I asked the age question because I was curious to see how many of us were around the same age when we had that leap in writing development. I was also 17 when I started Broken, so we are alike in that way!
I was curious too (for science), so I'm glad you did! I hope other people write long diatribes about their novels too!
Or short diatribes. Y'all know I'm long-winded.
Wow, that is some friend! Was it hard to hear "this sucks" from her then, or did you welcome the harsh but honest feedback? I'm glad it helped you look at your writing through another lens and learn from her constructive criticism.
The amount of times we edited the first chapter was insane! It hurt a little at the beginning, because I don't think anyone likes to hear that something they wrote sucks? I assume this is universally true? But I'm also grateful that I had that frame for constructive criticism early. In my mind, no one is going to give constructive criticism from a bad place, it all comes from a good place of wanting to get the best story out of it. Especially when it is someone close to you who also cares about your stories or how your writing is going. Similar to how a teacher will only tell you to fix something before a final draft because they want you to get the best grade you possibly can. I definitely think it gave me a thicker skin earlier while also showing me that there's always things to improve, even on something you love. I was definitely better for it in the long run, especially knowing that after reworking things, I usually got "this is much better/more interesting/makes more sense" in that case. So I figured that something like that was true in all cases.
Yeah, it's definitely easier to use characters who already exist, whether they're people we know in real life or celebrities. It can be fun to base characters on people, too, but it's also fun to create your own. I think the problem with most of the teenybopper Mary Sue stories back in the day was that if the writers created an original character instead of a self-insert, they focused more on her external traits, like her appearance and clothing, than internal traits, so they ended up with this flat drawing of a pretty girl who everyone seemed to love even though she had no substance, rather than a realistic, three-dimensional character. The ability to create one of those comes with experience, so self-inserts may have been a better choice for beginning writers.
I think Mary Sue characters are fairly flat in general, or their flaws aren't really flaws (I'm looking at you "clumsy, but in an endearing way.") There was also a danger in the self-inserts that they also lacked flaws because I feel like it's harder to admit your own flaws, let alone write them down for the whole world to see. But at least self-inserts had a little more personality to them in general. Even if the Boys cared more about Nick's relationship with Gypsydoodle than they cared about their own problems.
I feel like we've had this conversation many times, lol.
Just don't crash the bus, Nick! Or do, and then we can get another fanfic out of it.
LMFAO! He doesn't technically know what a bus is, but I guess he's fine because it's a metaphorical bus? Maybe that's what PBox related writer's block is, Nick crashing the bus. Hopefully the others do something useful and Howie doesn't spend the whole time winking. lmao
I can relate to this too. Broken doesn't seem that dark to me now, but it is certainly angsty and depressing in parts. Back when I was writing it, I had a lot of angst over the impending amputation. I don't know why because I had already put the Boys through all kinds of tragedies in my earlier stories, even killed some of them... but for whatever reason, chopping off Nick's leg felt like a really big deal to me. But it was also a compelling enough idea that I committed to it, and that is when I learned to take risks, cross lines, embrace the darkness, and run with it. The fact that Broken doesn't seem that dark and chopping off Nick's leg doesn't seem like a big deal to me now just shows me how much darker I've gotten since then LOL. As we've talked about before, it's good to occasionally cross lines and write things that make you uncomfortable because by stepping outside your comfort zone, you're more likely to learn and grow. That being said, there's still a place for comic relief and flashes of light in a dark story, and there's nothing wrong with fun-fest jokey writing when it fits the story. I don't know if "Death by Snail" fits your definition of fun-fest jokey writing, being more of a dark humor, but I'm looking forward to it!
I can see why chopping off Nick's leg made you feel angsty, especially if it was around the time your writing improved. It's easy enough to say "And he died and everyone was sad, but then they moved on and there was a wedding" or whatever, but it's harder to portray a character's emotions about a dark thing happening to them. Which I know I didn't have pre-Gobosei and still didn't refine until going through PBox. If Broken was your breakout piece, you had to make sure that Nick's feelings about being an amputee were adequately explored, shark dreams and all.
I agree with all of that! I'm grateful PBox gave me a chance to grow and push boundaries. I knew the potential for dark was there, but the stories never felt like the right place to commit to the dark. I guess with PBox, I just finally thought, "cool, let's get dark?" I think we've discussed before that it's equally important to have those comic relief moments and flashes of light in a dark story; even in dark situations, nothing is always all dark.
