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anime was right posted:writing is great and fun but it is also miserable and awful Not empty quoting. Even the best writing groove has a little bit of a "pulling teeth" quality to it. Most of the time it feels like slowly prying a rusty nail out of my brain. But then afterward I feel the most pride I've ever felt about anything I've ever made.
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Mar 6, 2017 23:34
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Sitting Here posted:I feel as though I've worked tremendously hard, but don't have the diligence to polish work enough that I'm confident that the big pubs will even look twice at it. It's been an ongoing struggle and sometimes I wish my brain would let me give up, but I have like a pathological need to bottle my farts in word form. Welcome to the wonderful world of writing! I feel the same way. It's much more interesting and cathartic to get the words down and watch the story grow from the inside. Editing is a comparative slog, especially if the book is long. I read an article once from a writer who said that once he finished a book, he scrapped it and wrote it all over again from scratch. According to him, it always turned out better the second time because he already knew how the story worked. While that may be a little .... extreme ... it did get me thinking that the editing process is less Making Every Word Perfect and more about getting the whole story under control. I mean, you could go all Ezra Pound and spend fifty years creating the Platonic ideal of your novel, but what you really want is a story without too many flappy bits sticking out. Get it consistent, pare it down, say what you meant to say, make it so that no single part makes you frown reflexively when you read it, and then start getting it out there.
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May 19, 2017 16:41
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The biggest danger with pantsing is getting lost in the weeds and eventually ending up with the literary equivalent of a wet fart. The biggest danger with planning is having to wrench the story back into place when you feel it start to take on a life of its own. I've never been a meticulous planner, with dozens of 3x5 cards pinned to the wall or whatever. The writers I've known who are tend to write stories I would characterize as "formulaic." Which is fine! Nothing wrong with formula writing, there's certainly an audience for it. Just be aware that you have to work harder at making your preset plot points flow organically, rather than "MUST HAVE SHEILA'S SUICIDE HERE (even though she's actually pretty happy right now)." Thing is, writing a book is sort of like filming a movie. Sometimes, the actors do something that makes you go "Whoa, that's not the story I was telling, but in its way it's much better." Then you have to decide, do you keep that flash of brilliance and change everything that comes after (and sometimes before), or discard it and stay on your path to a particular ending? What's more important, the story you're telling, or the story you could be telling? I tend to chase rabbits, so plotting too much ahead of time tends to be a waste of time. That may not be your thing.
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Aug 8, 2017 15:17
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Phil Moscowitz posted:Is the description important for any reason other than describing a character's physical appearance? Is the appearance important to develop a character (any character) or the plot? Will the description be jarring to the reader if you wait until 200 pages in before revealing that your main character is in a wheelchair? I usually just do the stand-out bits, or something that gives a character some uniqueness right away so the reader doesn't start out with an entirely inaccurate thing in their mind. "Bob stood next to a grey-clad woman. She was on the younger side of middle-aged, with wavy brown hair and thick-rimmed glasses. 'We have a problem,' she said grimly, by way of introduction." And we're off to the races. If she's an important character, you can drop in new, increasingly smaller details as you go: "Steve looked up into Amanda's worried face. For the first time he noticed her eyes were bright green, glittering in the fire's reflection." That kind of thing. If someone is really unique, like a giant pig-man wearing armor made from Coke cans and pie tins or something, then sure, go nuts. But every detail needs a reason for you to call it out. Don't describe every possible detail if you don't need to. Give your readers some room to fill things in.
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Aug 22, 2017 16:37
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Going all the way back to --MockingQuantum posted:On another note, for you more discovery-writing types, how do you approach structuring a book? Do you even bother thinking about pacing and tension and hitting specific structure beats until you're done with your first draft? -- for a second: I don't structure books ahead of time in any formal way. Mostly I just chew on an idea for a while, write other things while letting it develop in my head, and then start on that story when it's about ready to be written. I will have beats, or sometimes just scenes, in mind before I start. I don't write them down, however, because then I'd feel bound to follow them. Sorry, I know that's an unsatisfying answer. It's very exhilarating when you're doing it, though. Inevitably, even though I may hit all the beats and written all the scenes, when I finish there'll be half a dozen new scenes or beats that I like way better than anything I could have thought of before I began.
