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 Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 6:31 pm
Let's face it--this is a writing guild. And to write, you need ideas--and those ideas don't always come fully baked. So here I hope to establish something of a makeshift oven where we can speed along the baking process for one another. You know...like team-effort frozen pizza!
So get those sounding boards ready and start bouncing!
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Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 7:17 pm
I like your metaphor for ideas, with the pizza and the oven. I think someone should write a story about a town that had no creativity so they had to go to the next town over because it had an Idea Bakery. For years the townspeople were supplied with wonderful ideas so they could lead peaceful lives, until one day--gasp! Someone started poisoning the ideas with dreadful daydreams and thoughts of murder, death, torture, and socks!
And so they tracked down the culprit and used their new ideas to kill him in 800 inventive ways.
Except then it turned out he'd left a curse on the Idea Oven, and so whenever they tried to bake a fresh one, it would turn out half-baked. And so they all had half-baked ideas floating around their brains, which as we all know is incredibly dangerous, and someone got it into his head that it would be a good idea to go on an expedition in his panties aboard a dislodged glacier in the Arctic and take some gifted cobras with him to see what would happen. Because normally he would have thought that it would be good to set the gifted cobras on the glacier by themselves, but because it was half-baked... you get the idea.
Someone should totally write that. lol
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Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 6:02 am
^That sounds like a hilarious story. *pokes* You write it. *christening the thread with an actual question* Here's something I asked in the writer's forum that was totally ignored. People didn't even tell me the idea was stupid. They simply skipped over my question. rolleyes Anyway, I made up an island country where the people basically dress in kimono, hakama, etc. It's on another world, so I mixed a few cultures together and threw in some other things to be somewhat unique. Most of the clothes, I can figure out ways to describe without using the Japanese words for them. However, how do I describe people dressed like these guys: http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f34/hmltwin/pretty/2332154475wh.jpgThe hakama I can just call pants, so they aren't a problem. How do I describe the tops though? Advice?
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Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 1:37 pm
Robes? Wraparounds? Saris? Kimonos? Erm... nothing else here, sorry.
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Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 10:33 pm
"Robes with ribbons and bowties." There you go. biggrin
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Posted: Wed May 24, 2006 5:32 am
Calling them robes/gowns works when they aren't tucked into hakama, but what about when they are? neutral Maybe I'm being too worried about something that doesn't matter really very much. Thanks for the suggestions. mrgreen
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Posted: Wed May 24, 2006 1:04 pm
Personally, I would just describe them as loose-fitting/baggy shirts that crossed over in the front. You'd only need to describe it like that once before just referring to it in general terms in the future.
Or, if you wanted to make a word up, it could be a robe shirt. xd
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Posted: Thu May 25, 2006 5:25 am
erikakaiser Personally, I would just describe them as loose-fitting/baggy shirts that crossed over in the front. You'd only need to describe it like that once before just referring to it in general terms in the future.
Or, if you wanted to make a word up, it could be a robe shirt. xd *hugs Erika* I don't know why I didn't think of that myself. Thank you so much!
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Posted: Fri May 26, 2006 11:21 pm
The image of the robe shirt type things isn't showing up on my computer, and so sadly I can be of no assistance. I weep.
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Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 3:17 pm
erikakaiser Personally, I would just describe them as loose-fitting/baggy shirts that crossed over in the front. You'd only need to describe it like that once before just referring to it in general terms in the future.
Or, if you wanted to make a word up, it could be a robe shirt. xd I would suggest the same, because I sort of had to do that in my own story, with Vitae and Yinda's clothes. 3nodding
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Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 3:35 pm
Okay, I have a little something of my own to throw out here.
Over the weekend I suddenly realized that my story would make oodles more sense in all its weird sketchy places if the world itself were a psudo-modern fantasy setting. As in, they have trains and electric lights, and maybe a primitive motorcar here and there, though no guns. Most technology would be mage-built and run to some degree on magic. This would give me an opportunity to tone down the bright, happy, "typical fantasy" feel to the story, as well as throw Vitae into further culture shock and get Yinda to behave more like a teenager. The modernish feel would also give an excuse for the few "monsters" I have roaming around various parts of the world.
This would also give me opportunity to expand (or actually figure out) the fashions of that world.
However, I very rarely ever read psudo-modern fantasy (let alone having been in a big city) and only know what little I've learned from FFVII and trips to Chicago. A lot of little parts of my story would have to be messed with, such as eliminating horses as the predominant mode of transportation for my characters, since they'd more likely be taking the train from one place to another, and distinguishing between the slummy areas of big cities and the more cheerful rural towns.
I hope you all see my dilemma. I don't quite know what kind of balance of technology I should have. I don't really want anything too advanced. I think the most high-tech things would be trains, showers, and flush-toilets, maybe. I want to give the bigger cities the sort of feel you get when walking under the train-tracks in Chicago or when exploring Midgar in FFVII, but still make the smaller in-between cities cheerful enough that there could possibly be, oh say, a May Day celebration or something like that. And amidst all this still leave room for spunky teenage pickpockets and eccentric cross-dressing mages, and make it seem like one seamless world.
Vitae's arm is also worrying me in this matter. It might actually have to have gears and stuff like that along with the magic...and that bugs me a bit. A lot of integral parts of the world's history and whatever else might have to be messed with, too. And I dun' wanna have to change it ALL. It's taken this long for it to develop on its own, without my knowing anything about history or government.
So. Thoughts? Suggestions? Ideas? Cliches I must absolutely avoid at any cost?
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Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 5:59 pm
I think that sounds like a wonderful idea. The technology seems to be pretty early 1900's, which means it would make sense to base the social structure off the era too, and that would allow for the contrast between urban and rural. Big cities had 12 year olds working 18 hours a day in unsafe factories and living in tenements, whereas small towns were still fairly colonial. And there would certainly be room for Nathan and Yinda in that sort of a setting. If Yinda didn't want to work in said factories, theft would be the next option, and the movements that led to the '20's existed then, explaining a crossdressing mage. Anyway, this post may or may not have been helpful at all, but here it is.
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Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 7:21 pm
Raincrow: read Charmed Life, A Tale of Time City, and Magicians of Caprona (all by DWJ) for pseudo-modern fantasy.
I do think it's a good idea. It's not that common, so you'd be free to exercise your imagination without people being all "cliiicheeee" on you. Give it a shot and see what happens.
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Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 5:44 am
What you're describing, Rae, is actually much like most of my fantasy universes. I was going to say the same thing as Sable. It sounds like it would be the early 1900s, possibly even before. I found an article on the history of the railways for you at wikipedia, since it might help you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_historyBasically, since most of the technology is going to run off of magic and/or be built by mages - think about what your mages would want technology to do. For example, if the mages could teleport (I don't think yours can) they wouldn't worry to much about advancing non-magical means of transportation. They wouldn't use guns, since they can get by without them. Anyway, I hope that helps you somewhat.
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Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 2:32 pm
jestingly.yours Raincrow: read Charmed Life, A Tale of Time City, and Magicians of Caprona (all by DWJ) for pseudo-modern fantasy. I do think it's a good idea. It's not that common, so you'd be free to exercise your imagination without people being all "cliiicheeee" on you. Give it a shot and see what happens. I read Charmed Life back in March and am currently plugging away at Magicians of Caprona, slowly but steadily exhausting the library's collection of DWJ's works. xd I find that they're helping, though just how much remains to be seen. Thanks for the advice, guys. I'm really glad you think this is such a good idea. sweatdrop I'm still open to feedback if anyone else has their own two bits to throw in, of course.
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