Seasons
This is a forum or general chit-chat, small talk, a "hey, how ya doing?" and such. Or hell, get crazy deep on something. Whatever you like.
Posts 536 - 547 of 6,170
Posts 536 - 547 of 6,170
Many many moons ago (prolly 10 years ago by now) I started this story that begins with 2 brothers coming home to find out their town was destroyed, presumably by some evil wizard. Having lost the disk it was on, I don't remember much of what happened after that, except for the part where their wizard friend takes them to a temple and they try to look up a goddess's dress. 
I did manage to write 70 pages or so of it, and I thought it was pretty cool at the time although now I'd probably call it a piece of shit.
Some time after that, I wrote a little thingy about a wizard's apprentice going to his master's house while the wizard was away, and recieving a message meant for the wizard about strange creatures attacking the city of mages. The wizard comes home and they talk about it for a while, then go to the local bar to discuss it with another wizard who happens to be a bartender. (They meet a man who's a couple thousand years old and used to be an underling of this bitch who killed people and collected their blood and such, but they don't realize it.) Later, sitting at home in a rowdily drunken state, they hear a banging on the door. Come to find out, the wizard from the bar is being chased by the 2000 year old maniac. Never did get any farther than that, but I sat there for the longest time planning really complicated histories and such, trying to figure out who was doing what where at the same time someone was doing something else elsewhere.
Here a while back, I got the bright idea to have these stories take place in the same world, the second several thousand years after the first. Which would be ok if I could ever manage to finish one or the other of them. I've tried repeatedly though and it just doesn't wanna work. I think I know too damn much about that world to be able to write decently about it. It's annoying as hell.
I did manage to write 70 pages or so of it, and I thought it was pretty cool at the time although now I'd probably call it a piece of shit.Some time after that, I wrote a little thingy about a wizard's apprentice going to his master's house while the wizard was away, and recieving a message meant for the wizard about strange creatures attacking the city of mages. The wizard comes home and they talk about it for a while, then go to the local bar to discuss it with another wizard who happens to be a bartender. (They meet a man who's a couple thousand years old and used to be an underling of this bitch who killed people and collected their blood and such, but they don't realize it.) Later, sitting at home in a rowdily drunken state, they hear a banging on the door. Come to find out, the wizard from the bar is being chased by the 2000 year old maniac. Never did get any farther than that, but I sat there for the longest time planning really complicated histories and such, trying to figure out who was doing what where at the same time someone was doing something else elsewhere.
Here a while back, I got the bright idea to have these stories take place in the same world, the second several thousand years after the first. Which would be ok if I could ever manage to finish one or the other of them.
I've tried repeatedly though and it just doesn't wanna work. I think I know too damn much about that world to be able to write decently about it. It's annoying as hell. 
I've written many many pieces of shit, most of them not exactly large, but maybe the shittiness makes up for it. The thing is, all my shit is unfinished. Except this one I wrote in school that had something to do with telepathic monkeys with ray guns. This is what happens when it's the day before your assignment is due and you have no idea what the hell to write about.
As for poetry, I can do that easy most of the time. Sometimes even when I'm just talking to someone and describe something I get poetic. A lot of poetry I've seen is awful dry to me though...I can't write anything I don't have some sort of feeling about. I can't write about an apple unless I think of some memorable incident involving an apple, and put in all the emotional stuff most people wouldn't think of. Unfortunately, I must not have had any memorable incidents involving apples, otherwise I'd remember them.
The thing is, all my shit is unfinished. Except this one I wrote in school that had something to do with telepathic monkeys with ray guns. This is what happens when it's the day before your assignment is due and you have no idea what the hell to write about. As for poetry, I can do that easy most of the time. Sometimes even when I'm just talking to someone and describe something I get poetic. A lot of poetry I've seen is awful dry to me though...I can't write anything I don't have some sort of feeling about. I can't write about an apple unless I think of some memorable incident involving an apple, and put in all the emotional stuff most people wouldn't think of. Unfortunately, I must not have had any memorable incidents involving apples, otherwise I'd remember them.
Got in late on the whole writing conversation (been out of town), so a couple of things.
I'm pretty sure Tolkien based most of the elvish language (or at the least the phonemes) on the sounds of Finnish, which as I understand it is a dying language because most modern Finns speak Swedish. Also, jbryanc (I think it was you) mentioned that thing about Tolkien meeting with a bunch of other academics amongst which LoTR took shape. One of those guys was C.S. Lewis (of Lion, Witch and Wardrobe fame).
As to writing itself, I share the common curse of not finishing things that I start. At last count I have one play, four screenplays, one radio serial, a novel and a trilogy that are all at various stages of incompletion. Compare that to one full length play and a handful of short stories I have completed.
As to the process I use, for longer stuff I have to know two things before I begin. Where I'm starting and where I'm ending. There are usually about a half dozen key scenes I want to hit at some point along the way. The trouble is I keep getting detoured. It usually makes for some of the more interesting aspects of a story, but it has a tendency to blow out the word budget on the original plan.
I usually find that to work out who your characters and setting are you've just got to write about them until you start to build up the picture as you go along. Once I get to that point I usually start again so I can make things consistent from the get go and use the knowledge I've built up to better set up what comes later in the early stages (ie foreshadowing and establishing certain character traits earlier).
I'm pretty sure Tolkien based most of the elvish language (or at the least the phonemes) on the sounds of Finnish, which as I understand it is a dying language because most modern Finns speak Swedish. Also, jbryanc (I think it was you) mentioned that thing about Tolkien meeting with a bunch of other academics amongst which LoTR took shape. One of those guys was C.S. Lewis (of Lion, Witch and Wardrobe fame).
As to writing itself, I share the common curse of not finishing things that I start. At last count I have one play, four screenplays, one radio serial, a novel and a trilogy that are all at various stages of incompletion. Compare that to one full length play and a handful of short stories I have completed.
As to the process I use, for longer stuff I have to know two things before I begin. Where I'm starting and where I'm ending. There are usually about a half dozen key scenes I want to hit at some point along the way. The trouble is I keep getting detoured. It usually makes for some of the more interesting aspects of a story, but it has a tendency to blow out the word budget on the original plan.
I usually find that to work out who your characters and setting are you've just got to write about them until you start to build up the picture as you go along. Once I get to that point I usually start again so I can make things consistent from the get go and use the knowledge I've built up to better set up what comes later in the early stages (ie foreshadowing and establishing certain character traits earlier).
I've never been able to get both a start and an end to a decent story, so there's my main problem there...
I never worry about the ending until I get there. I like trying to get there better than actually getting there, I think. Because once you get to the end, regardless of what method you use, you gotta do all that revising crap, and by that time it's not creative anymore. Just some mechanical crap you gotta do to improve your story. This is probably a large part of the reason I never GET to the ending.
You could always try one of those unique writing styles, like two authors writing back and forth to each other.
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