The scrawls of Jericho?... ...

And I'd only written a couple of things about 15 years ago...And aside from the odd thing for junior school...Not properly...Ever...

Just try...It's all you can do...Having read your other journal stuff, it's bound to be good though...You've good stuff there...

*Applauds*...

I had trouble coming up with a title for the Teresa fic. So in the end I just called it Teresa of the Faint Smile. Creative eh?

If you are going to be writing something with a definite beginning, middle, and ending, then pick a title that suits the theme or plot of the story. If you are writing more of an ongoing journal style, with no specific plot, then I suggest you go for a more generic title like I used. Adventures of Jericho, Once Upon A Time In Cyrodiil, etc...

Because when I saw the crossover, I saw potential for a damn good story, buried underneath a steaming pile of illiteracy and poor thinking. I mean, the guy originally had the entire DC Ruins area walled off apparently overnight! Add to that a grasp of grammar and spelling so loose it was falling to bits...

So I clicked 'review' and opened my big, helpful, stupid yap.

The rest, as they say, is a learning experience.

I think I'll let him know the idea doesn't really fit in this story but will need its own to do it justice - let him down gently.

Then I'll set him some homework.

Thanks for the feedback.

Fair dues, I hope it leaves you with enough time for yer own stuff though...

I also hope that one day you can carry on with that story you started about the Imperial dude...That was brilliant...I really was enjoying that...*Applauds*... ...

Good plan about telling him...It may be better than mine... ...

So, crossovers is acceptable here, then? I remember seeing something regarding the island of Solshtheim!

I believe that as long as it's Bethesda (it isn't called Chorrol.Com for nothing ) I think it's a case of write what you want... ...

Cardboard Box's is an Oblivion/Fallout 3 crossover...

But Colonel Mustard is writing a fantastic Fallout New Vegas story that has no Elder Scrolls in it...I'm really really enjoying that btw...

I think crossovers are fine...If we like it we'll keep reading it... ...

If you want to crossover to Halo or X-Files or what-have-you then that place that Colonel Mustard also posts, Fanfiction.net, is probably more receptive to it... ...

But I think crossing over between the Elder Scrolls games is fine...Well I hope so...I got plans for me characters in Skyrim anyways... ...

I mean as in a character from another person's story make a cameo apperance, and vice versa. Or have one character from a single story appear in the other one.

Ohh, I seen a couple like that, the only one that I can remember right now is Buffy appearing in Subrosa's fic.
I KNOW that there are more cameo appearances, can't remember though.

Erm...Within yer own stories, yes. of course...But I think permission should be sought if you want to use someone else's...

And that whole Blood On The Moon/Memoirs of a Morag Tong thing is...A complicated arrangement anyways... ...

mALX has used a couple of other people's characters...Grits had a location from Acadian's story...Y'know, stuff like that...

Permission is the key...

And don't kill any of them off...It's Impolite... ...

Oh, I know the procedures. I was just curious as to how often it was done here. I know taking other people's characters without permission is a no no

And not gentlemen like at ALL.
Just don't kill them and ask permission, like Rob said, also try not to pair them of with someone unless the author gave you permission to.

Acadian's Buffy has been in SubRosa's (and vice-versa) and has a cameo coming up in mine in X number of months
King Coin's Aravi has been in mine and is slated for two other stories
My character Maxical has been in Acadian's
D.Foxy's characters Damien "Foxy" Reynard and Sneakers have both been staples in my story
Treydog and his wife have both been in my story
Winter Wolf's and Remko's characters were both in Acadian's story
Thomas Kiara had several references to other characters in his story

Also, content - I have cross-overed both content referrals and character Docata from Rachel the Breton

There are several others, I just can't think of them right now.


It is not just needing to ask permission though, you have to send the final draft to them for approval of how you have portrayed their character - and they may want to make edits to that in order to agree

Ignore post, written in the middle of the night when my brain was actually dead and my memory buried earlier.

Is there a mod called Equestria? The Equestria in Jerric's Story is the one from Buffy's world, borrowed with permission of course.

Typically, I think, the borrowing is for a chapter or so if the character is actually playing a support role, sometimes it is just a cameo like Aravi (sp?) appearing in mALX's story. In treydog's story he borrowed one of Minque's characters, Serene's daughter Athynae, mentioned in the beginning of her story as the reason she is writing it all down. Now, Trey has blown her into a leading support role and well, the rest shall we say is history...and the characters in three stories now share (with permission) alternate universes.

Working with writers you admire, and in my case actually becoming the writer for one of those characters just by odd chance, it a wonderful experience. I so appreciate Trey and Minque sharing Athynae with me, and Black Hand allowing Seth to play such an integral roll in Athynae's life.

Now, guys, apologies for getting a little behind on the reading, I'll catch up, promise. And you will all see soon why I got behind.

No, Equestria and the Valley of Horses is pure imagination. Buffy and Teresa have crossed into each others stories more than once. I have also referenced bobg's Angel and deceased Sarah in Buffy's story.

That's what I thought when I read the credit on Grits' story...But I will admit to not knowing anything about Mod names... ...

