Writing Making MAGIC 2 - Writing Magical Battles

[OokamiKasumi]

There's also kind of a tremendous difference between 'magical battles' and 'battles that have magic'.

I agree. There is a huge difference.
-- Battles with Magic tend to be written like grudge matches with fireworks tossed in for flavor. Very close 3rd person POV, lots of minute observations of the opponent's subtle body language, plus a ton of stream-of-conscious, internal narration featuring 'Navel Gazing,' self-blame, and Angst.
-- Magical Battles take Tactics on the level of a chess match, and a ton of emotionally charged Description to create a Visual tapestry, with only a sprinkling of Navel Gazing and Angst.

Dragonball-z style fights with enormously long descriptions of power-ups and psychological build-ups are a great way to get people to skim and fast-forward to the good parts.

Agreed. Too many manga/manhua do this: empty chapters with nothing but decorative pretty fighting, barely any dialogue, and no plot at all.

They are a Waste of Space. I skip right on through them.

But giant skirmishes with fiery summons streaking overhead to crash into enemy troops, bodies flying, mighty wizards setting up crackling hexagonal fields to protect their warriors from the enemy mages, 50 foot tall succubi striding through the battlefield to destroy enemy attention and morale, that's the stuff of epic fiction.

This is how D&D tabletop game campaign battles, and epic movie battles are conducted, and they are a massive pain to write.

Just mapping out the action scenes of who and what does which thing to whom, and what effects happen -- takes so much work. (Thank you FreePlane; mind-mapping program!)

Then you have to describe all that with Words. Whether one uses one POV for the whole thing, or many POVS, it takes so long to describe all that action, never mind the Feelings involved.

Magical duels should be short and sweet, or creative and weird "I turn into a virus!" rather than just building up bigger and bigger effects that only really matter in a visual medium.

Magicals fighting this way is Traditional!

Very old folk Medieval songs, Wayland Smith for example, describe magical duels as Transformation Battles. The wizards transformed into different animals and objects to beat each other. Wayland Smith turned into a bed to seduce the female magician he was fighting.

The magical duel in Walt Disney's Sword in the Stone was also done this way. Merlin turned into a Virus: The Purple Pox, to defeat Madam Mim. Of course, Sword in the Stone was based on: TS Elliot's, Le Morte d'Arthur, which used ancient myths, legends, folktales, and songs as its basis.

The problem is, many inexperienced writers will argue you into the ground -- until they actually try write such battles themselves.

Not sure this is true but supposedly, those DBZ fights happened because the guy behind the series needed a vacation. The publisher said "Get us four issues ahead and we can give you a full month off." ...

I would not be surprised At ALL if that was True.
-- Creating manga/manhua art is a Lot of work, even with a team. I'd do the same thing every time I needed a break.

However, writing out a Battle Scene, and creating images of battle scenes, are two different skill sets.

Here's a Writing Exercise:
-- Find a memorable fight scene in a manga/manhua/comic book.
-- Write that scene, but Change all the NAMES. Go ahead and use the scene's dialogue.
-- Hand that finished scene to two different Beta Readers, or hell, post it somewhere.
-- Ask people to:

1. Identify where the scene came from, if they can.
2. Ask for a critique of it using These Questions:

   • The Beta-Reader's Questionnaire​

3. Check the replies.

THIS is how I tought myself to write battle scenes.
-- I used a movie scene though, not a manga scene. Other authors I know simply sketched out a Tabletop RPG Game battle then wrote that. (Marion Zimmer Bradley, Katherine Kurtz, Poul Anderson, and Robert Asprin.) George Lucas freely admitted to using WWII footage to write out his space battle scenes.

Whatever works.

 

[DireBadger]

This is how D&D tabletop game campaign battles, and epic movie battles are conducted, and they are a massive pain to write.

Just mapping out the action scenes of who and what does which thing to whom, and what effects happen -- takes so much work. (Thank you FreePlane; mind-mapping program!)

Then you have to describe all that with Words. Whether one uses one POV for the whole thing, or many POVS, it takes so long to describe all that action, never mind the Feelings involved.

