Andrew Gilfellon Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 New thread. Previous one below. http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/103907-boarders-writing-a-novel-part-11/ Having trouble with character reasoning and motivation. If you're the heir to a successful merchant company from a country considered 'uncultured,' would it make sense for the girl to dress in her tribal clothing while in the city, or try to fit into society and dress how the ladies in the city dress? These are the questions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myrddin Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 Having trouble with character reasoning and motivation. If you're the heir to a successful merchant company from a country considered 'uncultured,' would it make sense for the girl to dress in her tribal clothing while in the city, or try to fit into society and dress how the ladies in the city dress? These are the questions. Depends on the heir's native culture. Is it strongly (and/or religiously) traditional (like the Otavalo inidans in Ecuador)? Or is her culture more accepting of other cultures, basically incorporating everything (Venice). There's a historical precedent for both, so just make sure you build the reasons within your worldbuilding. Just work in the reasoning organically. Don't infodump cultural reasoning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starkess Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 Just finished scheduling all my #SFFpit tweets. 10 different pitches, 24 total tweets. The last #SFFpit (in June) netted me some positive responses, including a full that is out with an agent right now. So I figured it doesn't hurt! I've actually paused querying this one, because I'm not sure it works, but I haven't had a chance to edit it yet and I still like it, so I'm throwing my hat in the ring. I also submitted to #PitchMAS yesterday, so will hear back on Thursday if I made the top 50. As far as the novel I'm actually writing, it's been a bit painful, but the thing has grown another 10k and I only have about 4 chapters left to overhaul. Anticipate being done by the end of the year, and depending on what the final length is, may be ready for betas and submission shortly after. I hope so, anyway. I'm excited about this one, as short and frustrating as it can be! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
protar Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 I know the feeling. What's worked for me is to work on two projects simultaneously (provided you have more than one idea). Working on one thing for months wears me out and having a very different alternative project keeps me busy and refreshed. My two current projects are: 1. A sequel to my first released book. A somewhat bleak revenge story with elements from Samurai and Western stories.2. A magic-less pirate fantasy set in an 18th century style world with a few differences. It's something of a throwback to the swashbuckling and adventure that was in the Pirate genre before the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' films. The two are different enough that it's hard for me to get bored. My advice boils down to this. Do you have another story idea than your "main" one? If you find yourself in a grind, step away temporarily and develop another one of your ideas. ETA: For some reason the forum eat my post and only showed the quote :P. Anyway, I don't have another big idea, and I feel as though taking on another novel simultaenously would be biting off more then I could chew. There's always short stories though, so I'm hoping to work on some of them. Hopefully the Christmas holidays will let me have more time to write. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
First of My Name Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 I've made very little progress the last few months, mainly due to school but also because I haven't really been inspired. I hope my pace will pick up again soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry of the Lawn Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 New thread. Previous one below. http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/103907-boarders-writing-a-novel-part-11/ Having trouble with character reasoning and motivation. If you're the heir to a successful merchant company from a country considered 'uncultured,' would it make sense for the girl to dress in her tribal clothing while in the city, or try to fit into society and dress how the ladies in the city dress? These are the questions. Doesn't have to.be a cultural byproduct, she could be the kind of.person that bucks traditions or ignores them, or goes along because she considers itbeneath consideration, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corvinus85 Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 New thread. Previous one below. http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/103907-boarders-writing-a-novel-part-11/ Having trouble with character reasoning and motivation. If you're the heir to a successful merchant company from a country considered 'uncultured,' would it make sense for the girl to dress in her tribal clothing while in the city, or try to fit into society and dress how the ladies in the city dress? These are the questions. Depends what her motivations for coming to this city are. Is she there to make a business transaction, perhaps attract new customers? Then it would make sense for her to dress as the locals, especially since the locals might find her uncultured otherwise. Her fashion interests don't really matter in this case, if choosing the appropriate attire is only a mean's end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Gilfellon Posted December 9, 2014 Author Share Posted December 9, 2014 She's there to oversee her father's factories and other businesses-which is the public reason. Other reasons are that she's discovered that her father made a deal with a shady group of people who agreed to help him start his business years earlier in return for his eldest child 'her' for breeding purposes, and she's absconded with most of the business books to learn how involved this group has been with her father's company. She is also planning on looking for her younger sister who has been missing for seventeen years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corvinus85 Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 She's there to oversee her father's factories and other businesses-which is the public reason. Other reasons are that she's discovered that her father made a deal with a shady group of people who agreed to help him start his business years earlier in return for his eldest child 'her' for breeding purposes, and she's absconded with most of the business books to learn how involved this group has been with her father's company. She is also planning on looking for her younger sister who has been missing for seventeen years. Both, then, imo. She obviously needs to blend in, so local clothes are a must. But it also depends on what kind of subterfuge she is going to use. Maybe dressing in her tribal clothing will draw enough attention to her in the beginning to draw out some people, or to allow her to use decoys in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spockydog Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 How do you improve your writing? Write, write, write. Then write some more. And every now and then, pay a visit to this guy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starkess Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 And read. Read widely. Read your genre, read other genres. And read good writers, the ones that make you want to strive to be better and capture that magic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
