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I mostly save that for editing, otherwise I get too hung up on getting everything right, when a first draft is more about just getting it out. I agree that every word you write should at some point be spoken out loud, it's the best way to prefect your prose. You notice so much out loud, especially if you have someone else do it
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Apr 7, 2014 19:09
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I hadn't considered it before but the more I think about it the more attractive dictation software seems. I'll have to try it out. Seems like a neat way to knock out first drafts for editing later. Any free software anyone would recommend?
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Apr 7, 2014 20:08
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Thanks for the recommendation guys. I do have access to Dragon software. I will give it a go. I had another question about critique: I know I'm not a very good writer, and that one of the best things to do is to get criticism of work in order to improve it. Everywhere - rightly - works on the give and take for criticism, but I don't feel in a position to say anything useful or relevant. Any good tips or things you guys could direct me towards to read on it? Wanna be able to say more than 'You do pretty words I like 'em!'
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Apr 8, 2014 22:02
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"I got bored and stopped reading at x point is pretty useful and requires only that you can pinpoint when you lost interest
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Apr 8, 2014 22:11
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systran posted:"I got bored and stopped reading at x point is pretty useful and requires only that you can pinpoint when you
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Apr 8, 2014 22:26
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Even if you're not a good writer, you can give useful criticism, because not everyone who reads everything is a good writer themselves. You might not be able to comment on mechanics, but like people have said, pointing out places where you were bored, confused, or tripped up on the wording is helpful. If you want to give positive criticism (whaaaat), you can still help someone by being specific about parts you particularly liked. It's nice but slightly annoying to hear "it's good, you know, the whole general thing", because that leaves the writer unsure of what they did that's good. It can be "I really like how the relationship between the mom and her son felt" or "I liked the imagery when he was walking through the forest" or something. And that doesn't have to be the only thing you like, it's just good to hear what works in your writing along with what doesn't.
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Apr 8, 2014 22:49
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Jonked posted:"I was confused about why Y happened" is pretty useful as well. Boring and confusing are going to be a pretty big chunk of what loses a reader. "This sentence seemed awkward" would just about cover the rest. Often these things are because the character motivations are weak, so if you can put your finger on which characters and how they're weak it can be a big help.
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Apr 9, 2014 00:44
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the biggest help I get is people telling me something didn't make much sense given the information I gave them, and telling me they'd like to see more background/description of ____.
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Apr 9, 2014 01:43
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Jonked posted:"I was confused about why Y happened" is pretty useful as well. Boring and confusing are going to be a pretty big chunk of what loses a reader. "This sentence seemed awkward" would just about cover the rest. Yup. I was going to post this myself. Personally, I'd like to know when someone has to reread something to figure out what happened. Just a simple 'hey, I had to read those lines a few times to tell who was where'. There used to be a guy in my writing group who would tell me that he didn't understand my submitted piece, but liked it. I wanted to throttle him. It's more helpful to talk about specifics- what, specifically, was hard to understand? What exactly did you like. That said, I miss those mofos. Molly Bloom fucked around with this message at 10:54 on Apr 9, 2014 |
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Apr 9, 2014 10:51
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Thank guys, really helpful.
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Apr 9, 2014 19:05
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Is there a certain amount of words you should devote to each act in a novel? A decent guideline? I'm currently finishing up Act 1 of the second draft of my book and it's sitting at about 13k words. I'm aiming for about 65k total. Have I fallen short? Gone too far? It makes sense that Act 2 is the longest but I don't have a good idea of how much longer it needs to be.
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Apr 10, 2014 08:58
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Is there a certain amount of words you should devote to each act in a novel? A decent guideline? I'm currently finishing up Act 1 of the second draft of my book and it's sitting at about 13k words. I'm aiming for about 65k total. Have I fallen short? Gone too far? It makes sense that Act 2 is the longest but I don't have a good idea of how much longer it needs to be. I mean, unless your second act is much much longer than your first, it sounds like you're going to come up short of that 65k you're aiming for. Not that that's a bad thing, as sometimes 45-50k is all you need to tell a compelling novel. Just look at Bradbury or Vonnegut for example. What genre is it specifically, if you don't mind me asking?
