General Discussion Thread

[Tamur]

Just a note to everyone to say: I will be away from the keyboard and the Org through Wednesday evening next week. I was tempted to post the next assignment before I leave, but have talked myself out of that since this current assignment should be enough to worry about without more distraction.

This means that the next assignment will be up on Thursday next week, and the assignment 5 posting thread won't be locked till Wednesday evening.

Happy weekend to everyone.

[Prince Cobra]

I'm happy that this is active. I'll join again once the cursed exams are over.

[Tamur]

We'll look forward to seeing you Stephen, and best of luck with exams.

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm impressed by my inability to follow direction. In the assignment post thread Tamur clearly says 'Once you're done posting your writing, head over to the discussion thread and tell people what you thought of the assignment!' When I noticed that, which was of course long after one would expect, I edited this off the end of my post and moved it here...


This was indeed a challenging assignment. In journalism character background is a matter of sifting through a swarm of 'facts' and picking the ones that are at least marginally verifiable and support the direction you are taking. Here I think the background I came up with is horribly thin...but everything I thought to add to it would probably be better placed in backstory for additional characters. For example, I gave way more than a moments thought to names for his wife and other guys in the band, but eventually realized they would be major characters and those would be their stories, not his.

I'm left wondering if I misunderstood the entire idea, but I gave it my best shot.

[Ironsword]

^^Yes, I thought it difficult too. My effort is less factual than yours timsup2nothin, and I wonder whether my background and character disconnects are too vague.

[MountainTroll]

I thought this assignment (5)was initially overwhelming... but once I found a character I was interested in myself, the details started rolling. I think listing the disconnects is an interesting way to break down a story into what a character is battling. I have had trouble coming up with ones in the past, maybe this is the excercise I need to do more frequently.

Also, I had trouble knowing how much detail to put into the backstory, without actually starting to write the story. Overall though, I thought it was fun.

I got a chance to read through everyone's assignment 4's. It seemed as if people were either really good at writing depressing settings or really good at writing exuberant ones. (I think TimsuptoNothin had a great happy one with his briefcase story!) -But I didn't see any that had two strong pairings (including me!) I think overall people wrote better as depressed. Why do you think that is? Or do you disagree? Maybe people notice their surroundings and other people when they are down, but when they are happy, just zip through life not taking time to notice the details? Maybe that's why the best writers seem to stuggle with depression or whatever issues. So, maybe the trick is (if you are not a naturally down sort of person) is to become more analytical during happy moments. I'm going to try this... I don't know if it will work.
Maybe it would suck the happiness out.

If I post again sounding very depressed, you will know not to try this at home. :)

[Ironsword]

...I got a chance to read through everyone's assignment 4's. It seemed as if people were either really good at writing depressing settings...

Hah! In my case so true! I'm not really a depressed, miserable loner, but often I fall into the trap of believing that loss, pain, regret are more powerful than joy, love, excitement etc. I'm going to try and inject more of these 'happy' emotions in the upcoming assignments.

-Also, I never listed my characters disconnects/conflicts in assignment 5, rather just tried to work them into the story. They are, in my mind at least as follows;

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

- No matter how good a craftsman he is, the empty shelf/lost urn, a metaphor for his family, will always remain so. Even his great skill cannot alter that.
- To keep continuing, he must sell the timeline of pots he's crafted, thus he is faced with the choice between keeping both his happy and traumatic past or the uncertain future.
- He needs closure of some sort, symbolised by the beard cutting and the repetitve nature of his days, but he feels unable to until he re-creates the urn that fills the empty shelf, which as mentioned earlier, is unattainable.
- His skill, his greatest asset has made him a recluse in his pursuit of recreating his old happiness, yet if he took a moment to look outside his workshop, he might find that which he hopes for most; The church notice, the urn and hence closure.

[Timsup2nothin]

I got a chance to read through everyone's assignment 4's. It seemed as if people were either really good at writing depressing settings or really good at writing exuberant ones. (I think TimsuptoNothin had a great happy one with his briefcase story!) -But I didn't see any that had two strong pairings (including me!) I think overall people wrote better as depressed. Why do you think that is?

Having been pointed out as the exception I think I can answer this question. The modern human is conditioned to avoid being out of the ordinary, and the ordinary is something fairly close to depressed. Since it is automatic to seek evidence for whatever we have chosen to believe we see depressing things much more clearly than other things.

As an experiment, commit for one week to answer the endless streams of 'how are you?' that we all meet with 'marvelous!' or 'excellent!' or 'terrific!'. You will stop traffic at the checkout line in the supermarket. Be prepared to be stared at. Be prepared for looks that clearly call you a liar. No one will want to believe you, because they want to believe that 'okay', or 'oh, fine I guess' is the best anyone is doing so they don't feel like they are missing out.

If you yourself can't shake the feeling that you are lying for the sake of an experiment it probably won't work. The people you say it to will be left with 'that poor soul is so miserable they have to put on a front just to get through the day'.

This is where I operate from every day. When someone says 'how are you today?' I don't take it as a request for a report on the day up to then, I take it as an opportunity to predict how the rest of my day will go. From there it is hard to ask for anything less than 'great'.

The next step is to learn that it is up to you to make your prediction true. I would say 'good luck', but luck has nothing to do with it.