Writers on Smogon

Congratulations, Transcendent God Champion ! That is certainly dope.
What is the proccess of submiting the book to the editors like?
That is an awesome thing to accomplish, hope your carreer get even better from now on ^_^

_________

On a complete non-related subject: I can't help myself to stop self-sabotage.
I have a lot of things I want to write, but before I even start, I convince myself that it won't do any good or the idea is silly. So the day passes with me just scrolling memes and more memes.

One is a Death Note fanfic where a random guy kill politicians in absurd and gore ways -- I just have deep feelings of doing it myself, so I guess this would be a good way to deal with this stress.
The other is a screenplay of a sports series focused on soccer, as I am brazilian and I pretty much know some things about it. It would be a Captain Tsubasa without bullshit, I guess.

I write profissionaly because I am a journalism student and do some freelance works. It feels like this drains my inspiration and will to write for fun.

Anyone has ideas of what could I do?
 
Congratulations, Transcendent God Champion ! That is certainly dope.
What is the proccess of submiting the book to the editors like?
That is an awesome thing to accomplish, hope your carreer get even better from now on ^_^

_________

On a complete non-related subject: I can't help myself to stop self-sabotage.
I have a lot of things I want to write, but before I even start, I convince myself that it won't do any good or the idea is silly. So the day passes with me just scrolling memes and more memes.

One is a Death Note fanfic where a random guy kill politicians in absurd and gore ways -- I just have deep feelings of doing it myself, so I guess this would be a good way to deal with this stress.
The other is a screenplay of a sports series focused on soccer, as I am brazilian and I pretty much know some things about it. It would be a Captain Tsubasa without bullshit, I guess.

I write profissionaly because I am a journalist student and do some freelance works. It feels like this drains my inspiration and will to write for fun.

Anyone has ideas of what could I do?
All I can suggest is picking something to start, committing to a schedule, and then not letting yourself skip no matter how bad what you've written. If you're sufficiently embarrased use a pen name/alternant handle, but don't let quality deter you.
 
Quantum Tesseract The schedule thing is a good idea, I think I will do it starting next week :D
It is not much a matter of quality in my writing, as I believe I can develop thinags fairly well, if I convince myself it is not dumb sit down to write a fanfic or something. But it is a slow ride, I guess...
 
Not sure if this is the best place to post this, but I would like to make an important announcement:

5:32 PM (8 minutes ago)

"Congratulations! Your book, Purity Before Existence, has finally completed the publication process. It will be available on the Xlibris website for purchase within 3-5 business days. You will receive a sample copy of your book in 10-15 business days.

You will first receive an Author Proof Copy of your book. A notification email with a tracking number will be sent as soon as it is shipped out from our printer facility. If everything is satisfactory with your Author Proof Copy, please inform me, so we can start printing the complimentary and additional copies you will be ordering."
What is your experience with xlibris? There seem to be a lot of negative reports about them online, which raises questions over the quality of this company. You can google "xlibris scam" to see what I am talking about, if you have not done so already as part of your research on how to publish your book. Here is an example of an article you can find by doing such a search. I am not sure if or how much any of this relates to your situation, but I just thought I would make it known anyway.
 
I have received numerous requests from Xlibris via phone to pay them large amounts of money in exchange for various marketing services, but I have refused all of them. I am generally very careful when dealing with people, as you're probably aware, and do not like taking unnecessary risks.

But anyway, thank you for taking your time to bring that article to my attention (I have read it before though). And also... thank you for giving me so many ideas and sources of inspiration as I wrote this book. It would be absolutely unfair to say that many aspects of Purity Before Existence were not influenced by some of your fanfictional ideas. Also, just to let you know, one of your usernames, along with those of numerous other members of Smogon will be included in the Acknowledgements section of my book :)

Tell us about the book!
I have given some information about it in this post of mine. I will make a thread about my novel, and link to it in this thread once my book is available for purchase :)

Congratulations, Transcendent God Champion ! That is certainly dope.
What is the proccess of submiting the book to the editors like?
That is an awesome thing to accomplish, hope your carreer get even better from now on ^_^
Thank you very much.

The editing and publishing processes actually take far more time than I had initially imagined, which is why the book's release was delayed so much. I basically had to contact my editor and publishing company a lot via phone and email, in order to give them precise sets of instructions regarding how to do things, including designing the book's cover.
 

Martin

A monoid in the category of endofunctors
is a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
I've had a concept to write that I've been developing in my head since, like, April but I've been putting it off for months. I wanna try and work on it slowly but surely at some point and I'm thinking of writing it as either a gamebook or as a branching visual novel/text adventure (more likely the former rather than the latter) due to me thinking that it is a good match for the concept and because I personally like the idea of the reader making certain decisions throughout the story that can change the character mechanics and shit and, in turn, seeing how they could alter the ending in subtle ways (i.e. the attitudes of the characters in the leadup to and the actual execution of the final act in the story rather than the actual events).

Basically, what I'm here to ask is whether anyone has any experience with writing in the format and could offer any tips, and also asking for the methods you all use to motivate yourself 'cause I'm in a rut for literally everything atm.
 
Martin I am struggling with the same motivational issues - not just for writing, but for everything atm. I believe doing small things first can be good to start getting going with the writing stuff. like writing a little each day, or writing short stories rather than something more extense untill you feel pumped up. That is what I am trying to do starting next week, lets see how it goes.

_____

Just editing to make that presentation template because it looks cute :]

What do you lke to write?:
I write non-fiction, mostly. I've been working for the last three years as a journalist working mainly with internet media, so writing news and more in-depth stories occupied my mind these last years.

For two years, I was editor-in-chief of two football sites with some colleagues. There, I worked with interviews and texts regarding sports analyses. I briefly worked with historical researches aswell.

I was a writer for two radio programs hosted at a regional radio station here - one daily, without especific thematics; and other aired weekly, only about music. I wrote the radio show itself, and also quick reviews for the website. I went with my own music blog shortly after, but I was too lazy to actually travel to go to shows n' shit so I abandoned it. D:

Right now I am a writer for a podcast with two friends, but I am dropping the project soon.

Are you working on a current project?:
Nothing relevant in this moment. ;{ I have some projects I want to start soon, though.

One is a music blog based on this concept of short reviews.

I want to try some fiction too. There are two things that I have in mind by now and I will start soon. This thread got me pumped tbh, :]

One is a Death Note fanfiction, as I stated above. Without the genius stuff, because I am a pretty dumb guy and could not conduct the story that way. My country is living a complicate political scenario and I want to focus my will of slap congressmen's mothers face with a fish in a story where a guy just kill them in horrible ways. :]

Other is a series about football. Like a Captain Tsubasa without special powers and stuff, focused more in the characters drama than in the sport itself. I plan to do it based in some brazilian famous players, as they have rich backgrounds that could easily be adapted to fiction. I might do it in a screenplay format, thinking of it like an anime, because it is a format I'm not familiar with, and I want to be.

I do not have plans to publish anything -- not under my name, at least. I am too recluse and introverted to actually publish anything that have a more personal approach to it. I'm okay with sharing my work as journalist because there is not that much of me within the articles. If I ever finish the projects I mentioned above, not even my girlfriend and closer friends will see them, I guess. However, if I manage to write them in english (which I struggle with, as you might see), I might post it to strangers on internet read.

Do you have a method?:
I try concentrating on making a good start. If an article for a newspaper, the first paragraph; if it is a shorter story, a strong lead; if a longer thing, a good first chapter, etc. With so many options and memes to scroll through, if I don't catch the audience right away, they probably won't stay to read the rest of my thing.

I also focus better if I take steps into writing. If I am writing something based of an interview, I would do a list of things I need to do, and do them separately, with breaks between each step. It would be like:

- Searching for infos do avoid making dumb question to whoever I will be interviewing;
- Do the interview;
- Mark the important parts;
- Based on that, write down a sketeleton of how I want to conduct the story
- Write the thing down
- Read all over again two or three times.

If I have the time, I do one step a day to keep fresh.

Favorites:
I like reading manga the most. D: It have been a long time since I read fiction... I prefer reading things based on real things, like reporters writing about their investigations. Brazilian journalist Caco Barcellos have a solid work on this subject, called 'Abusado', dealing with favelas situations in Brazil.

