Newgrounds.com — Everything, By Everyone.

At 2/3/10 11:45 AM, gumOnShoe wrote: I wasn't talking about Jar Jar. I only mentioned Jar Jar in one sentance. Jar Jar was a sidenote. I was talking aobut Pirates & Transformers, but more generally any fiction under the sun.

Oh, sorry about that. Screwed up there.

I agree that's a general rule absolutely if you're going to expand your original thoughts further like that. I made a post (pg.14) about how I think writers can use any factual research gathered versus using a thought that is not attempting to replicate reality and instead is drawing attention to itself by making it clear that it is constructed. Like you say though, it's dangerous to go back on something you've supposed to have established as fact if you're taking the latter route.

I've not seen either of the Transformers films, and my thoughts on Pirates go about as far as what I posted above on Jack Sparrow and how is was, in a way, 'force-developed', but I'm not incredibly familiar with the films anyway.

Er, yeah, I'll sit in the corner now :$

I think I judge movies a little differently than you guys do. I don't mind a mindless, plotless movie, just so long it's entertaining. My most favorite movie of all time is Fight Club, there's a really good strong story with actually surprising twists.

But my number 2 movie is Shoot 'em Up. Absolutely mindless, the only reason there's a story there at all is because if they put anymore random gun battles in the movie, it would become too awesome for human consumption.

The thing about movies is, there's a visual element as well as a story element, and if one is strong enough it can compensate for the other.

The worst thing about the plot of transformers and the movie as a whole was how they progressed the plot and used the human characters.

Instead of using the robots themselves to push the plot- the robots which supposedly are the focus of the entire transformers franchise- they use human characters. Not only that, they use human characters in a sad, awkward, unrealistic teen-love scenario, specifically the "dopey guy gets the outrageously hot girl who is obviously out of his league" angle.

They manage to turn the robots, the thing everyone came to see, into a sidelined plot element instead of the main focus. The only time you see the magnitude of the robots is at the final fight scene, and by then, you only know a few of the robot's fucking NAMES, unless you recognize them from when you were a kid outside of the movie.

That movie should not have been called "Transformers". It should have been called "Shia Lebeouf Acting Awkward Around A Hot Girl For A Couple of Hours".

At 2/3/10 12:11 PM, Version2 wrote: I think I judge movies a little differently than you guys do. I don't mind a mindless, plotless movie, just so long it's entertaining.

I'm exactly the same way. I don't watch movies expecting them to be totally accurate and perfect in every way. I watch them to be entertained. If you're too concerned with the minute of a movie, you're missing the point of just enjoying a good film and should probably just stick to watching documentaries on the History Channel.

Who cares of, in reality a jump from a 20ft ledge would probably kill you... just sit back, suspend disbelief, and enjoy.

At 2/3/10 01:36 PM, tigerkitty wrote:

At 2/3/10 12:11 PM, Version2 wrote: I think I judge movies a little differently than you guys do. I don't mind a mindless, plotless movie, just so long it's entertaining.

I'm exactly the same way. I don't watch movies expecting them to be totally accurate and perfect in every way. I watch them to be entertained. If you're too concerned with the minute of a movie, you're missing the point of just enjoying a good film and should probably just stick to watching documentaries on the History Channel.

Who cares of, in reality a jump from a 20ft ledge would probably kill you... just sit back, suspend disbelief, and enjoy.

It's not that it has to be terribly realistic and scientifically accurate, it's that it should be consistent, well thought out, reasonable within the context of the movie, and not a fucking cop-out.

If I'm watching something that relies on cliches, recycled story, predictable twists, stupid stunts for the sake of stunts, and gratuitous explosions that function to help you forget about how bad the story is, I will not be entertained, I will be unhappy. Poor writing is not entertaining to me unless it is intentionally poor in order to create a certain intended atmosphere.

At 2/3/10 01:48 PM, Luxury-Yacht wrote: It's not that it has to be terribly realistic and scientifically accurate, it's that it should be consistent, well thought out, reasonable within the context of the movie, and not a fucking cop-out.

If I'm watching something that relies on cliches, recycled story, predictable twists, stupid stunts for the sake of stunts, and gratuitous explosions that function to help you forget about how bad the story is, I will not be entertained, I will be unhappy. Poor writing is not entertaining to me unless it is intentionally poor in order to create a certain intended atmosphere.