I have a different viewpoint, but then again, I spent 15 years in the military, am a huge fan of history, and have been running tabletop RPG games with my wife and playing stuff like Warhammer and battletech for over 30 years.

Epic war magics, once you know what forms your world's magic can take, just feels like a logic exercise in 'what if this magic is taken to the extremes, and how can others defend against it?"

A lot of writers go the other way by simply handwaving away warfare with "Oh, no, powerless humans can not fight meaningful battles with superpowers." However, from my own experience, that's always felt not only lazy but impossible. Tanks were supposed to make boots on the ground pointless. Air power was supposed to render infantry obsolete. Nukes, guided missiles, and now drones are all supposed to make the idea of armies impossible, but history and experience have always proved that to be untrue, and finding a way to make an army meaningful in battle with magic feels right.

 

[Danja]

style fights with enormously long descriptions of power-ups and psychological build-ups are a great way to get people to skim and fast-forward to the good parts.

Boy meets Girl.
Girl is kidnapped by Demon.
Boy spends forty episodes TRAINING to FIGHT the demon (I'm looking at YOU, Bleach! )

Epic war magics, once you know what forms your world's magic can take, just feels like a logic exercise in 'what if this magic is taken to the extremes, and how can others defend against it?"

Bewitched grinds my gears with regards to magic (Tabitha and Adam are both half-human, yet they both come out of the womb as full-blown witches and warlocks! )

 

[OokamiKasumi]

I have a different viewpoint, but then again, I spent 15 years in the military, am a huge fan of history, and have been running tabletop RPG games with my wife and playing stuff like Warhammer and battletech for over 30 years.

Okay, now you're just bragging. *snort*
-- I only have a few years in the military, but I am a huge fan of history myself. Though, not so much military history. This is probably why writing large battles are so much work for me.

Epic war magics, once you know what forms your world's magic can take, just feels like a logic exercise in 'what if this magic is taken to the extremes, and how can others defend against it?"

Agreed!!!

A lot of writers go the other way by simply hand-waving away warfare with "Oh, no, powerless humans can not fight meaningful battles with superpowers." However, from my own experience, that's always felt not only lazy but impossible.

I definitely agree.

Tanks were supposed to make boots on the ground pointless. Air power was supposed to render infantry obsolete. Nukes, guided missiles, and now drones are all supposed to make the idea of armies impossible, but history and experience have always proved that to be untrue, and finding a way to make an army meaningful in battle with magic feels right.

There hasn't an invention created that hasn't been explored for its Military applications. Magic included.
-- The Nazis explored magic for war purposes in the 40s, and in the 60s and 70's ESP abilities and magic were explored by the US military. (My father was in one of the programs during the Korean war.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Boy meets Girl.
Girl is kidnapped by Demon.
Boy spends forty episodes TRAINING to FIGHT the demon (I'm looking at YOU, Bleach! )

When Bleach stopped being a Supernatural manga and devolved into a Battle manga, I got so exhausted flipping through the fight scenes to get to the plot progression. So many chapters devoted to fight, after fight, after fight...and all those Training Montages prepping for a fight to come, with the plot advancement sprinkled lightly between volumes.

It just got so tiring to slog through.

Bewitched grinds my gears with regards to magic (Tabitha and Adam are both half-human, yet they both come out of the womb as full-blown witches and warlocks! )

Hollywood magic.

 

[DireBadger]

Okay, now you're just bragging. *snort*
-- I only have a few years in the military, but I am a huge fan of history myself. Though, not so much military history. This is probably why writing large battles are so much work for me.

Ackshually, I am trying to be that irritating guy that finds any excuse whatsoever to talk about their military and gaming experience—kind of like vegans, paleos, basement alphas, born-again atheists, pride activists, tinfoil hatters, flat earthers, greens, preachers, dwight shrutes, fact checkers, crunchy moms, and manga fans. You know, the people everyone wants to tell to shut the hell up about it, but really can't without people thinking they are bigots or jerks. So far, it's worked out pretty well. Out of nearly 100 messages, I've managed to worm it into nearly a dozen. It's a bit trollish of me, maybe, but everyone else seems to do it as well, so I'm just trying to fit in.

