The Writing Thread

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What are some good ways to "practice" my writing skills? I tried joining a roleplaying server, but so far the experience has been underwhelming; Gooners and sickos everywhere.

Got a lot of stories i can share, but i can save those for later.

Anyways, i went in with the idea of brainstorming a scene or a short story with another aspiring author, and working our way through while reading and learning from the other. Could have been naïvete, but i honestly thought i'd find what i was looking for with roleplayers. I doubt there's a place where i can find someone to read my excerpts at a whim like i hoped for, so i'm looking for exercises i can do on my own.
 
Psyduck said:
What are some good ways to "practice" my writing skills? I tried joining a roleplaying server, but so far the experience has been underwhelming; Gooners and sickos everywhere
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this might be a bit underhanded but fanfiction, especially writing shitty one-off things that suck on purpose but are done for fun, are a good exercise imo. im not saying to write badly, but to write your train of thought in the way that gets you in the flow state, and to not give a shit about editing or refining anything (because you'll get stuck in a deathloop once you start editing.)
i got the most of my writing done when i was unabashedly just putting shit out whenever i was having pure blind fun with it, and this manifested through 30+ works spanning 400k words within a year or so. it just worked!
 
Okay, so this is something I've bee working on for awhile. I cannot guarantee it's any good. I tried to make a version with AI and got so pissed off that I wrote more of it myself.

As of right now, I'm just posting the incomplete version in the spoiler.

In The State Academy, a young graduate to be was trying to write a speech. He has dark hair, broad shoulders from years of training, and had a young face with blue eyes free of facial hair that would normally begin to grow on someone of his age. He was something of a handsome devil if he said so himself. And right next to him, a young blonde woman was engrossed in her own homework. Or at least she was pretending to be.

Robin was tapping at his blank notepad, he has been trying to think about what to write. He did agree to help Daisy with her homework, something both of them agreed that was what they’d say if they got caught. Knowing that the graduation was important, Robin tried thinking of something that would impress his father. There was that whole spiel about strength through unity he heard his father mentioned, he agreed with the rhetoric. But the idea of relying on others rubbed him the wrong way. “Still busy with that speech big boy?” Robin looked to the side and noticed that Daisy’s shirt has one less button holding her impressive bust in. She was definitely teasing him.

“I haven’t even started Daisy. I don’t feel inspired.” Robin really didn’t like admitting weakness, even to a fellow angel like Daisy Blanc. The two of them hung around from time to time, this was the first time he had been in her room though.

She giggled, “How about I give you a little inspiration.”

He was strangely nervous, maybe this was something different from his past flings. Perhaps he can make a future with her. They both find themselves getting closer to each other, and just as they were in arms reach around each other.

[NOW APPROACHING, JOHN HANCOCK SUCKS AT CARDS, ALL PASSENGERS ARE TO REMAIN SEATED DURING THE LANDING PROCESS. PLEASE PROVIDE YOUR PASSPORT AT THE TERMINAL. THANK YOU FOR RIDING THE SKYWAY EXPRESS.]

Echo woke up, dammit he was dreaming about the past again. He never managed to get together with Daisy. Perhaps it was a good thing considering what had happened on graduation day. He wasn’t in the right state of mind after the incident. He joined up with what had been left of The State Army, working his way into The Realm Master division, burying his old name under layers of black ink and censorship, and earned his callsign as Echo. As far as the world was concerned, Robin Lombardi was dead.

It had been a month since he had gotten his callsign, his current assignment had lead him to the newly established nation calling itself “The Library” which once made up The State’s R&D Department and Mana Research facilities. How a bunch of eggheads ended up running a nation was something he questioned everyday. From what it appears what had been once comrades in arms from the former Mage division are now foreign nationals. He was in their territory, so he had to play nice as strange as that was. None of them seem to recognize him, which was good. Because if they’d did, he would certainly be attacked regardless of his status, his Obscurer be damned.

