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Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
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Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#1At the request of Fan, I'm creating a duplicate thread here to get a greater number of views on this. The original thread is here: http://strolen.com/guild/index.php/topic,7324.0.html.
In short, the Citadel have now formed a writer's group to do Amazon epubs that are collections of short stories of the fantasy/sci-fi genre. We are now calling for more writers/independent critics/editors to join!
If you are interested, please PM Axle your email and he will send you a link to our Google drive folder where members share their stories and assoc. prep stuff and we also have a Writer's Resource sub-folder for those interested in the minute aspects of the craft of writing. -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#2Okay, so now we have "enough" writers from everyone who says would like to be invovled but the reality is, we only have 3 active writers currently and we have about as many active commenters. So please can existing users on the Google drive as well as everyone who said they would like to be invovled but hasn't PMed Axle their own email addy yet do so now so that we can have enough commenters? We really really need them at this point. -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#3Hey Axle, if you still have my email, send me the link to the Google Doc again. I think I deleted it by accident. -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#4Scras, do you have a Google+ account or not? If you do, then you should be able to go to My Drive and access it that way. If not, it's here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B0UVBBLA5ruJfl8zempGa09aNU1kcFNwLXJFMzFJVUhBQXhtOEVEVHB3ZFZscFVmclhsWEU -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#5
Scras, do you have a Google+ account or not? If you do, then you should be able to go to My Drive and access it that way. If not, it's here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B0UVBBLA5ruJfl8zempGa09aNU1kcFNwLXJFMzFJVUhBQXhtOEVEVHB3ZFZscFVmclhsWEU
I only have a google+ account because I had to make one to activate my last cellphone. I used it for that, and on occasion I have to use it to view age restricted content on YouTube (really? I have to log in to watch a music video, but hardcore porn is single click access???) -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#6In that case, if you log in to your Google+, you should be able to navigate thru to My Drive. It's a bit confusing for me at first (cos like you, I don't use it often) but I usually just search Google drive and then log in and then I'm there.
I don't watch YouTube myself. I had thrown away the speaker to my PC so I can't hear any sound files/music effects etc. -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#7So what's the theme or focus of what we're working on?
I can do some writing, but I suck at editing. I am considering finding someone to pay to edit my novel for me instead of me doing it. -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#8We are doing fantasy right now. The idea behind this particular ebook is that it will serve as a test balloon for eventual Strolen Ezine or other type of regular periodical. We are doing cooperative proof reading. As for editing, we don't have an editor per say but do make suggestions regarding each other's work. Ultimately though there is not a thumbs up or thumbs down mechanism. What ever work you feel confident in presenting is what goes in under your name. This is a potluck publication at this point. Eventually we'd like to have a real magazine type thing with slush readers and an editorial board. Money (if there is any) will be divided among the authors. -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#9So there is functionally no theme then, nothing to pull all of the stories together?
[img width=400 height=300]http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article8420450.ece/alternates/w620/Sport3-gt-v2.jpg -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#10There are two stories (three if you can't the sandwich story). They all share the theme of being caught between groups in conflict. In the stories the protagonists have connections to both sides (multiple sides) of the conflict. An endemic theme could be characters caught between two cultures and not really sure if they belong in either one. But I thought you wanted to a fantasy story anthology, sword and sorcery sort of thing? -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#11What I wanted was to see if I could help move something here because I saw another writing group making ground and doing it. I didnt have an idea, or a story, but wanted ti share a process.
And a viable theme would be elves, dragons, actual dungeons.
Not a vague form of conflict. If you cant put it in less than 3 words its not a theme. -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#12cultural anoikis is not vague. But if we did a topic like elves that might tie the stories together. Let us split topic and theme here for second. A narrative theme might serve to unify the stories while allowing for a great diversity in topics. Thus we could have dragons, gladiators, kobolds and jaguar warriors all in the same book. The settings of the stories maybe very different but the themes could be the same.
What do you think about a unifying theme that focuses on the events or the conflicts in the story not the trappings of the story. Though I would enjoy a dwarf anthology. -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#13
cultural anoikis is not vague. But if we did a topic like elves that might tie the stories together. Let us split topic and theme here for second. A narrative theme might serve to unify the stories while allowing for a great diversity in topics. Thus we could have dragons, gladiators, kobolds and jaguar warriors all in the same book. The settings of the stories maybe very different but the themes could be the same.
