Broken Mind

Getting Ready For NaNoWriMo

Anyone else scrambling for National Novel Writing Month? 

I totally messed up last year because I had no plot and just started writing out of nowhere. The shit pretty much sucked because by day 5 I realized I had no idea where I was going with it. Bleh. 

This year, I’m hoping to develop a thorough plot so I can focus on writing what I want to write. I used the Snowflake Method before and it served me well..

I’m not sure if I want to write an actual novel though. I’ve started a short story collection in PREPARATION for my novel. It’s helping me define the world the book is set in better.

How are you preparing for NaNoWriMo?

What Civilization V taught me about world building

I’ve taken into world building and recently purchased Civilization V which tries to mimic the progress of empire expansion from thousands and thousands of years ago. The game taught me a lot about how people think and how rulers think when guiding their people and bettering their world.

Here are a few important things:

You try to advance as fast as possible

Time is of the essence and advancing your world is essential. You can’t fall back and make the wrong moves. That may cost you 9-10 moves easy and then you’re pretty screwed.

You have to decide whether to expand, conquer, or build up your current empire

That’s a huge one. Every time your city asks you what you want to produce, you have to decide one of those. You can decide to expand (settlers + guard), conquer (guard + guard), or build your empire (buildings + workers). 

If you think about it, we face this every day in our current world. Do we decide to enhance our lives? Build our defences? Expand our frontiers? It’s a hard decision but these decision will shape your world. Here are the extremes of what will happen:

* vast rural empire (akin to russia (expansion))
*  strong central empire with conquered nations it controls (akin to Britain)
* strong and powerful central empire (japan)

When someone tries to enter a territory you had your eye out on, you’re willing to kill them

Really. I had a few islands, expanding over it slowly. Had a guy, out of nowhere, throw his settlers there. Initial reaction? My damn island. So I moved all of my army people to surround the settlers.

Even if it doesn’t seem like a competition it is.

Ideabird 8/3/12 - My story

theideabird:

The vomeronasal organ (VNO) is a secondary chemical reception organ (like smell) in many mammals, and possibly in humans. Unlike smell, it only registers chemical messages, pheremones, from your own species. There is much debate over whether adults still have them, or if they’re reabsorbed into the body as we age. In any case, the genes appear to be there, even if not expressed. The gene gets expressed, and we all suddenly have six senses. We learn not just to receive these pheremonic messages, but that we can communicate with them, creating something as beautiful and primal as music, but in a new sense.

The ability to sense someone else’s feelings or chemical became a problem quickly. It was a known fact that people lie. Our lives are based on lies. We lie to ourselves, we lie to others, others lie to us and we are okay with it. We endorse it, we enjoy it because it makes our lives simpler. When we speak to the bank teller and they tell us “We can’t do anything about this, sorry”, we believe them and reach some form of acceptance upon leaving. When we ask our supervisor at work about a certain activity and they explain it to us, we trust them to know what they are talking about. When we ask our friends for advice, we trust they tell us the truth.

The VNO changed all that, or at least started to. A push of extremist neo-moralist surged with the changes. They called the sensing organ an inhuman thing, an intrusion on privacy and freedom. People were meant to be secretive, to have a peace of mind when talking to someone that they could hide behind a wall of smiles and speeches. We had our excuses but no more.

Jack was a Neo-Moralist and he joined the movement proudly. He was one of the first adults to develop the VNO. He could not stand having to experience and feel everyone’s feelings, everyone’s desires, and hidden perceptions. He found it repulsive. He found it repulsive to the point where he sought to have the organ removed. Alas, it was joined too closely with the brain to be removed safely.

He was approached by a police officer once, he mused, the stink of a bad day on him. The officer asked him about his driving skills and the speed he was going but he knew all too well the cop did not care for any of it. He wanted to finish the bad day, get a ticket into his quota, and the cop did not particularly like the way Jack looked either.

There was a whiff of a broken heart. Sounds like his girlfriend cheated on him with a guy that looked like me, great. Already disappointed and angry, Jack gave the cop a bad time. And this is why I’m a Neo-Moralist. This is not worth it.

