Desiderius Price

I’m a dedicated depantser 🤪

I’m a dedicated depantser 🤪

I’m a dedicated depantser 🤪

Hi, all.
Chatbox won’t let me post.  It presents a “silent failure,” meaning that no error messages are displayed.  The chat screen simply refreshes, but my line of text is not posted.  At first I thought that it was just a “stale login.”  After logging out and back in, I was able to post one line.  However, the Chatbox reverted to no post, silent failure; and logging out and back in would not clear it.
Browser is Firefox 78.15.0 ESR on Mac.
Thanks in advance.

Hi, Deadman and all.
Generally, you should use the name of a character to clarify identities where they might otherwise be confused.  Remember, unlike a [visual production of any kind,] your reader only has your writing to help them picture the scene.
As for how you address the character’s identity “outside of quotation marks,” you should generally stick to a single unambiguous name for the character in third-person perfect or unidentified third-person imperfect.  In identified third person imperfect or first person, your labeling of a particular character is that supplied by your “viewpoint” character.  As a rule, you must be consistent in third-person perfect, and you should be consistent in other tenses.  However, deliberate changes can indicate changes in opinion by the viewpoint character or observer.
Inside of quotation marks, the character themselves will govern how the particular character is identified or addressed.
Cheers!

Apologies for not noticing this sooner.
I’d suggest keeping it consistent and in context.  If you’ve got a (real) friend of the mayor, they go fishing, might be like…
> “That’s a beauty.” John pointed at the large striped bass beneath the water.
Or in the speech, especially if it’s multiparagraph, you might not need to overly annotate either.
> Mayor John Smith spoke.
» I’m not a man prone to superstition, therefore, we’ll go ahead with paving over the Indian burial grounds for a Walmart.
» This strikes way for progress!
Though, suppose in slander, could be “The Mayor’s office has gone to the John”
 
 

As I understand it, the one-shot is a single chapter in the multi-chapter Scooby Gang Time story. If that’s the case, I’m going to say that the site rules wouldn’t prohibit taking that single chapter and using it to start the spinoff story. I would just ask that you stick a little note somewhere, even as a footnote author’s note to the chapter, that this was originally a one-shot in Scooby Gang Time, and it took on a life of its own. You can add a link to the original story as well.
 

Suppose the *other* way is to add a second chapter to the one-shot, absorb it and continue writing.  That’d get rid of the one shot vs big story issue.  Because if it’s the exact same material/chapter in two separate stories… gotta tread carefully (site rules).

I think you probably can understand it without but there are important canon divergences in the one shot. During the canon dynamic, the two main characters don’t necessarily get along. However, the one shot “fixes” that. Then the characters are sorta full blown into things when what would otherwise be the first chapter after the one shot. So partly I worry that people will be uncertain about what’s going on. I was planning on putting an author’s note, pointing people to what’s going on. Where to read the one shot. However, if I simply add the one shot there’s no issue there.

I suppose the better question is whether somebody can read & understand the spin-off w/o reading the one-shot.  If there’s something crucial from that one-shot, a one-liner in the spin-off might be all that’s needed.

Okay, interesting. I’m thinking about whether I should. The one shot is setting up the story in many ways. They have a conversation at the end about wanting to do something. The “first chapter” of the spin-off would be them doing the thing they talked about. But I’m also sorta thinking that a later chapter in the spin-off sorta refers to the one shot. In fact it’s sort of a mirror image of the original one shot.

As I opened the long-story with them playing a game in it, I didn’t really explain the origins of it.  Thus, nice tidbit to those that read the holiday story.  To those that didn’t, well, still get entertained.

So you didn’t explain where it came from?

When I wrote Dale’s Game, it was “the continuation” to the holiday oneshot I wrote.  Basically the oneshot explained where the gaming rig came from, the basics of the friendship, and the first chapter of the new story starts off with the boys using it.

So, I’ve been working on a spin-off idea for something from my Scooby Gang Time story.

What I’m trying to figure out is if I should make the chapter “one shot” the first chapter of the new spin-off?

