Veeky Forums writefaggotry

Writing a weird fantasy Planescape ripoff because I'm mad at the latest Planescape ripoff.

All I've finished are stuff for the Storythreads and that is firmly where I am in terms of development .

For what I'm trying to write. Magic comes back to the world. A boy born into the world has unlimited magical power and is basically a physical God.

His story would short snapshots of his life as he tries to avoid the rest of the world crashing down on him.

How do you do an Introduction? this is the part I struggle the most

You write it like any other part of the story.

>A boy born into the world has unlimited magical power and is basically a physical God.
>to avoid the rest of the world crashing down on him.
How the hell would that even be a conflict?

Because he wants to be left alone and power like that makes a protagonist out of someone.

Without wanting to be too confrontational, that is a pretty terrible setup and a pretty terrible way of thinking about a story. No, power like that does not make someone a protagonist. Being an interesting person people might be interested in following and relating to makes one a protagonist. Powers like that are frankly a sure way to make him someone you won't be able to relate to.
Meanwhile "I want to be left alone" is a pretty terrible motivation as far as story motivations go. People generally want to see what a character does want to do, what he wants to achieve, what mark he wants to leave on the world. Not what he does not want to do.

While things obviously aren't quite that simple, thinking good stories being based on the formula of "here is a flawed character with restricted powers having to find a way to overcome his limitations and achieve something worth while" is generally not a bad way.

Meanwhile you have a character with near-unlimited powers not wanting to be involved in something. That... sounds bit like a recipe for a disaster, storywise.

>How do you do an Introduction?
Well, if you are struggling with it now, just leave it for later. It's like writing introduction to academic article: you generally do that last. It will also give you quite a lot of opportunities to go through your already "finished" work, preferably to give it to somebody else to read, and realize what exactly needs the reader to be introduced to, and possibly where could you do some interesting forshadowing too.

>What are you thinking about?
A short story about the first conciousness upload.
>What are you working on?
A YA-horror-industrial-fantasy clusterfuck.
>What have you finished?
HAHAHAHAHA
>Any people looking to start a writing group?
Sure.

Personally, I would play it as more of a psychological thing, dealing with the character dealing with the inevitable ambivalance and eventually contempt when you can kill them and revive them with a thought.

Couple things, though only one I'd say is even remotely Veeky Forums-related. It's a video game. Fantasy strategy/RPG with a handful of combat mechanics shamelessly ripped off from D&D 4e (most significantly in terms of enemy design).

I've got the story outlined, but I'm not married to it. Mostly it's a vehicle for character-based dramedy so it's always open to tweaks and changes to serve that core, I just like having an outline.

At this point in time I'm mostly worried about hammering out the mechanical aspects of it--what I started with was pretty bloated, so I'm enjoying the process of trimming it down to just what works while simultaneously figuring out specifics.

I've got the terrible habit that I can't really sit down and write unless I've got someone there in the room with me--it doesn't really matter who, it's just how my brain works best. That said, I'm quite confident in my writing once it's actually on the page, so I'm not TOO terribly concerned about falling into the "ALL I'VE GOT IS IDEAS!" trap.

Honestly, I think I'm a better script doctor than a straightforward writer. I'm working with a friend on another project which I'm not even gonna try to pretend remotely belongs in this thread; typically, he's better at guiding the plot in the right direction, I'm better with filling in the banter and landing the character moments.

I'm gonna take a shower. I can help anyone who wants to clean up their dialogue once I get back.

get inspired by Judas Priest and then create a setting

I actually struggled for a bit to think of a response to this.

I find the idea interesting myself and that's why I'm writing it.

The idea really came about from me reading a lot about Musashi and the fact that he died at peace with himself and the world and interviews with kickboxers and MMA fighters where they talk about just enjoying what they do.

So I came up with the idea of this kid with unlimited power who is at peace with the world. Someone who sits on a rock, unlimited potential bubbling under his skin and chooses to paint shitty water colors, be the little guy at his kickboxing gym and is just content.

The story is just the world throwing itself at him trying to drag him out to fight for it, fight against it and his attempts to be himself in response.

Hey, clearly that's the story you want to write right now, nothing wrong with that.

