Boarders Writing a Novel Thread 4

[Tes'thesula]

"A Black Tragicomedy Of Fatal Errors In One, Two, Or Three Parts,"

I love this title

[alguien]

91K words at the moment, coming in at about 19 chapters. I think I'll be able to finish in about 5-6 more chapters.

Kinda excited...

[SerNotAppearingOnThisBoard]

"A Black Tragicomedy Of Fatal Errors In One, Two, Or Three Parts,"

I love this title

Haha, thank you. Might make a decent subtitle once I figure out exactly how many parts I have to split this story into. I really wanted to do it in one (still do), but length makes two or three more likely. Fortunately there's some decent splitting points there already. Still aiming for two at this point. Maybe by some miracle I might make it into one. *fingers crossed*

91K words at the moment, coming in at about 19 chapters. I think I'll be able to finish in about 5-6 more chapters.

Kinda excited...

I am envious of every single one of those numbers. :unsure:

[Zoë Sumra]

91K words at the moment, coming in at about 19 chapters. I think I'll be able to finish in about 5-6 more chapters.

Kinda excited...

*blows trumpet for alguien* Well done. Hope those final chapters don't prove as tricky as final chapters often do.

ETA: Minor rant here. Why do endings have to be such a complete bugger? After you do all the work to pull all the plot strands together for the denouement, you then have to pace the winding-down part correctly, and end all appropriate characters' in-book arcs without the subplot characters' endings feeling like an ending in order to give the protagonist's ending the right rhythm...

[Derfel Cadarn]

Probably more sensible to make a concerted effort to revive the forum we already have instead of going to the effort of establishing another one.

I tried to register on the writing board but registration is closed. Are it's admins still around on this forum?

[Zoë Sumra]

I tried to register on the writing board but registration is closed. Are it's admins still around on this forum?

Yep, Sophelia's an active member here - just PM her here (there were too many spambots registering on the writers' board, hence why registration is closed there).

[Myrddin]

Because I'm completely procrastinating today, I've been playing with a "I Write Like" meme. :) (Actual blog post is here.)

The funny thing is, by pasting different POV chapters, I get different results.

The prologue is apparently like Vladimir Nabokov (writer of Lolita).

Chapter 1 is like James Joyce.

A chapter from the the POV of a 10-year-old girl is like Dan Brown (!!!!!). A later chapter from the same character when she is 14 is Chuck Palahniuk. Whew. She grows as a character. ;)

To try an get some concensus, I pasted the entire manuscript (though I'm questioning the wisdom...) and got Nabokov again. :lol:

Anyway. It's a fun (and probably just a random generator) way to take a break.

[The Evil Hat]

I did one of my reviews and got Dan Brown ( :wideeyed: ), then a short story, which was Stephen King, and finally what I've got of Empty Star so far, which was Kurt Vonnegut. Hmm. Except for the reviews, I'll take that, I guess.

[awesome possum]

Interesting. I put in five short stories.

Bama Gan, about a rich inventor who meets a goddess who drains people's life forces as a form of worship, was like Nabokov.

Christine, about a sex-crazed twelve-year-old trying to lose his virginity, was like Palahniuk.

Dickhead, about a teen's relationship with an awful step-father, was like Stephen King.

Redemption Song, about a guy sitting in a bathtub and thinking about his life while he prepares to blow his brains out, was like Edgar Allen Poe.

And probably the most hilarious one The Z-Store, about a heroin junkie who wakes up from a high in the midst of a zombie outbreak, was like Margaret Atwood.

[Zoë Sumra]

My entire text came out as Stephen King. Pretending to be working so can't check it POV by POV right now...

[SerNotAppearingOnThisBoard]

Because I'm completely procrastinating today, I've been playing with a "I Write Like" meme. :) (Actual blog post is here.)

The funny thing is, by pasting different POV chapters, I get different results.

The prologue is apparently like Vladimir Nabokov (writer of Lolita).

