Tutorial Writers' Wretreat or Crytics' Crypt? (love needed)

Discussion in 'Fluff and Stories' started by spawning of Bob, Apr 10, 2015.

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  1. spawning of Bob
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    spawning of Bob Well-Known Member

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    Sorry @Scalenex for not joining in the discussion earlier, but this one was always going to take some allocated time to examine.

    The check list was a humorous vehicle to propel a valid point.

    Therefore all humour is valid.

    End of Post.
     
    spawning of Bob, Jun 10, 2015
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  2. spawning of Bob
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    spawning of Bob Well-Known Member

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    We are coming dangerously close to discussing Bob's Theory of Everything here. I call the literary aspect of the theory "the hooker with the heart of gold" which is inspired by that paragon of sober social comment, MAD Magazine sometime in the '80s.

    Stereotypes exist. Efficient / lazy writers use them because they can save a chapter of expository characterization by saying "The mercenary had a scar from forehead to cheek. It didn't matter how right the cause was, he was here for the money and nothing else."

    This works because the stereotype exists in the collective mind of the readership. You don't have to follow them either, they are used to introduce a character into the narrative without breaking the flow of the story. Presto, the author now has a base from which to build characterization. Beware! The mercenary who becomes an idealist is a stereotype in itself and does not constitute a satisfactory character arc. That example might seem awful, but an ambiguous character who ambiguously changes sides is probably worse.

    Back to the checklist. There is a future discussion to be had re: "Fanfic is more forgiving than original fic". But not today.

    Here are 3 lists.
    List 1: items I have used / plan to use consciously as plot vehicles:
    20. Yes, but as a plot device to show that dwarf happiness is attainable
    26. Yes, but due to fanfic restraints
    29. Not really. 11 stories planned so far.
    36. Yes, but only to annoy Scalenex
    37. Yes, but it is a human word chosen for plot relevance.
    39. Duh. Fanfic
    42. Yes but because Fanfic geography AND plot demands it.
    50. Yes, but elemental magic is so much easier to fit with real world physics. I would argue that this isconvergent problem solving rather than a stereotype.
    57. THE ABSOLUTE OPPOSITE. Magic weapons are repelled by my characters. We hatesss them, precioussss!
    62. Yes, but this amounts to less than real life. I am a dad. There will be dad jokes.
    72. Yes, but this is a deliberate choice with actual expository reasoning behind it.

    My score, if we can accept fanfic issues as 0 and conscious plot relevant choices as 0.5 points amounts to 5 out of 75. The ungenerous score is 10/75 which is across a written or storyboarded story cycle which (if realized) would cover 480 000+ words AND is semi comedic in intent. Am I a hack?

    List 2: items which I have subconsciously used:
    Turns out that there is not even one. I was aware and made choices.

    List 3: items on the list which do not stand up to logical scrutiny and are therefore invalid:
    48. As a deliberate writing process my characters take real world lengths of time to cross continents. This allows me to use the seasons as plot devices / deadlines. I also very consciously chose this to avoid the overt and deliberate Peter Jackson time compression as demonstrated by him taking 5 minutes to get to Rivendell from Bree, 1 night to get through Moria, 1 montage from Edoras to Minis Tirith etc etc. In the same movies it took MONTHS for dumb and dumber to get to Mordor from right next door to Mordor.
    If it is meant to be epic and continent spanning in scope, at least hand wave the passage of time, please!
    58. The word scimitar evokes an image of a deeply curved cavalry sabre, but there are a bunch of types which tend to get translated as scimitar, when they are culturally distinct weapons. Look up Persian Shamshir and Mughal Talwar Turkish Kilij. All of the above are suited to a clean draw from a belt mounted scabbard and performing nasty draw cuts (slashes) against lightly armoured / unarmoured targets. The Turkish Kilij is (I think) distinguished from the others by the wider and heavier tip which makes it a better chopper. (Later European cavalry sabres were often almost as curved as "scimitars").

    • All of them have functional points and all of them were in use when chain and / or plate armour was commonplace (ie largely immune to slicing attacks), therefore poking was always a planned use.
    • The point was available, and if you were charging at someones back, a curved blade would place your wrist in a stronger biomechanical position than a straight one for the purpose of thrusting.
    • If you were in very close melee combat you would use your curved sword however you needed to (off hand grip on reversed blade included) to end the fight.

    Not convinced that you can stab with a curved sword? Meet the Ethiopean Shotel. It's main function is to hook away a shield or opponents weapon or to poke behind the opponents defense and put small holes in important places.

