The BSN writers club

^^^ thoughtful response, thank you

I used to start everything from third person omniscient. It became oddly limiting for me, I suppose because I am no Tolkien... I want to be reliable and it gets in the way of organic "discovery".

If it is was easy, we'd all be doing it successfully I suppose

*waits boredly for comments on fanfiction because I utterly changed it... idk if for the better, but at least now it has a plot and now I have a plan for it now, lol*

Exactly. It gets in the way of organic discovery. That's a good way to put it.

Personally, I've found I need a somewhat focused and narrow perspective to enjoy fiction. I don't really like reading G.R.R. Martin for instance. Not Steven Erikson either, though I can be very impressed by some passages that Erikson has written. It's still not enough. I need to engage in characters. I can handle multiple characters & perspectives, but like Jordan's WoT is on the limit of what I can muster interest in to keep reading.

And that, transfers to how I write, as well. I try to tell the story through one or a few characters' personal perspective. Keeping it focused. But typically third person, but personal. Pretty much the exact same as first person, except it isn't.

Another thing. Here's another good reason to sometimes use first person. If you want the narrator to hide something from the reader. Then the first person fits dishonesty better.

For me, it's just coming up with the story to begin with, lol. 

The problem with me is that it's hard to come up with a plot and make it long too. All I write now is about 1,000 words per page because it's an AU and such things are hard... to write you know. 

deleted my fanfic

EDIT: and am rly sry 4 drama.

It boggles my mind that there are writers out there on FF/AO3 who can consistently pump out multiple 15k+ word updates per month while not falling into the inane psychobabble territory. Some of them can even do it on a weekly basis, which is even more dumbfounding - I don't think I could manage that without a copious amount of energy drinks and possibly some cocaine.

I think my longest chapter so far was 7,271 words. I usually average between 3,000 and 4,000 words but my last two have been nudging 6,000 words.

I have recently begun my fifth novel. Observe that none of them is finished, and two of them are only in planning stage. I do not get to write much, I work too much. I intend to quit my job, but not now. I have projects at my job I want to finish. I don't see anybody else being able to. I simply can't leave those things. It would result in a severe feeling of unfulfillment. So, maybe 1½ year more, then I'll write full time. Economically, I think I'm in the clear, set for life. I should have nothing to worry about, even if I'm never published.
So this is what I have in the works:

1. Fairly standard Wheel-of-Time/Sword-of-Truth type of fantasy. I've written about 1000 pages, but intend to rewrite a lot of it (because I've become better). A difference to most standard Fantasy is that Magic is rare, mostly fairly weak and very technical, in the sense that it requires vast amounts of detailed knowledge and lots of detailed training. It takes acquired skill and knowledge. Though only gifted people can do it, it's still very hard, technically hard to do and does not come natural to any individual. No Harry Potter magic where the chosen can suddenly just do it and release his "power" without knowing how. In my novel it doesn't work like that.
Protagonist characters are a group of three very old mercenaries, three young students of magic and a very mysterious person, formerly a revived old mummy, found entombed in an underground prison.
World is two parts, both still recovering/rebuilding from two different massive wars just a century ago or so.
In the north, a collection of newformed kingdoms, the war has resulted in a sort of social enlightenment. Class structures and religions have been wrecked, and though they are being gradually rebuilt, the value system is leaning towards something we recognize in our modern west, even though it's a feudal world.
In the south, the development is different. The class system is as present as always, but its power is strongly threatened by a totalitarian religion which dominate the society.
I'm hoping to weave in a lot of stories I've had in my mind for years and years. But I've also noticed that the story takes on a new life of its own, and goes its own way.

2.SF space opera. The civilizations, their history and technology mostly took form in my head long before I had read my first 'Culture' novel. But 'Culture' have made a strong impact and influenced many things strongly. I've kept the technology level at a much lower level though, more technically understandable from our own perspective. I have written about 200 pages sofar.
The main story is that a number of large human or human-derived star empires are threatened by encountering the expansion of a vast, aggressive alien empire. So there is an interstellar political game about what to do about it.
Paradoxically, most of the main plot will take place on a rural, fairly recently colonized agriculture planet, where people's' lives are rather lowtech. So, in a way, not so much SF as pioneer & settler culture there.

3. A Thriller/Action/Crime story. I've written about 40 pages, all of which I intend to rewrite, if I bother to continue with this at all. Right now I'm not so enthusiastic about this.
A problem here is that I don't really have a story. It originated entirely as an idea about the protagonist and hasn't progressed from that seed.
The protagonist doesn't really have any investigative skills. The protagonist is a national executioner. An assassin that inserts into FBI under the pretext of being temporarily attached from SS/Treasure Department. But that was not entirely true. The protagonist was only temporarily attached to SS from CIA. But that's not true either. The protagonist was only temporarily attached to CIA from SAD. But that's not true either. The protagonist was only temporarily attached to SAD from CH. And CH is so secret that it sort of doesn't exist. It sort of "steals" its budget for instance, and doesn't answer to anything but the spirit of the Constitution.

4. A Mystery/Crime story. This is in planning, and I hope to plan it out fairly well before i start to write. A change in the way I've previously worked.
A woman with a dark past, drug addict, prostitute, porn actress, magicians assistant, is "between jobs" but solvent, when she comes across the news that a former boyfriend and magician has disappeared in Las Vegas. She decides to go to Vegas to try to find out what has happened to him. Now, everything is not what it seems, about this marked, dark minded woman.
This is pretty much what I'm most enthusiastic about currently, though I mostly work on the SF.

5. My last idea. A sort of Fantasy without magic. Of course the idea of 'magic' exists, this is a medieval, superstitious culture. But it's not real, just tricks.
Just a concept sofar.

P.S. *6*  I hope to write a Culture novel one day, if I get a good idea, and I'm starting to study for it.

I've also been absent from posting here for a long while, but thought I'd check in. I've finished the novel I hope to publish (dark fantasy, clocking in at about 124K), and it's in second edits/beta reading now.



In the meantime, if anyone here is interested in DA fanfiction, I've got an ongoing series titled The Contours of Shadows on AO3. Some are fairly short, some novel-length, and most can be read as stand-alones. (As an introductory example, I'd recommend A Night On the Town.)  Feedback is always appreciated!

Started to re post an old NWN2 fic of mine, The Knight Captain's Rogue. Going to take me a while to re upload all 48 chapters....

www.fanfiction.net/s/12987818/1/

I think I have a title for Nat's SWTOR story...

The Time Displaced Sith: Origins

Totally ripping off the game Dragon Age: Origins