Seriously, though, it helps to think about it like a slippery slope 'What would a really gool-looking high-level gravity control spell look like?" and then think, "What could counter that?" and then try to scale it down. People love creative solutions, so it could even be something like... all the soldiers carrying a few grains of lead dust and salt, and when the singularity forms, they let loose of the grains to get sucked in, the lead overloads it, the salt disrupts it, and the mage fries and implodes.

One minor idea, and you have at least three pages of absolutely epic battle, magic, and tension.

 

[OokamiKasumi]

Ackshually, I am trying to be that irritating guy that finds any excuse whatsoever to talk about their military and gaming experience—kind of like vegans, paleos, basement alphas, born-again atheists, pride activists, tinfoil hatters, flat earthers, greens, preachers, dwight shrutes, fact checkers, crunchy moms, and manga fans. You know, the people everyone wants to tell to shut the hell up about it, but really can't without people thinking they are bigots or jerks. So far, it's worked out pretty well. Out of nearly 100 messages, I've managed to worm it into nearly a dozen. It's a bit trollish of me, maybe, but everyone else seems to do it as well, so I'm just trying to fit in.

ROFLMAO!
-- I see nothing wrong with being a bit of a troll, seeing as Yes, everyone else is doing it too. I happen to be a tree-hugging, hippy-type, dance-naked-in-the moonlight-no-matter-how-silly-it-looks, Wiccan. In case my previous post didn't give that away.

Seriously, though, it helps to think about it like a slippery slope 'What would a really cool-looking high-level gravity control spell look like?" and then think, "What could counter that?" and then try to scale it down.

People love creative solutions, so it could even be something like... all the soldiers carrying a few grains of lead dust and salt, and when the singularity forms, they let loose of the grains to get sucked in, the lead overloads it, the salt disrupts it, and the mage fries and implodes.

One minor idea, and you have at least three pages of absolutely epic battle, magic, and tension.

I adore the way you think.
-- Creative solutions for big scary magical problems, especially when they're 'McGyver' solutions in level are awesome.

 

[melchi]

Hmm... I'll have to look in on that, but I was pretty sure D&D was the one who changed the orcs from 'dark skin tones' to green because of certain laws being passed on racial sensitivity in California where Wizards of the Coast based their company. I could be wrong though.

This didn't get mentioned, but some of the stuff in early D&D got changed so they wouldn't get in legal trouble.

EX: Hobbits (1974) became Halflings (1977) for obvious reasons.

Demons and Devils became "Tanarri" and "Baatezu" because there was backlash, accusations were made it was satanic.

Also, I would agree that using D&D tabletop as a framework for battles works well. I used to do some games on RPOL and writing up the DM posts is almost exactly like some of the guides Oookami has posted.

Roll for initiative:

player 1
monster 1
player 2
monster 2
monster 3

1st paragraph: Player one casts blink.
2nd paragraph: Monster 1 attacks.
3rd paragraph: player 2 attacks.
4th paragraph: monster 2 attacks.
5th paragraph: Monster 3 attacks.

Obviously, if monster 1 attacks, then paragraph 1.5 would be a paragraph of whoever the <target> of the attack would be.

It is just a framework though. In actually play by post games players will write their own paragraph and the DM will write the one for the monster they are fighting.

The only real difference is that if you are writing your own story, then the characters don't write themselves like player characters do.

 

[DireBadger]

The only real difference is that if you are writing your own story, then the characters don't write themselves like player characters do.

Heh I like to think of writing like I am the DM, and all the players are tied to chairs and gagged so they HAVE to follow my storylines! Mauahah, the desperate looks in their eyes as I make their characters actually behave the way their classes, the world, and their proposed character personalities WOULD behave instead of backstabbing someone with a dead squid and then loudly casting 'detect evil' on the beautiful princess, is priceless!!!

"IT PUTS THE DICE INTO THE ******* BASKET!"

We have a saying in my groups, especially when playing white wolf games, "The party can create more drama and screw themselves over more with ten minutes of unguided roleplaying than ten hours of combat." (It helps that my group has been playing together for almost 40 years, and most of us are married, some of us with grandkids, and our spouses and sometimes kids play too. Groups that are evenly male/female players tend to be MUCH more invested in roleplaying than murderhoboing).

