[Lisheo]

Im working on a world right now(The Empire Burning has taken a wee bit of a back seat), in which, in ages past, a few Gods rebelled against the Prime Mover and fell to Earth(or whatever ya wanna call it). The Prime Mover sent down the God of Murder and Death to defeat them (they cant actually be killed, being Gods), who defeats the lot of them by binding them using their weaknesses.
Once all but one are beaten and buried beneath the earth, said God, Kekkruss, sets up a mortal Empire(hugely advanced, most humans are living in mud huts at this point) aspected to Death and sacrifice, basically preparing it to hunt down the last fallen God. Unfortunatly the Prime Mover doesn't like that and so It sends down two more Gods(both of whom betray the Prime Mover), who defeat Kekkruss.
Now, millenia, later a new Empire, under the rule of the benevolent and wise Emperor Coil, dominates most of the known world
An old retired soldier, name of Restless, meets a man called Joy in a bar.
It turns out that Joy's lover was killed and as a consequence, he's actually planning on releasing one of the original, fallen Gods, who will naturally wanna go about destroying most of existence.
With the help of Restless's allies, the old soldier has to stop Joy destroying the Empire, and by extension everything else.
And thats just the first half of it lol.

[Chance]

A few days ago I binned all my projects in favour for something I haven't done for a while a story in swedish with barely a notice of magic, gods or overpowered heroes, but rather low fantacy nearly historic 9th century sweden, damned felt refreshing after urban fantasy and high fantasy Well ahead of the 1k word a day goal for now by multipliers and the scetched out plot reaches well into the future

Man is it strange to be researching viking poet tradition and actually liking to read the chapters on swedish history for Uni

A question in my mind is how do you people formate your manuscripts after all most people keep telling me 250 words or so is a page well I keep wondering just how the hell their format looks or how they count words...

/Chance...

This post has been edited by Chance: 29 September 2008 - 06:17 PM

[Slum]

Chance, on Sep 29 2008, 02:13 PM, said:

A question in my mind is how do you people format your manuscripts after all most people keep telling me 250 words or so is a page well I keep wondering just how the hell their format looks or how they count words...

/Chance...

Sounds about right for double-spaced w/ 1-inch margins, proper indentation and whatnot.

[Cerberus Maw]

Chance, on Sep 30 2008, 04:13 AM, said:

A few days ago I binned all my projects in favour for something I haven't done for a while a story in swedish with barely a notice of magic, gods or overpowered heroes, but rather low fantacy nearly historic 9th century sweden, damned felt refreshing after urban fantasy and high fantasy Well ahead of the 1k word a day goal for now by multipliers and the scetched out plot reaches well into the future

Man is it strange to be researching viking poet tradition and actually liking to read the chapters on swedish history for Uni

A question in my mind is how do you people formate your manuscripts after all most people keep telling me 250 words or so is a page well I keep wondering just how the hell their format looks or how they count words...

/Chance...

This www.absolutewrite.com is great if your looking to get into writing. Their forum is really good, and gives loads of tips about query letters, manuscripts, formatting and even a list of well respected agents/publishers/editors. Highly recommend it, as they have heaps of Beta readers to help out on your WIPs.

This post has been edited by Cerberus Maw: 30 September 2008 - 03:33 AM

[Sinisdar Toste]

right now im working on a short-with-novel-potential-story that follows the POV of several passengers on plane that crashes until they die. it starts with the pilot who dies on impact with her flight crew and works through the rest of the characters slowly bringing to light the underlying reasons for the crash. and they arent at all savory

[Wordmerchant]

Chance, on Sep 29 2008, 02:13 PM, said:

A question in my mind is how do you people formate your manuscripts after all most people keep telling me 250 words or so is a page well I keep wondering just how the hell their format looks or how they count words...

/Chance...

Double spaced, 1 inch margins, 12 point Courier font. I have been using this format since back in the Stone Age when this was THE only acceptable format for manuscripts. Ugly as hell, but I'm used to it.

[Grief]

Started writing, except im no very good. I get irritated easily, and sometimes feel like I am drowning in cliches.
Ok.
There are a few plots, and most of them, im happy with. All but one really.
So, being young, and stupid, and all that, id like a little advice.

Its like this.