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Apr 10, 2014 12:46
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Is there a certain amount of words you should devote to each act in a novel? A decent guideline? I'm currently finishing up Act 1 of the second draft of my book and it's sitting at about 13k words. I'm aiming for about 65k total. Have I fallen short? Gone too far? It makes sense that Act 2 is the longest but I don't have a good idea of how much longer it needs to be. The sheets I posted earlier have page/word counts as a guideline. SuBeCo posted:In terms of the plot discussion, I've found Jami Gold's worksheets really useful for figuring out the basics of plot. What I like best is that she gives example page layouts for each beat andvsection. Obviously, sticking to this rigidly and writing by numbers is probably a bad idea, but it's been very helpful for me in terms of figuring out the basics of plot.
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Apr 10, 2014 14:45
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SuBeCo posted:The sheets I posted earlier have page/word counts as a guideline. I was about to repost that as well. I downloaded it to laugh at how dum it was, and drat if it didn't distribute my total word count into appropriate buckets, and drat if I'm not pretty on target... so much so that when I added a new chapter, it recalculated everything, and whoa it's like it was doing math or something to know exactly where I was as well as where I should be. VERY impressive. Now if it could just teach me how to balance action with descriptions, I'd be all wrapped up with this bitch.
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Apr 10, 2014 16:23
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I cut my finger pretty bad and now typing is very difficult for the next week 
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Apr 12, 2014 16:48
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blue squares posted:I cut my finger pretty bad and now typing is very difficult for the next week Cool story, bro. Dr. Kloctopussy fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Apr 12, 2014 |
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Apr 12, 2014 23:10
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blue squares posted:I cut my finger pretty bad and now typing is very difficult for the next week Show, don't tell.
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Apr 13, 2014 13:05
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The Sean posted:Show, don't tell. Carpeting the floor of the bathroom were thirty band-aid wrappers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPTQ9Xt6nXI magnificent7 fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Apr 13, 2014 |
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Apr 13, 2014 16:32
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Talk to me about writing comedy. Not scripts, but fiction. I love it when I love it, (David Wong, Douglas Adams, Christopher Moore), but realize it's a hell of a nuanced skill. Too much and you're an rear end clown going for poo poo laughs, too focused and only 3 people get it. I've found a book about comedy: Comedy Writing Secrets. It's got some good stuff in it; but I don't see a lot of comedy writing in the SA forum (Thunderdome for instance). Is it the redheaded step-child of literature? Kind of like horror? magnificent7 fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Apr 13, 2014 |
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Apr 13, 2014 17:05
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magnificent7 posted:Is it the redheaded step-child of literature? Kind of like horror? No, it's just exceedingly hard to do (at least in my case it is). Dying is easy and all that.
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Apr 13, 2014 18:25
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The funniest book I've ever read was Catch-22. The others you mentioned are funny, but in a little bit too much "here is a comedy" book way. God I love that book. I should read it again.
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Apr 13, 2014 18:34
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crabrock posted:The funniest book I've ever read was Catch-22.
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Apr 13, 2014 22:13
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I like to write funny stuff. I've gotten laughs before so I guess that's good. drat difficult to pin down how or why though, as is often the case with all comedy. When I really go for it though I usually just do full-on laugh a minute stuff. Maybe a few misses but enough hits to be enjoyable. Sort of Police Squad-y. If you want to try the Amazon look inside of book and see what you think that's a thing you can do. If you wanted it all for free and asked nicely I'd probably shoot it your way too. http://oscartk.co.uk/fiction/ Also here are a couple of comedy WIPs I have if anyone would like to give feedback: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13cOb6-XB1lPmAePGEd6nN3h6ODxJZMv_UVQyYo9mc-I/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/document/d/12UDZSVAV5IrhfU6XYSq1L88etjw1gDEbvLzbLgeuYLc/edit?usp=sharing The first one was published in a small indie e-zine a while back. Bad comedy fiction is the worst though. And all comedy fiction is probably bad comedy fiction to somebody.
