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✍️ Writing
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A community for writers, like poems, fiction, non-fiction, short stories, long books, all those sorts of things, to discuss writing approaches and what's new in the writing world, and to help each other with writing.
Rules for now:
1. Try to be constructive and nice. When discussing approaches or giving feedback to excerpts, please try to be constructive and to maintain a positive vibe. For example, don't just vaguely say something is bad but try to list and explain downsides, and if you can, also find some upsides. However, this is not to say that you need to pretend you liked something or that you need to hide or embellish what you disliked.
2. Mention own work for purpose and not mainly for promo: Feel free to post asking for feedback on excerpts or worldbuilding advice, but please don't make posts purely for self promo like a released book. If you offer professional services like editing, this is not the community to openly advertise them either. (Mentioning your occupation on the side is okay.) Don't link your excerpts via your website when asking for advice, but e.g. Google Docs or similar is okay. Don't post entire manuscripts, focus on more manageable excerpts for people to give feedback on.
3. What happens in feedback or critique requests posts stays in these posts: Basically, if you encounter someone you gave feedback to on their work in their post, try not to quote and argue against them based on their concrete writing elsewhere in other discussions unless invited. (As an example, if they discuss why they generally enjoy outlining novels, don't quote their excerpts to them to try to prove why their outlining is bad for them as a singled out person.) This is so that people aren't afraid to post things for critique.
4. All writing approaches are valid. If someone prefers outlining over pantsing for example, it's okay to discuss up- and downsides but don't tell someone that their approach is somehow objectively worse. All approaches are on some level subjective anyway.
5. Solarpunk rules still apply. The general rules of solarpunk of course still apply.
founded 9 months ago
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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/8880368
I wrote this for the Fully Automated community but I think it might be a useful idea for solarpunk writing in general. I mostly learned about writing fiction from reading worldbuilding posts and campaign logs from Tabletop RPG GMs like Shamus Young. (I always found TTRPG story advice to be very practical, compared to whatever resources for writers I'd found back then. Though it does probably explain my worldbuilding-first approach.) Either way, I hope this'll be interesting!
I've been thinking about Five's excellent comments about states and the borders of a post-state world on one of our previous discussions. And since this Lemmy community is intended partially as a repository of resources for players and GMs, I thought I'd gather up some of the cool maps I've been looking at, and organize them into categories of options/inspiration for anyone who is thinking about what a region outside the more-lore-established Nation of Pacifica might look like.
Five suggested a few really cool options, the first of which was the overlapping zones of the historical lands of indigenous peoples. The setting already features a massive, successful Land Back movement, so it would be quite reasonable from a lore standpoint to restore these wherever possible, or to establish a sort of hybrid mix with modern landmarks. This interactive map is also very useful: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/10/1127837659/native-land-map-ancestral-tribal-lands-worldwide
The next was Watersheds and I really love these maps. To paraphrase Five: in a world where states no longer exist, borders that still have importance are those drawn by nature. People still need to coordinate over land and water management. They give some wonderful world building suggestions though I'd also suggest that as Fully Automated! Is in the transition to a post-state world, but is not there yet, that there's excellent potential for factions, feuds, drama, and plot hooks in the existing states losing relevance to watershed organizations that overlap their territory and authorities, but don't necessarily encompass all of them.
The cool thing with watersheds is you can aim for huge nation-sized chunks of land, or tiny town-sized boundaries, all depending on your needs.
The last one I'll include is biomes. These are another natural boundary, though often a softer one than the watersheds.
And there's no need to restrict yourself to just one new way of redrawing the map. Societies are messy, and often slow to change. It wouldn't be unrealistic to end up with a mix of all of the above, along with existing cities and state or national borders too. Here's one example, though it's alt-history rather than scifi.
I hope this is useful, and if someday you're playing the game and redrawing the map, I'd love to see what you come up with!
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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/2607568
This story keeps changing and more endings keep appearing for it. It started out as a collapse-drunken draft, rather grim and primitivist but somewhat comforting. With ending 4, thanks to solarpunk and to the practical and intellectual work of so many good people world-wide who aim to be part of the community of life again instead of dominating it, we see a little light finally. Who knows if more endings appear, and what they bring.
Story of childeater
There was a time when all peoples lived as good neighbours. All had to eat, and all had shelter, and all shared the green place that was earth, and its waters and winds.
Once in a while, Childeater would arrive. She came to all people, and take some of the small away. She took equally from everyone. And everyone understood that it's the way of life, out of the control of everyone.
The humans were the youngest of the community, and often a little too smart for their own good, while lacking understanding. "We will outsmart Childeater. We will build a machine to protect our small ones so she cannot take them anymore."
They built the machine, and when Childeater returned she couldn't take the human small ones. She called out to them: "Humans, your machine eats your neighbours' food and burns their shelters, don't you see?"