Reminds me of One Punch Man somewhat, have you heard of/read that?

strawpoll.me/11353551
>"How important is publishing your work (to you)?"
I'm curious to see how people feel. Please answer if you've got a spare few seconds.

Actually no, that's not what I'm talking about, thanks.

Nope never heard of it.

Lately most of my creative output in terms of worldbuilding and shit have been put into my tabletop campaign. The only things I've actually written have been fan fiction and/or smut. I wrote this - archiveofourown.org/works/5438699 - and I thought it was pretty good, but the lack of comments compared to the number of views makes me think that people are looking at it and either deciding not to read it or starting and not finishing it. I think it's actually one of the better things I've ever written, despite the, uh, subject matter.

The unlimited power thing kind of makes that last bit sound a mite trivial.

>I find the idea interesting myself and that's why I'm writing it.
Sure, nothing can keep you from that. I'm just pointing out problems I see it as an external observer with (some) literally experience, warning you about potential problems and pitfalls.

>Someone who sits on a rock, unlimited potential bubbling under his skin and chooses to paint shitty water colors, be the little guy at his kickboxing gym and is just content.
I understood that. But my point still stands. It's extremely difficult to relate to someone in that position. Musashi was a human being, not a demi-god, and his story is a story of growing through all kinds of difficulties until finally finding his peace: that is the conclusion of his story, not the premise.

It's just difficult to relate to problems of a person who has nearly unlimited powers, but really don't not want to do anything with it: both by taking his problems seriously, and by finding his motivation likable. It could work decently as a side-character, a sort mysterious background figure that you vaguely suspects might be incredibly powerful, and that might have an interesting backstory explaining why, despite his incredible potential he chose to live in seclusion, but when you make that into a main character, I think you really are building a trap for yourself.

>Reminds me of One Punch Man somewhat, have you heard of/read that?
One punch man is A) a metaphor for middle age crisis, B) essentially the Indiana Jones vs. the Swordsman scene dragged out to absurd lenght, and C) still desperately struggles to actually make things somehow interesting by loading the thing with tons of others characters (it's essentially the cyborg kid, not OPM that's the main character), action-scene choreography, or just overloading the thing with genre-oriented jokes and deconstructions, and even with all of that, it starts being pretty damn boring around the fourth episode.
Also, OPM does NOT want to be alone. He seeks thrill.

Can I read that without knowing jack shit about MtG?

>odd as fuck language
kurba, prosm!

I'm still intrigued by the idea of a writing oriented forum / writer support group thing that was proposed in the previous thread.
Somebody talked about the idea of incentivizing people to complete "daily" challenges by say, offering some forms of small rewards for uploading (typing up) some pre-set amount of words per day (Which really is and will always be the best way to improve your writing skills). I'm wondering if that could be extended: by say, also incentivizing people to read other people's works and give feedback (another thing that most aspiring writers need most desperately: audience and feedback, and it could also prevent "cheezing" the system by say, uploading copypastas etc..., though the dark side of this model is that it can end in DeviantArt-esque attention circlejerks).

An image database serving as a source of inspiration (the way Storythreads work) could be also implemented, with things like weekly or monthly best-image-inspired-inspired texts organized, as well as some form of reading challenges and recommendation lists and threads... And if the whole thing took off, association or deal with some form of amateur publishing organization could actually turn the whole thing pretty damn legitimate...

I wonder if such thing exists, if not why not, and if the idea is too naive to be implemented, or too expensive to put together...
I know DeviantArt actually does have some form of similar writing department, but as far as I know it never worked particularly well.

What do you guys think?

Have you ever used Duolingo? There are levels, experience perks and streaks. You get levels by progressing through the language, experience perks as a result of your level, and streaks which increase every day that you practice.

You could implement a similar system to incentivize people. Every day you get a blank document, and the goal is to fill it with 500 words by the end of the day. Work remains private unless you elect to 'add to portfolio' at the end of the day. If you manage to finish your 500 words per day, your streak increases by one, your 'experience' increases, your level increases. So having a 1 day streak is 1xp, a 2 day streak is 1xp + 2xp, a 3 day streak is 1xp + 2xp + 3xp and so on. At 50xp you get Level 2, at 200xp you get Level 3. If you miss a day your streak resets.

With experience points you could buy perks, such as having your writing featured on the homepage. Also like Duolingo, you could buy a 'day off' or something.

