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Guiness13 posted:Realistically, what I'm most likely to get out of it is a rejection letter. Don't get me wrong, I'm enthusiastic about the idea, and I want it, but I've done some research into U of M's program and I'm not blind to my chances here. But, if I did get in, it would be 2-3 years of funded writing time with an adviser for guidance. And, yeah, also classes, both to take and possibly teach (god help me). I'm not looking for a silver bullet, but it would give me time and guidance, one of which I need, the other of which I want. Good on you for doing some research, but what comes after? Those 2-3 years might be nice (don’t dismiss the classes or the teaching), but the stipend won’t be grand by any stretch, so you’d have to figure out your $ situation overall. Just don’t let the excitement blind you to the work this really entails and where you go after. Is this a career path switch or just a break to do some writing with some guidance (which can vary wildly, I might add)? Apologies if this is a derail, I just want you to be honest with yourself about your motives and plan going forward. You don’t have to justify yourself to me or anyone else here, just be aware this is a bit more than a lark to do some writing, and if I had to guess, the job market (which I would think would be a consideration?) won’t be lovely. I feel like I’m seeing the “silver bullet” mentality peeking through a bit, despite your claims you’re past it. Not judging, just want to make you aware of the reality of the whole shebang as my warped brain reads it.
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Aug 15, 2018 04:10
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Guiness13 posted:Not sure if this is the best place for this question, but I've got the crazy idea of applying for an MFA program. My problem is that my educational and employment history have been decidedly not fiction oriented. (Worked as a paralegal.) So, who should I be asking for letters of recommendation? Actually answering your question (probably w/some info you've read, assume that's for other people reading later): 1) Email the university and ask (Email admissions questions to graduate.english@umich.edu or call 734.763.4139; Probably even better: zellwriters@umich.edu) 2)"Can someone other than a creative writing teacher write a letter of recommendation for me? Yes, you can ask a non-academic to provide a letter of recommendation for your file. It is best, however, if the person writing on your behalf is somehow qualified to assess your writing. And while we will accept recommendations from sources that are not academic or writerly, keep in mind that having a friend or family acquaintance (or even a well-known writer who has never actually read your work) extol your virtues doesn't help the program evaluate your strengths as a candidate." 3) Don't give up just b/c you don't have any ~writerly~ recommendation letters. You have the writing sample to show how you write. Worst case scenario is you're out $75 and maybe feel bad. 5) Grad school admissions thread in Ask/Tell might have some answers 6) Hopefully one of the people who post here who actually have an MFA will answer you. Giving you advice you didn't even f ucking ask for: 7) As mentioned already, the stipend won't be much money. It looks to be less than half of the average salary for a paralegal in Ann Arbor. Though you say "worked" so maybe you are unemployed or doing something else now. 8) The chances of making a successful career change to anything writing related after getting an MFA are slim, so also consider what effect a 2-3 year gap in your profession would mean for you long-term. (Highly recommend trying to see what previous graduates from the program are doing right now. It's clearly an exclusive program, but not all graduates are successful writers. https://lsa.umich.edu/writers/alumni-friends/alumni-books.html -- I think I'm seeing less than 10 graduates with more than one published novel in the past 20 years? One of them has two listings for what seem to be the same rom-com with only 13 combined reviews on Amazon....) 9) Personally I wouldn't bother applying if you want to write genre.
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Aug 15, 2018 08:17
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sebmojo posted:Thunderdome is very good for this. Thunderdome seems a bit intense given I'm currently kind of struggling with my current ~500 words/week project, but I'll certainly keep it on the docket. Exmond posted:What are you looking for, To grow your audience? To get feedback/crits? Do you just want to be held accountable to post a weekly story? Accountability, I guess? I'm almost done with the weekly thing and I'm not sure what my next move is, but in general I want somewhere public to publish things so they can have a "finished" state. Part of that is that other people have to be able to see it so I'm motivated to make an effort, so a bit of audience building has to be there I guess. Feedback is always good, but it's a tertiary consideration at best; if I want an honest-to-god critique I'll take it these forums or Scribophile or somewhere else that's explicitly for that purpose.