Ehh... I think we just view entertainment differently, I suppose. I don't bother looking that hard into it. Yeah, sometimes it's hard not to notice when something is blatantly wrong, but I just don't care. I won't let it deter me from enjoy the movie.

So I was talking to Luis, and it would be interesting to start matching Animators and Writers together, since, obviously, this is the main goal of this Lit Forum and incoming Lit Portal. Giving good writers with no Flash talent (me lol) a chance to pierce in the Flash Portal.

I'm sure I'm not the only one excited by that idea.

At 2/3/10 03:45 PM, FBIpolux wrote: I'm sure I'm not the only one excited by that idea.

Yeah, I'd love to see that, as long as it's made a violation to use someone else's writing without coauthoring the person (unless they get permission, of course, which should be noted in the author's comments).

At 2/3/10 03:45 PM, FBIpolux wrote: I'm sure I'm not the only one excited by that idea.

I've been thinking about it for a while. While I have absolutely no talent myself in art or animation, I have a special love for storytelling in the medium and taking advantage of what the form offers to experiment with things. I'm working on a brief script right now that I hope to throw out there. It won't be terribly long (I'm thinking about ten minutes max, though I'm going to 'research' some Flash beforehand and maybe ask around about how I should structure the thing), but I think it would work as a Flash - I'm sure I'll whore it off as much as possible when the time comes. I'll probably put it up in this forum for workshopping oppurtunities.

Without meaning to criticise individual Flash makers, I tend to find that many great Flashes on NG lack a more solid storytelling element that would work so great with some of the skill we see in the portal. I'm not saying my stories would be the best, but I'd like to make an effort at least, to see what I can add.

This seems like a good time for me to post a link to Duck Amuck, the frequently-used example to show how creative animation may be. I'd love to have the chance to write something like that. Today, some of the tricks may seem a bit dated, but it's still pretty unique I think.

We seem to have a few professional writers and students in this forum. What I'd like to see is a thread on how and where to sell a story, or how to get you your works published. Maybe some tips on setting up a blog.

I think that authors should also need to ask permission to use the story, as opposed to just coauthoring the person and having them find out for themselves when they see that they have a new flash submission that they didn't submit. This is to prevent writers from having their stories done by flash artists who don't have that much talent. Writers can look at the person's earlier submissions and decide for themselves.

At 2/3/10 05:24 PM, InsertFunnyUserName wrote: I think that authors should also need to ask permission to use the story, as opposed to just coauthoring the person and having them find out for themselves when they see that they have a new flash submission that they didn't submit. This is to prevent writers from having their stories done by flash artists who don't have that much talent. Writers can look at the person's earlier submissions and decide for themselves.

I don't know, tbh that's probably expecting too much, as with the music portal, flash authors tend to use their music reguardless of how "crappy" they are as long as they co-sponsor, not to mention just reading a good story/poem sticks to someone, it's not illegal to copy the idea of the same story anyways, so I don't think this could be a viable option.

I'm thinking that the "My own personal essay thread" thing might not be working :(

What do you think? Seems like the thread gets to long to fast, I think that might be causing people to lose interest in the thread before they are done.

At 2/3/10 06:36 PM, Version2 wrote: I'm thinking that the "My own personal essay thread" thing might not be working :(

At 2/2/10 12:35 PM, RWT wrote: I just don't think it's working for everyone to post their crap in their one long personal thread...

At 2/2/10 12:43 PM, gumOnShoe wrote: There is no requirement for anyone to make a "my stories" thread. Its something people started doing. Don't feel you can't make another thread when its appropriate, just keep in mind that if you have 6 threads on the first page full of unedited work its not likely people are going to want to read anything you write anymore. And that's being said to everyone, not just you.

I just wanted to do that in the most tongue-in-cheek way possible.

In all seriousness, Gum said it. Don't feel restricted to one thread. Feel free to make a thread (occassionally) if you really want to show something off. And that's being said to everyone, not just you.

-~RWT~-

I just would like to apologize. I see my responses getting shorter and shorter. I think the lack of sleep is getting to me...finally. I promise come this weekend I will improve my responses.