protar Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 Might as well use this thread to introduce myself. My name's Jack, long time lurker, relatively new poster. I used to write when I was a kid, but I quit for a long time. I just recently took it up again after a few professors praised my technical writing on essays and such, but I'm quickly finding that fictional prose is an entirely different matter from formal writing. I feel like I have good ideas, but I'm never happy with the execution when I actually sit down and write something. I haven't tried writing a novel yet, so far just a bunch of short stories and random scenes. There is one particular thing I'm having an issue with that I guess I was hoping some of the more experienced folks around here could help me with. How do you improve your writing? They say that everybody starts out writing crap, but I feel like I'm not seeing any improvement from project to project, it all just reads like crap to me. I do love writing and I plan to keep at it, so any advice on how I can improve would be amazing! Thanks in advance. Write something, and then put it away and leave it for a little while. When you come back to it you'll be more detached from it and you should be able to identify what's bad and what is good with less bias. Just think about how you decide whether a book you read is good. Notice the sort of tricks that your favourite authors pull and see if you use them, or don't in your work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
First of My Name Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 Jack: Stephen King's book On Writing has very good advice, iit might help.Question: do any of you write your chapters in the order they'll be in when the book's finished? So, in chronological order?I do that, I think has pros and cons, but I'm thinking changing that might do me good, and I'm curious what you guys think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerol Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 Just finished scheduling all my #SFFpit tweets. 10 different pitches, 24 total tweets. The last #SFFpit (in June) netted me some positive responses, including a full that is out with an agent right now. So I figured it doesn't hurt! I've actually paused querying this one, because I'm not sure it works, but I haven't had a chance to edit it yet and I still like it, so I'm throwing my hat in the ring. I also submitted to #PitchMAS yesterday, so will hear back on Thursday if I made the top 50. Congrats. I tried the SFFpit for the first time and got a nibble back from a small publisher. It's all good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spockydog Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 Jack: Stephen King's book On Writing has very good advice, iit might help. It also contains some terrible advice. Ignore everything he says about outlining. King doesn't outline, a fact which he seems quite proud of. Which is probably why the bloke is responsible for some of the most feeble, disappointing endings in all of genre fiction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Gilfellon Posted December 10, 2014 Author Share Posted December 10, 2014 I always wanted to read On Writing by King but when I did get round to reading it I found it tedious and had to skip the majority of the book just to get to things that actually mentioned writing. Advice for writing: Write, read, write, read. Once you have finished writing put it away for a while. You will find that when you look at it after a while then those bits you thought were awesome don't read as well as you thought. You might also find that some stuff you originally wrote does sound fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
First of My Name Posted December 11, 2014 Share Posted December 11, 2014 It also contains some terrible advice. Ignore everything he says about outlining. King doesn't outline, a fact which he seems quite proud of. Which is probably why the bloke is responsible for some of the most feeble, disappointing endings in all of genre fiction.I didn't agree with that part either. He does say that this approach might not be for you, but doesn,t seem to realize that he's just about the only who works like that.There's some very useful parts in there but this isn't one of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
protar Posted December 11, 2014 Share Posted December 11, 2014 Jack: Stephen King's book On Writing has very good advice, iit might help.Question: do any of you write your chapters in the order they'll be in when the book's finished? So, in chronological order?I do that, I think has pros and cons, but I'm thinking changing that might do me good, and I'm curious what you guys think. Mostly. If I'm really struggling on a chapter I might skip one or two. But mostly I can't really know what is correct to put in to a certain chapter if I don't know all the context that has gone before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
First of My Name Posted December 11, 2014 Share Posted December 11, 2014 Mostly. If I'm really struggling on a chapter I might skip one or two. But mostly I can't really know what is correct to put in to a certain chapter if I don't know all the context that has gone before. Thanks for the reply.The only times I've skipped things are when I suddenly have an idea about how a certain scene might be, other than that I keep struggling with a chapter until it's done, for the reason you mentioned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weeping Sore Posted December 11, 2014 Share Posted December 11, 2014 Outlining's great as long as you understand that you may have to change your outline if your characters don't cooperate. ETA: If you don't listen to what your characters want and force them to follow a pre-existing outline, you will find they are making unmotivated decisions, just the type of thing that makes readers facepalm. But you can't throw the outline out, or the story will never come to its conclusion. So if you are the hand of fate leading your characters to a pre-ordained conclusion, make sure the hand of fate is a subtly nudging guide, not a full-on puppeteer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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