/mlpol/ - My Little Politics

>>391360
Also, just remembered. If you feel this thread belongs on another board, feel free to move it. I didn't put it on /poner/ since felt that this is a writing thread but not necessarily just a pony writing thread. I guess it could belong on /ub/ but I didn't feel like the thread is necessarily just self-improvement in spirit. You can use this thread for self-improvement but you're not limited to that either. You can just express your thoughts on stories and such if you want. Maybe it belongs on /sp/ but its not a joke thread either so idk but that might be were it belongs idk.

>>391360
Lol, wrong link. That's the first thread, not the last thread. Here's the previous thread: https://mlpol.net/mlpol/archive/359064#359064

>>391363
You're fine. For future reference, even archived links can be accessed with the usual syntax, cuz pupper is awesome
>>359064 →

>>391366
Thank you. I will try that next time. ^^

I was reading this article, https://www.clipstudio.net/how-to-draw/archives/164520 , when I started to wonder if, when writing a scene, there's a similar method like the one in the article and in the pics related.

>>392742
Like, could you give the scene you're writing in, structure, and like points of reference for how to shape it?

>>391360
Hope you guys don't mind me posting reddit cancer. But regardless I truly hope you enjoy this story.
https://old.reddit.com/r/libraryofshadows/comments/1kwhssm/the_wrath_of_devotion/

My two main unfinished pieces are in the Fallout:Equestria universe, inspired by Ulysses' words in the New-Vegas DLC but just about the way it hit me not what he was talking about.

And the other is trying to answer the question posed {badly} in Code:Majeste, namely *why is Celestia so **concerned** about alicorn humans*
In the event you aren't familiar, C:M is a fanfic of the Conversion Bureau universe. World is being eaten by Equestria, "magic" is super-radiation that kills humans, there is no year seven; what do?

I've been stressed about having no income and my computer made a mess in its own bed so I haven't gotten back to either project in a long time.

But they weigh on my mind, because they were pretty good actually.

>>393112
>>393131
I want to give thoughtful responses to these posts so I'm try to that and get back to you.

>>393131
I also dipped my toes into the possibility of "pony" without traipsing on MLP's trademarks.
pterippus instead of pegasus, and also most equines looked like "earth ponies" but for the frosted-white hairs on the edges of their ears.

Most, I would assume, would tend toward writing in a world resembling "thems fightin herds" but I went with a dystopian/demythologized thing instead.

>>393218
politely bumping for input.

>>393631
Maybe one day, I'll get to you, my fren. I'm sorry. I'll try.
>>393112
I read it. I think I have read stuff from you before. You are that skin-walker guy. Neat that the mc actually won this time around. Feels unusual for stories of this genre but that might be just my prejudice.
I believe in something like intent and response. So let me ask you, what did you want from this story? How did you want me to feel and react to different scenes?
Anyway, here are some random thoughts that might not really be worth much:
>You use a lot of big words.
>You keep things vague for effect.
>He won in the end.
>The monster cried.
>He became a weapon, instead of just buying a gun so clearly he isn't american and hates freedom.

>>393631
I'm gonna try to get back to this. Sorry for the wait.

>>393131
I will get back to this. I am sorry for the big wait. Though, maybe you are not even here anymore.

I'm also sorry to hear that about being stressed out and having no income. I'm in the same boat and can related. I feel for you and I wish there was something I could do. If you ever need to talk to someone, though not privately I guess, you can reach me through this thread.

I decided since I created this thread, I might as well keep it afloat. Besides, each day (mostly at least) I usually type down some idea into chatgpt about fiction and writing and whatnot.

Here is an observation I did yesterday. I, rewatched on a whim, because I had nothing to watch, the first few episodes of bleach. I have alwasy thought the first arc of that shonen series was pretty good and underrated, as most people like the second arc due to it's intensity with action scenes and stuff, while that part is probably techincial better (idk), I still prefer the start. It is so down-to-earth with everything. Much more personal and sometimes (with Orihime's brother) complex (as her brother could have just been a weirdo with sister complex but instead their relationship is more complicated as relationships often are).

