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Kat Dakuu
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#1
Old 01-27-2013, 08:11 PM

For the love of OC, get in here and talk with me about them!



For those of you who love your characters as much as me and can talk about them all day (whether there is anyone else in the room to talk to), Hello! My fellow writers, rpers, even you artists with a love of story, this is a place for you to talk about those things in an informal and fun setting. Chat, get to know each other and share whatever you want that seems vaguely on topic (or not).

F
rom now on, this thread is open without an invite, but I'd still like to keep this a place where my friends can hang and invite 'regulars' to stay in. I'm still sending invites to people I currently rp, or great people I've rped/had writerly talks with in the past. I hope new and old friends can get along here.


This is somewhere between a discussion thread, an ooc, and just a regular hangout. I want this to be a place where we can talk about all of our character's and stories to anyone, not just the rps we might have with each other. This is a place to talk ANYTHING writing. Talk current rps, talk out new ideas, vent, advertise, ask advice, share so we can fangirl together whether its over new OC art, rps, original stories, or fanfics. And of course, just hangout in between. We might share more interests than we know, might have similar characters, or ideas. I love hearing your ideas, seriously. I like to hear the writers experience from other writers.
Or we can just sit down and have some tea and talk...whatever...Mostly importantly, have fun and really hang with each other. This not being a discussion, you don't have to always be on topic. Off topic chatter can be most inspiring to the writer at times.


(banner by Whisper Invictus)

Last edited by Kat Dakuu; 10-19-2014 at 01:11 AM..

Kat Dakuu
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#2
Old 01-27-2013, 08:15 PM

Omg I don't know what to do with this post anymore.

Last edited by Kat Dakuu; 11-05-2014 at 08:06 PM..

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#3
Old 01-27-2013, 08:16 PM

(not so)Weekly creative idea/prompt:
(This will mostly be for a writing prompt I've come up with or something I picked up in class,
but I might also put down exercises I've used for editing or other.)

SPOILERX

Week 1:
Put your ipod on shuffle and pick the song it lands on. Use both the title and band name somehow in your writing of a new or existing piece (this isn't about the lyrics). You can use them conceptually or actually put the words themselves in. Don't skip to the next song because you don't like it!! (unless it's a foreign title you have no idea what means)
Week 2:
Get a group of people and ask them to each write a person and an action on a slip of paper. preferably each person should do more than one of each, depends on how many people you have. (both action and person should be simple yet specific- ie A gay rockstar with a drinking problem or a troubled lawyer- killing a bee or turning off street lights with a wave of a hand)
now shuffle up those skips of paper and pass them out so you don't get your own! it's best played with people who will give you some variety to work with. maybe they don't write the same genre as you do. you can get out of your comfort zone, or learn to make that work for your own type of writing!
week 3:
Some simple character development. Write 100 things down about your character. physical descriptions, likes, dislikes, fears, childhood stories...etc. It helps keep things straight and it can be good for undeveloped characters because you'll just learn things as you write.
week 4:
Work from this:
A sound came from behind, a certain drip, drip, drip...It was the only sound in the darkness. As the drip continued something slid across the floor from behind and crept forward slowly until it met his shoes. He turned....
week 5:
pick an avatar, it doesn't have to be your own. Now make it a character. If you feel like it, randomly pick all the avatars on a page and put them in the same story together. what in the world is a pirate doing with a chicken and a school girl?!
prompt 6:
This time it's an editing exercise! Print out a smaller piece of work (a short story or 1 chapter of a longer piece). Go through it and highlight every adverb in one color and every adjective in another. Now, it's up to you to decide how many of these you consider acceptable. For every person it's a different amount. Some writers don't want a single one in their piece and others go by a couple a page...whatever. You're the writer. Having the words all highlighted and physically in front of you so you can see every page without having to scroll helps visualize. Take out the adj/adv you don't need.
Prompt 7:
It's another editing exercise and one that made me want to pull out my hair, but I'm so glad I did it in the end. Just like in the last prompt, print out some material to work with. Don't bother stapling the pages together. What you will do is cut apart your different scenes, literally. Get them scissors and cut everything into sections. It's up to you how large or short of parts you cut your story into. Next, start to reorder things. Play around with what happens when you put certain scenes next to each other. You may find that your story really starts a page in and you never knew until you literally put that most interesting moment at the start and looked at it. You may have started with a linear story or one that involved a lot of flashbacks, but try to see how it looks when the events don't play out exactly as you thought it should. Not every story needs to be 'typical' of what's expected of it. Maybe your story needs to play out backwards because what's most interesting is how everything got to be the way it is in the first place. I never thought this activity would be useful, but I did end up reordering the short story I did this with.
Prompt 8
and http://www.collegehumor.com/picture/...is-is-so-funny
not really a prompt, but oh so important for a writer (and funny)
Prompt 9
Quote:
Maass taught that what he calls "micro-tension" needs to be increased on every page. Micro-tension is what keeps the reader turning pages and staying up at night unable to put a book down. Conflict is the key to holding the reader's attention.

