Amph The Writers' Guild

I am unsure if this fits and if not feel free to lock. This is a thread for writers or potential writers of Sci-Fi or Fantasy to discuss ideas and writing styles etc. I know there is the FanFic Resource forum but that is only for Star Wars. I think that a thread like this is needed however as I know I for one at many times have made trivial threads for matters as simple as asking about treatments for mental illness or medical treatments in the olden days that was answered in three minutes.

Anyway, I for one am working on several fantasy stories right now. One short-story tentatively called Visions of Eve is in the planning stages and one hopefully full-length novel called Swords and Tyrants which is a little over 30,000 words in.

I hope to write professionally one day mostly in the fantasy genre. So, does anyone else write fantasy?

 

So Scummy's another one who wants to enter the novelite, eh? Same here! I, too, aspire to publish in the fantasy/sci-fi genre someday.

I think this forum is the perfect perch for a Guild. The YJCC would be too busy for it, and it can't go really anywhere else.

Anyway, a little about myself as a writer...

I write mostly novel-type stories... which means I have about 1,000+ different beginnings and not one finished. Simply put, I jump around too much. Or did I? I don't know, because the work I'm on right now is going for quite long... my jumping days may be over. But never say never!

I'm not a poet, however. I've only written probably around 15 poems in my entire life. It's something I should probably look into however. Good writing exercise. Aerobics, ya know?

As for short stories, I've written only 3 probably. Two for two different courses, I was taking. One in a creative writing class I took the first semester of my Junior year and the other for my writing class at Oxford this past summer. As for the third, it's a guess. I probably have a third lying around somewhere that I've completely forgotten about, which is what I'm factoring in.

Anyway... lengths of my past uncompleted novels... let's see...

My longest was 70,000+ words (180 pages, New York font, size-12, single-spaced).

All the rest of my "longies" are below 50 grand... one may be higher than that, though, I'm not sure. All in all, I'd say I have about a dozen longies. All the rest are basically ideas I had and said "Okay, I'll try this..." and then abandoned a day later.

But my longest is the one I'm working on now. It's past 100,000 words, nearing 370 pages (Times New Roman, size 12, double-spaced). And I'm keeping it under wraps, so no idea-sharing here. Thankyouverymuch.

I suppose a good question to end with would be... how do you write? Longhand or shorthand? I do it shorthand, obviously.

 

I write longhand for my poetry (I write poetry as a hobby and don't intend to pursue it proffessionally) and I pretty much only type for my prose as goes faster, neater, and is easier to edit.

When you have a good story and are just lazy what do you do to get the incentive to write? I have that problem now, I am working on a story called The Cult and it's just a page or two in and I can't get the incentive to go write more...

-The Scummy-

 

I started life as an artist, and was going to go into illustration.
I've always drawn, and have always been interested in comic book art.

But here I am, 30 years old in a few months working as a journalist (although I do also do the odd cartoon for my newspaper).


Sigh - I've always dreamed of being a comic strip artist.
And a Star Wars comic strip artist even more so.
Don't get me wrong - I'm totally happy in my life and my job.



I have been toying with the idea of doing a comic adaptation of the Original Radio Drama scripts, just for my own personal enjoyment.
I love those extra Leia and Luke scenes at the start of ANH, before the events of the movie kick off.
I think it may be too big an undertaking though... I can't get myself motivated enough to start.
Anyone think it's a worthy project?
(PS, does anyone know if those Radio Drama scripts are online anywhere?)


I dunno, I often wondered if there are any short fan fics out there that would lend themselves to being illustrated - or even being given the full strip treatment - out there...?
Just to kind of get my creative juices flowing.

 

What are you looking for? I have a few fanfics I wouldn't mind you putting in strip form. Some humor, some others drama. One actiony/mysterious.

-The Scummy-

 

Hey - cool!
I don't really know what I'm after and/or am expecting to acheive.
The problem is I don't have a lot of time on my hands, so I've never even visited the fan fic threads.

I presume some of your stuff online here?
Maybe I should jut take a look... see if anything leaps out at me... try doing a few panels... post them back in here... see what people think, and then take it from there.

As I said, I work a full-time job, so it is just kind of an idea I'm toying with which may move v e r y s l o w l y.
But I really would like to get back into my art, and I think this might be a rather productive way of doing it rather than just sitting at home doodling...

 

I presume some of your stuff online here?

Links are all in my (-RebelScum- that is) profile.

Maybe I should jut take a look... see if anything leaps out at me... try doing a few panels... post them back in here... see what people think, and then take it from there.