What do you think about a unifying theme that focuses on the events or the conflicts in the story not the trappings of the story. Though I would enjoy a dwarf anthology.
Cultural anoikis? What in hell is that even? Google doesn't even know what that is, other than spitting cellular biology and biochem back at me?
I am going to guess it's something about culture's predisposition to be self terminating?
Who are you selling that to, anyway? Anthropology students? Is Polyhedron or Dragon doing an article about anoikis?
As for the second part, I'm not going to split hairs, I'm too tired for that semantic nonsense. There has to be a commonality between all of the stories. Zombies, fine. Goblins, fine. The collapse of social order on varying scales, fine. Set in the mountains, fine. Doesn't matter what the commonality is, there just needs to be one.
And it needs to be pretty efking simple.
That's one of the hang-ups that we always hit, trying to pull off some pie in the sky mumbo-jumbo existential arthaus drek when the people want the pulp fantasy.
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Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#14Anoikos means homelessness in greek. But in greek it means wander as well, so fits the idea better. In biology means the same thing, a cell without a home, a wandering cell.
I think this is an established literary theme. It applies to characters like Theon Greyjoy, Dances with Wolves, any of those cop deepcover dramas, and I think it would appeal to a lot of people that feel they don't fit in. People pulled between two worlds.
If we are putting the ebbook under the flag of the citadel than it might be nice to highlight the sites diversity. I read a lot fiction magazines and they don't have a theme for every issue, at least not an overt one like zombies. What are the anthologies your other writing group is ePubing. Give us a link, I am sure you sell at least one (to me). I was hoping to keep this thing very inclusive. Perhaps that is a more common hang up 'round here: exclusivity.
But if you need a theme
How about horses, foundlings or shamans. Pick one and start writing.
Also we are not the far into it. If you don't want to participate without a topic like zombies than we wouldn't loose to much by starting over. Let us know how you want us to proceed. -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#15I don't see whats wrong with a general fantasy theme? -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#16I agree with Scras. Which sucks, because my rare moments of inspiration don't give a d**n about themes. :) It would reduce my utility before I've even started.
But themes help tie things together in a reader's mind, and SIMPLE themes do that much better than weird Greek words only academics and Greeks know. :)
That said, I've uploaded something. I wrote it a while ago. There is more of it, but this is a sample to see if people think it's okay. However, it's not even Fantasy, nevermind your friggin' elves and whatnot. If you want a theme, this work won't work. Which would be good to know before I put in any effort in updating it.
EDIT TO ADD: At this stage I ONLY need to know if the idea and genre work. It needs work, polish, and oxford commas. I already know that. :) -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#17I don't either and theme I was referring to was only for the prose and not planned. I just noticed that both Moon's and my story had similar theme of a character caught between two opposing sides. That just occurred naturally. -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#18You guys sincerely don't being caught between two cultures is a classic literary theme -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#19
You guys sincerely don't being caught between two cultures is a classic literary theme
I'm still trying to find it man, you've dug deep into the roster for this one.
I'd officially like to request some works cited information on this one. The closest comparisons I can find are Prodigal Son, The Exiled Wanderer, and the basic caught between a rock and a hard place where both sides are man versus society. -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#20Conflicting loyalty? Going native? Maybe you shouldn't look in your academic literature sources and just turn to the media you have watched. Avatar for example.
Anyway a tangent, but an interesting one.
Scras I will be sad if you want sit this out. You are like superhero not using his powers. You are the mechanic. A writer first. You have spent years studing art and literature. You could add a lot.
Also if you want to sit out this test round, we hope to have a more formalied one later. -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#21
Conflicting loyalty? Going native? Maybe you shouldn't look in your academic literature sources and just turn to the media you have watched. Avatar for example.
Anyway a tangent, but an interesting one.
Scras I will be sad if you want sit this out. You are like superhero not using his powers. You are the mechanic. A writer first. You have spent years studing art and literature. You could add a lot.
