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#Storyteller Saturday
ashen-crest · 2 months
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Happy Storyteller Saturday!
Very curious to see your thoughts in the tags on why your process works for you! I want to refine my draft 0/draft 1 process myself.
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sparrow-orion-writes · 6 months
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Happy STS! Please summarize your WIP in the worst way you possibly could.
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kittensartswriting · 1 month
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Happy STS! I hope you’ve had a good week :) What is something about your WIP that’s either on your mind lately or that you wish more people would ask you about?
Hi! Happy STS!
I haven't been writing in several months (I've needed to focus on uni), so I have been mainly thinking about worldbuilding. For a while now I've been quite obsessed with figuring out the fashion in far too much detail. It's honestly not that important for the story, but I love dress history so it's just extremely fun for me to come up with a hundreds if not thousands of year of fashion evolution for almost a whole continent. Figuring out Ahinian fashion has been most interesting and hardest part too, because I'm trying to base it less on anything historical and more trying to come up with something different.
I can best figure visual things like fashion out by drawing it, so I started with the royal siblings, Agrippa and Manoheahpi. Here they are showing of court fashions. Black, dark blue, white and yellow are colors of the moon cult and their clan, which is the head of the moon cult. Agrippa is wearing a formal gown and a headdress of the heiress. The extreme sleeves and the ribbon skirt are part of the formal court dress. Manoheahpi is dressed in a casual outdoorsy aristocratic men's dress. He is a sage, hence the tattoos.
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I think it's very interesting to figure out gendered clothing because it reveals so much about the gender construction and gender roles of a society. Ahinians have technically five genders, voasin - a woman, deavin - a man, vašáin - a third and separate gender category, voasdár - afab or intersex person, who lives as a man (-dár is masculine suffix), and deavnei - amab or intersex person, who lives as a woman (-nei is correspondingly a feminine suffix). In their culture gender is less defined by the body and more defined by the spirit. Their society is not entirely egalitarian though (even if more egalitarian than your typical patriarchal binary society), since their society is theocratic and gender essentialist, not in biological way but spiritual way. Therefore magic is very gendered. They are matriarchal so women hold most of the political power. This is reflected in dress - upper class fashions are more feminine coded, lower class fashions more masculine coded, and religious attires are vašáin coded because they are traditionally sages. In more formal setting aristocratic men too wear long gowns, and lower class women also wear shorter gowns.
I'm still figuring out the details of vašáin dress, clothing of lower classes and ceremonial dress. But I do know that very warm layered clothing is considered finer and more upper class, since the climate is very cold and the upper classes live in large castles, which can't be warmed to very comfortable temperatures. On the other hand lower classes live in small log cottages that are filled with hot smoke that even in very low temperatures keep the cottages in near 30C temperatures, so their indoors clothing are basically one layer, which they see as underwear. So even in hot summer upper classes dress in a lot of layers for formal occasions, the layers are then just thin and made of silk, linen and/or nettle. They don't wear crowns, but they wear elaborate hair jewelry indoors (with caps when it's cold indoors too) and elaborate hats outdoors. Lower classes also wear more toned down and more practical hair jewelry, but mostly caps and hats.
Also this all applies only in the agricultural area, which is along the Vuolhú river (the area marked in the map). The societal structures are very different outside it (so most of the country) where agriculture is not possible and people are herders and hunter-gatherers and quite nomadic. Population density is quite expectedly much higher in the agricultural area, so people wise, it's most of the country.
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illarian-rambling · 13 days
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For Storyteller Saturday!
If I haven't sent you an ask already and you'd like one (or if I have sent you an ask and you'd like another one) please reblog this with an emoji of your choice. I will interpret your emoji to the best of my abilities and send you a sufficiently appropriate ask. Maybe it'll be close to what you were thinking, maybe it won't, but either way, hopefully it'll be entertaining!
Have a bitchin day <3
(Tag list @amandacanwrite @elsie-writes @riveriafalll @kosmic-kore @kaylinalexanderbooks @bard-coded @carrotsinnovember @patternwelded-quill @somethingclevermahogony @whatwewrotepodcast @goldxdarkness @the-angriest-author @mk-writes-stuff)
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Happy STS round 2! What level of medical knowledge exists in Alium?
Thanks again!
A lot of medical knowledge, due to advanced tech because, well, they have healers as a decent part of their population (the fifth most common).
Healers can sense what's wrong in someone who's sick. Even if they don't have the medical expertise, they would be able to tell where the problem was, and a general idea of what's going on, even if they don't know the exact terminology. Most healers are encouraged to study medicine due to their abilities, for better or worse.