Anyway, a running gag in that show is that Rukia can't draw according to our mc. But the guy who drew Rukia's drawings is obviously either the manga artist or the animator and these people can draw. So they were artists pretending to be beginners. And I could tell.

It just struck me that, once you know a skill, it's hard to pretend not to know. My guess is that you do things that you don't even really think about at this point or have standards/habits that are hard to break even when conscious. Like if I told a chef to undercook a meal, his version of that is probably better than mine (I would just leave it raw ^^). You basically have to study a beginner to know how to do their mistakes.

I also connect this with the idea of coaching. I play league, which is why I have to lift my fridge door back on it's hinges after I have used it, and through it I have come to the conclusion that a good coach isn't just someone that is knowledgeable but someone that is also a good teacher.

Imo, a good teacher is someone that seeks to understand their student (sepcifically, what their student knows and doesn't know, and what they want with the thing they are learning).

This is why a lot of top players, and such, don't make for good teachers, imo, because they do things they no longer recognize. They don't really noticed all the steps that are actually involved in learning what they know. Their ninja kick flip is all one motion so the concept of where I should put my toes one the last step before the flip isn't something they consider without prompting and at thi point they might have forgotten the significance of it since they can do their flip regardless, or something.

I think my metaphor or whatever fell apart a bit and these is just my thoughts anyway. Yh.

>>395943
I feel like the under-cooked example can be emphasized here. A knowledge person regarding cooking would be able to pick out an under-cooked steak that was done by a professional amongst a row of under-cooked steaks done amateurs, I think. Then again, high elo players in lol usually fail at guess the rank of people below them.

But then again, it's often more about them not being able to differiantiate between higher and lower, low elo players. High elo player often recognice their own. And in those cases, they these people aren't faking it.

I'm just guessing that if you have cooked a steak you whole life, even if you plan to under-cooked it, you still do a bunch of stuff that normal people don't because at this point in your mind it's not a stake without it.

I think that's why it is sometimes hard to get started with writing something because you have built it up in your mind to be this big thing. Like, from your idea of a funny and little cheeky story about a crime-mystery novel where the first victim is revealed to be the serial-killer and he used home alone traps with timers to final destination people after his death remotely, you start to think about hte logistics of this. Why does he wanna kill people? Why does he wanna kill himself? Who are the detectives chasing him? Who should they be to wring the most out of this plot? How does he set up these traps? When does each thing happen in the story? Should I name the story, "Suck my dick Occam's Razor?" Etc. Which makes at least me, overwhelmed and unmotivated.

But, disregarding this tangent, I think if another pro chef were to properly examine this steak they'd be like, "Well, it's undercooked but just so and was coated in this really nice sauce(? idk steaks) and was nicely cut so this guy still has talents for it, he just needs to keep it in longer."

So yeah, some extra thoughts.

>>395944
>Make me at lest unmotivated
Perhaps, the questions don't make me unmotivated, nor comming up with answers for them but to work them into the story and write it, tires me for some reason idk.

>>395943
>Though, maybe you are not even here anymore

I'm around. Still haven't written anything though.

I tried convincing AI to make a depiction of our floating unicorn, climbing a cliff. Didn't come out too well, and I don't have the patience for AI images.

A long time ago, I tried to get a DnD group together to play a rainbow-factory campaign. It fell apart, but I wrote a story inspired by the now-forgotten characters.
Here's a fairly good excerpt from that. From the middle, so character introductions aren't here, but you can still follow most of it I hope.

Pony writers. How do they type?

>>395946
Binary.
>PO
>NY

>>395946
>I'm around. Still haven't written anything though.
I have a method I use to get writing and other things done, however, I have mixed result of it. Anyway, onto something completely different.