Chapter 1 is like James Joyce.

A chapter from the the POV of a 10-year-old girl is like Dan Brown (!!!!!). A later chapter from the same character when she is 14 is Chuck Palahniuk. Whew. She grows as a character. ;)

To try an get some concensus, I pasted the entire manuscript (though I'm questioning the wisdom...) and got Nabokov again. :lol:

Anyway. It's a fun (and probably just a random generator) way to take a break.

Haha, I just discovered that.

For my epic fantasy WIP, the prologue reads like Salinger, POV 1 reads like Douglas Adams, POV 2 reads like Tolkien or Lovecraft (I would have expected POVs 1 and 2 to be switched to get that), POV 3 reads like Stephen King, and all 11 second-draft chapters thus far read like George Orwell, as do my first-draft chapters through 30. Not bad, I guess.

My urban fantasy piece reads like Edgar Allan Poe. My short stories read variously like Douglas Adams or Stephen King.

My grad school statement of purpose reads like Lovecraft. :lmao:

Friend of mine reads like Dan Brown :( (though that was an uncorrected version with spelling and grammar errors aplenty)

On a side note, I have a family member who's a published author. Put her latest manuscripts in to try it out. The serious magical realism piece reads like King, while the lighter, fluffy no-magic middle-grade novel reads like Chuck Palahniuk. Er... :shocked:

BTW, a paragraph consisting of only the word "Ankh-Morpork" over and over again was said to read like Daniel Defoe.

[Myrddin]

My grad school statement of purpose reads like Lovecraft. :lmao:

Win!

[SerNotAppearingOnThisBoard]

Win!

And I didn't use the word "eldritch" in there even once! :D

[Myrddin]

And I didn't use the word "eldritch" in there even once! :D

But the section about the god int he deep may have tipped the scales... :blink:

[kuenjato]

first try(current novel): J.R.R. Tolkien

second try (2007 novel): James Joyce

third try (just-completed novel): William Shakespeare

fourth try (YA novel-in-progress): Stephen King

fifth try (cult/con-theory satire novel-in-progress): Dan Brown (!)

...that's starting to become a downward spiral, sho nuff.

[Sophelia]

Is there still a writer's forum? I remember the old board used to have a link to it. I'd like to get feedback on my prologue. Would we be better off with a thread here for people to post sample stuff and get feedback on it? Maybe a separate subforum?

This.

I'm not active there, because I'm very active in a crit group I've been in for almost 5 years.

To get the BWB group going only needs 2 or 3 determined people. Once it gets going, it'll be easier to continue, since then less active people can flow in and out to fill out the lows of others.

I tried to register on the writing board but registration is closed. Are it's admins still around on this forum?

Yep, Sophelia's an active member here - just PM her here (there were too many spambots registering on the writers' board, hence why registration is closed there).

Yeah, I was getting about 5 a day at the worst times, but like everyone else, the spambots have stopped coming to the board now ;)

Sorry I wasn't keeping up with this (saw these threads and it was just making me feel inadequate and I decided I wouldn't allow myself to read them until I start writing again. I did do 300 words about a week ago but decided that didn't count.) But I just got a PM which alerted me to this whole conversation. If there is a writers' board revival that would be wonderful. I am just starting my holiday season and have already packed my novel prep stuff, so perhaps I should recruit you people to give me a kick up the bum...

Anyway, I have reopened the board for registrations. Preferable to use your boardname to register because it's much quicker for me to work out that you're not a spambot ;) When I get back from hols I'll upgrade to the newest version of the software and see if that helps.

Sophie

ETA: I have had two spambots try to join since I opened the site up again! How do they *know*?? This does mean I will close registration again in about 10 hours to avoid being swamped while I am away, so get in while there is a window! (PM me if you miss it and I'll see what I can do once I know I have internet access in Turkey)

[Zoë Sumra]

I swear faithfully to join in. Still haven't updated with opinions on some of Wastrel and Fionwe's work I read a year ago...