Misc:
Brazil is good and even our football team is getting better omg im hyped

here is a cool song to thank you by reading through all this :]
 
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1 What do you like to write?
Sweet nothings (but mostly poetry).

2 Are you working on a current project?
Define working. I'm slowly just finishing notebooks really.

3 What got you interested in writing?
As weird as this may sound, immortality. I know, I know - look at me, the crackpot. But really, you live on through your words. I've always worried about just fading away - writing is my way of quieting that fear and it helps keep me sane in this world where you can't always say what's on your mind.

4 Are you branching out?
No. Writing is mostly a private affair for me. Although I guess I'm branching out by posting here, mhm?

5 Do you have a method?
I write until I hate myself and feel better about the world around me.

6 Favorites?
Anything Murakami, Hemingway, Nabokov or Bukowski.

7 Misc
I live in South Africa, in a small town, in the middle of nowhere. It's quaint, quiet and nothing ever happens here that anyone outside of here would care about. I'm currently 21 and right now I'm reading "Brief loves that live forever" by Andrei Makine.

Nice to meet y'all. :toast:
 
I apologize for this once again, but due to some unforeseen factors, my book will not be released until at least January of next year. I realize that I have been disappointing people by making them wait for an unreasonably long time already, so I am really sorry about this. I promise however, that it will be released as soon as I return to Smogon.
 
aaa that is bad ;[ we'll still go after the book, so np, hope things get better soon!

___

I could overcome the block I mentioned earlier and actually start writing the fanfic :].

I'll try to keep it up with one chapter each two days (that way I can write in portuguese first then calmly translate to english).

Which would be good ways to share the story under a tpseudonm pseudonym or smtn when I feel comfortable of doing so?
Is the ol' fanfiction.net any good for this purpose?
 
aaa that is bad ;[ we'll still go after the book, so np, hope things get better soon!

___

I could overcome the block I mentioned earlier and actually start writing the fanfic :].

I'll try to keep it up with one chapter each two days (that way I can write in portuguese first then calmly translate to english).

Which would be good ways to share the story under a tpseudonm pseudonym or smtn when I feel comfortable of doing so?
Is the ol' fanfiction.net any good for this purpose?
Fanfiction works, but it's easy for stuff to get lost and it's text editor is terrible. Some sites like Sufficientvelocity and Spacebattles have large fan bases and will generally give quick, regular, and somewhat comprehensive reviews on stories, but most of them require an account for commenting and thus would cut off a bunch of potential people would would otherwise express appreciation or criticism.
 
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Fanfiction dpworks, but it's easy for stuff to get lost and it's text editor is terrible. Some sites like Sufficienvelocity and Spacebattles have large fan bases and will generally give quick, regular, and somewhat comprehensive reviews on stories, but most of them require an account for commenting and thus would cut off a bunch of potential people would would otherwise express appreciation or criticism.
Yeah, I just created an account and looks like everything is still in 2009 there. and looked like that there are some dam weeabo cringey community there too. oo'
I would look that two others, thanks :}
 
Hi, everyone. I've been busy with some things lately, but since I have found some time today, I have decided to make a post here about my book, in order to not keep my potential readers waiting emptily.

The book will not be out until January next year (it will definitely be out by then though). However, because there is still some time before it's out, I'd like to take this opportunity to share some more information about my book here.

Below is the cover of my book:


Below is some information about my book, written by the Xlibris marketing department (although, they incorporated a lot of information written by me in a survey they had me fill out):

Author Lance Lichtengel releases ‘Purity Before Existence’
New book enthralls readers with tale that explores philosophical, theological, ethical issues

SYDNEY – In his debut into the literary world, author Lance Lichtengel offers an escape into a fantastic world for those who have grown tired of the boring and often mundane world in which they live through the pages of “Purity Before Existence”(published by Xlibris AU). Combining elements of chaos and insanity, which turn pain and unfairness into something far more volatile, this book highlights the very unique and special thing which courage ultimately exists for the purpose of seeking out: hope.

Shirosakura Hakutenshi and Arumariya Angeletta, two seemingly ordinary schoolgirls who both possess a strong sense of justice, confront that which they perceive to be evil, initially in the form of numerous bullies at their school. In doing so, they catch the attention of many other people who are fighting their own battles of good and evil on a larger scale. Through this process, the girls discover that they possess a supernatural power known as the ‘Energy of the Gods,’ and their awakening of this power drags them into conflicts of increasingly grand proportions.

This gripping tale focuses on fighting between characters with superhuman or supernatural powers, placing great emphasis on describing action scenes in vivid details. It also explores the various social, ethical, practical, religious, philosophical and psychological motivations behind people's decisions to engage in conflict and violence. It is a grand tale which takes the reader across a vast fantasy world.

“Purity Before Existence and its sequels have characters bring up countless different viewpoints on philosophy, morality and other things,” Lichtengel says. “But ultimately, its goal is to explore and depict, not to argue or teach.”

Finally, the following are five scenes from my book:

At one point amidst what could very well be the infinity of time, a planet of an unfathomably gigantic size existed, trillions upon trillions of times larger than the entire Milky Way. Despite the unspeakable difference in size between this planet and Earth, its surface was very similar to that of Earth’s, although about three-fifths of it was covered in land, while the rest was covered in water. It had a diversity of landforms, with mountains, forests, plains, deserts, grasslands, snow-covered places, rivers, and just about any kind of natural features observable on Earth. Islands could occasionally be seen scattered across the oceans.

Two celestial bodies of equal size orbited this planet, each being about one-third the size of the mother planet. One of them was an incredibly bright Sun-like body, which always illuminated the side of the planet facing it, making that part of the planet as bright as day on Earth, while the other celestial body resembled the Earth’s Moon. Strangely enough, not a single other star, or any other celestial object whatsoever for that matter, could be seen in space around this planet.

At the moment, this incredibly large planet, when viewed from space, appeared to be in chaos. Huge seas of fire blazed over enormous areas of the land far eclipsing the total surface area of the Earth in size. Even larger clouds of pitch-black smoke billowed from those flames. Burning craters covered the planet's surface, while large parts of its oceans, rivers and lakes were painted in red, as if filled with blood. Millions of explosions as well as sparks of lightning could be seen happening every second on the surface when viewed from space, as if a war of an unbelievably grand scale was taking place on it.

Suddenly, the colour of absolutely everything in the universe became inverted. A moment later, four incredibly thick beams of black energy, which each had a diameter about one tenth that of the entire giant planet itself erupted simultaneously out of the surface of that planet close to each other, while massive clouds of dust were raised on the part of the planet from which the beams came. A few seconds later, the beams faded away, revealing four gigantic holes on the planet’s surface left by the beams. After that, the colour of everything in the universe reverted back to normal.

The clouds of dust around the four holes faded away, revealing that those holes were so deep that they penetrated to the other side of the planet. Cracks rapidly expanded outward from the holes across the planet’s surface, while massive tsunami, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes and other natural disasters started happening all over the planet. The cracks exponentially increased in number and size, a few seconds before the entire planet suddenly blew up in a catastrophically enormous and bright orange explosion about ten times the size of the planet itself.

The explosion, which resembled a giant supernova, instantly consumed and disintegrated both of the celestial bodies orbiting the now-destroyed planet. Innumerable blazing hot pieces of the planet of various sizes were sent flying outward towards every direction at a tremendous speed by the explosion. At that moment, millions of dragons of both the Eastern and Western variety flew outward from the explosion. They roared loudly in pain, fear and despair. Many of them were badly wounded. Their bodies were bleeding badly, with some of them missing one or more limbs. The vast majority of the dragons were consumed by the expanding explosion behind them, getting disintegrated within it. Others were crushed by the huge burning pieces of the planet flying outward from the explosion, and only a very small fraction were fortunate enough to escape.

Deep within the core of the explosion, the silhouette of a massive dragon-like figure with a huge X-shaped structure on its back could be seen.

‘Ha, ha, ha,’ the dragon-like figure was heard laughing in a deep male voice from within the blazing energy. As the explosion began to fade, it was revealed that the dragon-like figure floating amidst that blazing inferno was a huge, predominately black mechanical-looking dragon. He had a long black horn on his nose and two demonic-looking black horns at the back of his head that curved forward. He possessed three very long and sharp white toes on each of his theropodous feet, a huge silver drill in place of his right hand, three sharp white blade-like claws on his left hand, and a massive, grey, diagonally-placed cube-shaped structure on his back. Four huge black cylindroid cannons with golden rings around their bases protruded outward from that cube in such a way that they formed the shape of an ‘X’ on the mechanical-looking dragon’s back. He also had a pair of absolutely gigantic and thick robotic-looking silver wings coming out of his back.