When he returned home, he got on the internet and talked to his friends on a forum, discussing his negative experience. How nice it is, he thought, not to have to feel what they feel, not to have to know if they’re lying or not, not to have to watch one’s feelings and chemical outputs.

He slumped down and relaxed, sighing. The Neo-Moralists were sure to win this one. No one should have to be subjected to this. The propagandists call it beauty, but it’s horror. They call it a path to empathy, Jack calls it a path to perpetual hate.

In response to brokenmindthoughts

theideabird:

Since the TheIdeaBird’s Tumblr mirror was mentioned on io9.com (http://io9.com/the-idea-bird/) that site has gained a lot of followers. More so, I think, than my home site, http://TheIdeaBird.net. Consequently some of the founding ideas aren’t on the Tumblr front page. I was originally inspired to come up with a story idea blog from the book The Mystery of Harris Burdick, by Chris Van Allsburg: A wonderful kids book consisting of a single piece of artwork and a couple of lines of text on each page. Teachers have been using this lovely book for ages to get kids thinking and writing.

My goal for this site, part exercise, part exorcise, is to pass out free story ideas. Just enough for you to lift your nose to the sky and sniff possibility in the wind. I try very hard not to come up with a conclusion or definite characters. I’m not always successful, and often have my own ending in there. On days when that happens, I consider that a fault on my part. I want you to take it out for a flight and see where you end up.

I’m honored that you tried that with one of my pieces.

Taking apart the idea you worked with:

Explorers come across savages living in the remains of an automated civilization. They determine that the people were all enslaved by their leaders using nanobots. Over time, due to cosmic rays, etc., the nanobots instructions, mutated and they couldn’t reproduce properly. The explorers find the original nanobot programming, and there is great temptation to rebuild a slave society.

I’d read a couple of stories about nanobots gone wrong. One in particular was a nice little slice of mystery story where humans are all acting strangely and in the end we find out nanobots accidently enslaved everyone. Fun. Of more interest to me was the scientific idea of any self-replicating unit becoming subject to error and mutation, whether the unit was biological or technological. But a self-replicating tech unit might not have the guide rails of natural competition that biology provides in spades, red in tooth and claw as they say.

That’s an idea—how do I make it a possible story? Human nature. You come across a savage society, you find the keys to ruling them. Are you a savage who enslaves them, or a liberator who nurtures them? A great many explorers found guns gave them great power over lower-tech societies, and things didn’t go well. Who are you, given that power? That’s the conflict. As god of your story, with ulitmate power over your slave-characters how do you have it come out.

So, a variant on a scientific idea, a possible conflict. The only thing missing is the elegant presentation of the idea. I can claim that I am trying to use the barest economy of well-chosen words, painting a picture in the least brush strokes. I can speak of Basho and the parallels of haiku to create something timeless in a miniature space. But hey, I’m trying to find something new every three days. Some days are better than others. The Ideabirds with word choices that delight me fall with a thud, and the clunkiest (to me) birds lift up a chorus of delight. >shrug< I dunno.

I love doing this, I really do. It gives me an excuse to dive into fascinating technical stories and follow the paths of wonder. I’m a happier man. But what would really make me happy is if there was a way I could monetize this. Like Mark Twain & William Shakespeare and all the rest of us chicken-scratchers I gots kids to raise and bills to pay. And sadly, there seems to be an inverse proportion to how much fun something is and how well it’s compensated. Don’t mean to sound whiny, just pragmatic.

I will try to post one of my shorts soon. I want to read it, though. Make it available as an MP3 to enjoy when you want.

Thanks for your interest, and thanks everyone for reading!

Tony Jonick, Oakland CA

So, I definitely wasn’t aware of the history of the project so that’s great to hear! I like the idea of writing that ubiquitous setting and painting something over it! That’s very inspiring especially for a children’s book :) It reminds me of Robot Dreams by Isaac Asimov. No, not the book but actually the cover and just the title itself. I remember having that book for years before I started reading it (and realized it was just I, Robot updated ;) ). It made me think and just the image and the title inspired me to write stories of my own. What DID robots dream about? Was it love? Was it upgrades? Was it escaping their slavery? idk. But I get the point now.