Theres a farmboy. He finds a magic sword(bear with me). Unfortuneately he listen to too many cliched stories etc. He, manipulated by someone else(who actually is more central plotwise, and im rather happy with), becomes rather self obessed, and thinks he has some all important destiny. He meets someone else(unimportant for the purposes of this discussion, but more important to the book later). He ends up killing a friend, having became self-obessed etc. Pursuing his "destiny" set to him by the other dude, he tries, with his magical sword, and, thinking he has godlike powers, to kill someone with a lot more experience of swordwork etc. Unlike the usual cliche, he gets wtfpwned.

Now, my problems with this:

It seems cliched.
A large problem is that he, for a large part of the book, will be set up as your aberage cliche, with hints otherwise. I dont want to hint to obviously, but I get the feeling pepole will pick it up and just think "farmboy, sword cliche". Which i'd prefer to avoid. Hopefully the other characters/story will make up for this.
He is mainly there to show what a bastard the other dude is, and to help a few things, that I could make happen a different way easily enough, happen.

I am thinking of ditching his sotryline altogether.

Thoughts/advice please.

This post has been edited by Grief: 01 October 2008 - 09:02 PM

[Cerberus Maw]

Grief, on Oct 2 2008, 07:02 AM, said:

Started writing, except im no very good. I get irritated easily, and sometimes feel like I am drowning in cliches.
Ok.
There are a few plots, and most of them, im happy with. All but one really.
So, being young, and stupid, and all that, id like a little advice.

Its like this.

Theres a farmboy. He finds a magic sword(bear with me). Unfortuneately he listen to too many cliched stories etc. He, manipulated by someone else(who actually is more central plotwise, and im rather happy with), becomes rather self obessed, and thinks he has some all important destiny. He meets someone else(unimportant for the purposes of this discussion, but more important to the book later). He ends up killing a friend, having became self-obessed etc. Pursuing his "destiny" set to him by the other dude, he tries, with his magical sword, and, thinking he has godlike powers, to kill someone with a lot more experience of swordwork etc. Unlike the usual cliche, he gets wtfpwned.

Now, my problems with this:

It seems cliched.
A large problem is that he, for a large part of the book, will be set up as your aberage cliche, with hints otherwise. I dont want to hint to obviously, but I get the feeling pepole will pick it up and just think "farmboy, sword cliche". Which i'd prefer to avoid. Hopefully the other characters/story will make up for this.
He is mainly there to show what a bastard the other dude is, and to help a few things, that I could make happen a different way easily enough, happen.

I am thinking of ditching his sotryline altogether.

Thoughts/advice please.

I suppose the first question that comes to mind is, who is the Main character? Is it the cliche character? Or is it a storythat it has several plotlines and he is just one thread, so you jump from character to character.

If he's the MC that your writing from, it's going to be hard to escape the fear that you have where people will pick up on it, and may think HACK! But some people like a cliche story. Christ, if Richard Rahl was any more cliched, he would be a walking paradox and the universe would systematically explode.

But it is possible. If you think about it, Karsa starts off as the most cliched character ever. Big hero, thinks he's invincible blah blah blah. So you could use to it the advantage of the story, really make reader identify with him, that they loathe/love him depending on how his arc develops, and how the character develops.

Regards to how you write. Well, that's something unique to every writer!

[Epiph]

@Grief

Just write your story. Don't worry if it is cliche or good or bad or whatever. Just write it. Once it's written, then you can haul out the all-critical, editorial board in your head. But worrying about cliche...this way writer's block lies.

People say that one needs to write 1,000,000 words before reaching a really publishable level, so it is really more important to just write the story.

[Raven King]

I got my sights on a future in writing.

I'm currently writing a draft of my third book in a seven book series I've planned out. The idea has been maturing and expanding ever since it came into my head back when I was five. I'm hoping to finish the third book this year because in my plans for trying to publish, I'm going to be writing my serious draft of the first book in Grade 12 and into university.

Also at the moment since it being October and such, I've been writing and now editing several Halloween short stories, one which I'm think of putting in a contest.

[Yellow]

Not posted in here for a while, so here we go.

My book is sitting with a couple of friends. One of them is telling me how great it is, which would be nice except I think he's just being too easy on me. He's a harsh critic, so I think he's saving my feelings. The other guy hasn't given me an update at all. Not good.