The middle elo skill trap.(The name a work in progress.)

Here's an idea that I basically took and polished from someone else. If I was more professional, I would reference the video which I got this idea from, but it was something like: "Tekken 8 something something -- Electric Underground".

The idea is something like this, split in into three skill categories: Low-skill, medium-skill, and high-skill. Or, in games or sports or whatever: Low-, mid-, and high- elo. In my view, this sort of cataloging can be done towards any skill, such as writing, so that's how this connects to this thread.

If you are a low elo player of a game, then you are a beginner and is often expected to learn the basics of that game. The fundamentals.

I'll use writing as mys example of a skill since that's what we're doing here. But, as I said before, I believe this concept extends to other games, sports, and skill-based activities.

So here's kinda what happens. A beginner writer learns to focus on things like character motivation, "show, don't tell", and consistency. Not an extensive list, but just for example. They are just trying to make things make sense.

Next up they get into the level of being mid-tier in skill. That's when the trap hits them. Basically, people become "too good" for the fundamentals/basics and think they have mastered them. So to climb higher with their writing, they try to do new things... Tho in this case it's harder since I'm always vary of doing straight comparisons between art and competitions, since one has a clear goal (win the competition) while the other doesn't.

So I probably should have used a fighting game instead, so let me start over. Fighting game, as a beginner, you learn about spacing, use fast but weak attacks for poke and slow and powerful attacks when you have the time, and you learn about how to get up or keep someone on the ground once they have been toppled.
Then as mid elo player, "you" again don't polish the basics that got you where you are today because you believe you have mastered them and it's boring to do.

So what you do is that you look away from the fundamentals and focus on gimmickery that you think will get you there (the next level) instead.
In writing, this could be seen as people focusing more on what cliche/trope is used rather than if it make sense in the story or not and so on. Seeking to appeal to trends and what people like these days. Characters that try too hard to appeal so they end up hurting the tone and the reverse happens, they don't appeal.

Then, at high-level mastery and such, you go back to the fundamentals but perfect them. Basically, you play the fighting game but with perfect spacing. Your characters began with simple motivations but you have been thinking about ti and polishing it for so long that it doesn't feel that way anymore. You paint a picture with your words and you show and so on.

That's the idea idk and imo. Take it with a grain of salt. Also sorry for meandering writing. This was a bit hard to express for some reason.

Does anybody know what to consider before picking a perspective for your story? Like, what are the pros and cons of using first-, second-, and third person + limited or omniscient?

>>396152
That is a good question. I can not claim to be a writer but thought I'd chime in with som random rambling on the topic.

I was wondering if introspective thoughts would need a first person view, but then thought that "... he thought to himself" would work if third person (or any person view). But the introspective thoughts is perhaps what is easiest to flesh out in first person. And in thirst person the world around and what affects the person would be easier to flesh out.
Perhaps second person is what is most apart from the others as you write from the readers view (unless I am misreading the type of views).
I guess when it comes down to it the most important factor is what perspective you find fun to write in. Pick a style and see where it takes you, and I assume you can mix perspective in a story where you switch depending on chapters main character.
Perhaps if you want to do a whimsical tragicomedy third person might be best as you can distance yourself from the "victim" of your story.

The more I think on it the more I feel your question is a really good one. One that I don't really know a good answer to. But perhaps, and I hope, my ramblings have been total nonsense and given some thoughts that are fruitful.

>>396155
>and I hope, my ramblings have been total nonsense
and I hope my ramblings have not been total nonsense

>>396152
It depends on what you're trying to accomplish. With first-person you're limited to describing only events that the narrator personally witnessed. You're also limited by the narrator's ability or inability to understand the events he witnesses and to interpret and relay them objectively to the reader. This is why it's often said that the first-person narrator is always unreliable. The narrator might be misunderstanding or misremembering events that he saw, he might be leaving out vital information, he might have missed something important, or he might be outright lying to the reader or otherwise trying to deceive them. This is why a lot of mystery stories are written in the first person. It's also why narrators in mystery stories are often the detective's bumbling sidekick instead of the detective. The whole idea is to throw curveballs at the reader and keep them guessing about what is actually going on.