Chuck in a forum which shows your current streak/level when you post, a blog where writing advice is posted, a daily 'image prompt' and some other features and you've got yourself a website.

P.S: Don't involve any kind of karma system. Maybe even force users to remain anonymous (except for their streak/level). The last thing you want is an unhelpful cotton-wool mess like reddit.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not very fond of overt "gamification" of things, especially not of a creative process: While it makes sense to me to give people some incentives to write and uphold some form of discipline in it, turning it into an RPG seems to me a bit too much and burring the original purpose: writing, sharing your texts and debating it. Giving the player an option to "buy a day off" seems downright counter-productive.
After all, unlike learning language, writing is ultimately about the quality of your product, not the sheer amount of practice alone. I think a forum badge or a small icon and a pop-up saying "You are X words behind on your writing" would be quite enough for motivation, I think. After all, your members should want to write for their own desire to be better writers, not to get a streak or increase your level, which by the way leans horribly towards creating competition and elitism in places where it does not belong.

Karma is not something I particularly considered either: I mean if you are helpful, or write well and others value your work or input, it should be something that should be known through out the forum itself, not through some artificial grading system. Writing challenges and competitions aside, where some form of democratic, voting model would probably be unavoidable.

> his story is a story of growing through all kinds of difficulties until finally finding his peace: that is the conclusion of his story, not the premise.
That actually really wasn't Musashi's story.

Totally off topic but Miyamoto Musashi was a fucking weirdo. Real fucking weird. Vagabond is very inaccurate.

He was a samurai, soldier, later on thug, until eventually he settled down and started writing down his experiences and wisdom. There was nothing particularly exceptional about him, and yes his story was a story of a man who seeked thrill, gained notoriety and respect, and eventually found his peace with world, wrote a message those who would come after him and died peacefully.
I mean he was a badass, but also a troubled person and far, far, FAR from some kind of total demigod who just wants to be left alone.

I actually just came up with an urban fantasy setting idea that I want to use, so I think I'm gonna start writing. I just gotta figure out an actual strong plot to put in it.

What's a good process for that?

Oh, you're one of those. Precious about your writing. Well best of luck to you.

Sounds way more ambitious than what I had in mind. I'm struggling with what would be a good platform on which users could post and update works and others could critique it.
Maybe something like google groups. I don't know anything fancier or more user friendly.

I'm open to ideas.

I honestly don't understand what the fuck are you trying to tell me.

I have no idea how to actually implement or create something like that, I've never so much as made a web-site, much less know what options there are in creation of an entire forum/work-group like that. I was really just throwing ideas around, thinking of things like Cartographer's Guild more than anything.

Ideally you should start with an interesting character, then a plot driven by said character and then worry about the setting. That's the order of interest most readers would follow.
Alternatively, if you've already thoroughly explored your setting, you should spot what could be interesting locations and events and work out what sort of persons would be strung up in them.

Musashi from nearly the beginning of his story was a prenaturally gifted fighter and athlete who well before he supposedly found his "peace" was a well educated and skilled artist.

He was never a thug. Killed a lot of people. The man's asskicking tour of Japan was hilariously polite to everyone except the people whose asses he kicked which makes sense considering he was raised in a Buddhist temple.

He was hilariously expectional and he was always at peace with the world. His move towards introspection wasn't to find peace or himself. It was the result of realizing that as a fighter he was just too naturally good. Seriously.

Oh well the setting's core is about a group of specific people, so making one of those the main character makes sense, right?

How do you develop likable and interesting characters?

Think of people you actually know who are likeable and interesting.

Oh. Shit.

I'm in some real fucking trouble here.

>How do you develop likable and interesting characters?
Ahahahaha: Well... if there was an easy answer to that, we would be all fucking amazing writers on our ways to literary awards.
A "good" character is generally speaking one with a lot of complexity and depth: a person who has a multifaceted personality, but still feels consistent. The only way to really learn to write such characters is experience and observation: paying attention to real people and learning to understand them, as well as reading a ton of fiction from authors who already did that in the past.
Dostojevskij is generally considered an absolute master of human psychology in fiction, so you might want to start looking there?

