Well, yes.
It doesn't have to be a technical feature though.
Why would you sign up for more than one to begin with?
If it's got a good new feature, audience, promise of service, or something to distinguish it from shouting into the void.
What's a good reason to sign up for yet another indie writing platform? My time is limited, and there are plenty of alternatives.
Sporadic writing exercise #4 - Imagery?
I'm not dead.
Random Prompt: red. RED. REEEEEEEED
Here is your task:
#Write a description without describing how something looks.
Some tips:
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Lean into stereotypes, assumed knowledge, and relatable interactions.
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Other senses (Sound, smell, touch, etc) are your friends.
You don’t have to post your piece, but if you do, I’m happy to provide some basic feedback. I encourage others to do the same, so we can all learn from each other.
Bonus: If there’s a particular thing you want to work on, let me know in the comments, & I’ll see if I can tailor future tasks to accommodate our needs.
Ok, took a while, but I finally got a chance to read this fully.
My main critique is that this piece feels like a series events rather than a whole - the unsatisfying let down could've hit harder if there was more build up - e.g a notification when you wake up that you need to buy something, etc.
My other critique is pacing, which is still decent, but slightly...off. I'm not sure if that was what you're going for, but with a quick re-write, I reckon you could really push the piece up a tier.
Overall, you've just described most of my mornings ;P
PCs aren't phones -They have different expectations and histories.
Would you ever consider buying individual parts, and building your own gaming phone?
The end result is still the same: Less consumer power,.
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: This is a chicken or egg question. I do quite a bit of planning, but don't always follow the plan. Sometimes I feel like the plot or characters are moving in a specific direction, so I'll pause, brainstorm a few arcs to see where it may lead, then use that to guide future writing.
I don't like forcing things, because that's usually a recipe for bad writing. But if I run out of time, then there's not much choice.
Hope this helps.
Just how was 'Vector graphics' only added in this month? Surely its been more than half a century since the term came up?
Impronoucabl's Unfurled Gallifreyan Font
Discord is the easiest way to communicate over voice, video, and text. Chat, hang out, and stay close with your friends and communities.
Released on a Creative commons v4 non-commercial license by me.
Notes
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Based heavily on Sherman's Circular, with minor modifications.
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Use capital letters to to stop vowel attachment
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Some punctuation marks are original, but most follow Sherman's
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Numbers are new, mostly because Sherman's style is very impractical for typing maths out. To get a value, just add (number of lines) with (3 x number of dots).
Hmmm.... I'll include more prompts next time then! :D
+1 for using random prompt!
I can feel the frustration, anger and general kidsarefuckingstupid vibe from beyond the screen. However, to make it even more unsatisfying, you could show a more conscious decision for the kid to be dumb; Let her reach towards towards the frying pan....but to grab some jam to put on top (who even puts jam on grilled cheese?). But overall, you've definitely captured the grinding-teeth moments of raising a child (I hope I never see this IRL).
Sporadic writing exercise #3 - Building tension
Taking a bit of a breather, here's the next exercise!
Random Prompt: Frying pan
Here is your task:
#Write a piece as to be unsatisfying as possible.
Some tips:
-
The goal of this is to practice build tension, even if there's no way to satisfying release it.
-
Focus more on the how/now than the payoff later.
You don’t have to post your piece, but if you do, I’m happy to provide some basic feedback. I encourage others to do the same, so we can all learn from each other.
Bonus: If there’s a particular thing you want to work on, let me know in the comments, & I’ll see if I can tailor future tasks to accommodate our needs.
I know very little about electronics. If Impedance is analogous to resistance from AC to DC, how does that equate in terms of the common water-electricity analogy?
Yes. So if you were to attach a line from "M" to "N", it would count as 1 line for both of them.
Fortnightly writing exercise #2
Continueing on in the spirit of self improvement, here's the next self help exercise!
Random Prompt: Surfing dinosaur
Here is your task:
#Write a three (or more) person conversation without any dialogue tags.
Some tips:
- If giving each speaker a distinct/unique voice is too hard, try giving them unique tone, or positions instead.
- Alternatively, start with dialogue tags, then remove them in the edit.