Also in the middle of the story for the Malazan writing contest. I'm stuck. I know where I'm going and what I need to do... but I'll be fucked if I can put words to it. Grrr.

[Yellow]

Cerberus Maw, on Sep 30 2008, 03:49 AM, said:

This www.absolutewrite.com is great if your looking to get into writing. Their forum is really good, and gives loads of tips about query letters, manuscripts, formatting and even a list of well respected agents/publishers/editors. Highly recommend it, as they have heaps of Beta readers to help out on your WIPs.

How to put this diplomatically? I go on absolutewrite fairly often, but I've never actually signed up and started posting. The site has a strange, group-hysteria vibe to it. I find it hard to pin down, but many times (and I do mean many - I often go on the site as a kick-start to a writing session) I've come across a kind of general resistance to success, unless it comes to one of the faithful.

I'm not even sure if that's the right phrase, but I find that people are generally a little hostile towards writers (particularly new writers) who expect, or are even optimistic about, success, unless they have been around the site for a while and posted numerous times about how hard it is to find success. Seriously, check out the site, see how many people have fifteen-line sigs listing the number of rejections they've recently received.

Which is all well and good (because we all know how difficult an industry it is to break into), but woe be tied anyone who declares (in their first post) that they have a book that's ready to send out to publishers. Try doing that, see how many people come back and tell you that you haven't done enough editing/sending out to beta readers. See how many people tell you that before they've even read any of your writing.

But you know, maybe they're right. There are a lot of published writers on that site. But I find they're all too deep into the false-positive aspects of writing. "You're only doing well if you're struggling". Like I say, hard to put to words, but it's just a vibe. Apologies to those I'm doing hard by, if that's a real phrase.

Though I must say that the novel and fantasy sections are full of tripe, which makes me suspicious of whether or not to trust members' advice on there (obviously, I'm talking in generalities). I find sffworld's forums a lot more insightful, as there are authors on there I respect (or at least have heard of) who are not afraid to get down and dirty, chat with their fans or even argue with each other. I read a loooooong argument on there a while back between Scott Bakker and Matt Stover that was a joy to read, as it was a great example of authors being just like their readers - ie. a bunch of forum nerds The thread is here:

http://sffworld.com/...read.php?t=8908

It starts off with ChrisW (who used to run this site I think) having a rant about Goodkind (or GRR Martin, who knows!) but it's an interesting read.

Wow, bit of a digression there. Anyway, check out absolutewrite, as it does have a lot of resources and the attitude is generally friendly, but take the advice you find there with a pinch of salt. That's my opinion, anyway.

This post has been edited by Yellow: 15 October 2008 - 08:34 PM

[Wordmerchant]

Grief, on Oct 1 2008, 05:02 PM, said:

Started writing, except im no very good. I get irritated easily, and sometimes feel like I am drowning in cliches.

Don't worry about the cliches. That's what edits and rewrites are for. Just get the thing written or there IS no story to fix.

Quote

A large problem is that he, for a large part of the book, will be set up as your aberage cliche, with hints otherwise. I dont want to hint to obviously, but I get the feeling pepole will pick it up and just think "farmboy, sword cliche".

I would be VERY cautious with this approach. The dangers are twofold:
1 - You may be too subtle with your hints and your reader will not "get it" until you do the big reveal. This can be a big letdown for many readers, as it feels like the author lied to them.
2 - The hints may leave your reader with a bunch of WTF moment, and he loses faith in your ability to be true to the characters and the story.

Not to say that this can't be done successfully, but this approach works better in films like "Sixth Sense" than it does in print. It will require the rest of your story to be strong enough and interesting enough to keep your reader where you want him.

Quote

A large problem is that he, for a large part of the book, will be set up as your aberage cliche, with hints otherwise. I dont want to hint to obviously, but I get the feeling pepole will pick it up and just think "farmboy, sword cliche". Which i'd prefer to avoid. Hopefully the other characters/story will make up for this.
He is mainly there to show what a bastard the other dude is, and to help a few things, that I could make happen a different way easily enough, happen.

As a possibility: write the story from the POV of the bastard, not the farmboy. If his main purpose is as a counter to the Evil Overlord, then he is probably not interesting enough to bear the full focus of the story.

[Bauchelain the Evil]

After many years I' ve started once again writing a novel. It is a fantasy that takes place in an Empire were many things are happening.

