|
Reposting a beta-read request from Discord for the non-Discord goons: I'm looking for beta readers for LOOK OUT FOR ME, my 97,000 word dark fantasy that combines the cave-dwelling claustrophobia of THE LUMINOUS DEAD with the locked-room murder mystery of GIDEON THE NINTH. If any of you are willing to nail yourselves to the great cross of beta reading, I've got .docx and .pdf and .epub for your reading pleasure, and the whole month of september to wait for feedback before I gear up for october querying. Even if you don't want to beta read, I still love you all. Just shoot me a PM or reply to this thread if you're interested. Thanks! edit oh sweet i'm a stupid newbie again, i think I might keep this for a while
|
# ¿ Sep 3, 2020 20:26 |
|
|
# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 22:08 |
|
take the moon posted:lol Sometimes explaining things to other people helps you better understand it yourself. It's like how you can learn a lot through critiquing someone else's work, and then steal all the good advice you gave them and use it for yourself!
|
# ¿ Oct 3, 2020 04:30 |
|
Rad-daddio posted:Does anyone have good sources for low cost editing? I'm finishing up the first in a series of fiction novels, and I've been seeing costs around 800-1100 usd and up for a 100k word manuscript. My intent is to use the first manuscript, and begin the long and painful search for an agent as I continue the series. So, if that's what it really costs then so be it. I've never seen an editor cost less than $1,000 for 100k words and I wouldn't trust them if they did.
|
# ¿ Oct 18, 2020 04:57 |
|
Rad-daddio posted:Has anyone had luck getting crits from local in person writing clubs? There are a couple of ones near me that apparently are of some renown, and I was considering joining one. New to the idea, so I don't even know if that's something that writing clubs do. Ehh. I was a member of a local writing group for a few years, and some of the crits were okay, but I had three big issues that led me to drop: 1) The vast majority of crits were line edits. If you're looking for line edits, great! If you're looking for an overall gauge on the effectiveness of your piece (structure, characters, themes, world, etc), that was above their paygrade. 2) The types of writing submitted were too broad. We had short stories, novel chapters, poems, memoirs, graphic novels, speeches, CVs; you name it, we had it. While all those are legit forms of writing (except CVs, gently caress those), the critiques from people who didn't know each other's genres and mediums were less helpful than the ones that did. 3) The only comparison anyone ever used for anything was Harry Potter. Shut the gently caress up about Harry Potter. They were fine books for what they were, but there are other books, Jesus Christ please read them.
|
# ¿ Nov 2, 2020 20:28 |
|
Ccs posted:As an enforcer for the Order of the Magi, Cantus dreams of glory in magical combat. But the Order has been too effective in its function, leaving the world with a mere smattering of hedge wizards as incompetent opponents. Worse yet, his new partner Evroh is an ancient man who feels more at home in libraries than on the field of battle. When a seemingly simple mission leaves Cantus permanently disabled, he will journey to the center of the Auduwyn empire to track the rogue mage who can heal him before his magic disappears forever. At the same time, internal divisions in the Order become apparent and Cantus discovers Evroh is not what he appears. From what I can see, you've got a couple issues with this blurb unrelated to the comp titles at the end. The best way I can think to explain this is by summarizing what the blurb does and doesn't tell me, and what I need to know. 1) I know Cantus is an enforcer of the Order of the Magi. I don't know who the Order of the Magi are, or why they matter to the world. The name doesn't give anything away. You go into a little bit of detail later, but their function and importance still isn't apparent by the end. 2) I know Cantus dreams of glory in magical combat, but I don't know a) what that looks like, or b) why he wants it. Is magical combat dueling for sport, or is it warfare? Does Cantus have personal reasons for wanting glory, or is he fighting for a cause? 3) I know the Order has been too effective in its function, but I don't know what that function is. It seems like they kill wizards. Why? Don't they use magic? Cantus wants glory in magical combat, but he works for an agency that seems opposed to magical combat. Without more information, this doesn't make sense. 4) I know Evroh is an old man who doesn't like fighting, but I don't know why that matters to Cantus. How does he stop Cantus from achieving glory on the battlefield? I know they're enforcers, but what do they enforce? I can assume it's related to the wizards dying, but it's a lot less confusing if you state it explicitly. 5) I know Cantus becomes permanently disabled, but I don't know how that stops him from achieving glory. What specifically happened to him? How does this disability impede his goal? 6) I know internal divisions are appearing in the order, but I don't know how that stops Cantus from achieving glory. Need specifics. 