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Author Craft / Re: Need Thesaurus help
« on: March 14, 2008, 12:24:00 PM »Earthquake?Too specific. Same with avalanche. Im looking for none specific earth-based destruction.
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3512
DFRPG / Re: Any online Dresdenverse RPG group? *wink*
« on: March 13, 2008, 02:38:39 PM »
A bunch of us are on http://www.dresdenverse.com/
Its a forum based RPG, lots of fun. You should checks it outs.
Its a forum based RPG, lots of fun. You should checks it outs.
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Author Craft / Need Thesaurus help
« on: March 12, 2008, 08:40:47 PM »
OK, Im trying to find words that fit each of the four elements and denote a massive upheaval or destructive event. So far I have:
Deluge for water, Conflagration for Fire, Maelstrom for Air...
Im stuck on earth.
Any ideas?
Deluge for water, Conflagration for Fire, Maelstrom for Air...
Im stuck on earth.
Any ideas?
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Author Craft / Re: Vampires, Werewolves, and Elves as Evil Beings
« on: February 29, 2008, 06:14:19 PM »Wanna see vampires as nasty, evil beings intent only on destruction? watch "30 Days of Night"......A really good bad movie.
Another good one is I am Legend. Its viral, but they are described as basically vampires whose high brain function is suppressed, so they are very animalistic.
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Author Craft / Re: Plot Helpers
« on: February 19, 2008, 02:00:23 PM »
My method goes: create the world, create the hero, sketch a rough story arc that he'll have to travel (ie what is the major conflict of the story), then wing it to see how he does in the details.
But then, ive never finished a novel either.
But then, ive never finished a novel either.
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DF Reference Collection / Re: Dresden Files: Series Timeline
« on: February 15, 2008, 11:04:22 PM »Maybe in in Dresden's world TWA was more successful? Maybe this is a hint that the CEO of TWA is magically talented (Maybe he's even the Gatekeeper/Cowl)They had a deal with Monoc... *pauses to imagine Ms. Gard in a stewardess uniform*
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Author Craft / Re: A bit of help...
« on: February 11, 2008, 02:25:22 PM »
In that case Im liking Paradigm Flux
Paradigm -->a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and generalizations and the experiments performed in support of them are formulated; broadly : a philosophical or theoretical framework of any kind
and
Flux --> the rate of transfer of fluid, particles, or energy across a given surface
Seems to fit pretty well, and I think it has a certain ring to it
Paradigm -->a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and generalizations and the experiments performed in support of them are formulated; broadly : a philosophical or theoretical framework of any kind
and
Flux --> the rate of transfer of fluid, particles, or energy across a given surface
Seems to fit pretty well, and I think it has a certain ring to it
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Author Craft / Re: Vampires, Werewolves, and Elves as Evil Beings
« on: February 11, 2008, 07:08:08 AM »Actually, Elf is a catch-all term like Fairie. The true dark elves of legend are the Dwarves.At least in the northern Europe area (ie the Norse domain)
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Author Craft / Re: Plot Helpers
« on: February 11, 2008, 03:48:00 AM »
My brother used to live in alaska! In this god-awful small town about two hours north of Anchorage that every random person ive run into who has been to the state (the largest in the union by far, mind you) seems to have drifted through. Called Talkeetna, its about 73 yards across, but its beautiful, and have even been featured in such widely credible works as Top-Cows Darkness Comics (a spin-off of Witchblade)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talkeetna)
Dude Im gettin more and more excited about your idea all the time. Ive got some contact info in my profile. Let me know if you every get any sort of group together, or just want to bounce ideas around.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talkeetna)
Dude Im gettin more and more excited about your idea all the time. Ive got some contact info in my profile. Let me know if you every get any sort of group together, or just want to bounce ideas around.
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Author Craft / Re: Plot Helpers
« on: February 11, 2008, 12:42:26 AM »My idea has been on the stove top since last year at a creative writing class, but this is what I got as a Urban fantasey/sci-fi world.That sounds...Awesome! Any Ideas for characters?
The year is early 2012, and everybody thought Armageddon was going to happen, but it didn’t, until scientists discovered an asteroid in space on a collision course with earth. Now you think its going to be like Michael Bay’s movie, but nobody prepared for it. People went religious and pretended that it was never happening. Well it crashed, but no death occurred, and it acted is the strangest way. Al it did was crash into the Pacific ocean, 50 miles north of Hawaii, exploded, created a dimensional rip in the atmosphere, threw monolithic crystal towers everywhere on the planet, emitted orbs of electricity, attacked, and infected every human that lives, even in remote places. After the tragedy, people nickname it “The Wave” because of how it swooped over the planet.
