The Writing Check-In Thread

[GA!]

Good article.

I hate that it is a daily struggle. It becomes easier when you realise you're not the only one, and you remember there are bigger problems in life than your inability to structure sentences properly, but that doesn't make the self-loathing go away. The next review for my website (not published yet) made me question whether I wanted to continue a film website several times as it was a total slog to get through.

Writing a novel will be fun though, right?

[DMN in the House]

I have the following (spoilerized for size) 'novel' that I'm working on, really slowly at this point. I'm basically going through and doing a 'short-form' of each chapter so that I can see where everything is going. Sousa's seen the following synopsis, but I'll share it with you guys, maybe if you like it that'll give me some more motivation to get the pen moving again.

The working title for the novel (well, novels, there's a logical break in the entire story, and I feel that it's better to do it over two books) is 'Broken Glass', and it's heavily influenced by Through The Looking Glass/Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I'd honestly call it a re-telling of the tale, but that doesn't truly fit. I think you'll see what I mean.

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We start off in 'Wonderland'¹, where the 'Red'² Queen rules over a kingdom that has become somewhat dystopian. The Queen has ruled for the last fifteen years, since the death of her father, the White² King, and the disappearance of her younger sister, who had, in accordance with 'Wonderland' law, been chosen as heir to the throne by her father. This did not set well with the Queen, who, along with her lover, the 'Red'² Knight, head of the royal guard, took the throne in a coup on the eve of her sister's coronation.

While the pair had every intention of it being a bloodless coup, planning to rely heavily on the Knight's status as captain of the royal guard, they underestimated greatly the majority of the guard's love for both the kingdom and the younger sister, the soon to be White² Queen, regarded by all as much better suited to the throne than her older sister. The coup split the royal guard just about down the middle, leading to a bloody battle which resulted in the deaths of three sergeants of the guard, the representatives of House Liyure³, House Siebenschlyfer³, and House Pyssaro³, tragically spelling the end of the Pyssaro family, as their representative was the last male of the line, and died childless. It was only through the bravery of the representative from House Derby³that the White Queen escaped. It was not long after this that the White Queen also disappeared.

At the same time as the coup is happening in 'Wonderland', two young individuals from our universe/dimension, also go missing. As time between 'Wonderland' and our world do not line up exactly, the disappearance of Gabriel, a bounty hunter, and Alice, a young college student, happen in the current day, not fifteen years ago.

In 'Wonderland', a resistance movement against the 'Red' Queen begins to coalesce around the former royal guard from House Derby, codenamed 'Hatter', and a charismatic young member of the 'Cat People', a race of extremely long-lived human-like beings who have many strange powers, such as teleportation and the ability to make all or portions of their bodies invisible and intangible⁴. While the vast, vast, majority of the 'Cat People' stay out of the affairs of the human denizens of the 'Wonderland' universe, this young male⁵, called 'Cheshire', preferring to live among the humans instead of in his people's forest home, finds himself the unlikely leader of the resistance movement due to the inability of the Queen's soldiers to capture him, or hold him if they did. These two are joined by a representative of House Liyure, codenamed 'Hare', a representative of House Siebenschlyfer, codenamed 'Dormouse', and an inside man, calling himself 'Rabbit', who is the Queen's personal assistant. They are backed by a fully-fledged resistance movement.

In the early part of her reign, the 'Red' Queen seemed to be well-suited to the throne. That changed after an early, and ill-fated, attempt to overthrow her. Though the plot was quickly and easily quashed, it led the Queen down the dark path towards violence and autocracy. 'Wonderland' is now a prototypical police state, the people held down not only by the uniformed police, but also the secret police, and the reformed royal guard, now nothing more than the Queen's own personal jack-booted thugs, led by an increasingly uncomfortable 'Red' Knight. It was this violence, both rumored inside the castle walls and on display in public executions that has earned the Queen her colorful moniker.

Help would seem to be on the way, however, as the 'Oracle Book' prophesizes the arrival of a savior, known only as 'Alice', who will be accompanied by a Knight of her own. Time is running short, and this prophecy is known to all. That is not the only clock ticking, as news of a new military program by the Queen, dubbed 'Jabberwocky' has reached the resistance movement through their inside man. With just days until the portended arrival of 'Alice' and her Knight, and a month until the reported launch of 'Jabberwocky', things are coming to a head.