    For the record, if I was going to choose a historical one handed sword, it would be the the Turkish Yataghan. That forward swept blade is made for chopping, but it would still do ok for poking and slashing. I think this general utility could possibly compensate for my total lack of martial skill.
    I happen to have inherited a Chassepot Sword Bayonette (pre 1874) which has a yataghan inspired design. Your wrist can be in a very relaxed position and the point is very directly threatening the eyes and face of the person who is reconsidering their next move.

    This changes my score to 10 out of 73, therefore visit my webstore to preorder the Chronicles of Bob Dodecology. Free Egghead dice for every 10 books sold.
     
    Last edited: Jun 11, 2015
    spawning of Bob, Jun 10, 2015
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  3. Qupakoco
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    All this fictional technicality is severely changing my viewpoint of our forumites.

    Speaking to the checklist, a lot of times I feel that some of these points are already ingrained in our heads. As in, yes don't re write LOTR. But a lot of the "quests" and characters in stories are hard to pull away from. There IS stuff that works because people like reading it.

    We bank on the stereotypes for fantasy settings because it's a genre. Furthering that genre into the WHFB world just further limits what you can and can't do, causing more violations of the checklist.
     
    Qupakoco, Jun 12, 2015
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  4. spawning of Bob
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    spawning of Bob Well-Known Member

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    I am looking forward to the next story comp, so I can see if I can violate ALL of them in 2500 words.
     
    spawning of Bob, Jun 13, 2015
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  5. pendrake
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    pendrake Well-Known Member

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    How is the theme for these chosen?
     
    pendrake, Jun 13, 2015
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  6. spawning of Bob
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    spawning of Bob Well-Known Member

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    I say that we have the next 75 themes already chosen, thanks to Scalenex!
     
    Last edited: Jun 13, 2015
    spawning of Bob, Jun 13, 2015
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  7. spawning of Bob
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    spawning of Bob Well-Known Member

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    @Qupakoco: "All this fictional technicality is severely changing my viewpoint of our forumites."

    That might be complementary. What do you mean?
     
    spawning of Bob, Jun 13, 2015
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  8. Qupakoco
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    I meant that you guys put WAAAYY too much thought into your writing. It's disgusting. Makes me want to hide in contemplations like @n810.

    Nah, jk. I just meant that it's nice to see that people actually take time to consider more than just telling cool stories with words. The level of intelligence that is within our members is awesome. People who do their own research and consider things that the average story teller might overlook. Yes complementary. Possibly complimentary too.


    I think @Arli just makes it up.
     
    Qupakoco, Jun 13, 2015
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  9. spawning of Bob
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    spawning of Bob Well-Known Member

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    I hang my eggshell in shame.
     
    spawning of Bob, Jun 13, 2015
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  10. Scalenex
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    Scalenex Keeper of the Indexes Staff Member

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    Arli makes them up. If I decide to sit out of a competition, I might make one up (I had one I was saving for such an occasion, but now I'm questioning it as too broad). If one of our forum members with some fluff writing street cred vows not to compete with their own theme, that person can nominate yourself as our next theme picker.

    U-E used a system where one of the moderators picked about fifty themes and then drew them out of a hat at random. I don't like that system. I think that has lead to the mix of very good and very lackluster themes there.

    I don't know Bob, your kitchen sink stories are mildly amusing, but your best work is when you set out to tell a story rather than set out to pack as many gags into one piece as possible. That was a portion of my reasoning for writing "Completely Anonymous Entry" two competitions ago. If you do go the route you brought up I would suggest not to bother including items about story length, being Robert Jordan, or direct RPG references. Those references would probably be lost on people who didn't study the Fantasy Writer's checklist thoroughly. On a related note, my reference on U-E to Bechdel's test went over most people's heads (and my cunningly buried hyperlink to the wikipedia page was removed :().

    Back to the thread topic...

    I think Qup raises a valid point. Some things are classics for a reason and some things are cliches. One should not freak out about failing a checklist questions, if you are enhancing the story in a way people will enjoy. I would add the corollary that if you are wavering on whether to include something, do not include something from the checklist if you can't come up with a valid reason why that would that would enhance the story.

    I say we wait a few more days for more comments on this, and if no one has anything to add, someone else can nominate a new topic.
     
    Scalenex, Jun 13, 2015
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  11. spawning of Bob
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    spawning of Bob Well-Known Member

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    New Topic:

    I have a conumbrum.

