Aspiring Writer

Pretty sure that was with his conflict with Honor, which, while dying in the process, did manage to defeat him and trap him on Braize, and why he has needed to invest so much on Roshar with the Fused, Regals, and Unmade.

Ah, so that is how the nicrosil part works.

Rayse was a Vessel, which are much more invested than a normal person, massively so. We know this because even people who have once held the power are invested enough to resist the pull of the beyond, these being Slivers, which are a step down from vessels, so it's entirely possible a Vessel alone is enough to satisfy Nightblood.

... Why did you italicize "the even a"? Also, I said having even a little writing talent because the Mandalorian is legit the quality of my first draft. It's really hard not to compare the two and see similarities. I'm basically trying to say if you can not write better than the Mandalorian, you really shouldn't write. It's a minimal level of writing quality, and I would be insulting myself if I pretend I couldn't do better. Also, I'm sure Fadran isn't actually mad. He just likes the show, and like everybody who likes the show, tends to not like admitting its flaws because that would mean they like something bad, which for some reason is unacceptable to them. I like the CW Batwoman show (Well, someone's coverage of it, and it's ironically. It's hilarious.), and boy, that has some awful writing. Almost everything in it is bad. Never understood why people can't admit a show they like might not be that high-quality. (Writing-wise, of course. Mando has the set design and CG down.)

@Mist

I've seen dragon prince. I know what you're talking about. Then I suggest you start killing everyone with even a microcosm of writing talent and the dignity to admit they have it, because if you can't say you can write better than the Mandalorian, do the universe a favor and don't write. Hey, put the dagger down, I can back up my claims, try and give me yours.

Dude, nobody is going to say no to this. Even people who don't game will never say no to this.

