TGRF's Fan Fiction Chronicles - Entry #80

Ever since my writing stopped, I've known something which I've never mentioned here. I didn't mention it, because despite all my various proclamations that I was 'back' or I had 'fixed' X, Y, or Z, it was evidence that I was wrong. And I kind of knew that in the back of my mind, but kept talking myself out of it.

So what is that thing which I never mentioned until now? A simple fact: I knew that my writing could never return until I figured out two things. Firstly, why it had stopped, and secondly, how to bring it back. If I didn't know that, nothing would be different. My writing was stopped for a reason; I knew it wouldn't come back until something big had changed.

You already know where I'm going with this.

Throughout all of my various head-banging and wild attempts to figure out where it had all gone wrong, things were happening in the background; things which needed to happen....

TGRF's Fan Fiction Chronicles - Entry #79

This FFC will be a bit different from my others, because it concerns a scene I've seen repeated in my home on occasion. And, being the writer I am, I feel compelled to critique it.

Last night, a friend of mine - who considers himself to be a movie connoisseur - elected to watch Blade Runner (1982). We had all watched it together the first time he wanted to see it, and, remembering enough of it from that first viewing, I elected to retreat to the depths of my room, where the only sign of the viewing next door was the constant reverberations of gunfire, things crashing, and screams (seriously, I don't remember it being that violent...).

Fast forward to the next morning. My mother, who watched the film because she couldn't remember it, said that she regretted her decision to consume said visual media. She didn't know what the point of it was, described it as 'sick', and said it was one of the worst movies...

TGRF's Fan Fiction Chronicles - Entry #78

It's been mid-August since my last blog entry, and late June since my last real update, leading the more avid of my followers to perhaps wonder what has become of me and my writing. More likely my fiction endeavors have simply been forgotten, but I'm going to update you anyway.

Ever since I 'stopped' writing, back in July 2020, I've been waiting to say the words 'I'm back' in one of these FFCs.

Technically I did that already at least once, but as it turned out to be largely a false alarm, I'm not counting it.

Throughout the last year+, I've been trying to restart my fiction writing. I got a few stories out, namely Utgar and Valkyrie, and while the former wasn't bad, and the later definitely had some good parts to it, neither really felt like a return to my old writing ways. For the most part, I still couldn't get stories off the ground - they always had some problem, or if they didn't,...

TGRF's Fan Fiction Chronicles - Entry #77

I’ve said elsewhere that I want to use this time to further study writing, specifically what I have left to work on.

One of those areas is stakes. Stakes have always been a bit of an issue for me, as I’ve mentioned before on numerous occasions. Despite various proclamations that I had ‘fixed’ stakes or ‘found the answers’, they always were difficult to work with when developing a story.

Over the years, I’ve gotten an increasing understanding of the nature of stakes. Not only in simply what works and what doesn’t, but why those things work or don’t. I’ve analyzed books and films, read research, and formulated my own findings. Usually when you come up with a theory that fits everything like a glove, it’s a sign you’re on the right track. Well, I’ve found such a theory, and I wanted to share it with the other writers here.

I’ve gotten bits and pieces of what exactly personal stakes (the...

TGRF's Fan Fiction Chronicles - Entry #76

A while ago, I finished the Mistborn trilogy, by Brandon Sanderson. In a word, I’d describe it as a solid read. Some things I took issue with, others I thought were masterful. The end result was that it got me excited to start the Stormlight Archive. I finally got my hands on the first book about half a month ago, but in all that time, I’ve only read through the second chapter.

While there are a few reasons for my apparent lack of enthusiasm for the book (some of which have nothing to do with the book at all), there were a few which I feel have contributed heavily to the book’s current un-read state, and which I think can be instructive in how not to start a story.

I’m coming to realize that Brandon Sanderson is known for his unique style of switching PoV constantly throughout his books. While he certainly managed to use it to his advantage in Mistborn, here it’s causing me to lose interest after I...