Or should I simply reference the chapter from Scooby Gang Time?

 

Apologies for not noticing this sooner.
I’d suggest keeping it consistent and in context.  If you’ve got a (real) friend of the mayor, they go fishing, might be like…
> “That’s a beauty.” John pointed at the large striped bass beneath the water.
Or in the speech, especially if it’s multiparagraph, you might not need to overly annotate either.
> Mayor John Smith spoke.
» I’m not a man prone to superstition, therefore, we’ll go ahead with paving over the Indian burial grounds for a Walmart.
» This strikes way for progress!
Though, suppose in slander, could be “The Mayor’s office has gone to the John”
 
 

@Deadman’s recent post brought this question to mind: What do you consider the best way to write an orgy scene?
My usual approach is this: After I make a list of the participants and who will be getting it on with whom, I describe the action in round-robin fashion, writing a few paragraphs about what each pair or group is doing and then moving on to the next until I’ve come full circle and then starting at the top again.
I feel like this approach provides the reader some sense that the action is all going on simultaneously. However, I’m also concerned that the constant jumps from one group to the next are too disruptive for at least some readers. 
Thoughts?

I’m in the middle of writing something and I noticed that I have been very unstructured in how I refer to a particular character.

They’re the mayor of a town and in canon we know their full name. But when I write about them I often use just a piece of their name. For instance:

“Mayor John Smith says”

“Mayor Smith declares”

“Mayor John suggests”

“says John Smith”

Part of me worries that while I have established their full name within the context, if I’m constantly switching like that, I might confuse the audience.

How do you go about figuring out this problem? Or do you not worry about it?
 

I’ve been trying to look this up but get very vague answers. It’s part of a story I’ve been working on.

More often than not, what I read is “several hours” or “last for hours”. The most I can find is 6 or 8 hours.

But that’s usually from sales websites and things like that. Not clear if it’s actually real or not. Whether it can be longer or shorter.

 

43834 – palindrome!

I’ve moved this post to a more appropriate thread.
Now to the question.
The first thing is to identify the best websites for your content. For example, certain sites have content restrictions. Here on AFF, our Terms of Service and Content Guidelines are pretty clear, and spell out what we do and don’t allow. But if a site doesn’t allow, for example, fiction based on actual persons or celebrities, posting a story about a real person or celebrity isn’t going to go over well.
Once you’ve figured out what site or sites best suit your content, you need to make sure your story is going to attract readers and hold their attention. If you are able to post a summary, make it catchy. Spend a bit of time reading book summaries and blurbs to see what the professionals do. PROOFREAD AND FORMAT your story. Nothing is a bigger turn-off than typos, misused words, missing punctuation, poor grammar (unless it’s required for a piece of dialogue), and walls of text. I’ve put down published books that I paid for, and refused to finish reading them because of poor editing. You might be posting something online for free, but I truly think you still need to polish your story.
Some sites, like AFF, have forums or community boards where you can promote your story. If that’s available, use it. Include the catchy blurb, story tags, and all the other things that might catch a reader’s attention. AFF does not support cover images in the archive, and we don’t allow images in the forum that are NSFW, but some sites do allow cover images. We use our forums to allow readers to engage with authors, while other sites let you reply to reviews directly.
That’s what comes to mind for now.

We’re AFF.  First word we associate with poker ought to be “strip”… “cards” and “game” are second. 

Well of course never say never. But I have for instance noticed that there are variations on things that I have written about which don’t really appeal to me. I’ve actually looked at it and it didn’t do anything for me. So I can at least say that I probably won’t be writing that.

I do have my limits too, though I suspect those lines will be crossed at some point… Seems that whenever I say “never”, my brain starts mulling on it.

Yeah, I get trying to leave your comfort zone as a writer. However, I think there’s a benefit to having limits. There are certain things I just won’t write about. Although I have often pushed my own boundaries.

As an example, I generally didn’t focus on a specific character in my main fandom, but more recently I have, particularly in my recent stories. Now I’m doing similar stuff with it in other fandoms.