Writers are a needy bunch. I admit, I'm very needy when it comes to my writing. I've been known to hassle people incessantly if I manage to trap them into reading what I wrote. It seems that this tendency is beginning to, and will further do so, clog the Writing forum. Everyone wants to post and have read what they wrote. This preoccupation is such that all other threads are ignored. I'll admit, I'm guilty of this.

I think that there should be a clear organization on how things should be. For example, people can continue to post at will, however, we can schedule "read" days. Almost like a book club. A user, on a first come first serve basis, will request a particular day. They'll have up until that day, and even during it, to post anything they want read to their personal thread(s).

Each day, the user will change, and those involved in the book club will read that material. This is by no means a restriction, but an activity. Threads not posted by that user are still eligible threads, this will just be an activity to help promote review of users' work in an organized way.

There could even be short-term writing competitions separate from the MWC to help promote a writing/reading environment. There could even be a dedicated reviewer system set-up. Two or more people will make-up a group. It's up to that group to read each others' work and comment. These groups can then get shuffled once a month to mix things up. There could then be mini-competitions between groups, within groups, or as a group.

At 2/3/10 09:56 PM, Deathcon7 wrote: Just read his last post. >_>

I like the ideas. From what I've seen so far, the Writer's forum is most likely going to be populated by a few writing-inclined regs, and the occassional forum-goer who wrote a cool story. Nothing against the spirit of 'everyone posts everything they write', but not much is going to get read like that. People will most likely continue to maintain personal threads. And this is definitely the place to keep them. But most personal threads will most likely end up safely filed in the backlog of the writing forum, linked to by their authors via sig.

So that leaves the Writing Forum open to community-based activities. We have two groups of people so far: (Three if you count trolls; I don't) Writers, and Commentators. The two aren't mutually exclusive, of course. Right now, Writers are just posting their things, and Commentators are trying to sift through a page and a half of threads, looking for gems and writing critiques and reviews. I would say we have a pretty healthy margin of people to look over what's been written. Even more if you include people (I know who you are!) who aren't articulate enough to post comments.

So, what I suggest: (Basically what Deathcon said) writing contests. Form clubs and/or crews, and have monthly or even weekly contests. Like I mentioned before, we could have a thread where we vote on a user of the week to showcase a story. I'm sorry for not considering the load this would put on mods the last time I presented this idea, but nothing says it has to be official or mod-run.

The idea: Maybe someone like WritersBlock could make a blog post, edit it every week to link to the current highlighted author's thread, and post a link to the blog post in a "Writer of the Week" thread. Keep the thread bumped with chatter, and it will direct all the writing forum traffic to that author for a week. Give it enough time, and all of the work that has been judged of suitable quality will get seen en mass.

The Lit Portal is unlikely to change much. It is not perfectly synonymous with the Writing Forum, and I don't think it's intended to be. For starters, my understanding of it is that submitting content to the Lit Portal may affect its copyright status. But I don't want to throw gas on a fire, especially one on which I may not completely be well informed or a reliable source. Second, I doubt a lot of the dribble we're tending to put on here is wanted on the Lit Portal. There's always going to be a healthy layer of personal writings at the bottom of this forum. So let's work together as a community to make a nice façade of harmony and forum citizenship to show the world, and entice readers.

(I am so going to eat crow for that question on the copyright, aren't I? I'm aware that certain rights are voided simply in posting anything on this forum, but I'd just like to get it cleared up in my mind. Or before anyone else asks.)

-~RWT~-

You know I've come to realize something. I realize that the only things a man needs to keep himself sane are: Color, Music & Writing. If I could have all these things and nothing more, I would live a happy life. These 3 things are the very foundation of entertainment and you can't find a single piece of greatness without it. Writing in particular; because it's in everything you enjoy really. TV, movies, advertisement, comics, video games, music, fuck even porn.
Even things that necessarily don't have any writing in them are stories. This is to say, things like pictures, illustrations, drawings and art in general; well, they have the same effect anyway. A picture is worth a thousand words. They speak to us without words and carry the same feelings of taking us to another place at another time and telling a story all their own. And what is art without color? It isn't art is what it is. Color gives things life and makes things vibrant and stand out, something black and white can't achieve or at least, do it as effectively.
Music is also story telling. But it also has a special property that can seduce us and bring us to new levels of emotion. Music can build up and break down. It really is something to awe at. The beats, the rhythmic notion, and a sense of being there really put music to a new standard. It not only tells a story, it vividly brings it to life, gives it movement and makes us feel it.
This is all a tad random but I suppose the meaning of all this is that Writing is in all things and there is no way we can go without it.