Healers can also, of course, heal to varying degrees. For example, Level-1 healers would be able to close up wounds and prevent blood loss, but wouldn't be able to heal more cell damage, such as burns. Level-2 healers can heal burns, and Level-3 healers can prevent scarring.
The way powered-healing works is that they have significantly higher macrophages, which healers are encouraged to donate, and those can be used to create antidotes, medications, vaccines, etc. Healers also have the ability to boost mitochondrial energy production and regeneration, more ATP energy, and enhanced cell signalling to repair the damaged cells. With the proper samples, technology did develop to semi-replicate this ability in for relatively minor injuries. Does this make Level-1 healers feel obsolete? Yeah. It does, thanks for asking.
In summary, Alium has higher medical tech due to healers being common enough.
Thanks!
TSP intro
TSP tag list (ask to be +/-): @thepeculiarbird @illarian-rambling @televisionjester @finchwrites
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toribookworm22 · 3 months
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Happy STS, Tori!
Looking back, what's your writing-related highlight of this year?
Hey, Sam!
This year goes down in my lifetime achievement writing years!
I published two freaking books this year!!! ♥️♥️♥️
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aquadestinyswriting · 26 days
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Ayyyy, Aqua! :D Happy STS! So I'm making my way through Titan Modern AU, and . . . actually, take two questions on it. 8)
I have legitimately looked everywhere, and I am severely curious. :') Have you thought of a title for this one, or is its title literally just Titan Modern AU?
More importantly, tho, how much did you have to change to make the world of Fangthane's Folly fit the modern day? (And what did you end up keeping? I notice there's magic and dwarves, but how different are these bits compared to their DnD roots?)
Hope this ask finds you well! :D o/
Hi Jax, this is technically a day late, but not really because time zones are a thing :P. I am very well, thank you. I am enjoying the fact that the words seem to be flowing quite easily for the time being and taking advantage of that to write a lot for all my ongoing series and creating new ones. Thanks very much for the questions, I have a lot to talk about with this AU :D. Answers are under a cut because the second one is going to get quite long.
Question 1
I don't currently have an actual title for this one yet. I have a tendency to title WIPs towards the end of writing them and this one is no exception. I have some vague ideas, but I'm not too concerned about it just yet. Especially since there's a high possibility that this one is going to throw some major curveballs my way once I get into the thick of the plot that might well change the kind of title I want to give it.
Question 2
Ah, the dwarves are technically not a thing for this one. Everyone is more or less human, unless it's directly stated otherwise. The reason Fangthanian women can have beards at all is down to a slight genetic quirk which means they are pre-disposed to much higher testosterone levels than average. The Throffite community, in particular, is very insular and tend to inter-marry within themselves due to a history of discrimination against them.
As to how I changed the setting to fit with the modern aesthetic:
I've modelled Fangthane city a little bit after towns like Fort William, since the location of Fangthane in Allansia has a relatively similar geography to that of the Scottish Highlands. So Fangthane city is no longer built into the mountain, but is a city that was built very close to the mountain (which is now called Ben Oir). Extrapolating from there, and taking into account the maps that exist of Allansia, it was a a matter of figuring out how and why there would be outposts for the kingdom that are so far away from the capital. In that case, an old empire made a lot of sense, and taking into account the relative time period this AU is set in (roughly the 90s to early 2000s), it also made sense that said empire had been disbanded, but that communities deriving from it still exist (hence why Stonebridge and Firetop are still mainly natively Fangthanian). So, yeah, culturally speaking Fangthane is basically the UK transplanted into Allansia at this point.
I wanted some of the history of Toreguarde to remain intact because there are plot things related to that that will pop up later in the story. The city was almost destroyed, officially, by what is considered to have been a terrorist organisation that was working on behalf of another state and/or one of the ruling council of Toreguarde of the time who went just teeny bit mad with power (Greydown was an absolute ass in canon, and is in this AU too).
As the setting, rather purposefully, appears to be lacking in magic, no mentions are made of demons, portals or the breaking of reality, even by those who were present at the time. The remaining Heroes still exist, but I'm working out what their exact roles in all that were. Egrim is still a priest, so that's him covered. Alexis, upon talking to Dru about it, was probably a sniper that was a part of the military forces of Toreguarde at the time, while Selene was probably some sort of science-y nerd person brought in to help explain some of the weirder stuff that went on that was kind of acknowledged and then later given plausible and sensible scientific explanations. She just happened to be somewhat decent at this diplomacy lark when communication with the reinforcements from Fangthane started going south, hence her current role in the story. She probably worked quite closely with Ivan, who I have yet to figure out the details of, with regards to that. I also need to figure out what Fai did and what happened to him...
