Writing Discussion II

[Laerod]

I just found out I got the order of events on the first day of the Battle of Hampton Roads entirely wrong in my story, so I need to rewrite that...

Doing research for art or writing is really hard sometimes because you need to find out stupid little details that you wouldn't normally care about.

Ugh, I know. I've learned more about the hard sciences than I ever cared to know.

This is why I prefer fictional history to historical fiction =D

That didn't save me. DX

Change the hard sciences. For SCIENCE!

[Nordengrund]

I just found out I got the order of events on the first day of the Battle of Hampton Roads entirely wrong in my story, so I need to rewrite that...

Doing research for art or writing is really hard sometimes because you need to find out stupid little details that you wouldn't normally care about.

I am currently trying my hand at sci-fi and I had to research particle accelerators, ion cannons, tachyons, etc.

[Bezombia]

I just found out I got the order of events on the first day of the Battle of Hampton Roads entirely wrong in my story, so I need to rewrite that...

Doing research for art or writing is really hard sometimes because you need to find out stupid little details that you wouldn't normally care about.

I am currently trying my hand at sci-fi and I had to research particle accelerators, ion cannons, tachyons, etc.

I'm curious as to what led you to need to research tachyons, of all things.

[The New World Oceania]

I am currently trying my hand at sci-fi and I had to research particle accelerators, ion cannons, tachyons, etc.

I'm curious as to what led you to need to research tachyons, of all things.

I imagine Nord is looking at some hypothetical scenario where an accelerator can get particles past the speed of light. Which would incidentally require a very large, very hot magnet, probably also moving at the speed of light.

[Respubliko de Libereco]

I'm curious as to what led you to need to research tachyons, of all things.

I imagine Nord is looking at some hypothetical scenario where an accelerator can get particles past the speed of light. Which would incidentally require a very large, very hot magnet, probably also moving at the speed of light.

He's probably just trying to justify some sort of FTL drive. Personally, I wouldn't bother, since pretty much everyone accepts that FTL is a standard fixture of sci-fi. Trying to explain it is like trying to give a solid evolutionary justification for why your fantasy story has dragons in it: you're really just opening yourself up to scientific criticism that wouldn't have been a problem otherwise.

[Zeinbrad]

Ugh, I know. I've learned more about the hard sciences than I ever cared to know.

That didn't save me. DX

Change the hard sciences. For SCIENCE!

Or could be like me, and just say "fuck science" and go on from there.

[Laerod]

Change the hard sciences. For SCIENCE!

Or could be like me, and just say "fuck science" and go on from there.

The difference between changing the hard sciences and just saying "fuck science" is.

[Armeia]

Change the hard sciences. For SCIENCE!

Or could be like me, and just say "fuck science" and go on from there.

That's basically how my soft sci fi novel goes.

[Shaggai]

Or could be like me, and just say "fuck science" and go on from there.

The difference between changing the hard sciences and just saying "fuck science" is.

Actually figuring out the implications of the changes, I would assume. At least to a certain degree, since most science fiction writers are presumably not also cutting-edge physicists.

[Trotskylvania]

While I try to strive for fidelity to fundamental physics in my own sci-fi novel, this is more just my personal taste. What matters more is narrative consistency. I created a set of in-universe rules for warp drive and made sure to stick to them. There's no tactical warping in combat: it's to imprecise and too energy intensive. Only a handful of state of the art ships can exploit it.

Speed is limited by a host of factors, with some pretty general rules. Smaller ships have higher dash speeds in warp, larger ships can sustain higher cruising speeds due to superior engine economy. Speeds are limited by gravitational disturbance; gravitational warping of space-time interferes with the highly precise calibration needed for safe warp travel. The stronger the disturbance, the slower you must go. Deep within planetary or stellar gravity wells, you're limited to sub-FTL warping. Smaller ships have more flexibility with this, as do more advanced and expensive warp drives.

Failure to abide by rated safety limits is dangerous. The feedback from excessive gravitational interference gets translated back into the drive. It will start to break down. If you're really unlucky, it will fail catastrophically, obliterating you.

The idea is to keep a sense of drama and scale. If you can just warp weapons straight to a planet, there's not a lot of room left for having space battles.

[Nerotysia]

Has anyone ever submitted to a literary magazine before? For me it was oddly unnerving.

[Nazi Flower Power]

I try to keep my sci-fi scientifically sound. Sometimes that means I can't go into a ton of detail about how the technology works. If I knew all the details of how to make it work, I'd build it IRL and get rich.

Has anyone ever submitted to a literary magazine before? For me it was oddly unnerving.

I've submitted to a magazine before. Got rejected. It is nerve-wracking to put your work out there.