His eyes glowed red, before he raised his head slightly.

‘By my very own hands . . . both of the Grand Beings have now fallen. I . . . am the Ultimate Organism!’ he said, revealing his incredibly sharp white teeth as he spoke, while looking around at his pitch-black surroundings. Despite the fact that not a single star could previously be seen in all of space around the huge planet that was just destroyed, the mechanical-looking dragon’s observation of space around himself revealed to him that right now, the countless burning pieces of the planet that just exploded, which were now very far away from him looked almost exactly like the innumerable stars observable in the night sky from Earth.

***​

Meanwhile, the variously-shaped pieces of the destroyed planet as well as the energy of the explosion drifted further and further away into space. Over countless years, the power of gravity shaped those pieces of the planet into spheres, forming a myriad of much smaller planets and other celestial bodies all across space. At the same time, other planets were formed from dust, gas and other materials scattered throughout the universe being pulled together by gravity. The energy of the massive explosion formed into innumerable stars scattered all across the universe. The force of gravity dragged the planets into orbit around the stars, which in turn formed galaxies among each other. As a result of all of this, after an incredibly long period of time, the universe was transformed from one in which only three absolutely enormous celestial bodies seemed to exist into one which far more greatly resembled the universe familiar to a person who reads this book.


‘Huh?’ said Shirosakura as she faced the violet-haired girl.

‘Just like you, although my parents made me go through the ritual to become an Agalmatist when I was an infant, for most of my life I’ve actually been unsure of whether or not the teachings of Agalmatism are correct, both in terms of the history that it tells about this world, as well as the system of moral values it upholds,’ said Arumariya, looking down.

‘You sound like you feel guilty about that. Being a free thinker instead of conforming to others like a sheep is nothing to be ashamed of!’

‘I guess . . .’ said Arumariya. ‘But what I wanted to say was . . .’

‘Hm?’ said Shirosakura as she turned to look at Arumariya.

‘Recently, I’ve started to think that the question that should really be asked isn’t whether or not God or gods exist, but rather, which god or gods are the real ones. Well, assuming that the real deities behind this universe’s existence are even mentioned in any known religion, anyway.’

‘Huh? So you’re saying that you’re convinced that there’s at least one deity?’

‘Yes. Take for example, the solar eclipse that will take place here on Wednesday afternoon,’ said Arumariya as she briefly looked up at the sun, before lowering her head again to face her front. ‘A solar eclipse happens when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun, covering the Earth in darkness by blocking out the Sun’s light. The Sun is four hundred times bigger than the Moon, but the Moon just so happens to also be four hundred times closer to the Earth than the Sun is, making them both appear to be the same size when viewed from Earth. This results in the Moon being just the right size when viewed from Earth to perfectly block out the Sun during a solar eclipse. Not only is this a major coincidence that doesn’t occur in the case of a solar eclipse on any other planet we know of, but this coincidence also just happens to take place on a planet on which there is intelligent life to observe it happening.’ Then she looked at Shirosakura and said, ‘If you ask me, I think it’s very unlikely that this is a coincidence at all.’

‘Oh yeah, I never thought about that . . .’ said Shirosakura as she smiled. ‘But then again, the teleological argument can always be defended against by mentioning how just about anything is likely to exist given how big the universe is,’ she continued, before slightly lowering her head. ‘I don’t know why . . . but although what you mentioned may be a massive coincidence, something deep within me just tells me that it’s nonetheless just that, a coincidence. Or at least, even if God or gods did exist . . . they wouldn’t be completely benevolent in nature like most people claim they are,’ she said, before turning to look at Arumariya. ‘Like . . . do you remember what we both said about the nature of life back in that Art class we had back in Year Seven?’

Arumariya nodded.


‘I’m sorry, mate,’ Jamez’s voice was heard coming from behind Thomas. Immediately upon hearing that, Thomas, with much effort, turned his head just enough to look behind him with the left corners of his eyes, while blood continued rapidly flowing down his mouth as well as the wound on his chest. As he looked, he saw Jamez standing behind him, with a serious look on his face. He held his black-hilted katana in his right hand, with that katana’s blade thrust into Thomas’s chest from behind. ‘As a Whitchelician, I can perfectly empathise with your desire for revenge,’ said Jamez, and then Shirosakura widened her eyes and gasped as she heard that, while an image of the Pierrot-like being she saw in her nightmare before flashed through her mind. ‘Nonetheless, I cannot afford to let you kill her,’ Jamez continued, before suddenly turning the blade of his katana 90 degrees anti-clockwise, such that the weapon’s edge, which was initially facing downward, was now facing his right.

‘UUGH!’ screamed Thomas in pain as he coughed out a torrent of blood, before Jamez, with a quick move, swung his katana to his right. In the process of doing that, he cut the right side of Thomas’s upper body open horizontally, with the cut extending from the centre of his chest, where he was initially stabbed, to the right side of his upper body. After Jamez’s blade exited the right side of Thomas’s upper body, it chopped off the teenager’s right arm, before Jamez ended his sword swing with the tip of his katana pointing straight to his right dramatically. ‘UUUAARGH!’ Thomas screamed in excruciating pain as he immediately dropped the stick he was holding, while an enormous fountain of blood erupted out of his mouth, the huge wound on his upper body as well as the part of his right arm where it was cut in half. He fell on his back and landed in a pool of his own blood, with his head at Jamez’s feet, while his severed right arm fell on the ground to his right.

Shirosakura displayed a shocked expression on her face as she looked down at the fallen and badly bleeding Thomas, before immediately turning her attention towards Jamez, with a fearful look on her face. The grey-haired man looked down into her eyes with a calm and expressionless look on his own face.


Just then, Steiner’s voice was heard coming from the ball of flesh he had spat out before, which was currently high up in the air in front of Yuki and behind Vulkanrich.

‘I understand now. How dishonorable of you though, Miracle Healer.’

Vulkanrich and Yuki narrowed their eyes and gasped, while the former turned his body completely around to face the ball of flesh as he got into his fighting pose.

‘You deceived the public, telling the world that the Dämon der Asche was dead . . . in truth, you’ve been hiding him from all those who have been seeking to bring him to justice, haven’t you?!’ Steiner’s voice continued, as the ball of flesh rapidly grew and transformed into his head, before his neck, followed by his torso and then the entirety of his body grew downward out of that head, until he was completely regenerated.

After regenerating himself, he grew six tentacles out of his back, looking exactly the same as those with which he had grabbed Shirosakura and Arumariya before. Three of those tentacles pointed to his left, while the other three pointed to his right. After that, some thin flesh grew in the gaps between the tentacles pointing to his left, as well as in the gaps between the tentacles pointing to his right, until those pairs of three tentacles each merged together to form a huge wing on his back.

‘Justice? Don’t spout that word so easily . . . naive Jafnaorist!’ said Yuki while looking up at Steiner, who floated high up in the sky above and in front of him with the large pair of wings on his back. He was partially covering the sun from the perspective of Vulkanrich and Yuki, in such a way that he appeared like a god-like figure from their point of view.

‘Naive Jafnaorist, you say?’ said Steiner. ‘Please. It’s true that I affiliate myself with Nyrheimia. Though this has no change in the fact that I’m a scientist, not a priest!’ he continued while looking down at Yuki from the sky, with the light blue-haired person and Vulkanrich looking as tiny as insects from his perspective.

‘Even after gaining the energy you possess, you still think that science and religion don’t go hand-in-hand?’ asked Yuki.

‘Sometimes they do, but that’s irrelevant as far as I’m concerned. Both are just a means to the same thing anyway, and it’s undeniable that one is far more effective than the other,’ said Steiner. ‘More importantly . . . while I never knew that you were capable of changing your Yojigen no Ou into a double-sided sword, judging by what I know about your Yojigen no Ou’s powers, you probably think that your sword can cut through anything, right?’

‘. . .’ Yuki remained silent, while his twin tails blew in a strong wind coming from the ocean.