I am doing a lot of this worldbuilding and adjusting Fantasy canon on the fly, to be quite honest, so not a lot of it is set in stone just yet. However, I have given some thought to the Throffite community both in Fangthane and in Toreguarde and some of their history and culture, drawing a lot on what I established about Throffism in the fantasy canon and doing some major research into the irl history of such things to make sure that anything I write about it is handled as sensitively as possible. I have also written copious notes on the hows and whys of the fractious relationship between Fangthane and Toreguarde that would fit in with more modern (Western, as that is what I'm familiar with) political norms.
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winterandwords · 1 month
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Happy STS! If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
Thanks for the ask!
*drumroll*
✨WRITE WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT✨ closely followed by a reminder that it isn't necessary to pursue any form of conventional publishing to justify dedicating time and energy to writing.
That's also what I'd tell anyone else's writing self at any age or any stage in their writing journey 💜
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sam-glade · 4 months
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Does anyone want Storyteller Saturday questions?
Please interact with this post if you do!
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space-writes · 3 months
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It is once again STS and I am once again at work tonight, so in honour of that I'm throwing this to the lot of you:
Your OCs have come to my escape room. How are they getting on in there?
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mysticstarlightduck · 12 days
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Happy Storyteller Saturday!
When you finish a first draft, how does it look? Is it readable or does it have more holes than a swiss cheese? What are your next steps, and how much changes?
(If you haven't finished one yet, what do you think how it'll look when you get there?)
Happy Storyteller... Sunday? (:
(Sorry for the late answer!)
Usually, my first drafts are very messy but readable. I may skip a few scenes, or add quick notes instead - what I know the characters need to do, or what I don't know they are going to do, so that I can figure it out later. After finishing a draft I usually take the time to try and write in some of those skipped scenes, do a bit of editing to polish off the writing for the second draft, think of what went "wrong" or what I really enjoyed about certain scenes, or just like, erase whole chunks of the story that don't work anymore and think about what scenes could take their place, that sort of thing!
Then, depending on how I feel about the final version of this first draft, I may set it aside for a while and start some other WIPs (a hiatus, so to speak, to let the ideas for the next draft rest and develop, so that I can come back to it some months later with a fresh mind. For example, my WIP The Last Wrath is in that kind of hiatus rn!), or - if I'm really, really full of ideas and excited to write this next draft - I just move onto the second draft. (:
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akiwitch · 20 days
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I wanna do STS asks this week! Interact with this message if you would like one!
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a-crystallen-author · 1 month
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Hello, Writeblr! I hear it's polite to introduce oneself around these parts, so here it is: my Writeblr Intro (ta-dahhh)
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Identification: Amanda La Crystallen (she/her). You can call me Amanda-La or La Crystallen.
Generation: Hobbit
Location: West Coast in the streets, East Coast in the sheets! Currently Nor-Cal, but if I need to hydrate, I'm asking for the bubblah.
Facts that are definitely fast and hopefully also fun:
Escaped Evangelical
Recovering perfectionist
Neurospicy
Adopted
Collector of sunglasses, lip color, socks, vinyl, and spare onewheel parts I'll probably never use again.
Writing and WIP details below the fold.
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Genre(s): Spec fic, esp. fantasy; YA and/or "new adult" (is that a thing? Did "new adult" happen?); generally whimsical
Influences: Terry Pratchett, Scott Westerfeld, Charlie Jane Anders, Christopher Moore, "His Dark Materials," "Welcome to Night Vale," prob will add more to this list later
WIPs (I'm making this plural even though I only have one right now. Maybe I can trick myself into writing more??)
Necromancer Unleashed!
A subverted kids' book (think "Bunnicula" for grown-ups) about a dog who accidentally learns to raise the dead. Told through the eyes of pets around the neighborhood, "Unleashed!" is a tail—woof, I meant tale—about dogs that's secretly about people, and what happens to all of us when it's time to cross the Rainbow Bridge. Like all good stories, this one starts with a smell...
Vibe: Spooky slice-of-life. Hygge horror. Equal measures silly and poignant—or at least that's the goal!
Tags: #necromancer unleashed! #Homer's modern odyssey
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jezifster · 2 years
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Storyteller Saturday
Some questions you can use:
🏵 which OC have you had the longest, what inspired them?
💐 which OCs have died or are you planning to kill off?