7) I know Evroh is not what he seems, but I don't know how that stops Cantus from achieving glory. Need specifics. By number 7, you can probably see the theme in my questions: 'What does Cantus want, and what's stopping him from getting it?' You've got a lot of details packed into a short space, but at the end of the day, a blurb needs to accomplish the same things as a query. It has to tell us: 1) who the protagonist is 2) what they want 3) what's stopping them from getting it 4) what happens if they don't get it First, who is Cantus? We know he's an enforcer for the Order of the Magi, but that doesn't tell us anything about him when we don't know what the Order does or what enforcers do for the order. We can guess based on context, but guessing is frustrating. Details are key. Next, what does Cantus want? We know he wants glory in battle, but we don't know what glory is or why it matters to him. Then, what's stopping Cantus from getting glory? You've thrown a ton of roadblocks in Cantus's path--the decline of magic, the bookish partner, the disability, the schisms in the Order, the partner's lies--but none of them can stop Cantus from achieving glory when we don't know what glory is. The closest you come to hitting this point is 'Cantus wants to fight wizards but all the wizards are gone'. That's a legitimate roadblock; you literally cannot fight wizards if there are no wizards. That makes sense. The other stuff (the partner and the disability and the Order) all need to be fleshed out as obstacles if you want to include them in the blurb. Note: You don't have to include them all! In fact, you probably shouldn't. You've got a lot going on here, so you're better served focusing on one or two of the biggest obstacles, rather than all of them. Moving on, what's going to happen to Cantus if he doesn't achieve glory? This is the big one, the one that ties into all the other questions. If we knew more about who Cantus was, what he wanted, and what was standing in his way, we should be able to answer this automatically. If Cantus is a charismatic, narcissistic guy who thrives on adoration and wants glory so he feels important, not achieving glory will guarantee he's miserable for the rest of his life. If Cantus is an honorable, kind-hearted magic-user who wants glory to raise awareness in the goodness of magic, he will be heartbroken if he fails to bring it back. It's better if he has something concrete to lose if he fails, like a loved one or an important object, but there are many great stories where self-worth is the highest thing at stake. The only way those work is if we know who the protagonist is, what they want, and what's standing in their way. I realize now that this is a huge wall of text, but I wouldn't have written it if I didn't think you had the underpinnings of something workable. As the blurb stands, you have the basic skeleton of a story; you just need to put the meat on its bones.
|
# ¿ Jan 7, 2021 21:07 |
|
Pollyanna posted:...I came across the story circle. Normally I wouldn't stroll into the fiction thread just to pimp my own work, but I actually run a website dedicated to teaching the basics of narrative writing in video games, and I've got articles on both the Story Circle and Character Arcs in games. Either one of those could be helpful if you're still looking to wrap your head around some writing concepts, and there are other articles on alternative structures like Three-Act and Five-Act if you want to look at structure from an event-focused perspective, rather than character-focused like the Story Circle. There are also citations on all the articles where I reference other books that have clarified this stuff for me. For Character Arcs in particular I'd recommend K.M Weiland's "Creating Character Arcs". For my money, it's the seminal work on the subject, but I'm sure other people have different options on that.
|
# ¿ Jan 23, 2021 23:57 |
|
Pollyanna posted:This is the crux of it, I think. I’m making the main character behave (IMO) in a very strange manner with an forced frame of mind, specifically to serve as a dig at a certain kind of video game. I think it’s to the detriment of the overall story, but I can’t explain why. Seems like you answered your own question. You're having a character do something they wouldn't actually do as a form of authorial commentary. Without knowing the specifics, I can't give you any guidance on what to change, but I can tell you that changing a character to make an unrelated point is not likely to end well. How important is this dig at the video game to the book, exactly?
|
# ¿ Feb 2, 2021 21:35 |
|
Djeser posted:You could also use a comma, which would be even more subtle than the semicolon. Unless I'm mistaken, "He was very tall" and "Nearly everyone had to crane their neck to see his face" are both independent clauses, so separating them with a comma would be considered a Highly Illegal Comma Splice, a technique best left to shitposting.
