Recent content by Nebuchadnezzar

This is Thunderdome, er, Mythic Scribes, Mindfire! Two men enter, one man leaves! Seriously, I've just never understood how message makes its way into discovery writing, though I've seen real-world examples in my friends' stories where it does. It just seems to come afterward, which...

Ouch! Careful where you point that thing! More seriously, how does theme, message or meaning play into discovery writing? I ask that as a biscuit who can't understand geometry but who does care about theme/message/meaning. How does that work into discovery writing? What is the process...

I'm the opposite, I'm afraid. I can't write without planning. To a great extent I think that's because I don't write unless I have something I want to say -- some theme or idea that I want to get across to other people. I have to admit I've never been able to fathom the concept of discovery...

Hi all, Wondering if my fellow scribes had any suggestions as to some of the best writing guides out on the market, preferably in book or e-book form? I'd like to find something that contains all the standard "good writing" guidance from a technique perspective -- e.g. show don't tell, mind...

True -- as long as trying to match them doesn't get in the way of actually sitting down and writing the story (not saying that this is a problem you're suffering from). Congratulations on becoming an Istari by the way, and I like the new pic!

Flags? Wow. Man, I just make that s**t up on the fly. E.g: The militia of Coleridge Town marches under the...uh...the red and gold! Yeah, that's it, the red and gold banner. And on that banner flies the...uh...uh...well...they're on the coast, right? The ship and crowns? Yeah, the...

I may have misunderstood the problem you're experiencing, but it occurred to me that you may want to look at each of your MC's journeys and ask what story purpose each one is serving. Can the same story purpose be achieved in the city your character is currently in? At the most superficial...

Agreed with Taytortots. Go with it. It could be a nice change of pace from characters who are too perfect, too noble, too tortured, too dark, too "anti-hero but really cool", too brooding, misunderstood and unappreciated, etc. A good old-fashioned jerk MC doesn't come along very often and you...

Not a problem. One of the best pieces of writing advice I ever got was from a Tony Hillerman interview where he explained that he doesn't even describe his main characters, so that readers can build their own picture of them in their mind. If he can't even be bothered to describe his MCs, how...

I'm afraid I don't know how to develop a character readers will root for, because I don't know (yet) if readers root for my characters. I've written fanfic, but there it's pretty much guaranteed the readers will pull for your character(s) so long as you don't take them too far from canon. That...

Advait, one thing that occurs to me is that the example scene we're responding to (the kitchen confrontation) is basically a dialogue scene. In this kind of scene, I think Brian's 3 points are exactly right: in such a scene, most writers would use description lightly and mainly to set tone...

Thanks Will, PMs are sent and received!

Greetings fellow scribes, I've finished about 11k words of my WIP which will likely end up at 20-22K words (so shading into a novella rather than a novelette or short story). I've come far enough that it would be nice to find some really brutal critique partners to tell me all the problems...

True -- there is the Scouring of the Shire, the battle with Saruman/Sharky etc. In this Tolkien is more thoughtful than his imitators even in LotR as he plays out the consequences of the quest. Perhaps I should rephrase it that the success of the quest is the dramatic climax of LotR (IMO)...

I think the great thing about The Hobbit (compared to most other quest stories including the Tolkien imitators) is that the book doesn't end with the completion of the quest. Tolkien's genius is that the latter part of the book explores the consequences of the quest's success, which turn out to...