Relatable, should have goals the reader understands and wishes the character to succeed, strength and weaknesses, the later one he can overcome as part of the conflict of the story, but some minor weaknesses or small character flaws should always stay. Should build an emotional connection with the reader, his angers is the readers anger, his sadness the readers sadness. At some point, in some way, the character should show kindness, compassion or other positive traits that shows him dealing with other people in a nice manner. A lot of this depends on the execution, for instance you can have a character that is an all around asshole, but the reader will like him much more, or even think he's deep, when he suddenly reveals to be very nice around children.

If you are not sure how to do this, make a really bland self-insert.

What are some things you like to see in magic? And those you don't? In terms of both system structure and effects.

Okay you're reciting the pop culture version of Musashi.

The real Musashi, as in the guy who actually lived cared about his mum, cared about his sister and could give really a rats ass about the rest of the world.
The phrase
>total demigod who just wants to be left alone.
is actually a very apt description of the man. He wasn't a loner and he befriended people easily but the man was by nature solitary and kind of simple. He settled down largely because age forced him to and even then would go out in the wild to be by himself.

The most human motivation people can find for some of his actions is a bit of anger towards his father for separating him from his mother and that really cultivated in only two separate incidents that were just solved in typical Musashi fashion of him wandering in, kicking everyone's ass and waltzing out with his middle fingers raised.

Aside from that Musashi was an odd man driven by odd motivations and reasoning. It's why they butchered his character in the fictional stories about his life. The man was difficult to understand, incredibly inhuman and very at peace with the world from the beginning of his story which people find difficulty in understanding.

He was incredibly exceptional. One of the great what ifs of history is what could have happened if he had a greater ambition in this world than simply becoming a better swordsman. What he touched he kind of turned into gold from architecture to painting to education.

He was OP as fuck.

>Okay you're reciting the pop culture version of Musashi.
Actually, no. It's the other way around. The real Musashi was a man who grew bored of his duties as a samurai and his responcibilities towards his family and lord, so he just gave his possessions to his sister and went out looking for fights. For a while, he half-arsed his duties by participating in battles that generally aligned with his lord's interests, but eventually he gave up on that and just wandered about making friends and pissing people off equally as frequently.

>is actually a very apt description of the man.
And YOU are accusing me of talking about the "pop culture version of Musashi"? Nah, he was a fun person, and competent one at that, but he was no fucking demigod. And he sure as fuck wasn't at peace with the world giving how half of his life was consistent middle finger given to the societal norms and expectations of his era.

> how half of his life was consistent middle finger given to the societal norms and expectations of his era.
That was the entirely of his life and those actions were in no way because he was at war with the world. They were largely the result of the man's personality being what it was.

He was who he was and he could give a shit what the world thought of him. He wasn't rebelling against social norms he was being himself.

What is that if not at peace?

You didn't actually contradict anything said.

And at peace with the world isn't conforming to the world. It's not caring about it

That is some SERIOUS tongue baths and SERIOUS romantization of a guy who spend one third of his life essentially on the run from people he pissed off in the process of suicidal thrill seeking, and who was, until his very late life, deemed a failure and disgrace to his family, because he broke just about condition expected of him out of pretty much pure boredom and selfish thrill seeking.
And he grew out of it and eventually settled down a lot and he was a great an inspiring person in many respects, but man your idea of him is some fucking stupid, naive idealism.

>And at peace with the world isn't conforming to the world. It's not caring about it
What the FUCK am I even reading here? Are you serious?
"Being at peace with the world is not accepting the world as it is, it's ignoring it." Yeah. Poetry right there.

Woke up right now. Going to class in the next thirty minutes.

At the risk of sounding rude I don't really care whether or not people relate to or have difficulty understanding the character.

I actually don't get why hes supposedly so difficult to understand or relate to. His motivation and reason for not using his powers is that he's happy.

The desire to be a great hero, to change the world or exert power over it is not a universal thing.

>At the risk of sounding rude I don't really care whether or not people relate to or have difficulty understanding the character.
OK then, but your fucking audience will. That is, generally speaking, us. If you don't care, then fine, but don't ask others what they think of your ideas, or don't read their replies if you do, or don't consider them at all.