|
# ¿ Feb 11, 2021 06:20 |
|
Whalley posted:There's always the option of rewriting to not have to worry about it, like how I always rename characters if their name ends with an s and they have to be referred to with a possessive. I have gone out of my way to never use names ending in S for precisely this reason.
|
# ¿ Feb 11, 2021 17:50 |
|
SimonChris posted:
There's a reason people still talk about Save the Cat decades later, and not Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot: Snyder made more of an impact with his theory than with his execution. Whatever the overall quality of his screenplays may have been, it's been pretty well established that his understanding of structure was top notch. Having said that, Blank Check was a loving amazing concept for a movie aimed at ten-year-olds. 'A kid gets infinite money and buys everything he wants, only to learn that money can't buy happiness' is the kind of high-concept pitch that should get rubber-stamped by anyone with an inkpad and a pulse.
|
# ¿ May 14, 2021 22:04 |
|
General Battuta posted:Whatever works for you is the right pick, but Scrivener is what I use.
|
# ¿ Jul 24, 2021 16:02 |
|
General Battuta posted:My scenes are too long. My chapters are too long. My manuscript is too long. Help. How do I structure scenes so I can get in and get out quickly??? End every scene with one character dying until they are all dead. Alternately, sometimes when I want to shorten a scene with big chunks of dialogue, I'll see what I can summarize and shrink that back via telling, which pulls double-duty by emphasizing the importance of what stays in-scene. Some people are extremely opposed to this and want everything in-scene, but alas, I am a sicko, and perhaps you can be, too.
|
# ¿ Aug 20, 2021 23:58 |
|
sebmojo posted:Write a 1000 word story that contains every key plot point from the bok Write the Wikipedia article summarizing the book.
|
# ¿ Aug 21, 2021 00:25 |
|
It's that time of year again where I'm jumping into the querying process, so I'd love some feedback on my most recent query if anybody's got the time. quote:Dear [Agent], Any feedback anybody can give would be much appreciated. Thanks!
|
# ¿ Sep 17, 2021 19:12 |
|
Thank you all so much for the feedback! I can see how the last line is causing the most problems, along with the lack of voice/personality. The main reason that Senth and Anari can't both achieve their goals (which I'm realizing I didn't put into the query) is that summoning Kezzar requires a human sacrifice, and Senth doesn't want any more humans to die like his brother did. So for Kezzar to be summoned (Anari's goal), a human will have to die (Senth's fail state). Battuta, for your question: 'Does Anari really care if the world is destroyed?' Yes, she does, but she has other plans for Kezzar that only come out 2/3rds of the way through the book, so for most of the story, it comes across like she doesn't care at all and she just wants everyone to die. I'll take another crack at the letter and post what I come up with. Thanks again for all the help!
|
# ¿ Sep 18, 2021 05:09 |
|
REMEMBER SPONGE MONKEYS posted:Glad to see you’re still writing, Nae. Maybe one day I can be as brave. It's not so bad after you get rejected enough times. Just kind of becomes status quo, I guess. Anyway, I banged around the query for another ten minutes, shamelessly taking parts from Battuta's rework in the process, and I think I came up with something that makes more sense and answers some of the questions. quote:Part-time criminal Senth Lantham never gave a drat about his family until the day his brother was murdered. Now he knows exactly who did it: the Children of Kezzar, a cult of human-animal chimera who plan to resurrect their demonic god through human sacrifice. There's no question that Senth must stop them from killing again. But how? Outnumbered and alone, he stakes his life on a terrible gamble—joining the Children to sabotage their ritual from within. If it's the last thing he ever does, so be it. He can't let the cultists tear another family apart. Note: if it seems like Anari's motivations in this query contradict the last one, that's kind of true. The story is written in dual-POV epistolary, so Anari's half of the letters have some real contradictions between what she's telling people she wants and what she actually wants. For the sake of clarity, I'm going with the motivations she gives others in this query, since they're the ones that are at the forefront for most of the book.