After being allowed through, Echo took a taxi over to the ‘John Hancock still sucks at cards’ hotel and booked a cheap room. Once in the privacy of the room, he pulled out the mission dossier disguised as a travel planner. Memorizing the mission, hunt down an assassin who had been making waves in the underworld, he was free use any method to his discretion. Echo slips the dossier back into his provided briefcase. His cover identity for the mission, Erich Franks, was cultivated to be bait thanks to a string of previous operations using the name. He was chosen to be the face of the fabricated man, not the worst OP to be a part of if he were honest. According to available intel, the assassin preferred to use long range weaponry, intelligence has yet to determine if they’re either a talented sniper or are using assisted targeting.

He went over to the kettle seeing that it was well maintained and he can brew tea safely in the resulting hot water. Daisy was very partial to white tea, he preferred black tea if anyone asked him. He drank white tea once a month to remind himself of her. Dammit, now’s not the time to think about the past, she’s dead like everyone else. Unfortunately, now wasn’t the time to make any tea.

He was to meet the contact at the nearby cafe, Blanc Coffee, of all the places to meet. Likely owned by a probably distant member of Daisy’s family judging by the name. The cafe claims to use non-cloned beans roasted and ground on the spot. At least they also serve tea, he finds a corner to sit in by the window and browsed the menu on the table. The cafe itself seems to relish in it’s quaintness, what’s the aesthetic, hipster? Maybe he can sample something while he wai-

“So big man, what are you ordering?”

A familiar voice? No. It can’t be, it’s impossible.

“Excuse me, it’s rude to ignore a lady you know.”

Lowering the menu, Echo finds himself staring at the face Daisy Blanc, she should be dead. Except she’s standing right there in a maid outfit, her blonde hair was tied off on the side in a ponytail with a teal ribbon tied around it, bright blue eyes that held a very playful glint in her eyes and a smile he was pretty sure was polite. That outfit left very little to the imagination especially with how it accentuates her cleavage, “Excuse me?” He managed to say that without stuttering. Seriously, what kind of cafe is this?

She blushed looking away briefly, “Sorry, you reminded me of someone I knew back in the day. He was quite the stud. I’m Daisy, I’ll be taking your order today mister…”

“Franks, Erich Franks.” He had to use his cover identity, he can’t blow it just because he saw an old friend. Dammit what the hell was going on here? “As for my order,” He decided to go with what had been suggested in the planner, “I’ll take a doppo espresso laccino with five macarons on the side. That will be it for now.”

Daisy smiled with a wink, “Okay, one order of doppo espresso laccino, and five macarons on the side for Mr. Franks coming up.” Echo almost smirked in response as she walked away. Taking in the view of the rest of the cafe Echo realized what kind of cafe he ended up in, a maid cafe. He officially hates this mission now, what kind of degenerate would open up a coffee shop appealing to very lonely men. A cup of iced coffee surrounded by five macaroons of various flavors was placed in front of him, “Your order Master~.” Picking up the coffee, he took a sip. It tasted good, if a little sweet. He did have questions he couldn’t vocalize, so he chose a safe one, “Excuse me, but it this real milk?”

“Why yes it is good sir.” Said Daisy while standing at an odd angle from the table away from the window, “We’ve managed to strike a very good deal with a family of dairy farmers by the Western Plains in Central. So far, everything is doing fine. Oh, lean back please.”

Echo leaned back, “Worried about my back or are you offended by my slouching?”

“No, that was to dodge the bullet.”

The window shattered and he felt the bullet graze past where his head had been just seconds ago. What the hell was that?!

“I suggest you go out through the back. And If you’re lucky, you wont get ambushed.” Daisy said as she runs over to the counter and ducks behind it. As the crowd of employees and costumers were running out in the stampede. With no other choice, Echo runs out of the cafe through the back. He busts into the alley and just as he was about to run out of the corner, he jumps back to dodge the attempted assassination from above. The person landing in front of him was a brunette woman with shoulder length wavy hair wearing a red jacket, denim jeans, and boots. The most striking feature of his would be assassin was the plasma scythe they were carrying, and the red eyes glowing under the goggles. What the hell was a demon doing here?