You don't have to post your piece, but if you do, I'm happy to provide some basic feedback. I encourage others to do the same, so we can all learn from each other.
Bonus: If there's a particular thing you want to work on, let me know in the comments, & I'll see if I can tailor future tasks to accommodate our needs.
You have two weeks until the next task. (If you're not done by then, don't worry, I'll keep checking old threads.)
Crash!
Rows upon rows of beakers dominoed onto the bathroom floor, cascading into malodor. Shoving tissues up his nostrils, Tom stretched up for the window, faffing around by touch until he found a groove. Heaving twice, it opened with a swoosh, as incoming air puffed aside the cloud of acetone and acid.
Tom took a breath, then gasped as his throat stung. Clenching a fist around a mop, tears of anger filled his eyes as he swabbed the floor.
His face writhing in agony, a couple of seconds passed; then a dozen, then a minute. Bit by bit, the mop disintergrated with each swipe; flakes of cloth dissolving and bubbling away into fumes.
2020 B. Sanderson Lectures
A great resource from one of the most successful authors, I would highly recommend anyone writing fiction to watch. It's a long listen, and some parts are focused on sci/fantasy, but it's one of the most useful writing tips on the internet regardless. There's even some publishing tips too.
Fortnightly writing exercise #1
In the spirit of self improvement, let's kick off a new community with a writing exercise!
Random Prompt: Backyard Scientist
Here is your task:
#Write a description (or scene) without any adjectives, or adverbs.
Some tips:
- Use stronger verbs
- Use specific names
You don't have to post your piece, but if you do, I'm happy to provide some basic feedback. I encourage others to do the same, so we can all learn from each other.
Bonus: If there's a particular thing you want to work on, let me know in the comments, & I'll see if I can tailor future tasks to accommodate our needs.
You have two weeks until the next task. (If you're not done by then, don't worry, I'll keep checking old threads.)
Wearing a pointy hat and accompanying gothic garb, Alice retail grinned at Bob, a middle-aged man wearing an unbranded T-Shirt. He held out a bottle of minion-yellow liquid, while Alice stirred a bubbling pot.
"They're the same thing." Replied Bob.
"No they're not!" exasperated Alice, "How could you even say such a thing? This won't do, look at it. Look."
She pointed at Bob's bottle, by the caravan door.
"It's got the colour of bat piss! I asked for liquid gold, and this is not it."
"You asked for aqua regia, and it was not easy sneaking concentrated acid out of a lab."
"Yes, but of what use is a component without any spirit? I can't add this to my potions and still claim it'll embiggen their 'swords', it'll be a sham!"
"Excuse me?" Asked Bob. "Enlarge their what now? Look, I don't care what you do after you buy it, but you need to pay me."
Alice huffed, but opened her purse to give Bob a single dollar coin. Continuing with her work, she took a sip from the ladle ignoring Bob's growing stare.
"Did you just drink soap? I just watched you pour five bottles of complimentary hotel bodywash into that pot-"
"Cauldron."
"Cauldron. Whatever. Don't you know most bath bombs are toxic? Especially when concentrated with heat."
"Well yes, but it's a taste test."
"Chemistry is not cooking!"
"This isn't chemistry. This is alchemy. And you obviously don't know anything about it."
She poured two drops of the aqua regia into the cauldron.
"Hey! You still haven't paid for that."
"I gave you precisely how much it was worth."
"If you're not going to pay, then I'll be taking that bottle back."
"I've already used two drops, I'll have to use the rest, or else the potion will seize."
She added various powders and herbs in quick succession, timing each addition to the second. The bubbles frothed black against the milky pink liquid.
"That's fine, but I'll need another $149. We agreed on Gumtree."
Alice frowned as she looked into her purse again, handing Bob a hundred dollar note.
"Is there any other way I can pay? Perhaps you're interested in some of my wares?"
Bob collapsed his palms onto his face.
"So you don't even have the money. Why would I buy anything from your store in the first place?"
"Well, I've still got some leftover enlargement potion."
"So, poison? I'd rather not get put on a list."
"I do have video evidence that it works you know."
"How even….?"
"One bottle, & we'll call the debt settled."
Bob paused.
"So about that video…"
I remember seeing this!
As a bit of feedback, the content seems a bit spammy, but I like the weekly challenge!
