General Writing

  1. Layered Democratic Counciliary

    In my universe, there exists a vast number of civilisations. The human civilisation is called the Spherium. It is a layered democratic counciliary. Meaning it has various councils of different importance and influence levels. At the bottom, you have the star or planet/moon councils. They govern their local stellar bodies through certain councils that convene to discuss important local matters. A council at this level can consist of all the countries or local governments that exist on a...
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  2. Videos on Writing Craft

    Every now and then I run across a video I really like about writing and I try to figure out where on the board or my blog I can post it. So I'm making this thread. Ok wow, I guess that covers it. Here: Three verbs per sentence, and contrast: Spend Five Thousand hours revising your novel??! To become a better writer you must change your life: A lot of these are going to be his videos.
  3. An Idea for Dealing with Crime and Gangsters

    Hit them over the head with an electrified morning star (a type of modernized medieval weapon) and conscript them into an auxiliary armed service. Gangsters in Sweden, I believe, are resourceful haters of normality. They seek the life they do, not necessarily because of poverty, but because they want to live on the edge. They want to feel powerful and relevant. In our big society, feeling relevant can be a difficult achievement. There are millions of people who all seek their way in life....
  4. First jokes

    This took me roughly 45 mins to write these jokes. This is my first attempt at writing basically anything. Let me know what you think and how you think I could make them better. Do you give a shit what happens to your body after you die? Fuck that I don’t. Bury me, cremate me, cook me and feed me to the neighbors, I don’t care. Shove a stick up my ass and wield me around like a puppet for a goof at Halloween time I like how enough people have choked themselves to death while jerking off...
  5. Time, time, time

    On our neighborhood walks my wife and I used to walk past a big old deciduous tree (as I recall, though it may have been a pine). A couple years back, though, it dropped its biggest branch and some others in a storm, and the property owners had it removed. All of it, stump and all. This year when we walked past that spot, there is absolutely no indication that the tree was ever there. Once the next generation of property owners move in, no one will recall that tree. It existed, but now...
  6. A Phantom for My Opera?

    Some days when I doubt myself and my abilities to write I think of employing a ghost writer. But in a bit of a different setup. I will write the first draft and then the potential ghost writer can refine it to a readable/enjoyable state. I love storytelling, and I love the creative process. But my produce just isn't up to par most of the time. Training is like trying to teach an old dog new tricks. I read, I watch, I practice... I learn? Yeah, sometimes I do learn. But I will continue to...
  7. Clarity, Power, and Discovery in Writing

    This is actually stuff I've known and been doing (and promoting in here) for a long time. I usually talk about it in relation to journaling and what I call 'writing about a story before you write the story.' In each case they're ways of exploring, structuring, and developing your thoughts about a subject. You can also do that in freewriting if you keep it to a subject and don't just slap down pure gibberish (which is an extreme form of freewriting). I often start a writing session with some...
  8. Something to say?

    Must a writer always have some underlying message in their fictional works? Or can they exist as mere entertainment and information? I don't know. Personally, I write to entertain and bring people to another reality, another universe. But even if I don't consciously implement messages, they are still there. In the shadows of my words. There is a suicide in one of my works and it seems portrayed like a pointless death. So, is that my eternal message about suicides? Not at all. I hold no...
  9. Old, Brown, Run-down Home

    Back in 2007 when me and my siblings were still children, my parents built a beautiful home for all of us to move into and live in. The home had several small balconies (as many rural homes in Greece do) and one very large one. The large balcony faced a field. And in the middle of that field, surrounded by overgrown trees, was a colourless home. It had the ash-like colour wood takes when you leave it outside in the rain for enough years. Nobody lived in it. It was just an old, brown,...
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  10. Self Plagerizism

    Anyone ever look back on their old work and realized they've duplicated scenes? Even bits of dialogue. It's freaky. I've been typing an old story from paper into my computer to preserve it. I haven't read the story - fully - in decades and I'm shocked to find I've duplicated several scenes. In my old work I have a young girl talking to an older man - she asks am I ugly? - he says fishing for compliments? I gave the same scene to my younger man and his director - two decades later. Creepy....
  11. World building

    I am continuing to go back through the "Wandering inn" Series by Pirateaba. This series is a fascinating case study in world building. Since the genre is fantasy, the author has multiple races to deal with. There is a detailed profile for each race, Drakes, Gnolls, Goblins, Antinium, Humans which are the main races on the main continent in the story. Each race is detailed in culture and politics. Things are gradually revealed using an ignorant character, learning about the world. The culture...
  12. The world as a character

    This is likely more of a genre item, for SciFi and Fantasy, but it is something worth considering. How much attention do we authors pay to crafting the worlds we write in? I ask this going beyond simple logical continuity. I occasionally run across works that the world itself is almost another character in the story the way it engages the reader. It is well fleshed out and engaging, in such a way that it has the reader wanting to learn more about the world itself. Granted this gets deeply...
  13. Geometric or Geomatian Numerals

    These are called Geomatian Numerals and were created by Countess Aductuine as her only good and lasting achievement. Countess Aductuine was born into a monarchy in the Bevarianne galaxy. She was raised to be a commander in the monarchy's fleet. Throughout her years, she schemed her way to power and fortune, leaving behind her a trail of sorrow. She was a slave owner who kept captives from many various cultures and alien races. Problems occurred when teaching her slaves to count, she found...
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  14. Side stories in a novel.

    I have begun to take a closer look at an idea I encountered in "the Wandering inn" Series by Pirataba. The main story is on the theme of the fool triumphant, save the cat story type. But in addition to POV shifts between characters, the author also inserts side stories into the series, which have different characters are are shorts embedded within the novel. These shorts are related to the fantasy world of the story, but instead of distracting from the story, serve to flesh out the story...
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