Rationally Writing

Bonus bit of conversation from Episode 46.

Daystar and Alexander discuss the common necessities of research for writing fiction. 0:30 A Stable of Experts 12:49 Inspirational Research 19:15 Spot Research

Daystar and Alexander are joined by professional game writer Kuiper to discuss writing as a skill, or rather a set of skills, and the ways people can improve them. Timestamps: 1:19 Writing as a skill 21:03 What improves writing? 24:20 Don't grow attached to your ideas 32:45 Skilling up one at a time 45:36 Sticking with or abandoning 50:25 Other ways to improve writing.

Special guest Erratic Errata joins Daystar and Alexander to discuss more aspects of world building, particularly in his serial A Practical Guide to Evil. 1:04 Planet of Hats 11:31 Societal Axioms 19:30 Reconstructing Tropes 25:56 Playing with Narrative 35:06 Worldbuilding Differences 43:38 Free Will and Deities 49:39 Video game inspiration 55:15 A Practical Guide to Evil Q&A

Daystar and Alexander discuss reader feedback, and taking criticism constructively. Timestamps: 2:02 Paretto's Principle 6:30 Trends and Spikes 19:50 Typos vs Style 26:56 Continuity 29:30 Actionable 37:49 Deep Criticism 45:50 Spoilery feedback

Special guest CthulhuRaeJepsen joins the podcast to discuss pseudonyms, and his story Worth the Candle. Timestamps: 2:19 Writing Under Pseudonym 7:52 Worth the Candle 17:07 Spoiler Talk up to Ch. 84

Daystar and Alexander discuss worldbuilding, and why considering second-order effects is so important to making it rational, and can help in finding or fleshing out good plots. 2:50 Battle School concept 6:46 Inadequate Equilibria As Story Elements 22:55 Shadows of the Limelight 28:22 Consequence of the Consequence 37:20 Aesop Exacerbation 41:14 Confronting Civilizational Inadequacy

Daystar and Alexander review the movie The Prestige, and explore what made it such a well constructed, perhaps even rational, work of fiction. Timestamps 2:24 Summary + Was it Rational? 16:30 Foreshadowing 21:34 Clashing Ideologies 25:22 Noticing Confusion 30:25 Magic and Storytelling 45:40 Repeat Viewings

Daystar and Alexander discuss children in fiction, including what makes them realistic and why reactions to them can vary so widely. Timestamps 0:31 Advantages of child protagonists 4:43 "Children don't act like that." 16:00 Keeping smart/mature children children 20:37 Evergreen methods 26:40 Predictive Processing and "Wonder" 34:33 In Pokemon: ToOS

Daystar and Alexander discuss the unique aspects of the various mediums of prose fiction, and how new technologies introduce new opportunities and challenges. Timestamps 5:03 Technological limitations 11:01 Conventions 16:45 New Media 19:27 Music 24:45 Subjectivity 31:45 Mediumception

Daystar and Alexander discuss how to plan out and navigate different power dynamics to keep your stories engaging. Time Stamps 0:42 Power in Fiction 3:46 World vs Protagonist vs Antagonist 11:14 New Dimsensions vs Power Creep 14:34 Rationalist Fiction 22:25 Power Differential on a Different Axis 32:55 Powers as Part of Identities 37:01 Protagonist vs Antagonist 47:58 Power in Romance stories

Daystar and Alexander explore brainstorming, and how trope lists, patterns, and symmetry can be used to come up with new takes on old ideas.

Daystar and Alexander explore how to "break the story" when outlining its plot and character arcs. Time Stamps: 00:49 What is Breaking the Story? 5:12 Example 13:38 Character Arcs 28:40 Plot and Endings

Daystar and Alexander review Alex's latest NaNoWriMo book, The Dark Wizard Of Donkerk. Time Stamps: 1:12 Magic Systems 9:18 The Twist 15:53 Spirit Magic 20:47 Potential Sequel 25:17 Plot Threads 28:33 Villain 31:49 The Prophecy

Daystar and Alexander review some of each other's writing, starting with Pokemon: The Origin of Species 3:30 Planning the story 8:36 Present Tense 10:15 Viewpoints 16:39 Goals/Defeats 23:41 Cycles 28:24 Interludes 34:55 Criticisms

Daystar and Alexander are joined by special guest Duncan Sabien (TK17) to discuss multiple perspectives in fiction, including common pitfalls and benefits. 1:30 Archetypes vs Whole Characters 5:34 Choosing Who Gets what Scene 14:45 Shifting Focus and Disorientation 25:06 Different Character Dialogue 35:30 Differentiating Characters

Daystar and Alexander discuss action scenes and how to ensure they're engaging and meaningful. Timestamps: 1:23 Action Scenes in Different Mediums 5:38 What Makes a Good Action Scene 11:22 Avoiding Repetition 17:01 Rational Action Scenes 20:07 Pacing and Flow

Daystar and Alexander discuss literary fiction, its values and failure modes, and its similarities and differences from rational fiction. 01:20 What Qualifies as Literary Fiction? 15:06 Pretentiousness 25: 03 Literary Fiction and Rational Fiction 35:50 Writing Literary Fiction 45:43 Recommendations

Daystar and Alexander discusses the value of new settings opposed to using an established one, and the idea of others using their own stories and ideas. 01:24 Taking Ideas vs Fanfic 7:17 Stealing Mechanics 11:33 The value of something new 19:36 Taking our ideas 27:09 Guardian

Daystar and Alexander discuss creative appropriation, aka "stealing," and the philosophy and benefits behind it. 01:03 How to not be original 11:10 Adding something new 16:01 Stealing details 22:10 The argument against copywrite 28:38 Artistic distinction for using

Daystar and Alexander explore the differences between good description and bad description, and analyze examples of descriptions from novels. Timestamps: 01:16 Why is description important? 8:53 What is good description? 14:40 When to put the description? 22:12 Alexander's notable examples 30:00 Daystar's notable examples Advertisement: This month, the podcast is being sponsored by Scrivener! It's...

Daystar and Alexander explore the differences between GMing a tabletop RPG and writing a story. 01:04 Gaming creds 05:10 Starting a story vs an RPG. 15:50 Railroading 28:36 Players as Characters 35:23 Exposition 37:51 Source Books

Daystar and Alexander explore what makes endings satisfying, effective, or just annoying. 2:41 What makes endings satisfying? 15:23 Alternate endings 18:38 Bad endings 25:56 Ambiguity in endings 32:07 Downer endings 37:58 Endings we've enjoyed

Daystar and Alexander discuss the beginnings of stories, and what goes into an effective or boring start. Time Stamps: 0:35 What's in a Beginning? 5:00 Two Types of Prologues 9:15 The Third Type of Prologue 17:16 So what, if it works? 20:01 How to make the beginning engaging 30:08 Beginnings We've Enjoyed 35:10 Setting Tone

This week, Daystar and Alexander do their first review by comparing the various rationalities and irrationalities of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Rogue One, along with general things they liked and disliked about the movies.