Also if you want to sit out this test round, we hope to have a more formalied one later.
I have intent on sitting out. The funny thing about your answer is that you actually named the trope information I was looking for, it is specifically named Going Native
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoingNative
And Avatar, and it's original version, Pocahontas, are both listed.
I haven't written anything because we don't have any sort of central vision to the ePub other than the Rosie the Riveter pose.
The Going Native trope works fine, but I would say that to pull everything together we should pick a common element, and the obvious one is the race involved, such as Going Native: Orcs and Humans, and there could be stories about orcs raised human, humans going Dances with Wolves with a warband, and so forth. Orcs, elves, etc, whatever.
It touches on race relations, and if you highlight differences in culture between sexes it can become gender relevant, etc.
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Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#22Is tv tropes a wiki? Cause I am going to add cultural anoikos and then screen shot it before it gets chewed out. -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#23I believe it is wiki format, yes. -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#24So what about this stuff your other writing group is epubing. You
You wanna plug that? Is it nc-17? -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#25
So what about this stuff your other writing group is epubing. You
You wanna plug that? Is it nc-17?
Its erotica.
And they have a couple things on target.
1. They know their audience, and what they want.
2. They know the delivery vehicle, in this case, Amazon ePub.
3. They deliver what their audience wants and is willing to pay for.
4. They have a level of honesty and openness to criticism and ideas that makes us look like North Korea.
5. They have all come out of the NaNoWriMo camp, so they all know what pretentious asshattery looks like. -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#26You think we should ditch this project? We did just try and jump right in. When you get time you can set us up a proper ePub. At least we got some writing out of it. -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#27Goals for this epub.
1) It will be a learning experience. It would be nice to develop a real Strolen Ezine that publishes fiction. This ePub will help troubleshoot that process.
2) It will be focused on representing the Citadel’s fiction writer. Citadel has a lot of writers, they write different things. I hope that it will represent the diversity of the citadel’s interests and styles. This is not a review process. This is self publication. So what every part of yourself you want to publish is fine. You just need to have confidence in your work.
3) Help the writer express themselves clearly. The ebook sub group should not judge whether a story or poem is good or bad in this case. But only, is it clear where the writer want clarity and enigmatic where the writer wants mystery.
4) It will advertise the citadel. Hopefully this will be another way the community can reach out.
5) Test the waters, see if we have an audience.
Note that making money is not a primary goal. There might be money, but more importantly there will be a finished product. -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#28We could do another one at the same time. A project Scras could respect.
Pre-industrial dwarves murder mysteries. Go! -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#29Guys, can we not jump so far ahead? Axle, isn't you who's the one who's adamant that we keep this at the level of a 'potluck enterprise' for now so why are you and Scras jumping into themes etc.? (I'm with Longspeak on his stance on themes, I simply can't write to a theme. But I won't say I'll walk out on this enterprise if themes are in but just get ready for very slow progress from me, slower than ant-crawling pace I'm progressing by now.)
Anyway, Longspeak has asked me whether a serial is okay and I just told him that now this is a completely rule-less enterprise (I guess that has been the status even before this discussion b/w you and Scras came up) and go right ahead.
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Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#30Jumping ahead?
We want a finished product, that's what I want. If it can be marketed, if it can promote the Citadel, that's a bonus.
But we need to do something good, something worthy of not just our time, but the time of those who read it. If we are just going to do a claptrap of randomness wedged into a single ePub it looks bad, it looks amateurish, and it reflects poorly on the Citadel. Whatever we do, whatever it is, it needs to be coherent.
The movie Heavy Metal followed a single dingus through multiple stories set to awesome animation and a killer soundtrack. Aside from a glowing green rock called the Loc-Nar, the stories had nothing to do with each other, but it was the dingus that pulled them together.
As for being able to write to a theme, I give you this look:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6f/J.K._Simmons_as_Jameson.gif
I'm not dusting off the Writing textbook and talking about writing bildungsroman stories, or dropping heavy lit criticals like the denouement or stories about ingenues.
If you can write genre fantasy, that's enough.
That's what people want.
Serials are cool. Yes.
