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Post by satoh on May 26, 2015 21:27:02 GMT -5
This is intended to be a public use thread, not just related to my things. The goal is to provide a simple place to get feedback or suggestions for whatever you happen to be writing at the moment, without making a huge deal and starting a full thread about it.
I've found most discussions are of a singular nature that seem too small to warrant a full thread, yet, I was unable to find a place to post a simple question like that, so, I'm starting one.
Feel free to pose any questions or discuss what you need as you need to.
Now, I've been pretty Writey lately, and I have a bit of a conundrum. I have a writing project in which I need to introduce the main character as a blank slate... a completely blank slate, devoid of any colorings that might affect the reader's opinion of the character.
Its hard to describe why exactly, but just assume the reader is supposed to consider how they themselves would react to the situation, more than figuring out how this other person should/would. (hard to explain, again). Consider it from a slightly interactive fiction perspective, but not necessarily on the level of something that should be in the "games" forum.
That's fine. It's easy to drop a character into a room with no backstory and have them start doing things... The problem is, I DO need the reader to understand how the character managed to get ship (in space), with no crew, adrift. There are a few things I do need to establish: The character is current to the setting's time period (no decades of hypersleep) The character owns the ship, or at the very least is not being chased because it is stolen, The character has no strong ties or baggage waiting for them elsewhere. (If they have a family or home, it is not one good or bad enough to warrant thinking much about)
The biggest problem I have at the moment, is giving just enough information to assuage the reader's curiosity about the character's spontaneous existence on a ship adrift in space.
The ship is a small personal ship with enough room for 4, or an uncomfortably close 8 crew, including its captain. The first major event is going to be the immediate requirement of docking for supplies or maintenance or something of the like.
Suggestions?
Questions of your own?
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Post by HF on May 27, 2015 8:43:05 GMT -5
This looks fun, let see (sorry if I deter a little, so steer me in the right direction with feedback)... - Character was escaping from someone or something in a shuttle, but got knocked unconscious during a firefight.
- He was wrongly presumed dead as the shuttle drifted into an asteroid field so pursuit was called off.
- The shuttle went on "autopilot" (or was forced into it) and docked itself in the unmanned spaceship.
- Arguably, since he found himself on an unmanned ship, it was from that point onwards that it becomes 'his' so to speak.
This setup also brings a few extra questions about the character which readers are likely to get interested about: - Who or what is the character running away from?
Former captors? Galactic law enforcement? Or a larger conspiracy...?
- Who exactly is the character? And what did he do (or not do) to end up attracting the hostility of some group or faction?
A soldier gone AWOL? A scientist withholding an artifact or some information of great importance (whether he's aware of it or not)? Or perhaps he himself is the 'important artifact' (an experiment or observed specimen out of many others)?
- And what about the "ghost ship" itself? Why did the shuttle go Autopilot and dock despite not being part of the new unmanned ship?
Is there actually an original owner observing the character and his actions from inside the ship? Someone looking out for the character or wanting him to owe him/her a favor? Or was it really just a stroke of good fortune?
How this for a start?
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Post by Loken on May 27, 2015 12:24:29 GMT -5
Would any of HF's suggestions count as backstory? Everything I can think of would end up kind of being something that might color the character, even if vaguely.
Maybe you could explain why he is in space later in the story?
Also is he supposed to stay a blank slate throughout the whole story?
If so, focusing on the experience of space and the universe he lives would avoid character while still being interesting.
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Post by satoh on May 27, 2015 14:28:28 GMT -5
This looks fun, let see (sorry if I deter a little, so steer me in the right direction with feedback)... - Character was escaping from someone or something in a shuttle, but got knocked unconscious during a firefight.
- He was wrongly presumed dead as the shuttle drifted into an asteroid field so pursuit was called off.
- The shuttle went on "autopilot" (or was forced into it) and docked itself in the unmanned spaceship.
- Arguably, since he found himself on an unmanned ship, it was from that point onwards that it becomes 'his' so to speak.
This setup also brings a few extra questions about the character which readers are likely to get interested about: - Who or what is the character running away from?
Former captors? Galactic law enforcement? Or a larger conspiracy...?
- Who exactly is the character? And what did he do (or not do) to end up attracting the hostility of some group or faction?
A soldier gone AWOL? A scientist withholding an artifact or some information of great importance (whether he's aware of it or not)? Or perhaps he himself is the 'important artifact' (an experiment or observed specimen out of many others)?
- And what about the "ghost ship" itself? Why did the shuttle go Autopilot and dock despite not being part of the new unmanned ship?
Is there actually an original owner observing the character and his actions from inside the ship? Someone looking out for the character or wanting him to owe him/her a favor? Or was it really just a stroke of good fortune?