*ahem* /evil mastermind rant

But as the OP already mentioned, when you use a recognizable system, even in just the combat flow, it IS recognizable. The Dwight Shrutes reading your stories can and will get as incensed when you break that flow in order to advance your story. As a player, how would you feel if a level 10 warrior got stabbed in the back and spent the next five minutes explaining the plot before expiring heroically? I mean, you have a friggin level fifteen paladin standing RIGHT THERE, and that dwarven spiritist is more than capable of asking his ghost to explain the plot and actually give the name of the guy that he trailed off into death halfway through naming.

Yes, "Lord m****aaaaaghhhh..." is much more useful for a mystery, lots of sleuthing, maybe a dungeon delve to collect clues about the evil noble wizards that has a sacrificial chamber to cthulhu in the basement, but the players are ALWAYS going to want to shortcut that work and get right to the meat and potatoes of giving lord mayweather a bad day. It's human nature... and book readers can often feel the same way, like you are wasting their time with 'filler' for the next 30 chapters instead of just moving on to the winning, especially when they recognize the system and feel like you, as a writer, are 'cheating'.

You can use parts of a system, but you really have to be careful about filing the VINs off and avoiding instantly recognizable tropes, like hit points, the names of certain magical schools, or even direct comparisons to the flow of combat. That's why, even though Walmart might never sue a writer for having a new vampire duck into one of their 24-hour locations to pick up some new clothes after they just dug their way out of their graves, most writers will still avoid directly naming names. Val-Mart is one of my favorites. Caves and Chaos is the popular tabletop RPG, and I like to leave lots of room for plot complications even when I am writing my crunchiest litRPG.

The best part is when people proudly announce that they know exactly who your character is based on. It's not really a stretch to recognize that a hero named 'dire badger' having an affair with a girl named 'Akiko' in a place called 'Madrigal' who has claws and endless regeneration might be intended to be, or a non-killing dark hero named 'Night Raven' that has a no superpowers but lots of gadgets, but your readers are so HAPPY, feel like you are complimenting their intelligence, and they become more invested in your stories.


Just.... If you are going to use a rreal system as your model, especially a recognizable magic system, be very very careful or change it around a lot, because doing what you as a writer have to do to write a compelling story is almost guaranteed to make those that are in love with the system irritated.

 

[Snake99]

 

[CharlesEBrown]

This didn't get mentioned, but some of the stuff in early D&D got changed so they wouldn't get in legal trouble.

EX: Hobbits (1974) became Halflings (1977) for obvious reasons.

Ents became Treants, and the Balrog first became the Balor, then the Type VI Demon (with Balor one of the "named examples")

Demons and Devils became "Tanarri" and "Baatezu" because there was backlash, accusations were made it was satanic.

The entire Second Edition of AD&D had a lot of changes to make it "more appealing to the parents who were complaining," like the BADD idiots ("Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons") - removal of Assassins and Monks as character classes, removal of half-orcs (until the Complete Book of Humanoids they were removed entirely from the official game), and the creatures of the lower planes renamed to Tanar'ri (formerly Demons from the Abyss), Baatezu (formerly Devils from Hell, now creatures from Baator), Ferastu (which had been a type of Demodand - creatures without any mythological basis that I am aware of - but this term now that became the name for the race) and the "Loths" (formerly the Daemons of Hades - now Nycadaemon became Nycalofth, Arcanodaemon became Arcanoloth, etc.). Bunch of cosmetic changes that did little but tick off some old school players as the furor over the game had started to die down (and would soon be eclipsed by that raised by the World of Darkness games - though they never drew as much ire that I am aware of as D&D did in the very early 80s).

The only real difference is that if you are writing your own story, then the characters don't write themselves like player characters do.

You have not been writing that long, have you?
Seriously - have one character who was meant to be a kind of running gag when first introduced who decided she HAD to be one of the main characters instead and even forced me to rewrite a few passages to allow it.

