/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

>Be Anon.
>Be naked.
>Why because clothes in Equestria are only for special occasions, events and such.
>Today is neither in Ponyville.
>Still feels weird to walk around with your cock swinging.
>It's even more awkward when ponies take sneak peaks at it.
>At least they aren't Rainbow Dash, that doesn't even pretend to hide her female gaze.
>Whatever, you had a hard day working as a farm hand for the Apples.
>Applejack really loves to work you to the bones.
>Since you don't have the leg gains to kick with the force of a penumatic hammer, you are on basket duty.
>You collect the apples that fall short of the baskets that surround the trees AJ and Big Mac buck and put them in those baskets.
>Then you, with your dexterous fingers do what the poners have harder time with, carry those baskets back into the storage barn.
>So you deadlifts though and have gotten stronger since you began that job around two months ago, although, most apples just recently got into season at the end of summer.
>So you been doing handy-man work on the farm.
>Lot of dexterous finger work like mending finicky things poners find hard with their hooves.
>But you have always been there, alongside the family, when heavy things, like blow needs lifting or moving.
>At times you felt like an ancient greek athlete.
>It was also good that, while the sun would burn you if you took too much at once, the sun didn't fire at you with gamma-radiation like at home.
>You'd gone from slime green body (right, by the way, you skin color had changed from white to green upon being transported to Equestria) to a more emerald or grass-like color.

Thought, I write some pony porn to bump the thread but I ran out of stamina.

>>391360
>Feel free to share your thoughts on all things writing simply put.
Btw, I want to emphasize that it's okay to share any level of writing. Like, for example, you have a headcanon about mlp you wanna share, then share it. You don't have to make it a story. Perhaps, you have an idea but struggle in how you may make it into a fully fleshed story, then share that idea with us, if you want ofc. If you have a crique of a story or of a genre or behavoir related to writing, then share it.

What I want to say is that, you don't only need to post a story for others to read and review. You can just give us a nugget of thought that you want another peer's opinion on.

Let me give you an example for each one of the things I suggested to get started.

Below is a headcanon I made for why pegasus preen, just a few days short of a year now. I'm re-posting it here:

Preening
Preening in pegasus society is an act that doesn't really have a good equivalent among the other pony races, sort of. What so strange about that act is that it is interpreted differently depending on what the relationship between the two parties are. For example, in human society, a kiss with the use of the tongue is an act of more lustful nature between a pair of lovers. A mother's kiss on top of their child's head in human society just an indication of motherly affection. Now what preening is, is that, imagine a human mother kissing their own child on the lips in public and no one bats an eye. However, if two lovers were to do the same, then the same mother might just walk about to them and yell at them to consider that there are children here. She might even get a standing ovation from nearby pegasi (They clap their wings together. It's cute^^), that is what pegasi society is like with the act of preening. It's the same act but depending on the parties involved, it's completely normal or extremely lewd and even in some cases, obscene.

Example of obscene case: Fat-phobia
Pegasi dislikes fat pegasi. Other races can be as obese as they want but not their own kind. If you preen a fat pegasi's wings, that's like making out with a turd or something. So if you want to be hated in pegasi society, you know what to do.
>"Why are you weighing down are clouds, asshole!"

Something like this right. Or you throw out a prompt or request like:
>Hey, can anyone write a story about Prince Blueblood taking to water cause he can trace his linage back to father dagon and mother hydra. Thanks!

Or you can throw out an opinion like:
>RWBY was kinda underrated for taking a stance seldom seen in media of it's type. It basically spoke out against activist violence, or terrorism ig from "oppressed" races.

I have a question for you fellow writefrens, how is your writing process? Do you build up this giant doc on characters and world-building info before writing, or do you just jump in with only a vague premise and blank page? Perhaps you write out the entire timeline before you start, perhaps you start at the end and write backwards from there. This video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTZEFGvMH0k&t=225s , split writer's into two camps: Those who "construct" their story and those who are just flying by the seat of their pants; however, the video those put it more on a scale between to extremes. The extremes being from fully outlined to complete improvisation. Though, there probably are plenty of different approaches.
So let's cycle back to original question, what do you do when you write a story?

>>399473
>two camps: Those who "construct" their story and those who are just flying by the seat of their pants
I've experimented with both methods and they both have advantages and drawbacks.