“Hey! You’re not supposed to be in this era!”

Echo finds Daisy right behind him pointing at the assassin, “Miss Daisy, I don’t think you should be provoking the maniac with the scythe.”

She puffed her cheeks out in annoyance, “Don’t care, that woman over there shouldn’t be here. It’s making my wings tingle all wrong. Oh, before I forget, here’s a sword. That scythe looks pretty nasty.” Daisy hands a sword to Echo and he instinctively pulsed his Aura into the sword. The sword itself responded by synchronizing with his Aura rather easily. Did Daisy pluck one of her feathers for this? He didn’t see any signs of her wings straining in that uncomfortably tight looking maid outfit earlier. Wait focus.

“You know, if you turned that corner completely, I would have chopped that head right off Mr. Franks Sr.” The demon said with her thumb swiping across her throat. “But as handsome as you are, I have a job to do and credits don’t come easy.” Her scythe then shifted into a pole arm as she thrusts the plasma blade at him, he parried of course. If it weren’t for the Aura coating the feather blade she would have skewered him. “Keep her distracted! I’m going to need time to ready up a counter for that sniper!” Daisy yelled out.

Oh right, he forgot about the sniper. Well that would be significantly easier as long as he doesn’t get shot first. Spending feathers to manifest a complex piece of weaponry such as a sniper rifle wasn’t easy and required knowledge to construct quickly.
 
Psyduck said:
What are some good ways to "practice" my writing skills? I tried joining a roleplaying server, but so far the experience has been underwhelming; Gooners and sickos everywhere.

Got a lot of stories i can share, but i can save those for later.

Anyways, i went in with the idea of brainstorming a scene or a short story with another aspiring author, and working our way through while reading and learning from the other. Could have been naïvete, but i honestly thought i'd find what i was looking for with roleplayers. I doubt there's a place where i can find someone to read my excerpts at a whim like i hoped for, so i'm looking for exercises i can do on my own.
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What I do this take existing characters and put them in a slice of life scenario.
Base it on something that happened to you IRL or something that is on your mind and see where it goes from there.
It also helps you deepen your characters
 
Psyduck said:
What are some good ways to "practice" my writing skills? I tried joining a roleplaying server, but so far the experience has been underwhelming; Gooners and sickos everywhere.

Got a lot of stories i can share, but i can save those for later.

Anyways, i went in with the idea of brainstorming a scene or a short story with another aspiring author, and working our way through while reading and learning from the other. Could have been naïvete, but i honestly thought i'd find what i was looking for with roleplayers. I doubt there's a place where i can find someone to read my excerpts at a whim like i hoped for, so i'm looking for exercises i can do on my own.
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Whatever weird discord shit you got mixed up in aside, the "community" around any artistic pursuit is always going to be a natural breeding ground for freaks and degenerates, so tough titties on that; you'll never get away from it.
 
Psyduck said:
What are some good ways to "practice" my writing skills? I tried joining a roleplaying server, but so far the experience has been underwhelming; Gooners and sickos everywhere.
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Reading with intent. Seriously. Read well-written authors and look at what they do with sentence structure, word choice, and flow. Effectively using the sounds, shapes, and connotations of words is a tough skill to master. I've read a lot of published work by seasoned authors who don't utilize their words well. I'm paraphrasing, but one of the thoughts about it is, "There's no such thing as a synonym; there's a right word and a wrong word."

As for exercises, short stories are a good place to start. 500-3,500 words, then pare it down. Try to see how few words you can use to express your idea. It's easier to write paragraphs and paragraphs to convey meaning than it is do it succinctly with one sentence. If you're not sure what to write about, look for prompts online. Or pick an author you like and rewrite a passage of theirs in your own way. Voice is a slightly more advanced portion of writing to work on, but it's so important I'd say it's worth starting on early.