Well. Hello there. I was planning on maybe starting this during a milestone or something, but I ended up typing a full-on rant, and decided that I may as well start my writing 101 with that. For context, @Eri asked me a question, and Frustration got me thinking about the sludge people call storytelling being produced, and I wrote this. As you will be able to tell, I have no love for much of the content that has been released for the past few years and I have a lot of displeasure with the miserable excuse for writers that made these mistakes and content for various reasons, partially with the fact I see so much lost potential wasted due to incompetence. I don't hate content just to hate them, I hate them because I was ready to like it and had my soul crushed. The edit is the actual rant, but I wanted the full context there. Enjoy, and I hope this will be enlightening. Actual Edit- Oh, and by the way, this was typed in the Shadiversity club, which is why I mention Shad, who has a Youtube channel talking about swords, medical history and weaponry, pop culture, and writing. He recently published a book called Shadow of the Conqueror and helped with the writing of Rhythm of War, so definitely go check him out. Eri- Where do you think the line lies between effective fighting and looking cool? Would you accept a movie/book character in armor (more than leather or [whatever the fabric thing was called in English]), fighting with two daggers? Me- Are you referring to Gambeson? As for that, this is very much a preference, but I would be fine if it made sense. If this person was in close quarters or doing something that would make them want two daggers rather than any other weapon, or they had supernatural abilities that would make them prefer daggers rather than other weapons. As long as there is some good logic behind it, I can accept it. Edit- My advice to everyone who wants something cool in their story, try and make it logical. think about why your character would use this, why is it useful, what are the advantages and disadvantages to having this, and RESEARCH. You don't need to do heavy research, just some basics and checking to see if you have misconceptions that you need to knock out of that cavity in your skull. Do not follow tropes blindly; an example of this would be the sword lock, which Shad has numerous times stated is stupid on so many levels. Try and learn how sword fights are actually conducted, and then implement that. It really does make your work better, and you may end up attracting an audience that you will come to respect as much as they respect you. Talking about the recent excrement being released from Hollywood, streaming services, and television (And watching a writing critique video getting me back in the mood) made me want to type this, because it is everywhere. An example from the Mandalorian (which is really crappy, writing-wise. Again, we all watch Shad, and he has made it clear Mando is terrible. Not saying you shouldn't enjoy it; he does while acknowledging it's crap. But let's just say when someone asks about a pothole and your answer is 'so we can have the plot', just give up and admit it's crap and save us both the energy. Okay, Mando rant over) is that he doesn't use his full arsenal despite him having a weapon perfect for the situation. When he got attacked by the spiders, he kept shooting them rather than use his flamethrower. When fighting Moff Gideon, he uses the spear rather than the flamethrower, which can't really be deflected. The Moff Gideon one is probably a better example, as the spiders one is just dumb and to create false tension while the Gideon one is meant to be a cool fight scene. It makes no sense not to burn him with the context provided. It's a non-deflectable attack you can use on him. They even state that Mando doesn't have whistling birds, so the writers clearly realized that could have been a way to defeat Gideon without the spear. It's not like they don't realize it. Now because I am a more competent writer than everyone who writes the Mandalorian (because that's the world I live in sadly.) there is an easy fix to this, and it's making clear that the flamethrower uses some type of fuel and he needs to conserve as much of it as possible. This can be done using a throwaway line in an episode, like "I need to refuel/refill the flamethrowers. Overused them." or by showing him refueling it or even going out of his way to purchase whatever is needed to fuel the flamethrower. It makes sense that would require fuel, it would explain why he doesn't use it as often as he should, and you can make him run out to have scenes like the spear fight happen and not have some of the audience wonder why he doesn't burn Gideon to a crisp. Wouldn't be that hard and wouldn't take up more than a few minutes max. And guess what? This took less than a minute of thought for me to figure out. It's really not that hard a lot of the time. Sometimes it is, and you really need to consider what you are doing and how to explain it and need to do the aforementioned research, and some times, you find your idea is stupid and you need to burn it with fire. An example is in TLJ and the hyperspace jump, which breaks in world rules, logic, and creates problems for future installments all for a cool shot, and you should throw the idea away and think of something else that can create a cool shot while not causing problems. And I will give a personal example of these, because I really don't want to come off as if I don't understand how hard this is or that I am trying to say I am superior to all these people without even trying. As my name suggests, I write a lot, and I have run into all of these problems. An example of a scene I want and had to rework because it broke rules is I wanted a telepath to disguise herself telepathically and infiltrate a party full of telepaths. Small problem... telepaths are immune to telepaths. Telepathy is fairly fickle in most interpretations with loose rules, and I had that mindset when writing. However, once I put the definitive rules down, I realized this couldn't work, because I wanted it to be a hard magic system that everyone could understand. So I agonized over the scene and the magic, seeing if there was any way I could make it work, and finally realized I couldn't in the way I made it and had to add an element into the story to save myself, which to be clear is not how you should normally handle it. I am well aware that I have to consider that element form that point forward, and I took a lot of consideration before finally deciding this was the only way, as I wanted to keep the scene to have certain character interactions and plot progression, and I still may end up just scratching the scene and starting anew. Another example of a scene I wanted was, in my science fantasy, was to have a super-powered character fight a wildcat as proof of her growth and a kind of right of passage, and the cat was trained to fight super-powered people but escaped and if you think that sounds dumb, that's because it's not. Dumb does not begin to describe that sludge I called a scene, there were so many levels of retarded. I ended up removing it after, and I'm ashamed to say, far longer than was appropriate (by my standards), and it is one of my more embarrassing moments, as not only did I write it, I considered keeping it. Thankfully, my brain finally refreshed after loading for several days and realized the stupidity and I deleted it and continued on, now more aware of my own fallibility and making sure I never repeat that mistake and if I do, I will quickly realize the mistake I made and not have to debate it. Thing is, that moment gave me a little insight into what the writers who made that dumb crap might've been thinking when they wrote it. It was quite eye-opening and a learning experience and I now know how those kinds of scenes may end up being written. It also, of course, increased my dissatisfaction that they were unable to spot it afterward like I had, because if I can spot my own errors, they should be able to have them and their writing team being able to spot and correct theirs, but they didn't. they kept it despite all logic, either not thinking about it, or thinking about it but being too attached to the idea. Rethink what you are doing, and feel free to delete stuff, you will have dumb stuff in your first draft. Brandon Sanderson said that ideas aren't valuable, though he is referring to story ideas, not small stuff like the examples I provided, and that you shouldn't work for years on one idea. I think BS might be a little too extreme there, as I don't think you should throw away a perfectly good idea that you have worked on simply because it's taking you a long time, but for the small things like a spear vs darksaber fight, or a hyperspace jump, or a really out of place wildcat fight, rework it or delete it. One bad scene can break an entire story. Yes, it will be painful and hard, but writing is painful and hard, that is why it is so challenging to become a good writer, and why it is so satisfying when you finally become one (Unfortunately not speaking from experience, but I am sure Shad would agree. He did tear up when he saw his book.) This turned out way bigger than intended, but talking about how recent media has been garbage made me want to rant, and talking about the rule of cool and what are its limits got me on this tangent. Writers who are reading this (Of which I think @Frustration and @Channelknight Fadran is trying to be?) take what I said seriously. This is one of the big errors I have seen made repeatedly over and over, not thinking about things enough or even thinking about it and then dismissing it, unwilling to let the scene go. It's not easy, and I acknowledge it, I have to take at least a few days to decide on whether or not something should stay, because it's a big thing to ask someone to outright delete something they wrote. But believe, it will be better in the long run, and you may end up thinking of something better after you try rewriting it and seeing more possibilities than you did before.

