138 replies to this topic

[Tank]

I love your dang bus!

[Iceheart]

Whats it like to drive/park? My friend wants to convert a bus like this for similar use, but shes worried about how it handles. And do you have to have a commercial license to drive it?

[Darth Krawlie]

All right, once I have a little extra spending money I'm gonna get Scrivener. I finally sat down and wrote a little (a very little, a whole 73 words). The bug is coming up again and I really want to write this story, so I think I have to.

[Tank]

I offered to gift it...

[D-Ray Kenobi]

Whats it like to drive/park? My friend wants to convert a bus like this for similar use, but shes worried about how it handles. And do you have to have a commercial license to drive it?

There was a little bit of a learning curve to it, but it's not that bad.  You just kind of have to plan a route ahead of time so you don't have any sharp turns in the city and over curbs and such.

I'm not sure how it works in other states, but in Alabama you can have the title converted to an RV.  So I don't have to get a commercial license, and it saves me a ton on taxes too.

[Brando]

I finished the outline and it ended up being horrible, but I had realized about halfway through that it wasn’t working. At least I got it out and I can see what parts work, and I think I know how to fix the overall failure while keeping in with my initial idea.

[Tank]

Most writing is rewriting.

[Ms. Spam]

Yup. I work at a language arts type charter school. We preach that writing is rewriting.

[zambingo]

Along those lines, it feels like, when you get well into a story only to discover it is very similar to something else that either just came out or is about to. Okay, maybe that moment isnt so much well lets just rewrite as it is more utterly soul crushing.

[Darth Krawlie]

I've been doing a lot of work on my writing project lately as well. I'm still light years away from a first draft since most of what I've been doing is research and background info, but it's coming along a little better than I'd hoped. I can only manage a couple paragraphs at a time but hey, something is better than nothing.

[Tank]

I've been doing a lot of work on my writing project lately as well. I'm still light years away from a first draft since most of what I've been doing is research and background info, but it's coming along a little better than I'd hoped. I can only manage a couple paragraphs at a time but hey, something is better than nothing.

Research counts as writing.

I just turned in one of the pilots I was commissioned for, slowly doing the other... but it's for Amblin/Disney and there's 3452345234 producers involved so every steps takes a month and multiple phone calls to get everyone to agree to move to the next step.

[zambingo]

Maybe whatever works for you is best. Whatever gets your creative juices bubbling the most, sorta thing.

However I do think that a story, the characters, can really be placed in any setting. But maybe this is just what makes things cook for me... along that metaphor, maybe also consider Ive never actually baked anything.

[Tank]

I have a question about fictional writing (not that I want to write necessarily, just curious).  Is it better to come up with a fictional universe and determine how things work in it first then try to write characters for that universe, or is it better to come up with characters, then create the universe they are in afterwards?

Neither. None of that matters without a story. It should be the first and last consideration. Not to say you couldn't have an idea for a character, or even a whole universe before a story, they could certainly inspire one. But a detailed universe with a story that says or does nothing isn't going to amount too much.

[Brando]

I'm far from a professional, or even an accomplished amateur, but my method always starts with the basic idea, then I develop characters and figure out how those characters will fit the story. Normally the story changes slightly as the characters develop, but the general idea stays the same.

[Tank]

I've started with a character, I've started with a universe, I've started with story ideas, I've even started with scene ideas.

But, I never dive fully in until I know the story.

These days I kind of do it simultaneously.

[zambingo]

Sometimes Ive started with only an ending, but for me at least, that gets the most messy when trying to fill up to that.

Anyway, a short story Ive been working on might have unintentionally turned into the spirit animal of Seinfeld. I was playing around with a one sentence idea... Why am I the ***hole? lol

My wife told me to stick to that idea. lol Not sure if that was a message. She does however know I am struggling with reconciling my want to write fantastic space adventure stuff with (at least I have been told) my aptitude to write itty-bitty focused, average family dramedy... and that all mixing into a story which I will not trash because I think it feels too much like other things.

[Quetzalcoatl]

 

 

I have a question about fictional writing (not that I want to write necessarily, just curious).  Is it better to come up with a fictional universe and determine how things work in it first then try to write characters for that universe, or is it better to come up with characters, then create the universe they are in afterwards?

Neither. None of that matters without a story. It should be the first and last consideration. Not to say you couldn't have an idea for a character, or even a whole universe before a story, they could certainly inspire one. But a detailed universe with a story that says or does nothing isn't going to amount too much.

 

Ah!  I learned something   

 

When I tried to dabble with creative writing a long time ago, I always approached it with trying to create a universe, usually inspired by old, but actual, mythos (EG Ancient Greece, Egypt, or other myths), then tried to create characters,  then a story.  Seems I had it all backwards, which is why I probably never went anywhere with it.  Not that I would try it now.  Kinda late for that

 

This is exactly what I do, even when I make a conscious effort not to.  I build the world first, and that inspires and shapes the story, probably the opposite of what's supposed to happen.  But I've actually made significant progress sense last posting here.  A lot of the gaps are being filled in.  I have a rough outline of my story and the characters.  I know the beginning and the end.  I still don't know a lot of what happens in between, but at least I now know where the story needs to go, and I can use that as a guide.  This thread has motivated me to push through all the frustration I was feeling earlier, and things are really rolling now, at least for the time being.  The story, and the world, are both taking shape and for the first time I have a glimpse of what the final product might look like.  

[The Choc]

My advice would be if you have a "world" you want to develop and set stories in is to not start with you big 13 volume that spans continents and generations. Find a small corner of that universe and set a short story inside it. 

[Tank]

I’m about to start a new project, if anyone cares I can post my real-time progress if anyone wants to see my BS in action.

[Darth Krawlie]

yes please

[Rock]

I’m about to start a new project, if anyone cares I can post my real-time progress if anyone wants to see my BS in action.

Post!

[The Choc]

Good to have you back, hope everything is well.