Discussion The Scribble Pad (Fanfic Writing Discussions)

I have been a beta on several occasions. I help primarily with grammar/spelling and with brainstorming. I have worked extensively with those for whom English is not their native /first language but they are fluent in it; they just need help with the idioms, etc. I have found that it is very easy to agree on how to indicate edits and the manner and frequency of sending chapters etc. I adore getting sneak peeks BTW, definitely a perk!

 

I hereby join the praise of @Findswoman as the greatest beta writer ever. Not only that she beta'd the bulk of my (huge) output, but I also learned the finesses, gotchas and a bunch of other things that improved my English greatly. And she almost always has a new word for my ever-extending vocabulary.

 

I was wondering if anyone coule recommend a perfect world for a private sorta getaway/vacation ... doing it for my Monday_Mush_Mania entry. I want somewhere with lakes/beaches and forests, but also not too far from cities. Thanks.

 

I have three fanon ones that could work:

Bot Koa Moa and Pelekay are in the Lahara sector.

 

Delightful @Gamiel - Pelekay & also Koa Moa sound PERFECT! Thanks.

 

Glad to be of help

Pelekay is, for now, highly inspired by Hawaii (or at least as presented in Lilo & Stich) and costal Japan (as presented in mangas). It's actually the main seat for the sectors underlord which means that there is very little open crime.

Koa Moa is, for now, more inspired by the old school pop-cultural ideas of the South Sea (as seen in tiki-bars and some Donald Duck comics)

 

And this is how you gave *me* an idea for my own attempt at MMM. By asking this.

 

I've been racking my brain about something mentioned in the novel "Crystal Star", which in general was a head-scratcher plot-wise. But I believe Leia had her own personal ship, but I cannot remember the specs, name, layout, etc. I am going to have her get it in a different context. Thanks.

 

According to Wookieepedia, Leia's space yacht was the Alderaan., though it doesn't give a model. Here's a list of yacht classes

 

Thanks much!

 

So...Leia/Waru?

 

No. Luke/Waru

 

Any advice for writing the same events from another character's perspective? I'm working on an entry for my two narrator DDC that overlaps some of the action from the previous entry, but I'm having a hard time writing the overlapping part. I don't want to rehash the same descriptions of the setting, but would it make sense for the second narrator not to say anything about these details? Also, it's the scene where the characters confess their feelings for each and kiss, and I don't want her reaction to be too similar to his (and they're both teenagers, so we're not going into any, er, physiological details here, thanks)

How have you handled situations like this in your writing?

 

Oooh, good question - Is the scene only with two characters or are there more to give input like "Gosh, I thought she'd never ask him out" and other third hand impressions.

 

It's just the two of them, though they get interrupted after their kiss by this universe's not evil but still emo Ben Solo

 

How intriguing - so Ben could affect the 'after the kiss' thoughts but not the 'leading up to' the revelation of mutual desire; they might mention or think about him, perhaps? But re the setting, it does seem that lots of detail go into the person's depiction of the scene who maybe writes reports (in a desk type job?) as opposed to Action Guy/Girl who sees only impediments to the Mission Accomplished! phase (such as "I'll bang my head if crawl through that airduct, better choose another ingress").

I did write a scene with four characters interacting during a crucial pivotal meet up scene, though only three have their motivations/thoughts described throughout the fic; the fourth is deliberately left 99 percent cipher-ish.

 

My immediate thought is in regards to the character's personalities. Especially, if Ronen is more self -deprecating (Wow! I can't believe this is happening! ) and Noemi is more forceful (I was so blind. why did I wait so long? ) even if she worries about being in her mother's shadow. They should have differing views of the events by emotional temperament, confidence levels, even attitudes leading into situation that leads to the kiss. If the situation is intimate enough most of the monologue will come from feelings. I'm probably overthinking this.
Is there a lot of shared time, like an event they are both attending?

Also they can still ooh and ahh over each other's appearance even if they don't get specific about their physiological reactions.

 

Sexxxxxay!

Sorry. I had to.

 

Maybe have them notice different details about the surroundings, about how it feels, etc. Everyone notices things (or doesn't notice things) differently, so having them describe things somewhat differently is okay, I think. I do think you'd want some of the same details so it's clear it's the same event, though.