 

[DireBadger]

You have not been writing that long, have you?
Seriously - have one character who was meant to be a kind of running gag when first introduced who decided she HAD to be one of the main characters instead and even forced me to rewrite a few passages to allow it.

Right? If you like the character, it's like it grabs your hands and starts writing for you.... you are just stuck with the damned carpal tunnel.
Hardest parts of my books are where the character paints themselves into a corner and I have to puzzle out some way to get them out of it cause they aren't bright enough to do it without your help.

You KNOW where the character is going to end up, you have the story and complications nailed down, but in my case my protagonist is look at his next love interest across a fighting ring and I have NO clue how to get them to the next point where she convinces him to abandon the sect he's spying on.

actually, in my books it's usually the individual fight scenes that hit me in the face like a brick wall. I can do battles just fine, romance, social interactions, mysteries... but in all three of my books on this site (and the fourth one I am writing right now), the minute I hit an individual fight scene that demands some details, all the characters give me the finger and tell me to handle it on my own and my brain shuts down.

 

[melchi]

You have not been writing that long, have you?
Seriously - have one character who was meant to be a kind of running gag when first introduced who decided she HAD to be one of the main characters instead and even forced me to rewrite a few passages to allow it.

Eh, I'm simple what can I say?

The first story has dozens of journal pages that I was trying to turn into something readable. There is not much room to go off script.

The second one is trying to emulate a TF game so the formula is to advance towards beating the big bad and twist plot to have lots of transformations along the way. I suppose there may be one character that readers really like and I've written a number of chapters focused on them but nothing more than that.

 

[Danja]

You have not been writing that long, have you?
Seriously - have one character who was meant to be a kind of running gag when first introduced who decided she HAD to be one of the main characters instead and even forced me to rewrite a few passages to allow it.

Every story needs an Urkel.

 

[OokamiKasumi]

Right? If you like the character, it's like it grabs your hands and starts writing for you.... you are just stuck with the damned carpal tunnel.
Hardest parts of my books are where the character paints themselves into a corner and I have to puzzle out some way to get them out of it cause they aren't bright enough to do it without your help.

You KNOW where the character is going to end up, you have the story and complications nailed down, but in my case my protagonist is look at his next love interest across a fighting ring and I have NO clue how to get them to the next point where she convinces him to abandon the sect he's spying on.

actually, in my books it's usually the individual fight scenes that hit me in the face like a brick wall. I can do battles just fine, romance, social interactions, mysteries... but in all three of my books on this site (and the fourth one I am writing right now), the minute I hit an individual fight scene that demands some details, all the characters give me the finger and tell me to handle it on my own and my brain shuts down.

Gods, I love your posts!

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Every story needs an Urkel.

More of a Hymie the Robot but yeah.

 

[DireBadger]

Gods, I love your posts!

*Runs his finger around his collar uncomfortably and then fans his face* Umm... Thank you? You know I am married, right?

Honestly, though, you have some great tips in here... and I am sort of wondering why you don't have books in your sig. I am a voracious reader, and kind of interested in what you put together, smut or no smut. After all, there's no possible way your smut could be worse than Jack Bryce, and he's sold tons of books.

Most of my writing advice is bad or tilted towards the demographic that I tend to sell towards (Gen Xers, ex-military, gamers that were around back when comic books had the most idiotic D&D advertisement ever on their back cover), but I try to stick exclusively to things I have personally screwed up. Smart people learn from their mistakes, really smart people learn from other people's mistakes, and I consider writers really smart people. If you can't be a good example you can at least be a terrible warning, right?

(BTW, I am the anti-hippy, but I married a Wiccan and wound up learning a ton. The 'an it harm none do as you will' part is where I ran into problems, because I spent way too long in the military and as a cop to trust people to give a damn about the 'harm none' part, in my experience most people are far too selfish and short-sighted to be trusted with that kind of power... including me.)

Oh, and a sudden horrible smut idea... a smut writer finds her favorite character more or less writing himself, kind of taking control of her hands... and then using those hands after she finishes a chapter for other stuff... until eventually he pulls her into the story that she's writing as an isekai and she finds out she's been documenting his adventures in reality. That might be an interesting romance plot, especially if he's some powerful warlock with stomach muscles that could bounce Kennedy half-dollars. maybe some interesting magical duels when she finds out her 'magic' actually works in that world, meaning he has to take her seriously instead of just using her like a toy.