    I note that Scalenex measures his story length in pages (eg. Divided We Fall (~45 pages)). I've always found this difficult to interpret. Are they A4 pages? What font size? What font? Why is so much of it in BOLD ALL CAPS? (no wait, that is Kcibrihp-Esurc) How does that compare with a thinnish paperback of 250 pages or so? Are they same size pages?


    My approach to my stuff is to use a word count ("The False Moon War" 64647 words) which is even less helpful. What does that compare to? Were they all quality words, or are there a few silly made up ones, like "mahrlect", padding things out?

    The reference I personally use to make sense of a word count is that "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" (J K Rowling) had 76944 words. This makes my book 84% as good as hers, and yet I have not been offered a single movie deal. And my story has dinosaurs.

    Fun fact - I did an entry in the Skaven short story comp which was so far over the word limit that it wasn't funny - but because the word count on MS Word counts two hyphenated words as one single word, I just sneak-squeaked in, thanks to Double-Speak.


    The words novella and novelette don't mean anything to me either, for the lack of a frame of reference.


    How would you naturally measure story length? Does it even matter? If L-O is going to continue to be a literary powerhouse, should we come to a consensus on a convention for use here?
     
    spawning of Bob, Jun 18, 2015
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  12. Slanputin
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    I keep forgetting to post in this thread (no doubt you'll suffer a word vomit sometime soon), but I think story length is measured only by the limits of your imagination and the passion of your heart. But also word count due to the ability to post multiple chapters of differing lengths on one page.
     
    Slanputin, Jun 18, 2015
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  13. spawning of Bob
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    spawning of Bob Well-Known Member

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    True words, although I am not asking "how long is a valid story or chapter?", but rather "If the bus journey is x minutes long, will I be able to finish this story or will I miss my stop?"

    Like usual, I am going to fish for ideas on how other people do things, then post my own personal conventions and rationales.


    And thank you for reminding about my bout of gastro over the last weekend.
     
    spawning of Bob, Jun 18, 2015
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  14. Slanputin
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    Well, I don't like making my chapters too long as I don't want to give reading fatigue to my reader, especially given the transitory and casual nature of people's time on this forum.

    My average chapter length is 1576.25 words which is, happily enough, what I try to aim for. However my range is 1743 which suggests some significant variation. I seriously doubt my ability to competently write that in a bus journey however, especially considering how long the next two chapters are taking to write x/

    My pleasure. I once spent a month in Bolivia and that pretty much summed up my experience - I sympathise.
     
    Slanputin, Jun 18, 2015
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  15. Scalenex
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    Scalenex Keeper of the Indexes Staff Member

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    My pages refer to size 12 MS Word font with a full space between paragraphs. I write all my stories on Word and then post them on L-O (or U-E or some other forum). I don't look at word count unless I'm in a story comp. Word count is a lot like the metric system. I understand it, but it doesn't come naturally to me. I know that a kilogram is about 2.2 pounds and a meter is a little over a yard. I know a liter is about a quart. If someone gives me a measurement in metric I can figure out what is being described, but I have to translate it, much like if I hear something in German or Spanish (though the Spanish speaker needs to talk very slowly and use small words).

    I don't formally set a word count goal for whole pieces or chapters. I write something till I've covered all the things that I want to cover. A chapter or installment covers an event or series of related events. I don't care a whole lot whether some are longer than the other. I wrote a lot of pieces and no one has complained about varying installment lengths yet. If I'm writing an alternate viewpoint story like Legacies or New Alliances I will consciously try to keep the mirror pieces of an installment roughly the same length (though admittedly the Dwarves got the short end of the word stick in New Alliances). I also try to have them be thematically related though sometimes that gives way to pragmatism.

    Short stories need a word count to remain short stories but anything else does not require a formal structure. Just ask yourself are things moving too fast to keep up with what's going on? Are things moving too slow to maintain reader interest? Note, L-O writers often move too fast. Rarely does our community move too slow. Bob and I have had some small sections that moved slowly but our cross-editing has found and destroyed these anomalies before posting them publicly.
     
    Scalenex, Jun 18, 2015
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  16. spawning of Bob
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    spawning of Bob Well-Known Member

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    What line spacing do you use?

    Does a page count mean anything to you per se, or is it more a case of "Oh, so this story will be take longer than "Legacies" to read?"