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Apr 14, 2014 03:14
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I wasn't sure which thread to post this in, hope this is ok. For something I'm writing my main character wrote a (fiction) book inspired by her experience with a murderous pyromaniac. An established, very popular writer basically ends up stealing it - changing a few details - and publishing it as his own. Then after realising she has no way to to correct the situation or get any recourse for what he has done, she reacts very badly. What I wanted to know is if there's really anything that can happen to get you blacklisted from publishers. Anything that can effectively ruin or at least stunt your career as a writer through traditional publishing. Oh, apart from being a terrible writer. The idea is that my main character was a good and interesting author but a bit of a hot potato for anyone to touch. I don't know if that's something that really happens within publishing or whether I would be better off setting my characters in the world of television/film.
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Apr 14, 2014 23:48
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Someone brought up using spreadsheets for outlining and provided this link: http://jamigold.com/for-writers/worksheets-for-writers/ I don't have a single clue how to use excel. Are you supposed to just fill all that stuff in with one sentence so it fits in the box, or what?
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Apr 15, 2014 01:57
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Lethemonster posted:I wasn't sure which thread to post this in, hope this is ok. Well, publishers are people after all - how do the human motivations work? I'd think having the actual author (say) burn down the house of the plagiarist author would make publishers disinclined to work with the actual author. But I can also imagine a scrappy underdog publisher taking a chance, I guess? Go for it, it all sounds plausible (if melodramatic).
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Apr 15, 2014 02:06
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blue squares posted:Someone brought up using spreadsheets for outlining and provided this link: http://jamigold.com/for-writers/worksheets-for-writers/ Don't worry about one sentence or fitting it into the boxes. You can put in as much or as little detail as you want. Here's one filled out for a short story that I was working on long ago.... https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1h_qbSTqoNdws_xm-a9ALNdwlRk_-DbEXsp0QErdFHVo/edit#gid=1278829811 I like to use these after I already have a few major ideas for the story--they really help me figure out what is missing and where crucial choices and ups/downs can go. They are also pretty helpful in getting through that pesky first half of act II which I always struggle with. You can see in the example, though, that I often still don't know what I am doing
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Apr 15, 2014 06:41
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Dr. Kloctopussy posted:Don't worry about one sentence or fitting it into the boxes. You can put in as much or as little detail as you want. Here's one filled out for a short story that I was working on long ago.... Thanks doc, that's exactly what I needed to see!
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Apr 15, 2014 12:44
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edit: I posted this in the wrong place like a loving moron Digi_Kraken fucked around with this message at 16:50 on Apr 15, 2014 |
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Apr 15, 2014 15:02
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sebmojo posted:Well, publishers are people after all - how do the human motivations work? I'd think having the actual author (say) burn down the house of the plagiarist author would make publishers disinclined to work with the actual author. But I can also imagine a scrappy underdog publisher taking a chance, I guess? I scrapped it since I agree, sounds melodramatic and I don't really like having oodles of melodrama. I have decided my main character has just lost their motivation to write and almost self-imposed a writer's block after having her mentor steal her work. Decided it's enough for the character to feel completely betrayed, disillusioned and grumpy to be the wedge in her career. The basis of the plot is that the author who she looked up to and helped her, before taking her work off her, has died and she gets herself wrapped up in working out what happened to him, and if he killed someone or not.
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Apr 17, 2014 13:05
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I would suggest leaving any mention of writers block out for as long as you can. I've read online about agents/editors hating that trope because they see it constantly.
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Apr 17, 2014 15:15
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blue squares posted:I would suggest leaving any mention of writers block out for as long as you can. I've read online about agents/editors hating that trope because they see it constantly. This, 100%. Writing about writer's block is really hackneyed and should be avoided at all costs unless you can do something absurdly creative with it. And even then, I'd stay away. It sounds like you have enough of a plot idea anyway to where you should be able to avoid it without it impacting your story.