‘If that’s the case . . .’ said Steiner as he once again straightened his fingers and joined them together, before a katana blade-like bone grew out of his fingertips of each hand. ‘Then let me, as a scientist, help you test out that hypothesis!’ he continued, while suddenly enlarging his eyes in a very creepy manner towards the end of his speech. At that instant, an absolutely insane amount of green energy surged out of his body, shaking the atmosphere all around. An incredibly concentrated amount of that green energy became infused into his two bone blades. He dived straight down at Vulkanrich and Yuki at an extremely high speed while having his two bone blades pointing diagonally outward and behind him like a descending jet plane. Vulkanrich and Yuki gasped, before Steiner shouted, ‘HAAAAAA!’ as he thrust his green energy-infused right blade down at them. But the two people jumped away. The former jumped diagonally backward and rightward, while the latter jumped diagonally backward and leftward to dodge the attack, which crashed on the ground where they were standing before, smashing yet another massive crater and creating another huge explosion of sand.

‘Ugh . . .’ said Yuki as he flew backward through the air. Suddenly, he looked alert as he saw Steiner flying straight out of the cloud of sand towards him at an astonishing speed. As he saw that, Yuki screamed, ‘Haa!’ as he held the handle of his double-sided blade with both hands while raising it up to his left. He spun that weapon around by the handle three times, before performing a rightward swing forward. At that instant, Steiner reached him and did a downward slash at him with his green-energy infused left bone blade. Steiner’s blade collided with Yuki’s blade, and then both blades were stopped dead in their tracks as soon as they touched each other.

What?!’ thought Yuki, widening his eyes in extreme surprise.

Impossible . . . he stopped Yuki’s Jikuu no Yaiba?!’ thought Vulkanrich, who was in the air far away, as he displayed a similar facial expression.

Steiner smiled evilly as he grew a long, upward and forward-pointing spike at the top of the front of each of his feet, before he suddenly delivered an extremely powerful leftward kick straight at the left side of Yuki’s waist with his right foot. Yuki’s eyes quickly snapped to his left, before he was suddenly struck by the kick with insane power.

‘Uuughhh!’ he screamed as he coughed out a lot of blood, while the spike coming out of Steiner’s right foot impaled him straight in the stomach.

‘YUKI!’ screamed Vulkanrich as he witnessed Yuki’s predicament.

‘Aaaaahhhh!’ screamed Yuki as he was sent back flipping diagonally towards the ground at an incredible speed, while blood rapidly sprayed out of the hole in his stomach.

‘Hahahahahahahahahahaha! Fall in despair, Miracle Healer!’ laughed Steiner. He flapped his wings repeatedly to remain airborne while leaning his head back and displaying an insane and extremely satisfied-looking evil smile on his face while looking down at Yuki, who just then crashed onto the beach with much power, smashing a crater and creating an explosion of sand upon landing. ‘Isn’t it scary to know . . . that as it turns out, even the power of spacetime itself cannot triumph over the ultimate power in the universe! The Energy of the Gods!’

‘The Energy of the Gods?’ said Vulkanrich, who was still falling backward through the air. ‘What a pretentious thing to say. Let me add a little fact to your collection of scientific knowledge, you four-eyed bastard!’ he continued, and as he finished saying that, he landed on his feet.

‘Hm?’ said Steiner as he turned to look down at the silver-haired man.

‘To call the energy that you possess “the Energy of the Gods” would be to imply that that energy originated from your gods. That’s wrong!’ said Vulkanrich, before jumping up towards Steiner with his sword held in both hands and pointing behind him at the right side of his body. ‘The power that you possess is life energy . . . and the one from whom it originated is the creator of all life on this planet . . . Lady Whitchelicia Bioreejin!’ he continued as he reached Steiner and tried to behead him with a blazing leftward slash. But Steiner effortlessly blocked the attack by positioning his left green energy-infused blade to his left with it pointing upward, and then a huge fiery explosion happened as the two blades collided.

‘Is that so? Thank you!’ said Steiner as he tried to stab Vulkanrich in the chest with the bone blade attached to his right hand. Vulkanrich gasped as he leaned his body backward, downward and rightward in order to barely dodge the attack, which only managed to cut a bit of his shirt above his chest, as well as draw a tiny amount of blood from the surface of his chest. ‘You just made me even more excited . . .’ Steiner continued as he did a leftward 360 spin in the air, horizontally smashing Vulkanrich with the huge wings on his back in the process.

‘AAAAAAARRRGGHHH!’ screamed Vulkanrich as he began back flipping diagonally downward through the air as a result, falling straight towards Yuki’s general direction.

‘About the prospect of researching you people after I capture you!’ said Steiner as he began diving diagonally downward through the air with his wings, relentlessly pursing the falling Vulkanrich.

‘Ugh . . .’ said Vulkanrich as he fell.

‘Hm!’ said Steiner with a confident smile on his face as he caught up to Vulkanrich in the air and delivered a leftward swing at him with his left blade, but the silver-haired man swung his sword to his left and blocked the attack. However, while he was busy doing that, Steiner stabbed him straight in the stomach with his right blade.

‘Ooooaaarrghh!’ screamed Vulkanrich as he widened his eyes in pain and coughed out some blood.

Steiner smiled evilly as he briefly pulled his right blade out of his opponent’s stomach, before loudly laughing, ‘Hahahahahahahaha!’ as he delivered many rapid thrusts at Vulkanrich’s stomach with his two blades, alternating between them with each thrust.

‘Aaaaaarrghh . . . ahhhhhh . . . AAAAAAARRRGHH!’ screamed Vulkanrich in excruciating pain as he was stabbed repeatedly, with blood rapidly flying out of his stomach and mouth while he fell. After being stabbed about two dozen times, he clenched his teeth while gripping his sword tightly with both hands, before shouting, ‘Haaarrghh!’ as he did a blazing upward slash at Steiner. Steiner gasped as he quickly flew diagonally upward and to the left in order to dodge the attack, which failed to hit him directly. However, the flames that erupted out of Vulkanrich’s blade consumed his left wing, before quickly incinerating it completely to ashes. After finishing his fiery attack, Vulkanrich kept falling until he landed on the sand next to Yuki, smashing yet another large crater there and raising a cloud of sand on impact.

‘Hmph!’ said Steiner as he flapped his right wing forward in order to make himself perform a leftward 180 spin in the air, such that his back was now facing the fallen Vulkanrich and Yuki. After that, three tentacles erupted out of the part of his back where his left wing used to be, with razor-sharp bone spikes erupting out of the surface of all three of them. They extended diagonally downward at the clouds of sand surrounding Vulkanrich and Yuki at a high speed. But then, just as those three tentacles were about to crash onto them, a large transparent Rubik's cube suddenly appeared from within the cloud of dust surrounding those two. That Rubik's cube’s rows and columns rotated at a high speed, grinding Steiner’s three tentacles to bloody pieces as they collided with the Rubik's cube. ‘Hm?’ said Steiner, as he turned his head just enough to look down at what was happening to his tentacles with the right corners of his eyes, before retreating his three severed tentacles back towards himself.


‘Vulka . . .’ said Yuki tiredly. ‘I . . . I’m so sorry . . . about that . . .’

‘No!’ Vulkanrich shouted at Yuki, making him enlarge his eyes a bit. ‘It’s not your fault! I shouldn’t have let that happen to you, and besides, you even broke out of his possession technique yourself! You have nothing to apologise for!’ he continued with a trembling and upset voice, making Yuki relax upon hearing that. ‘Also, you shouldn’t speak . . . I’ll find the Yojigen no Ou right away, so yo—’ said Vulkanrich as he looked around at his surroundings again.

Before he could continue, he and Yuki both gasped before turning to look at the direction of the ocean. They saw Steiner emerging out of the water far away on the ocean’s surface, before standing on the water’s surface.

His skin was still grey, while his eyes still had golden irises and brown sclerae. His hair was still shoulder-length, although he no longer had the spikes on his knees, elbows, feet and forehead. He no longer had eyeball tentacles on his left hand or any tentacles on his back. His right arm was now normal instead of demonic, and was not holding anything. In short, aside from the colours of his eyes and skin as well as the length of his hair, he was completely back to his human form, prior to his transformation. Steiner stood on the water’s black and orange surface, with his body slumped forward while panting tiredly.