 

[unlaumy]

Here's a Writing Exercise:
-- Find a memorable fight scene in a manga/manhua/comic book.
-- Write that scene, but Change all the NAMES. Go ahead and use the scene's dialogue.
-- Hand that finished scene to two different Beta Readers, or hell, post it somewhere.

This may be weird, but I always use Émile Zola's works as writing exercises—even for fighting scenes, even though he obviously was not that kind of a writer or even adjacent to that. No one would shout his name whenever someone asks about magical battles (except me as it appears). There is always something dear and visually enjoyful in the way he structured sentences or paragraphs or so on. Still can't reach the slightest of his ability, but better be dreaming than not.

Oh, and a sudden horrible smut idea... a smut writer finds her favorite character more or less writing himself, kind of taking control of her hands... and then using those hands after she finishes a chapter for other stuff... until eventually he pulls her into the story that she's writing as an isekai and she finds out she's been documenting his adventures in reality. That might be an interesting romance plot, especially if he's some powerful warlock with stomach muscles that could bounce Kennedy half-dollars. maybe some interesting magical duels when she finds out her 'magic' actually works in that world, meaning he has to take her seriously instead of just using her like a toy.

This reminds me of a chinese webnovel. In the story, the writer mc wrote tragedy smut where the story mc took suffering after suffering. The moment the story mc realized she was only a character in a fiction she was terribly pissed. As a revenge, she pulled the writer mc into her world, and made the writer mc relives her life.

and would soon be eclipsed by that raised by the World of Darkness games - though they never drew as much ire that I am aware of as D&D did in the very early 80s

The way World of Darkness games portray Latin America always makes me wonder if their writers were actually trying to convince the readers that the anti-Christ would appear in that area.

 

[OokamiKasumi]

*Runs his finger around his collar uncomfortably and then fans his face* Umm... Thank you? You know I am married, right?

Oh Good! Phew... That takes a load off my mind.

Honestly, though, you have some great tips in here... and I am sort of wondering why you don't have books in your sig. I am a voracious reader, and kind of interested in what you put together, smut or no smut. After all, there's no possible way your smut could be worse than Jack Bryce, and he's sold tons of books.

I do have books, over 30 of them. They're just under a different name and with the publishing house, or rather ePublishing house. I used to have four publishers: eXtasy Books, Loose-Id LLC, Mojo Castle Books, Kensington Pub.
-- Sadly, two of them went the way the woodbine twineth... They couldn't handle the sheer amount of work it took to be a publishing house, and gave up after 10 years or so.
-- One is a NY publisher and only had a shelf-life measured in weeks, but a Contract 8 years long.
-- The last one, eXtasy, is still paying out monthly and carries almost all my titles -- since 1994.

I do Not self-publish/vanity press: "All Money Flows to the AUTHOR." -- Yog's Law.
-- I LOVE having a professional editor that I don't have to pay for, someone who makes my book covers for free, and lawyers on retainer that will protect my copyrights against piracy and other authors.

I am planning to post a story to Scribble Hub.
-- It's just hard to decide between current WIPs. Also, I'm trying to figure out if I'll be crucified for only posting fan-fiction. All my original stories are being devoured by the publisher the moment I complete it. Free Money is Nice, ya know?

Most of my writing advice is bad or tilted towards the demographic that I tend to sell towards (Gen Xers, ex-military, gamers that were around back when comic books had the most idiotic D&D advertisement ever on their back cover)...

But you HAVE a demographic, and it's a good sized one! (I'm a GenXer, ex-military, gamer myself, and that ad was atrocious.)

I try to stick exclusively to things I have personally screwed up. Smart people learn from their mistakes, really smart people learn from other people's mistakes, and I consider writers really smart people. If you can't be a good example you can at least be a terrible warning, right?

