November 2020 - SENSE-ation fest!

[dialecticdreamer]

Welcome to the November SENSE-ation fest!

It’s common to hear “the five senses,” but there are a great many more to work with, and by using unusual senses, we can add a great deal more clarity to our creative endeavors. My list is cribbed at the last minute from work done by Michael J. Cohen, who divides our perception of the world into four major categories, and then gets delightfully specific.

I’ve randomized the list to make it harder to take out entire categories of senses, but I do hope other players will forgive me for doing so; I am trying to avoid my own tendencies of focusing on the most familiar senses. Instead, let’s challenge ourselves to tie into the senses that are needed in a scene, story, or poem. Look for a new way to connect with the audience, and see how it contributes to the creation.

First, the bingo card generator is here:
http://an.owomoyela.net/fun/bingo_generator#generated_card

Next, the word list is here, in no particular order. If there’s anything that doesn’t fit, take it out of the list before hitting the button to generate a card. (I won’t know, and no one will tell!)
Light and sight, Corilus sense (as The Doctor does), physical pain, seeing without eyes, mental or spiritual distress, sense of body motion, fear or dread, hearing, procreative urges, smelling, subsonic or ultrasonic frequencies, sense of play, taste, sense of time, sense of weather changes, humor and laughter, sense of community or belonging, position in space (navigation), electromagnetic fields, sense of self, sense of ownership/control, perception of color, interconnecting with others, appetite for physical needs, awareness of nature, skin pressure, sense of language and communication, humidity sense including internal regulation, sense of humility/ethics, moods associated with color, sense of form or design, pheromone sense, internal pressure, reasoning and memory, chemical sensitivity, sense of consciousness, personal visibility or invisibility, intuition, sense of gravity, sense of creativity and aesthetics, sensitivity to invisible radiation, sense of generational time, sense of temperature and temperature change, psychic sense or absence, dreaming, meditation, sleep, sense of season, sense of metamorphosis, sense of stress, sublime love/sacrifice, sense of balance, electromagnetic sensitivity and polarity, proximity sense,

Here’s a sample five by five card (using “Free Space” in the center):

sense of gravity	pheromone sense	Corilus sense (as The Doctor does)	sense of stress	sense of language and communication
sense of play	seeing without eyes	electromagnetic sensitivity and polarity	sense of metamorphosis	sense of generational time
sense of time	moods associated with color	FREE SPACE	personal visibility or invisibility	sleep
position in space (navigation)	sense of consciousness	reasoning and memory	meditation	fear or dread
proximity sense	sense of ownership/control	procreative urges	humor and laughter	psychic sense or absence

I don’t have a way to make icons or banners any longer, but what I do have is a huge pile of words rattling around in my brain.. For anyone who gets a bingo (any five boxes in a five by five grid, four in a four by four grid, et cetera), I’ll write a scene with two hundred fifty words for each square in that single line. For anyone who gets a full blackout, I’ll double the base offer, but beyond that it would simply take too long to get the prizes to each winner.

If anyone would like to see my writing, check for “Magpie Monday” or “Feathering the Nest” prompts each month. I love writing gentle fiction and hardcore comfort, and I will send each winner a private message to ask what kind of story they would like. I try to tailor stories to the target reader, and your reading copy is meant to be enjoyed.

The fest will begin on November 1, and continue through the 30th, and if someone accomplishes a bingo on the first day, I’ll get right on creating their prize, so please let us know so we can cheer!

Comments

Re: I'm going to try

[fuzzyred]

>>So pick up a biology book as a refresher, or read a website on the topic.<<

Luckily, I still have some of my university textbooks, so I can start there, or I can find an interesting article and then do more research from there. I also just picked up a book about Mind Maps for learning Physics (not sure the actually title), and it looked interesting, so I'm hoping to shore up my tenuous grasp there.

>>Often it's nice to pick a starting example from this world and imagine a different example from another. A food web. How sex works. Genetics. A species. That sort of thing.<<

That is good advice. Also less daunting than doing a whole world, while still having the fun of imagining something different. Aha! Maybe I could use one of the ideas I had while sitting in the sun after giving blood; what if humans could use photosynthesis?

>>Apparently, what most people do -- and this includes professionals -- is take something and copy its appearance.<<

I can actually see how this would work, as it is a very shallow "idea" to work off of, but it's also why I feel most of my writing is subpar. The main core/idea is where I have trouble, along with characterization and world details. So while I can take an idea such as "Sofia takes an art class", I have a hard time giving it any substance, so my work ends up feeling undeveloped and lack luster to me. Actual professionals working in a similar fashion? Boggles my mind a bit and as makes me feel less bad about my attempts. I thought they were supposed to do it *properly*.

