Godammed SDN

[starku]

btu he has silently dropped all the SHOULDA HAD AN AMAZING PLAN FIRST stuff and is just discussign regualr things

so i guess no more zentai, political mastermind

[adr-admin]

Coming up with a personality for characters isn't really that hard. If you know their goals, you have a pretty good start. When I know the character goals, my next step is figuring out why they care about those goals.

hmmm

I can't name characters worth shit

oh gods names kill me. i just avoid them for a long time

and then name them after random people i know

[Phantasee]

btu he has silently dropped all the SHOULDA HAD AN AMAZING PLAN FIRST stuff and is just discussign regualr things

so i guess no more zentai, political mastermind

Too bad you were so kind to him and let him step back from his mistake. Would've been funny to see a "concession accepted" dropped in there.

[starku]

peopel struggle with names because i think they believe names in stuff they have read have meaning so they try for meaning themselves

when really harry potter? lol

names can be anything

unless you're a fantasy writer then the all have to be elind'elmere

[adr-admin]

i like to name characters "bob"

it's just a common name



aaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnyyyyyyyyyway

so i wonder of zentai gets advertising

[Zod]

i quit struggling with names when i quit trying to assign meaning to every little thing

turns out it's so much simpler

[starku]

indeed its probably mcuh better for authors to focus their meaning and theme on the areas where it naturally flows rather than trying to force it in everywhere

[Aaron]

I'm shit at all of it. Which is why all my rpg pc's are the grizzled drunk guy, massive beard optional.

[adr-admin]

in my case it's a personal problem. if given a choice between two options, by picking one, i feel like i'm hurting the other one's feelings and can't bring myself to do it without some justification, even if that justification is bullshit, but even so i feel bad about it.

so i want to pick all or none, so they are all treated equally.....

then, add on to it, that i have a hard time making random stuff in my brain. ask me for a random name and i almost always come up with the same small handful; it's not really random at all, and will get repetitive.



but this same thing affects me with making names or picking colors or just about anything.

[The Spartan]

Bakustra, did you just find an opinion, on HPCA, that's actually reasonable? Rather than the usual stuff that we chuckle/boggle at in that thread?

[starku]

The joke is its about the importance of not impeaching people he like from the man suing impeach obamanation

[Bakustra]

Bakustra, did you just find an opinion, on HPCA, that's actually reasonable? Rather than the usual stuff that we chuckle/boggle at in that thread?

Nope! Froggy said that on SDN. He's not actually holding that opinion, he just thinks that Republicans should be able to do what they want but wanted to hide it under a thin veneer of respectability. On HPCA, he's all "impeach and imprison barry (as we call him on the hill) HUSSEIN soetorobamanation for his many horrendous crimes".

[Zod]

speaking of republicans with funny opinions you know there's a serious disconnect from reality when they start blaming liberals for stuff that republicans created just because they don't like that particular thing

[starku]

its all part of the diorama of fear

[Zod]

its all part of the diorama of fear

apparently nafta is all liberals fault (a filthy liberal plot to ruin the economy and make us socialist)

[Nietzslime]

but then I find that many sci-fi fans are much more interested in the fi than the sci.

[Metatwaddle]

late to this discussion, sorry

That says "paranoid schizophrenic" more than "nervous dude" to me.

It's a little OTT, but I think Zod has the right idea with the showing-not-telling thing. I'm not nearly a good enough observer of body language to do it very well, but I like the idea that a character's body language reflects their emotions. I used to RP a little, and I got annoyed when other people had these complicated emotions that were just supposed to show in someone's eyes. Like so-and-so had a curious look in her eyes, or a sarcastic look, or whatever, and I would read it and think, "well, what the fuck does that look like?" Sometimes I think their posts would have been clearer if they had been illustrated with GIFs.

Coming up with a personality for characters isn't really that hard. If you know their goals, you have a pretty good start. When I know the character goals, my next step is figuring out why they care about those goals.

I don't think it's so simple. There are plenty of characters where you know their goals, and maybe even why they care about their goals, but they're almost devoid of personality. Take Tolkien's Aragorn: he wants to be king, and we're asked to believe that this desire comes from a strong sense of familial duty and not just a lust for power. But I don't know what it would be like to hold a conversation with him.

I do know what it would be like to talk to Discworld or Harry Potter characters, however. Hermione Granger would want to discuss some deep intellectual subject, Snape wouldn't give me the time of day, and Harry Potter would make awkward small talk before going off to find a friend. Sam Vimes would growl at me, Granny Weatherwax would boss me around, and Carrot would be friendly and open.

When worldbuilding is done well, it's one of my favorite elements of fiction -- but that requires a deeper understanding of psychology and sociology than TEO worldbuilders usually have. I love to learn what kind of roles dwarves play in the politics of Pratchett's Ankh-Morpork, or how the people in Mieville's Beszel/Ul Qoma manage to ignore each other all the time. But I could not give less of a fuck how much firepower a ship has, or how quick its FTL drive goes. I think adr's right that these people think losing a vs. scenario = your fiction is bad, but I almost can't believe anyone would think that, because it's such a crazy way to react to fiction. Like, crazier than Twilight moms and Jim Raynor and people who are in love with Severus Snape.

[starku]

i'm pretty sure people have expressly stated that they think losing a vs devalues fiction

which makes sense if all you care about is stupid numbers

ie the culture novels which actually aren't about gigatons at all, contrary to waht nerds might tell you

[Veef]

GRIDFIRE BOLO MK XXXXIIIMMMVIICICII HELLBORES

[Veef]

nice avatar

[Metatwaddle]

oh teo

someone invents a fucking jetpack and races planes with it, and the first thing they say is that the proles cannot be trusted with such a thing

never change

[Zod]

It's a little OTT, but I think Zod has the right idea with the showing-not-telling thing. I'm not nearly a good enough observer of body language to do it very well, but I like the idea that a character's body language reflects their emotions. I used to RP a little, and I got annoyed when other people had these complicated emotions that were just supposed to show in someone's eyes. Like so-and-so had a curious look in her eyes, or a sarcastic look, or whatever, and I would read it and think, "well, what the fuck does that look like?" Sometimes I think their posts would have been clearer if they had been illustrated with GIFs.

Isn't that the sort of thing you'd learn in a first year writing class though? I seem to vaguely remember teachers going on about show not tell.

Maybe teo's too smart for that sorta thing?

[Metatwaddle]

yeah, everyone's heard show-not-tell, it's not some kind of innovation, but telling is so much easier. it's easy to slip into telling when you get lazy or you forget or you are writing without a lot of time to edit, like in rping

[Djinnkitty83]

I think the fact that I'm an occasionally cross-dressing fruitcake really grates on Hav, because he always seems really eager to try and bring it up in a negative context, yet strains to do so in a way that doesn't overtly break TEO's hate-speech rules.

[Dooey Jo]

i made a machine to come up with names for me when i needed some

so i'm like "machine make fifty names"

then i pick the ones that sound good

it can make names in any language you just define some sounds and syllable rules and stuff


but if i'm writing a non-fat story i just use some normal name