|
# ¿ Sep 18, 2021 05:36 |
|
rohan posted:I’m a bit late to this, but I saw your initial query and couldn’t resist taking my own stab at it. As with my previous attempt, I’ve had to take some liberties with characterisation and events that I’m not clear on, but hopefully the intent comes through. Thanks for the rework! I do mention that it's epistolary in the housekeeping section, since I use a couple of recent epistolaries as comps (This is How You Lose the Time War, Piranesi) to show that I did actually check the market before I made such a chaotic move. Also just for the record, word count is 109,000. General Battuta posted:This is like ten miles better (and I’m not saying that because you used some of mine, the specific changes you made really really strengthened it). Now I actually want to read this. Well done. Thanks! I'm glad this version works. Always nice to see improvement. Nae fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Sep 18, 2021 |
# ¿ Sep 18, 2021 16:12 |
|
Dr.D-O posted:How do you find someone to be a beta reader for a novel without being super imposing or seeming like you're trying to impress them? I've gotten betas from this very thread! Usually I do it by posting the query letter or a pitch, then saying 'hey does anyone want to beta read this?' Most people ignore it, some say they can't, a few say yes: easy peasy. Give it a try!
|
# ¿ Oct 5, 2021 19:09 |
|
Stuporstar posted:Does anyone have a link to that old post on TV Tropes where the dude was agonizing having to rewrite how many health potions he gave his protagonist because he didn’t have enough at the end to defeat the big bad and get his “random drop girlfriend”? Seems like the solution is to say your LitRPG works on Super Mario RPG rules, where if your hero hits 'A' at the exact time he drinks the potion, he gets another for free!
|
# ¿ Nov 21, 2021 22:31 |
|
sebmojo posted:is it railroading if you make your litrpg characters do what you want them to Now I know why they call grrm George Rail Road Martin
|
# ¿ Nov 21, 2021 23:53 |
|
change my name posted:GRR Martin has a team of assistants to keep his worldbuilding straight when he writes because he can't remember the minutiae from past books. Another strike against going whole hog on building thousands of years of mythology before you start writing, in my opinion poo poo, you'd think it'd be easy for him to remember his world history when none of the family trees have any branches
|
# ¿ Nov 22, 2021 01:21 |
|
Leng posted:My turn to ask for a blurb crit ! This is for a new adult single POV first in series fantasy novel (approx 110k words though who knows, the word count keeps climbing during revision) that I plan to self-publish. Thoughts in no particular order: - I'll beta read for you. Shoot me a PM and I can turn around some thoughts in like three weeks or so. - I get the gist of your plot from the blurb, so that's good. Rahelu has magic powers, but she's poor, so her family has to move to a place where they can afford to educate her. Unfortunately, the new area sucks, and they're even poorer than before, so Rahelu has to enter some contest to get an education, otherwise the move was pointless and her family is super-duper broke. If that sounds like an accurate summary, then you've done a good job getting the plot across. - You've got a ton of unfamiliar concepts nouns in here. Some of them (ex: Chanaz, Aleznuaweite Guild, Ennuost Yrg) are names that you don't necessarily need; while others (ex: Conclave, Petitioners, and Supplicants) can be swapped out for basic nouns that don't require capitalization (ex: council, applicants, trainees). The fewer unfamiliar nouns you have in a blurb, the better. - That being said, what's a resonance discipline? I don't need to know your whole magic system in the blurb (in fact, I don't want to), but I should have some idea what makes your world's magic unique. What do the resonance disciplines do? - Rahelu is your protagonist (I assume) but you focus a lot on her parents and their actions and desires here. What does Rahelu care about? Does she have her own reasons for going to magic school, or is she only doing it to fulfill her parents' dreams? If she's only doing it for them, how does that make her feel? If I'm going to read a book about her, I need to know who she is and what she wants, not who her parents are and what they want. - Unfortunately I have nothing useful to say about your comps, because I've only read half of them and I'll need to read your manuscript before I know if they work. Knowing who Rahelu is as a character will also make the comps more obvious. Having said that, if you're self-pubbing this, I wouldn't sweat having the perfect comps since you'll be the one doing all the marketing. That means you get to choose how to lure in readers! edit: god damnit muffin, I wanted to be the one to point out the proper nouns
|
# ¿ Jan 4, 2022 03:16 |
|
newts posted:It’s really disheartening to me that you’re getting this kind of response. I understand the need for the Own Voices movement, but does that mean every character you write must match your own identity? There are millions of talented writers out there, and millions more got time to write when COVID forced them to stay home. Your writing doesn't have to match your identity, but publishers have no incentive to take it when they can take one of the thousands of other stellar submissions from people whose identities and manuscripts match up. Nae fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Jan 5, 2022 |
# ¿ Jan 5, 2022 22:34 |
|
Chairchucker posted:But in this case, one third of the manuscript does match up. Should all three protagonists be the same? Honestly I don't know what the answer is there beyond 'reduce the number of POVs to the number of unique perspectives you can support based on your lived experience.' That's a lovely answer but in an industry where like 50 SFF manuscripts get picked up by big imprints each year, it's probably the realistic one.
