Post by insightfulhedgehog on Apr 7, 2015 7:09:41 GMT
It is obviously important for you, as the DM, to avoid noveling. However, it does occasionally come up and in handy. About a week ago I made a post about Poetry, which I did just as a singular thing. But seeing how many people wrote poems and gave amazing feedback got me thinking, What if there was a weekly Thread for everyone to practice some aspect of writing?
The paragraph that follows contains some reasons I think this is a viable Idea, some things I want this to be, and things that I want to avoid.
The main reason I think this is a great Idea is that it will also help with our ability to story tell while DMing, without the need to write it down ahead of time. That is to say, if you are able to improve your communication of words on paper, you will also improve your ability to communicate these words on the fly in a articulated manner. I really want this to be a place where people can share their writing freely without fear and receive constructive criticism. I do not want this to interfere with anyones participation with DM-nastics, so if you are not comfortable doing both stick with DM-nastics because its focus is a lot closer to the podcast and covers a much broader spectrum of DM skills. I do not expect this to be a problem because the goal, focus, and theme of the two on-going threads will not ever be aligned in such a way that they might interfere with each other.
So, I'm not going to count last weeks thread "Poetry Smash" as one of these so here begins the first ever Thread of "Pen to Paper" (a name inspired by the phrase Pen and Paper). If you don't want to read me rambling for a paragraph about coming up with an idea skip the next paragraph
I'm not really sure what the first challenge is going to be yet but I'm just going to keep typing until I come up with something. Well, I guess the most logical place to start off is with the creation of a story of some sort. But, what kind of story? What limitations might I set so that this edition of Pen to Paper is unique compared to those that are come? As I am writing this I am watching the movie Dead Poets Society for the first time. If your unfamiliar it is a movie about prep school boys coming of age and forming a secret society which reads poetry and tries to "seize the day" thanks to the mentoring of their English Teacher John Keating, played by Robin Williams. In the movie they talk a lot about expressing your emotions and many other aspects of writing(although the plot is about a lot more then just that, but I've yet to finish it so that is what I'm going with for now.) This got me thinking. What if everyone picked an emotion, and wrote something, anything about it. Before I go any further into the idea I'm going to move on to the formulation of the prompt.
Prompt- Write something that has something to do with a strong emotion, whether that is a poem about envy, a short story about hope, or even an essay about anger if that is what you feel like writing at the moment. Maybe you write about how you feel right now, maybe you write about a feeling you do not have much experience with, maybe you write about the first thing that pops into your head, or maybe you google emotions and pick one that looks interesting. Whichever method you choose, or even if you come up with your own method, I look forward to reading what you post. There are no restrictions to posts in regards to length(short or long), and also no restrictions to style. Also, do not forget to give advice and feedback to other posters. This last part is vital to everyone improving because it not only tells the writer how they can improve but also gives you practice proofreading(This will improve your proofreading which will in turn improve your own writing.
Some Tips:
1. If you are a slow typer(slower then your writing speed), or have trouble thinking while typing, try writing your post of a piece of paper first. This allows you to get your ideas written down before you forget them.
2. Always proofread- Most english teachers will advise waiting at least 24 hours before proofreading your own work, so that you can look at it with fresh eyes. I do not advise this for this Thread, but I would recommend that you reread everything before you post it to catch any obvious errors. This will help other people to give you advice without being distracted by simple mistakes.
3. Don't worry a lot about grammar, but do try your best, it makes it easier for people to read your writing when it is written in a way everyone is familiar with.
4. Use a Thesaurus- When it comes to writing it is important to use diverse language. However, be careful that you do not use words you are unfamiliar with.
5. I would just like to repeat that you should not use words you are unfamiliar with. Also, even if you know what a word means, if everyone else reading it has to pull out a dictionary, you are going to end up sounding like you are in the middle of writing a textbook for graduate students. So, keep to words that are fairly common knowledge, but don't forget to stay diverse and also avoid overusing really basic words. Ex: If you are trying to describe something as big use gigantic or massive.
6. Avoid commonly confused words-
Then- Time, Than- Compare
Its- Belongs to It(Possessive form), It's- It is, Its'- This is not a thing do not use it
Your- Possessive you(belongs to you), You're- You are(Replace it with I am, if it doesn't make sense you likely used the wrong one)
Some other examples can be found here- www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/commonly-confused-words
7. Avoid Contractions("do not" instead of "don't") if you are going for a more sophisticated style, it does not seem like it makes a huge difference but it really changes the look, flow, and feel of a piece of writing.
8. Use a spellchecker- I am pretty bad about this myself but hope to never forget, if only for these threads. If your browser doesn't support spell check, try typing it up in word first or open office(it's free,which is helpful if you don't have a word processor already). If you're on mobile type it up in a note application first(beware- you are likely to lose your formatting when you copy paste it over).
9. Ignore all of these if you want, these are just some tips for improving writing that I thought of off the top of my head. Do not let this scare you into not posting. This is just advice I am giving to anyone who is looking for tips prior to posting.
