{ ＩＮＫＬＩＮＧＳ } LOCK! NEW THREAD

[Aliria]

Dear Lynette,

I cherish Japan, where we first met. The moment I clapped eyes on you, I knew you were going to be a crumpled Welshman. Recently, I have began to regard you as much more than a crumpled Welshman.

My feelings for you intensified when I saw you munching in the moonlight. I was further wowed by your tremendous spinning skills.

You have toes like broken peas and the most fake elbow I've ever seen. When I look at you, I just want to eat those broken pea toes and shoot that fake elbow.

You're so special with your false ways. The way you handle your polka-dot half-brother shows great humility and kindness.

I know that to you I'm just a smooth Irishman but I think we could be happy together, sailing like two sharp kittens.

Please, say you'll be mine Lynette!

All my love
Doodle Boop


...I love this thing.

[Zoethian]

Username: Zoethian
Story link: Right here! [ viewtopic.php?f=57&t=2492608 ]
Thank you!

^ So, I just wrote a nice little Halloween for all those interested!

[Lanton]

Passive voice is perfectly fine where it fits, but if you want to really draw your readers into the story and engage their senses, you'll use active voice. Passive voice is just that - passive; and it creates distance. While active voice is more "energetic" and engaging, it draws readers in, reduces distance. So if you're writing a suspenseful scene, I'd recommend active, not passive. I'd actually recommend active before passive in general (it's simply more interesting), though a few instances of passive sprinkled here and there would be fine. Especially nowadays, it's better to start with active, engaging language, since we're living in a quick world and people likely won't linger and keep reading if you don't hook them right from the start. This has a lot to do with "show, don't tell". Passive voice is telling. Active voice is showing.

Also keep in mind that English teachers teach academic writing, usually, and often use the same rules for fictional writing. And in academic writing, I assure you, I hate passive voice with all the passion too, because it makes studies and other academic texts so incredibly tedious and boring. Passive voice in academic texts is the worst.

I do make that differentiation, though. The "rules" for fictional writing are completely different from those for academic writing. But if you want to use language effectively and consciously, you will need to know the rules first. Otherwise you won't be able to break them for effect when you want to. And I, for one, don't want to depend on luck or coincidence.

I don't really like Tolkien's style, btw (it's so exhausting at times), but Tolkien is really a MASTER of language in general and of grammar. It's fascinating, at least for some linguistics enthusiasts (which I consider myself to be).

Oh, I definitely agree a good grasp of grammar is important whether you write like Tolkien or e e cummings. You have to understand what the conventions are and why using them gives you the best results most of the time to understand the situations when it's more effective to break them.

Certainly, 95% of the time the active is better than the passive in fiction. One of the main cases where I'd use the passive - a case where I'd want to stress the direct object of a sentence instead of the subject - doesn't occur much in fiction. The subject of a majority of your sentences is probably the protagonist, who is usually the one doing things and not having things done to him. It does occur when I want to write a legal document or lab report. In these cases it makes sense to me that you'd end up using the passive more often. Overall though, the passive voice is just another tool at a writer's disposal. You won't need it too often, but it's good to have.

I can't say I'm a huge fan of Tolkien either. The first Tolkien book I read was The Children of Húrin and I remember not enjoying the book that much. I think it was because I kept forgetting who everyone was due to the large interrelated cast with similar names like Húrin and Túrin. I get easily confused by family trees - I don't even understand my own.

[empunich;]

The endless frozen landscape greets my eyes, it's blurry image fragmented by the seeting sun. It remains still,
hungrily awaiting the sun to complete it's slow decent below the horizion, hoping desperaty to claim another lost
and lonley soul.

I close my eyes, my will broken, alost as if I expected that this horror story would fade away back into the reality I
knew so well. My bedroom, with peeling blue wallpaper with patches of mould up near the weather wornwindows. The oaken
rim around them shimmering in the warm glow from the sunlight and the rickety desk, sitting in the corner pilled high
with stacks of notes and books. I reopen my eyes and stare blnkly down the seemingly infinante plateu of ice.
The moon silhouettes my body onto the cool ground, my shadow copying my every move, like some sort of creepy puppet
dance. I rise back onto my feet, hpoing to bring some amount of warmth into my long frozen joints. My shadow follows me as
I begin to walk into nihility, I drag my tired feet across the ground, the physical exersion and the glacial temperature
getting to me. My eyes sting and my entire body is racked with pain with every step I take. I breath through my nose, in
fear that opening my mouth will burn my lungs and freeze my throat. I look back up at the horizon, the sun now barley
visable above the skyline. I fold my arms over my hest in a feeble attempt to store body heat. My mind, which would
usually be buzzing with questions and confusion, reains quiet, offering no encouragment or help. How I got here, is to
much for my brain to even attempt to guess, but I am here... Dying, and that, for now, is all I need to know. My eyes
remain staring dead ahead, from both being painful for me to move them and fear that the now ful moon will absorb my soul
as I lay motionless on the ice. I swallow hard and my throat burns from the lack of liquid, I feel like death wouldn't be
the worst option at the moment, but the few memories I have, and the fact that everything exepct my brain is telling me
to keep going, is enough to force me forwards, even besides the pain.