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Aug 16, 2018 19:46
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Terrorforge posted:Thunderdome seems a bit intense given I'm currently kind of struggling with my current ~500 words/week project, but I'll certainly keep it on the docket. Do Thunderdome. There's no minimum story length (that I've ever seen) so even if you write 500 words, as long as it's 500 decent words that tell a complete story you're good to go. If you're struggling to do 500 words a week, maybe the risk of public mocking for a failure to submit your TD story will motivate? Plus you're guaranteed at least 3 people will read and critique your story. Edit: also TD is fun and dumb, and the best part is submitting stuff you're not sure about just to see what the result is.
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Aug 16, 2018 20:30
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Pham Nuwen posted:Do Thunderdome. There's no minimum story length (that I've ever seen) so even if you write 500 words, as long as it's 500 decent words that tell a complete story you're good to go. If you're struggling to do 500 words a week, maybe the risk of public mocking for a failure to submit your TD story will motivate? Plus you're guaranteed at least 3 people will read and critique your story. Oh, right. I totally blanked on the fact those word counts are maximums, not minimums. I definitely will do that then, once I'm finished with my current thing.
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Aug 16, 2018 20:47
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If you want to hang out with other writer goons in a non-TD setting, there is also the discord server. We have a crit channel if there's anything in particular you wanted people to look at. Good luck in the 'dome.
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Aug 17, 2018 01:22
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CantDecideOnAName posted:If you want to hang out with other writer goons in a non-TD setting, there is also the discord server. We have a crit channel if there's anything in particular you wanted people to look at. There's a discord? poo poo, how did I miss this?
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Aug 17, 2018 03:16
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Stuporstar posted:There's a discord? poo poo, how did I miss this? https://discord.gg/mft2Myj It's pretty new, only a few months old. Someone in here was asking if there was one, and since there wasn't, one was made.
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Aug 17, 2018 03:22
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Guiness13 posted:Not sure if this is the best place for this question, but I've got the crazy idea of applying for an MFA program. My problem is that my educational and employment history have been decidedly not fiction oriented. (Worked as a paralegal.) So, who should I be asking for letters of recommendation? Some good stuff on MFAs above by Sponge Monkeys and the Doc. I'll add unsolicited advice. I'm doing a Creative Writing MA right now (we don't have MFAs here in the southern hemisphere). It's only one year but otherwise I think it's similar-ish? It's possibly my favourite thing I've ever done. I also have a Real Career and I'm still working in it part-time while I study (and plan to return to properly once I'm done). If you could work part-time in your field to keep yourself in the game - bonus if its for your current employer - it could work out pretty good (you will also have no spare time and will not have time for even a single episode of anime, not even one). Note I don't know how things work in the States so this could be awful advice. For recommendation letter, like Doc said just call the uni. Are you in a writing group with published authors or academics or both? I'm from a STEM world and that's how I got references.
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Aug 17, 2018 03:50
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Terrorforge posted:Thunderdome seems a bit intense given I'm currently kind of struggling with my current ~500 words/week project, but I'll certainly keep it on the docket. Thunderdome isn't for everyone, there is a lot of pressure to write a story in a week, but it will keep you honest! If that doesn't like it is for you there are a couple of alternatives: 1) Join a writer circle that meets up X days, and commit to bringing something 2) Gameify writing, look at sites like 4thewords.com that sets writing goals, lets you defeat RPG monsters and gameifies the whole experience. 3) Commit to submitting a flash fiction (1,000 max words) to markets every month. You can use https://thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com/ to find some markets. 4) Start a serial. I don't have much experience with this, but it's a weekly story that posted in bits. This could be a lot of work. 5) Join a small community of writers that do things like weekly/monthly writing competitions
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Aug 17, 2018 05:32
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Just wanted to say thank you for the excellent advice and questions. Not ignoring any of it, just been a busy couple of days.