There are traces of foreign substances in the brain, but later in the week, the Waves true purpose took fold. People started to mutate “supernaturally” into a form of three characteristics: A third human, a third lizard/dinosaur, and a third elf (some Night Elf similarities). All of them gain the power to wield magic and have a spiritual companion, called totems, to teach them their new abilities. Another part is that the totems call them Terrans, even though they never herd of Earth’s recorded history.
The story will have these points of interests that got me thinking about it in the first place: magic returning to Earth, adjusting to change, a deeper and darker secret behind the crash, starting points of world war 3, knowing what you were born to be, and alien ties. It will have aliens involved, but I’m not there yet.
And no, it does not have anything to do with Shadowrun or evil corporations.
I created a thread about my own difficulty getting started on a story (http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,5795.10.html), but one of the big things people told me that helped (and I agree) Is getting a few people together and gaming it out, RPG style. It can be anything from a full sit-down table-top to a few people online just talking it through, but it does really seem to help. If you need someone to play an asskicking psuedo T-rex, Im totally there
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Author Craft / Re: Plot Helpers
« on: February 10, 2008, 05:42:54 PM »
I have the same problem. I tend to build interesting worlds, and even interesting characters, but finding an engaging story arc for them to follow gets a bit harder.
Can you tell use a little more about the idea? Is is urban fantasy? Space sci-fi? old fashion sword and horse? Do you want a Save-the-world sort of story? a Save my own ass story? a Solve the mystery type?
In general, a few things you'll need to figure out before the details start to come (And i cant say what the best order for tackling these might be, thats kinda up to you and your style). Figure out the world (modern reality, urban fatasy, post-apocoliptic, sword and sorcery, etc), Figure out the genre (mystery, political, save the world, etc), find a character you can really feel and get behind (that sounds a bit dirtier than it should
), figure out what the primary conflict is and then figure out what makes that character the right/only person to solve it. Once you can decide on the basic path of the story, you'll find more and more as you start walking it.
Can you tell use a little more about the idea? Is is urban fantasy? Space sci-fi? old fashion sword and horse? Do you want a Save-the-world sort of story? a Save my own ass story? a Solve the mystery type?
In general, a few things you'll need to figure out before the details start to come (And i cant say what the best order for tackling these might be, thats kinda up to you and your style). Figure out the world (modern reality, urban fatasy, post-apocoliptic, sword and sorcery, etc), Figure out the genre (mystery, political, save the world, etc), find a character you can really feel and get behind (that sounds a bit dirtier than it should
), figure out what the primary conflict is and then figure out what makes that character the right/only person to solve it. Once you can decide on the basic path of the story, you'll find more and more as you start walking it.3523
Author Craft / Re: A bit of help...
« on: February 10, 2008, 05:27:41 PM »Reality quake?
Cascade Paradox
Paradigm Flux
Quantum Tempest
Metaphysical Hiccup
(or various combinations of the above)
Let me ask you this, whats sort of usage are you going to give this thing. If we're taking something that will be used during the nice explanation chapter or whatever, something more scientific and/or long but accurately descriptive might be what you need. If its something the heroes are are going to be shouting at each other as shit meets fan, it might be more important for it to sound good and role of the tongue. You may even what to have two terms to work with, one for the reality phenomenon (say Paradigm Flux) and then another for the collateral damage side of the effect (say FluxQuake).
And what is the effect of this spewing of magical stuff. is it purely an energy discharge? do elves and vampires show up on the street? Is it sort of a reality revision, where what was is now something else (mounted cops horse turns into a unicorn or some such)? Just trying to get the feel of the thing
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Author Craft / Re: What do you wish would be done MORE in urban fantasy?
« on: February 07, 2008, 12:06:48 AM »
Its kind of why I preferred Marvel comics over DC growing up. In DC everyone fell somewhere on the Superman Scale, but but where all near gods in one way or another (or actual god, in a few cases) with some crazy broad spectrum of power. Marvel characters had usually one, but at most a small handful of thematic abilities and the story was about how they utilized them in the given situation. Granted DC had much more varied and interesting origin stories, rather than the Mutant X-factor catch-all, but still...
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Author Craft / Re: What do you wish would be done MORE in urban fantasy?
« on: February 01, 2008, 03:04:47 AM »I would love to see an urban fantasy were the hero doesn't continually get more and more powerful each freaking book!! Jim does a good job of this since Harry only gets stronger through time and Tavi's powers a not special at all considering his father and mother.The power creep is pretty integral to any hero development. I mean, a hero who doesn't improve is just plain boring. And a hero who is supposed to be interesting over the course of multiple books has to improve somewhat because the challenges they face in each subsequent book needs to be challenging and more difficult than the last, else why are we interested in this characters development?
Now if your looking for a character who does not become "world-class" or even in the top tier of power, I recommend the Assassin's Quest Series. The main character is full-out stunted in his magical development, but he still plays an integral part in the survival of the world