>>I should probably warn you that I can teach you a ton about storytelling, but it is likely to make you and your work wildly unsuited to mainstream markets. This may or may not be something you want.<<

I would love to be able to have even a tenth of your storytelling skills. I've never had aspirations for a career as a writer, so being unsuitable for mainstream isn't a concern. I'd rather be able to do something *well*, and write something that I'm proud of and am confident showing other like-minded people.

Re: I'm going to try

[dialecticdreamer]

Start with a different idea.

What would dragons hoard, if they had to hide from a modern human society?

If people could read minds, would tinfoil hats really work? What would just knowing about the possible security risk change in a medieval world? In 1800? Were the use of heliographs (light messages) and telegraphs a way to provide secure communications because telepaths have to be within a few feet of their target?

Then ask-- "What does having known, real, functional telepaths change about-- " and the list will spark SOMETHING you want to write about, because you've found an intersection of an interest, a hobby, and a playground no one else has used before.

Re: I'm going to try

[fuzzyred]

That's an interesting way of thinking of things, and a good way to spark questions about how the alternate place would look/function. Seems like a good way to get fresh ideas too.

Re: I'm going to try

[dialecticdreamer]

Ideas can come from almost anywhere; the trick is figuring out which ones are good for a short scene, and which ones are an enormous novel or even a series of novels. THAT takes a lot of practice, so don't worry too much yet.

Re: I'm going to try

[ysabetwordsmith]

If it helps, I am terrible at it and have been trying for decades. I still cannot reliably tell the difference between a short story, a novel, and a series when looking at the initial idea. Nobody is good at everything.

Re: I'm going to try

[ysabetwordsmith]

See, that's structural writing. You start with an idea (or format, the first two steps are interchangeable) and then feel out how it connects to other things until you find a story.

In this manner, you will almost always get an original story even if you start with the same basic idea as someone else, just because there are so many branches and people get excited by different things.

Also if you like board games at all, I highly recommend Call to Adventure:

https://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/12150095.html

I was amused to see that someone else actually made the connections I did:

https://twincitiesgeek.com/2018/08/call-to-adventure-is-the-heros-journey-in-card-game-form/

Re: I'm going to try

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Luckily, I still have some of my university textbooks, so I can start there, or I can find an interesting article and then do more research from there. <<

Good idea. I kept my textbooks that were worthwhile too.

>> I also just picked up a book about Mind Maps for learning Physics (not sure the actually title), and it looked interesting, so I'm hoping to shore up my tenuous grasp there.<<

Mind maps are very useful, especially for visual people. I find it more helpful to look at other people's examples than make my own. You may also wish to explore other mapping tools, such as:

https://visme.co/blog/graphic-organizer/

https://educationalimpact.com/resources/VisualTools/pdf/6_visual_language.pdf

https://ditchthattextbook.com/15-free-google-drawings-graphic-organizers-and-how-to-make-your-own/

http://www.creativewriting-prompts.com/graphic-organizers-for-writing.html

https://creately.com/blog/diagrams/thinking-maps-templates/

https://educationalimpact.com/resources/VisualTools/pdf/6_visual_language.pdf

https://visme.co/blog/types-of-graphs/

You might be amazed by how these can be used to generate ideas, not just organize them. After fucking around for a while trying to figure out some of the bizarre differences between local-American and Terramagne-American government, it eventually occurred to map out their whole federal budget. I found a pie chart with a list of local percentages, and then thought about the differences. It was mind-blowing. The most glaring difference? Their National Endowment for the Arts has a budget one hundred times what ours does. Well no wonder they have so many municipal artists and artworks! Looking at the list of T-American numbers (I don't have the software skill to piechart it, alas) raises all kinds of questions. Why are these numbers different? Why are their priorities different? When did things change and what were the divergence points? What does this mean for a sotry?

I think one of the things that got me on this line of thought was "Why is it that when someone wants to catch a bus, it's almost never more than a few blocks and 5-10 minutes away?" Turns out, their transportation budget is much bigger, and they're not wasting as much of it on stupid things. They've built the hell out of their public transportation.

To me, it is really interesting to dig into the infrastructure like this. I can write at the level the current story requires, but over time I often start noticing more things about a setting that overlap, and I wonder why they are like that and what it means.

Of course, with Terramagne, I'm also observing with an eye toward "How much of this awesome stuff could we replicate with local resources?" Surprisingly the amount dependent on superpowers or zetetic materials is a lot lower than what is simply based on ideas that can be easily transported from one universe to the other if the worldwalker is sufficiently adept at observation, analysis, and description.