>seat of your pants
The problem with writing by the seat of your pants is that you tend to end up with far more text than you actually need. Stephen King famously uses this method, and he frequently churns out novels in excess of 800 pages, many of which are absolutely terrible. You can also end up writing yourself into corners this way if you're not careful: your characters might find themselves in situations that there's no logical way out of, or you'll realize you've churned out a 100k+ word story that you don't have a satisfying way to end. Seat-of-the-pants stories also tend to meander; unless you are sitting down to write with a very clear picture of what you want to happen and when, your story will alternate between parts that are really exciting and interesting, and parts that just go on forever with nothing happening.

If you want an example of a basically-good story that was clearly written using the seat-of-the-pants method and suffers for it, this one comes to mind for me:
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/423769/the-haunting

Overall this is a cute, heartwarming story with likable characters, and I enjoyed it. I even bought a hardcopy. Its biggest problem though is the author takes about 86,000 words to convey a plot that easily could have been conveyed in about 30,000 words. It absolutely should not have exceeded 50,000.

>outlining
The problem with outlining and planning is that you can get so obsessed with plotting everything out in advance that you never actually end up writing anything. You can also end up plotting things too well if you're careful: your story will hit all the correct points on the plot chart at all the correct times, but everything will feel scripted and boring. Dan Brown has this problem.

I've found that the best approach is a mix of the two methods, varied by what you're trying to write. A simple short story involving only a few basic scenes and characters shouldn't require much planning at all, you can just sit down and write. However, a long novel involving many different characters needs to have at least some kind of a plan, because otherwise you will most likely have continuity errors.

Here's an example: the story I'm currently working on is a complex mystery, and most of the important events occur over a space of about four days. A lot of characters are doing a lot of things within that space of time, and getting the details and timing right is very important. However, the actual narrative of the story is told from the detective's point of view, and he doesn't actually witness most of what's going on. Everything that he does witness needs to line up perfectly with what's going on behind the scenes; there can't be any errors, contradictions or plot holes or the whole mystery falls apart.

The way I've been dealing with this is to write out a basic timeline of major events. Then, I've written out a quick summary-level blurb for each significant character, summing up the entire story from that character's perspective. It lays out where they were at what time and what they were doing, and it also explains their motivations for doing what they do. Once this is done, I compare each character's outline to every other character's outlines and make sure there are no contradictions. If it all looks good, I write out another summary-level outline of the story from the main character's perspective: this shows where he goes at what time, what he observes, and what clues he finds. Once I've got that, I will tweak this outline to more or less fit the standard exposition->rising action->climax->falling action chart that most stories use.

This particular story has required a lot more planning than anything else I've done in the past. Again, this is mostly because the plot is complicated enough that it's necessary. For most of my projects, I just write out a basic summary-level outline of what happens and when, and then try to line it up with the rising-action-falling-action chart to make sure things have the proper level of emotional punch. Some stories I honestly have just sat down and started writing without any serious planning at all, but I will note that almost everything I've done this way has required extensive editing afterward.

The most important thing is that you have a rough idea of how you want your story to go when you first sit down to write. You don't always have to have a detailed outline, but you should at least know in advance how your story is going to end and where each character is going to end up.

As a side note, one other thing I've found that is helpful is to keep a general "bible" for your setting. This can be as long or short as you need it to be, but if you're writing in a setting that you're going to be revisiting a lot it can save you a lot of work in the long run. For fanfiction, it's especially helpful. I basically have a large document in which I record every weird little detail I come up with for my headcanon version of Equestria. Some of it is stuff I've actually used in stories, some of it is just random trivia that may never come up, some if it is lore and backstory that will never interest anyone but me. However, this is the document I refer to whenever I write anything in the MLP universe. I might alter or disregard some aspects of my own canon if a specific project requires it, but overall I try to keep my setting pretty consistent. It helps to flesh out my fictional world and make it feel more like a real place.

>>399682
Thank you.
I wanna write a longer response in honor of such an effort post but I don't really have that much to add.

Is the detective story the "Muffins of Madness" story you were writing once? Sounds like you're leaning into the detective idea stronger now than the lovecraft part, if you still intend to go there at all. Canterlot noir. ^^ Well GLHF!