The Knight, who is, as you likely guessed, Gabriel, arrives first, waking on a beach somewhere in 'Wonderland'. The place looks vaguely familiar to the bounty hunter, but the boats on the water⁶, and much more, does not seem right. After a chapter full of shenanigans and misadventure, he lands safely with the resistance.

'Alice', however, does not. Despite attempts by the resistance, aided by a somewhat reluctant Gabriel, who they have attempted to train in swordplay, despite the fact that he has a duffel bag full of equipment from our world, including a pair of guns with limited ammo, the girl is taken by the 'Red' Knight, who had gained the information due to the torture of captured resistance captains.

Gabriel, now believing that rescuing 'Alice' and fulfilling whatever prophecy exists to be his only way home, convinces the resistance to make a bold and daring move. Just days away is the Queen's 'Anniversary Ball', celebrating another year on the throne. Using himself as the bait and appearing at the ball, Gabriel causes enough of a distraction for the top members of the resistance, 'Cheshire', 'Hatter', 'Hare', and 'Dormouse' to jailbreak 'Alice'. This leads to a short sword battle between the greatest swordsman in the land, the 'Red' Knight, and the woefully un-trained Gabriel, who is only saved by the timely arrival of 'Hatter', the massive former guardsman swinging his trademark battle axe. Everyone escapes, leading to even more violence from the Queen, which results in raids and small skirmishes, including our main group, although in the end the Queen is unable to find them.

She's unable to find them as they have left the city, heading into the 'Mad Forest' in search of a fabled sword of legend, the 'Vorpal Blade'. This mission is undertaken as it's understood that it must be 'Alice', who is actually named Alice, who defeats the Queen, and there is no time to truly train her. The Vorpal Blade of legend is said to house the spirit of a great ancient warrior, and any who wield it will fight as if they have his skill. It is rumored to be in a ruin more than a week's journey from the city, through a nearly untouched forest. The group heads out to retrieve it, though this leaves the majority of the resistance movement at the mercy of the Queen, who has none. They have placed their bet on the prophecy.

We're getting to the part where I haven't quite planned out every little thing like I have with the beginning of the book, but after the journey, which will play out as a nice fantasy homage, they return with the sword, and a better trained Gabriel, to find that the Queen and her Knight have been quite busy, hunting down and destroying resistance cells. With little time to waste, they gather what is left of their forces, and launch an attack on the castle.

The plan of attack is simple. While 'Dormouse' and 'Hare' lead the majority of the remaining resistance strength in a traditional attack on the keep, 'Cheshire', 'Hatter', Gabriel, and Alice sneak in the back. It's during these battles that we find out that 'Project Jabberwocky' was a program to create a serum to enhance her troops. It has yet to be put into full use, though it does come into play during the final battle, as Gabriel has to go toe-to-toe with an enhanced 'Red' Knight. In the end, however, Alice finally beheads the Queen, with just moments before more guards are going to knock down the door. The first book ends with Gabriel telling Alice to leave with 'Hatter', to leave 'before I change my mind', and telling her he loves her (because they fall in love, of course).

The first novel ends with Gabriel simply laying down his weapon and being arrested, not killed. It's hand waved by the fact that the men entering the room aren't the royal guard, but from the military, who are not completely on the Queen's side, but split.

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¹- I'm not certain whether to call the land 'Wonderland' or not. I've even considered taking all of the Wonderland stuff out of the entire novel and making it entirely fresh material.

²- The ruler of 'Wonderland' has, by tradition, always been referred to as the 'White King/Queen', and the head of the royal guard the 'White Knight'. On a side note, though it is rarely exercised, the monarch has the right to name any of his children heir, regardless of order of birth.

³- Liyure is French for 'Hare', Siebenschlyfer is German for 'Dormouse', Derby is another term for a hat (duh), and Pyasso is Portugese for 'Bird'. House Pyasso, who represents the Dodo, is the house that dies out, which is my attempt at being slick and funny. On another name note, the name of the 'White Rabbit' will be 'Billy Kralik', or bily kralik, which is Czech for 'white rabbit'.

⁴- Yes, Cheshire's powers basically mimic the abilities of the Cheshire Cat from the book, or, more accurately, the Disney animated movie.

⁵- The 'Cat People' are a native type people, who live off the land far outside the city. Their lifespans tend to be around 5,000 years. Cheshire, being in his early 250s, while fully mature, is considered something like a teenager to his people.