Ooooh, plus...Something I thought of this fair morn...How we all use magic in our story is different...And while we can multiverse each other's characters, they will not do some things the same way...

Something else to think about when multiversing... ...

GAAAAH !! I was wrong. I sent the horse ranch (called the IC Horse Ranch), the Show Horse Jumping Track, etc - (all by Zira) to Acadian, but he never used them - and he made up the name too


URK !!

I got a question, how do you guys deal with Writers Block, er well It's not writers block per say, I know what I want to write but I can't seem to get it into writing.

Any tips?

Early in this thread, I wrote a long meditation on the problem of writer's block. Since quoting myself would be a bit much even for me- I will skip that step.

In the situation you describe- having ideas but not getting them on the page- I would recommend doing it this way:

Write whatever you know for certain is "there." It does not matter how fragmentary or unconnected it may be- get it on paper. Sometimes, you can build an entire scene from a single sentence or even a few words. I do not want to presume too much based on what you have said, so I will leave it at this- most of the folks who write on here maintain some kind of "work-in-progress" or "ideas for later" file or notebook or brown paper grocery bag. That way, less gets lost. If you want to, feel free to expand on what is happening (or not happening) with your writing in this thread. Or PM me or another writer. Here's hoping for the block to disappear.

For me, whenever I've gotten stuck, I wind up writing a different bit...Doesn't matter whether it was supposed to be the next bit, as it were.

That's where that last part of mine came from...Perhaps I should have sat on it though...It seems to have confused things too much... ...

Just try to write something...Anything...

But don't stress that it isn't the very next part of the story...As Trey said, something that you know you have...

Thank you guys! I went to read what you posted on writers block Trey.
I've taken both of your advices and just came up with I guess you could say "plotlines" that won't happen for a while.

I think that I'm going to do it like you McBadgere, I'll see if I can write it different, maybe I can pump those creative juices stuck in my head to my writing

Go outside, use ideas. Plants, trees, buildings, people, lakes etc. Or watch movies for inspiration. Or just keep writing McBad said.

Reading other's stories can inspire, and that works for how you want to say something as well.

My last chapter had a segment where one description was inspired by something I read in Darkness Eternal's story.

Alexander (this Site's Administrator)'s story "Cyrodiil" inspired a whole different way of writing a story for me.

Truly. You wrote about a certain aspect vampires have, the bloodlust and the thirst for it. I always wanted to come to write it, but since I'm a lore fanatic of sorts, I might have to make a way for it to happen. After all, a young vamp has little control over bloodlust. So to be honest, I enjoyed reading that part of the story.

Safe to say I got over a writer's block, but I found out that you can "skip" scenes, per se. It helps alot. For example, you can write an entire chapter on his Tiberius went to purchase bread for a khajiiti cook, or you can explain that he went there, how he went there and what happened when he got there instead of adding the trivial details like: "Tiberius was on the road, studying the particles of dust that sat upon a particle of dust while floating with the countless other dust particles."

If, say, you've been an ar$e and deleted the next part of your story from the computer...Pffft...As if...

*Cough*...

Erm...Do you a) rewrite the bit that you deleted

or f) Re-hash the plot and start afresh with a new bit...

And yes, the bit that went had more overarching things than the whole of what went before put together...

Just wondering what anyone else had done when faced with a complete re-write?...

I have it in full if you need it, it is still in my email box.

I am not going to say anything about "why" or "how" this happened....(raises eyebrow at stuttering badger). But what I would do is, first take a moment and breath. After that think about where the story is right now, are there any 'things' that need additional information, clarification etc and write them down, then think about where the characters are, what they are thinking and how they are feeling and (ok, here goes my weirdness) step into that essence and look back at what you wrote down. That will hopefully get you started....and if it doesn't just be happy that you aren't as weird as I am....

I have it in full if you need it, it is still in my email box. (and PS, I read it and loved it !!)

Moot question- due to someone else's perspicacity...

However- to answer anyway-

What may seem a disaster can be a place to build anew. While it might have been the greatest post ever in the history of posting- 'tis gone now-farewell old friend.

But- the seeds still exist. I would not try to recreate the exact post. I WOULD try to get the parts I know need to be in there. And then- see where those take me.

Which is rather a way of describing how I have somehow gotten to over 400 pages of my current story- which was originally going to be the "shortest one."

I once dumped an entire chapter (sixteen posts, IIRC). I had to grieve first before I could start over. Then I made a tiny skip in events so that I wouldn’t get stuck where things went wrong. I realized that I had started second guessing things before I wrote the chapter, and the whole thing was unnecessary. I was much happier when I went back to the original outline.

Realizing that I had made a big mistake was a real learning experience, once I quit kicking myself over it. That was the hardest part. I ended up with a lot more confidence in my characters, because I had seen my mistake.

Of course in this *cough* theoretical example, it sounds like the deleting was the mistake? In which case thank goodness for mALX and that … someone … didn’t finish off by lighting their computer on fire.