Vulkanrich looked down at Yuki and said, ‘Yuki, hang in there! I’ll be back to save you . . .’ before turning his attention back towards Steiner. ‘After I finish that guy for good!’ he continued, as he got into his fighting stance.

‘Vul . . . Vulka . . .’ said Yuki.

‘What is it?’ asked Vulkanrich, without turning his attention away from his opponent.

‘Just . . . be careful . . . and save yourself . . . and the rest of our family.’

‘Idiot,’ said Vulkanrich, before turning his head just enough to look at Yuki, and then Yuki looked confused. ‘We still need you for the White Goddess Darkness Resurrection!’

‘A-Ah yeah . . .’

Vulkanrich smiled softly, while Yuki did the same, before Vulkanrich turned his head to face Steiner again.

‘You bastard!’ Vulkanrich shouted at Steiner, as he clenched his weapon’s hilt more tightly, while Steiner narrowed his eyes a bit. ‘So even my Brennende Heilige Schnitt wasn’t enough to destroy your heart, brain, or whatever, huh? But I wonder how much longer you’ll last now!’ he continued, before kicking off the ground and beginning to fly towards Steiner at a high speed.

‘Hm!’ Steiner laughed quietly and eerily with his mouth closed. He covered his right eye as well as the right side of his forehead with his right hand while slightly lowering his head. ‘Hmhmhmhmhm . . .’ he continued laughing, as he lowered his head more while closing his eyes. He shook his shoulders a bit in an attempt to contain his laughter.

‘Hm?’ said Vulkanrich, looking confused as he flew over the water’s surface at his opponent.

‘Hahahahahahahahaha!’ Steiner raised his head, opened his eyes and mouth and let out a loud laugh while lowering his right hand. He displayed an insane look in his eyes. As he opened his mouth, it was revealed that his teeth were no longer sharp. An incredibly powerful aura of green energy radiated from his body, shaking the whole atmosphere and sending ripples outward from where he was standing on the water’s surface. ‘I still have no idea how the Miracle Healer was able to break out of my Parasitt with seemingly his dark energy alone, but either way . . .’ he said, before falling down on his knees while placing his palms on the water’s surface. ‘Hope has come to an end for you right . . . now.’

Vulkanrich looked confused as he saw and heard that, though he continued flying at his opponent.

At that moment, more dark clouds began covering the sky. A pair of dragon wings sprouted out of Steiner’s back, with those wings being the same colour as his grey skin.

Wh-What?!’ thought Vulkanrich, as he dilated his eyes in surprise.

‘Hhhhhhhhhh . . .’ Steiner let out a loud and intimidating beast-like hiss as a sharp white claw grew out of the tip of each of the three middle fingers of each of his hands, as well as the tip of each of his toes except for his outermost ones. He began growing a long, grey dragon tail. Simultaneously, his eyes’ golden irises gradually turned yellow while his sclerae changed back to white. His head began to morph into a reptilian one, while his teeth changed shapes to become sharp and inward-curved. Steiner’s entire body rapidly expanded in size. The colour of his entire body began to change, such that everything on the left side of his body, with the exception of his eyes, teeth and claws were gradually changing to red, while everything on the right side of his body, once again except for his eyes, teeth and claws were gradually changing to blue.

As Steiner grew bigger and bigger, he lifted his hands off the water’s surface to assume a bipedal stance. He was eventually no longer standing on the ocean’s surface, as the lower parts of his body became submerged under the water. The green energy aura surging out of his body grew in size proportionally to the increase of his own body size, resulting in massive tidal waves being sent outward towards every direction from his body.

‘Ugh!’ said Vulkanrich as he stopped flying forward. He covered his face with his left hand while flapping his wings forward in order to launch himself backward, seemingly feeling overwhelmed by the incredible power of the energy radiating from Steiner’s transforming body. Back on the island, Yuki also gasped upon seeing that. Steiner continued morphing and growing, until he eventually took the form of an absolutely massive half red and half blue yellow-eyed European-style winged dragon with three-fingered sharp claws. He looked exactly the same as the one depicted on the coat of arms above the main entrance to Ragnvald’s palace.

Upon completing his transformation, Steiner stood on two feet on the seafloor with everything beneath his waist submerged underwater. The end of his gigantic tail stuck out of the water’s surface behind him. Dark clouds now completely covered the heavens above, engulfing the entire island in darkness. Steiner initially stood with his head lowered, his wings folded and his eyes closed. Suddenly, he spread his wings outward powerfully in a very proud and regal manner, sending tidal waves away from him with the sheer wind created by the movements of his wings. Simultaneously, he opened his eyes, raised his head up high and let out an unbelievably loud, intimidating and absolutely monstrous-sounding skyward roar, which could be heard from extremely far away.

At the very instant when he let out that roar, an insanely gigantic and blindingly bright bolt of lightning flashed amidst the dark clouds above, lighting up the whole atmosphere momentarily. A thunder was heard as soon as Steiner completed his roar. A torrential downpour began falling from the ominous heavens as soon as the thunder ended. That rain was accompanied by a very strong hurricane-like wind which began blowing all over the island as well as a huge area of the now pitch-black ocean around it. After that, Steiner focused his attention back on his two opponents, looking at them with his extremely ferocious-looking yellow reptilian eyes, while the rain and wind rapidly put out the huge flames burning all over the island.

***​

At the same time, Sofianna was still holding Shirosakura captive in the bushes, while Thunderking was sitting next to them. The three of them looked up at the dark sky above in alert upon hearing Steiner’s loud roar. They noticed the lightning, the thunder, the rain as well as the strong wind that followed.

Vulkanrich . . . Yuki . . .’ thought Thunderking, while narrowing its eyes.

***​

In the meantime, Arumariya grabbed the snath of her scythe with her left hand, while the drop bear’s green blood which was previously stained on the blade of that scythe was now all washed off by the rain. At the moment, the blade of her scythe constantly flickered in yellow light, with it briefly shining extremely brightly every time a bolt of lightning appeared in the thunder storming sky above. The sand around her had now become completely wet. The rainwater washed the pool of blood around her away, carrying that blood down the slanted beach towards the ocean. A few seconds after she grabbed her scythe, her body became surrounded in a violet-coloured aura.

***​

Back at where Yuki was, Yuki said, ‘Wha—’ with disbelief in his trembling eyes as he looked at Steiner in his newly-transformed state.

‘What the hell?!’ said Vulkanrich. He looked equally shocked as he flapped his wings repeatedly to remain in the air in front of Steiner, who now dwarfed him in size so much that he currently looked like a firefly in comparison to the massive half red and half blue dragon.

‘HA! HAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!’ laughed Steiner as he once again raised his head heavenward. His laughter revealed his current voice to be the same as the voice he had prior to his draconic transformation, except his voice now sounded noticeably louder and more distorted, monstrous and sinister. ‘Yes . . . you two have wonderful expressions on your faces! Absolutely wonderful and magnificent!’ he continued as he looked at Vulkanrich and Yuki. ‘Yes . . . it would seem that even ignorant Whitchelicians such as yourselves recognise what this form is! Dragonaurus, the God of Power! The second highest god of Jafnaorism! The ultimate dragon in the universe!’

‘Yuki, wait there! I’m gonna kill this guy!’ said Vulkanrich as he gripped his sword’s hilt tightly. The fiery aura coming out of his body intensified, evaporating the rain around him. He pulled his sword to his right, before shouting, ‘Flammenden Halbmond!’ as he did a leftward swing at Steiner’s direction, sending a wave of flames towards him. The wave of flames was huge from Vulkanrich’s point of view, but tiny relative to Steiner. The wave of flames hit Steiner at the chest and created a fiery explosion, but Steiner did not even flinch from it.

‘How ridiculous!’ he said, as he suddenly did a rightward slash at Vulkanrich with his left claw. Vulkanrich flapped his wings and flew upward and backward to dodge the attack. However, a powerful slicing wind came out of Steiner’s left claw, which effortlessly severed his opponent’s left wing and left arm while snapping his left horn.

