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No.36
[Reply]
HELLO THERE. It's your friendly neighborhood Writer, just here to leave a pile of rules to establish a level of standards for those who want to enjoy the board.
- Division of shit from lit: No flimsy, short, barebones posts that are undeveloped and thoughtless. If you're going to write something, write something. Posting an outline of a story or some ideas and looking for critiques or advice is totally acceptable, though.
- No smut: I had to think about this for some time. Tasteless fap material is not welcome in /lit/. This isn't your personal jerk-off board. Don't write stories that are sex-centric. Sex is a natural human act so it can enhance a story, but sex itself is never by any means a story. Although, if you must, post it in /ot/. If enough people post their smut there, hell, you might get your own smut board.
- Content: What is/isn't allowed? The works posted do not have to be related directly to Yume Nikki, although a majority tends to me. I believe as far as writing/literature goes, most anything can find its way here. Talking about books and literature is encouraged, as well!
- Labeling of NSFW material: Some people don't have strong stomachs or don't like sexual content to your writing. If a post or chapter of a story contains some, please label it as such.
- Level of maturity: Sure, some writers may not have the technical finesse or prowess of people who have been writing for a while. Still, as long as the fledgling writer is trying their best, don't insult others and instead offer advice. Otherwise, posts will be deleted and you may be banned. Repeated offenses will incur increasing penalties.
That's basically it. Read, write, have fun. :D
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No.194
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so reader, i was thinking
I wonder what people think of their own age
and their own situations
what do people like about themselves and what are they good at
what do they do to spend their time
I wonder what they think about on a day-to-day basis
do they think much at all? or is their mind clear
or is their mind empty
There is so much to write yet none to write at all.
the duality of not wanting to broadcast, but not wanting to disappear.
to be here.
The Art of Disappearing
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No.225
I don't really know how to open this. Openings are usually easy for me, or maybe they aren't, I don't really know.
I like my writing style
I suppose that it's mine because I like it, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this way
A fellow writer has described it as "avant-garde" many times, and that, were i to stop suffering, the magic of my writing wouldn't be there.
Well, what he really said was "Honestly, I feel like you're some kind of troubled avant-garde artist / And as weird as this sounds, it's oddly endearing / I feel like if you weren't as frustrated about your art or felt like you do about it, it would probably lack a certain quality that I like about it" at least, that's what the logs say. they also say he said "The way I meant avant-garde is like / Progressive, experimental … Some of those pictures you've drawn / The way the characters hold themselves has some kind of like / intensity? to them I guess / There's also a kind of "I'm lost but I'm looking" to certain pictures that I see in their expressions" and then it trails into " you're not a bad artist" so I suppose you can guess where the context might have started.
I call it cathartsis.
That's something i've been wondering about a lot. when I'm better, what happens to my art? my dead has been passioning me to write but what happens when there's no more dread from which to draw?
Well currently I'm being inspired by my lack of ability to focus. I'm watching my boyfriend play this game called "League of Legends" (Just to date me and aid others to label me in the future) . That game does a fairly good job of letting you get into a character playstyle with the champions.
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No.190
i havent roleplayed in about 4 years.
I've kind of wanted to go back to it but the problem i see with it is that you have so much going on at once. you have the past, the present, and the future happening at once in posts and it creates the most… absurd retcons within the timespan of just a post and a reply. it's very difficult to organize and unless the two people writing are completely synergized and have a single goal, and have become a writer split into two halves, the roleplay wouldnt read or play out well.
or, well, that's how i feel.
I've yet to find a solution to the synchronous passages of time, for lack of a way to shortly describe it.
As a dedicated writer, as i am the person i am, I don't think i can ever go back to roleplaying. what I would be doing would be co-authoring a book, not roleplaying.
but it's nice to dream about.
No.197
Well, I love literate RP, and…
I agree with >>186 for the most part, but I've had RP partners I grew up writing with whose styles never evolved or improved. There was one who I enjoyed roleplaying with when I was 10, but when I picked up writing with him at 19 his style hadn't changed at all. He was still writing the same stuff in the same fashion he did when he was 11.
For me the most important thing is knowing the people you write with well enough to be able to come to agreements and have brainstorms together even when there's criticism. Of course, on the other hand that can create problems. My current RP partner (of six years) and I know each other so well and have such a huge established canon that it's really, really hard to introduce anyone into it even when we want to. Just introducing newcomers to our canon requires an massive encyclopedic overview of the story so far, the lexicon, the universe plus an overview of how it might relate to their established character… which often means that they say "fuck this" and it ends up being the two of us as usual.