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Aug 26, 2017 05:34
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Some cliche words to avoid: Destiny Sword(s) Winter (actually any season, but ESPECIALLY that one) Stages of sunrise/sunset (Dawn, Dusk, Gloaming, etc.) [King/Queen/Prince/etc.] of X Tides Witch Knight Dragon(s) Slayer X of the Dead Mist Wind Edit: I hereby claim "THE OWNER OF A VARIABLE AMOUNT OF THINGS" and "THE STORM THAT WAS CANCELED" and you can't have them. Mirage fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Aug 28, 2017 |
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Aug 28, 2017 20:48
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There are rules to fiction, which is a lie. Every formula you'll ever read, or piece of advice you'll ever receive, is something that generally works a fair amount of the time for some people. They're guidelines. If you try to force your fiction into them, it can come out forced. I tend to think of writing as more like when schoolkids doodle in their books and turn pictures of Washington into a Japanese schoolgirl or something. Start with a kernel of an idea, then think about what you want to make that idea into. Chew on it for a while. So cops can bring people back from the dead to interrogate them. How does that affect the wider world? What other professions could use that ability? Lawyers, historians, reporters, funeral directors, insurance agents even, just for a start. There's be a gigantic body of law around it. Charlatans would abound. Licensing would be an issue. Can it be done with a snap of the fingers, or is it a whole ritual? If it's expensive or difficult, there would be a disparity between classes in how useful it could be. Necromancy could be a freelance field: Jake Dancer, Private Deadeye. Fifty dollars a corpse, plus expenses. As for characters, what works for me is to give them traits they need to make the story go (usually on the curious-staid/timid-adventurous axes), then add one big personality trait on top of that. "Cynical." "Nervous." "Serious." "Gruff." "Facile." "Kinda stupid." "Forever the center of attention." "Status conscious." Just one big hook to hang them on. If they're anything other than background characters, add a "but" condition. "Serious, but childish around pets." "Gruff but selfless." If they're main characters, give them as many extra traits and conditions as you want to write about. And you have to want to write about them. You need to be endlessly curious about what happens to these people and have a deep-seated need to see how it all winds up. Because if you aren't, if you get bored halfway through, that will probably be blindingly obvious to the reader. You don't have to like the characters. If you're writing about Captain Unredeemable Shithead, he doesn't have to end up being someone you want to have a beer with at the end. But you still gotta care about how in the world he gets out of this situation. There will be times when you realize a story isn't working. You have some choices. You can keep on writing in hopes it gets interesting again (this rarely works for me, but you may be different). You can stash it away, write a different story, then come back to it fresh in the future. You can think up a better angle and start it over. You can cannibalize it for parts and trash the rest. Each of these choices is 100% valid and there's no shame in any of them, because writing is a skill and every word you write increases your skill. Even the sucky ones.
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Sep 7, 2017 17:05
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I used a mirror once. Once.
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Feb 7, 2018 16:51
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I'd think about the only time you'd actually use a mirror to describe a viewpoint character from scratch is if somehow this is the first time they've seen themselves in a reflective surface. So if the character was blind and can now see, or lived in a cave or a primitive life in a place without still water to see themselves in, or is somehow experiencing a Quantum Leap situation, then sure. You miiight be able to get away with a descriptive detail if it's in comparison to something extraordinary. "Bob glanced in the hall mirror and stopped, amazed. Somehow, his normally brown hair had gained a shock of grey at the temples within the past half hour." It's also possible to use a mirror if the character is a massive narcissist. "Bob smirked at his glorious reflection. Shoulders still broad. Eyes still twinkling blue. Blond hair still perfectly coiffed. He felt something shift, just a bit, in his groin area. Aw yeah."
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Feb 7, 2018 19:00
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apophenium posted:Can writing ever be useless? Like if I work really hard to write 1,500-2,000 words a day just advancing the plot on some story idea I had can I come out the other side of that learning nothing? I've been slowly adding to a story over the past few months and I hate it and I hate where it's going but I feel obligated to continue it rather than just keep jumping to new stories like I used to. Can one write mindlessly? Or if I slug away at that story and get to some kind of ending will I look back at it and think, "Oh hey, this part isn't too bad, and this character works to a certain extent," and excavate some kind of merit from it? Look up "sunk cost fallacy." However, that doesn't mean you've completely wasted your time. Whether you believe it or not, every word you write improves your writing ability by a minuscule amount. But yeah. If you just hate it, and you don't think you'll be able to stick the landing, set it down and walk away. Go write something else. You may come back to it and discover it's not nearly as bad as you thought, and in the meantime your subconscious mind may make connections that turn your slog into a masterpiece! Or else it'll be something you can raid for parts. Or maybe you'll go back to the point you think it went off the rails and write a whole new direction for the thing. But give yourself time to breathe, man. It's either an extraordinary writer or a lovely one who knocks out (what they think is) a complete novel on the first draft, start to finish, with no breaks in between to let the engine cool down.