My response was actually triggered by a redditor that mentioned how he has a million stories that he cannot all write out because when he starts writing one, he has an idea for 10 more and when he starts one of those, he has an idea for 10 others and so on. So a response was that it wasn’t a story that he had just an idea, and an idea takes a lot of work to be converted into a full story, a story that can take on a full shape, that can become a novel. It’s not just “oh, this stuff happens”. It’s a continuous line of questions like “Then what?”, and “why?”, “how did that become relevant?” and so on.

:)

Anyways, I wouldn’t mind transforming those ideas on TheIdeaBird into short stories (flash fiction) just for exercise. I feel like it helps me be creative. I have a million things to do (from web development projects, to hobby stuff, to taking care of my family, to work, and to trying to figure how not to stress) but I can commit to something like a story a week haha. 

It doesn’t really pay bills unless you can self-publish it ;) if it gets on io9 after that, you can make quite a good chunk of money.  ;)

And reading your own stories, that’s pretty cool. I’ve always wanted to read my poetry since I feel like only I know where to put the stress, where to make pauses and so on.

:) Anyways, good night!

So last night, I was tired as hell writing that article and omitted several key points that I actually wanted to mention. And some key examples that I wanted to point out. 

First, I wanted to mention that the ideas that TheIdeaBird puts forth aren’t stories, they’re just settings. They’re hypothetical situations without a real plot, without characters. It’s basically just a cool setting.

Second, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Third, what I think would be cooler is writing a one-page flash fiction story with that “idea” and throw a plot in it, throw some characters in it, and breathe some momentary life.

Fourth, submit that shit to 365tomorrows ;)

Fifth, I think I’ll do that.

So, here’s what’s on my mind. The specific idea that I saw that intrigued me was this:

Explorers come across savages living in the remains of an automated civilization. They determine that the people were all enslaved by their leaders using nanobots. Over time, due to cosmic rays, etc., the nanobots instructions, mutated and they couldn’t reproduce properly. The explorers find the original nanobot programming, and there is great temptation to rebuild a slave society.

That’s a great idea. But where’s the plot? You could discuss the temptation but from whose point of view? Who are the people involved? The idea could easily be expanded and have more meaning with this:

The group of explorers is torn into several sides. Some wishing to recreate the former glorious civilization and learn from them. The split group headed by Jones wanted nothing to do with this evil creation. They loudly oppose the others and become violent in their endeavor to keep Erickson and his split group from activating the nanobots despite the protests, and despite the fact that their country’s response team is on their way. Jones’s group completely separates itself, falls into the city and a young man by the name of Erick finds that his ideology and beliefs are being skewed. As the days of treachery and fights go on between the explorers (something very unusual), Erick recognizes that the nanobots have entered their bloodstream and are converting the group into said mindless slaves. Erick fights it, fighting his friends and co-workers in the process. He struggles to get to the ancient city’s spire to deactivate the process.

By the time the response team gets there. There are thousands of former savages rebuilding and creating infrastructure in the city. The team is nowhere to be found. Over the years, a myth arose in the savage population about a group of aliens that worked alongside them instead of above them. A group that restored their race back to its former glory

Maybe I got a bit carried away there but instead of having one paragraph, you have an entire story including some characters, a basic story, the climax, and the aftermath. It’s more of an outline here, maybe a pitch instead of a setting. I realize the setting has A LOT of potential but it’s really not much without a story that inherently requires the setting. 

I’d love to see this writer expand that one paragraph into three, or four, with a real story behind it ;)

Just checked out the “Ideabird” (http://theideabird.tumblr.com/) and found something intriguing. I’ve been scouring reddit for writer’s help and something that a certain redditor stuck with me. You can have an idea for an environment or a cool sci-fi but without an exciting plot, it’s just a backdrop without a foreground scene. 

It’s hard to come up with a plot that’s not overused and keep it together with your vision for the story. Sometimes I think to myself, “Wouldn’t it be cool to have a story set two thousand years ago from the point of view of a person that lived in Jesus’s town?”