Last night was a very good writing night; I wrote about half of the second-half update to my big problematic chapter (i.e. maybe a quarter to a third of the chapter total), about three thousand words (maybe 100-200 of these words were descriptions lifted from the now-defunct bit - I don't write a good descriptive sentence very often, and when I do so in a section I'm junking I try to recycle the descriptions). A very good evening word count by my standards, the more so because I did it straight into a Word document instead of longhand. Finishing this chapter will be harder, the more so because the protagonist receives a plot revelation towards the end, a scene I have never handled particularly well in any of my previous attempts even without the extra stuff now going on. (Seriously, if someone told you that you were Batman when you had not previously been aware that your actions had rendered you thus, you would freak out. The question is how to portray it.)

[Ealdorman Halasahr]

LOL!

My English aren't perfect. My grammatical skills aren't the most developed (in English, that is). But I did what many of you have done, and posted some of my writing on the "I write like"-page.

So, I copy-and-pasted the following silly words:

He felt his thing rise within… and below.

It got bigger,

never ceased to grow.

For with as big a thing,

as his dingaling.

He felt the need,

a song to sing.

One must not forget,

it’s hard to make right a woeful pet.

A pet that once,

was so wrong a thing.

I ended up writing like Margaret Atwood, or so the analytically skilled computer programme said.

Test number two, based on a single line and and imaginary superhero:

Dr Constipation – He takes no shit, because then he can’t get it out of his system.

I write like ... Stephen King. Blimey!

In my absolutely last test my prologue was Isaac Asimov-style, chapter one was Dan Brown, and chapter two was Kurt Vonnegut. Sounds about right to me ;)

That was a fun page, Myrddin.

PS. I guess you should all be thankful I'm writing a lot better in Swedish :)

[Myrddin]

Seriously, if someone told you that you were Batman when you had not previously been aware that your actions had rendered you thus, you would freak out.

Are you kidding? I'd be walking around saying in a low whispery voice, "I'm Batman." :wideeyed: Ok, I kind of do that now when my son hands me his Batman figure. For some reason, he loves my Christian Bale impersonation.

Back to the "Batman" issue: I may be reading too much in the the correlation, but it depends how being told you're "Batman" would translate in your world. It this being told you're a hero, a scary vigilante, or a masked freak?

[Zoë Sumra]

Are you kidding? I'd be walking around saying in a low whispery voice, "I'm Batman." :wideeyed: Ok, I kind of do that now when my son hands me his Batman figure. For some reason, he loves my Christian Bale impersonation.

:rofl: Your child is cute, it is known.

Back to the "Batman" issue: I may be reading too much in the the correlation, but it depends how being told you're "Batman" would translate in your world. It this being told you're a hero, a scary vigilante, or a masked freak?

The hero and scary vigilante part. Over the past few thousand years this corner of my storyverse has granted somewhere in the region of twenty-five people pseudo-superhero status based solely on their skill at piloting a spaceship. Most were space pirates; all acted as vigilantes, either by accident, by conviction, for profit or to live up to the template; kids pretend to be them; adults wish they were them; some people pray to them as if they were saints - basically, a very big deal is made of the whole situation.

Earlier in the story my protagonist made two vigilante attacks on the storyworld's least popular pirates - once because she felt like it, once when she interrupted some of their ships in the act - and got bumped right to the top rank of said pseudo-superheroes by consensus of the space-internet due to just how well she was flying at the time. Within the space of five pages in this chapter she effectively discovers: (a) there is a new Batman (she'd been out of the loop and hadn't heard the news), and (b ) she's Batman. At the moment there is an excessive amount of swearing, crying, self-doubt and wondering what on earth she's going to tell her father, to which I definitely need to add i) wondering if all this is going to get her yakuza-boss uncle killed, and ii) wondering if said uncle's going to take ruthless advantage of the situation. The crying definitely needs to go; the question is what I do with the utter poleaxing shock otherwise.