They did not answer. If they had seen it, they didn't really want to notice it all that much. It felt so good to finally have protected their own small, know them safe inside the walls of the machine. She tried, a second time, to make them understand: "Humans, know that for every small one I cannot take from you, I have to take one from your neighbours." They turned the machine up more, to drown her voice.
#### End 1 - Grim dystopia
A third time she tried: "Humans, if you do not turn off the machine, it will kill all your neighbours, and you will be lonely. You will spend your days yearning for the community you lost while your machine eats everything. And in the end you will die in the scarcity of the wasteland you have created and you will have gained nothing but infinitely more grief than you are trying to avoid now."
The humans didn't answer. Maybe they really couldn't hear her words anymore through the noise of the machine, maybe they were too young to understand what it meant to lose the community of bird, lizard, fish and beetle, tree and flower, of fur-covered and many legged and tiny beings.
Childeater went and took the small ones of bird, lizard, fish and beetle, tree and flower, of fur-covered and many legged and tiny beings. The human small ones grew up in the noise and the smoke of the machine, protected, but also more alone with each passing of the seasons.
One day the machine stopped. "What happened?" asked one of the humans. "I think it ran out of fuel" said another. "I best grab what's mine and defend it then, get off my lawn!" said the first. "How is it your lawn? It's the lawn of the strongest, clearly!" "It's 'law of the strongest', arsehole" and one gives the other a push. And while they are getting angrier at each other, they hear the steps of Childeater approaching, coming to collect her due, and in their panicked fighting, they push the smallest and weakest in front, so childeater takes them first.
#### End 2 - still quite dystopian
A third time she tried: "Humans, if you do not turn off the machine, it will kill all your neighbours, and you will be lonely. You will spend your days yearning for the community you lost while your machine eats everything. And in the end you will die in the scarcity of the wasteland you have created and you will have gained nothing but infinitely more grief than you are trying to avoid now."
The humans didn't answer. Maybe they really couldn't hear her words anymore through the noise of the machine, maybe they were too young to understand what it meant to lose the community of bird, lizard, fish and beetle, tree and flower, of fur-covered and many legged and tiny beings.
Childeater went and took the small ones of bird, lizard, fish and beetle, tree and flower, of fur-covered and many legged and tiny beings. The human small ones grew up in the noise and the smoke of the machine, protected, but also more alone with each passing of the seasons.
One day the machine stopped. "What happened?" asked one of the humans. "I think it ran out of fuel, somewhere out there" said another. "Probably it will be a bit rough then, the next years, I guess?" yet another. "We will get through this, but we have to remain positive!" and then a small voice "And when Childeater comes to get me? She will be mad."
The grownups don't answer, they are so busy organizing things, and so many people seem to have fallen sick lately.
Child lies awake in terror at night, waiting for Childeater to take revenge. Then Childeater approaches, in the shape of a kitten. "Childeater is never mad. She will take you back one day, and you just will keep changing form as always, only softer, without the armour your parents had built." and so she purrs the child asleep.
#### End 3 - just ...
A third time she tried: "Humans, if you do not turn off the machine, it will kill all your neighbours, and you will be lonely. You will spend your days yearning for the community you lost while your machine eats everything. And in the end you will die in the scarcity of the wasteland you have created and you will have gained nothing but infinitely more grief than you are trying to avoid now."
The humans didn't answer. Maybe they really couldn't hear her words anymore through the noise of the machine, maybe they were too young to understand what it meant to lose the community of bird, lizard, fish and beetle, tree and flower, of fur-covered and many legged and tiny beings.
Childeater went and took the small ones of bird, lizard, fish and beetle, tree and flower, of fur-covered and many legged and tiny beings. The human small ones grew up in the noise and the smoke of the machine, protected, but also more alone with each passing of the seasons.
One day the machine stopped. "What happened?" thought one of the humans. "It must have ran out of fuel, somewhere out there" it went through another's mind, but nobody said anything because they were afraid of each other, and themselves, and also very tired.
They became to silent that they turned into broom, and even when the wind blows through them they only whisper.
#### End 4 - I like this one
A third time she tried, and called "Child open the door". And a small child opened the door, and she asked, very politely: "I would have to speak to your parents, could you get them for me please?" and child went to get their parents: "Grownups, there's a lady outside. She says she needs to speak to you." They didn't listen, and child tried a second time, louder: "Grownups, there's a lady outside and wants to talk to you!", but the machine was too loud and the grownups too busy to pay attention. So child pulled the plug. The noise stopped. Everybody stopped talking and doing what they were doing. And child said: "There's a lady outside. She says it's urgent."
"Outside where?" "Outside the door, outside of the machine" "Outside OUTSIDE?"
They rushed to close the door, but found the machine already crumbling. Later, their children would ask them why the door ever needed closing. And the old ones weren't quite sure what to respond, probably they didn't remember.
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