>>399747
>Is the detective story the "Muffins of Madness" story you were writing once?
Yeah, that's the one. I've been working on it intermittently for the last couple of years, I took a long break from it to work on the Dale Gribble story.

>Sounds like you're leaning into the detective idea stronger now than the lovecraft part, if you still intend to go there at all. Canterlot noir.
The cosmic horror element is still there, but it's faded more into the background. The story is definitely shaping up to have more of a Raymond Chandler vibe than an HP Lovecraft vibe, it's pretty different from what I originally started working on. But "Canterlot noir" sums it up pretty well. I'm actually really liking the version of Canterlot I've come up with, picrel is the current version of the map I'm working from.

>^^ Well GLHF!
Thanks! I hope to have a readable draft of it soon, I will probably post it on this site at some point.

>>399830
I like what you did to that image. I wanna ask you to tell me more about Canterlot in your world cause this looks cool. But, I intend to read it so I guess spoilers. ^^
Even though, you obviously do the hard work, I still feel somewhat proud to not only in creating that thread, which had that prompt for lovecraftian detective horror I think the premise was just detective or something like that comes back after encounter with lovecraftian horror. looking back at it, not the most creative premise ig. Though, I might look that up. but also I think, I was the one to first post that image on the board. So really, when you think about it, your story is actually my story.

Now I'm gonna be all detective-like and ask, "Is your intention to write it during national november writing month?" Cuz, I know you have done similar before. Man, I really admire your discipline and productivity. Or maybe, it's more like joy that carries you through. You are beautiful and handsome.
I wish to write my chapter in our collab. I really like that we have that collab, though I wouldn't fault you for not thinking so since it's two years since you posted the last chapter. I don't know what to say. I suck. ^^

>>399874
>You are beautiful and handsome.
That was a weird joke that came out of me.

>>399830
GG, could I ask you a favor? Could you read the excerpt below and tell me if you find the writing meandering and boring or interesting? I always worry that I'm writing pointless nonsense nobody cares about, so I worry.

Miss Nonny
---
He felt something prickle his neck. And his back, his legs too. He disregarded it and rolled over in his bed... That tingled his skin.

He wormed his head into the pillow, except there was none there.

He blinked open his eyes and pushed himself up to a sitting position. His chest felt heavier than usual but he paid it no mind. His eyelids still acted as if they were weighted. He rubbed the sleep out of them and looked around.

Around him were trees, palm trees. Although, they looked more like palm brushes consider how short they were and they branches of in all direction. A ceiling of grey clouds hung overhead.

He stared up as if he expected to wake up.

He didn’t.

He jumped onto his legs. The world was seemingly both in high clarity and out of focus as everything demanded his attention but he quickly deemed it unimportant. He took off running. Where he wasn’t contemplating in the slightest. Somewhere alogn the line, he released a thunderous scream.

”Hello?! ANYONE HERE? Help!” he shouted into the wind.

He straight through brushes and branches, tearing them off as he passed. He trip on something, landed hard, and got back to running in and instance. He couldn’t feel the scratches over his body or the bruises.

Eventually, his feet kicked up sand in their wake and he somewhat noticed that he no longer was in the jungle of palm trees. Instead, a big ocean opened up before him. He just ran and ran. A cloud trail of sand followed his wake.

Water splashed around him as he enter the shallow region with only slightly less speed than before. He eventually stumbled on the water as he wouldn’t stop pushing but didn’t adjust to the new resistance around his legs. He dove in, if a bit by mistake.

Now submerged, he just proceeded to swim as if that was why he got here in the first place.

He dodpaddled first, then he proceed to breast strokes, then he remembered that the fastest techinque he knew of was front crawl, so he he bagan to throw one arm after the other forward. He couldn’t really swim crawl strokes. Specifically, he never learnt how to take a breath in between strokes. However, his incorrect version was still faster than breast strokes and that was need because...

He adruptly stopped his swiming. He spun around in the water and looked back toward land.

Icy water flowed down his heart like waterfall -- his heart sank. The beach he had swam from was simutanously close and far away. Being in the water, he realized how much of a long swim it would be to go back.

And he was spent. His muscles ached and and creeping chill haunted him; the concept that if one of his muscled cramped up on him now, then he’d die.

Then another thought of that scared him even more hit him: How deep was the water beneath him?