‘GRAAAAARRGHH!’ screamed Vulkanrich in excruciating pain as a huge amount of blood spouted out of his wounds like a volcanic eruption, before Steiner did a leftward slash at him with his right claw. ‘Gugh!’ said Vulkanrich as he did a leftward swing with his huge sword, which was still held in his right hand. However, as that sword collided with Steiner’s claw, the entire weapon instantly shattered to blazing pieces in a huge fiery explosion, while Vulkanrich’s torso was slashed open horizontally by Steiner’s simple claw swipe attack. ‘AAAAAAARRGHH!’ screamed Vulkanrich with blood spraying out of his mouth. The force of the slash sent him flying straight towards the island at an astonishing speed, with blood blasting out of his body as he flew.

He landed on the beach and slid across its wet sand while barely losing any speed. He carved a ditch along the sand as he traveled, before crashing onto the base of the tree-covered hill at the centre of that island. After that, he slid up that hill, smashing hundreds of trees to pieces along the way while still carving a ditch on the ground as he slid. Eventually, he reached the top of the hill and then got launched diagonally upward into the sky, with the slant of the hill serving as a ramp to send him flying upward in that way. Now, Vulkanrich was high up in the dark sky above the island, surrounded by drops of his own blood everywhere in the air around him.


As mentioned before, I will make a thread with much more detailed information about my book once it is actually released. Until then :)

 
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Conni

katharsis
Writing is one of my hobbies, although I might not publish them now, since I'm not comfortable with that yet, I'm on the verge of writing normal books and manga books (my manga drawings skills are currently trash), but right now, I'm focusing on just plain writing.

What do you like to write?: Anything that includes Romance, or Action/Comedy at least.

Are you working on a current project?: I've written a lot of unpublished pieces that I just written for fun. I am writing a book right now, but it's kinda holiday and I'm sluggish on writing it, although maybe in the future when I'm more comfortable with writing, I might start a serious project and might get it possibly published

What got you interested in writing?: I always loved drawing and writing as a kid, so I wanted to make comic books or just normal books to put in my library to get a lot of gold stars so I can brag to my parents; now I shift towards the manga side of drawing, but before I hone my art skills, I thought that I would be better off just writing for now since it would take time to be good at writing AND drawing.

Are you branching out?: As of now, my pieces of writing are private, very private. Although I don't mind sharing on Smogon if I'm comfortable with the piece.

Do you have a method?:
I usually get a lot of chapters done whenever I listen to music (anime soundtracks specifically), but sometimes I get distracted easily when it's very ambient and calm, so listening to exciting music helps me concentrate on writing a lot, I usually finish it on the get-go, although it takes around a week usually to finish a piece of writing.

Favorites: I love romance books, but I can read about anything really. What really moves me in Romance books is the perspective and feelings that are expressed by the text, and it really touches me, how the main character(s), show this feeling of romance throughout perspective, feelings and thoughts in the text.

Misc: I don't really have any inspirations that are authors. Also I come up with bad titles, I don't know why, but I always seem to lose focus whenever it comes to titles, so I usually get a friend to help me with this stuff.
 
Hi, Im Ardy and I guess this is a good place for a first post xD

  • What do you like to write?: Ooh, Novels for sure. Usually crime thrillers, but some fantasy/adventure too.
  • Are you working on a current project?: Yeah, Im currently working on a couple of books on my wattpad account, as well as a couple poems in private.
  • What got you interested in writing?: Id always been good at writing, but my fifth grade language teacher really made me realise I could actually craft stories well enough to write full novels.
  • Are you branching out?: Not so far.
  • Do you have a method?: I write casually, but I usually try to get in a couple of hours of writing atleast once every three days.
  • Favorites: Genre: Thriller. Series: The City Trilogy. Book: Silence Of The Lambs.
  • Misc: Im currently reading "I Am Pilgrim" by Terry Hayes, its looking to be a great read.
 
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Hi everyone. This is my first post on here while I lurk and get a feel for the place, but what a great start to talk about something I love!

What do you like to write?: Mostly fanfiction, although I have tried to write original stuff.
Are you working on a current project?: Four fanfics at the moment. Two Mystery Dungeon inspired, a trainer 'fic and one for Zootopia.
What got you interested in writing?: I've always been a daydreamer and liked to tell stories. I suppose I'm always in some kind of daydream. If I'm not mentally occupied I end up chronically bored so it's a great way to keep my mind active too. Plus I just love writing for the enjoyment of others as well as my own!
Are you branching out?: I recently wrote a 70 chapter fanfic that I am now editing and illustrating. It sparked a love for writing epic length stories. One of my current projects ties in with that story from another more side-character's point of view that covers more of their history. I've also started to write back-stories for my fanfics that gives a deeper insight for myself before I write, since I just can not plan out and stick to a chapter plan.
Do you have a method?: I pants everything. I pretty much just dive straight in and write. I also try to write daily, although I've recently fallen out of habit after Christmas lol.
Favorites: I love to write Pokemon Mystery Dungeon fanfiction. As for genres, typically sci fi, cyberpunk and dystopian. I recently ventured out and wrote a cyberpunk Mystery Dungeon fanfic that incorporated glitches, fannon and small plot elements from Red and Blue...
Misc: Titles are hard. Sometimes I can think of a great one and other times I end up stuck with a code-name and just can't grab onto a good title. I make sound tracks for my writing. I then end up attaching a song to a character or plot element and can't remove it so whenever I listen to the song I get nostalgic... I also really need to read more. I have a terrible habit of picking up books and putting them down that it's a wonder I ever finish writing anything!
 
  • What do you like to write?: This may be a bit of a stretch given the context of this thread, but I typically write song lyrics. Outside of that, it's usually smut - if I'm honest.
  • Are you working on a current project?: I just joined a new band recently, and I have about 9 songs that I need lyrics for, with two of them completed so far. We have a pretty awesome studio opportunity available to us if we can be ready to go by March, so I guess that's my current goal. Also working on a long-term erotic fan-fic, but that's very early stages and pretty far on the back burner of my priorities at the moment.
  • What got you interested in writing?: Music has been my primary outlet since I was about 15 (now 21). I originally played bass, but have been writing lyrics since I started with music. About 4 years ago I switched to doing vocals, and have found a much bigger connection with that.
  • Are you branching out?: Nah. No room in my major for a writing course.
  • Do you have a method?: I HAVE to write pen-on-paper when I'm working on lyrics. I am physically incapable of writing lyrics on a computer or phone, minus a random line or two here or there.
  • Favorites: I have never really had an inspiration for anything in my life that I can remember. There are particular vocal styles that I like to emulate though. I base mine off of Brendan Murphy (Counterparts) and Derrek (Defeater). I probably butchered the spelling of both of their names, though. I could not tell you the last time I read a book, however.
  • Misc: I live in New Hampshire, no agent or anything.
I'm not a member of this band anymore - they've changed their name and style pretty greatly, but I wrote all of the lyrics and performed for this album. I do scream all of my vocals, so be aware of that.
https://sunwalkernh.bandcamp.com/album/full-circle
 

EV

Banned deucer.
Cool to see this thread is getting semi-consistent use again. In between these introductions, however, I want to talk about inspiration.

What inspires you to write? Where do you find inspiration? What happens when you're lacking new ideas, or as some would call it, get a case of the dreaded writer's block?

I'll share a few things I've done to drum up inspiration, but first a little backstory. (Eek! Backstory!)

So I've gotten back into writing short stories. I was working on some longer pieces over the last few years, but I'm hooked on the short format once again and I've been cranking them out on weekends when I have the time. So, why did I shift back over to this shorter format? Well I've found myself flooded with this sudden rush of inspiration lately. All of these interesting little premises (or seeds as I like to call them) have wormed their way into my brain and I've been racing to get them all down. It started when, at the end of 2016, I asked those in attendance at my critique group to set a goal for 2017. The goal I set is to start at least 50 short stories. I don't promise to finish them all, but I do plan on getting a good chunk of them written down even if I don't come to a conclusion for each one.

To keep track of my progress I created a folder on Google docs. In one document I keep a running list of ideas and the stories that I've written that count toward my quota. So far there are three.

Now, to come back to my earlier bit about how to find inspiration for my stories. Right now I've been fortunate and the inspiration has been finding me, but sooner or later the flood will slow to a trickle. To help myself out, I've gathered some techniques on inspiration that I'll share.


Technique #1.
->Flip the Premise

I found this technique while browsing YouTube. Lately, my YouTube watch history has become infested with filmography, video movie essays, and movie reviews. I'm a very visual writer in that I like to picture what I write as a moving scene. That probably makes a lot of sense to other writers because writing is transcribing the imagination. You see your characters do something in your head and you write it down. While watching these videos on YouTube about film editing, composition, dialog, etc, I've found that my writing is getting closer and closer to actualizing the scenes that I see in my head.