As for Pre-Industrial Dwarf Murder Mysteries...
http://www.bestforfilm.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/worst-insert-7.jpg -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#31You know, I like this idea - write something for a predefined topic, a series of tales or related articles.
It would even be a good excuse to get writing :) -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#32@Scras, I know there're valid points to this theme idea but this frowning upon on 'jumping ahead' really comes from Axle. I don't want to engage in finger pointing but he's the one adamant that we just concentrate on the biz of writing at the moment and worry about the selection and marketing process later, much later. Also, when I was reading the exchange b/w you and Axle, it came across to me that the central msg is this: Scras is walking way from this venture b/c he wanted a theme to the epub and Axle supplied him an answer based on the current stories already written/being written which he found dissatisfactory (if you guys hadn't jumped so far ahead, I would have come into the discussion and told you that instead of Axle's Greek term, we could have 'shape-shifter' as a common ground for the two stories written by me and Axle. It's a term easily understandable for most who read fantasy and granted it doesn't have as close a link to the central theme for our 2 stories- in fact only tangential while Axle's Greek term is spot on. But I think shape-shifter is really on par with some of the themes you mentioned like dwarves, orcs, dragons etc. I would bet that a collection of short stories with dragons as a central theme for example will all star dragons but quite a few of them would just have dragons as a kind of tangential thing, some bit of awesome myth etc.). So to me, your declaration of walking away from this after a discussion about themes just seems absurd and bordering on insanity (I don't want to say derogatory words but that is seriously my impression).
Back to more useful talk, I don't dislike this idea of themes for itself because as I said elsewhere, I do like a 'clean product' but as Axle persuaded me to, I think the current priority is put out more stories among the epub writer's group and then we can pick the best. Not cripple ourselves before we have found the momentum to get into writing by narrowing things down to a 'theme'.
The main reason that I'm 'against' themes is because I'm really not that good with short stories. I keep thinking up all these epic stories ala LoR style. Add a theme on top of that, I simply won't be able to participate in this venture due to the slow pace that I would be progressing at (arguably not a problem for the initial few issues but not stable if we ever make this venture into something like a ezine released quarterly). It would be just like a Citadel quest for me minus the ability to retro participate. -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#33I do hope that if we just write good stories, sincere stories that we want to write, then people will read them. But I still feel the focus should be on the writing.
Scras wants to do his own thing for people, that is fine. He will benefit from our experience in this venture.
If you want to know the audience from a different angle, The Depauw University Department of Science Fiction studies maintains gather demographic information on who pays for science fiction and fantasy literature. It can be accessed through their website. -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#34I can get behind shape-shifter.
Or Post-industrial Dwarven Murder Mystery! Who is with me? -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#35And Avatar, and it's original version, Pocahontas, are both listed.
I just wanted to say that the original version of Avatar is, in fact, Fern Gully with a dash of Dances With Wolves, Pocahontas was late to the show on that one. :lol: -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#36WHERE IN THE FUCKING HELL DID THIS WALKING AWAY THING FUCKING COME FROM!
At no point have I said ANYTHING about walking away. -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#37
I have intent on sitting out. The funny thing about your answer is that you actually named the trope information I was looking for, it is specifically named Going Native
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoingNative
And Avatar, and it's original version, Pocahontas, are both listed.
I haven't written anything because we don't have any sort of central vision to the ePub other than the Rosie the Riveter pose.
The Going Native trope works fine, but I would say that to pull everything together we should pick a common element, and the obvious one is the race involved, such as Going Native: Orcs and Humans, and there could be stories about orcs raised human, humans going Dances with Wolves with a warband, and so forth. Orcs, elves, etc, whatever.
It touches on race relations, and if you highlight differences in culture between sexes it can become gender relevant, etc.
This post makes it sound like you sitting this out. -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#38@Scras: okay, maybe I read this wrong but you can understand why I would think it absurd and be upset if after a discussion of themes between two of our most treasured writers, one walks out on us for the trivial reason I described above, right?
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Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#39I thought scras was taking his ball and going home too. On a retread maybe there was a typo -
Re: Call to arms- Writers/Independent critic/editor wanted!
#40Sitting out != Walking away.
My take was he was not submitting anything to V1. Nothing more.