General writing discussion.

Nova

I stopped looking at that thread. Or Writer's Block completely

I lack motivation, so I've been developing the setting a bit more.

Vorpy

I can't get myself to write anything. The Laziness is setting in.

ClockworkUniverse

I guess I'll skip to the scene after that, but it feels weird to go out-of-order like that.

All Nines

^^^ Really? I'm actually pretty surprised at that.

^ Whatever works for ya. I have that same problem, but the scene I want to write is usually waaaaay beyond where I am.

----

I feel like posting in increments. Here's what I have so far:

----

“Come on, bro, it’s about time you got off your ass and really did something!”

“Damn it, Jeff, I‘m not going!” A fuzzy-haired young man in plaid and khakis sat in the middle of his living room couch, arms crossed and feet planted. He looked away from his friend Jeff, a stocky guy with a red polo and a stupid grin on his face.

“Evan. What’s the problem?” Jeff sat down next to his friend and rocked him back and forth a bit with his hand.

“You should know what the problem is by now.” Evan sighed and laid back more, distancing himself from Jeff. “Tell your friend I’m not interested.”

“But I already told her you aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa~re!” Cue childish grin and further nudging. Evan stood up and walked to the kitchen, his palm fixed to his forehead.

While he looked through the refrigerator for a cold drink, he said, “Look, I know you mean well, but I’ve been getting out of the house, haven’t I? Every day we walk your dogs down the street while you spout off inane bullshit you read on some site or other, and after that we go to the arcade and play Tekken. Is there something wrong with that?”

“Bro--”

“And stop callin’ me bro, goddamn it! I’m not exactly in a bro mood right now.” With that, he took the first step towards his weekly drinking binge and leaned against the kitchen counter. Jeff tossed a pencil off the living room coffee table at Evan’s forehead.

“Fine, then,” Jeff said. “Dude, chill. ‘D be nice if you didn’t lash out at me every time I try to mix things up a little. Worst comes to worst, you two just hang out, right?”

“How is that the worst that could happen?” Evan picked the now-leadless pencil up off the floor and went back to the living room, sitting next to Jeff. A good beer usually cheered him up, if only a little. “Anyway, you’ve left me little choice but to go, but I’m not treating it like a date.”

“Fair enough,” Jeff said. “I hope you change your mind midway through, of course, but, well, this is better than nothing. Good luck.”

“With what,” Evan said. “I don’t plan to embarrass myself any more than usual.”

----

Don't ask me why the characters are a dudebro and a stick in the mud. Just kinda happened that way.

Nova

Really? I'm actually pretty surprised at that.

Which bit were you referring to?

All Nines

The part where you aren't there to offer encouragement to the people in your thread or chastise them when they failed to meet their quota anymore.

Nova

Oh.

Well, the activity in the thread had died to the point that there was only one or two posts in there a day, and days were going past where there was no response at all. Eventually, it just... wasn't worth the effort.

Nova

Here's a snippet I just did, which would be cool if people would comment on...

---

Natalie popped back the tab of her can. She leaned back against the wall, lifting the can to her mouth.

The silence between the two was dead for several minutes. There was no sound outside of Natalie's occasional sips of lemonade.

Robbie shifted, moving his legs to cross over.

"It's... hard," he answered finally. "Being like I am."

"How?" she asked neutrally.

He bit his lip. "It's difficult to describe. Have you ever been depressed?"

She leaned her head back, resting it against the cold bricks of the wall behind her. "Yeah. Is it something like that?"

"Sort of." He lifted his hands, examining them for a second, before returning them to his lap. "It's a bit different, though."

"How?"

"When you're depressed, you feel... down. You feel alone, you feel sad." He shook his head bitterly. "But... That's not what it's like for me. I don't feel sad, or even just generally down."

"How do you feel, then?" Natalie looked sidewards at him, watching for any traces of deceit.

The answer was short and blunt. "I don't."

"You don't feel?"

"No."

"How about when you...?"

"When I think about killing?" He looked at her, grinning slightly. "That's not feeling. I mean, oh, sure, we feel it physically, but it's not an emotional thing. It's pure, sexual gratification. That's all it is."

---

I think I have issues with sentence structure and dialogue flaws, but I'm not sure where...

The_Edge

I wish I could get the motivation to do some screenwriting. I have so many ideas.

^Looks pretty good so far. I didn't see any structure issues and the dialogue flows naturally, I think. Have some more?

AHR

Everest: Good news is, you're not a bad writer. 

But, you seem to be rushing things over, and you don't really give proper emotions to what people say, although you do manage to somewhat convey it in the dialogue, so it's not that bad. A bit more practice, and I'd LOVE to see what you write.

Cygs: Heheh. You missed an EGS fan asking people to critique their EGS fanfic. Since most people don't look at fanfic, the burden fell on me. They got sooooo pisssed at me.

Anywho, to me it seems structurally fine it just seems sort of...empty. Lacking in atmosphere. Bland. I'm not trying to be rude here, but it's what came to me, and I feel really horrible because I can't figure a way to suggest advice.

Forgive me.

Nova

I did? Hoo boy.

Anyway, it does, but... I'm not sure how to fix that.

Would context for the scene help?

AHR

Possibly. Couldn't hurt.