I've noticed that this can happen to a lot of literate RPers who pair or group together. They end up with such a long story or canon that it's incredibly difficult for them to bring anyone else into it. This is even prevalent on message boards where cliques form. Sometimes it gets to a point where these groups don't even WANT newcomers to their story, which can lead to larger groups being inaccessible and sometimes downright unfriendly.
It's also really hard for me to find RP partners because I fear I might be an elitist fuck and I have VERY specific interests as genre and fandom goes, but that's my own fault. Also, I can be kind of a flake and tend to disappear on RPs if they don't engage me enough. It's a shitty habit I'm trying to break. But I really do love an engaging RP.
I would love a new RP partner or two to group with sometime. Just sayin'.
No.218
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>>197
you sound exactly like my RP partner
anyone new would just throw off the feel of the setting and the party, so fuck it.
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No.160
I must scream.
-
During a dream perhaps a few weeks ago, I had a bit of an epiphany. In that dream, I equated failure with despair. When I woke up, I considered this revelation to be quite significant. This is in part due to my experiences in the past of wrestling with that deep-seated, ancient darkness which a psychiatrist might call major depression, that I call absolute despair.
I cannot impart to you just how that feeling existed, how it was etched into every fiber of my being, how it tortured me, sapped away at my life, how it drove me to the frozen pits of Hell (for, having seen it for myself, I know it is not a blazing inferno as I had once so immaturely thought it to be), where the frozen tundra ground was seamlessly welded to the black sky, where the horizon was infinitely unapproachable, impossible to see, where dreams were dreamt but died.
But if I could, I would, and I would force it down your throat. Oh, how I loathed existence. How I wished I could make others loathe their own existence, and existence itself. The sheer agony of it all, writhing and dying, sleeping in sweet oblivion, but to awake again the next morning to see a grayscale world, to hear a monotonous drone…
I digress.
So, I had this dream, this dream that told me failure means despair.
And ever since that horrible wretchedness, that profound darkness, I have felt something tugging at me. A dim call, as though the source of it was behind a wall. I can just barely make it out. It tells me to fail, to seek that solace again where I first found despair.
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No.161
Yes, ever since I started on the medication, life has become bearable, perhaps even pleasurable. But I still feel it. That overhanging darkness that threatens to consume my fragile existence as though I were nothing. Not that I am anything; but a pile of dead flesh, not quite fully realized to its death! It calls to me, it calls to me, it tells me to fall, fall, fail and be filled with despair again.
Especially on night's like these, I can feel the pull strongly. That agonizing pressure, incomprehensible, this inexplicable heartache…
Enter the jewel that I found during my long trek through the darkness. Perhaps a year before now, perhaps, that I first found a jewel of brilliant light. A jewel amongst filth. A treasure most beautiful.
I hadn't found a friend like that in a long time. Perhaps, never. Yes, I never had a friend quite like this. He stuck with me through the nadirs of my life. Kept the days barely tolerable, an incredible feat. Chained me to the physical world, he did, perhaps prevented an end that involved a six story fall.
Thus, during that harrowing trek through the shadows, I found a jewel, which I came to love.
But I'm being tested. I'm being tested by those eyes in the umbra, that watch me, that scrutinize me. They're always watching me, whispering to me, that I should fail and fall into despair.
But my friend does not wish for me to fail.
And yet, I feel as though, perhaps, failing would make it all pass easier.
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No.169
(english is not my mother tongue so feel free to correct me)
My life started at 4 years old. I woke up in a puddle of blood, two people crying beside me. I knew how to speak, read and write but that was all. From there, a lot of stuffs happened around me. My parents divorced, my sister died, there were good times, bad times. But nothing really mattered and it still doesn't matter now. I've always been detached from the real world. When I was 7, I though that the others people were aliens and I was in some kind of experiment. Later, I though that I was the alien, dreaming a life-long dream. I don't know what will happen when I die, maybe you will all cease to exist, maybe I will live in another world, but I can't stop thinking of this reality as a dream, as something where there is only me and you are all dolls and puppets. Or maybe I stole the life of a young boy, back when I was 4.
I'm somebody living a life that may not be mine, trying to be understood by people who look like walls, and the more I think, the more my body hurts, as if I were not made to belong here.
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No.203[Reply]
In this thread we will discuss the future as conceived by those brilliant minds of the past and present.