How this for a start?
That would leave the character as a mystery to solve, something that makes the reader more curious about the character's past. That's sort of what I want to avoid. What I need is a way to explain away the problems with a person aimlessly wandering about space in a personal ship, without being some kind of billionaire or fugitive. Would any of HF's suggestions count as backstory? Everything I can think of would end up kind of being something that might color the character, even if vaguely. Maybe you could explain why he is in space later in the story? Also is he supposed to stay a blank slate throughout the whole story? If so, focusing on the experience of space and the universe he lives would avoid character while still being interesting. World building is planned to be the major focus of the project. But there is still the problem of the fact that the character and setting are at odds with eachother until the existence of this ship and its owner are explained away somehow. That is, the setting can't have focus until the reader stops thinking about why the character they've just (not?) been introduced to is in it. Taking Guardians of the Galaxy as an example. The protagonist there doesn't simply show up being himself doing his thing, there is a very brief backstory in which he's abducted from Earth in the 1980's as a child, and no more attention is given to it or any of the years between then and now, without brief asides noting that he was here or there at some point, probably doing some kind of thing at the time. Even there however, is a little too much story about his family and his life as a child. I'm looking to explain how my character left their home without creating important loose ends, and without setting up any finite history for the character. A retrospective history would be a good way to resolve the character later in the story, but right now I'm more worried about the fact that I have to somehow explain how the character came to own the ship, venture into space with the ship, sans a proper crew, and also not be some kind of wanted criminal or being persecuted by pirates at every turn or what have you. I could probably complain about my penchant for doing things the hard way... but I guess if they were easy they wouldn't compel me so.
Anyway. From the start, the reader is going to be led through various scenarios like the character having to do impromptu emergency repairs on the ship, docking at a station for maintenance, attaining crew members, notably an engineer, and all manner of gallivanting about space thereafter. Yet, this still poses the question.. "why is there a ship"
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Post by Dashe on May 27, 2015 14:45:04 GMT -5
If it were my story, I'd just go, "Welp. Might as well let the audience be curious." Curiosity, after all, is a fantastic means of getting a reader interested in your story. A lot of the problems you're worried about, though, like the practical realities of having a spaceship adrift with no characterizing backstory, get resolved by the reader's willing suspense of disbelief. For something like being adrift in a ship, most readers will look at that and go, "Yeah, okay. That's cool. What's he going to do about it?" instead of mull over the whys and hows of it. The whys and hows can be explained later. Or not at all. Your call.
In fact, I've got half a mind to argue that by setting up the how and why, you're taking away the hook your readers need to be interested in this situation.
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Post by satoh on May 27, 2015 20:37:48 GMT -5
Ok, I can accept that the mystery of the spontaneous generation of protagonist is a valid hook, but that still leaves me the problem of introducing the setting.
Which I was going to do by proxy of the character's arrival in it.
I suppose I'm sort of in general lacking the vital first paragraph... not even a full hook or anything, just... a way to transition from 'there is no story in front of me' to 'there is a story in front of me and I'm reading it'
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Post by HF on May 27, 2015 21:22:15 GMT -5
If it were my story, I'd just go, "Welp. Might as well let the audience be curious." Curiosity, after all, is a fantastic means of getting a reader interested in your story. I have to agree on this as well; leaving some room for debate also gives readers something to keep going back, even if it's something as petty as GREEDO SHOT FIRST. I suppose I'm sort of in general lacking the vital first paragraph... not even a full hook or anything, just... a way to transition from 'there is no story in front of me' to 'there is a story in front of me and I'm reading it' What if you wrote it in the style of a "Captain's Log" at first, then switch to describing the ship in greater detail?
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Post by Dashe on May 27, 2015 23:05:45 GMT -5
Ok, I can accept that the mystery of the spontaneous generation of protagonist is a valid hook, but that still leaves me the problem of introducing the setting. Which I was going to do by proxy of the character's arrival in it. The setting is space, right? Does it really matter what exact part of space it is that this character is in? Is the exact design of the spaceship really that crucial to the reader's understanding that a character is stranded in space and presumably dissatisfied with the situation?
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Post by satoh on May 28, 2015 0:46:04 GMT -5
Well, I mean, currently my thoughts on how to start off range from "character wakes up" to "character gets out of the shower".
Its not that the particular coordinates in space are important, or that the exact number of bolts in the hull need disclosing... I'm just having like, a very general writer's block about how to transition from "there is not yet a setting" to "there is a setting in which the character needs to repair a fuse because the life support warning is going off, and oh we're out of fuel too."