Nova

Okay.

Basically, Robbie is a character who has been attacked by an Emotion Eater.

It, well, literally ate his capacity to feel emotions, and replaced it with the ability to feel sexually aroused at the thought of seriously harming another human being, and the ability to be sexually gratified upon acting on these desires.

A few chapters before this one, a major event happened in the story, and Natalie's older brother was attacked by the same monster, and had the same thing happen to him.

Most of the time, when something like this happens, all traces of the person's existence- their memories, everyone else's memories of them, their bank accounts, ownership of houses, etc. Natalie can't actually remember her brother now, but her power as an Exorcist makes her... aware that she used to have something there, where there is now a hole.

Ever since, Natalie hasn't spoken a word.

The scene is trying to be melancholic and pensive. It fails, but that's what I'm aiming for in light of the above.

The scene is only half-finished. If it continues, Robbie mentions two things:

1. He has a son that he hasn't seen in nearly a decade. He saw him once, but he habitually imagined killing him, and so has never returned.

2. Most people like him eventually forget why they should do what is right and not what is wrong. It gets to the point that eventually, they have two choices; they can either kill themselves, or turn into an unrepentant serial killer.

The_Edge

Since AHR brought up atmosphere, I guess you could also add to the silence at the beginning of that passage. How do the characters feel during this? Awkward? Uncomfortable? Right there is where I could stand to get more emotional context. Also, body language could help the scene as well. Like what are they doing during this silence? Most people might fidget or look up at the sky for example.

Nova

Dead. Emotionally uninvolved. Neither of them is involved in the other's presence until Robbie speaks up. They're basically ignoring each other.

The_Edge

Alright then, there are places to go with that. Like what is running though their heads at that moment. Something had to start the conversation, if it wasn't a continuation of something before this passage (which that does appear to be the case) then it might have been what thought sparked this conversation. Really put us inside the characters' heads.

Nova

I think more context:

I have tried to establish Natalie, previously, as someone who likes to remain perfectly still when she can. It's her job- she hunts things like the thing that got Robbie, so she likes to, well, remain motionless, because habits breed.

Robbie will be the one I rely on for body motions, then.

The scene just before this one involved another character (Natalie's longtime partner) yelling at Robbie for being unempathetic towards the girl theyre protecting from a thing that's hunting her- he told her to stop whimpering.

The scene is him trying to justify himself to Natalie, because he feels closer to her due to her walling herself off most of the time.

AHR

So it's supposed to be sterile/bland, then?

Oh-kay then.

Nova

No, that's not what I mean...

It's meant to be... How to put this.

It's meant to be low-key. One character is trying to express emotions that he's not actually feeling, while the other character is trying to hide hers.

The situation they're in is rather odd. Neither of them would give each other the time of day, usually.

But Robbie has formed a weird attachment to her, and he doesn't understand why because he shouldn't be able to. Natalie has an interest in this subject, but again, she doesn't know why, because all knowledge of why except a vague awareness of the problem is hidden.

Neither of them knows why they're speaking. Neither of them is expressing emotion- Robbie because he can't, Natalie because she's trying to wall herself off from speaking of them.

And yet Robbie, who can't feel emotion, is struggling to verbalize how he feels. He doesn't actually feel it, but he feels that he should, but doesn't know why, and none of this is being verbalized, but it's all the combination of memories of how he used to feel wanting to crop up and be felt again, and he wants to feel them again, but he can't.

Meanwhile, Natalie is depressed. She doesn't know why- except a part of her does, but it can't tell  the rest of her why. She knows there's something missing, it's a deep, throbbing ache in her psyche, but she can't tell where, or why, because as far as her perception is concerned that part of her doesn't exist. She's walling herself off, because she does that; and with this happening to her, she's trying to hide from her emotions, because she doesn't want to feel them, because she doesn't understand why she is, and she can't stand that, can't stand not being in perfect control of herself. What Robbie is talking about both intrigues and repulses her but she's not letting herself feel that.

The_Edge

Hm. Sounds complex.

Nova

And I am not a skilled enough writer to pull it off yet.

One day. I'll keep practicing.

The_Edge

Yeah, I'm not sure I could pull it off either.

AHR

For the record, Everest, if you never update, I will be a very sad muffin.

All Nines

Hey AHR. Just woke up a little while ago, and I was too busy watching K-On!! this morning to keep writing.

Thanks for the response. Yeah, I admit the scene was kinda rushed; I wasn't really feeling patient enough to give the scene its proper length. I can go fix that. But I figured the emotions in that scene were carried okay (in the case of Evan sitting back on the couch, he went from italicized yelling to unemphatic skepticism after having a cold drink; I figured that worked well enough). Probably because I tend to focus way more on dialogue than description. It's just kind of a habit.

AHR

Well, you're better at conveying emotions through dialogue than most people, so that's a plus. Just don't use it as a crutch.

The_Edge

Anyone else write screenplays around here?

AHR

I write graphic novel scripts.

The_Edge

Ah, I find comic script format difficult to write in myself.

AHR

It is, but you get used to it. Of course, it means that my story (which is already kind of hard to read) is nigh-impossible to get through. 

The_Edge

Yeah, I have practiced in it a little. Luckily, my screenwriter word processor as comic script as a format template.