    I am actually attempting to talk about page / word count as a tool for readers to understand what they are about to get into. At present, I would not just jump in and casually read a Kcibrihp-Esurc, Slanputin or Scalenex instalment as a five minute time filler, because, dammit, you guys make me think. If I knew something was novel length I would find a free evening or two before I started it. If I knew it was novel length and being released in chunks, I might choose to wait until it was all released so I could read it through all at once (that last one is a lie. I wouldn't be able to stay away).

    But, since we are also talking about writing: The LM post size limit is 10000 characters and 10 images (I think). I'm not sure about the character limit actually, but I had a feeling it amounted to 4000 words-ish. @Qupakoco would know because he hits the hard barrier when he puts up the competition short stories.

    I do have use word targets in a couple of ways. If, for example I wrote a long section of text (11000) words or two long sections which need to interleave (simultaneous, geographically isolated events. Has the added bonus of giving the illusion of longer passage of time) I will aim to find chapter breaks at around 2500 words, give or take a thousand. They need to be logical and natural places to take a breather, though (a resolution,. a cliffhanger, an outrageous pun which has already hooked the reader out of the suspension of disbelief).

    Doing this serves me as author, because of the posting reasons above. I hope it also serves the reader because they can say to themselves "Ooh lovely! Another SoB chapter. I will be able to finish this section and not miss my stop."

    Also my target book length (which I wouldn't wreck a story to achieve) is 50000 words. I am deliberately aiming to be a trashy Saturday morning read and not stretch the patience or intellect of my loyal fan base (you know who you are, Daughter of Bob). The 4th Emperor was on target, but I seem to have edited out 10000 words (looks like Appendices will be needed)
     
    spawning of Bob, Jun 18, 2015
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  17. pendrake
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    pendrake Well-Known Member

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    I used a text editor called Q10 to write RogueS. Handy program. Keeps a running count of words and characters.

    I thought the normal, most objective, way to measure the length of fiction is to use number of words. I think the average number of characters per word ranges from 5 to 6. I bet Q10 counts the space characters also.

    So Rogue Skink is probably at least 1444 x 5 characters long (7220). But I just checked, it is more like 9600 characters. 9600/1444 = 6.6 ch/wrd.
     
    Last edited: Jun 19, 2015
    pendrake, Jun 18, 2015
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  18. Scalenex
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    Scalenex Keeper of the Indexes Staff Member

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    The second part. Basically I want readers who use my personal index or the Lustriapedia to have a vague sense of whether a piece is a five minute time killer or a full evening read. Basically when someone reads one of my pieces, they set a baseline to compare the others too. Legacies (my second most recent fluff piece on L-O) is about three times longer than Renliss' Journey to Lustria (my first posted piece on L-O).

    We discussed this on the mod forum because the pre-upgrade forum had a slightly larger limit than the post-upgrade forum, so my longest tacticas and my 6000 point narrative battle report were grandfathered in but could no longer be edited. Then Red Devil tinkered with the program and boosted our character limit greatly, so that even my wordiness can all fit in one piece.

     
    Last edited: Jan 3, 2018
    Scalenex, Jun 19, 2015
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  19. spawning of Bob
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    spawning of Bob Well-Known Member

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    Me too.

    Classification Word count as used by the Nebula Awards
    Novel over 40,000 words
    Novella 17,500 to 40,000 words
    Novelette 7,500 to 17,500 words
    Short story under 7,500 words

    Its a bit boring, for us. We could use a qualititative measure, eg.
    This story is a Ripper (you only need the attention span of a Ripperdactyl to enjoy this one) at one end of the scale versus a Contemplation (you will need the patience of a Slann to get to the end of this, and you will be in a near catatonic state afterwards)




    Hey @lordkingcrow, what is the convention when you are submitting a manuscript to a publishing house? Words or pages? Do they specify a size range that they would consider, and not a word more or less?
     
    spawning of Bob, Jun 19, 2015
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  20. Qupakoco
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    Qupakoco Keeper of the Dice Staff Member

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    I think you mean @Arli

    My thoughts on the word/character per story nonsense; it really depends on the writer for me. Like @Scalenex mentioned, it's whatever you need to complete an entry or a thought or a substory. Some authors use the page break to separate two distinct viewpoints while others use a new chapter. The book The DaVinci Code comes to mind with its super short chapters. Some of them encompass no more than one page front and back.

    The standard when it comes to submitting works, be it a research paper or a story, is size 12 font with double spacing. At least for me it's always been that way. The editor then has space for comments and feedback to the author.

    Also think about this: Would you rather read a 10 page story OR a 10 page research paper?
     
    Last edited: Jun 19, 2015
    Qupakoco, Jun 19, 2015
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