Anthony, Asimov, Ballantyne, Baxter, Bear, Brin, Clarke, Dickson, Galouye, Gibson, Hamilton, Heinlein, Mason, Niven, Reynolds…
Teleportation, time travel, faster-than-light travel, reproductive nanobots, virtual personalities, humaniform robots, communication via neutrino scattering, para-universal communication, dimension bending, interstellar internet, spontaneous regeneration, genetic manipulation…
You name it, they've wrote it. Feel free to discuss your favorite authors, concepts, stories, characters or otherwise.
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No.171[Reply]
Writing literature takes a lot of finesse, understanding, and most importantly, knowledge of what makes a good story. Characters, settings, and background, as well as the events within your story, are what make up any piece of literature. I'd like to discuss all these things, share what we know and what we think makes good ones…..and bad ones, and discuss them, with any luck we may all become better writers because of it.
So to get things started off, I'd like to discuss what makes a good character. Definition, first of all but of course you have to make sure that personality gets known. Even if you have them fully defined in your head, you have to make sure that definition is reflected in everything they do. Personally, I find that the minute details and inconsequential actions a character does, defines them more than anything else. Although their dialogue plays a heavy role too. Its sort of like the whole "Han shot first" business, having not shot first would change his character. What are your opinions?
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Warning, tl;dr.
The way I construct a character largely depends on whether or not I have an audience, and what type of audience I may be writing for. For personal stories or roleplay characters I usually give my characters months of thought, trying to get to know them personally to quote Conlan. I like to have every detail in place before I put them into writing, but that in and of itself is a process. When I finally write out these characters I will literally dump my brain out onto the page, writing every tiny little detail I have imagined. Then, over the course of the week, I will reread the text each day, sometimes more than once, and selectively omit details that are superfluous. The text slowly sees itself whittled down from Tolkien-esque information overload to a more concise and easy-to-read mass that tells readers what they need to know.
I find it's helpful sometimes to shear these details down to the barest minimums, as in three or four word descriptions or one-word traits, and write them down on a notecard or in a separate document. As you write your story, bring up this card or document and check for consistency. Is your character still behaving in a way consistent with their original character? Ask yourself why (or why not). Is it because of actual character development or because you changed your mind about how you want that character to behave? If you're finding that you lack consistency, you should step back from your work and re-evaluate your character. The problem with the idea that you know your character so well is the fact that you can sometimes assume that these inconsistencies are simply part of the character. Sometimes they are, but a lot of the time they aren't, and it can make for a somewhat confusing character. It's okay to have gaps where you're not really sure where you or your character stand[s], that can leave room for development, but glaring inconsistencies can ruin a character.
If I'm writing for an audience who will ideally project themselves onto the character I prefer to leave things more vague so that the reader will have an easier time projecting themselves onto the character. If you flesh out a character too much they become just that— a character. They become less of a reader avatar and more of a person. You will see this sort of vague "archtyping" in a lot of high fantasy novels, especially older ones aimed strongly at men. The character will often be more of a template.
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No.206
>>205 That makes a lot of sense, I suppose why I prefer to write for myself is because first off, I know my audience very well and I consider anyone else who enjoys it a bonus. Your post does make me realize something though; I should probably have some sort of actual system for writing. I'm a novice writer, with little actual experience. The reason I know what I know is because as ashamed I am to say it, I spend more time studying writing than I do actually writing myself. Which I suppose isn't necessarily bad, but I don't get the things we're talking about down to habit and I don't know my own writing style as well. All of that being said, I'm hoping this thread stays near the top of the /lit/ board; because studying good works is one thing, but active conversation and opinion on them is something else entirely.
Oh and I appreciate your opinion a lot, and as I come across things on my "adventures" as a writer, I'll definitely consult you, anon.
If you can't tell, I ♥♥♥♥♥♥ /lit/ as well.
No.207
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>>206
>I spend more time studying writing than I do actually writing
I promise you, you aren't alone. I spent years studying writing and the processes thereof, which is how I developed the system I like to use now. Habit is great sometimes, but it can suffocate you creatively if you get too stuck in your ways. This is another thing you can see in the works of famous writers (Anne Rice is probably the best example). Subject matter, content, style— it's great to know where you stand on these things, but some writers just won't write anything else, so lacking systematic discipline can sometimes be good for you.
How long have you been writing? Regardless of the answer, I want to tell you not to worry too much about knowing your style just yet. It can take years to find a style you're really comfortable with. I still change my writing style every now and then based on who I'm reading or if I'm writing with someone else, and I've been writing for most of my life.
Always happy to help, good luck on your adventures in writing. Hope to learn a bit from you too when you come up with something new, and you will. I'll try to keep this thread bumped with relevant additions.