One would assume, if you share your ideas in a forum about writing, that is the practice of communicating your ideas to an audience, that you would care about how to communicate to your audience and gain their attention. I mean if you don't give a fuck about your readers that is your thing, just seems bizzare that you would ever even need to talk about this in the first place.

It's just that if your character is unrelatable, nobody will want to read about him. If you are OK with that, fine, be my guest. But I would not assume that a normal or logical attitude of somebody discussing his writing with others, really.

>His motivation and reason for not using his powers is that he's happy.
And that is probably going to make him one dull fucking protagonist with no obstacle to overcome, no problem to solve, and no story to tell. People don't read stories to learn that somebody is super powerful and generally OK with that and does not do anything.

>The desire to be a great hero, to change the world or exert power over it is not a universal thing.
But it's the kind of stories people are interested in, especially when we talk about super-powered characters. Not to mention that while the desire itself may not be universal, the sensibility doing so is a MORAL RESPONSIBILITY is pretty fucking common: I mean if you have amazing powers and you don't bother to use them to anyone's benefit, that makes you a bit of a selfish prick in the eyes of most, who see the world full of suffering and people who could really use the damn help.

>What are you thinking about?
YouTube poops.

>What are you working on?
A fantasy thriller screenplay involving lesbians.

>What have you finished?
For the screenplay? Currently working on developing the characters more because they're too flat.

>tfw I'm not writing a story about cute girls who transform into magical swords by holding hands with their swordsman
>on top of that, updates never

why am I still alive

>What are you thinking about?
A Mushi-Shi esque story about a man who travels contemporary world and seeks places where fairytale creatures appeared and somehow messed up with humans.
It was supposed to be a child/young adult type of story with mostly episodic character: the main protagonist, a folklorist and man capable of seeing and communicating with magical beings like fairies and selkies and such, who himself once fell in love with a russian Rusalka (and lost her) solves individual storyarchs like mysterious disappearances (spiriting away), curses, tragic lovestories between men and fairies, that sort of deal.
The storyarchs I have figured out were supposed to mainly take place in slavic countries (Czech Rep., Poland, Russia), Scandinavia (an entire arch was supposed to take place in Bergen), and Japan.

>What are you working on?
I stopped writing entirely after a recent mental break-down. Now I'm struggling to get back on my feet.
Before I ended up on a psych ward, I was working on:

Micro-story collection that I shared around and on storythreads about the magical aspects of the city I live in.

A slices-of-life story about mysterious events taking place over one month around a young boy working as a volunteer in Japanese countryside, somewhat inspired by Higurashi.

Extemely broad outlines and tons of background research for mystery/conspiracy novel in the vein of Dan Brown about Gnosticism and search for secret, hidden book related to the life of Jesus Christ and early Christianity. I don't expect to seriously start writing that one any sooner than in the next year or so, the amount of research necessary is pretty crazy large.

>What have you finished?
Nothing more than a handful of short stories. The collection of microstories was nearly complete, and I had a couple of older works I've recently reworked and even translated. One exercise story for the storythreads. And one shitty short story for Bard.
And some stories I wrote ages ago.

The thing you're very clearly not the target audience.

Look at the way you interpreted Musashi's life compared to the other three responders. Or how you interpreted being at peace.

I mean your main gripe with the idea is that someone with power who doesn't want to use it because they're happy not is incomprehensible.

Honest question. What exactly is so unrelatable about the idea of not wanting to be superman.

Your statement is that someone who wants to be left alone, even though he is powerful is someone who is unrelatable and not normal.

The thing is, that is an incredibly understandable choice to make. The world sucks and that life sucks.

This is Veeky Forums. The entire point of the board is escapist heroic fantasy.

This is not a board full of people who want to live in peace. They want the exact opposite.

>The thing you're very clearly not the target audience.
I don't think anyone will be. The recount I gave you was simply a matter of historical records, cleansed of the fictional buildup.
Which actually paints a MUCH more interesting character, because instead of this weird collection of random virtues, actually presents a character with an arch, with struggles, with flaws and development. You know, like an actual humans do. And what makes them so damn fascinating?

>What exactly is so unrelatable about the idea of not wanting to be superman.
Nothing. That was never even close to the original argument.
The argument was, and still is, that it's damn difficult to make a compelling STORY out of such character. The whole argument still goes along the main subject of this thread: WRITING. STORYTELLING. The craft of conveying meaningful and relateable stories through the medium of written words.

