Do you have any writing 'credos' ?

[Demesnedenoir]

I'm looking at writing credits... Whedon is too superhero for me, and Firefly was... from the little I watched... ordinary its eccentricities, and I'm not really into that subgenre of sci-fi anyhow. I wanted to like it, but Meh. Buffy was crap. Toy Story is iconic, but I doubt Whedon had a huge hand in it. I could be wrong, but hey, that wouldn't be the first time. But to be honest, if your career is based on teen vampires and vampire hunters and superheroes, I'm probably not a fan.

I know enough about H'Wood to let anybody who wants to make my movies make them so long as they pay me enough heh heh.

A sense of humor is important; apparently, he doesn't have much of one on set.

Hmmm...not going with you on Toy Story over Firefly, but to each their own.

Mr. Whedon has made some great stuff. If he wants to work on my movie, I'd feel I had one of the best. I dont have a lot of humor, so...he wouldn't want to (or maybe he would bring it). I do think humor is important, and Mr. Whedon has a lot to teach people about making it work.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

My rule on jokes/joke-y scenes is that if I'M rolling my eyes, chances are the readers will too and I need to either axe it or change it

Same here. If the joke doesn't land, it's tossed. Life's too short for bad jokes.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

I'm looking at writing credits... Whedon is too superhero for me, and Firefly was... from the little I watched... ordinary its eccentricities, and I'm not really into that subgenre of sci-fi anyhow. I wanted to like it, but Meh. Buffy was crap. Toy Story is iconic, but I doubt Whedon had a huge hand in it. I could be wrong, but hey, that wouldn't be the first time. But to be honest, if your career is based on teen vampires and vampire hunters and superheroes, I'm probably not a fan.

I know enough about H'Wood to let anybody who wants to make my movies make them so long as they pay me enough heh heh.

A sense of humor is important; apparently, he doesn't have much of one on set.

Ooof! Right in the feels. Urban Fantasy's all about vempires and superheroes and hot cars and hotter guys. Break my heart, why don't you?

 

[Penpilot]

When I'm having trouble with a scene I run through these questions.

What do I want this story to be?
What do the characters want?
What's the emotional core?
What purpose does this scene fulfill?
- Does it advance the plot?
- Does it reveal character?
- Does it expand the world?
- How is it doing these things, and is it doing them well?

In regards to humor

- it's better to understate than overstate
- if you have to explain the joke, it's not funny.
- if it's not funny, you didn't set it up well enough.
- treat humor like an inside joke, where it's only funny if you were there. The job of the writer is to bring the reader inside and put them there

Never make major changes to a story when you're tired.
Never make major changes to a story without thinking fully about the consequences that will ripple through the whole story.
Never make major changes to a story without backing everything up twice.

It's always better to overwrite than underwrite. You can't edit what doesn't exist.
It's always better to follow your gut and understand why you made the mistake than to follow advice blindly and not understand how you succeeded.


Is it OK if I do--? Yes!

Never ask for permission. Ask how can you do it well.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

Same here. If the joke doesn't land, it's tossed. Life's too short for bad jokes.

I feel the same way with violence, normally I only go as far or as graphic as I need to (especially cause I target YA audience) but I never do more than I would personally enjoy seeing in a movie or game. As I said swears are the same thing, I try not to be in 'excess' but if a character seems to be the type to swear in x or y moment I let them. I feel this especially with ya know uh 'romance' cause as much as I like spy films sometimes I see those scenes and I'm like 'ok I know it's sorta required for these characters to bond, but are we really doing this NOW' lol I personally find it more fun to let the reader imagine what went down. (I'm also very bad at writing them and have no desire to get good at them cause it's not what I enjoy writing)

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Urban fantasy is superheroes? In theory, I love vampires, but the execution tends to be crap. The last book I read where I enjoyed vampires was Anne Rice's Interview... but after that, she fell the hell apart, heh heh. One of my favorite screenplays, which I really think didn't sell because of the track record of vampire comedies, was called Fruit Bat, if that gives you an idea. Everybody who read it loved it, and it still didn't sell. Of course, that was pre-twinklling vampire insanity. I should've repackaged it after Twilight, heh heh.

Ooof! Right in the feels. Urban Fantasy's all about vempires and superheroes and hot cars and hotter guys. Break my heart, why don't you?

 

[pmmg]

Toy Story and Joss Whedon

I am not in love with Toy Story but Whedon, with all his faults, is/was pretty good at the whole entertainment thing.

He is also part of the reason Super Heroes and Vampires became so main stream. Prior to his foray, there really was not a lot of it.

I will accept being a minority on Toy Story, but I think the dude was one of the best at putting on stuff people wanted to watch. I wont sell him short on that.

Anyway...nuff on him.


/whedon

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I've also heard it was saved by someone else, but that true power broker might've handed it off to Whedon. H'wood is full of inaccurate lore, aka credit taking, it might as well be politics, heh heh.

Doesn't matter, really. His track record for my tastes is lousy. But that doesn't matter to the masses.

Toy Story and Joss Whedon

 

[Plinto]

Well, I definitely have to remind myself not to judge my first drafts at all. I have a bad habit of criticizing while writing. So when I hear that little voice going, "Man this is bad. This is just bad writing," I have to blow the internal air horn and shout, "First draft!" I also try to remind myself that I wouldn't talk to/treat other writers like this, so I shouldn't be doing it to myself.

Post-it notes stuck to my monitor read:

Connection/Disconnection - reminder of what John Gardner in "The Art of Fiction" said about the drama of characters being a series of connections and disconnections with other characters(I'm sure I've paraphrased this terribly and forgotten some core element). This one helps me distill the essence of any scene to something manageable, so I can actually begin.

Pieces - This is to remind me the work doesn't have to happen linearly, I can write it in chunks, in any order I want. Had a bad habit of forcing myself to try to write from first to last chapter without skipping anything.

Move by Character and Event - another from Gardner (I guess the book affected me). Reminds me to let the quality of a character and the events within the story move the reader emotionally. To watch out for melodramatic prose and instances in which I'm trying to convince a reader something is emotional, instead of doing the work to make it so.

Power Shift - This one's a reminder that there's energy and drama in a story where the power shifts hands on great and small scales, internally and externally.

I would add that I also focus heavily on using the active voice as much as possible. Which manifests during writing as a loud cranial whispering, "Active."

 

[The Dark One]

Not many...

Any character with a name must have an impact on the plot or at least contribute to the characterisation of a main character;

Know your characters well and when writing dialogue or a POV - always put yourself in the head of every character so that the dialogue flows naturally;

Never be satisfied with a scene that doesn't quite work - keep rethinking/revising until it shines;

Never use cliches unless you definitely mean it to be a cliche (ie, don't be lazy);

Delete unnecessary words;

Be original.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I don't so much have a list of credos as advice I regularly give to others, which I tend to follow myself as well.

- Writers write. A story is written one word at a time, so each word you write gets you closer to the end. And the only way to get to the end is to put your butt in your chair and write. No one else is going to do it for you.
- Everyone has an individual process. Find your own and stick to that. Try different things, keep what works for you, discard what doesn't. This also means that no writing advice is absolute (other than "Writers write"). So ignore anyone who says that you must always do X or Y.
- Hurt your characters, a lot. And for good measure, if they're down, kick them some more.
- Make it matter for the character. If it matters to the character, it matters to the reader.

 

[Super Fantasy]

elaborate on ambience
weave the story together in a way that the reader can relate previous scenes with the current scenes
combine silly themes with important scenes to create a feeling of fantasy