I'm also going to echo unironically writing fanfiction or using an existing IP as framework for practice. It takes character and world building issues out of the equation so you can focus more on developing and honing technical skills. If it was good enough for Ovid, it's good enough for us.
 
Mob Boss Barbie said:
I'm also going to echo unironically writing fanfiction or using an existing IP as framework for practice. It takes character and world building issues out of the equation so you can focus more on developing and honing technical skills.
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I’m going to recommend against reading and writing fanfiction for the exact reason you’re recommending it. Writing is an entire package and a major factor to why modern media sucks is that most modern writers are just writing fanfiction. Worldbuilding is little more than flare that should be added sparingly, in spite of its modern lionization, but your characters are everything. Trying to learn to write without figuring out your characters is like trying to learn an instrument without learning scales: you may eventually cobble something together but the effort in doing so is greater than just doing the boring part in the first place. What is also unnecessarily lionized is a deep understanding and history of your characters from the outset when really you should just start with some kind of archetype and add to it later in your draft.
 
Psyduck said:
What are some good ways to "practice" my writing skills? I tried joining a roleplaying server, but so far the experience has been underwhelming; Gooners and sickos everywhere.

Got a lot of stories i can share, but i can save those for later.

Anyways, i went in with the idea of brainstorming a scene or a short story with another aspiring author, and working our way through while reading and learning from the other. Could have been naïvete, but i honestly thought i'd find what i was looking for with roleplayers. I doubt there's a place where i can find someone to read my excerpts at a whim like i hoped for, so i'm looking for exercises i can do on my own.
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Do not take the fanfiction route to learn to practice your writing, it will stunt your imagination and world building. It's other people's characters, only the original writer ever truly ever knows what made that character who they are, everything else comes off as wish writing.

Find the essence of your character for that part of the story. Start with an emotion, at this point in their life are they angry, remorseful, happy, what is currently driving them and then ripple out from there and why? Readers can connect better with a recognizable emotion of a character. This emotion can change and should throughout the story, it shows personal growth.

Always ask yourself why when it comes to creating your characters, why are they this way, what made them as they currently are now. It will help with world building as well, what in the world happened, personal or bigger. Your characters' voices will sound different if you keep this mindset and prevent it from sounding flat. Their whole backstory does not to be on the page, in fact, don't ever give a full backstory on the page, reveal parts of it as time goes on. The backstory is in the emotion of where they are currently in your story.

As for technical skills, that can always get better during later revisions. Write it out first, even if its clunky, the first nor second draft has to be perfect, it will block you, but each draft should strive to become better the more you read it. And when you do read it and revise, read from a reader's perspective thought of "well if I wrote this I would had done this"

If you come up with an idea within your world that doesn't seem to make logical sense, shape your world for it to make sense. Believable within the framework of that world.

Every world should have rules, and some of them can eventually be bent, but not broken.

If it sounds clever the first time, be it a character line, or a narrative moment or a plot device, it could be, but most likely is not. Don't commit to it, it can be changed, altered or removed.

And always remember when it comes to plot, never do "and then" always go for "but then and therefore"

Never become emotionally attached to your first draft, ever.
 
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McMitch said:
I’m going to recommend against reading and writing fanfiction for the exact reason you’re recommending it. Writing is an entire package and a major factor to why modern media sucks is that most modern writers are just writing fanfiction. Worldbuilding is little more than flare that should be added sparingly, in spite of its modern lionization, but your characters are everything. Trying to learn to write without figuring out your characters is like trying to learn an instrument without learning scales: you may eventually cobble something together but the effort in doing so is greater than just doing the boring part in the first place. What is also unnecessarily lionized is a deep understanding and history of your characters from the outset when really you should just start with some kind of archetype and add to it later in your draft.
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I'm going to counter politely and say I understand your points, agree with them to an extent, and say, in my opinion, it ultimately comes down to how each individual learns.

tl;dr: my opinion is just an opinion based on things that I did (and some things I didn't) as a self-taught writer who eventually found themselves in a classroom. There are faster, more efficient ways to git gud than struggling through the slog of not knowing what's wrong or where your fundamentals are lagging when you hit a plateau caused by a weakness in your foundation.