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Feb 15, 2018 19:17
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Doing weird stuff with tenses seems like jerking off to me. "Oh look at me and my unique voice, I'm so clever." Anything that's outside of the norms of fiction is that way, really. You have to have a drat good reason to do something odd, or you're just making it tedious for the reader. Of course, I haven't read that book, either. Maybe there's a good story reason for it and I'm being an old grump again.
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Apr 9, 2018 18:56
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Sitting Here posted:like, i'm not even a cultured or well-read person, but right now the pendulum of taste is swung all the way in the direction of what is familiar and effortlessly palatable and it's, imo, dumb af Hey if you can do it and it doesn't suck, go nuts. Heck, do it even if it does suck. Just be aware that most of the time you're huffing your own farts and putting a lot of effort into it.
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Apr 9, 2018 20:03
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GDocs has gotten somewhat better with big documents lately. I'm working on a ~75k word novel now and it doesn't stutter or hang up if I want to edit stuff near the beginning like it used to. Takes about 45 seconds to load when you first open it, though. I'll admit, if Scrivener ever did go full-on web/cloud, I'd jump in a heartbeat. Being able to pull up whatever I'm working on at a whim on any PC/laptop/tablet/phone within reach is such a huge draw. Anyone ever try writing with Office 365? I gave it a shot a few months ago and it was ... okay. Bit clunky, little slow, sort of complicated, kind of like killing a fly with a sledgehammer.
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Jul 24, 2018 19:50
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I've tried several types of outlining in the past, but I have trouble staying on track once the actual writing begins. Partway through, the characters take on a life of their own and the story starts diverging until the remainder of the outline makes no sense at all. The snowflake method sounds intriguing, though. Maybe next time.
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Jul 31, 2018 21:34
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I was writing a book once that HAD to have a particular story beat. I mean, that was the linchpin of the story, that a character would do a thing which dominoes into a gigantic disaster which would be the theme of everything afterward. I'd written several chapters, got up to that point in the story, and had a horrific realization: this character that I'd built up in all the preceding chapters wouldn't do the thing. He might want to do the thing, but he would probably talk himself out of it. I didn't want to have to scrap the whole preceding part, and I didn't really want to change the character. Ultimately I wrote an extra chapter to add more incentive, while trying not to make it seem like I was pushing. So that's what usually happens when I plan ahead: I'll be writing happily along and realize, oh, poo poo, the turn I want is half a block ahead and I'm in the wrong lane.
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Aug 1, 2018 16:14
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Omi no Kami posted: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 besides the whole "graveled" conversation (which I didn't mind, personally), you don't have to dump all the information at once, and your prose will read a lot better if you dole it out. This may require you to rearrange the scene, though, so as not to reveal "what's Tom's deal" all at once. Maybe Bob feels the floor flex and squeak when Tom walks in the office; then he sees Tom's thatch of green hair towering over a cubicle wall; then Tom says something in a bass voice which shakes some of the pushpins out of Bob's cube wall. This both establishes that Something's Not Normal About Tom and increases intrigue in the reader. Then you can reveal that, yeah, Tom's a troll. At this point, you can talk more about the world or continue to draw it out. The fact that nobody seems to take particular note of a troll in the office helps establish the setting, but then a shadow flits over a window of a griffon zooming past, or the mail-gremlin comes by, or a light spell goes out over somebody's cube and they complain about having to call the Maintenance Wizards, or something else. Layer it on and continue to play up everybody's lack of reaction.
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Sep 10, 2018 15:52
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It's funny about breasts. I wrote a book with a main character who was a tiny flying pixie-like thing similar to Tinker Bell, but naked. (Mostly because she thought humans' reactions to her nakedness were hilarious.) I think I mentioned her boobs twice in the whole book and never really described them beyond "ample." Otherwise she was smart and wise and adventurous and a valued friend and teacher to one of the other characters. Readers came back talking about this big-tittied pixie character as if that was her entire shtick. It was distressing. I didn't think I was being male-gazey in my writing, but apparently for some folks the mind's eye wants what it wants.
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Sep 28, 2018 22:47
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My brother-in-law runs a religious publishing company. He says he sometimes gets submissions that he wishes he could reject with "Dear idiot: Where do you get off writing this tripe? Go away." But of course he has to be professional about it, and just shoots them a generic rejection letter instead. I always think of that every time I get a "Not for us right now" rejection.
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Dec 20, 2018 17:04
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"X said" is generally invisible and can be freely sprinkled in among all these examples for variety.quote:"The neanderthals," Ugg said. "They're using modern military tactics."
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Feb 4, 2019 19:17
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The ghost pulls some Chronicle poo poo, rips the phone out of the protagonist's hand, and uses it to take selfies of its murders.