Even with a third-person perspective you can still obfuscate events and deliberately mislead the reader. Maybe you narrate the story so the reader can see the main character's thoughts, but not those of any of the other characters. Or you can have the "camera" follow the main character around for the entire story, and never show any events that happen when he's not around. The difference is that narration in a third-person story can be treated as objective: any statement not spoken by a character is assumed to be true.

For example:
>Jim pointed the gun at Steve and fired. A moment later Steve hit the ground, dead.
In this line, it can be taken as fact that Jim shot Steve and killed him.

However:
>I pointed the gun at Steve and fired. A moment later he hit the ground, dead.
In this line, the narrator is simply claiming to have shot Steve and killed him. He could be lying about doing this. He might also be mistaken about Steve being dead; it's possible he survived the shooting, and the narrator simply believes that he killed him.

You could also do something like this:
>I peered through the window. Jim was pointing a gun at Steve. He fired, and a moment later, Steve hit the ground, dead.
In this scenario, the narrator is simply a witness to events that he could be misinterpreting or deliberately misleading the reader about. Steve could be either alive or dead in this case, for the same reasons in the previous example. It's also debatable whether or not Jim even shot Steve in the first place; it could just as easily be Jeff cleverly disguising himself as Jim in order to fool the narrator, and thus the reader. It's equally possible that this event never even took place at all; the narrator could be hallucinating or giving a false statement. Technically, this could be true in the previous example as well.

If you want to read some stories that make interesting use of first-person narration as a deceptive tool, off the top of my head I'd recommend:

>Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
>Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho
>Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

You might also consider checking out some of Edgar Allan Poe and HP Lovecraft's stories, as both writers frequently wrote from the perspectives of insane or otherwise questionable narrators.

For third-person stories that play around interestingly with perspective, the inner motivations of characters, and the reliability of information, off the top of my head I'd recommend:

>Dashiell Hammet, The Glass Key
>William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!
Yes, the exclamation mark is part of the title. This last one is a pretty challenging book, I'd recommend only picking it up if you've got the time and the inclination to sift through a lot of dense, ridiculous passages. However, it's on this list because it's well worth the effort if you're up to it. The Sound and the Fury, also by Faulkner, I've heard does similar things with unreliable perspectives, but I haven't actually read that one.

Also worth checking out is In a Bamboo Grove by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. This story isn't a continuous narrative, it consists of multiple anecdotes told in the first person that openly contradict each other, and it's left to the reader to interpret which version is correct, if any. However, the narratives are collected and presented to the reader in an objective, third-personish way: it can be taken as fact that these characters all exist and claim to have witnessed the events they describe. The statements exist, and the people making them exist, and the basic facts of the case can be assumed true: there's a dead samurai, and his wife may have been kind of a slut. Everything else is subjective. It's a strange story and it doesn't really fit on either list, but it's worth a study.

does any non-English native speaker have any tips on writing stories? i think my English is just fine when communicating, but i'm obviously hitting language barrier when trying to describe the situation/feelings in the detail it deserves
maybe i should just git gud?

>>396178
be a critic of yourself and don't be too idealistic and optimistic about your story
make goals for the characters and struggle them to make them reach it
make sure that your characters learn and change due to time
don't make them stereotypical and flat
don't cliches such as black and white
make the villains gray . not comically villainous
--
these are my opinion , i never was a successful writer and i will never will be
just some tips , if you like them take them

>>396178
I feel like I struggled with similar issues. Here's my current ideas for how to deal with it.
>when trying to describe the situation/feelings in the detail it deserves
I think that this is a problem, not just for us ESL, but for all writers in general. I think especially if your mind uses a lot of imagery to express itself (There are people who can't visualize any image, called Aphantasia), you wanna translate that image into words. This is a bit. I think that because there are so many details in an image, when you translate it into words, you can't help but wonder which of the details are important and which are not, because you can't translate all of them, but you still have all of them available.
I have heard that people either think, with words, images, or mixed. I don't know if its easier for either group to writer novels but I think that if you think in images, you might want to do two things:
1. Figure out what details of your image that is vital.
2. Break down the imagine into, what I also think will help any ESL, S+V+O structures.

