/wg/ Writing General

Have them search for treasure. It's an understandable, universally relatable motive that can bring together people from vastly different backgrounds and moral/religious/philosophical systems.

There's no buildup to the conflict erupting halfway through? No raising tensions? A cold war people are fearful will turn hot? Weave that into the setting and character establishing and everything should be fine.

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Well fuck me.

Mafiosa are brutal with their enemies and generous with their friends and loved ones. Start there.

Can't remember the last time I read about a dragon slaying, but I once wrote an RPG scenario with a medium-sized dragon who, upon further investigation, turned out to be the squeaky, spoiled pet of a titan.
If the PCs injured or killed the dragon, they brought down the wrath of the titan; if they left the dragon alone, they had a chance of making the titan an ally.

incel

The idea is that the characters live in an underground society which has been losing territory above for decades. The focus cast is in military training for the earlier parts of the narrative before the outbreak of an attack.

Of course you're correct that building tension mixed with character/setting is a good foundation to start from, I just worry at how gripping this will be for the reader. Though, maybe such a concern is just insecurity at play.

Just hold tight I'm working on a late Neolithic/copper age novel. Depending how purist you are I think it applies, my emphasis is solely on the lives of one family and their pastoralist community. Pure historical fiction based on fairly extensive and ongoing research (you may have seen me rambling about horse cock cults in other threads).

Society is recognizable but it is a challenge (and limiting to language/metaphors) since so many ideas or common household items/activities aren't invented yet.

Don't get mad that a girl offering her pussy to the dragon is the most logical thing to do. And best seller. Girls love shit like that.

For the life of me, why can't I just commit to a full-length story? The only things I can ever finish are 1-2k word long drabbles. I'm stuck in this perpetual cycle of trying to write something, getting burnt out, starting over. How do you look past the self-doubt and just write the damn thing?

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>finally done with my story after 4 long years
>decide to sit and read it all
>most things i introduced or hinted at in the beginning of the story were completely retconned later or i forgot about them

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Cut out those early references and change them to be about things that crop up later, then? See how easily you can retrofit things.

Write despite the self-doubt. Just write.

If you can come up with a clever way to explain the retconning, it might come across as artistic misdirection!
They'll think you're a genius!

Consider the Decameron/Canterbury Tales model.

What sometimes works for me is writing without an ending in mind. With no destination I just keep going.

Be a short story writer where you reuse the same characters over and over again, and loosely connect it with the other stories. Then you'll eventually have a novel!

That's why it's important to outline

Plan, plan, PLAN

In the first youtube playlist you can see an author going at it all the way through the writing process. Hope that helps.

I finished reading Terry Pratchett Hogfather. There are two quotes from that book i was familiar with, one about pic related the other one:
>Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape...(it goes on)
In the book i read neither of these fragments were present and i'm very confused. I did some digging but i can't find any info about these quotes. Help. Did i pick up some weird different edition of Hogfather? Were Quotes never there?

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You are in the wrong general, man.

deepest apologies and thank you

Thanks for reminding me about The Hogfather, Satan. Maybe you should consider watching the movie version.

But like if I plan then I lose interest in the story and I want to discover it while I write

Then plan only an event to write towards, and discover along the way to that event.

My next chapter introduces a character who's called Dragonslayer, earned for slaying a dragon, but no actual dragonslaying occurs on-screen, ever.

>discovery writing
If you're writing poetry, this is okay. If you're trying to tell a story, you're NGMI

>Surely character/setting establishment isn't gripping enough for the first half of a narrative?
It depends on the future story. If the tale is ebin like Karamazov/a long series, then you need as much background as possible. Like the first 3 episodes of a multi-season TV show setting up the real story to come. If it's a single book story, get that done in two chapters and move on.

>the dragon is really a very loud angry crazy annoying woman
>he slayed the dragon by taming the dragon with his dick
Yes.

He would be called Shrewslayer, in that case.

The plan is for more than one. The question of how to measure out the pacing within one story is a bit elusive though. Rule of thumb is always to lead with a strong hook and clear direction, no?

Currently writing a story wherein a human and dragon become friends, been working on it since March.

Doesn’t Stephen King famously not plan?
Were any of the classic writers known to outline or did they “pants” it?

There's two dragons in my story. Both are assholes, but they have different ways of going about it. One is a genocidal maniac who just fucking obliterates entire cities through sheer power, and is inspired by western dragons. The other is a weaker and more manipulative sort who just fucks people over, inspired by eastern dragons.

That's how I wrote my first novel.
Now I'm writing my second, and haven't needed that crutch.
Who knew practice was the key? ;-)

So, literally the king in the movie "Dragonslayer"?

NP; I enjoyed downloading your supplied meme image.

"Plan"
Having a short list of benchmarks for the story and then connecting them, dropping some, reworking them, doesn't really constitute a plan. Dickens, I would imagine, pants-ed his novels even if he undoubtedly had a larger framework he was working within for each.