I'm not suggesting reading fanfiction as a place to start, that's a hellish landscape for trying to find anything above a 5th grade level. Purpose-driven writing in an already-developed sandbox is a tool to focus on certain skills, like doing master studies in painting or copying plates. I've seen classroom exercises that ask students to reproduce styles or write continuations of stories as a way to learn to think about character and plot. It is one type of exercise to focus on fundamentals, and it's not something I'd recommend to an intermediate-level writer with a solid grasp on character beyond a style challenge.

There's a trap of thinking "fanfiction," or all derivative works, equals bad, untrained writing with poor character and world understanding with no imagination or creativity from the author. I'm going to counter with fiction more along the lines of Kim Newman's Anno Dracula. It's Dracula, which is derivative, but it's Newman's own spin. Every single book and show and movie written off the back of a Shakespeare play or Brontë sister novel is derivative fiction. Speculative fiction and satires do this too, like Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes. I'll apologize for not making the distinction in my original post. I meant more along the lines of "Ready Player One is a terrible book because it squandered an actually solid plot with potential. It is my life goal to redo it so it doesn't suck ass," not "what if Timmy Turner had two hot moms?"

I agree that modern media neglects character building and I don't think most current popular writers have any idea how to create a good character. It seems to happen by accident when one does show up. There are separate exercises for characters, internal voice, and consistency.

I am personally not a fan of advising a completely new writer without a mentor, a feedback group, or a classroom to try to tackle every aspect of writing in their first few exercises for two reasons. One, it's difficult enough to be your own editor when you're skilled; doing everything at once when you're starting out and trying to diagnose your shortcomings is hard! And potentially overwhelming to the point where a new writer may end up too turned off by their work to continue. Two, the positive reinforcement of being proud of your accomplishments pushes you to keep going, and cobbling everything together on your first attempt is frequently not very encouraging or enjoyable. It has to be fun and you have to feel good about it to keep practicing.

The points you're both making about avoiding the trap of fanfiction are good ones. I just personally don't want to discourage people from starting somewhere if the need to come up with a fantastic plot and lifelike characters on the very first attempt creates a paralysis that prevents words from landing on the page.

@Psyduck what are you specifically looking to do or work on?
 
Writing fanfiction can be an incredibly useful tool depending on what you're struggling with. It's not a great way to get better at character or worldbuilding, but if you write like an ESL or struggle to find the motivation to put pen to paper, then crafting good characters or mastering worldbuilding isn't something you need to be worried about yet.

You also can write fanfiction and also work on your own original projects. They aren't mutually exclusive.
 
Elf Supremacist said:
Please elaborate. This sounds hilarious
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one man acts like a straight man (chris 's father/any character) and one character is supposed to be the chris the crazy dude. afaik


also, i made a new story since i abandon the old one because i think the old story which is named hellburst is lame... this is the story with the document provided (W.I.P)
 

Attachments

Ive been looki g for a word that escapes me so far. It’s somewhat related to evolution or promotion, typically used to refer to higher, more enlightened beings, but elevate, uplift and the like are not what im looking for. Ive check multiple synonym sites and had no luck
 
BetterFuckChuck said:
Ive been looki g for a word that escapes me so far. It’s somewhat related to evolution or promotion, typically used to refer to higher, more enlightened beings, but elevate, uplift and the like are not what im looking for. Ive check multiple synonym sites and had no luck
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Ascension or Apotheosis?
 
I have a fairly general question, for which I'm looking for fairly general answers.
How do you write an abrasive, unlikeable main character without turning him into the guy from YiiK?
 
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