After a millenia-long sleep a giant sentient machine that can only work with human blood called the Tecnochrat is going to awaken once again to re-create his old Empire.
The High Priest of Emurè,God of Winds and Storms, in a bid for power has made pacts with strange,otherwordly forces.
Vox,God of Disease, despite being the one who defeated the Tecnochrat millenias back, has been almost forgotten and has decided to refresh human memory by opening his Vase of Fear, a vase that contains the most terrible diseases ever.
Attalus Crowne, a gifted clock maker, has been accused of wanting to return the supremacy of tecnology(who everyone dislikes) once again and must escape from the city of Rent. But when on his trail is put Master Acbath, the deadliest assassin of he city, he understads that something isn't as it should be.

Note: Magic in my world is used both by humans and gods but among human only priests and assassins(who are dependant from the temples) are authorized to use it.

This post has been edited by Bauchelain the Evil: 22 November 2008 - 05:46 PM

[Use Of Weapons]

My current WIP is _The Company of Men_ (working title), where there are four races of man all descended from the original, created by the united creation act of the 99 gods (who are all aspects of the One Above All). Actually, one of the four races is the original, unchanged -- they chose to remain immortal, but without progeny, when offered the choice by the Gods. The second are extremely long-lived, and mostly infertile. The third is man as we know him. The fourth rebelled against the choice, with the support of one of the aspect Gods (the Postponer), and are immortal also, but not unkillable as are the first.

The Irulan Empire is a source of stability in the continent of Manas, bordered in the east by Sere, in the west by Shchiko, and in the north by Äldhame, home of the Undying Ones (the first race). The ruling class of the Empire are the Gold, who are, as a rule, melded with chosen steeds to make centaurs. The organisational structure of the Empire is based on Plato's ideal Republic -- the Emperor is elected from the Gold, and children of the Gold are educated centrally and have little contact with their birth parents. The Empire has reached a stable size, but events elsewhere are contributing to an imbalance of forces that may force it to react.

The Archivist, one of the Undying, has been tortured and discorporated, in the process forced to reveal the last known location of the Slaver's Crown, one of the artifcats of the Third age, the Time of War. Rebodied (part of the agreement the Undying have with the Gods), he now seeks to thwart those who seek the Crown. But to do that, he will need allies.

Quill Blackspire, Synoptic mage of Sere, is trying (as countless mages have tried) to discover the secret of the Empire's Meld. What she discovers will lead to an uneasy alliance, and revelations that may be uncomfortable for the Empire and its allies.

And across the sea, the Postponer gathers his forces of the dead and undead, seeking to right an ancient wrong.



It's all very exciting, and probably too much story for one novel, but I'll see what I can do...

[Salt-Man Z]

After getting some inspiration from poking around this forum, I started writing last week for the first time in probably 6 years. I decided to just sit down and try to crank out the most vivid scene I had in my head of my fantasy-with-robots idea (mentioned in passing in the Other Fantasy forum) and in two sessions of about 1.5 hours each, I've churned out what could be the very rough first draft of a Chapter 1. I was expecting it to be garbage, but I printed it out and read through it, and it's not unreadable! I'll likely spend another couple of hours finishing the chapter up, and then probably post it here for y'all's perusal. In fact, if I have the time, I just might try to clean it up and submit it to the short story contest.

That's the optimistic part of this post. The other side is, after having checked out what's-his-name's Snowflake Method of writing, I've realized that I can't really forge ahead with the above story idea because the actual plot has eluded me. By which I mean, I haven't figured it out, and don't see myself doing so anytime soon. When I sit down to write something, I feel like the plot and elements thereof need a kind of clockwork precision to them; the final conflict can only be solved by taking all the pieces presented throughout and putting them together in that big "Aha!" moment. Until I have that framework, I can't get the plot resolved, because the necessary details (and accumulation thereof) will drive the plot. (In this case, the interactions of technology, magic, and anti-magic, among others.) Another problem occurs once I have the plot in place, namely meshing it with the characters and their motivations, while keeping it practical and natural. These are all major issues with this story idea that will have to be resolved before I do any more real writing work in that universe.