Well, yeah, maybe. Sounds like a cool idea. buttt…what would you write in it? What would be the meat of the book? Certainly not just “Oh, and I saw this guy preaching. He had some cool ideas”. You have to have a PLOT. In this case, perhaps an inner struggle of a strictly jewish man that grew up in poverty who becomes an avid follower. Okay, good start. What else? Perhaps this man has his new beliefs challenged and he has to decide whether he keeps to his new beliefs and becomes an outsider with his friends and family or if he goes for what he believes in?

See, and now we’re getting somewhere but all of that is not enough. It sounds a tad generic but it doesn’t have to be.

Sci-fi books, I feel, have become GENERIC. They’re carriers for the scenes, for the cool tech, for a world an author creates. But what’s forgotten is that the plot itself decides if a book is interesting, if it has substance and can be classified more than just a poorly written piece of fiction. I’m not telling people to appeal to the masses but they need to connect the plot to the setting! If you have a sci-fi, the “sci” should be an inherent part to the story! 

For example, could you have written star wars without the “star” part? Sure thing. You got an easy fantasy novel. Or you could throw it anywhere you want because the plot of the story is a generic “growing up, falling in love, rebelling” kind of a movie. That’s it, really. Nothing else. But what about Dune? Well, it’s based on reality, there’s not much “scifi” but the book requires enough fiction (as far as creating the world goes) in it that it might as well be. The book hinges on visions, it hinges on large “houses” debating, technological struggles, the stark differences between minimalist fremen and imperials. You COULD write this book in a different setting but, it wouldn’t really be the same. It wouldn’t have the same message. Including characters like mentats that were essential.

Best example (often cited) is 2001 Space Odyssey that requires the AI there because that’s the struggle of the story. 

Idk, just a few thoughts. 

liquidthought:

Most animals are too weary to wander within the limitations of the village and that made meat a scarcity. Naturally, those few that left the village would come back only with what was needed. 

Go read the whole thing. :) Go!

(Source: )

I love writing

I’ve been really digging deep into my novel lately :) I’ve been staying away from the fear of “messing it up” but you know what? I should mess it up. You learn from writing, the more you write, the better you get. 

I’ve been wanting to make a really abstract “out there” science fiction but I was always held back. The mind tends to fall back into its original tracks. You can’t try to think like a cat for long before you think like a human again. And you can’t think too much beyond your knowledge before you think it’s ridiculous and then it’s not.

You know the idea of “time crystals”? Phenomenons that collapse time in essence? No? I didn’t either until today and would have laughed at the stupid author that wrote about it until I read about it on a science blog. 

I always try to learn more in order to write better but I feel like my knowledge is always out-dated. 

I finally realized it’s fine, I can’t create a universe in my mind overnight. So, I’m just writing and I’ve been writing more than before :) If anyone wants to read an excerpt, character summary, or whatever else, message me ^.^

The “one liner” for my new book

Not to reveal much, but here’s the one-liner describing my next novel (dubbed the “Aether Origin Project”):

A young man seeks to resolve a ruthless intergalactic conflict by revealing the wars’ disturbing ancient origins and joining the man he once loved and now can only despise.

I’m not sure if I’m happy enough with it. I’m going through the Snowflake Method, trying to define some important parts of my novel before I start writing it. I don’t want to go through the entire thing but the first few steps will help me out for sure. I’m more of a “plotter” than a “snowflaker” but both methods share some features. 

I’m currently on the “paragraph” step of the novel. I’ll post it up soon :)

moffats-boxers:

thetatteredendsofautumn:

goddessofcheese:

vulpesinculta:

Are you still stuck for ideas for National Novel Writing Month? Or are you working on a novel at a more leisurely pace? Here are 102 resources on Character, Point of View, Dialogue, Plot, Conflict, Structure, Outlining, Setting, and World Building, plus some links to generate Ideas and Inspiration.

CHARACTER, POINT OF VIEW, DIALOGUE

10 Days of Character Building

Name Generators

Name Playground

The Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test

Priming the idea pump (A character checklist shamlessly lifted from acting)

How to Create a Character

Seven Common Character Types

Handling a Cast of Thousands – Part I: Getting to Know Your Characters

It’s Not What They Say …

Establishing the Right Point of View: How to Avoid “Stepping Out of Character”

How to Start Writing in the Third Person

Web Resources for Developing Characters

What are the Sixteen Master Archetypes?