The three key areas to work on are dialogue, action, and emotion. If the writer can increase the tension in every snippet of these three areas, it will be hard for a reader to close the book.

One of Maass' suggestions was to print out your entire manuscript, and throw the pages into the air, scattering them around the room. Gather them up in whatever random order they've landed. Then examine each page, in turn, and find if there is tension on the page. If not, add it. If there is, add more. There can never be enough.
(taken from a review of the book Fire in Fiction. Review found here



Prompt 10
Here are a few websites I saw elsewhere and I use in my writing and just to amuse myself.
Word counter (it shows more than just the count number though. I like the word density)
Editing tool (you don't have to listen to it explicitly since it's a piece of software, but like other editing exercises I've pointed out, it's good to see it highlighted)
World builder (I haven't gotten past day two, but I do hear it's helpful)

And For those who like to read about writing in a book:
The Complete Idiots guide to Publishing Science Fiction by Cory Doctory
Writing Fiction (A guide to narrative Craft)
A writer's notebook (craft essays from tin house) <---Highly recommended**
On Writing by Stephen King
More than Words - compiled by Phillip Yancey and edited by James Calvin Schaap


If you use the prompts or plan to, tell me maybe? Because curiosity killed the kat and I like to listen to people's ideas. Not that I need to.

Last edited by Kat Dakuu; 06-05-2016 at 03:15 PM..

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#4
Old 01-27-2013, 08:25 PM

Hi Kat, thanks so much for the invite!
How are you doing?

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#5
Old 01-27-2013, 08:29 PM

hey Papi! I'm doing great, though i'm afraid I have to get offline soon to work on a short story that's due...tomorrow. .__.
how are you?

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#6
Old 01-27-2013, 08:30 PM

I'm doing pretty good, rping still and actually working on a few stories of my own .. Though they're not for any classes.

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#7
Old 01-27-2013, 08:32 PM

aw, it must be nice to write outside of rps and class! I get to write three stories for one of my classes this semester. Actually I like that, but I procrastinated and now I have to write the whole story in two days.
what kind of stories are you working on?

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#8
Old 01-27-2013, 08:34 PM

It is, lol. For which class?

They're fantasy ,and a lot of them are just little snippets to explain the past of some of my characters.

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#9
Old 01-27-2013, 08:38 PM

it's advanced fiction workshop!

ah, but that's cool. it's great to write little pieces for your chars past. I've done that before.

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#10
Old 01-27-2013, 08:44 PM

Thats so cool! I wish I could take a class like that .. but they don't offer it here..

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#11
Old 01-27-2013, 08:47 PM

it's a great class. I think I already like it more than intermediate fiction.
Maybe there's a workshop somewhere near you that you can take?

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#12
Old 01-27-2013, 08:50 PM

I'll have to look around ... There might be one at the library, or something like that ... hmm I really need to look around.

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#13
Old 01-27-2013, 08:54 PM

if not, I suppose you could always talk to someone and see if you can get one set up. Or you could at least make a writing club at the library for people to meet and help each other out.

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#14
Old 01-27-2013, 09:22 PM

There is that, lol

Kat Dakuu
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#15
Old 01-27-2013, 09:30 PM

yeah, there are all sorts of options really.

okay, I am now taking myself away from the internet. I'm not getting enough work done. cya later!

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#16
Old 01-27-2013, 09:36 PM

Later, good luck with the short stories!

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#17
Old 01-27-2013, 10:18 PM

*sigh* all this writing is hard work. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how I want the end to go. My character is supposed to be apathetic most of the story (I don't know if that's coming off) with a few moments of frailty. But he finds a desire to live in the form of revenge at the end. And this story is really twisted. O.O I wonder what my classmates will think when they read it...

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#18
Old 01-27-2013, 11:25 PM

Maybe you should write out little scenes, not connected to the story really, just to see how your character reacts to them. Kind of like ... mini short stories a paragraph long? It might give a better idea of how things are flowing, or how your character's character and motivations really are.

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#19
Old 01-27-2013, 11:36 PM

that's a really good idea. I may do that later, but I have to finish writing this today. Maybe I'll use that for the editing process.

omg, best typo ever. I meant to write "Ausik who gave him warmth, let him dream half good dreams...."
but instead I wrote "Ausik who let him let, let him dream..."
like what??

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#20
Old 01-27-2013, 11:40 PM

Actually, with a little tweaking that second sentence could make sense,

Quote:
Ausik who let him let [warmth within], le[f]t him [to] dream...

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#21
Old 01-27-2013, 11:44 PM

ah, nice tweak. I'm definitely going to have to allot myself some time to edit.

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#22
Old 01-27-2013, 11:46 PM

Editing actually might be the hardest part in the whole writing process ..

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#23
Old 01-27-2013, 11:56 PM

it sure can be. the most time consuming at least, but I really do like it. I especially like editing for grammar and syntax. Fixing structure and content is much more pull my hair out.

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#24
Old 01-27-2013, 11:58 PM

I like content so much .. *pets current story* I need to work on it so badly.

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#25
Old 01-28-2013, 12:04 AM

aw, sounds like you should work on it. If you're petting it, you miss it.

 


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