Meanwhile, the other major story idea percolating through my head will need far less work to be "Snowflake Method"-ready. It's called "Those Scars Borne" and concerns a young girl in a jungle-village setting, where the tribes believe that their scars (either from battle, or self-inflicted in the case of their family animal totems) will elevate them in their afterlife. The plot concerns this girl struggling against her own culture (women are not rewarded in the afterlife, and have little status in this life), going to battle against a terrible sorcerer-general, and ultimately discovering the truth of her people's afterlife. I love the ideas, I think the themes are extremely rich, and I think it would be a fantastic story if written by a great author. Unfortuantely, that author is not me (yet), but I know I can develop the idea to the point where I can write it out fully, even if I can't do it justice. But I can see myself as my write skills mature, going back and redoing the story, making it better each time, to the point where I can be that author, and do "Those Scars Borne" justice.

[LadyMTL]

I actually have finished book one of a fantasy trilogy that I had all planned out...even sent it in to some publishers but alas! I was cruelly rejected. The titles were / are : Wrath (the one that I finished), Retribution (I started it but my motivation has flown out the window) and Redemption (I have a basic outline but that's it).

I don't really have a summary to share, it's a story of sisters who are separated after an invasion, how their lives progress, how they try to fight the invaders blah blah blah. The story is awesome in my head but I can't seem to get it down on paper. *Sigh*

This post has been edited by Maia Irraz: 28 November 2008 - 12:58 PM

[Sixty]

Complete thread necro, but who cares. I've been working on a piece since around september; I'm currently about 4/5 through my first draft (~180k words). I put together a brief blurb in about 5 minutes; let me know what you guys think:

The Relm Empire has fallen into a state of shattered disarray, sundered by myriad socioeconomic and political ambitions. Two great schisms have occurred—among the Yramians to the north and the Mondorish to the south. Among the Mondorish, a man by the name of Stephen Connault has risen from mediocrity to religious messiah, building an oligarchy that has stripped away the nobility and taken the power for its spiritual elite.

But few beneath Stephen Connault’s heel find his rule comfortable, and sundry forces conspire to eliminate his oppression. Emperor Elrik Relm has gathered an army hell-bent on annihilating the threat to unity. A wandering exile has found a home and decides to abandon it, and a centuries-old organization on his trail brings plots to a junction.

For through all the swelling of mayhem, a single thread holds true, leading the players to a single threshold at the verge of the hypocrite’s haven. As desires duel and masks morph, one maxim rings forever true: nothing is said that is meant, and nothing is meant that is said.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


As for themes, it generally revolves a lot around religion, belief, etc. The idea of believing things not through blind conviction (I probably overuse that phrase and its variants, but I can't think of a powerful synonym) but by rational deduction.
Magic ends up being an amalgam of numerous different magic systems I've read about, but it generally amounts to mind-influence (memories, emotions, thoughts, reflex) with a dash of bene gesserit bodily-function type stuff (i.e., forcing a lot of platelets to a certain wound to staunch bleeding). It's genetically inherited (somewhat similar, I guess, to WoT's one power) but its users have been condemned as anathema to "god", named as the "Great Lord". As a result, the magic users (I tend to shy from using magic, preferring to call it a "power", pointing out how by being genetically inherited it's more like a really smart person or particularly gifted athlete than a demon) have to live in hiding and have developed a sort of discriminatory hate that reflects what others have done to them.

Wow, lots of digressions there.

This post has been edited by Sixty: 19 January 2009 - 06:53 PM

[Shinrei]

I am currently working on several short stories. (Well, only really working on 2 of the set, although I have the titles and concepts for the others)

The one I'm working on primarily is called "Fox Wedding". The other one that I have started is "Reconciliation". I originally envisioned this one as a screenplay rather than a story though.

The others are concepts I'm developing, but aren't quite complete. "Crows on the Way" and "The Day I Woke Inside My Body" are the titles.

They are all fiction with elements of fantasy, but they are not fantasy genre per se. I'll probably post some portions of "Fox Wedding" here for critique at some point.

[Grimjust Bearegular]

Aptorian, on Jun 21 2008, 08:58 PM, said:

Oh and of course there's human armies blowing the crap out of barbarians with canons and riffles, giant machines and prehistoric demons trampling cities, dragons fighting UFOs, Giants wrestling T-rex's, Gods getting drunk and naughty, etc... and evil chickens, lots and lots of evil chickens

I would totally read that book!