|
# ¿ Jan 5, 2022 22:50 |
|
SurreptitiousMuffin posted:My debut comes out in June and I have a Twitter Presence that I feel obligated to keep up for the sake of publicity and also this is absolutely true and I have been making GBS threads bricks about it for over a year. Hey, look on the bright side! You also have an SA account with a post history that can be scraped for every opinion on the industry you've ever shared.
|
# ¿ Jan 5, 2022 22:56 |
|
General Battuta posted:If applied retroactively this rule would erase every book and short story I've ever published I think about this a lot whenever I think about how much I liked Baru Cormorant, believe me. EDIT: and hey, I would love to be wrong about all of this and what I'm saying in this thread feels deeply cynical, but I've had multiple agents tell me they won't take my work specifically because of the male protagonists, and I even had one get upset with me at a conference when I told her I wanted to write men (because I'm a woman every day and I write fantasy for a chance to see the world outside myself). That experience has really colored the way I look at this industry and each book I write hews closer and closer to my own identity out of necessity. Nae fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Jan 5, 2022 |
# ¿ Jan 5, 2022 23:10 |
|
I hope it's not coming off like I agree with the idea that no one should write outside their experience. Ugh, I am really second guessing how I am coming off here, and I think I sound like an rear end in a top hat. I'm sorry if I misspoke anywhere, I'm gonna bow out.
Nae fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Jan 5, 2022 |
# ¿ Jan 5, 2022 23:24 |
|
Junpei posted:
If it's consistent with the voice of the character and the tone of the scene, sure, it's good enough. If it's not, then it's not. Hard to tell in a vacuum.
|
# ¿ Jan 9, 2022 01:27 |
|
when in doubt, just remember that everyone here paid $10 to join a dead site for dumb jokes, which means we're all big morons
|
# ¿ Jan 9, 2022 02:35 |
|
Megazver posted:is there a context in which all the Inner Goddess lines from 50 Shades would actually be good a woman leading a yoga class that doubles as an essential oils sales pitch
|
# ¿ Jan 10, 2022 02:33 |
|
I use Times New Roman because I too grew up during the era where I was told it was the superior font, and also because it's one of the fonts you can submit in so it saves me a switch.
|
# ¿ Jan 20, 2022 01:44 |
|
One of my favorite fantasy novels has two POVs and kills one of them offscreen, and it's so perfect and cool that I've never stopped thinking about it. Not gonna work in every book, though.
|
# ¿ Jan 23, 2022 04:39 |
|
SurreptitiousMuffin posted:"your piece of literary realism about growing up queer in the 90s is bad because it didn't contain tentacle gently caress robots" is bad crit is it though
|
# ¿ Jan 23, 2022 09:25 |
|
Leng posted:I was going to put this in the self-publishing thread, except this is relevant to traditionally published authors too so books are now just...falling into the ocean apparently Sadly, it happens. Some friends of mine run a toy company and they had to cancel a christmas product launch because the entire line was lost at sea. The things you think you'll never have to prepare for...
|
# ¿ Jan 29, 2022 00:07 |
|
Junpei posted:no quotation marks to indicate dialogue either????? Have some Sally Rooney, sliced right off the bone: quote:Alice was still standing by the door. Yes, it’s beautiful, she said. Even better in the evening, actually.