Cool, I'd most like you to do Ben's Despair to be honest. I wrote it a bit back and it is my favorite story though the writing is a bit iffish in comparison to some of my better-done fic (The Elder Son for instance) I have to say it'd make an awsome comic.

As I said, I work a full-time job, so it is just kind of an idea I'm toying with which may move v e r y s l o w l y.

I understand.

 

I'm also of the fantasy writing persuasion. I've written 3 novel length pieces already, all over 110,000 words each, and have ideas running around in my head all the time.

I don't keep any of then online, since that is considered a form of publishing, but I'm always happy to let people have a read by mailing it directly.

Fantasy has always been a passion of mine, since I was about 12 (I'm now 33) and I have over 400 books in my collection, some spectacularly good, others that I can't understand how they ever got published.

I'm branching out a little at the moment, with an original sci-fi feature length script, a pilot for a TV show, of which I have 6 years worth of timeline flitting round in my head.

 

I like writing a lot, and I love crafting characters and histories. If I ever do take it into my head to write a novel, it will almost certainly be Sci-Fi/Fantasy. I just don't have enough time at this stage in my life to actually sit down and build a world of my own, so playing in the infamous Lucas Sandbox keeps me vastly amused.

I do, however, have professional writing aspirations, though it probably sounds horribly boring to most people. I really, really want to write a manual for Maya 7.0, the animation software we use at my school. The only ones my prof can find are tutorial-based, and not abstract enough, so he wants someone to write a manual for the class. I kinda want to take it a step further and see if I can get it in good enough shape to be published. In any case, I've been told that I make philosophy readable, so hopefully I could do the same for computer animation.

 

I just finished the latest draft of my quasi-fantasy book, in which there are a ton of wizards, but they start abusing their powers, so they get the magic taken away. I got the idea from reading LOTR and going "FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, YOU CAN BE A HERO WITHOUT BEING GANDALF!"

 

I'm a writer of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. I wrote my first novel over the course of four years, between the ages of 13 and 17. It was 200 pages of actually pretty good writing, but a really bad story that all the style in the world couldn't save.

I wrote a 20-page fantasy story for my school's literary journal, released in weekly installments of two pages at a time, which was a lot of fun but didn't allow for any revision.

I went back to revisit that story and ended up rewriting it completely into a much grander epic that actually no longer bears any relationship to the original short. The epic is still in the outlining phase, but is now a sci-fi fantasy crossover about a world in which high technology and magic compete to destroy each other.

I've got two short stories completed that I hope to publish; one, regarding the last man on earth, is under 5000 words and should be easy to find a home; the other, a story of a drug addict who checks into an horrific rehab program, is almost 18,000 words and will be (and has been) much harder to place.

I participated in NaNoWriMo this past year and "won" by surpassing the 50K wordcount within 30 days, with a "comedy" book about a quest to shoot the Pope with a paintball gun, and am currently writing a sci-fi novel during Jan-Feb titled "The Rain People."

Cool thread!

M. Scott

 

I'd love to write for publication, and it'll almost certainly be sci-fi or fantasy. I like to pretend that the reams of unfinished fanfic are just practice.

I've written fragments of a long poem that was OK in itself but basically the biggest Tolkien rip-off in history, and have a lot of snippets and fragments lying about on my computer, but nowhere near a proper novel or even short story.

It'd be interesting to go back to writing original sci-fi or fantasy, although schoolwork takes its toll. I've vowed to enter next year's NaNoWriMo, when I'll be in my gapyear, but until then it's very much a matter of reading than of writing.

Great thread, BTW, and good luck to everyone who aims to get published.

 

What exactly is NaNoWriMo?

-The Scummy-

 

It is the National Novel Writing Month. Basically, a month is designated and in that span of time those who want to participate are encouraged to write a novel length story.

check out the home site: http://www.nanowrimo.org/

 

Being a publish Sci-Fi or Fantasy author is defintely one of my dreams, although I prefer fan fic.

Question for my fellow fantasy writers: Do you find it difficult to create your new worlds and do you create background information for your fics before you write them?

 

Fics not so much. As for for fantasy worlds not really, it is difficult to get started but my pride and joy the world of Caeon (Sae-ee-on) just wrote itself after the characters left Howl. (the small farming hamlet the story started in, it makes a fortune selling grain and other food-products to both sides of the war. Didn't turn out so well)

-The Scummy-

 

*Bounces into thread*

I'm excited to see this. I've been a very prolific SW fanfic writer who decided a couple of years ago to start working on my own kids-fantasy story and have become permanently mired w/ writer's block towards the whole thing.