...though I suppose it would be amusing for the character to dash soaking wet and naked through the ship looking for something to wedge in the fusebox...
but even then that seems perhaps TOO abrupt.
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Post by Dashe on May 28, 2015 11:26:55 GMT -5
That's not too abrupt, that's actually pretty great if funny is what you're going for. I mean, you've already got an alarm of some sort blaring. That's good. Leave them wondering what the alarm's for. Or make the character shout, "Oh geez, not the life support fuse!" or something. If you have the fuel gauge near the fuse box then that makes it really easy for your character and the audience to notice that the ship is out of gas, too. You would honestly be surprised at how little information you need for an audience to accept a situation as reality, even if it's the hardest of hard sci-fi.
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Post by Loken on May 28, 2015 12:22:28 GMT -5
Seriously, that is a terrific way to start a story. If you begin with a wet naked guy panickly running about on a space ship you already have my interest. I don't need to know anything more than that to want to keep reading.
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Post by satoh on May 30, 2015 16:31:39 GMT -5
I have another tricky problem... I have a character who needs to speak with a pretty thick Irish accent, but I don't know how to get that across...elegantly.
Accents are pretty hard to write explicitly and perhaps even a bit insulting, not to mention hard to read... but since 'Earth' isn't really a place that exists for current reference (none of the characters in the story have ever been there) I can't simply state "has an Irish brogue"... at least not without leaving a bit of my dignity at the door. I don't like breaking the setting in narrative. I mean, I suppose I could include a Forward, but...no one ever reads those, and they're not entirely conducive to interactive fiction which will also be set in the same setting...
So, I need thoughts. Suggestions. Also, as the character is a pirate, I don't want to write the accent explicitly since then people would assume the traditional pyratt-speak accent instead. (which I guess might have originally been a bad fake Irish accent for an old movie or something)
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Post by Kyle on Jun 1, 2015 17:38:45 GMT -5
Yeah, they're a tricky thing to begin with. I don't believe any singular country has its own definitive accent per se. Even the slightest inflections can be extremely varied. For example, I can count at least sixteen different Irish accents off the top of my head. Westmeatheans like myself tend to be monotone, whilst you'd have people from Cork bastardizing the occasional word with their overly hyper tongue. If all of them were to be generalized, I'd reckon the majority of Irish people pronounce their "R"s pretty dominantly, if that makes sense. Most folks around the world pronounce Ireland as "Eye-er-land", but people actually living there say "Are-land". If you'd like, I can give you a bunch of slang words for the character to use. 'Cause if you're going for a thick accent, you'd may as well go all the way.
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Post by satoh on Jun 1, 2015 18:53:21 GMT -5
Unfortunately I don't know a good place to find specific accents by region in order to actually pick the one I'm thinking of... a common problem for me, since I listen to people often and like to try and identify their regional heritage by their speech.
EDIT: It seems the accent I want exists somewhere between Galway, Dublin, and Cork.... which is pretty vague I guess since it only eliminates about a third of the country...
It seems to be closer to the top, between Galway and Dublin...
Though as there aren't a lot of good videos I can find from places that aren't Galway Dublin or Cork, I'm still having some trouble finding that one spot... and it doesn't account for the possibility that the accents in there are completely different.
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Post by Bowen Aero on Nov 17, 2015 15:47:02 GMT -5
After a solid twenty days of procrastination and off-and-on job hunting, I've finished the necessary writing to properly present to you the star of my upcoming Splatoon blog. Meet Tauné Hailing from the beachside city of Barracuda Coast, Tauné is a hot-blooded Inkling with an immense craving for battle who only recently moved to Inkopolis to pursue a career in professional Ink Battling. Back home, there are looser standards on Turf Wars, allowing Inklings like Tauné to participate with modified weapons and customized weapon sets. With this and a penchant for tinkering with ink weapons, she crafted her own signature Shooter, the Splotgun. Because she would often pass on hours of sleep to fine-tune her creations with only her desk lamp for illumination, she has developed terrible nearsightedness. Even though she's less concerned with fashion than the other Inkopolis citizens, preferring to limit her wardrobe to various boots and jackets with metal trimming, peer pressure has dissuaded her from considering glasses or even contacts. With such poor eyesight, she finds it easiest to get up close and personal with her fighting style, which suits the Splotgun's specs. This has earned her a reputation of being a formidable foe within Barracuda Coast's battling community, which to her still wasn't enough. Her desire to gain further recognition is fueled by her competitive nature. Through undying tenacity, she has climbed her way to the Official League's A Ranks. From there, her rank continues to flux between A+ and A-. Despite further advancement being impeded by her own short temper, her ambition drives her to become the best fighter in Inkopolis, no, in the world.
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