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Aug 17, 2018 07:57
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How do y'all refine character arcs and themes? I've now got 2 drafts of my novel under my belt and I feel really good about the overall structure and narrative. However, I've found that after all my writing, I have several different arcs for each character that are all relatively surface-level, as well as a pile of different themes I'm speaking to. Anyone have any advice or techniques on how to get more specific about what I'm trying to say and separate the wheat from the chaff?
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Aug 17, 2018 12:53
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feedmyleg posted:How do y'all refine character arcs and themes? I've now got 2 drafts of my novel under my belt and I feel really good about the overall structure and narrative. However, I've found that after all my writing, I have several different arcs for each character that are all relatively surface-level, as well as a pile of different themes I'm speaking to. Anyone have any advice or techniques on how to get more specific about what I'm trying to say and separate the wheat from the chaff? An insight I had about that was to tie a character's story arc to the novel's story arc. A story shows a character in need of a change and places them in some kind of crisis which forces a reaction, it tries to force a change. It could be a change for the better, it could be a change for the worse (or rarely it could show how the character hasn't changed at all, but that can be trickier). Both the story arc and your character's arc should more-or-less mirror the progress of the other and climax in the same place. The climax of the plot should reflect the ultimate expression of how your character has grown from the start of the story. The neat thing is you can also do that in reverse too. If you know how your plot ends you can use that to figure out the starting point for the character's arc.
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Aug 17, 2018 13:17
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Exmond posted:3) Commit to submitting a flash fiction (1,000 max words) to markets every month. You can use https://thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com/ to find some markets. I think I'll go for this one, with a side of getting goons to look at my things. I was planning on switching to a monthly-ish schedule anyway. The shorter format and clear deadline has been playing better with my adhd than previous attempts to just write a thing until it's finished, but the lack of time between first draft and final edit has left a few good ideas hopelessly unrefined. Thanks a lot for making me aware of the Grinder, too. I've been wanting to start submitting things for a while, but I didn't know where to find a list of markets.
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Aug 17, 2018 22:57
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Terrorforge posted:I think I'll go for this one, with a side of getting goons to look at my things. I was planning on switching to a monthly-ish schedule anyway. The shorter format and clear deadline has been playing better with my adhd than previous attempts to just write a thing until it's finished, but the lack of time between first draft and final edit has left a few good ideas hopelessly unrefined. Cool. Thunderdome does fit what you're looking for, so I'd suggest entering at least once - that also gets you access to all the stories in the insane archive, which has around 7 million words of flash fiction in it.
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Aug 17, 2018 23:12
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sebmojo posted:Cool. Thunderdome does fit what you're looking for, so I'd suggest entering at least once - that also gets you access to all the stories in the insane archive, which has around 7 million words of flash fiction in it. Oh, I will. It isn't actually what I came looking for, which was some type of portfolio thing, but between Thunderdome and aiming to submit to actual publications I think my needs are met. Speaking of portfolios, I've noticed publishing writing on the internet seems to fall into the extremes of free-for-all amateur hour or paid work published by reputable literary magazine, with nothing filling the space between the way say ArtStation does for visual artists. Is there no such thing as "ao3 but for original fiction" at all, or does something like that exist but it's terrible?
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Aug 17, 2018 23:33
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Go to newpages.com and see who's looking for submissions, there are a lot of e-journals and artsy/indie small presses out there.
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Aug 18, 2018 01:22
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So I'm in the querying stage of my novel. Other than the sub it facebook group what are some good links or fonts of knowledge that I can utilize? Thanks.
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Aug 18, 2018 02:20
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Shageletic posted:So I'm in the querying stage of my novel. Other than the sub it facebook group what are some good links or fonts of knowledge that I can utilize? Thanks. http://queryshark.blogspot.com should be your first spot if you haven't already gone there. It's an agent viciously tearing apart queries but then explaining how they can be made better, and she's been doing it for so long that there's a backlog of literally hundreds for you to study.