A Note on Feedback- Do not forget to leave feedback, if you are not used to giving constructive criticism or are looking for a way to start here is a "Giving Constructive Feedback" for Dummies Article that I found. I'm not saying anyone is dumb but the article is well written, easy to follow, and gives a lot of good, applicable advice on the subject.
www.dummies.com/how-to/content/giving-constructive-feedback.html
The paragraph that follows contains some reasons I think this is a viable Idea, some things I want this to be, and things that I want to avoid.
The main reason I think this is a great Idea is that it will also help with our ability to story tell while DMing, without the need to write it down ahead of time. That is to say, if you are able to improve your communication of words on paper, you will also improve your ability to communicate these words on the fly in a articulated manner. I really want this to be a place where people can share their writing freely without fear and receive constructive criticism. I do not want this to interfere with anyones participation with DM-nastics, so if you are not comfortable doing both stick with DM-nastics because its focus is a lot closer to the podcast and covers a much broader spectrum of DM skills. I do not expect this to be a problem because the goal, focus, and theme of the two on-going threads will not ever be aligned in such a way that they might interfere with each other.
So, I'm not going to count last weeks thread "Poetry Smash" as one of these so here begins the first ever Thread of "Pen to Paper" (a name inspired by the phrase Pen and Paper). If you don't want to read me rambling for a paragraph about coming up with an idea skip the next paragraph
I'm not really sure what the first challenge is going to be yet but I'm just going to keep typing until I come up with something. Well, I guess the most logical place to start off is with the creation of a story of some sort. But, what kind of story? What limitations might I set so that this edition of Pen to Paper is unique compared to those that are come? As I am writing this I am watching the movie Dead Poets Society for the first time. If your unfamiliar it is a movie about prep school boys coming of age and forming a secret society which reads poetry and tries to "seize the day" thanks to the mentoring of their English Teacher John Keating, played by Robin Williams. In the movie they talk a lot about expressing your emotions and many other aspects of writing(although the plot is about a lot more then just that, but I've yet to finish it so that is what I'm going with for now.) This got me thinking. What if everyone picked an emotion, and wrote something, anything about it. Before I go any further into the idea I'm going to move on to the formulation of the prompt.
Prompt- Write something that has something to do with a strong emotion, whether that is a poem about envy, a short story about hope, or even an essay about anger if that is what you feel like writing at the moment. Maybe you write about how you feel right now, maybe you write about a feeling you do not have much experience with, maybe you write about the first thing that pops into your head, or maybe you google emotions and pick one that looks interesting. Whichever method you choose, or even if you come up with your own method, I look forward to reading what you post. There are no restrictions to posts in regards to length(short or long), and also no restrictions to style. Also, do not forget to give advice and feedback to other posters. This last part is vital to everyone improving because it not only tells the writer how they can improve but also gives you practice proofreading(This will improve your proofreading which will in turn improve your own writing.
Some Tips:
1. If you are a slow typer(slower then your writing speed), or have trouble thinking while typing, try writing your post of a piece of paper first. This allows you to get your ideas written down before you forget them.
2. Always proofread- Most english teachers will advise waiting at least 24 hours before proofreading your own work, so that you can look at it with fresh eyes. I do not advise this for this Thread, but I would recommend that you reread everything before you post it to catch any obvious errors. This will help other people to give you advice without being distracted by simple mistakes.
3. Don't worry a lot about grammar, but do try your best, it makes it easier for people to read your writing when it is written in a way everyone is familiar with.
4. Use a Thesaurus- When it comes to writing it is important to use diverse language. However, be careful that you do not use words you are unfamiliar with.
5. I would just like to repeat that you should not use words you are unfamiliar with. Also, even if you know what a word means, if everyone else reading it has to pull out a dictionary, you are going to end up sounding like you are in the middle of writing a textbook for graduate students. So, keep to words that are fairly common knowledge, but don't forget to stay diverse and also avoid overusing really basic words. Ex: If you are trying to describe something as big use gigantic or massive.
6. Avoid commonly confused words-
Then- Time, Than- Compare
Its- Belongs to It(Possessive form), It's- It is, Its'- This is not a thing do not use it
Your- Possessive you(belongs to you), You're- You are(Replace it with I am, if it doesn't make sense you likely used the wrong one)
Some other examples can be found here- www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/commonly-confused-words
7. Avoid Contractions("do not" instead of "don't") if you are going for a more sophisticated style, it does not seem like it makes a huge difference but it really changes the look, flow, and feel of a piece of writing.
8. Use a spellchecker- I am pretty bad about this myself but hope to never forget, if only for these threads. If your browser doesn't support spell check, try typing it up in word first or open office(it's free,which is helpful if you don't have a word processor already). If you're on mobile type it up in a note application first(beware- you are likely to lose your formatting when you copy paste it over).
9. Ignore all of these if you want, these are just some tips for improving writing that I thought of off the top of my head. Do not let this scare you into not posting. This is just advice I am giving to anyone who is looking for tips prior to posting.
A Note on Feedback- Do not forget to leave feedback, if you are not used to giving constructive criticism or are looking for a way to start here is a "Giving Constructive Feedback" for Dummies Article that I found. I'm not saying anyone is dumb but the article is well written, easy to follow, and gives a lot of good, applicable advice on the subject.
www.dummies.com/how-to/content/giving-constructive-feedback.html