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Feb 19, 2019 16:50
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Agent355 posted:So I'm really just wondering if this mimics how other people sometimes feel about their own writing? I'm not sure how you expect writing to feel. Writing, for me, is like anything else that requires focus and concentration. It's only very rarely a huge rush of PURE CREATIVE POWER, and usually whenever I get that sensation, I end up writing something that has to be thrown out later. Other days it's like extracting rusty nails from my skull, but in the end what I've written is at least a little better than usual. But yeah, if you have a tight plot that needs to travel from point A to point B, "assembly" is a good term for it. The creativity comes more in plotting the story in the first place, but actual writing does tend to feel workmanlike most of the time. At least until you realize it's about to go off in an unexpected direction and you either panic or go where it takes you. Incidentally, a lot of writers would probably think you're lucky that you can handle emotional beats without much stress.
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Mar 26, 2019 16:02
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Fruity20 posted:I just realized the premise of an adult woman bringing teenagers along (albeit they're monsters or have superpowers) to go monster hunter feels like a premise that could fall apart. for one thing, the kids go to school during the day and there's moments where the lady has to call them in for emergencies. note: they're the same people i've mentioned in a previous question of mine about the grimore or tome. Are the kids aware of the work they're doing, and do they think/realize it's more important than school? Then they contrive ways to slip out/act sick/trick teachers. Can one of the students use their abilities to help to get their allies out? Do that. Potential fun plot complication: After they've easily gotten out of school once or twice with one of the kids' powers, what do they do if that kid isn't at school when an emergency arises? Is the woman a known guardian to one or more of them? If not, can she become so (or fake it convincingly)? If not that, can she somehow inform a school staff member about what they're REALLY doing (or create a cover story) so they have an ally on the inside? Lots of options. Don't worry too hard about them.
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Mar 27, 2019 16:21
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To be serious for a second: messing with mythical creatures to make them more realistic is like Urban Fantasy 101. "This so-called 'monster' was just a separate strain of humanity misunderstood by medieval people, and the tale grew in the telling, but they're actually no more or less evil than anyone else" is the premise for so many stories it would make your head spin.
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Apr 8, 2019 16:25
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Phil Moscowitz posted:It really is. You can only hope readers get the same kind of feeling. Readers at the beginning of the sequence: Psssh, they're gonna use that one thing to get out of this scrape, does the writer really think we don't remember they have it?
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Jun 20, 2019 19:59
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Whalley posted:Hell, on an easier and far more literal level, I broke a recent semi block by changing my environment... by taking my laptop into a room I don't normally use for creativity. Sometimes, creating a routine gives you the opportunity to like, break it? in a way that lets you unlock secret eldritch writing magicks? Maya Angelou would rent a hotel room to write in. Agatha Christie wrote in the bathtub. Truman Capote wrote lying down in bed. George Bernard Shaw wrote in a backyard garden shed with a rotating mechanism so he could turn it to face the sun all day long. Writers are weird, is what I'm saying.
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Jul 16, 2019 18:18
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Its Coke posted:Any advice for getting better at revising? Once I have something written down I always find it hard to revise because it's like a unit of inspiration that I'm no longer sure I fully understand later. Everyone has their own way of doing it. Personally I like to print out the rough draft and scribble all over it with a red pen, because I'm old and that's how it worked in typewriter times. Other revision advice I've seen: read it aloud (to yourself), retype it and change as you go, or, most radical, re-tell the whole story from square one, without referring to your first draft at all. This last one takes the most time (so I wouldn't really suggest doing it for, say, an entire 120,000 word novel) but also can help you really polish up the good bits of your story, since you already know how it went the first time. Then you can compare the two drafts and precipitate out a third draft made of the best parts of the other two. Then there's the ultimate advice: kill your babies. Find what you think is your most scintillating passage, your best description, your most clever turn of phrase, then throw it away and rewrite it. Usually you'll discover that the result flows better. Save the showstoppers for when the show really needs stopping.
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Jul 24, 2019 15:41
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The twist (and the general concept of immutable time) is somewhat reminiscent of 12 Monkeys. Not that that's a bad thing! Just be aware that there's another similar thing out there and be prepared for comparisons.
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Jul 30, 2019 22:46
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I once took a creative writing class in college. One of our fellow students was a kindly middle-aged lady writing a romance novel. She had the "too nice to her characters" problem: The main character and her boyfriend were getting along perfectly fine, a love rival was introduced but quickly became friends with the boyfriend and was like "I could never get in the way of their true love," etc. We hammered on about how the story was kind of static. "Everyone is too nice! There's no conflict! Torture your characters!" we told her. So about three-quarters of the way through this placid peaceful story, she introduced an international drug smuggling ring who kidnapped the boyfriend, castrated him, and ultimately drove him mad enough to pilot a speedboat full of dynamite into the smugglers' boat, blowing it sky high and sacrificing himself. After years of mourning, the protagonist finally married the secondary love interest. We all read this and went, um. Good job, I guess.