Nope. RIght here.

Different place?

XD He literally mentioned that. So yes, he was.

For some reason, these days it is. It is depressing on so many levels, not the least being people like my sister like the crap writing being churned out and making my life's passion seem fairly insignificant and pointless, especially when you know you can do better than the so-called 'professional writers'. I'm just trying to enjoy the few gems that still exist.

Rashek is still the antagonist, especially during the events of The Final Empire where he doesn't seem all quite sane and definitely not a good example of morality, and the premise of that book was Skaa versus Empire, and he was the ruler of the oppressive Empire. However, I feel rashek is more complicated than a greedy tyrant and had noble and complex intentions behind the acts he committed against the Skaa and his own people and went through a lot to make sure he could save them, and some of his actions can be seen as incredibly reasonable when you think about it in a broader view (Specifically referencing the prevention of another TLR, which, perhaps done for selfish reasons, was definitely needed to prevent disaster. Maybe could've gone a different way about it.) I really like TLR (In more ways than one) and I feel there is some complexity in his character beyond selfishness (he has more of a superiority complex that fuels his hatred), but I will not deny the guy was an awful individual and needed the spear to the chest. I can see it going either way. BS has confirmed that there will be an endgame to the Cosmere, so there will be an antagonist, but the conflict between Roshar and Scadrial could still be morally gray.

besides the fact Ruin had been manipulating him for a long time and turned him a little insane, He was told not to let Alendi get the power. After which he took it and then tried to defeat the deepness to save the world and messed up. he decided to rule the world as a means to an end, which required not having other feruchemists getting allomancy and challenging him (And I think we can all agree that having multiple TLRs would end up causing a lot of death and destruction.) His maintaining of power was sp he could take the power again and prevent disaster. He made several plans to save humanity on scadrial, like the caverns. Yes, he was tyrannical, that doesn't change what his motives were.

Yay.