|
# ¿ Feb 6, 2022 07:45 |
|
a friendly penguin posted:Anyone got any good advice/resources on pacing, tension and stakes? Doesn't matter if it's about short fiction or novels, I need help with both. But especially looking for advice on doing it right in a novel length work. Donald Maass's "Writing the Breakout Novel" has a section on pace in novels about two-thirds of the way through, and is a useful resource in general. He also talks a lot about stakes, including what they are and how to raise them. For creating tension, Robert McKee talks about how to dispense information through suspense, mystery, and dramatic irony in "Story," which is another great general resource. Other writing books I've found helpful include John Yorke's "Into the Woods" (a dissection of the Shakespearean five-act structure and how it maps to character arcs) and "Creating Character Arcs" by K.M. Weiland (a down-to-earth, accessible look at how to create compelling characters). If you have the energy (and the money/library card), reading these four books should give you ideas on how to overcome a lot of the hurdles you're facing. Having said that, here's a caveat on writing guides in general, from someone who's read quite a few: some of the best ones are written by people who will dispense advice with extreme confidence and zero humility. It can be super annoying to wade through their self-congratulatory bullshit, but if you can grit your teeth and power through it, you can pick up a lot of insight that will improve your work. Good luck!
|
# ¿ Feb 16, 2022 20:43 |
|
SurreptitiousMuffin posted:we honestly don't know how it happened but CC is like 70% Wellingtonian at this point, whole thing's a right bloody state My favorite dessert is pavlova and the average house in my hellstate costs >1mm, can I get honorary citizenship?
|
# ¿ Feb 17, 2022 06:09 |
|
SurreptitiousMuffin posted:You can't just be like "it's enemies to lovers!" or "it's a coffeeshop AU!" and instantly get a bunch of people picking it up, y'know? Because outside of fanfic circles, readers don't care. I think Coffeeshop AU (and other alternate universe concepts, like High School/Office) are non-starters because they rely too heavily on the original IP as a point of reference. You can't have an alternate universe when there's no original universe you're subverting. On the other hand, tropes like enemies-to-lovers/friends-to-lovers are just relationship paradigms and can pretty easily be transferred to original stories. If you're trying to file the serial numbers off your fanfic about Cloud and Tifa, you're going to do a lot better if your plot has more meat than 'they work together in a coffee shop and it's cute.' The relationship paradigm tropes can fit in any number of plots, but coffee shop and the like aren't as likely to work unless there's some other conflict beyond the cute. I try to keep up with the queries being posted on r/PubTips to see what else people are shopping around, and there's one query that keeps coming back that's very clearly using the Hanahaki flower disease* with a different coat of paint. If the pages are any good, I suspect it'll sell, because it's a clever concept and I'm shocked no one's stolen it from fanfic sooner. Like the other relationship paradigm stuff, you can drop it into any number of settings and it works, because it's a pre-made plot that only requires two characters in love. Throw together some decent characters and an interesting setting and it basically writes itself. *This is a fanfic trope where someone who falls in unrequited love starts barfing up flowers and it's fatal unless they agree to have their memories of their beloved removed (or something like that). I don't know where it came from, but it's big enough now that it exists as its own tag as part of Soulmate Alternate universes. Jesus, I didn't think I read that much fanfic...
|
# ¿ Feb 21, 2022 02:07 |
|
Leng posted:Adding to the general at your awesome deconstruction of grammar. Because I suck at grammar, do you have a list of resources you used to research all this in your conlang quest, because I'd love to upskill myself in this regard. I actually went and looked it up because you made me curious, and here's what this Fanlore site has to say: quote:The Hanahaki Disease trope was popularized with the Japanese shoujo manga,「花吐き乙女」(Hanahaki Otome), or The Girl Who Spit Flowers by Naoko Matsuda (松田奈緒子), which was released in 2009. The symptoms of the disease are summarized to strong pain, having flowers blooming in the heart and lungs, and then throwing them up. So the answer is who knows, but the author of Hanahaki Otome probably holds the rights to it. Go figure.
|
# ¿ Feb 21, 2022 04:46 |
|
|
# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 22:08 |
|
sebmojo posted:Story, by Robert McKee, at a guess Just checked my copy, you're spot on.
|
# ¿ Mar 25, 2022 05:12 |