🌺 rate your OCs by how attractive you personally find them and why or if you're not attracted to any, just rank them by how cool they look
🍀 which OCs would get along the best?
🌵 which OCs would NOT get along?
🌸 who's your most morally questionable OCs (not including villains)?
🥀 go off about a villain OC
🌾 what's something an OC needs to learn?
🌷 is there a lesson for the readers in your WIP?
🌻 share a favorite line of dialogue out of context
🌿 describe your narrative style, multiple POVs? Present or past tense? 1st person or 3rd? Why did you choose that for your WIP?
⚘️ pick a song that represents each WIP, what would play over the trailer
🌹 write a vague blurb about your WIP, for example, "a rude elf and a dumbass dwarf find out they're actually related and must stop a big problem"
🌼 pick an OC and put them on blast. Call out their flaws, complain about what makes them difficult to write, etc.
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ashen-crest · 2 months
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Happy Storyteller Saturday! What would Game Night™ look like for your characters?
(so sorry, answering on a Wednesday)
I feel like Rosemond Street would only try game night once.
Sherry brings Monopoly, thinking it'll be fun and cute.
Problem is, Dawn and Grim are all vocally vicious, while Ambrose is the silent mastermind in the opposite corner. Eli's getting too easily frustrated, while Banneker's complaining he doesn't like the rules and tries to change them to something more fun, like shuffling tarot cards in with the normal deck. Tom's spilled the popcorn and knocked over the pieces at least twice.
Three hours later, Banneker's bankrupt, Sherry's given up, and Eli's chasing Tom around, while Dawn, Grim, and Ambrose are in a captalist trance-like state and on the verge of a three-way blood feud that they absolutely do not recall the following morning. No one wins. Game night is never brought up again.
Thanks for the ask!
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Happy Storyteller Saturday!
When you finish a first draft, how does it look? Is it readable or does it have more holes than a swiss cheese? What are your next steps, and how much changes?
Hey Elli! Happy STS!
First of all - I believe every idea is at least somewhat salvageable. I hope to one day get to the point where I somehow managed to adapt the short stories I "wrote" when I was in kindergarten.
Okay my first drafts are...weird. They differ greatly from most people. Let's talk about a few examples so I can explain.
The Secret Portal
Started as a school project in fourth grade (age 10). It is readable but it's so silly. Mainly because I was ten. I've somehow managed to string it together into what it is now but the first act is the only recognizable thing.
The second version of TSP I wrote over a year later. My first step was to make it longer and have chapters. That was about it.
The third version was about a year after that. I decided I didn't like my story ideas to be stretched out across a whole book, so I combined the first two books into one. I alternated the POV and worked more on the details. My descriptions and characterization was better, though I was constrained by the limitations of following the older drafts.
The fourth version was a year and a half after that. We're nearing the end of eighth grade - I'm 14. I'd done a lot of other writing but I decided to go back to TSP. This time, I had full scenes and character introductions and even a halfway decent (emphasis) prologue. Pacing was getting better, and the story beats made more sense. I alternated POV, but realized the need for it being very deliberate whose perspective I was in.
One hole I figured out was how to differentiate my heroes and villains. Jedi and Carmen originated as villain roles but when I thought about it making them good, or honestly extremely morally gray, made a lot more sense. I soon developed a plot, a world, character arcs...
While I refer to all of it as Draft Four, I kept up with this version for so long there are technically multiple drafts of TSP in this section. I didn't start the document over until 2021.
How did I go on from here? Well, I focused on refining story beats. Characters and their voices. General pacing and descriptions. World building.
So definitely not a traditional process lol.
More detailed behind the scenes is linked in my intro post
School of the Legends
I basically hit the reset button every time. I had the idea of "fairy tale retelling" for years.
For SOTL, I did write a dual first person POV short story with Úrsula and Beau and discover third person worked better. But as SOTL it technically only has five chapters drafted. I'd say that just tossing out everything worked here.
Other
Most of the others I wrote as a kid and as I grew older I modified it to my current maturity level, taking the same plot points and fleshing them out. When I was 13+ I started outlining and planning more details and characters. More plot twists and arcs.
Sooo I don't really have the typical first draft experience. Essentially what I do is this:
Nothing is unsalvageable.
Figure out what is salvageable.
Write down ideas I have during reading old drafts.
Identify the holes.
Figure out how to fill the holes/brainstorm
Figure out everything you still don't know
???
Profit
Hope this was a satisfactory answer lol
TSP intro
TSP tag list (ask to be +/-): @thepeculiarbird @illarian-rambling @televisionjester @fairy-tales-of-yesterday
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