Same here.
-- My writing tips are actually from essays I compiled for my own use, including how-to's I swiped from the 'net that I reconfigured to actually work.
-- I started posting them because people kept asking for writing advice. Now there's over 150 of my how-to tips scattered about the internet on various sites and forums. The only place to find all of them is on a blog I've had since '96.

(BTW, I am the anti-hippy, but I married a Wiccan and wound up learning a ton. The 'an it harm none do as you will' part is where I ran into problems, because I spent way too long in the military and as a cop to trust people to give a damn about the 'harm none' part, in my experience most people are far too selfish and short-sighted to be trusted with that kind of power... including me.)

'An it Harm None...'
-- Think of it this way: the 'None' part includes yourself. You have the Right and Duty to protect yourself from Harm too. Violently if necesary.
-- 'Harm None' is not something you expect others to adhere to because you're right, They Won't. Never expect anyone to give a damn about not hurting others because humans are "too selfish and short-sighted to be trusted with that kind of power."

The Celts, where the Wiccan belief system comes from, were not a peaceful people. They were big-time warmongers, raiders, and thieves. The 'Harm None' thing only applied to their land, and their people. Everyone else was up for grabs.

Oh, and the original Celts practiced human sacrifice, and I don't mean just the wicker man.
-- The Torc the Celts wore around their necks to denote Royalty in fact represents The Rope Around the Neck for sacrificial strangulation that would happen to them if the land or people suffered under their rule.
-- Ahem... Every preserved bog person found has a rope around their neck because they were in that bog after being sacrificed for the good of the Land and the People. That and tyrants were Not Tolerated: some of those bog people were cut into in pieces. That they were also sacrificed for disease outbreaks, and climate changes is beside the point.

Oh, and a sudden horrible smut idea... a smut writer finds her favorite character more or less writing himself, kind of taking control of her hands... and then using those hands after she finishes a chapter for other stuff... until eventually he pulls her into the story that she's writing as an isekai and she finds out she's been documenting his adventures in reality. That might be an interesting romance plot, especially if he's some powerful warlock with stomach muscles that could bounce Kennedy half-dollars. maybe some interesting magical duels when she finds out her 'magic' actually works in that world, meaning he has to take her seriously instead of just using her like a toy.

Actually, that sounds like a damned Good idea. You should get someone to write that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This may be weird, but I always use Émile Zola's works as writing exercises—even for fighting scenes, even though he obviously was not that kind of a writer or even adjacent to that. No one would shout his name whenever someone asks about magical battles (except me as it appears). There is always something dear and visually enjoyful in the way he structured sentences or paragraphs or so on. Still can't reach the slightest of his ability, but better be dreaming than not.

I don't see anything wrong with that.
-- Copying is Traditional. It's where the desire to create Arte begins, whether it's music, a painting, or a story. Nothing is Original.

Video Link --> Everything's a REMIX.

 

[DireBadger]

The way World of Darkness games portray Latin America always makes me wonder if their writers were actually trying to convince the readers that the anti-Christ would appear in that area.

Hah, you think that was bad... you should see how they treated China and Japan. whew. Hong Kong by night almost gave me nightmares, and not the fun kind I'd write horror stories about.

Actually, that sounds like a damned Good idea. You should get someone to write that.

I was actually thinking about writing it myself, based on some of the discussions in your thread. I freely hijack ideas anywhere I can find them, and I can write female characters, they are just not in my usual demo. On the other hand, bodice-ripper girls are generally so ridiculous that they are not that hard to write. (I raised two girls. the hardest part is intentionally ignoring when you know they are lying to you, and not murdering and hiding the bodies of the boyfriends that you KNOW were just... like... you at that age. Skeezy little monsters should be nailed into a barrel until they turn 30.)

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Most of my writing advice is bad or tilted towards the demographic that I tend to sell towards (Gen Xers, ex-military, gamers that were around back when comic books had the most idiotic D&D advertisement ever on their back cover),

Which of the idiotic ads are you referring to? The one drawn by Jeff Dee? The one that showed three different, disconnected parts of what appeared to be an ongoing series? Or one of the two photographs using Gygax's kids and their friends, photographed by a TSR staffer?

You probably are NOT referring to the one that had the third generation D&D Basic cover art?