For future deleter reference, my email is like one of those "hoarder" places. I save everything until I have responded to it, lol. (except junk/spam mail).

Sadly no, for reasons it's unfair to go into this was actually part of a solution I'm afraid...

And I shall never be able to thank mALX enough for being as cool as she has been of late... ...

Aaamywho, thanks to mALX I can now move forward as was planned...You lucky people you... ...

Time skip. It's safe to skip four days in a story right? I've seen it done before. I just never really did it.

Er...yeah... ...

It's safe to say I have no problem with messing about with time... ...

I remember back at the Bethesda forum that Acadian ended one chapter with Buffy starting out to Bravil, and the next chapter began with her arrival in Bravil. That upset some of his readers, they felt he should have described the trip. I don't exactly agree with that, especially if the trip was uneventful.

With the main character sometimes just a small paragraph giving a brief cover of their activity can be given, supporting characters don't need even that.

Of course, if your main character has been kidnapped and her brother is pretending he knows nothing of it to their father - your readers are going to clamor if four days passes and they don't know what Draken did to find Raven, or the fate of poor Raven herself .... .... .... ARGH !!!!

One of the JOYS of writing fiction is that you are not constrained to report every minute of every day. You absolutely can time-shift in service to your story.

It may be that you need to give a nod to the passage of time such as- "For the next several days, nothing of significance occurred."

That is the simplest form of time-shifting. However, you can also do flash-backs, flash-forwards, dreams or fantasies- etc. Sometimes those methods can be used to obscure the events or their order- and the is OK, as long as it does not do violence to the story or your vision of it.

An example from back in my English instructor days is the Faulkner short story "A Rose for Emily." It is told in that inimitable Southern U.S. style- with the teller wandering back and forth through time and incidents as they occur to him- rather than in the order they actually happened.

As an exercise, we mapped out the ACTUAL timeline versus the order in which things were presented in the story.

This all comes back to the title of the thread, at least for me- "Writing Process." You start with the things you KNOW need to be in there. But the order or the detail in how you present those things- and all the connective bits- is purely up to you.

"Four long days passed, of which the majority of her time was spent hovered over the chamberpot as the poison made its way out of her system in various ways"

Yeah, we will all wonder what exactly went on for those four days, ROFL !! If you leave it up to our imaginations it may turn out worse than just telling us about them, lol. (just kidding).

Treydog: Can you believe it would of never thought of that? Flashbacks! I used it before, but never in a time where it was truly required. Thanks! I will take what you said to heart.

McBadgere: Eww. Sounds like a bad case of defecation to me.

Er...As a wise man once said...What you talking about Willis? ...

Er...I thought he refused to say it ... ? Isn't that what the court case was all about? ROFL !!!

I don't know if it was answered here or not, but how many stories can we have? For example, can we just have a second story? Or what?

I don't think there is a real limit, especially if you finish one before starting another. But assuming you meant simultaneously, I suggest you keep it down to just two or three at most. If you don't, then before you know it you'll be juggling five stories, all with multiple plot-threads. Doing crazy stuff like that has scientifically been proven to lead to burnouts lasting several years.

So yeah, try to focus on two at a time.

Thanks. Two was my plan anyways. I can't see a person that has three to four stories at once can be stable. Haha.

How many of you folks use music in your stories to express a certain scene or chapter? Or maybe even inspiration?

For example:

"Chapter I"

*Insert song here*
Mr.Warrior walked along side the road, eyeing the birds and the bees.

Not Screamo music or anything like that. No, not even rap or hip-hop for Redguard. You know what I mean

I do! I'm doing it now, actually Certain songs can bring out certain feelings in me and it really helps to bring things out in my writing.

As for inspiration, the entire story for Nemesis was inspired by Swansong for a Raven by Cradle of Filth. ♥

I have certain songs I play when I'm writing for certain characters. Example:


Vicente: Cry Little Sister


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InRw0Pm89eg



Gils: Unforgiven II


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoTcb6vtGEo

I tend to set the mood with music and have various playlists. Film scores are good, by design they set a mood but aren't distracting. The gladiator score sees a lot of use. Likewise music from games can be useful (often buried as mp3s somewhere in the install).

While in general I prefer music without lyrics there are a few tracks which are great for setting the mood. Joan Baez Diamonds and Rust is a good example.

I'm not sure DE means what music do we listen to to write...

Isn't it -

Chapter 1

(Web-link to song to fit mood - Ernie the fastest milkman in the west)...

Bert walked briskly down the road, bottles jingling in the moonlight. He was somewhat alarmed when Mrs Scroggins from number 24 decided to start chomping on his throat.

"Ere!! Get owff meh!!" he cried, "I've got a round to finish!"

"Rawr!!" said the undead matron sporting bright green curlers, flannelette nighty and floral slippers.

-----------------

Sort of thing?...

No, I wouldn't do that personally...

You won't want to be listening to Starship, Yes or the Three Degrees' Givin Up, Givin In... ...


EDIT...As you were...I think that's what's meant... ...Sorry about that... ...

OMG, Jacki - now that is absolutely fitting and inspiring for writing Tara's character.