krio, Yautja, 9 years ago

My mother says I can't write gore yet, even though I am good at it.
Am I good at it?
http://www.quotev.com/story/6128037/Murderous/

Voltage-3000, Yautja, 9 years ago

*stumbles in drunk* hey look the gangs all here *passes out*

skull_ripper, Yautja, 9 years ago

Holy shit, long time no see Voltage, how've you been man?

milo299, Yautja, 9 years ago

@DeathWraith
how to write work japan?

DeathWraith, Yautja, 9 years ago

@milo

what

@krio

jorge-04.jpg ?

Deathdrop, Yautja, 9 years ago

@Krio: Show, don't tell. Don't say something was strange or murderous or terrifying-Show us. Make us feel it.

skull_ripper, Yautja, 9 years ago

@DD: That was deep man.

DeathWraith, Yautja, 9 years ago

No, that was just regular good writing advice.

Deathdrop, Yautja, 9 years ago

Yeah, that's actually really, really common advice. I mean, it's TRUE and important and all the rest, but it's nothing you wouldn't learn the first day in any creative writing class. Still, if finding it "really deep" makes the advice stick, then... Yeah, sure, whatever.

The woman was insane, and loved killing people. She watched murderously as the man bled through the neck, until he finally died.

VS.

Abigale watched, sometimes, when the novelty of professionalism wore off. The man whose throat she'd cut watched her from the expanding puddle of red with eyes like a toddler who'd had his first paper-cut.
Abigale took note of his face, which registered more annoyance than panic. It was like she'd bumped into him in line at the grocery store. She nearly apologized, but thought better of it; his eyes had just gotten a look that said they no longer saw anything. "I wanted to kill you," she thought, "Not hurt your feelings."

See the difference?

DeathWraith, Yautja, 9 years ago

You know, since there's that advice that while learning to draw you should turn the pictures upside down before you redraw them, so that you learn to see the shapes and not the concepts, I wonder if that's also useful in learning to write. Reversing the situation. Instead of finding a comparison for the blood on the wall, so that you write "the blood looked kinda like ketchup", it may be good to think of stuff that you can more readily imagine and then say they look like blood, such as thinking

"the maple syrup slowly dripping down the side of the soft, puffy pancakes onto the white porcelain plate, staining it a deep brown, made her think of blood falling from the guts of a hanging corpse, onto a bathroom floor's marble tiles"

and just reverse the situation into

"the blood falling from the guts of the hanging corpse onto the bathroom floor's white marble tiles, staining them a deep brown, made her think of maple syrup slowly dripping down the side of a soft, puffy tower of pancakes onto a porcelain plate. She licked it off his thigh and it tasted just like maple syrup"

and now you have a regular day in Canada. Not sure how well this works, but I think it might be effective.

Deathdrop, Yautja, 9 years ago

... Holy fuck. That's a really good idea.

EDIT: OH YOU KNOW, JUST BOUGHT THE MASS EFFECT TRILOGY FOR LIKE, 20 BUCKS. I HEAR YOU ONLY NEED 2 HOURS OF SLEEP A NIGHT ANYWAY TRA-LA-LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

-Bloo-, Yautja, 9 years ago

Oh wow, that's a good writing exercise.

Anyway, Krio, if you wanna prove your mom wrong, just stop writing action/lively scenes (for now) and start writing mundane situations. You're gonna start by writing "Johnny is walking on the sidewalk. He's super bored" and then you'll realize you need to develop your ability to show rather than tell. Why is he walking on the sidewalk? Why is he bored? You can't hide behind explosions, gunshots, and sick triple-wall-jumps when you write mundane situations, so you're forced to make it interesting in other ways.

I realized a while back that it's the same thing with drawing. I was reading a manga where, for the better part of about 180 chapters, this kid is just drawing. That's all he ever does. Everything in this manga is normal, but the angles, drawing style, and artwork in general made it really, really worth looking at. At one point the kid is just sweeping the floor with a broom for about 4 pages and it's absolutely fucking thrilling.

Edit: Not that artwork is all that matters - this manga has a great story, too.

@DW: I'm gonna look at all the Kpop stuff when I get home, I'm not ignoring them.

@DD: I just bought the Bioshock Trilogy with all the DLC, and I don't know why I did that so close to finals.

DeathWraith, Yautja, 9 years ago

Are you ready to be angry at the ending, DD? If not, get ready. We must always be angry at that ending.

Bloo, I don't think you're ignoring them, don't worry. If I haven't linked you anything in some time, it means nothing important has happened in some time. EXID had a comeback, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it.


EDIT: Check out that dinosaur walk.

ultimate-xeno, Yautja, 9 years ago

I have no idea what we're discussing because I didn't read any of the posts above. Fill me in on what's going on please. But you have to, and you can force me to read all the previous posts.

Dronehive, Yautja, 9 years ago

@DW

That's fucking brilliant advice man. I'll definitely try to think like that, from now on.

One of the things I like to do is list every little detail I can think of, from the clothes a person may be wearing to their intervals of breath. Putting these small things can really improve your writing, I think (I consider myself to be decent at it)

Voltage-3000, Yautja, 9 years ago

the hell we talking about someone fill me in on it

Deathdrop, Yautja, 9 years ago

@Ultimate and Voltage: There are a grand total of three pages. Read them.

EDIT: FUCK.

DeathWraith, Yautja, 9 years ago

^ Oh boy good thing I waited instead of saying that. Fear of this happening is a legitimate phobia.

krio, Yautja, 9 years ago

"Show, don't tell. Don't say something was strange or murderous or terrifying-Show us. Make us feel it."

It's disgusting, gorey.
Not terrifying.
http://www.quotev.com/story/6128037/Murderous/
Any advice?

DeathWraith, Yautja, 9 years ago

Don't use exclamation marks in narration unless you're narrating in first person or obviously conveying the character's exact feelings or thoughts.


EDIT: What the fuck, like 60% of your narrative sentences end in exclamation marks. Do you not understand what an exclamation is? Is this narrated by William Shatner?