>even though he is powerful is someone who is unrelatable and not normal.
My statement is that he is boring and to most people, probably pretty unlikable. Because people with strong social feeling will immediately accuse such character of being selfish. And those who won't still won't know why should they care about him? Worry about him? Relate to him? He is powerful AND content. That might be good masturbation for the author who might project into him, but not fun to read. People need REASONS to care about others.
The irony of people complaining about me wanting a super hero projection is that that is the EXACT opposite of what is really going on:
You are presenting a character who is just essentially their own mary sue alterego they can brag about to others.

You think anyone would care about Superman if the story was about him doing fucking chores on his farm and telling others to fuck off? You think that makes for a compelling story?

Have you at any point actually asked what the plot of the story is?

>This is not a board full of people who want to live in peace.
Actually, this is as opposite of true as possible. I never found grand, great stories of great adventures particularly compelling.
I like small, human stories, stories about perception, about beauty in mundanity. I'm not fond of super heroes.

But also know a bit about writing. And I know that if you make your character lacking adversity, unrealistically powerful AND lacking ambitions, you are not leaving for the reader to care about.
Super-powers are only interesting in face of super-adversities. That is why every single dumb super-hero story features super-villains with super-evil plans of super destruction: planet-eating monsters and dimension spanning wars, monsters the size of an average city.

I can do without all of those things. I actually think that you can get rid of the word "super" and have just as equally compelling storylines.

I have nothing against a story of a character that longs for peace. God knows it's all I ever want, it's the single most relatable motivation in the world for me.
But don't make the fucking character also happen to be a demi-god, because that takes all the relatability away. Because fucking demigods don't inspire compassion and solidarity.

It's a basic logic of writing a story, and absolutely nothing else that I was speaking about here, the entire time.
I love how you all projected your own insecurities into though.

wasn't exactly necessary as that was literally the first thing you have posted in this thread yesterday.

It kind of is considering that the reoccuring theme in the complaints about the idea is the lack of adversity when the first post explictily mentions the world kicking the guys teeth in.

So why are you still going on about how content he is and how he isn't using his powers when the plot literally is him being forced to by the world.

Trying to combine a viking/knight and streampunk setting is hard.

No, it states him being basically a god and then talks about his annoyance with people not leaving him alone. Further on you talk about how he is happy. Which kind fits in with the whole fucking "he is basically a god" thing.

If people are kicking his teeth in and he is actually vulnerable and in serious danger, maybe state that and correct that misconception at the begining, rather than further justifying it. Maybe don't describe him as basically a god while you are at it.

See above for fuck sake.

>No, it states him being basically a god and then talks about his annoyance with people not leaving him alone.
Actually if you go back it's not annoyance. The exact words and connations used were fighting against the world.The world trying to make him fight for it.

The connotations were negative, none of

The description of him being happy was to explain why he doesn't want to be involved with the world.

That's why I jumped out of the conversation a while ago. All the comments were about how someone that powerful who doesn't want to do anything with it is unrelatable.

>maybe state that and correct that misconception at the begining,
It was.

So what exactly is the plot, in detail?

I like when there are rituals for magic, some kind of occult setting beforie being able to cast a spell. I also like it not too casual, so often with a cost to it. About the effects, I advocate you can do literally anything as long as it is not too wierd.

Different user, what would be "too weird?" Like reality manipulation (making someone allergic to oxygen, reversing color, etc.)or lolsorandumbXD (turning grass into talking flamingos)? Or just abstract shit?

Magic exists. Magic comes back, people have it and the boy living in a nowhere town happily is attacked by some fugitives one day.

Surviving the attack hilariously unscathed, feds descend upon the town to investigate the fugitives and secretly him. From there things escalate until he has to run in the face of a forceful recruit that horrifically backfires due to underestimation of exactly how much raw power he posseses.

The story then follows him as he bounces from one part of the world to the next trying to stay ahead of an entire world that wants him to be their WMD and other equally powerful and far more experienced individuals who are trying to outgame each other and seize a little bit more power for themselves for reasons he can't comprehend.

It's not really a straight through novel. The current outline is basically several long ass chapters titled after where he temporarily makes his home escape after escape.