He just kept paddling in place after that thought. He kept his eyes shut.

Then the crazy idea to check came to him. But why? Why did he did he want to do that? It didn’t make any sense. He was terrified of the deep ocean, or really any deep pools of water, lakes too.

But something pushed him towards knowing. Perhaps, he felt he needed to know so that he could better assess his situation? Perhaps, it was his ego pushing him to challenge his fears, that maybe they weren’t that bad? Perhaps, he was worried there was a sea predator propelled toward him in this moment from the shadows below?

Regardless, he looked down saw a grey and deflecting surface. He poked his head beneath the surface. Immidately the casual wind he had been not reflecting on was replaced by a the languid growl of the sound blocking water.Then his focus was entiterly caught by the fact that beneath him was but chasm of darkness.

He felt his heart rise in his chest. His eyes widen.

Then he remembered that there wasn’t much light to begin with due to all the clouds. Perhaps it was like, at most, 20 ft. He looked in the direction of the beach. He expected to find the bottom, the water was quite clear, blur into as it was cut off by grey-blue.

What he found instead was a clear cliff that descended into the dark that he was above.

He resurfaced wtih a gasp. He was shaking. He turned his back to the waste, endless horizon.

He didn’t know if he felt up for swiming back with his sore limbs. At the same time, he didn’t want to remain and stay floating above the abyss.

He spun over and began swiming the backstroke. That way, he couldn’t look down by mistake, nor was it as tasking as the other styles. He kinda just floated on his back while paddling with his legs.

This way, he slowly began to return to the beach. Sometimes, he’d peek back towards the island.

He hadn’t really felt the wetness on his way out, nor the breeze but now he did. It was still a bit numb though. He had yet to clam down fully. While he wastried to fully emerge himself into the task, the problem with the relative ease of the backstroke and not seeing what was under him, made his mind wander.

>>400172

Where was he? How did he get here? And what was beneath?

The last one was the most pressing at the moment and he would, from time to time, spin around to looked below him. He did this a lot while being above the dark waters but as fast as he could see the murky bottom below him, he instead peeked behind him. His eyes searching for pursuers.

Once he felt relatively safer, havign closed most of the distance to shore and the bottom being around ten feet below him, he took a moment to just look towards the horizon as he did the backstroke.

That’s when he saw something that intensed his nightmare.

At first he blinked a few times at it. Then bent his neck out of shape just to look at them more closely.

He slapped his forehead back. he stopped swiming and mearly floated in place.

That couldn’t been real.

Then again, his situation was unliekly, but that was impossible, or...

He looked again and was greeted by the same vision.

He felt himself downing in his own mind. He couldn’t stay here. That wasn’t real anyway. But he should still check it later. Clearly, the water and it’s reflective surface was playing tricks on him. He neverheard or seen anythng like it but he knew mirrors at funparks could have similar effects on face and such so why not this.

He was about to look again when he stopped himself. Instead, he forced himself into action. He spun around and began to crawl with renwed vigor. His muscles felt heavy and taut. It hurt and he was panting rapidly.

That’s when his arms tocuhed the bottom.

He had been to occupied in his mind and not daring to feel if it was still deep or not, that he hadn’t noticed how shallow the waters now were.

He knew he had run out a long way before, which meant he probably had been swimming over a long stretch of the water he could have waded through.

He crawled onto his feet and ran the rest of the way until he reach the beach and immiately slumped down once he was a at leat ten feet away from the shoreline.

His chest was pounding. He looked down at it. That’s when he saw it again. He grabbed what he saw. Squeezed a pair attached to him.

He had breasts.

That’s when the stars above drew lines above him as he fell on his back.

He fainted.

---

When he woke up and realized that his body was still that of a woman’s, he had almost fainted again. He had been in disbelief. Unable to fathom it. He had check his crotch immidiately after he, or rather she now, saw her modest C-cup breasts again. Indeed, she had no dick and the water as a mirror in the places of shadow had proven that she was indeed a she and not a he anymore.

When that finally settled in, she ran around aimlessly again. She felt as if she couldn’t sit still. She felt like she was suffocating.

Where was she? Why was she here? How did she get here? And why had her sex changed?

Her sex was not the only thing that had changed about her body. Now, her skin was green like grass. And running around naked, across the now sunny and scortching beach. She had yet to run back into the jungle, as wether or not she was alone here, was a question that had entered her mind subconciously.