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Oct 4, 2019 21:16
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A very odd question here: I'm plotting a series in which people are reincarnated in another dimension, ironically riffing on isekai tropes. Is there a way to tell whether the word "isekai" has enough "brand recognition" in the English-speaking world to be used in the title of a book? I've checked Google trends and discovered that, in the past year, "isekai" and "reincarnation" are running neck-and-neck in the U.S., but I'm not sure how else to measure the recognizability of a word.
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Apr 29, 2020 18:10
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That PublisherRocket info is interesting, thanks for that. I'm going back and forth on it myself. It may not hurt to have an unusual word in the title, since that would make it easier to search for if someone's already heard of it. Plus it's almost like an in-joke for the people who've heard the term before. On the other hand, searching Amazon for "isekai" brings up a WHOLE lotta series that don't have the word in their titles at all. So, eh.
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Apr 29, 2020 19:20
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Re anyone who thinks writing is some ineffable thing and it can never be a career for them: I think it's possible to be really good, amazing even, at a kind of writing that you personally don't like to read. I mean, sometimes the words just flow out, then you look over it later and go, "What the hell was this?" Or you'll write something you do like, give it to a reader, and they say they particularly enjoyed the bits that you hated the most. Some people take that to an extreme and become tortured up-their-own-rear end writer types who scoff at the public for enjoying unchallenging pabulum while rejecting the things that I, myself, thought were brilliant! These then evolve into writers who let it become drudgery, feel like they're selling words by the pound, and become super cynical about art in general. Now if you don't mind what you write, great! Your skills and tastes have aligned. The stars are aright. But if you really feel like you've honed your writing skills and it still isn't working for you, hot or cold, maybe you need to change it up. Break what you thought were rules (because they aren't; little writing tip there). Don't follow trends. Plot a story in a genre you don't usually think about. It doesn't matter if you've read anything in that genre even, just use your assumptions and go hog wild. Be cool with failure. Don't even think about success, in fact. This isn't about winning or losing, it's about doing what you need to. Yes, in many ways you're starting over. Yes, you'll slip up and write garbage and people will look at you funny for a while. But you gotta get out of the mindset that it's over. It's not. It can't be. The writing world is too big to think that this little rut you're in is the only one.
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Nov 16, 2022 17:08
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Anything's bad if you overuse it. I had the gerund problem early on, but I was lucky to have a friend proofread it and say it read "ing-ing-ly." So that made me aware of it, and consequently I turned it down a little.
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Oct 24, 2023 05:11
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The book I'm trying to sell now has a prologue, but it's short, fun, action-packed, and (most importantly) isn't a flash-forward. And even though it seems completely unrelated to the main plot at first, not only do you learn how it ties in by chapter three, you realize it's the prime mover. So I hope people don't skip it, or else they'll miss what the book is about.
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Jan 20, 2024 07:53
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If y'all don't mind, I have a blurb I've been messing with for so long that I feel like I've lost objectivity. I think I need a few more eyes on it before I begin sending it to agents.quote:David Oliver was a celebrity chef and TV personality. Then he died. Then, things got interesting. The name of the book is Celebrity Isekai! With Your Host, Wulfgar Bloodraven.
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Apr 18, 2024 16:56
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Homer's Odyssey and Lucian's Voyage to the Moon are technically "isekai" stories, it's not a new concept. Don't feel like you have to hate on the "stranger in a strange land" concept just 'cause it's popular now.
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Apr 18, 2024 18:12
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HopperUK posted:Are you intending that people should think of Jamie Oliver? Because people are going to think of Jamie Oliver. Sailor Viy posted:In terms of the query structure, it feels weird that you introduce the thief's name and then belatedly tell me he's one and the same with the guy from the first paragraph. Why not just say "David is reincarnated as master thief Nome Ammos" ? Sailor Viy posted:In the third para, I'm a bit confused by the mechanics of the whole thing. Does the story take place mainly on Earth on in the fantasy world? Because "restored to life" makes it seem like he gets yanked back to Earth again. Sailor Viy posted:Other things I'd like to see is more about the stakes--what does David want? and the unique hook--how is being a celebrity chef going to change how he interacts with the typical isekai plot structure? Thanks for the thoughts, this is a big help.
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Apr 20, 2024 15:53
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