Edited to Add: I meant to comment on this and forgot. I'd say, overall "Death by Snail" has a little more of the "fun-fest jokey" type stuff, at least in the beginning.
I'm always impressed by the level of research you do, as well as your attention to detail when it comes to building worlds and creating characters. I know we've already discussed the strange things we've looked up for stories, but another question could be, "What random knowledge have you acquired thanks to fanfic?" Like parts of weapons and the rules of fencing!
Thanks! It has been extensive, but it helps that I like learning about random things, haha. The internet has only made it easier. I love that question! I'll have to come up with a more detailed list. On the topic of parts of weapons, it has always bothered me that "gripped" is one of my go-to verbs, because I cannot properly call the part of a sword's handle that is held the "grip" rather than referring to the whole thing as a "hilt" because variants of "gripped the grip" sound ridiculous. And I know there are other verbs, but "gripped" the verb!
I also admire how much thought you put into your characters and their actions and words. It's one thing to come up with all little quirks, like Nick always standing with his back against the wall in the beginning, but then to write them in such a subtle and nuanced way so that your readers may not even notice that or realize why... That takes a certain level of sophistication . When you spend a lot of time researching and crafting a character or world, it's tempting to want to include every detail you know in the actual story. I struggle with that temptation of wanting to over-explain and include details that don't really need to be in the story just because I find them interesting.
Thanks again! I'm super touched by these nice compliments about my hard work researching and character crafting!
I work really hard on it, even if it doesn't all end up in the narrative. That's why I like chatting here, because I can share all these interesting facts and details in the context of our discussions without the story feeling bloated from them.
I joked that I wanted to add a chapter called "castles are super f-in interesting," because... well castles are really interesting, first of all, and then I'd have a spot to really explain why the capital of Safaiananpou is a walled city surrounding a castle and the other countries' capitals aren't that way. The short answer is that castle compounds typically house what the sovereign deems essential to running their empire, which typically does not include the average citizen of their empire, but obviously Howie would consider everyone and everything to be essential. Which then leads to the rest of the country being fairly sparse, untouched natural elements and the inherent problems with housing your entire country in the same place (chiefly that it's fairly easy to wipe your entire civilization out if it's in one spot and you're not constantly prepared for that threat, but it's also a choice based directly on an earlier event in universe, so... I digress again).
However, I don't think I've quite obtained Victor Hugo status to natter on about things that interest me for many pages and include it in the narrative, but I also thought it was fascinating to learn all about the Paris sewer system from him (I don't think everyone has this same opinion, haha). I think we all just need to create companion books titled "All the super interesting things I learned while researching x story," then there might be less temptation to bog down the narrative with it? Because I feel you, I also would love to include so much of my research because I find it fascinating (clearly, I wrote a whole story that required me to find it), but I agree that there's places for it in the narrative and there's places where it really doesn't need to be.
With description, I think it's important to find a balance between "not enough" and "too much." Obviously, description is needed to help bring a story to life in the reader's head. But too much description can bog down the story, bore the reader, and put you in purple prose territory. With fantasy, I think it makes sense to save your longer descriptions for things that don't exist the same way in our world. That helps the reader picture and understand the world you've created for your story. They don't need a detailed description of every leaf on a tree. They also don't need constant reminders of what the Backstreet Boys look like, although I never mind a description of their pretty eyes or smiles. Or hair!
"The tree had many leaves, they all looked the same: green, jagged, slightly oval. Just like you would imagine a tree looked. They were also next to this building you've never heard of, but we can't talk about that next time. This magnificent specimen of natural beauty was..." lmao. This is why I don't bother describing terrain aside from "surrounded by a forest" unless knowing something specific about it is important or that same element pops up later for some reason. I'll say that I spend 0.05% of my time waxing poetic about some natural feature because I felt like it; it's not there often, but it is there sometimes. "Gardens of an estate" fall into the same category as "buildings that exist in the imagined world of PBox" for me, so I don't count them in that 0.05%.
Same. Eyes, smiles, hair, Kevin's eyebrows, facial hair. I assume most of us feel the same, so I never feel bad including it or waxing poetic on it (within reason). I won't call it totally purple, but possibly periwinkle prose.
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Topic: The Writing Thread: Orlando Passaggio (aka The Writing Thread 3) (Read 448206 times)