This is how people are driven mad isn't it? I think to myself, isolation, starvation, dehydration and a constant echo of
screams bounding through your head... Wonderful. Now the fact that I am convinced that I am going mad, I actually might
start to lose my sanity. And to think I was such an obsessionist of Antarctica. Ha, welcome to paradise!

***
My breathing begins to sound shaky and rough and my arms are practically frozen together at this point. If I could descibe
any place on Earth as Hell... This would most definitly be it. the moon seemingly dances mockingly in front of my face, as
if to tease me. It's practically saying: "you can see me, but you'll never catch me." A sudden gust of frosty wind blows
over me, as if Antarctica was trying to embrace me, and not in a friendly way. The sun had encouraged me to move on, how
stupid I felt to trust the sun. I could picture it laughing at me now, teasing about what a waste of time it had been since
the moon was basicaly luring me into a frozen death bed. I think I just personified the sun and moon... Maybe I'm already
insane? The blat of frozen air stings my incovered face and my stomach lurches with every individual step I take. My
breathing worsens and the air around me seems to suddenly turn solid and unbreathable. I struggle to catch my now
excruciatingly painful breathing.



any clues where I should go with this? I may give prize to best idea... maybe))

[Sleipnir]

On a completely unrelated note, plot ideas:

A small island in a lake, in a magical world. On this island lives a community of fauns - NOT satyrs, and they could greatly dislike being called thus - lives in peace. The thing about fauns is that the does have innate magical abilities, each it's own sort - one such faun, a relatively (but not so happily) androgynous looking doe named Harlow. She practices herbs and healing magic, but when the plants begin dying and animals grow sick, a small group of men visit the island and warn the fauns of a dragon who's breath is what harms them and ask if any might join them in a quest to kill it.
Fauns are not naturally aggressive creatures though and when left to their own devices, generally seek out peace. Harlow, knowing that fact, knows that none will step forward to help though these men require a faun to lead them in the forests. She disguises herself as a buck and joins them in an attempt to spare the others the task.
Along the way she should face trial after trial encouraging her to abandon her nature in faun hood, being told time and again it will only cause her suffering, until she begins to act more like a human than a faun, and hate every second. In the end, though, the nature of man won't help them against a dragon.

Thoughts?

Opinions on this idea? I wanna find somewhere to go with fauns but I'm not sure this is the best way. It's almost somewhere between The Hobbit and Mulan :b

[NopesaurusRexx]

Is anyone doing NaNoWriMo? I just got finished midterms and think I may have the time to do it this year, but I have zero ideas for it.
@Zoethian That is an adorable story!

[tricks]

Dear Lynette,

I cherish Japan, where we first met. The moment I clapped eyes on you, I knew you were going to be a crumpled Welshman. Recently, I have began to regard you as much more than a crumpled Welshman.

My feelings for you intensified when I saw you munching in the moonlight. I was further wowed by your tremendous spinning skills.

You have toes like broken peas and the most fake elbow I've ever seen. When I look at you, I just want to eat those broken pea toes and shoot that fake elbow.

You're so special with your false ways. The way you handle your polka-dot half-brother shows great humility and kindness.

I know that to you I'm just a smooth Irishman but I think we could be happy together, sailing like two sharp kittens.

Please, say you'll be mine Lynette!

All my love
Doodle Boop


...I love this thing.

Sooo cute <3 <3 <3 <3

[catra]

I wanted to do NaNoWriMo, but I have so many big tests coming up! We're also working on a fiction story in my language class, and I can't keep up with two amazing stories at once.
(Well, I can, but it wouldn't be very good.)

I guess I'll just wait 'till next year..
;3;

[ouraniae]

i really really want to do nano!! but i'm insanely busy the first two days, and then every day after that
i could probably churn out a few words, but not nearly as much as i want and not nearly at the quality i want, so i think i'll pass
best of luck to everyone who tries, though! nvn

in other news, i just lost a follower on my poetry blog. ;n;

[canis,]

Hmm, I was debating as to whether or not to continue my story. What do you all think?

link