Yes, it is part of why most mainstream entertainment has been getting progressively worse. Are you referring to Gambeson? As for that, this is very much a preference, but I would be fine if it made sense. If this person was in close quarters or doing something that would make them want two daggers rather than any other weapon, or they had supernatural abilities that would make them prefer daggers rather than other weapons. As long as there is some good logic behind it, I can accept it. Edit- My advice to everyone who wants something cool in their story, try and make it logical. think about why your character would use this, why is it useful, what are the advantages and disadvantages to having this, and RESEARCH. You don't need to do heavy research, just some basics and checking to see if you have misconceptions that you need to knock out of that cavity in your skull. Do not follow tropes blindly; an example of this would be the sword lock, which Shad has numerous times stated is stupid on so many levels. Try and learn how sword fights are actually conducted, and then implement that. It really does make your work better, and you may end up attracting an audience that you will come to respect as much as they respect you. Talking about the recent excrement being released from Hollywood, streaming services, and television (And watching a writing critique video getting me back in the mood) made me want to type this, because it is everywhere. An example from the Mandalorian (which is really crappy, writing-wise. Again, we all watch Shad, and he has made it clear Mando is terrible. Not saying you shouldn't enjoy it; he does while acknowledging it's crap. But let's just say when someone asks about a pothole and your answer is 'so we can have the plot', just give up and admit it's crap and save us both the energy. Okay, Mando rant over) is that he doesn't use his full arsenal despite him having a weapon perfect for the situation. When he got attacked by the spiders, he kept shooting them rather than use his flamethrower. When fighting Moff Gideon, he uses the spear rather than the flamethrower, which can't really be deflected. The Moff Gideon one is probably a better example, as the spiders one is just dumb and to create false tension while the Gideon one is meant to be a cool fight scene. It makes no sense not to burn him with the context provided. It's a non-deflectable attack you can use on him. They even state that Mando doesn't have whistling birds, so the writers clearly realized that could have been a way to defeat Gideon without the spear. It's not like they don't realize it. Now because I am a more competent writer than everyone who writes the Mandalorian (because that's the world I live in sadly.) there is an easy fix to this, and it's making clear that the flamethrower uses some type of fuel and he needs to conserve as much of it as possible. This can be done using a throwaway line in an episode, like "I need to refuel/refill the flamethrowers. Overused them." or by showing him refueling it or even going out of his way to purchase whatever is needed to fuel the flamethrower. It makes sense that would require fuel, it would explain why he doesn't use it as often as he should, and you can make him run out to have scenes like the spear fight happen and not have some of the audience wonder why he doesn't burn Gideon to a crisp. Wouldn't be that hard and wouldn't take up more than a few minutes max. And guess what? This took less than a minute of thought for me to figure out. It's really not that hard a lot of the time. Sometimes it is, and you really need to consider what you are doing and how to explain it and need to do the aforementioned research, and some times, you find your idea is stupid and you need to burn it with fire. An example is in TLJ and the hyperspace jump, which breaks in world rules, logic, and creates problems for future installments all for a cool shot, and you should throw the idea away and think of something else that can create a cool shot while not causing problems. And I will give a personal example of these, because I really don't want to come off as if I don't understand how hard this is or that I am trying to say I am superior to all these people without even trying. As my name suggests, I write a lot, and I have run into all of these problems. An example of a scene I want and had to rework because it broke rules is I wanted a telepath to disguise herself telepathically and infiltrate a party full of telepaths. Small problem... telepaths are immune to telepaths. Telepathy is fairly fickle in most interpretations with loose rules, and I had that mindset when writing. However, once I put the definitive rules down, I realized this couldn't work, because I wanted it to be a hard magic system that everyone could understand. So I agonized over the scene and the magic, seeing if there was any way I could make it work, and finally realized I couldn't in the way I made it and had to add an element into the story to save myself, which to be clear is not how you should normally handle it. I am well aware that I have to consider that element form that point forward, and I took a lot of consideration before finally deciding this was the only way, as I wanted to keep the scene to have certain character interactions and plot progression, and I still may end up just scratching the scene and starting anew. Another example of a scene I wanted was, in my science fantasy, was to have a super-powered character fight a wildcat as proof of her growth and a kind of right of passage, and the cat was trained to fight super-powered people but escaped and if you think that sounds dumb, that's because it's not. Dumb does not begin to describe that sludge I called a scene, there were so many levels of retarded. I ended up removing it after, and I'm ashamed to say, far longer than was appropriate (by my standards), and it is one of my more embarrassing moments, as not only did I write it, I considered keeping it. Thankfully, my brain finally refreshed after loading for several days and realized the stupidity and I deleted it and continued on, now more aware of my own fallibility and making sure I never repeat that mistake and if I do, I will quickly realize the mistake I made and not have to debate it. Thing is, that moment gave me a little insight into what the writers who made that dumb crap might've been thinking when they wrote it. It was quite eye-opening and a learning experience and I now know how those kinds of scenes may end up being written. It also, of course, increased my dissatisfaction that they were unable to spot it afterward like I had, because if I can spot my own errors, they should be able to have them and their writing team being able to spot and correct theirs, but they didn't. they kept it despite all logic, either not thinking about it, or thinking about it but being too attached to the idea. Rethink what you are doing, and feel free to delete stuff, you will have dumb stuff in your first draft. Brandon Sanderson said that ideas aren't valuable, though he is referring to story ideas, not small stuff like the examples I provided, and that you shouldn't work for years on one idea. I think BS might be a little too extreme there, as I don't think you should throw away a perfectly good idea that you have worked on simply because it's taking you a long time, but for the small things like a spear vs darksaber fight, or a hyperspace jump, or a really out of place wildcat fight, rework it or delete it. One bad scene can break an entire story. Yes, it will be painful and hard, but writing is painful and hard, that is why it is so challenging to become a good writer, and why it is so satisfying when you finally become one (Unfortunately not speaking from experience, but I am sure Shad would agree. He did tear up when he saw his book.) This turned out way bigger than intended, but talking about how recent media has been garbage made me want to rant, and talking about the rule of cool and what are its limits got me on this tangent. Writers who are reading this (Of which I think @Frustration and @Channelknight Fadran is trying to be?) take what I said seriously. This is one of the big errors I have seen made repeatedly over and over, not thinking about things enough or even thinking about it and then dismissing it, unwilling to let the scene go. It's not easy, and I acknowledge it, I have to take at least a few days to decide on whether or not something should stay, because it's a big thing to ask someone to outright delete something they wrote. But believe, it will be better in the long run, and you may end up thinking of something better after you try rewriting it and seeing more possibilities than you did before.

I swear I read somewhere that spikes could double as metalminds. Does anyone else have this memory?

Well, we know for a fact those who stored healing had to rest a lot.

This is making him sound selfish. Wanting to save your home planet because you have an emotional attachment to the planet you live on is not selfish. Otherwise, every soldier that died is selfish for trying to defend their country.

It's not really a daily life question, it's just a question of whether they could store traits in their spikes or needed specific metalminds to do so.

What do you mean doesn't run out? Also, didn't Inquisitors store traits into their own spikes?

Ah, forgot about that. Clever gale. @Shard of Reading

@Hentient hey, it's your turn to take income.