One video essay in particular described this technique called "Flip the Premise." It's actually a technique the essayist found on another channel, which I've since started watching, too. Essentially, with Flip the Premise you take a plot (or, a premise, at its most basic level) and flip it on its head. The originator of the idea explains it best when he says "You take all the good guys, you make them the bad guys. You take all the bad guys, you make them the good guys."

So think of the plot from the movie The Lion King. Rather than making Simba the hero, with the Flip the Premise technique you actually rewrite the story so that Scar is the hero. Of course, you'd have to rewrite Scar's character and actions to make him sympathetic to your readers, because killing his brother and banishing his nephew in order to usurp the crown is not going to win over a lot of sympathy. But that's the challenge! How can you turn Scar into the hero? Ideally, once you've rewritten the new premise, the story has become its own beast altogether and not just a complete ripoff of The Lion King. The beauty in this technique is that it doesn't even have to be about lions anymore, either! (True, The Lion King is influenced a lot by Hamlet, so theoretically you can use that as a base instead.) You can have it suit whatever universe you're writing in, be that about humans, cyborgs, werewolves, caterpillars, or balloon animals.


Technique #2.
->Real World Fiction

Have you ever seen or read a news story that was so crazy, so shocking that you (maybe not in these exact words) said, "Truth is stranger than fiction?" Well there's a reason people rely on that adage to describe real-world events: the real world is filled with unbelievable stories! Crime is a facet of our world that produces some incredible twists and turns. Open your local newspaper and turn to the police blotter to get a small sample, or Google "strange crime stories" for the really wild stuff. There was one such case about a teenager from my home state the press nicknamed the Barefoot Bandit who broke into homes throughout the Pacific Northwest and Canada, sometimes just to soak in the homeowner's bathtub or eat their ice cream, leaving his wet footprints behind. He used money he stole to buy supplies in order to live as a survivalist until he started stealing vehicles on his way across the country. He stole cars, boats, and even small planes, teaching himself how to fly just by reading the manuals and playing flight simulator games. Eventually, he stole a Cessna 400 from an airport in Indiana and escaped to the Bahamas where he was later caught and extradited back to the U.S. to face charges. Doesn't that just read like a crime novel?

If you're not after crime stories, there's plenty more inspiration to be had elsewhere. I just bought four magazines today on various fields of study just to have a catalog of real-world information at my fingertips for future stories. These include magazines on astronomy, archaeology, the top 100 scientific discoveries of 2016, and the Smithsonian Institute. I write science fiction and fantasy predominately, so my hope is to find some inspiration between the pages of these magazines to fuel the creation of a new world or technology for me to explore in my writing. Flipping through the Smithsonian magazine just now I landed on an article called "The Lovers of Shanxi," about a couple moving to a small village in Western China during WWII to look for ancient architectural riches before they were lost forever. I can already imagine what they found in that small village ... and it's certainly unlike anything they ever thought possible!


So those are just two of my favorite techniques I use for finding inspiration. Are there some that you as a writer rely on to kick start your stories or to inject more juice when things slow down? Are there any specific stories that you're working on that are derived from some interesting factoid or real-life event? I'd love to hear what inspires you, so share them in the thread!
 

Cresselia~~

Junichi Masuda likes this!!
I often create many interesting "worlds" or "universes" that have battles with stats, and my friends seem to be interested in my stories.

But the down side is, there isn't really a language that I'm strong in.
Neither my Chinese nor my English can reach native level, so I just can't imagine what happens when it comes to literature.
I get really stuck when I need to describe anything in words.

So in the end, I ended up only listing the stats of each character and each attack/ weapon, etc with very simple description.
I'm just very scared of writing in proper paragraphs.

I'm currently under apprenticeship of a manga "shifu" / master.
I enjoyed improving my drawing skills under her, but she keeps telling me that I have to write a story.
She wants a complete manga from me, instead of just drawings.

I know that telling a story via manga as a medium would solve the language/ literature problem for me, but it still feels very intimidating to me.
Because in the end, I still have to write things down in words.
 
Hey, this thread is several years old and somehow managed to escape my notice. It's totally rad that there are people working seriously at this craft, and congrats to Transcendent God Champion for actually shipping.

So, hi, folks. When I was a teenager, I used to write long forum posts and play Pokemon. Now, I mostly just write stories.

What do you like to write?: I like writing speculative fiction, and tend to favor fantasy over sci-fi. My sci-fi stories usually lean toward "techno thriller" (think Michael Crichton) that are basically set in a contemporary setting with one or two new technologies that are slightly more advanced than they are in the present day. ("Five minutes into the future," some might call it.) Creative fiction is also cool.

Are you working on a current project?: I'm writing for several visual novel projects. One of them, Necrobarista, just got announced, and it has a really cool trailer that you should definitely watch. (If you pause the trailer in the right spots, you can see some of my writing.)

What got you interested in writing?: I read a lot as a kid. I often used elementary school assignments as an excuse to write pulpy stories (usually detective stories inspired by the Three Investigators and the Hardy Boys). Around the end of elementary I started spending less time with books and more time online, though one of my favorite internet forum activities did involve crafting artistic works of fiction and falsehood. Nearly a decade later, during my college years, I watched Brandon Sanderson's 2010 JordanCon lectures, where he talks about how writing is a skill that you can learn. So I decided to take the engineering mindset that I was applying to my studies (mechanical engineering) and apply it to crafting stories. I enrolled in several creative writing electives, had a ball of a time doing it, and decided that I wanted to go for pro. (Didn't change my major, though. I figured an engineering degree would be more valuable than an English degree, since tech employers actually care about certain credentials, whereas publishers will pick up a good manuscript regardless of whether the author has any formal schooling.)

Are you branching out?: Well, I'm getting paid to write scripts for several visual novel projects, so that part of "become a pro writer" worked out, though I'd like to get into trade publishing some day. Awhile back I finished a 20k word fantasy novella (which was actually part of the portfolio that got me several of my current paid gigs), and I've been thinking about expanding that novella into a full-length novel. (The novella essentially tells the first act of what I had originally conceived as a longer story.) But for now, I have to focus on what is paying the bills. (And that's certainly not something for me to complain about.)

Do you have a method?: I'm an outliner. I tend to have an outline/roadmap for each I scene (usually it's just in my head, though for longer projects I'll write it out), so I usually can just bang out first drafts without having to deal with "writer's block." When I'm just in the mode of "I have an idea that is pretty fully articulated already in my head and I just need to get it out onto the page," I can write around 2k words per hour, but it in reality that "2k words in 1 hour of writing" is realistically more like "2k words in several hours (or days) of thinking about the scene and 1 hour of actually typing." (Some of my most productive "writing time" actually takes place on long walks, or at the gym.)

Favorites: I like hard fantasy (Brandon Sanderson), cyberpunk (Neal Stephenson), and urban fantasy (Dan Wells). Orson Scott Card's "Shadow of the Hegemon" might be my favorite novel, I've probably read it more than any other novel. I've also started reading more literary fiction lately. "How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia" is a very cool novel, told in 2nd person (I think it's the first novel I've ever read of that sort), and at the recommendation of a bunch of journalists I follow, I also decided to pick up The Nix by Nathan Hill, which was pretty enjoyable.

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What inspires you to write? These days, it's mostly about deadlines and getting paid. When I work on spec material, the focus is still on deadlines and getting paid, but the deadlines are self-imposed, and the "getting paid" part is on a longer time scale. But sometimes I just want to try something new, hone the skill set, put another tool in my belt.

Where do you find inspiration? I steal ideas from reality. Characters' personalities and quirks and passions are often based on real people. (That's what the first generation of writers did: they observed the world around them and told stories based on that. Then you have generations of "inbred" writers who learned how to write by reading. Sort of like how you have lots of artists who learned how to draw by imitating the style of other artists, it can come out feeling like a caricature of a caricature. I think there's a time and a place for that, but I prefer to go back to the original source material.) I also love reading history books and other nonfiction that provide lots of room for "divergent thinking," that inkling of "what if things had gone differently?"