[Scomagia]

Has anyone ever submitted to a literary magazine before? For me it was oddly unnerving.

I've submitted half a dozen short stories to various magazines. No bites.

[Thanatttynia]

Currently 2750 words deep in some genre shit for the Contest. I have a question, though: 2500 of those words are pure dialogue. It was my original intention to write a play in short story form, of almost exclusively dialogue with very short lines of 'stage description/instruction'. Now I'm having doubts. Does this seem just a gimmick to everyone?

[Kalmarium]

Is discussing sci-fi writing here appropriate? I have a story of that genre I'm working on and wanted some opinions of how to avoid common cliches.

[The New World Oceania]

Has anyone ever submitted to a literary magazine before? For me it was oddly unnerving.

Many times. Many times accepted. Many times denied. Submission for publication is central to the process.

[Luminesa]

Is discussing sci-fi writing here appropriate? I have a story of that genre I'm working on and wanted some opinions of how to avoid common cliches.

You can discuss any kind of writing here, dude! All are welcome!

Now, I'm no sci-fi expert, but I would probably avoid copying any ideas straight out of Star Wars or Star Trek...that's just me.

The idea is to create your own worlds and to mess with science. Sci-fi is a physics sandbox. The main point is to have fun!

What kind of sci-fi story are you writing, exactly?

[Kalmarium]

Is discussing sci-fi writing here appropriate? I have a story of that genre I'm working on and wanted some opinions of how to avoid common cliches.

You can discuss any kind of writing here, dude! All are welcome!

Now, I'm no sci-fi expert, but I would probably avoid copying any ideas straight out of Star Wars or Star Trek...that's just me.

The idea is to create your own worlds and to mess with science. Sci-fi is a physics sandbox. The main point is to have fun!

What kind of sci-fi story are you writing, exactly?

Something that is inspired by largely.
-Star Wars
-Warhammer 40k
-Dark/Demon Souls series
-Some works of mine off Deviantart

Basically the year is 6992 AD and humanity owns several powerful empires on the galactic "west." Earth was lost long-ago during a big war that happened thousands of years ago and is closer in myth to what we today call Atlantis. There are two major human factions: The Holy Stahlvelkan Empire (if you find it on NS, I made it specifically to better flesh it out politically), and the Union of Human Interstellar Systems (kinda like space Soviets, but closer to the 1984-style cruelty). They are having a Cold War with each other. To the northern "borders" of both is a constant warzone with invading alien empires (similar to the Roman Empire's frontier, but obviously deadlier). As the war drags on, the Emperor's health begins to fail and he sets his favored son in charge of the war effort, who happens to be a legitimized bastard (which isn't sitting well with the nobility of Stahlvelka). In the meantime the Union is finishing preparations for war and at the beginning of the story they'll publically support some communist rebels in a Stahlvelkan system to bait them into war.

There are several characters I had in mind already, but I plan to add more. I have have a set up for the story's plot development, but it needs tweaking and more detail. This here is just a summarized setting.

What I want to avoid is it being something about "utter human domination" like in Star Wars or Warhammer. Humans are closer in this age to what Medieval Europe was to the rest of the world; backwards but too strong to full conquer. Most of the tech is still WIP. Not sure if you've ever played Mass Effect, but if you remember the Mass Relays, that's kinda the main method of long-range hypespace travel (but they aren't made by Reapers, they're made by old human empires).

[Zeinbrad]

Does anyone know any good creative writing blogs?

[Bontavation]

You know what's beyond frustrating?

Writers who don't read.

Everything they write comes out feeling clunky and artificial. They keep coming back with the same mediocre shit, expecting in depth C&C, like there's some missing little piece of advice that will make their writing perfect. The reality is, you have to read a lot. You have to practice a lot. You have to sit down with quality novels, and you have to enjoy them. Reading is the most important part of writing, and so many 'aspiring authors' neglect it.

[USS Monitor]

Currently 2750 words deep in some genre shit for the Contest. I have a question, though: 2500 of those words are pure dialogue. It was my original intention to write a play in short story form, of almost exclusively dialogue with very short lines of 'stage description/instruction'. Now I'm having doubts. Does this seem just a gimmick to everyone?

It's certainly possible to make it work. I don't know if yours does or not, but it definitely can work if it's done well.

Is discussing sci-fi writing here appropriate? I have a story of that genre I'm working on and wanted some opinions of how to avoid common cliches.

Reading things in other genres to get inspiration from diverse sources would probably help. It doesn't have to be other kinds of fiction. History and science are also worth a look. Reading about recent science might help you avoid some of the scientifically nonsensical cliches from older sci-fi.

