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Offline Nisorin

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Voluntary Training
« on: March 02, 2010, 12:51:09 AM »
As my Battle course seems to have been put on hold by Orpheus' boycotting of the board, I would like to take this chance to begin training in this subject.
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Seeing the world through a child's eyes is truly a unique experience. It helps you to retrieve that sense of awe, magic and wonder that you lost as you lost your innocence. Tell me, when was the last time that you thought of those childhood dreams? You know, the ones that you used to spend all your time wondering and fantasizing about? Have you forgotten them so easily? Have you forgotten what it felt like to see something for the first time, to see the magic in the mundane? Everyone says you should take the time to 'Stop and smell the roses'. But you should also take the time to look for the fairies, embrace the wind and enjoy the rain. Just once today, stop for a moment and look into that little piece of nature you pass everyday. Perhaps you may see something you did not notice before.

Offline K2

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Re: Voluntary Training
« Reply #1 on: March 09, 2010, 12:19:02 PM »
It seems I missed this topic.. In any case, welcome to Advanced Detail and Perception. To begin, I want you to make a list of twenty household objects you can see from where you are sitting (or a relatively nearby place) and give details on each object. This is a preliminary test so I can see what you especially need work on.
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Offline Nisorin

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Re: Voluntary Training
« Reply #2 on: March 09, 2010, 03:37:54 PM »
20 may take a bit.

1: Black Samsung flatscreen monitor, 19 inches from top left corner of the screen to bottom right, 3mm diameter round green LED power light, SAMSUNG logo in silver lettering 1/2 inch tall 1/4 below the screen, in the center of the monitor horizontally. 7 buttons on the bottom of the monitor, one power, one menu, two brightness (+ -) two contrast (+ -) one auto. SyncMaster 930B lettering in top left corner of the monitor itself, in silver with the B in subscript, located roughly a quarter of an inch from the top edge and half an inch from the left edge. Screen displays the browser Firefox with a full bookmarks bar, the XFire XO toolbar, and the GE Reply page open with this post entered into the text box.

2: Silver Samsung Jack cellular phone with full QWERTY keyboard, WiFi, and running Windows Mobile 6.5 Standard with Windows Media Player Mobile active on the Library section. 1gb Memory Stick Micro inserted, 175mb RAM, 82 MB internal Flash storage. Screen slightly scratched, with purple notification LED signifying an unread text message(s.)

3: Handmade wooden and steel ship with built in clock and two small nightlight-style light bulbs. Ship features 4 windows that allow sight straight through the ship, 2 that only progress halfway through the ship. 5 steel sails rise up perpendicular to the rest of the ship, held up by three metal posts, each with a metal flag atop. Brown, 2 wire 2 pronged power cord wrapped around the front light bulb opening, underneath the foremost sail.

4: White and black Kingston DataTraveler 8gb flash drive with black keyring attachment on the back, where the cap can be fitted onto during use to prevent misplacement. Roughly an inch and a half in length, half an inch wide, and a quarter of an inch tall. Key attachment is currently broken, with a gap roughly 4mm wide in the corner.

5: Black Razer Copperhead gaming mouse with blue lighting enhancements. Soft gray gel strip on either side, with blue LEDs every 2mm running down the strips. Translucent gel scroll wheel of the same color, with one blue LED at either side. Two standard mouse buttons, two on the left side arranged together to form a single downward pointing crescent, two similar buttons on the opposite side that control mouse sensitivity, and one small, round button on the underside that switches user configurations. Translucent triple-snake Razer logo roughly a quarter inch below the two primary mouse buttons, with continuously fading and brightening blue LED beneath it.

6: Black Sony PSP-3001 portable gaming console with a Monster Hunter wallpaper depicting a male hunter with a very large sword kneeling beside a dead Rathian in a plain at sunset. Inserted is a 4gb Memory Stick Pro Duo supporting MagicGate, and a UMD copy of R-Type Command. Running system software version 6.20.

7: Black DVD-style case for Neverwinter Nights 2: Storms of Zehir expansion pack, depicting a human skull missing it's lower jaw, with a green jungle snake exposing its fangs and coiling around and through the skull, venom dripping down the forehead. Red Atari logo in the botton right corner, white Gamestop price sticker in the top right corner, slightly crooked, stating that the game was sold new for $19.99. Small white  Obsidian Entertainment logo beneath the Skull&Snake Storms of Zehir logo.

8: Black Logitech M-RAG97 wireless mouse, slightly dusty, with 3 LED battery indicator, currently turned off, with 10 mouse buttons including two primary and scroll wheel. Mouse design for full hand usage. Black transmitter with white Logitech logo and gray reset button.

9: Strange, blue pink and grey egg-shaped digital music player (NOT an mp3 player), with a 'Play-It-Now' logo just beneath an LCD screen. Belt loop on the back with a large hole going though it, more likely part of the design than an accident, circle of slightly translucent pink directional buttons roughly an inch below the 1 square inch LCD screen.