Character: A compilation of guidance from classical and contemporary experts on creating great dramatic characters

Building Fictional Characters

Fiction Writer’s Character Chart

Character Building Workshop

Tips for Characterization

Fiction Writer’s Character Chart

Villains are People, Too, But …

Top 10 Tips for Writing Dialogue

Speaking of Dialogue

Dialogue Tips

Advantages, Disadvantages and Skills (character traits)

How to Write a Character Bible

Character Development Exercises

All Your Characters Sounds the Same — And They’re Not a Hivemind!

Medieval Names Archive

Sympathy Without Saintliness

Writing the Other: Bridging Cultural Difference for Successful Fiction

Family Echo (family tree website)

Interviewing Characters: Follow the Energy

100 Character Development Questions for Writers

Behind the Name

Lineage Chart Layout Generator

PLOT, CONFLICT, STRUCTURE, OUTLINE

How to Write a Novel: The Snowflake Method

Effectively Outlining Your Plot

Conflict and Character within Story Structure

Outlining Your Plot

Ideas, Plots & Using the Premise Sheets

How to Write a Novel

Creating Conflict and Sustaining Suspense

Plunge Right In … Into Your Story, That Is!

Fiction Writing Tips: Story Grid

Tips for Creating a Compelling Plot

Writer’s “Cheat Sheets”

The Thirty-six (plus one) Dramatic Situations

The Evil Overlord Devises a Plot: Excerpt from Stupid Plotting Tricks

Conflict Test

What is Conflict?

Monomyth

The Hero’s Journey: Summary of the Steps

Outline Your Novel in Thirty Minutes

Plotting Without Fears

Novel Outlining 101

Writing the Perfect Scene

Fight Scenes 101

Basic Plots in Literature

One-Page Plotting

The Great Swampy Middle

SETTING, WORLD BUILDING

Magical World Builder’s Guide

I Love the End of the World

World Building 101

The Art of Description: Eight Tips to Help You Bring Your Settings to Life

Creating the Perfect Setting – Part I

Creating a Believable World

An Impatient Writer’s Approach to Worldbuilding

Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions

Setting

Character and Setting Interactions

Creating Fantasy and Science Fiction Worlds

Creating Fantasy Worlds

Questions About Worldbuilding

Maps Workshop — Developing the Fictional World Through Mapping

World Builder Projects

IDEAS, INSPIRATION

Quick Story Idea Generator

Solve Your Problems Simply by Saying Them Out Loud

Busting Your Writing Rut

Writing Inspiration, or Sex on a Bicycle

Creative Acceleration: 11 Tips to Engineer a Productive Flow

The Seven Major Beginner Mistakes

Complete Your First Book with these 9 Simple Writing Habits

Free Association, Active Imagination, Twilight Imaging

Random Book Title Generator

Finishing Your Novel

Story Starters and Idea Generators

REVISION

How to Rewrite

One-Pass Manuscript Revision: From First Draft to Last in One Cycle

Editing Recipe

Cliche Finder

Revising Your Novel: Read What You’ve Written

Writing 101: So You Want to Write a Novel Part 3: Revising a Novel

TOOLS and SOFTWARE

My Writing Nook (online text editor; free)

Bubbl.us (online mind map application; free)

Freemind (mind map application; free; Windows, Mac, Linux, portable)

XMind (mind map application; free; Windows, Mac, Linux, portable)

Liquid Story Binder (novel organization and writing software; free trial, $45.95; Windows, portable)

Scrivener (novel organization and writing software; free trial, $39.95; Mac)

SuperNotecard (novel organization and writing software; free trial, $29; Windows, Mac, Linux, portable)

yWriter (novel organization and writing software; free; Windows, Linux, portable)

JDarkRoom (minimalist text editor; free; Windows, Mac, Linux, portable)

AutoRealm (map creation software; free; Windows, Linux with Wine)

screaming

hellloooo

we have a kind god

(Source: ruthlesscalculus, via quiveringhoechloins)