Staying near the beach gave her some sense of security. She could see further without obstructions and if something, like a tiger came out between the bushes, she imagined that hse could escaped by running out into the sea.

Her mind looped. She thought this might be an hallucination for a moment, then she felt the rough sand getting everywhere as it was kicked up when she ran. Then she thought that this might be the powers of a above, whereupon she’d shout out for guidance, for answers. She waited with ragged breath but no answer came. She would slump down, catching her breath. Once she regained her energy, the loop would start again as she would think this whole think probably was just a hallucination of some kind.

That’s how her first day was spent. By the evening, her rough was dry from screaming, her lips parched from lack of drinking water. Her stomach was eating itself but she didn’t have the energy to do anything about it. She slumped down on the spot as she feel asleep.

During that night she woke up by an aminous drumming sound. It sounded like localized earthquake comming far on her right. A low voice cried out and then there was slience.

She didn’t move in the blackness of night. She even kept her breath.

Suddenly, she could hear sounds. The sound of something licking and eating with and open mouth.

The queer sound became too much for her and she had to leave. Getting up on all fours, she began to crawl off.

She passed crawled off, away from the brushes close enough to the beach that she had pick tosleep at, and instead crawled into the sand of the beach again.

Once she had crawled for a while she still felt exhausted. Whatever adranaline had carried her and cortisol that still bothered her, she was too exhausted to care right now.

Maybe it was the lack of water that made her so tired. She need to find some tomorrow. It seem being confused i nthe sun for a day hadridher of much of her body’s supply.

When the morning brough the sun to greet her, she want to stay in her sand bed. She was stillso tired, but onto that, there was also the fact that she didn’t want to

With everyone else, I see their work and only see potential. With my own, I don't, to put it mildly. Or, well, I don't know what I feel at all.

>>400172
>>400173
>>400176
Sorry it took me awhile to get back to you on this.

Your idea here is interesting. The character awakens on a beach with no inkling of how he got there, and also for some reason he's a woman now. The situation is peculiar enough that most people would probably keep reading at least a little bit further just to find out what's going on. I like that the narration stays focused entirely on the character's actions, without meandering off into idle speculation along the lines of "where am I, how did I get here," etc. Sometimes when people are writing these isekai type stories, they will waste a lot of page space early on with inner-monologue type stuff, or open with a huge infodump about the character's background. So far you've avoided this: you've simply given us a character and a situation, and you're keeping the rest of it a mystery for now. This is generally a good way to hook a reader: most people would probably keep reading for at least a chapter or two just out of natural curiosity. It's too early to say whether this will be a good story or not since all we have here are the very first steps of an exposition, but what you have here is more than enough to grab a reader's interest. Beyond that I guess it would depend on where you plan to take things.

That said, I do have a few criticisms to offer. First, this contains a lot of the usual ESL, grammar and spelling issues that I usually point out. I will once again suggest you consider using ChatGPT or Grok or something to proofread your writing; most of these mistakes are easy to fix and this is the kind of thing an AI tends to be good at.

Next, while you do a good job keeping the narrative focused on the action of the story, the specific actions this character takes don't make a lot of sense. This unnamed person wakes up, expecting to find himself in bed, but instead finds himself in a mysterious jungle. He is understandably startled. However, he is not in any immediate danger from what I can tell. Why does he take off running like he does? It doesn't seem like a natural response.

Eventually, he comes to a beach and is confronted by a vast ocean. Again, while I can understand being a little bit panicked from the strange situation he suddenly finds himself in, he is not being pursued, and there is no immediate danger to him from what I can see. Why does he decide to swim out into the deep ocean? I suspect that the only reason you have him do this is because the detail about the ocean depth is going to be important later on. If I'm understanding it correctly, this character is on an island of some sort, which sits on kind of a shelf in the middle of the deep ocean. It's an interesting idea, but it needs to be revealed in a way that makes sense.