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Apr 17, 2014 15:57
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Thanks for pointing that out, I just had a rummage around and read some pieces on it. My character has pretty much got a block on everything - doesn't go anywhere, doesn't eat, doesn't talk to anyone much anymore. She's focused on the fact she can't write as a way to feel like she only has one problem when in reality it's the least important thing she's not doing. I wanted her character growth to be based on realizing that having had multiple bad events happen may not be fair, but she still has to pick herself up and get going again. There isn't a big magical balance in the sky that's about to swing her way. None of the things that are important to me in the plot/character development are wrapped up in her having a specific career. Now I look at it again being a writer does look lazy and a bit dull. I'll workshop the people and see if I can find a new career that suits her or provides more depth to poke around in. For some reason now that I've scrubbed the really generic title of 'writer' out of my head I feel like she was training in the medical profession and I already feel more interested in it.
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Apr 17, 2014 16:13
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Lethemonster posted:I feel like she was training in the medical profession and I already feel more interested in it.
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Apr 17, 2014 18:27
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Plus, hospitals can be incredibly political. Should she live in a small enough town, it's incredibly easy to be blacklisted by the hospital community, should you want to play with the "blacklisted talent" idea. My uncle was out of work for two years before the guy he drunkenly mouthed off at retired, and while he's not a doctor, he's been in hospital administration for pretty much my entire life.
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Apr 17, 2014 18:44
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Also theft of written fiction is pretty rare, but there are plenty of other fields where taking credit for someone else's work is a bigger possibility. Medical research, for example, if you like the medical angle. (Not sure how you would steal a nurse's credit and destroy her will to live :p) "He stole my novel!" is just a plot line that makes me automatically roll my eyes and think the author is doing a paranoid self-insert thing. Novels don't get stolen and only wanna-be authors worry about it. ....then I remember I am writing about nearly that exact plot line, only with a poetry-stealing vampire, which makes it okay??? Dr. Kloctopussy fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Apr 17, 2014 |
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Apr 17, 2014 20:54
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I had a thought today on a walk and decided to get this thread's take on it. Now, this wouldn't be a major departure from the current structure of many popular novels, but how do you think the public would respond to a novel written in the format of a TV show such as Breaking Bad, Mad Men, etc.? Where there is an overarching plot but each episode often has self-contained problems that are dealt with as the major plot moves forward. So a work where the subplots often received as much focus as the main story. The word bingewatching has become mainstream now. People do it all the time. Might they with a novel?
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Apr 17, 2014 21:00
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So, a collection of short stories all about the same character?
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Apr 17, 2014 21:01
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blue squares posted:I had a thought today on a walk and decided to get this thread's take on it. The guys from the self publishing podcast used to do this, and kinda sorta still do. They'd write connected short stories (20-30k) and call them "episodes" and sell them individually and in collections of 4-5 as "seasons." As far as I know they've since stopped selling the individual episodes and just write books and call them seasons.
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Apr 17, 2014 21:04
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Malloreon posted:The guys from the self publishing podcast used to do this, and kinda sorta still do. They'd write connected short stories (20-30k) and call them "episodes" and sell them individually and in collections of 4-5 as "seasons." There are still some romance self-pubbers who are exploring this format, e.g. J. K. Harper's Black Mesa Wolves series (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0070JOQHM/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_BNdutb0MMSXQX). That one doesn't seem to be doing all that well, though. Wasn't Wool also released as serials? And comics, of course, have a similar release structure. Personally I would hesitate to read a serial as it was released. There's the risk that it will mysteriously end or devolve into horrors, plus the much more realistic possibility that I just won't pick it up again when the next episode comes out. I'm a binge-reader. On the other hand, if Blue Squares is just talking about how to structure the story inside a single novel, then I don't know if there's much advice to give. "Will people read x?" Or "is there an audience for x" is hard to answer, especially when you are asking about story structure. I don't think a series of short, resolving sub-plots would be radically off-putting, as long as they fit into the story. This is the structure of many series, especially mystery (also urban fantasy like Dresden Files, arguably Harry Potter, Hunger Games, etc.) Can you condense that to include multiple episodes in a single novel? Basically, if you can make it work, you can do it. See, not helpful. But people read Cloud Atlas, so go wild? Edit: Will people read a book where sub-plots receive as much attention as the main plot? Yes: Game of Thrones. Dr. Kloctopussy fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Apr 17, 2014 |
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Apr 17, 2014 21:43
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