Fanfic is simple, all you're doing is writing in someone else's universe. Creating your own believable world, particularly for fantasy or sci-fi stories is VERY difficult. There's so much to worry about - is what I'm doing rehash? Is this believable? Even in fantasy or sci-fi you have to have some elements that readers can relate to. Writing way out there stuff is fun but you can't go overboard and have the environment overshadow the characters and story.

Now can you see why I have writer's block?

I hate it, I overthink everything when it comes to my own writing, but can freely write fanfic as if it's nothing.

I need a beta reader, someone to tell me if my stuff is crap or not, but I just can't find anyone who's got the time or who is willing to be constructive w/ their comments and finally who really understands the genre. [/ranting whine]

 

This is a cool thread.

Anyways, I've been wnating to write my own novel for a long time. I've always started on small drafts for what I think is a good starting point but then realize it's crap and start over again. It's always frustrating as I want to create something new and original for me. I want my own personal novel that doesn't have to be published but yet I can share with friends and family.

I have a hard time creating characters and histories. Anyone have any tips on creating characters and backgrounds for them?

 

How much material you need Beta read? I am fairly busy but if you don't just throw out thousands of words a day I could probably at least do a trial-basis beta reading. Be forewarned though, if it is crap I will tell you. I don't do that feel-good stuff.

-The Scummy-

 

When you have a good story and are just lazy what do you do to get the incentive to write?

It could be one of these three things:

1. Writer's Block (obviously a possibility)
2. No energy
3. Potential energy

The first is easily explainable in which case there's no energy but just temporarily. So you'll have to wait it out or fight tooth-and-nail against your Block.

The second means there's no energy, none, nada, at all, whatsoever. In this case, just drop the story. Move on to something else, or whatever else you already had working.

The third means there's energy there but because lately you haven't been nurturing that energy, it's retreated back into its hole. It's not as bad as WB, but it does mean you're going to have to spend time writing (w/o the energy or "juices" flowing) in order to gradually persuade it out again.

EDIT: To elaborate... the difference between Writers' Block and having just potential energy is that Writers' Block just suddenly happens (okay, not exactly like that but for me, at turning points of the story, different settings, etc... don't know about you) when just the day before you got in say, an amazing eleven pages. But energy just becomes potential when because of distractions or "priorities", you have not devoted time to your writing. Thus, there's no supra connection there with the characters, the world, etc...

 

I got an idea for a story a week or two ago and I still haven't started writing yet. I am being a lazy. I am also a film student, so I have written and shot several short films, and I am going to try to start working on a feature length screenplay this year, as well as some spec scripts for television that I can start sending out to agencies after graduation.

In regards to the issue of world characterization, for me that is the easy part, it is the characterization of people that is difficult.

 

In regards to the issue of world characterization, for me that is the easy part, it is the characterization of people that is difficult.

Absolutely.

Characters, unlike worlds, have such things as personality, emotion, feeling, etc... It just goes to parallel how in real life, a human being is more complex than his tools and land.

I find that having a pretend interview with a cardboard character is a good way to develop it, so it becomes two or even three dimensional. Thus, it becomes he/she and will begin to make choices themselves, affecting such transcending aspects like the plot you have in store for them.

 

Im almost done schooling to become a screen writer and i have dabled in short stories in the Sci-Fi world. I want to put out a few Screen plays that really are differnt that other movies that we have seen.

dkt

 

I hope one day to write a Sci-Fi novle. Right now I am starting research into Freemasonry, Illuminati and the Kinghts Templer right now for a novle I plan to write. I have a few story line in my head right now.

I hope to do a Firefly/Serenity like novel when I'm about 16/17. When Im done the book I'm working on at the moment.

I always loved the Firefly series it was so creative. I want to create something like Firefly but origanal at the same time.

Oh you may wounder, wow your an author? You have bad grammer. Well no I do its something that dont come easy to me yet. I am also alomost half asleep when I'm on the boards. I have school, and home work so Im grammered out on the boards.

 

It's been a while since I've written anything big. I have written a fair amount of short stories over the last two years or so, but I have two key projects that right now are on the backburner.

One was written for the National Writing Month (that's NaNoWriMo) back in 2004. Sadly I didn't get the chance to attempt it again last year. 50,000 words in less then a month is the aim of the comp, for fun, and I love the story I wrote. So much so I'm editing and increasing the word length to a proper novel size. But I must stress ... it is not science fiction.

I'm also in the constant process of writing a screenplay. It's been in the works now for at least two years. The bulk of the story is complete, but I'm always changing it as new ideas pop into my head. Again, not really science fiction, but there is a touch of fantasy to the concept.