You know what's beyond frustrating?

Writers who don't read.

Everything they write comes out feeling clunky and artificial. They keep coming back with the same mediocre shit, expecting in depth C&C, like there's some missing little piece of advice that will make their writing perfect. The reality is, you have to read a lot. You have to practice a lot. You have to sit down with quality novels, and you have to enjoy them. Reading is the most important part of writing, and so many 'aspiring authors' neglect it.

Reading certainly helps, yes.

[Atomic Utopia]

So I was thinking of the various RPs I am involved in and I was writing a small portion of one such post, but then I thought of turning it into a short story. I would like your opinion on my writing style (or lack thereof) and subject. And yes, this is sci-fi.

Cant Think of a Name

So it was to be war.

"How?" he thought, " How could such a simple three letter word contain all the suffering of the universe? How could it hold the memories of the untold billions that have died in it?"

Slowly his mind turned away from the word itself and to it's implications.

War meant casualty lists. How he hated those, staring off into into the untold millions. Almost all people viewed them as terrible things, but those in the Department of Public Information gave them a special kind of fear. The goal of the DepPubInf was to distribute information, and war was no exception. During war this meant going over battle plans and sanitizing them for public release, reporting about conditions on the front, and yes, going over casualty lists.

This dreadful task was made even more dreadful by the requirement that each staff writer was to write one obituary a day. To do so it was required that they go over the lists, view them with intent, pushing the least worthy of commemoration aside. But who was worthy of commemoration, or better phrased, who was not? Excepting a few, all had died with the goal of honor and victory. How was one to decide? Of course there were manuals, cutting down the thinking to mere kill ratios, to mere numbers, but those often made it only worse.

So the only option was to stare into the abyss, to view the lists with extreme focus. But by staring into the abyss one would feel their emotions would grow distant for many of these untold millions. Slowly the lists would become lists, and the decisions would become decisions, nothing more, nothing less. The decision to hail one of the fallen as a hero would then hold no more weight than drinking a glass of water.

But on occasion the defenses they had so skillfully built were crushed like sandstone hit with a hammer. A single name or word could do this at times, but it was often temporary, but for some it was far more permanent.

Three years ago, during the third Andromeda Cluster War a person revived one such list. She was known to many as among the greatest editors in existence, capable of turning even the worst articles into the envy of other sections. But that history did not help her when she saw that list. It contained the name of her son. Nothing more than twenty-three letters and the cause of death. This caused her to become but a shadow of her former self. Before she was able to work with ease, but now it was impossible for her to do so without remembering her son, remembering what had happened.

He fared this and wondered, "Would he be as weak? Would he break down at the sign of death of his wife?"

Below this was a deeper fear, "What if he did not? What if he saw here name on the list and did not even bat an eyelid? Would he treat her name with the same dispassionate responce he did to all others?"

Those "others" he knew also had families, also had lives to return to after the war. If he did not mourn for them, would he mourn for his wife? The mere thought of her death caused him stress.

"But would it in ten months? Would his stare into darkness make him friends with it? Would his humanity be crushed, sacrificed for safety from emotions? Was what many called stoicism strength, or was it weakness?"

He did not dwell upon these thoughts for the fear of what they meant, or what they could mean. Instead he focused upon the more facile faces of life, upon the endless parade of celebrities and short fiction. For the realities of war could kill you, but if you ducked, then survival was quite possible.

[Togeria]

I see no problems with it mainly because I don't have a good writing style, but your punctuation and grammar seems to be in order.

[Laerod]

Currently 2750 words deep in some genre shit for the Contest. I have a question, though: 2500 of those words are pure dialogue. It was my original intention to write a play in short story form, of almost exclusively dialogue with very short lines of 'stage description/instruction'. Now I'm having doubts. Does this seem just a gimmick to everyone?

I wrote a short story in form of a court transcript and placed third two contests ago. If it's good, the format won't matter that much, even if utterly unorthodox.

[Respubliko de Libereco]

Currently 2750 words deep in some genre shit for the Contest. I have a question, though: 2500 of those words are pure dialogue. It was my original intention to write a play in short story form, of almost exclusively dialogue with very short lines of 'stage description/instruction'. Now I'm having doubts. Does this seem just a gimmick to everyone?

I wrote a short story in form of a court transcript and placed third two contests ago. If it's good, the format won't matter that much, even if utterly unorthodox.

Stories which are mostly dialogue aren't even all that unorthodox, all things considered.

Of course, if you wanted to make your story truly unorthodox and dramatic, you'd write it in blank verse. Not that I'm giving you any hints on how to pander to me. That would be unethical.