Here's two great videos on describing the fundamentals of English grammar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dr5lN1jqRE&ab_channel=Adam%E2%80%99sEnglishLessons%C2%B7engVid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urr55rAreWc&ab_channel=Adam%E2%80%99sEnglishLessons%C2%B7engVid
They are a good basis.
I attached some images. (Also, GG, I hope you don't feel any stress at pic 2. I know you have a story about that in the oven but you have been doing so much so I don't want you to worry. I know that whenever I am reminded of something I haven't finished, it bothers me so.) Most of them was because I just came to think about them and like the use my image cap but I wanted to upload a landscape painting, cause I'm a nazi ^^, but also because I wanted to show you my current process.
Let's take the Princess Celestia image. Let's break it down. First, we find the nouns (things, abstract/concrete) in this scene. Here's an incomplete list: Windows, flowers, towers, clouds, sky, bookshelf, Princess Celestia, bird and etc.
Are there any verbs (what people/pones/birbs are doing)?
List: Laugh(ing), smil(ing), perch(ing),(cause its an image) working.
Then there's more verbs, like the towers are standing and are connected through bridages and stuff.

And then you use the nouns for subjects and objects in your sentences and verbs for verbs.

Example:
Philomena flew in and perched on the windowsill. Celestia sat at desk, placed right at the window. They laughed and laughed, except I wasn't laughing.

Idk, how useful this method really is. Perhaps it's too much work for simple scene and therefore becomes impractical. These are just my ideas, take them with a grain for salt.

>>396198
I might have made my point muddy. What I meant was that we who have ESL should try to break down the scene into what things are in the scene (nouns) and what is happening (verbs).

>>396220
At least, I think that might be a way to ease the task of writing in one's secondary language.

>>396198
>>396220
thank you, i was hoping for an answer such as this
i noticed my flaws right from the beginning. the intro will be through King Sombra's eyes moments before making the Crystal Empire disappear and i focused too much on his thoughts
now i can easily imagine him in the castle, sitting on his throne with an umbra army below him
>I hope you don't feel any stress at pic 2
why should i? the images you posted are beautiful

>>396155
>>396161
>>396253
Thank you all for your replies. I would like to respond to each other you individually but knowing me I'll probably not get around to get myself up for it. But I am grateful for your advice (nice words). ^^

Pacing (here are some more of my imos)

There's this advice, "Is this the most interesting part of your characters' journey? If not, why don't you show that instead?" It ties sort of into what I called the story's POI (point of interest).

It is easy to get bogged down in the details of a scene, especially with discovery writing. You realize that, "Wait to get to the pool, they have to walk through the house, and then I've got to describe that." The way to solve this is by not describing that, only briefly, or just tell(as in "show, don't tell") us about it.

This is what pacing is. A moment in your story can take several chapters, and a millennium can pass with one sentence, "And so a thousand years passed."

Your POI is what is specifically interesting about your story (its premise), and you want the concentration of your word count to reflect that.

If your story is about your SI having love-triangle with Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter, then the words should be spent on that, not 50/50 on that and what everyone is wearing. ;^P

>>396277
Well, I don't wanna attach the images again but the pacing should have been so. Oh, well. ^^

Ouch. I wrote a whole post and then I mis-clicked and lost it. I really should type straight into the chat.

>>396312
yeah i felt that
that is why always use a notepad and save it constantly