I've done same situation, different POV before, but I find myself having a hard time explaining how. I think I just try and get in their head and see it a different way. Like one person notices their own heart is beating really hard and they are shaking a bit, while the other notices how that person is blushing. Those types of things.

 

I don't think this is so much help but an Modesty Blaise story they did something like that, right now the only difference between the perspectives that I remember is that the first perspective guy (one of Modesty's boyfriends) only classified the weapons the guys threatening them with as pistol and shotgun while the part from Modesty perspective gave us what kind of pistol and shotgun it was, the pros and cons with those and what the use of those models said about the users.

That story was mind-blowing for me since it was the first where I hade read something like that.

 

I think the most fun aspect of writing the same events from different perspectives is working with character bias. It can be fun to play around with narrators, especially those which are "unreliable" - it might take two points of view to get the full story. What is important to one character might have a different emphasis for another. As for writing the differing perspectives in a practical sense I think making them have different observations of the same moment works really well. "he noticed the way the sunlight sparkled on the water" and "she noticed the crisp scent of the morning air". I think that the most important thing is that the characters should each bring something unique to the reader, whether it be an altered perspective or give additional information, or else there's not much point in having two POV characters.

 

This happens a lot in roleplaying. There is information that you as a writer know, that you have to be aware that your character is not going to know about, and separately, one thing that I like doing, when my Games Master writes what he thinks characters should get from things, doing something else.

A bad, but relevant example, would be when he and his character has worked out a series of code phrases for different situations, which you can say over comlink, and expect your crew to react in a certain way, eg. "The lamp Is on top of the mountain, repeat, the lamp is on top of the mountain."

My character has no idea what any of this stuff means, "The lamp- What lamp? What are you talking about?"

In fact, why don't you PM me the existing part, let me know whether it is the boy or the girl in that part; then I may be able to help you out with the other person's point of view.

 

I'm probably procrastinating and ruminating on unnecessary stuff again, but whenever I get an idea, I just want to throw it out there, you know?

A post @Briannakin just made in the social thread made me wonder about what is politically correct in one place, but completely irrelevant in another and how complex we are as a mishmash of cultures...

...yet, how would we use this dynamics in the GFFA, where races are one thing, species another and there is diversity among cultures that surpasses what we are able to grasp?

For example, how would an insult such as the word "granno" (basically a hipster) that I made up for the residents of Vagran be relevant to somebody living in a sector other than the Corellian? How would calling Ewoks "midgets" if you're a member of an extremely large species affect somebody who's of our height?

Somewhat relevant: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FantasticRacism

 

In one of my favourite SciFi books, The Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling (great book), he talked about a race visiting our Solar System, but all commting suicide because of particularly blasphemous Solar Flares.

It could be fun to play with moral values where one side just doesn't get what the fuss is about.

I played in one story with the Hutts being a bit of tongue fetishists. Jabba was always wiggling his about in the movies. Getting turned on by a well formed pink one.
If Jabba mocked stumpy little human tongues, would that insult anyone? More likely you'd just decide Hutts were weird. And would that then be prejudice against Hutts?

I might be missing the point here.

 

Moved from Nuggets of Awesome thread:

Sorry for all the necromanced quotes, I just wanted to have the whole conversation for context.

I totally agree with Mistress Renata - it depends on the story, how much back story is needed to understand the current story, etc. But it also depends on the audience. Of course I don't want to exclude people from reading my work, but if I know its going to be the same reader(s) who have followed this series or adventures of this OC or AU or whatever, then yeah, I'll make a joke about some offhand thing and not bother to explain it (IE "The vice-president rubbed the scar on the back of his hand and simply said, "Ribbit!"). However, if it's for a challenge or something, something I know a wider audience might read, then yeah, I will explain the reference to the practical joke about the toad under the cup that was then was smashed on the vice-president's hand as a kid.

It also depends on how long ago the story was. I'm currently writing a SW fic for a challenge with an OC I did a diary for a while back. Even though I have the diary linked, I've still explained and linked in the author's notes and there's no offhand references/inside jokes relating to the diary. Because people read a lot of fics and they forget!