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Aug 18, 2018 03:41
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Naerasa posted:http://queryshark.blogspot.com should be your first spot if you haven't already gone there. It's an agent viciously tearing apart queries but then explaining how they can be made better, and she's been doing it for so long that there's a backlog of literally hundreds for you to study. Thanks!
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Aug 18, 2018 04:26
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I learned stuff at Worldcon, I guess. I feel like I'm definitely at the "holy poo poo just query people with a manuscript" phase because yeah it wasn't an enormous amount. It was kinda fun tho.
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Aug 20, 2018 02:57
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Where is a good place to go or a polite way to ask people to take a look at a piece of writing for either advice or input.
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Aug 22, 2018 21:12
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BigRed0427 posted:Where is a good place to go or a polite way to ask people to take a look at a piece of writing for either advice or input. You can post it as a new thread, though I would ask in this thread for people to look at it. Link it as a google doc with comments enabled, that's usually the best way people can give you feedback. There is a SA writing discord that you could ask for a crit: https://discord.gg/2374qJ5 There is a website that does crit trades. Can't recall it right now. Exmond fucked around with this message at 15:58 on Aug 30, 2018 |
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Aug 22, 2018 21:20
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Exmond posted:You can post it as a new thread, though I would ask in this thread for people to look at it. Link it as a google doc with comments enabled, that's usually the best way people can give you feedback. Critique Circle and Scribophile both have crit trade systems, but you would need to invest a bit of time to read and crit others' work before someone can look at yours.
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Aug 22, 2018 21:34
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A note about the discord: if you're going to join, please talk! Lurkers gain little and contribute nothing.
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Aug 23, 2018 03:47
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BigRed0427 posted:Where is a good place to go or a polite way to ask people to take a look at a piece of writing for either advice or input. THE BIGGEST ANSWER. JUST GO TO A DISCORD OR SOMETHING. THIS FORUMS IS DYING. FLY FREE. MAKE YOUR OWN GROUP. IT'S FINE. I'M FINE. Dr. Kloctopussy posted:
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Aug 28, 2018 08:46
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GET FEEDBACK 
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Dr. Kloctopussy posted:THE BIGGEST ANSWER. JUST GO TO A DISCORD OR SOMETHING. THIS FORUMS IS DYING. FLY FREE. MAKE YOUR OWN GROUP. IT'S FINE. I'M FINE. TLDR? Is the TLDR read more write more?
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Aug 28, 2018 19:03
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Exmond posted:TLDR? The tldr is read the op, I believe
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Aug 28, 2018 20:52
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sebmojo posted:The tldr is read the op, I believe op is too long, didn't read
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Aug 30, 2018 01:46
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Exmond posted:You can post it as a new thread, though I would ask in this thread for people to look at it. Link it as a google doc with comments enabled, that's usually the best way people can give you feedback. Is this not open? It says invalid or private.
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Aug 30, 2018 02:26
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Exmond posted:TLDR? It's a stamp they only break out when goons submit work: "Thunderdome Loser, Do not Read."
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Aug 30, 2018 04:37
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After The War posted:It's a stamp they only break out when goons submit work: "Thunderdome Loser, Do not Read." This made me laugh
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Aug 30, 2018 04:45
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feedmyleg posted:Is this not open? It says invalid or private. Discord is silly and most invites are one day. Here is a permanent link: https://discord.gg/2374qJ5
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Aug 30, 2018 15:57
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I recently found myself with a lot of time on my hands so I thought I'd try and write a novel. To my surprise I've actually managed to write something but I'd like some tips on editing if you have any? Thank you.