What happens when you're lacking new ideas, or as some would call it, get a case of the dreaded writer's block? Step outside, go for a walk. Study the people waiting at the bus stop and see if there's anything unusual about their appearance; pick out traits and ask myself "why?" Get a haircut and overhear a conversation between a 40-year-old woman and her hairdresser. Go to a bar, chat with the bouncer, play darts and strike up a conversation with anyone who looks like they're alone. Pick up the Science section of the NYT and look at headlines, but instead of actually reading the stories, come up with my own ideas for stories that might have those headlines.

One form of "bottom-up" storytelling that I like involves taking a familiar setting, changing something about it, and then asking, "Okay, what effect does this have?" In a fantasy setting, how would wizards affect medieval warfare and the way military campaigns were waged? How would society develop differently if in the year 1500, people discovered technology (or magic) that provided them with instant point-to-point communication? People colonize Mars and start having kids; what effect does the gravity have on those kids and their height and bone density and what's it like being in a community of 150 people? (This approach to "bottom-up" storytelling was actually discussed in the latest episode of Rationally Writing.)

On a complete non-related subject: I can't help myself to stop self-sabotage.
I have a lot of things I want to write, but before I even start, I convince myself that it won't do any good or the idea is silly. So the day passes with me just scrolling memes and more memes.
I think one of the more useful lessons I've gotten from Brandon Sanderson is to treat writing like any other skill, rather than something mythical as people often do.

For example, playing a guitar is a skill. People understand that the first time you pick up a guitar, it's not going to sound like real music. You spend some time learning to pluck the strings, learn basic chords, and spend many hours practicing in the privacy of your own bedroom, working to acquire the skill that will allow you play music that people actually want to hear. Also, people understand that to learn to play the guitar, you must actually play the guitar. You don't learn to play the guitar by listening to guitar music; I've spend thousands of hours listening to people play the guitar, yet I could pick up an instrument and not know the first thing about playing it.

Writing is, in many respects, like learning to play the guitar. The first time you write, it's not going to look like the work that you'd see in a novel that you picked up off the bookshelf. (And note that the text you see in published novels is often the result of many rounds of revision! You don't get to see pro authors' first drafts.) If you sit down and write with the mindset, "In 2 hours, I'll have finished a great story that I can show to other people," that might not be true. You might not fulfill that expectation. But you can fulfill the expectation, "I'm going to spend 2 hours practicing, and at the end of 2 hours, I'll have incrementally improved some of my skills as a writer."

During my early days as a writer, I had a lot of sessions where I wrote a story, decided that it was crap, and never showed it to anyone. Eventually, the hard drives that contained those old stories crashed or were discarded, and now, those stories are lost forever. Did I "waste my time" writing those bad-to-mediocre stories that were never shared? No, that was time well-spent. During that time, I was improving my skill as a writer. Writing a story that never gets seen by anyone isn't a "waste" because nobody saw it, anymore than it would be a "waste" for me to practice throwing darts at a dart board in the privacy of my home. Practicing darts (sometimes missing the dart board entirely) is how I get better at darts. Practicing writing is how I get better at writing.

Going back to the original question posed here, it feels like the thought process is, "I'd like to write a story. Okay, I could spend the next 2 hours writing. But...my story will probably turn out poorly, because I'm not skilled enough as a writer to tell that story well. So instead of trying to write a good story, which is an impossible task, I'm just going to browse imgur and reddit."

Here's the analogy:

"I'd like to run a 4-minute mile. Okay, I could put on my running shoes and go for a run. But...I won't be able to run a 4-minute mile. At best, I'll probably finish the mile in 8 minutes, which is nowhere close to my goal. So instead of trying to run a 4-minute mile tonight, which would be impossible for me, I'm just going to sit at home and browse reddit and imgur."

Obviously, that's ludicrous. I can't go directly to running a 4-minute mile. There's a long road of incremental improvement that I have to travel down before I can reach that point. Realistically, today, I should be happy if I can just beat my personal best time, even if it's a time that would be unimpressive by most people's standards. Because while running a 7-minute mile is something that some pro athletes would scoff at, for me, it would be a real improvement.

I think that this (wrong) mindset comes from incorrectly identifying what your goals are. Think about the running example. I state my goal as:

"I want to run a 4-minute mile."

But really, I don't just want to run a 4-minute mile. If a wizard cast a magic haste spell on me that allowed me to run a 4-minute mile once, but then after that my speed returned to normal, I wouldn't think to myself, "Well, I already achieved my goal of running a 4-minute mile!" No, my goal is really this:

"I want to become a fast runner, someone who is capable of running a 4-minute mile."

See the difference?

If my goal is to run a 4-minute mile, I can't achieve that tonight, or even in the next week. But if my goal is simply, "I want to be a faster runner today than I was yesterday," that puts me into a self-improvement mindset where every day I can work toward my goal of being a fast runner, and perhaps one day even a runner fast enough to run a 4-minute mile.

Likewise, your goal isn't to write a a good story. I mean, you'd like to do that, much in the same way that I'd like to run a 4-minute mile. But really, your goal is to become a good writer. You want to become a writer who is capable of writing good stories. So while you might not be able to write an awesome 10/10 story tonight, you can at least focus on the goal of being a better writer today than you were yesterday. And if you do that repeatedly, over a long enough time scale, your skill as a writer will consistently improve and you will eventually reach a point where you can say, "Hey, I'm a good writer!"

It might help you to realize that this is actually the way that publishers look at it, too. Look at recent books by big authors like Stephen King and Brandon Sanderson, and notice that if you look at the font on the cover, the name "STEPHEN KING" or "BRANDON SANDERSON" is bigger than the title of the novel. Publishers want a good manuscript, but more than a good manuscript, they want a good author; they want someone who can repeatedly and consistently continue to produce good manuscripts. The AUTHOR is the product. YOU are the product. The goal of writing is to improve YOU, improve YOUR skillset. The story you're writing is just a means to an end; it's the practice that you're using to change from a mediocre writer into a good one. So write that story. Maybe it comes out as a mediocre 4/10 story, but what matters today is being better than you were before, staying on the road to self improvement through repeated and deliberate practice.

All I can suggest is picking something to start, committing to a schedule, and then not letting yourself skip no matter how bad what you've written. If you're sufficiently embarrased use a pen name/alternant handle, but don't let quality deter you.
I think this gets at the productive self-improvement mindset. Going back to the running analogy, suppose I run two laps (half a mile), and check my time at see that I've been running for 5 minutes. If I ran half a mile in 5 minutes, that means I'm on pace for a 10 minute mile. Whoa, that's slow! You know, that's so slow that I should probably just give up now and not even bother to finish the mile.

Of course, that mindset is stupid. I should finish the mile. I could say, "But the first half of that mile was so terrible! Even if I pick up the pace in the second half, there's no way that I could possibly beat my personal best!" But really, the reason that I'm out there on the track is not the number on my wristwatch. I'm there to practice. I'm here to train.

Oh, and I'm also there because it feels good. It's an enjoyable experience. And the most enjoyable days tend to be the ones where I improve the most. Acquiring a skill, getting good at something, improving incrementally, that's fun. I think it's why most of us love video games (like competitive Pokemon, perhaps), because a lot of good games are about the learning experience, making the player feel like they're getting better at something. Well, writing is a great skill to acquire, it actually allows you to create something to share with the world, and the skill cap is huge.

Even if you have no intention of writing professionally, even if you're just a fanfic writer who wants to share stories with friends, I still think treating writing with the same self-improvement mindset is a good idea, because becoming a better writer is fun. It can be difficult (much in the same way that some video game levels are hard and challenging), but it's also an incredibly rewarding experience that gives that sense of accomplishment that I think all of us crave so much.

The more I write, the easier it is to write. Partly, this is because of the skills I've acquired, but a large part of it comes from the fact that as I've spent more time writing, it's gotten more enjoyable. Summoning the motivation to sit down and write a story isn't something that I really struggle with. In fact, I look forward to it. I spent large portions of my day eagerly anticipating the moment when I get to sit in front of the computer and start typing, sometimes giddy with anticipation. The more you do this, the more you improve, and the more you improve, the more fun it becomes.
 
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Ampharos

tag walls, punch fascists
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
the above analogy is really REALLY good, thanks for that

on another note, i'm writing two feature films this semester (cowriting one, solo on the other) so if nothing else it'll be an interesting few months
 

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