>> I can actually see how this would work, as it is a very shallow "idea" to work off of, but it's also why I feel most of my writing is subpar. The main core/idea is where I have trouble, along with characterization and world details. So while I can take an idea such as "Sofia takes an art class", I have a hard time giving it any substance, so my work ends up feeling undeveloped and lack luster to me.<<

Okay, that is totally fixable. You may find it helpful to examine your work and write down what you are unsatisfied with. You use a list of elements for inspiration:

https://www.scribophile.com/blog/the-seven-elements-of-fiction

https://blog.prepscholar.com/literary-elements-list-examples

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_element

https://selfpublishing.com/literary-elements-list/

For each one, rank how good you think you are at it, how important you think that element is, and how interesting you find it.

Then choose one at a time to work on. Read an article or book about it, then practice doing it. When you're satisfied with your progress -- bearing in mind you'll never get perfect because nobody is -- then choose another and repeat the process.

Alternatively, you can work through one book with a bunch of elements in it, like most writing classes do. This gives a shallower but sometimes more connected awareness of the elements. Pick what works for you.

In looking for resources, I highly recommend Writer's Digest Books. They have an extensive archive of titles on many different elements and techniques of writing. I have a shelf or so of them. Writers Helping Writers is another gem, I'm collecting their thesauri, of which the most in use currently is The Emotional Wound Thesaurus. (Not a beginner's book, an intermediate to advanced reference once you understand character construction.)

If you want help finding good resources on a given element, just ask. I probably have something on my shelf about it.

>> Actual professionals working in a similar fashion? Boggles my mind a bit and as makes me feel less bad about my attempts. I thought they were supposed to do it *properly*. <<

Supposed to, in theory, yes. In practice, most people care far less about how things work than what feels good or what makes them money. This human failing leads to bad writing, unplanned pregnancies, and politics.

Oh, and your knowledge of biology will come in very handy if you want to hack reader responses. The hurt/comfort ratchet? Is a logical outgrowth of understanding stimulus, satiety, and overstimulation. It's a simple pressure-release pattern with rising tension that lets you crank the total tension much higher without burning out your characters and/or audience. It is much easier to understand if you know a bit about neurochemistry, i.e. that varying types of stimulation avoids the burnout problem. Granted, I started out writing it because I loved Tolkien and intuitively grasped that the pattern worked -- but my application got a lot more refined after I studied neurochemistry and psychology. Knowing how and why it worked made it easier to figure out effective pattern placement.

>> I would love to be able to have even a tenth of your storytelling skills. I've never had aspirations for a career as a writer, so being unsuitable for mainstream isn't a concern. I'd rather be able to do something *well*, and write something that I'm proud of and am confident showing other like-minded people. <<

*cackle* *rub hands together* This will be so much fun!

Look over the basic skills and concepts of writing. Find where you want to improve. Choose some references and absorb what is useful. Bear in mind there's some amount of nonsense in most resources -- the plot ones will say it's all a mountain peak while ignoring all the other patterns. You'll learn to sort out and ignore the crap. Then just practice. At the beginning it's often more helpful to write many short pieces than a few longer ones, but later on most people want to try out longer forms. Do what works for you. Your desire to construct things precisely will serve you very well.

Re: I'm going to try

[dialecticdreamer]

Another thing that you can use as a springboard is to write a story that gets /right/ a scientific idea that you are very familiar with and fond of, as for "The Martian."

Have you read any /old/ sci-fi or fantasy? The former has an array of disproven science to poke at, but the latter has history biases and whole chains of -isms to poke at.

Re: I'm going to try

[fuzzyred]

Thank you for all the writing tips! I enjoy your work quite a lot, and it's fascinating to me to have a chance to see the way you approach writing. There are quite a few tips in here that I think I may be able to make use of, though it seems like the most important thing is to actually *write.* Theory is great, but doesn't do you much good if you never apply any of it.

I'm hoping that time, energy, spoons, and creativity line up this year and I have a chance to practice my story telling skills and see if I can't improve them some. And my confidence in my abilities too, while I'm at it.

Re: I'm going to try

[dialecticdreamer]

My spoons are low, and have been since mid-October. However, that means that the best advice I have for you is to prioritize. If you're writing a long piece, and you have the energy to write two pages, pick a scene that is important to you, whether it's the setup, the confrontation with the antagonist, or a moment of fluffy comfort that was essential in your creation of the story.

You can stitch things together when you have more spoons. Even if that is a hundred words at a time, the connecting bits feel different than the key scenes, and it's okay to need several passes to get a connection the way you like it in terms of flow and focus.

Re: I'm going to try

[ysabetwordsmith]

Good idea.

When I feel like crap but have a deadline, I ratchet between writing and reading something fun. Even if I have to write a paragraph, read a section, it makes progress.

Re: I'm going to try

[fuzzyred]

Thanks for the advice :) I have noticed that connecting things is hard for me to do in a fluent way, so the suggestion of focus on the big scenes first is a good one.