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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Close vote this time around. I appreciate an explicitly low-stakes thing this time around, it's permission not to care if my option wins, and that's relaxing.
 
Codex said:
This does bring me to a question actually. You've gone into detail a few times on your writing style being "Bazaar" style and you've gone over your character creation being effectively like a logic tree, but now I'm curious about how you decide to write. Do you make a plan for what you want to do and try to hit those beats or do you just start writing and see where the narrative takes you? Is it a combination or do you do something different? Or maybe the writing process isn't fully consistent for you?

Personally I only really start writing when I get hit with a sudden bolt of inspiration, then I start working out the exact beats I want to touch on while writing. I often don't really deviate from those beats aside from fleshing them out. I've seen writers saying things like "the character surprised them", which I've never really felt before. Is that something you experience? Where you're surprised by the stuff you write once you actually start writing? As in you didn't expect it to happen as you start writing? I mean, aside from rolls surprising you.
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I think about it until I have a general idea of what the scene would be, which can take a few minutes or sometimes as long as a few days, and then I start writing from the part of it I can most clearly envisage and see what happens. To take the most recent update as an example, I knew what Elrisse's attitude and goals would be, and this informed the general tone of slight awkwardness which I played into by describing Mathilde's uncomfortable night and the anachronistic setting of the meeting - those reclining couches were originally used by arranging them in a semi-circle with everyone leaning on the same side and facing towards a central fire or entertainer, instead of the strange enforced intimacy of being reclining face-to-face, and that worked both for setting the scene and fleshing out the odd jumble of cultural influences and anachronisms that is the Light Order aesthetic. But writing out the dialogue meant that instead of just a mental note of [Mathilde explains the Project's origin] I had the actual text of what that was to work with, and that mentioning the Dwarves is what led to Elrisse directly contrasting the Elves and the Dwarves. This approach means that if a particular part is fun and working well I can increase the focus on that part and flesh it out further, and if something doesn't work I can find a different way to accomplish the same thing.

Something adjacent to this is where a scene begins and ends. Beginner writers usually think they have to write an entire scene from stage entrance to exit, but if your setting and character is established you can hit the ground running and trust the audience to keep up. The technical term for these two approaches are ab ovo, 'from the egg', and in medias res, 'into the middle of things'. In this update I started by broadly describing Mathilde spending the night at the Light Order before the scene itself because it helped set the scene and establish the tone, and for the rest of the update I described her going from place to place because these were all linked events in Altdorf. But in contrast, last update Cython's scene basically started with 'Cython's here, and he's talking now'. It skips over the arrival, the greetings, even the initial question, because none of those were interesting. It starts off with Cython's answer because by this point the reader knows Cython well enough to fill in all those details without it being distracting or confusing. This combines with me starting from where I can most clearly envisage quite well, because if after I've written a chunk of it it can stand on its own, then great, the scene can either start there or with an added line or two to better set the scene. If it's confusing or disjointed, or if writing it gave me an interesting idea for something that happened earlier, then I backfill.

Being surprised by a character usually means that a character is fleshed out enough that what they want to do can clash with where the writer wants the story to go, and how susceptible someone is to that depends on how far they plan ahead. The Quest format means that happens to me a whole lot less, because I don't really have long term plans for characters to start interfering with. I can't really be surprised by a character if I'm giving them free rein to act according to their desires and opinions.

Codex said:
I didn't know who that was, but I looked it up.

Do you mean this song?
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I meant the album that song is on, but that one is a good example of what I mean. The album's a retelling of the Silmarillion and is told from various perspectives, from Morgoth and Feanor to Fingolfin and Finrod, and his voice is very convincing for both heroes and villains. It's a voice very good at being filled with frustration and determination, whether that be turned to good or ill.
 
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[X] Grief
[X]Trauma

I really do not want the skaven answer here. There's a difference between manipulating the truth, and flat out objectively lying. This is not someone we should say something that is objectively incorrect to over something that honestly isn't that important. Getting caught lying here would put us in way deeper shit than anyone could possible pull on us for this bullshit.
 
Codex said:
I've seen writers saying things like "the character surprised them", which I've never really felt before. Is that something you experience? Where you're surprised by the stuff you write once you actually start writing? As in you didn't expect it to happen as you start writing? I mean, aside from rolls surprising you.
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I remember he was surprised that Belegar and Thorgrim's first meeting turned into a bit of a fight. IIRC the initial expectation was normal headpat distribution.
 
