparing it to the dogshit TV show than genuinely thinking it was good. Though actually I'll at least give Ennis credit for being funnier in his crude grotesque way than the gayniggers who adapted it for Amazon. He's a greasy pretentious commie retard who jacks off onto his bust of Stalin daily, but he can still be funny in spite of himself.
99% of comics are simply not good.
 
But the second I try to write out the characters and etc I just stare at the screen like a retard. It's like I'm too overwhelmed by the ideas/concept and all the characters who are from around the world and its to the point where I don't know if I'll ever be able to make progress.
In my experience, characters either come to you suddenly and miraculously, or they arise as you write the story. If a character isn't coming to mind after a short period of pondering, bullet point what purpose they need to serve to either the plot or the other characters, make the most barebones cookie-cutter one-dimensional character stand-in possible to serve as a "placeholder" in scenes and plot, and get to writing. As your story takes form, those less filled-in characters will too. Edits and rewrites will likely bring your characters more forward as well.

This advice behooves anyone who is writing anything less than the most plotless, character-centric story, like Normal People.
 
In my experience, characters either come to you suddenly and miraculously, or they arise as you write the story. If a character isn't coming to mind after a short period of pondering, bullet point what purpose they need to serve to either the plot or the other characters, make the most barebones cookie-cutter one-dimensional character stand-in possible to serve as a "placeholder" in scenes and plot, and get to writing. As your story takes form, those less filled-in characters will too. Edits and rewrites will likely bring your characters more forward as well.

This advice behooves anyone who is writing anything less than the most plotless, character-centric story, like Normal People.
I can say that my superhero project came purely from the early impulse to both own “my” Superman and my musings how I’d write big blue.

The rest, the universe bible, the idea of the superhumans starting off as edgy fuckups who aren’t supervillains in the making and instead actually mature into proper old-school examples of heroism, all of that is secondary to me wanting my own version of the overpowered flying brick who has no goal beyond bringing justice to an unjust world.

The “lore book” is secondary and is just for me to keep track of the world, it came second and I fucking ignore it a good chunk of the time. The priority is the characters and appreciating the awe of even the most basic superpowers and what a cultural adrenaline shot those types of people would be in today’s climate.
99% of comics are simply not good.
Correct.

I’ve stated it before but outside my niche miniseries and 80s-90s Superman, I don’t own a lot of comics. I have a fondness for edgy teams like Squadron Supreme, The Authority, the Millar Ultimates and my niggas in the Crime Syndicate but ongoings are usually just a pile of pain.
While I completely agree, I'd still say the exact same thing about novels, and pretty much any other medium actually. You have to sift through mountains of garbage before finding something genuinely good at this point.
This is also true, comics just get more exposure when they’re mediocre.

I took a look at a book section at a Wally Mart. “Centaur Wife” looked like quite the read.
 
The “lore book” is secondary and is just for me to keep track of the world, it came second and I fucking ignore it a good chunk of the time. The priority is the characters and appreciating the awe of even the most basic superpowers and what a cultural adrenaline shot those types of people would be in today’s climate.
IMO lore and plot are not the same.

I can say that my superhero project came purely from the early impulse to both own “my” Superman and my musings how I’d write big blue.
This would be an example of a character that just "comes to you" and it's great when it happens.
 
IMO lore and plot are not the same.
In theory, sure, but in practice when I look at some of my older shit from close to a decade ago and see like four different word files (outline, character notes, misc notes, and some other gimmicky shit specific to that one project) that cropped up in the process of writing one book it seems like it would've been a lot simpler to keep track of if I didn't divide everything into needlessly specific categories. That was probably the last time I put that much effort into outlining/preliminary notes in general and from what I recall at least a third of it was thrown out or heavily altered by the time the first draft was done.

When I outline things now it's in a really loose broad strokes format because more granular details are always subject to change between drafts.
 
IMO lore and plot are not the same.
They are not. Plot, narrative, and context - which is effectively lore - are the bread and butter, but they're all distinct and separate.

There's a sense of overlap, because when creating context, one often feels like chaining together this long series of short stories in order to do so: but from the audience's perspective, the central gist of the story has nothing to do with a long-winded backstory of this-kingdom's that-kingdom's centuries of political intrigue, but rather is focused on our hero's comedic travails navigating a delicate political tapestry they want nothing to do with. For the sake of completeness, the narrative aspect of this story would be how those misadventures are framed, alongside what is implied to the reader about the world and its characters by what has been selected to-be-seen.
 