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Sep 6, 2018 08:58
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bessantj posted:I recently found myself with a lot of time on my hands so I thought I'd try and write a novel. To my surprise I've actually managed to write something but I'd like some tips on editing if you have any? Thank you. check the op, docklock almost certainly has some wise words in there, but it depends on the text what it needs. post a chunk (~500 words?) and i'll line by line it and talk about why I made decisions.
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Sep 6, 2018 09:25
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sebmojo posted:check the op, docklock almost certainly has some wise words in there, but it depends on the text what it needs. I really should read the OP, thanks. I'll post the first two paragraphs I've never written anything before and I was lousy at English in school so if you get too frustrated half way through I'll understand. quote:The wind howled loudly as it whipped through the muddy trench strangled between the sides covered with rotting wooden slats. Adam looked up at the sky, it was overcast but didn’t look like it was going to rain, he made his way down the trench avoiding the puddles of water as he did so, and his five foot nine frame cut a solitary figure. He felt as if he was in a familiar place but something was different, something was wrong. He had served with the Welsh regiment during the Great War but that was over now wasn’t it? He felt sure that they’d had a message more than a month ago that the fighting was to cease and they could all return home, that peace had finally prevailed over the madness. He was finding it difficult to think, his head felt heavy as if his brain was sitting in a thick soup. He looked around trying to find some sort of landmark within the trench to tell him where he was, though he’d seen a few trenches over the years he had recognized that they all had their own character that marked them out as different. He remembered one trench in France that had a large piece of shrapnel imbedded in it right next to the doorway to the sleeping quarters, nobody had moved it because it was thought lucky, two or three inches to the right and it would have killed everyone sleeping within the quarters.
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Sep 6, 2018 09:30
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The wind howled Adam heard three very quick footsteps as if someone was running down the trench, away from him. He called out to them but In truth he had never met an enemy combatant in a trench, most of the time they he hesitated for a second and then looked around it. new sentence and found he was looking at the same part of the trench that he had just walked down. He looked back to confirm that it was the same but as he looked behind him he saw something different, the trench was dry, the wood new and solid. Adam turned around and looked back down the new trench this is actually p decent, and I'm interested in what happens next, but you do a lot of typical new writer flimflam - i recommend a few weeks of thunderdome to knock that out of you. Always think about how the rhythm of what you're writing works with the feeling you're trying to create, kill unnecessary words, create character through images of physical things.
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Sep 6, 2018 12:24
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Wow thank you very much, this is a huge help. As I said I know next to nothing about writing a story and even less about writing a good one so thanks for the education. I've read the OP and it's full of good advice and I've bought a copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves.
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Sep 6, 2018 15:31
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I could use a bit of feedback on a style I'm considering using for a new story. I see a lot of fiction that's set in a fantastic/weird world regularly interject big, detailed worldbuilding paragraphs between the action in the form of:quote:Bob stepped into his cubicle and nearly collapsed in his office chair, sighing at the prospect of enduring another tedious day of being the lowest-ranking grunt in the accountant's pool. I hate when most stories do this; it tends to be jarring and clunky, and especially early in the story it futzes with the pacing- if this is the first chapter I don't care about Tom, or trolls, or the setting; I'm waiting for Bob the D&D Accountant to do something that invests me in the character and makes me care about what happens next. So I'm considering trying to limit myself to natural-sounding first-person observations; Bob grew up in a world where fantasy creatures were normal, so he might occasionally notice Tom's rough, pebbly green skin or observe that everyone in the office flinches and covers their ears when he laughs or yells, but he's never going to sit down and say "Here is what's happening and how it fits into the setting". My thought is that as long as the reader doesn't need the background details, all they should really get is information necessary to picture the scene and empathize with Bob's reactions or behavior. That having been said, <action/dialogue beat> <descriptive beat> is such a common structural trope in fantasy and fiction that I assume it's there because it works- am I setting myself up to frustrate readers if I go for the minimalist approach?
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Sep 7, 2018 20:43
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Go minimalist, absolutely. Don't do this:quote:The telephone rang.
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Sep 7, 2018 21:01
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