Analysing bad writing
Welcome to the first (unofficial) Bad Writing Prompt day of the Beehaw Writing instance! I’ve been reading a bit on the instance, and I agree with the consensus that we’re going to need something weekly to bring and keep a community together. So I’m doing my part! Wait, what do you mean by bad writi...
So a while back, on a bus ride to/from home, I wrote down a terrible piece of writing (linked)
Let's dive into why it was so bad.
- It wastes the reader's time.
Multiple times in the piece, the same information is conveyed with no additional nuance, context, or subtext.
Repetition to emphasise a point is one thing, but doing it for no benefit is another.
- It assumes the reader is dumb.
There's one especially guilty quote from the piece.
> Bob had seen faces before.
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Because humans are such good pattern-finding machines (as compared with actual computing machines), many explicit descriptions can be inferred from astoundingly little text.
Tom Scott has a great video on "the hidden rules of conversation", and one of the ponts he makes is the 'Maxim of Quantity' - Give as much information as required, and nothing more.
"Alice" & "Bob" are both common english names, and as such, we expect them to be normal english speaking humans, conversing on Earth, without any prompting. Any text that affirms that convention is unneccessary.
I would call this technique of bad writing 'exposing the subtext', but don't think it is universally bad. It could be useful in more complicated, longer works, if the reader is not expected to keep track of multiple (possibly changing & conflicting) POVs.
- It tells us one thing, but shows the opposite.
>She thought about it for an moment, and then shouted at Bob. Angrily. Very angrily. She said “Because my feelings are telling me to say this.”
Adverbs in general are bad because they tell instead of show, and 'very' is possibly the least desciptive adverb in the English language.
'Angrily' is the telling word here, but the pause before the actual shouting is showing us that Alice is not - anger is not an emotion that causes you to think further before acting.
Furthermore, her dialogue is not written in an angry tone. Good dialogue should convey the tone by itself, but in this case the anger only comes from "shouted" - another telling word. The tone itself is neutral - and therefore calm.
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Feel free to discuss &/or tear it to pieces.
Secret Beehaw writing community?
As far as I know, the beehaw's instance has the most active writing community, but lemmy.world is currently defederated with it.
As I understand, that means anything I post will only be a 'shadow' on the actual instance - only visible from behind the block.
Does anyone else still think its worth posting here, where if we ever refederate, our posts will be 'lost' into the future? Or does anyone else think it'll add a little more illuminati spice?
Then the sub would be considered unmoderated, and reddit would have grounds to remove/replace the mods
If your lemmy server itself acted as a host for all the keys, I think it could work. As long as you're not worried about the NSA/Well-eqipped-company slipping in to steal your online persona.
I.e you never mention anything personal about yourself, etc.
Discord link!
Check out the r/gallifreyan community on Discord - hang out with 155 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.
I'll update the sidebar later.
"It is the time!" Spoke Bob.
"Indeed." Answered Alice.
"I must admit," admitted Bob, "That I'd never thought it would come to this."
"I didn't think it would come to this either." Alice repeated.
"I have something to confess". Confessed Bob.
"Oh! Why, in fact I wanted to confess something too!" Responded Alice.
"Well out with it." Spat Bob, "I'm not waiting for the figurative and/or literal end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it to end before you say it."
Alice made a face. Bob had seen faces before. He had seen Alice's face before. But not this face. This face was one he had not seen before.
"I refuse." Shouted Alice angrily. She made another face that was different to the face she just made, that Bob also had not seen before. She was going to continue, but Bob interrupted her with a question that moved to the top of his thoughts.
"Why?" Bob asked, as calmly as he could - which was very calm, going off what Dumbledore asked Harry Potter, in the movie, 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'. He though the book should have followed the source much more closely though.
"Why?" Alice repeatedly repeated.
Feelings were things women had. Alice was a woman. Therefore she had feelings. Her feelings told her to shout at Bob. She thought about it for an moment, and then shouted at Bob. Angrily. Very angrily. She said "Because my feelings are telling me to say this."
They made up, and the world-as-they-knew-it did not end, it continued.
Dice display
An old GIF I made for a project a few months ago. If anyone knows how to cast dice, let me know!