In theory, sure, but in practice when I look at some of my older shit from close to a decade ago and see like four different word files (outline, character notes, misc notes, and some other gimmicky shit specific to that one project) that cropped up in the process of writing one book it seems like it would've been a lot simpler to keep track of if I didn't divide everything into needlessly specific categories.
Lore and plot are related and they do affect each other to varying degrees based on the kind of story you're telling, but they are not the same. Now how you organize your notes on plot and lore is up to you.

When I outline things now it's in a really loose broad strokes format because more granular details are always subject to change between drafts.
I agree with this wholeheartedly and it's what I encourage my irl writing friends to do.
 
IMO lore and plot are not the same.


This would be an example of a character that just "comes to you" and it's great when it happens.
The “lore book” is more just containing the ideas for what I plan to be a superhero documenting the years he was active so anytime a plot idea comes to me I write it down.

The lore book isn’t a guiding star or something a writer should be slave to, especially if it’s the first work in that world.
 
Soldiering is ignoble but can definitely be heroic.
In the context of Garth Ennis' homosexuality (which that post was referring to) Ennis genuinely has a military fetish rather than a sense of admiration for anything ideological about what it means to be a soldier. The best example of this is probably near the end of The Boys comic where almost every superhero is pretty much effortlessly killed by the military, it wasn't even about "good guys" vs "bad guys", he legit just jacks off to heccin' army men with their guns tanks and jets.
 
Just posted my first short story to KDP. Feels good. Now to spend as much time pimping my work as I do writing it.

King.jpg
 
I am curious about how you guys draft and take notes. I have been trying to start publishing to RR for years at this point but always get burned out at the editing phase. Having an actual functional note taking system and timing my sessions has helped tremendously, but I still fear the incoming editing pass that's gonna probably hit next week. I'm thinking of how to maintain forward momentum without getting stuck whittling away at the minutia of each chapter, like specific wording or pacing or all the moving parts I have to keep track of. I'm thinking of limiting myself to a set amount of hours per chapter per session, and only one editing pass before posting. Otherwise I think I will get stuck again. Any advice for this kind of problem?
 
I am curious about how you guys draft and take notes. I have been trying to start publishing to RR for years at this point but always get burned out at the editing phase. Having an actual functional note taking system and timing my sessions has helped tremendously, but I still fear the incoming editing pass that's gonna probably hit next week. I'm thinking of how to maintain forward momentum without getting stuck whittling away at the minutia of each chapter, like specific wording or pacing or all the moving parts I have to keep track of. I'm thinking of limiting myself to a set amount of hours per chapter per session, and only one editing pass before posting. Otherwise I think I will get stuck again. Any advice for this kind of problem?
Set a goal for each editing session. Maybe you do need to take a look at each individual sentence and adjust the wording, or maybe you need to fix some broader plot points. Maybe the dialogue specifically needs work. Unless fiddling with plot points spanning chapters, I try to keep my editing sessions focused on a specific chapter. Of course if I finish early, I move on to the next chapter.
 
Update on my end; both good news and bad news, as usual.

Good news: werecreature plotline is coming along nicely; still getting the specifics lined out, but I got the general outline figured out, and I know where to go. It's basically just one massive homage to a game I like, so that's a nice bonus.

Bad news: wasn't able to cover everything like I had planned, so I'm currently figuring out yet another plotline. Also trying to figure out the identity of the MC for this one; already got part of a story, but I'm currently flipping through lists of different mythological races/monsters to see which one I could use for this story.

If you're thinking it's a bit light on details here, I agree. Thing is, I'm considering posting some of this stuff "officially" - as in, under my actual, legal IRL name, and I don't want to leave a paper trail. Sorry.
 
So, I may have wanted to start a novel where an activist has a realization that they were the bad guy all along. I'm not sure what genre it is when you make something where someone psychologically breaks because of who and what they were is. Psychological horror?

1. “Plot line for book.”
  • Activist learns their activism made everyone worse off.
  • Forced to confront their beliefs.
  • Forced to confront the consequences of everything they supported.
  • Learns to contend with the fact that they were the narrow-minded person they thought they were fighting.
  • The activist has a mental breakdown at several points in book.
  • Optimistic idealistic activist to realistic pessimist.
  • A few people who get worse off get to call the activist out for making their lives worse.
  • An old person who used to be exactly like them gets to tell them how they failed, and why the failed along with how they failed.
  • Eventually admits they didn’t actually research what they supported and that they only supported it because it made them feel good and a part of something.
  • Activist gets a sadistic choice at the end.
 
So, I may have wanted to start a novel where an activist has a realization that they were the bad guy all along. I'm not sure what genre it is when you make something where someone psychologically breaks because of who and what they were is. Psychological horror?
High fantasy because one of these niggers ever gaining sentience is about as realistic as wizards and fairies and shit.
 
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