⁶- The technology of 'Broken Glass' is something I've put a lot of thought into, and I won't go too far into it here unless you ask. They have things like electricity, radio, television, but the major thing missing is gunpowder. I haven't decided if it simply doesn't exist, or they just haven't found it, but warfare is still conducted with sword, shield, axe, bow and arrow, and they wear armor to match. The style of weapon/armor depends on the person, where they're from, things like that.

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I also have ideas for a semi-autobiographical novel (basically a coming of age tale based around some thing that happened in my own life, some things that didn't, the South Bay area, and punk rock), and, if I could find an artist I could work with, a graphic novel based on zombies in Roman Calendonia, which could either just be a straight up zombie tale, or something more open ended with Marc Antony and Cleopatra and other crazy shit. Kind of a Roman 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' thing.

[Maxx]

I'm writing sketches in my sketch class and hope to soon assemble a group to get to work on something for Halloween, or for my daily lives of Bond villain henchmen idea.

I'm also blogging weekly on Dallas Comedy House's website and everyone should tweet Kevin Smith a link to the article I wrote about SModcast.

I also have plans to get to work on my site again with a summer of Wild and Crazy Kids reviews.

[Liam]

Anyone recommend any good books about writing?

Assume a lot of people here would be a bit more creative and just go for it, but wondering if there are any books that might give some worthwhile guidance along the way.

[Cole]

This seems like an appropriate article to share in this thread.

You mean I'm not the only one!?

That was a great article to read, even went through both of the scripts he offered as well and downloaded them for future reference.

[GA!]

Anyone recommend any good books about writing?

Assume a lot of people here would be a bit more creative and just go for it, but wondering if there are any books that might give some worthwhile guidance along the way.

I hear Stephen King's 'On Writing' is very good. I try not to read too many books about writing though because they offer contradictive advice (and the likes of Robert McKee's 'Story' just make me want to vomit blood). You learn the actual writing craft by reading the works of your peers and those you admire, not through mechanical formulas.

[GA!]

I've got a few threads of a never-previously-thought-of story in my head. A 24th century-set ghost story, which isn't exactly me being more light-hearted and carefree', but it's the first original fiction idea I've had in 2014 so fuck it.

I'll have to flesh out the concept a bit more and then post it here, just in case it's a 'Simpsons did it' scenario.

Still chipping away at the idea. I have the gist of what I want the story to be, the arc of the main character, and - importantly, since I always never have one in place before writing - an actual ending. I hope to write out a synopsis and post it on here first to check it is a somewhat original idea.

I'm leaning heavily towards writing it as a screenplay though. I just prefer the format, and screenwriting has been my weapon of choice for 15 years now. Plus, I would like to try and pull off a text/visual imagery element to the final product in the vein of David Cronenberg's Red Cars. But we'll see where this whole 'writing the damn thing' goes first.

[GA!]

Me again. I guess.

I could put this in the Hate Thread in the forum that doesn't exist to the commoners, but I want to offload about something.

I'm falling out of love with my Film Scratches project. This is for two reasons:

1) r/moviecritic downvotes the fuck out of my stuff which probably means the 'non-family, friends, EWB' people I want to attract are not getting what I'm trying to do.

2) My family, friends, EWB don't get what I'm trying to do, meaning my writing is probably a bit shit. I wanted to use my film reviews and articles as a platform to portray my love of film, and how much of an effect they can have on the emotions and lives of the wider public (as opposed to writing about film as a form of entertainment that can be critiqued and rated out of five stars). I asked for feedback for a couple of friends, and they say my writing appeals to the cinephile. I sort of didn't want to do that. Cinephiles already love film and realise it has a bigger effect on people than just entertaining them. I was aiming towards a more casual audience, but I think my subconscious use of film terminology and the ilk has put them off.

So I don't know what to do. Do I continue what I'm doing but reconsider my 'remit' for the site? Do I change my style and awkwardly put it side by side with what I've already written? Or do I possibly scrap the site altogether?

And so this is more involving: have you ever had a project in which you've written something that's been seen by your readers as something completely different to what you'd intended?

[livid]

I wouldn't necessarily scrap the site but shifting its focus a bit may be worthwhile because as much as I like your writing, it is hard to discern what the difference is between what you're doing and just any ol' review site. I would definitely agree that it's something more appealing to cinephiles but I think that's just kind of the nature of the beast. Casual people aren't going to be terribly interested in stuff like that.