(Getting kicked off early.)
« Last Edit: March 11, 2010, 01:28:31 AM by Nisorin »
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Seeing the world through a child's eyes is truly a unique experience. It helps you to retrieve that sense of awe, magic and wonder that you lost as you lost your innocence. Tell me, when was the last time that you thought of those childhood dreams? You know, the ones that you used to spend all your time wondering and fantasizing about? Have you forgotten them so easily? Have you forgotten what it felt like to see something for the first time, to see the magic in the mundane? Everyone says you should take the time to 'Stop and smell the roses'. But you should also take the time to look for the fairies, embrace the wind and enjoy the rain. Just once today, stop for a moment and look into that little piece of nature you pass everyday. Perhaps you may see something you did not notice before.

Offline K2

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Re: Voluntary Training
« Reply #3 on: March 16, 2010, 06:28:33 PM »
Nine's good enough.

Alright. Detail, first of all, is necessary in writing. Without detail, we wouldn't be able to express very clear thoughts about what's going on. Even if you're in an advanced stage of literacy, if you don't have good detail, it's useless. Description, in this manner, is key. If you can describe something in perfect detail without boring the reader, you'll be able to pass this class.

Needless to say, use your five senses. Not just sight. Describe smell, sounds, and perhaps taste. Describe what an object feels like. These are BASIC things when it comes to description and this should serve only as a reminder to you to do such in your writing.

While you can obviously see why detail is important in writing, please illustrate when/why you might not want too much detail on everything in your writing.
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Offline Nisorin

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Re: Voluntary Training
« Reply #4 on: March 16, 2010, 07:17:41 PM »
Adding too much detail can make the passage become boring to read, as well as restrict how much imaginative freedom the reader can use in 'picturing the scene.'
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Seeing the world through a child's eyes is truly a unique experience. It helps you to retrieve that sense of awe, magic and wonder that you lost as you lost your innocence. Tell me, when was the last time that you thought of those childhood dreams? You know, the ones that you used to spend all your time wondering and fantasizing about? Have you forgotten them so easily? Have you forgotten what it felt like to see something for the first time, to see the magic in the mundane? Everyone says you should take the time to 'Stop and smell the roses'. But you should also take the time to look for the fairies, embrace the wind and enjoy the rain. Just once today, stop for a moment and look into that little piece of nature you pass everyday. Perhaps you may see something you did not notice before.

Offline K2

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Re: Voluntary Training
« Reply #5 on: March 18, 2010, 04:16:34 PM »
Quote from: Nisorin on March 16, 2010, 07:17:41 PM
Adding too much detail can make the passage become boring to read, as well as restrict how much imaginative freedom the reader can use in 'picturing the scene.'

Yes, exactly. So, the trick is finding the perfect balance between too much detail and not enough detail. For your first lesson, we will cover dialogue. How much detail is adequate inside dialogue?
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Offline Nisorin

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Re: Voluntary Training
« Reply #6 on: March 21, 2010, 04:48:59 AM »
Do you mean what the character is actually saying, or the descriptors regarding how the character is saying it?
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Seeing the world through a child's eyes is truly a unique experience. It helps you to retrieve that sense of awe, magic and wonder that you lost as you lost your innocence. Tell me, when was the last time that you thought of those childhood dreams? You know, the ones that you used to spend all your time wondering and fantasizing about? Have you forgotten them so easily? Have you forgotten what it felt like to see something for the first time, to see the magic in the mundane? Everyone says you should take the time to 'Stop and smell the roses'. But you should also take the time to look for the fairies, embrace the wind and enjoy the rain. Just once today, stop for a moment and look into that little piece of nature you pass everyday. Perhaps you may see something you did not notice before.

Offline K2

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Re: Voluntary Training
« Reply #7 on: March 25, 2010, 03:31:31 PM »
The speech of the characters.
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Offline Nisorin

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Re: Voluntary Training
« Reply #8 on: March 26, 2010, 05:55:51 PM »
Enough to get the tone of the speaker's voice, but not so much that every last detail is laid out for the reader, as that will hinder the amount of imagination the reader is able to use in visualizing the scene.
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Seeing the world through a child's eyes is truly a unique experience. It helps you to retrieve that sense of awe, magic and wonder that you lost as you lost your innocence. Tell me, when was the last time that you thought of those childhood dreams? You know, the ones that you used to spend all your time wondering and fantasizing about? Have you forgotten them so easily? Have you forgotten what it felt like to see something for the first time, to see the magic in the mundane? Everyone says you should take the time to 'Stop and smell the roses'. But you should also take the time to look for the fairies, embrace the wind and enjoy the rain. Just once today, stop for a moment and look into that little piece of nature you pass everyday. Perhaps you may see something you did not notice before.

Offline K2

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Re: Voluntary Training
« Reply #9 on: March 27, 2010, 04:41:47 PM »
Quote from: Nisorin on March 26, 2010, 05:55:51 PM
Enough to get the tone of the speaker's voice, but not so much that every last detail is laid out for the reader, as that will hinder the amount of imagination the reader is able to use in visualizing the scene.

You're half-right.
We don't want to overload the scene with dialogue; Only what is necessary. At the same time, we don't use dialogue to get across information! Dialogue is dialogue and should not be used in sole reason of revealing things. Things are revealed in dialogue, but only as a result. Dialogue is truly something meant to express a conversation between different people and should not be warped to reveal information.

Please do both of the following:

Correct -

"Yeah. I agree completely. I was going to the store, right? I was out of eggs. So, I get in my car and am going to the store when I get to a red-light.. Then, bam! A ford pickup truck hit my brand new expedition. Isn't that awful? Man, it sucks!"
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