Episode 116: Does An Ellipsis Count As Three Words?

[Isfahan]

Boots saying "and then they did it" at the end of that terrible excerpt of the... what the hell would you even call it, fighting guy LARP story I guess?, was hilarious to me because I had just been thinking the story was so poorly written and confusing it was like bad slash fanfiction of its own self.

Yep. LARP transcript. It read like two nerds who know they have to fight but don't want to get to the physical part of it so they put it off through awkward, incessant repartée.

[Lemon]

You know, I think there's a $10 Secrets thread around here somewhere. You know how to copy/paste, doncha?

[chai tea latte]

You know, I think there's a $10 Secrets thread around here somewhere. You know how to copy/paste, doncha?

It's easy - you just put your links together and PoE.

[Boots Raingear]

Ulillillia's sister wants to take her NaNoWriMo novel on the road. Will you help her?

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-arcane-campaign

[count_actuala]

I have been writing science fiction/fantasy for almost fourteen years, but 2013 is special. This year I participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

It hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrts.

[September]

Somewhere around the second or third bit, I was reminded of what Isfahan said during the J. Jenny Jay whatever thing (I think): "I just realized something. I'm not that bad of a writer."

Of course, this episode prompted me to go hard drive-spelunking and find the "book" I started writing my senior year of high school, and I immediately took back the sentiment. It really was a situation where I had virtually no life experience to draw from, so I wrote a bunch of confusing, directionless crap, instead. I'm sure I could write something better than that, but that doesn't make re-reading it any less cringe-inducing.

See, my realization was more along the lines of "I may write stupid, horrifying fanfiction, but at least I am aware of that fact and have the decency not to share it with everyone I can."

[AlbieQuirky]

Ulillillia's sister wants to take her NaNoWriMo novel on the road. Will you help her?

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-arcane-campaign

She's Ulillillia's sister, all right. They share a gift of intense focus on detail.

Perhaps "gift" is the wrong word here.

[Triggerhappy938]

I did NaNoWriMo once, intentionally avoiding genre fiction for this very reason.  The result was sloppily written and kind of a mess, but nothing compared to this shit.

I think NaNoWriMo and TvTropes has this in common.  They are both premises that, on their face, are sound, harmless exercises in narrative, but when opened up to the cesspool of the internet, becomes something so bad it's F+ worthy.

[Horza]

What I notice is the formulaic, RPG-like method by which these people seek to write their story.

TvTropes has gifted them with this idea that writing is finding the right combination of Plot N with Character Types 3, 5,-17 and 89b (for a twist!) on a [[Steampunk] Desert Planet] ruled by [[Zombie] Alien Ninjas], and job done.

[cyclopeantrash]

What I notice is the formulaic, RPG-like method by which these people seek to write their story.

TvTropes has gifted them with this idea that writing is finding the right combination of Plot N with Character Types 3, 5,-17 and 89b (for a twist!) on a [[Steampunk] Desert Planet] ruled by [[Zombie] Alien Ninjas], and job done.

You best not be insulting generation tables if you know what's good for you.

[count_actuala]

I did NaNoWriMo once, intentionally avoiding genre fiction for this very reason.  The result was sloppily written and kind of a mess, but nothing compared to this shit.

So young, so naive.

[Triggerhappy938]

Also, I never checked the forums. Why must you ceush my blissful ignorance.

[count_actuala]

It is our way.

ETA:

You know you're writing Lit-Fic when...
You are a serious writer, writing very serious subjects... xxoo!

When people ask you the plot of your novel and you have to think for ten minutes about what a plot even is until you finally answer "um...well...it's about trains...and the meaning of life???"

...puns, assonance, and alliteration become your chief concerns at the expense of plot, character, and theme.

…suddenly the point of view changes to that of a character who we have never met before.

... when you realize that all your world-building has been in your characters' heads.

... you have no idea what the character looks like, but you know exactly how they would answer the question "would you like fries with that?" and the psychological reasons behind said answer.

...when every paragraph has to sound pretty.

Definitely. And furthermore,

...when every forum post has to sound pretty. And be grammatically correct. Unless that's the point.

Wwwwhackity schmackity doooooooooooooooooooooo

[chai tea latte]

It is our way.

ETA:

You know you're writing Lit-Fic when...
You are a serious writer, writing very serious subjects... xxoo!

When people ask you the plot of your novel and you have to think for ten minutes about what a plot even is until you finally answer "um...well...it's about trains...and the meaning of life???"

...puns, assonance, and alliteration become your chief concerns at the expense of plot, character, and theme.

…suddenly the point of view changes to that of a character who we have never met before.

... when you realize that all your world-building has been in your characters' heads.

... you have no idea what the character looks like, but you know exactly how they would answer the question "would you like fries with that?" and the psychological reasons behind said answer.

...when every paragraph has to sound pretty.

Definitely. And furthermore,

...when every forum post has to sound pretty. And be grammatically correct. Unless that's the point.

Wwwwhackity schmackity doooooooooooooooooooooo

Oh my god, these people have literally never read a book before. I hadn't realized how deep the rabbit-hole went.

[Odd]

Oh my god, these people have literally never read a book before. I hadn't realized how deep the rabbit-hole went.

I am going to be generous and give them the befit of the doubt in that they could have read Japanese light-fiction. Japanese light-fiction follows conventions of storytelling that are completely alien to western styles. It doesn't help that it is a genre intimately connected to novels written in and for cellphones.

As a random example I'll pick a chapter from a series of light novels extremely popular in Japan and abroad: "Ore no Imōto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai", a touching story of two siblings who try to reconnect after years of coldly disregarding each other.
http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Ore_no_Im%C5%8Dto_ga_Konna_ni_Kawaii_Wake_ga_Nai:Volume_5_Chapter_3

Notice how it is a first-person perspective story that jumbles actual actions with the thoughts of the narrator and his imagination. How in conversations with more than two characters reading it requires guesswork. Count the ellipsis. After a while you will begin to see the similarities between this published and well-regarded work of art and the writing they have described.
Spoilers: [spoilerz]They fuck.[/spoilerz]