Inside there be writers and dragons

[Wingly]

The writers gathered around the campfire, they exchanged nervous glances. Then they started telling stories.

"This one's about a writer," said one of the writers, "and he, or she, don't know what the hell to talk about!"

And the rest listened.

Now that I've got the awkward introductory piece of art out of the way, it's time to focus on what this is really about. And that is, of course, writing. We all write, not always fiction, but we all have a basic grasp of one of more languages, and we form that grasp into words, and sentences and paragraphs, and beyond.

In here we can talk about our writing, gather inspiration fro one another, and if all goes well, we'll all be published and rolling in money in the near future. If you've made up people and the lives of these people, filled with danger and lust and massive amounts of anal sex--because it isn't embarrasing at all--this is the place to talk about it.

Please do refrain from posting complete first draft novels, that is done in private with mutual concent (for anal sex to be had, of course). Which lessens risk of original works stolen and published and someone else bathing in your huge pile of cash.

Exercepts are okay, though. If you've got a particularily stilted piece of dialogue and would like a bit of advice you may ask here. We're all adults--or so our fake ID's says--so let's behave like it.

If you're in here to mock writing get the hell out. We don't mock. We are allowed to tell one another that we don't like it all that much, but please try to be productive with your advice. For example:

"This is absolute rubbish," one writer told the other.

"Is it really?" asked the other.

"Yeah," said the first and left.

A third writer suddenly appeared and told the critic to tell the first writer what was wrong with the piece. And so the critical writer did.

If we can all skip past the first bit, and do what the third writer wants writers to do, that'd be perfectly fine.

Let us begin discussing our terrible plots, our non-existing sub-plot, our cardboard characters, and dialogue so bad it wouldn't even be believeable coming from a robot.

*

I've written a bit the last few months, one tiny story (which has a finished first draft, and awaits editing), a bigger story (currently sitting at 20k words, waiting for more), and now I'm doing the NaNoWriMo-challenge with a third story.

The Nano-experience (including the anal sex) is rather lovely. It's taught me dicipline so far, and is going swimmingly. I even started a day behind, and now I'm a day ahead. My goal is to write the 1667 words per day needed to reach 50k, no matter how far ahead of time I am.

The story is a "Oh boy, here's some religious nuts killing babies"-story, set in a fantasy setting. CSI meets D&D, sort of. I've even taken the magical machines finding clues and fingerprints and murderers and replaced them with actual magic (a system so cliché it makes people vomit (thank god for rewrites)). It's rather exciting to write, and last night I finished up with a scene so cool and fast-paced my heart was doing a lot of hard, quick beating.

I'm sorry about there being no exercepts or much of anything, but I haven't had the time to stop and read some and perhaps find something that would give a decent impression of the tone and characters and story and such. Too many words that needs writing.

[Sioux]

I have had a number of story ideas sitting in my computer for years I have always wanted to expand on into at least a short story.

Though, these couple are more or less ideas for fan fiction-ish stuff I always wanted to try.

1.) My first idea was something I actually broached with a short story years ago on this site before the art sections were blended together into this one section of the forums back when I wrote those horribly descriptive stories with Miko.

It was a small children-esque story based around the idea of a Moogle, I forget the name of, that loses it's pom pom on it's head. The little guy doesn't think it is a big deal and yet the poor little moogle is ostracized by his fellow moogles and thrown out of his village essentially for not having his pom pom.

He then ends up in his sad wanderings from there running into a number of other misfit Final Fantasy monsters. A bomb that can't explode, a Cactuar with no needles, a Tonberry afraid of it's own knife, a female moogle that cannot fly(love interest, maybe?), an Iron Giant that is tiny, and Malboro that doesn't have bad breath.

The idea in the end is rather cookie cutter. In their long journey together as they grow together each portion of the group fings themselves gaining that attribute they were missing and being better for it. Of course, each one eventually finding their place and leaving the group.

I just didn't know how to write it back then but that was before I had a class on creative writing in Art School so I think I have a better understanding of traditional structure and enough on how to break it to make something interesting.

2.) Gilgamesh, the fiercest fighter in the known multiverse of Final Fantasy, finds himself on Earth in the United States in the mid-90s. Originally trying to find a great weapon with his companion Enkidu, he finds himself being tested by a malevolent powerful alien Djinn on a world so war torn that the entire planet has forgotten the reasons the wars were started in the first place. The Djinn tells him after initial combat the only way Gilgamesh will receive the Djinn's great weapon is if he can pass his test. Gilgamesh, of course, accepts such a request so intent he is on attaining the Djinn's weapon.

So, the Djinn using it's fantastic powers flings Gilgamesh into the morass of constant realities and he finds himself here in the United States somewhere between the years 1994~1996. He is the answer to a poor little orphan girl's prayer to save her from her horrible life at the hands of an abusive foster parent that owes so much money to a mob loan shark he is just about to barter the life of his foster daughter to the pedophilic loan shark for his safety.

Gilgamesh appears in our world with little more than the clothes on his back, with only two arms("absurd" as far as he is concerned) and his constant comapnion Enkidu is now nothing more than a fluffy Chow pup yipping in the wind. Also, for the first time he is mortal so he can't just run in weapons ablazing.

That is about where I got but I envisioned a story that explores the real man that is Gilgamesh as he is confronted with himself finally rather than him being just a wild violent blow hard with 8 arms that demands weapons that travels with a Orientalized Chow(FF XII Enkidu). However, the world it is set in is a little skewed more so with a Stephen King/Heavy Metal magazine lens over everything where the world is a surreal dark place where the dark extremes are stomach turning and the light spots in life are hardly better. The world is made of ruby glass and death and Gilgamesh is going to help break it saving this little girl.