Boney said:
I think about it until I have a general idea of what the scene would be, which can take a few minutes or sometimes as long as a few days, and then I start writing from the part of it I can most clearly envisage and see what happens.
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Boney said:
But writing out the dialogue meant that instead of just a mental note of [Mathilde explains the Project's origin] I had the actual text of what that was to work with, and that mentioning the Dwarves is what led to Elrisse directly contrasting the Elves and the Dwarves. This approach means that if a particular part is fun and working well I can increase the focus on that part and flesh it out further, and if something doesn't work I can find a different way to accomplish the same thing.
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This is a very interesting way of writing, and definitely not one I dabble in, perhaps because I'm still relatively inexperienced at it. I can't really envision not starting from the beginning. I think you mentioned before that I don't need to write from the beginning, but I've always found it difficult to break the mental block of "start from the beginning" that you mention here:
Boney said:
Something adjacent to this is where a scene begins and ends. Beginner writers usually think they have to write an entire scene from stage entrance to exit
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Maybe I should try it out. It sounds different, but maybe I can work it out.
Boney said:
To take the most recent update as an example, I knew what Elrisse's attitude and goals would be, and this informed the general tone of slight awkwardness which I played into by describing Mathilde's uncomfortable night and the anachronistic setting of the meeting - those reclining couches were originally used by arranging them in a semi-circle with everyone leaning on the same side and facing towards a central fire or entertainer, instead of the strange enforced intimacy of being reclining face-to-face, and that worked both for setting the scene and fleshing out the odd jumble of cultural influences and anachronisms that is the Light Order aesthetic.
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Now I'm wondering whether Elrisse simply didn't realise the awkward intimacy of the adjusted seat positions or if she did and she simply thought it would be interpreted as a simple gesture of desiring to know her rather than anything else. Even today, lying down in a reclining position facing someone isn't exactly the most comfortable setting, so I imagine it's even worse for a more conservative society. I think it would be funny if she simply didn't account for it.
Boney said:
Being surprised by a character usually means that a character is fleshed out enough that what they want to do can clash with where the writer wants the story to go, and how susceptible someone is to that depends on how far they plan ahead. The Quest format means that happens to me a whole lot less, because I don't really have long term plans for characters to start interfering with. I can't really be surprised by a character if I'm giving them free rein to act according to their desires and opinions.
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I do remember one moment in which you might have been surprised at something you wrote? But it wasn't Mathilde who shook things up, it was Belegar:
Boney said:
oh god what's happening i was just going to write a celebratory scene and now they're fighting
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I suppose in that moment when you were writing you were thinking of what Thorgrim would say, and while you might have expected celebration, once you started considering Belegar's response to Thorgrim's focus on Grudges, you realised he wouldn't just take that and move on, and so that shaped the narrative. I don't know if you expected how much of a big deal that conversation would become.
Boney said:
It's a voice very good at being filled with frustration and determination, whether that be turned to good or ill.
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"Frustration and Determination". That sounds like a great way to describe Horstmann yeah. I'd hope that that frustration is being released now that he's out of the environment causing it, and he can focus on pushing that determination towards good causes without being chained down held down by the legacy of his master.
 
[X] You wanted to reform the watch into a more intrigue focused organization, but your steps had fierce opposition in the watch. You thought attempting to bring the worship of Ranald into the watch will give you a pretext to remove those most opposed to your changes from the organization. It wasn't a very good idea, but you went through with it because you worried Stirland was especially vulnerable in the wake of Abelhelm's death, so you rushed things.
[X] Skaven
 
Codex said:
This is a very interesting way of writing, and definitely not one I dabble in, perhaps because I'm still relatively inexperienced at it. I can't really envision not starting from the beginning. I think you mentioned before that I don't need to write from the beginning, but I've always found it difficult to break the mental block of "start from the beginning" that you mention here:

Maybe I should try it out. It sounds different, but maybe I can work it out.
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You might find it easier to look to TV and movies for examples of this sort of thing. Every minute is precious in those formats, whereas a lot of professional writers get paid by the word.

Codex said:
I do remember one moment in which you might have been surprised at something you wrote? But it wasn't Mathilde who shook things up, it was Belegar:

I suppose in that moment when you were writing you were thinking of what Thorgrim would say, and while you might have expected celebration, once you started considering Belegar's response to Thorgrim's focus on Grudges, you realised he wouldn't just take that and move on, and so that shaped the narrative. I don't know if you expected how much of a big deal that conversation would become.
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That's true, I had focused on what Thorgrim was doing and hadn't thought of how Belegar would react until I was actually writing it. I suppose I think of that sort of thing as an error on my part, rather than a surprise from the character.
 
Glau said:
Close vote this time around. I appreciate an explicitly low-stakes thing this time around, it's permission not to care if my option wins, and that's relaxing.
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Seconded, I might not like Grief that much, since it exposes a weakness to Starke of all people and I trust him least of all the Grey LMs, but at the end of the day he is a Grey Wizard, we will be fine.
 
Boney said:
That's true, I had focused on what Thorgrim was doing and hadn't thought of how Belegar would react until I was actually writing it. I suppose I think of that sort of thing as an error on my part, rather than a surprise from the character.
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Don't worry, if that scene was an error, then it certainly is the best error since Street Fighter 2 glitched out and created the concept of comboes in Fighting Games.

BTW, I have to ask for clarity. I've been referring to you with He/him and occasionally with they/them because your pronouns aren't listed, but I want to make sure.

You have a great quest. What's your pronouns?
 
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