Thanks for the post and support RWT. I think it may take some time, but order would definitely be needed to maintain some semblance of community. Otherwise, it'll just be various posts joined by the fact that they were made in the Writing forum. This is fine in forums such as the flash forum, or general, but with the writing forum, a modicum of feedback is expected, otherwise why bother post?

In regards to the rights to what you place in the Lit Portal, they would continue to be yours. It would even be beneficial in the case of determining copyright. Having it published however will be a lot more difficult. A publish will always want first rights, which means they will exclusively publish the piece for a predetermined amount of time. After that point, rights are reverted to you and you can do as you please, for example, post it in the lit portal. When in doubt however, always consult the publisher if you have one interested.

at somthing 'o clock someday Some people said:
stuff about how this forum works

For how much i enjoy the idea of contests and writing competitions i completely disagree with any notions of anything other than the controlled chaos we have now. Perhaps making a personal thread like ive seen alot of people doin is a nice idea but thats as far as i think we realy have to go. If you realy want your stuff to get read just drop a post in the reg lounge, its the first place i go to when i come to this forum so i know id see it. But still that might just be somthing you do for your best work we dont need a post here everytime some yahoo rights a poem.

Btw check out my non-sense poem thread!

see what i did there

If you go to my blog I have a list of authors and pieces to keep an eye on.

At 2/3/10 11:10 PM, TrevorW wrote: If you go to my blog I have a list of authors and pieces to keep an eye on.

that reminds me i been meaning to post some of my work thats not lame poetry or somthing like that

At 2/3/10 11:12 PM, Nateofwar wrote:

At 2/3/10 11:10 PM, TrevorW wrote: If you go to my blog I have a list of authors and pieces to keep an eye on.

that reminds me i been meaning to post some of my work thats not lame poetry or somthing like that

Go for it. And review my story "In twenty" or my poetry topic. GoGo :P

I look forward to your work.

At 2/3/10 10:53 PM, Deathcon7 wrote: Otherwise, it'll just be various posts joined by the fact that they were made in the Writing forum. This is fine in forums such as the flash forum, or general, but with the writing forum, a modicum of feedback is expected, otherwise why bother post?

I'm a regular in the pretentious forum. Success!

Seriously, though, time to plug my work- Review My Draft for the MWC!

Well... being new to this particular part of the forums I'll just say "hi". I'm Sinfulwolf as I'm sure is painfully obvious by the name plastered just above this here post.

Anyway, my point of coming here is that I'm an amateur writer. I do it for fun as I simply enjoy creating little world. I currently have a story running in my blog that I've been working on for the past few months. Read it or not, its there for entertainment purposes.

Well, hope I fit in here easily enough, and hope to see some great pieces.

At 2/3/10 11:10 PM, TrevorW wrote: If you go to my blog I have a list of authors and pieces to keep an eye on.

That's a very nice list there. I like the scarecrow one very much and am glad to see it on your list.

(shameless plug)

Oh, you cheeky bastard.

At 2/3/10 10:58 PM, Nateofwar wrote: If you realy want your stuff to get read just drop a post in the reg lounge

I did, It's been a day now :(

At 2/4/10 01:21 AM, Version2 wrote:

At 2/3/10 10:58 PM, Nateofwar wrote: If you realy want your stuff to get read just drop a post in the reg lounge

I did, It's been a day now :(

You could try putting it on your sig. with an alluring title.

lol look at RWT's sig. he actually pleads which in turn i couldn't help but click on it.

"Writing 2.0 Please help me improve my writing by leaving comments!"

It is in my sig :P

Hurh, I should start keeping copies of my finished stories in my blog too, I usually post my unfinished stories in my blog, then my first drafts of my completed story in the forum to see if people like my idea of things, then I fix up the story on paper to stick in my notebook, which is kind of unfair I suppose since the criticism I get did help, then again, I think it'll be more joyful once a literary portal pops up because I see views happening on my thread, just no comment, so I see one person usually comments on my story and I take it to heart and think of ways to mod it.