To answer your question, though, yes. I once wrote somewhat of a thriller for a short story assignment but the teacher read it as way more comedic.

Edited June 13, 2014 by livid

[GA!]

I wouldn't necessarily scrap the site but shifting its focus a bit may be worthwhile because as much as I like your writing, it is hard to discern what the difference is between what you're doing and just any ol' review site. I would definitely agree that it's something more appealing to cinephiles but I think that's just kind of the nature of the beast. Casual people aren't going to be terribly interested in stuff like that.

I talk about myself a lot before I review the thing, that's the difference.

[DMN in the House]

I'm not sure whether to put this here, or in the Cube, so I'll probably put it in both (plus I'm going to post it to r/scifiwriting). I wrote the first draft of this last night, this is the third. I'm actually really happy with this, think it's logical, and completely works as a story, but I'd like an opinion other than my father's (who, to be fair, has been reading sci-fi longer than any of us (including Teej!) have been alive, and who would shoot me straight).

Anyway, here goes.

A Short History of Time Travel

by Joseph Franklin

The men and women working at the lab gathered for what was to be their sixty-seventh attempt in the pursuit of wormhole technology.

'Three...two...one...'

The head of the team threw the switch, and suddenly, for the first time, the lab was bathed in light. The team's elation quickly turned to gasps, as something, someone, stepped through the gate. The first man through the gate said 'The future is now', and it was.

Within days, technology was increasing, changing, so rapidly that, to someone watching from the outside, it was a blur of motion. Within a week, the changes were happening so fast, the watcher would be unable to distinguish each individual object. Feedback had been achieved.

A second gate opened, the future having achieved the ability to open gates to the past. The second man to step into the past fell to his knees, begging the assembled scientists to allow him to shut down their gate the instant it had opened, allow him to end Feedback before it ever started. They refused, Feedback continued, unabated.

The third man also came out of his own gate. This time the future did not ask to be allowed to destroy the gate, they demanded it. The scientists laughed in his face. Why give up all this marvelous technology they had received. No doubt, the future would be glorious. Feedback rolled on.

Then there was a fourth, the only woman to step into the past. She did not ask, she did not plead, she did not demand. She simply warned them of what was to come, if they did not listen. They did not. Feedback was unstoppable.

The fifth man became the first, stepping out of the light to the astonishment of the scientists. Within seconds, he detonated the device in his hands, destroying the gate, the lab, and the scientists. No one would ever know his name, though his sacrifice saved humanity. There was no Feedback.

[livid]

Are you looking to expand on that anymore? I've had a time travel idea I've been kicking around that I'd love some help brainstorming, if you're interested.

[DMN in the House]

I'm not adamantly against expanding on it, I'm just not sure there's anything else to say with that story. In my mind, that's the logical conclusion of the way time travel works in that universe, which, admittedly, I didn't explain.

That said, I'm open to talking pretty much any idea out with anyone. Helps get my own creative juices flowing.

[GA!]

Having a quick read through, it works as a Twilight Zone-esque short story. I guess that's your intention?

[DMN in the House]

Yeah. It's just a short, I guess, cautionary, tale of one possible, hopefully logical, way that opening a gate from the future to the past, would work. Any technology, no matter how small, that 'contaminates' the past would thus increase the technology of the future, which would then become the technology brought back to the past, creating a constant feedback loop that increases in speed. That's the basic idea of it.

[GA!]

Should be fine then. If you're working on something longer, you would need at least a central character and narrative running through than a series of related-incidents, but in the shorter term probably not.

[GA!]

Random question: which of these reads better? I'm struggling to decide on the syntax of the end to this sentence.

But by condemning [the housing estate] to demolition and placing barbed wire fences around the perimeter, the rusted sign that said: 'WARNING TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED' may as well have read to Brandon: 'WHAT ARE YOU? CHICKEN?'

But by condemning [the housing estate] to demolition and placing barbed wire fences around the perimeter, the rusted sign that said: 'WARNING TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED' may as well have read 'WHAT ARE YOU? CHICKEN?' to Brandon.

[C-MIL]

I prefer the first one. Gives the line a bit more punch.

[GA!]

fuck it n/m

[Jimmy]

Anyone fancy a reading a short 3 page script for me to give me some feedback, please?