Stephen King is a hack.
A highly popular and successful writer, granted, but still a hack.
He's the reason I avoid pointless, long-winded descriptions in my work.
Here's an example of what I mean, from an upcoming release of mine:

The rolling hills were flush with saguaro cactus, sage brush, yucca trees, and several splashes of wildflowers, nestled between large granite boulders. A hawk circled lazily in the sky, looking for jackrabbits that lacked the common sense to stay out of sight. Lines of natural sandstone slabs jutted out from eroded portions of the mountainside. A pine bush swayed lazily in the wind, its branches covered with bright blue berries.
Richard stopped himself. No one in the world wanted to hear a thorough description of a boring desert mountain landscape, least of all him. He focused and continued his hike.

>So, literally the king in the movie "Dragonslayer"?
I've never seen the movie but reading the synopsis now, no. The guy was involved in slaying a dragon, and while there were others helping with it, he legitimately earned the acclaim for the deed. His valor isn't in question. However, for the scene in question where the character is introduced, the dragonslaying event occurred a few years ago. And no dragonslaying will occur after.

Are there a lot of 4th wall breaks in your story or is this a one-off?

But I liked it.

I don't see why not. But "strong hook" doesn't have a set location in a story. It could be the first sentence, the first paragraph, half a chapter later, etc. My first inciting incident doesn't show up for 2.5 chapters and the real kickoff for the story doesn't show up until midway through book 2 (there are 7 books planned). But all along the way are inciting incidents that build reasons for character behavior, developing reactions and instincts which will characterize later plot events and drive conflict. That in itself, as long as the events are exciting enough, can be mini hooks leading up to your big one. Now instead of Bob meets Jane and they have a romance, you learn all about Bob until you meet Jane, and for every conflict they have, you understand Bob thoroughly but Jane is a mystery that Bob uncovers with you. I find that to be a good approach.

You do know Stephen King is infamous for how bad his endings are, right? And that most people who buy his books never finish them?

Survivorship bias, an author with a strong middle and weak endings can find an audience, authors with strong endings but weak middles don’t get published. It’s a market reality not really up for debate. If discovery writing helps you nail that middle go for it.

Are we talking about the same movie?
1981's Dragonslayer ends with the king taking credit for the young wizard's actions.

There are several borderline fourth wall breaks, but I try to keep them subtle.
In another scene, a seer/medium type avoids answering a question, thusly:

"That would be a whole other, very long, story."
She turned to look at Richard, her eyes twinkling. "Also, it's not really in the detective genre."
Richard threw his hands in the air. "Neither was this entire discussion."
She shrugged. "Too late now!"

In the part I'm about to write (last chapter! W00t!), the detective pines that it was such a wild story, and he wants to tell someone about it. One of the cops suggests writing a novel; after a pregnant pause, they all burst out laughing. They say no one would believe such a story, and even if they did, no one would want to read about it.

Subtlety!

>Are we talking about the same movie?
>1981's Dragonslayer ends with the king taking credit for the young wizard's actions.
We are. So, like I said, the guy credited with being the Dragonslayer actually slew the dragon. He didn't steal it from someone else. His valor isn't in question. Sure, he didn't do it alone, but even among the people who were with him at the time they agree he deserves the credit for the kill.

>One of the cops suggests writing a novel; after a pregnant pause, they all burst out laughing. They say no one would believe such a story, and even if they did, no one would want to read about it.
They should burst out laughing and say that he should try and make a movie instead because no one reads books.

What i do is make a list as i'm going of all the plotpoints that are unfinished or don't make sense.
Then i go back and edit. Sure it may be anal retentive, but its a hell of a lot more creative then making flow sharts ,story boards and flash tards.

Whatever, dude.
I'm talking about the part from 1:43:40 to 1:44:45.
The priest thanks the Lord, then the king shows up and puts a sword tip into the dragon's destroyed carcass.
Then Horsrik yells "All hail Casiodorus Rex, dragonslayer!"
You must be watching a different movie.

Do you have learning difficulties? I am saying that what happens in my book is explicitly not what happens in the movie dragonslayer. The Dragonslayer in my book actually is responsible for slaying the dragon unlike that fraud king.

Ah. My mistake.
I'm usually zonked on Saturday mornings.
I'm surprised to show any sign of coherency at all.

Glaurung from Children of Hurin. Pure malice made flesh. How can anyone want to have a Dragon Lives Matter after such a tyrant wrecks an Elven Kingdom and ruins the lives of two core characters? As for the dragon removing meaning, I actually found it added greatly. Morgoth is too far an antagonist, so having a dragon actually interact and taunt with the heroes added tension and stakes beyond what Morgoth could provide.

On the topic of dragon slaying, I found the fights with dragons in Bakker's works to be really refreshing. For once I actually felt terror at facing the dragon. And at another point the "hero" that stands up to the dragon is promptly swallowed, a nice deconstructive twist.

How unforgivably cringe would it be to put this:

>It's not very good. The main character is pretentious, but not in a self aware kind of way. The love interest is beautiful and vapid. The whole thing is an insiped commentary on personal identity, self discovery and contemperary romance. One of the million attempts to replicate Catcher in the Rye, but like, as a metaphor. The existential ennui of Nachkriegszeit literature, a lá late twenties bourgies that knew a couple junkies, but were never touched by the desperation that made them.

into my story? I feel like if I'm not careful then this would be painfully un-self-aware, and I'm not sure how to avoid that...