There are a couple of different ways you could do this. One option is to give the character some impetus that would force him to run: maybe he wakes up and the first thing he sees is a tiger, or a tribe of pygmies with blowguns or something. The immediate danger combined with the shock of waking up in a new place would probably be enough to trigger someone's fight or flight response. If you don't want to do that, then I'd suggest making the opening of the story into more of a slow-burn: the character wakes up, sees a jungle, is understandably confused and unsettled, but sees no other option other than to explore. I imagine it wouldn't take him long to notice that for reasons unknown he suddenly has boobs and a vagina. He and/or she pokes around for a bit, finds his and/or her explorations cut short suddenly by the discovery of the beach and the ocean, and so sets about the immediate task of finding food and shelter. Over the next couple of days, this mysterious man-woman would probably alternate back and forth between taking care of their immediate survival needs and exploring further and further into the environment. Maybe at some point they decide to venture a little ways out into the ocean just to see if there is anything to see out there. At that point they realize that the ocean gets strangely deep a short ways out, and swimming any further is probably not a good idea, so they head back.

A good way to approach a story like this is usually to put yourself in your character's shoes: if you suddenly woke up in a situation like this, how would you respond?

>>399874
>"Is your intention to write it during national november writing month?"
To be perfectly honest, I completely forgot about NaNoWriMo this year. It's still early into the month though, so I might try to see how many words of this story I can crank out. As I've said, the plot of this one is more complicated than the kind of stuff I usually write, so the planning phase has taken longer than it normally does. However, at this point I'm probably just procrastinating.

>Man, I really admire your discipline and productivity. Or maybe, it's more like joy that carries you through.
If we're being brutally honest both my discipline and productivity have ebbed off quite a bit lately, and joy is in rather short supply. Nevertheless I appreciate the compliment.

>I wish to write my chapter in our collab. I really like that we have that collab, though I wouldn't fault you for not thinking so since it's two years since you posted the last chapter. I don't know what to say. I suck. ^^
I'm still down to continue it. I've completely forgotten what ideas I had in mind for where to take the story, I think I might have some written notes somewhere, but honestly it's a fun project either way.

AH-AHA-AH-AH-ANON
SENIOR SHIT SHOVELER SINCE 86
MULTI-TALENTED KNOWS ALL THE TRICKS.
BEEN ALMOST EVERYWHERE ON THE INTERNET.
TRAVEL TIME AND CHANGE.
HISTORY HAS A RUNNING FEUD WITH A GREEN-POSTIN' MAN.
TAKES EVERY OPPORTUNITY TO ARGUE IF HE CAN.
HE'S ONE OF A KIND.
SAYS WHAT'S MIND.
(YOU) MIGHT THINK HE'S COMPLAINING WHEN YOU HEAR HIM SAYING.
HE'S A SHITPOSTER, NOT ESCALATOR.
HE'S A GREEN-TEXTER, NOT A BRICK LAYER.
HE'S A MEME FARMER, NOT A SHUTTLE CONDUCTOR.
AND EVERYBODY KNOWS HIM AS ANONYMOUS.
HE'S A LURKER, NOT AN ENGINEER.
HE'S A HORSEFUCKER, NOT A MAGICIAN.
HE A MASTER BAITER, NOT A PSYCHIATRIST.
AND (YOU) KNOW THAT I'M TALKING ABOUT ANONYMOUS.
AH-AHA-AHA-AH-ANON. X4
y tube.com/watch?v=JUCRBhLMxyI?t=5192

>>400374
Thank you so much for taking the time with this. I'm sorry I haven't replied earlier.
I really appreciate when you take your time, and I feel like I haven't shown that enough so yeah. I'm trying to do that now.
>>400375
I really want to continue our collab. And I'm gonna try my best.
However, I'm gonna be honest though and tell you, like I don't know if I ever told anybody on this board, ig, it's a bit personal and stuff, but I was hospitalized last year around this time for mental health issues and yeah, that's my life from now on basically. It's rough. But I really enjoy writing with so I wanna do it but just a heads up when I'm tardy, it's because I have ADD, OCD, anxiety attacks, depression, annoying nightmaresmares!, and suicidal ideations, otherwise I'm fine. I'm joking, because I have had this for years now, but it's actually quite serious. Dw tho, I'm stable right now, frend c:

>>401648
Right, I forgot social phobia.

>>401648
>>401649

You've always got someone in your ring fren

>>401651
Thank you fren c:

>>401648
Well, just throwing this out there, but if there's any hobby and/or profession where mental health problems work for you rather than against you, creative writing is it.

>>401733
Thank you my frend c: