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Thanks for more additional thoughts on thinking about and making connections with the words I'm reading. I will add that another way to do it (as I found) is to read a book that is incredibly similar to a book you're writing. That seemed to make it much easier for me to draw parallels and see where what the other book did that was interesting or what I thought it could do better and what I should do better. (It also wasn't a very well written book, so that irritation made it easier to disengage from the story and let my own thoughts take over.) But all books have aspects in common in that they generally have plots, characters, themes and structure. I want to be able to make these comparisons even when I'm not reading a book that has almost the same premise of my book. And I plan to try a lot of the recommended advice. Thanks!
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Nov 27, 2022 17:01
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https://twitter.com/obIiquidens/status/1599111110535262208
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Dec 6, 2022 22:59
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I think my parents still have the draft of the first book I tried to write when I was like 8. I wanted to write a Curious George story about him needing to land an airplane. Could not figure out how to write obstacles or surprises as a literal child so this attempt petered out quickly. We got into an airplane, then ??? The pilot got sick or something? You will notice the actual books are mundane things like “rides a bike” or “flies a kite,” but obviously 8 year old me knew better. At least I knew the story needed stakes, something I’m honestly re-learning how to properly set up these days.
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Dec 7, 2022 07:40
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oops wrong thread
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Dec 15, 2022 16:05
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This might be a dumb question, but I figure some of you might know. Is there a guide somewhere on "how to research?" I've come to the realization that I never got any education on that and it hasn't been an issue with my various employment because my job usually comes after that sort of thing has been done and I'm handed a packet of references and documentation. Google just ain't cutting it anymore, ya know?
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Dec 16, 2022 02:18
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You could start by seeing what sources are cited in the Wikipedia article about whatever it is, and try tracking those down. Or head to a community that knows about Thing and ask them. Depends what sort of thing you're after.
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Dec 16, 2022 02:22
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CaptainCrunch posted:This might be a dumb question, but I figure some of you might know. Is there a guide somewhere on "how to research?" I've come to the realization that I never got any education on that and it hasn't been an issue with my various employment because my job usually comes after that sort of thing has been done and I'm handed a packet of references and documentation. There is a book called The Craft of Research. It's geared more for nonfiction and has a student/academic slant, but should be of benefit. Along similar lines, I'm rather enjoying How to Take Smart Notes as a companion for, uh, note taking.
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Dec 16, 2022 04:03
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Thank you very much the both of you. That's exactly the type of thing I needed.
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Dec 16, 2022 04:36
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I've been reading Save the Cat Writes A Novel by Jessica Brody, which as I understand it is roughly the same as the original Save the Cat but focused on novelists rather than screenwriters. I know it's a pretty influential system so I'd be curious to hear what others in this thread think about it. Some of the stuff in the book seems a little prescriptive or even cultish (like the assertion that every great story must follow this formula, or that the formula is literally "written into our DNA") but overall I think it will be a useful tool for me. I tend to overcomplicate my novels with lots of characters and subplots, so it could be helpful to have a semi-rigid structure to fit all my scenes into. The part of the formula I like least, so far, is the idea that every novel must have a "life lesson" and the protagonist must succeed at the end by learning and applying that lesson. I guess some writers could do this subtly, but I feel like if I aim for that, it will end up being bland and didactic.
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Dec 29, 2022 01:13
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Sailor Viy posted:I've been reading Save the Cat Writes A Novel by Jessica Brody, which as I understand it is roughly the same as the original Save the Cat but focused on novelists rather than screenwriters. I know it's a pretty influential system so I'd be curious to hear what others in this thread think about it. I personally loving hate it for exactly the reasons you state above.It’s a formula to write formulaic poo poo—I mean “potential bestsellers”—not “every great story.” And “written into our DNA” is the same old bullshit as Joseph Campbell’s monomyth (he was extremely selective and reductive to make all his examples fit his theory rather than the other way around) Can it be helpful? Sure, if you pick the pearls outta the great big steaming pile of bullshit. Sure, if you wanna write exactly the kinda novel the formula is for I’ve personally hated what this formula has done to Hollywood, and I hate the idea people are cranking out reams of novels based on the same formula as Marvel movies, but hey, they’re not my novels and I don’t have to read them. I’ll just write novels for the kind of people who hate that poo poo
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Dec 29, 2022 01:29
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The thing I wanna say-and I'll admit this is an unproven theory-is that, even in the total absence of marketing people who are trying to find the next Harry Potter/Twilight/Hunger Games and will take any novel they can find to fit into that hole, or whatever the modern equivalent to the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew style ghostwriting book sweatshops are, certain people/writers just make 'more mainstream' novels than others, just as a result of their personal preferences, influences, and the like, and we shouldn't necessarily hold that against them.
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Dec 29, 2022 01:37
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i find that its good to know a lot of types of structures and ways to structure your novel so you can be like "ah this piece is missing compared to this similar structure" or "i want to scaffold my plot using this particular story." learning just one way of structuring is a fruitless task because you'll just write one story.
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Dec 29, 2022 01:43
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Sailor Viy posted:I've been reading Save the Cat Writes A Novel by Jessica Brody, which as I understand it is roughly the same as the original Save the Cat but focused on novelists rather than screenwriters. I know it's a pretty influential system so I'd be curious to hear what others in this thread think about it. Here's the deal. The original Save the Cat! was written about screenwriting. Its guidelines are overly restrictive and prescriptive even for movies, but given the limitations of the medium, they're not entirely unreasonable. A lot of decent movies were made that fit the Save the Cat formula, even some great ones. Here's an outline of Edgar Wright's The World's End which is pretty Save the Cat, for example. But the claims that all the movies need to follow this structure are bullshit. And I don't know about you, but I've become pretty decent at noticing movies that follow that list of story beats (oh wow the heroes are about to win! oh no, a twist and the villain actually has the upper hand! the hero has an emotional breakthrough and can now succeed!) and it gets... predictable and boring, in a way older pre-StC movies, even the very mainstream pop culture people pleasers, aren't. Anyway. Blake Snyder wrote three Save the Cat books about screenwriting... then died. And now whoever owns the brand is still cranking out books and hosting workshops, etc. So now there's this book, which is "let's apply the formula to novels" and, like, pfffbbbfffbbbt, get out. I suspect even Snyder wouldn't bother claiming that his formula is the one way to write novels if he was still alive. You can write a functional story that follows his formula, but I've read a few novels that felt that someone wrote it following StC and they feel... too lightweight and too hurried. There's usually just not enough meat on them.
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Dec 29, 2022 01:59
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Megazver posted:And I don't know about you, but I've become pretty decent at noticing movies that follow that list of story beats (oh wow the heroes are about to win! oh no, a twist and the villain actually has the upper hand! the hero has an emotional breakthrough and can now succeed!) and it gets... predictable and boring, in a way older pre-StC movies, even the very mainstream pop culture people pleasers, aren't. This times a billion. Too many budding writers are convinced to cut their plots to the bone because of this poo poo, and they end up pulling out half the stuff that makes their story interesting. Most breakout successes don’t follow the same tired old formula—they’re such successes because they do something different, so they feel exciting and new even if they’re drawing from some hundred-year-old inspiration that’s gone out of style Even Blanderson got successful developing his own formula and not someone else’s
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Dec 29, 2022 02:43
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Sailor Viy posted:I've been reading Save the Cat Writes A Novel by Jessica Brody, which as I understand it is roughly the same as the original Save the Cat but focused on novelists rather than screenwriters. I know it's a pretty influential system so I'd be curious to hear what others in this thread think about it. Prefacing my reply with the disclosure that I haven't read the novel version, only the original screenwriting version. My most useful takeaway from it was the bit in Chapter 5 of the original book, where it goes through breaking down scenes on the scene cards. Relevant excerpts quoted, with the context being that you plan the whole screenplay on a set number of cards that correspond to each of the beats in the Save the Cat structure: quote:Here are two really important things you must put on each card and answer to your satisfaction before you can begin writing your screenplay: One is the symbol +/-. The other is the symbol ><. The main TL;DR is "have conflict" but internalizing the point about having an emotional change was really what helped me more so than the rigid beat sheet. Stuporstar posted:Even Blanderson got successful developing his own formula and not someone else’s I actually think Sanderson didn't develop it originally, but more popularized it thanks to his BYU lectures. I can't remember what I was reading but it was like an older craft book and the "promise/progress/payoff" thing popped up and I was like OH, that's where he got it from. Much like how Mary Robinette Kowal is associated with the MICE quotient but Orson Scott Card was the first to teach it that way. That said, I do like the promise/progress/payoff framework because it's just way easier for me to double check as I'm writing that the payoff matches the promise and that we're consistently making progress towards the payoff.
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Dec 29, 2022 03:02
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Did the save the cat guy actually write any good movies. That seems important Does Alien actually fit the “save the cat” structure (is that the movie where they save the cat)
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Dec 29, 2022 04:22
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General Battuta posted:Did the save the cat guy actually write any good movies. That seems important haha, nope it's kind of a joke in the actual production field that for as much press as that book gets, the only movies the Save the Cat guy ever actually wrote were Blank Check and Stop or my mom will shoot
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Dec 29, 2022 04:27
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Stuporstar posted:This times a billion. Too many budding writers are convinced to cut their plots to the bone because of this poo poo, and they end up pulling out half the stuff that makes their story interesting. Most breakout successes don’t follow the same tired old formula—they’re such successes because they do something different, so they feel exciting and new even if they’re drawing from some hundred-year-old inspiration that’s gone out of style https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TGwjiBV2w8 Just Write made a very good and short video about this, using Rocky as an example. Rocky is interesting because it breaks every rule about story structure: Not only does the incident incident, Rocky being challenged by Apollo Creed, happen more than halfway through the movie - at which point Rocky has already won the heart of the girl he wants - but there are also no real stakes in the traditional sense. Creed is paying Rocky 150K regardless of the outcome of the match. Wanting to "go the distance" is purely a matter of pride for him. General Battuta posted:Does Alien actually fit the “save the cat” structure (is that the movie where they save the cat) If anyone else is curious, the "Save the Cat" from the title refers to the idea that the protagonist must do something to make the viewer sympathise with them, such as saving a cute kitty cat. Even if they are an evil criminal or something, they have do perform some small nicety like that to get the viewer to care about them. You absolutely cannot have a sympathetic protagonist who is mean to cats!
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Dec 29, 2022 09:52
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Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:it's kind of a joke in the actual production field that for as much press as that book gets, the only movies the Save the Cat guy ever actually wrote were Blank Check and Stop or my mom will shoot It gets better: both those films were co-written.
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Dec 29, 2022 15:40
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Save the Cat Writes A Novel is a useful book for certain kinds of writers to read but holy poo poo is it not for everyone. If you can read it and pull out the important information while making a jerkoff motion and saying "okay chief" then it's great; unlike a reasonable amount of specific writing structures, it spends a significant amount of time going into why the formula works for this kind of story. And like, it's a good formula! It's not great for every story, and it's easy to be uncreative with it and wind up with something super predictable, but it can give you a framework for a great story if you want a place to build from and you want to tell the kind of story it works with. And hell, even if you don't--knowing the reasons behind the structural choices can be a big help for solving problems in your own book, because it lets you take a step back and see poo poo all big picture. I don't regret reading it at all, even though I use basically none of the advice within, because it helped me get better at structuring my own narratives. Unfortunately, it's a hogshit book for people who take any written advice as gospel, and it's a loving garbage read if you get argumentative about people sharing their own opinion as fact, and most people I see online talking about writing online fit into one of them two categories. It's good (not great) (but good) writing advice delivered in the worst fuckin' way someone could write a book about writing books.
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Dec 29, 2022 16:55
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Junpei posted:The thing I wanna say-and I'll admit this is an unproven theory-is that, even in the total absence of marketing people who are trying to find the next Harry Potter/Twilight/Hunger Games and will take any novel they can find to fit into that hole, or whatever the modern equivalent to the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew style ghostwriting book sweatshops are, certain people/writers just make 'more mainstream' novels than others, just as a result of their personal preferences, influences, and the like, and we shouldn't necessarily hold that against them.
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Jan 1, 2023 04:46
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Happy new year, everyone! How was everyone's writing this year? I didn't manage to outright sell anything, but I had an old story published online as a "reprint" and also published three poems: https://www.metastellar.com/fiction/simulacra/ This is now the third time I have published this story and the second time in English  .https://bluepepper.blogspot.com/2022/11/new-poetry-by-simon-christiansen.html https://theplumtreetavern.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-great-auk.html https://www.compassroseliterary.com/three-phenomenal-flutterings Sure, these are all extremely obscure non-paying markets but given that I only started writing poetry in September - in a foreign language - I still consider that to be an astounding success!  I also wrote a few stories that I really like myself and had some high-tier personal rejections. Hoping to sell some of those this year. How about everyone else?
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Jan 1, 2023 10:59
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SimonChris posted:Happy new year, everyone! I only wrote 42K of my WIP (but think I can get to revisions this year) and 5K on a short story I had wanted to pitch but haven't edited yet. Writing on your own time is hard when you do it for a living, IME
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Jan 1, 2023 16:29
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I had a decent writing year. I’m a very slow writer, mostly because I edit as I write. I (self) published one book and wrote another one. It’s nearly complete; close enough that I’ll count it for 2022. I write as a hobby, so my time spent writing always seems longer in retrospect than what I’ve probably actually spent, especially in relation to all the time spent on my actual, boring job. Which is the best I can hope for from a hobby, I suppose.
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Jan 1, 2023 22:19
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i did a lot of editing it was nice. good writing year for me.
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Jan 1, 2023 22:43
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I was aiming to finish one of my novels by the end of the year, but then december got hosed. I’m so close though—4 chapters left to edit. I’m aiming to finish them in the next couple weeks and then move on to the next book
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Jan 1, 2023 22:52
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I had one story published last year: https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/empty-appendages/ which was really exciting. And I wrote the whole first draft of a novel, it's now in the beta reading phase. Just as important, I think, is that I started sharing my writing with a regular critique group that's supportive but also pushes me to improve. And I feel that in a nebulous but decisive way, I started to behave more seriously in regard to my writing. Before last year I was just sort of noodling along. Now I feel like I am moving forward. I haven't decided yet whether to submit my novel to agents or self-publish it, but I'm confident that I'll do something with it before the year is out.
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Jan 2, 2023 00:22
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I am loving hearing everyone's progress from this past year! Y'all are killing it. But I specifically wanted to highlight:SimonChris posted:Happy new year, everyone! Hell yeah, Metastellar! It's an often overlooked publication to submit to. I got something published there in 2021 and then was part of their slush read team for their next round of submissions. 2022 was a year lost to revisions and rejections for me. I'm hoping to have something to show for my efforts this year. Thank you all for having opinions about writing!
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Jan 2, 2023 00:51
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I wrote a lot for Thunderdome but that's about it. I wrote a few chapters of a novel but have stalled out due to Winter Doldrums and Parenting. ...but also I feel like I've had moments where I've recaptured that excitement in story, that almost pressured feeling to just sit in front of a computer and write, that I haven't really felt since high school. I'm hoping that continues into the new year.
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Jan 2, 2023 01:42
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thunderdome winner
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2022 was my first year of seriously writing. I wrote 2.5 novels last year. One was self-published on Amazon, the second is under edits using feedback from alpha readers, and the .5 is the half of a first draft that I wrote during NaNoWriMo. It's been an amazing year for me, considering the most I've ever written before has been under 10 pages at a time, barring academic writing.
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Jan 2, 2023 05:08
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I honestly have no god drat loving idea how this year went. I guess pretty lovely. I got about two hundred thousand words into a draft and realized it sucked and I needed to just start fresh blank page gently caress you all over. I have another book that's been trapped at the publisher for years and maybe they're actually moving on it? Who god drat knows.
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Jan 2, 2023 05:46
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Also in the 'have no idea how good this year was' category. I wrote my first fanfiction because I contracted TMNT brainrot, which has to count for something.
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Jan 2, 2023 05:47
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The core of 2022 was that I got a bunch of nice rejections from a variety of agents, with only one that felt like I'd been stabbed in the heart. A few doors feel like they're ajar there. Hoping to get the manuscript into the wild this year, once the cover art from Tommy Arnold comes in. As mentioned in this thread, I'm reasonably certain that I could get it picked up if I cut in half and split it into two novels, but a. that'll take yet more time and b. I don't want to do that. I got a reply the other day, actually, from an agent wondering if I'd cut the superhero element... which would sort of make it an airport thriller, I guess? But, no. That aside, I got a bunch of credits to my name in localization, re-writing and proofreading, too. Jane Hirshfield (and her rights holder) let me use a lovely poem as the preface to the sequel which is about 25% complete. With any luck, I'll get both of them out this year. Then, maybe, I can work on something more explicitly devoted to being 'sellable' and fitting more within SF/F genre conventions.
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Jan 2, 2023 09:35
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2022 was all about creating sustainable writing discipline and learning how to write through significant life stress. I'm pretty satisfied where I'm at with my current novel, though it's progressing slower than I'd like. On the other hand, I feel pretty happy with my overall writing journey. My goal has always been to be able to write a publishable novel by the time I'm thirty-five, and I just turned thirty-four this year. I think I'm on track. I chose thirty-five because one time, ages ago, I saw a contest for "young writers," where "young" was anyone under thirty-five. I don't think that's especially common, but it put the whole craft of writing in perspective for me. I realized I'd enjoy writing a lot more if I let myself be a beginner at it for a very long time. I also came to the conclusion that publishing doesn't hold much appeal to me. There are some amazing authors out there publishing super important work (trad pub and self-pub!), but it seems very stressful. In terms of pure enjoyment and satisfaction, I've gotten way more out of trading crits with people on this website and discussing writing with the friends I've made here than I'd ever get from the publishing hustle. On a more philosophical level, I feel like storytelling is a really old and important human tradition and mixing it up with capitalism has produced a lot of stress and anxiety in the storytellers of our time. I love the authors who, because of publishers/publishing platforms, have a platform to tell amazing and important stories. I hate to see so many skilled writers contorting their stories to match whatever is marketable. I think it's incredible when people pull it off, and I'm grateful to know a bunch of people who've had success in their market of choice, but from the outside the whole process looks really demoralizing and sad. idk though because I've never been a famous author. I'm sure aspects of it are in fact very cool. overall I'm hyped for 2023 and I'm really looking forward to seeing how this novel turns out 
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Jan 2, 2023 10:17
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In most ways, 2022 was easily the worst year of my life, but I managed to finish a draft of a book that I am really proud of. I was hoping to get it cleaned up enough to be in beta reader hands by year's end but ahaha welp
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Jan 2, 2023 11:40
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2022 was a rollercoaster for me. I:
I learned two things: 1. People who tell you that you'll have more time to pursue your goal/s after your kid starts school are lying or deluded or both. I had LESS time in 2022 with my daughter in primary school than I did in 2021 when she was at daycare for three days a week—to the tune of -15 hours per week. That doesn't even count term breaks/school holidays, which is something like 10 weeks/year vs the 1 week daycare shutdown over Christmas/New Year. 2. If you can write to market and be just different enough from the competition, you WILL get organic sales. People are really out there, actively looking for books that they want. Writing to market doesn't necessarily mean trend chasing whatever niche/trope is currently hot. It can just mean writing the book that you wished existed but you've struggled to find. That's what my kids books are. Anyway Will Wight said it a lot better than I could in his writing & publishing livestream which is worth watching even if you're not a fan of Cradle/progression fantasy/his writing because it's 2 hours of absolute wisdom. If you don't have 2 hours, I did a 10-min summary on my YouTube channel but really, go watch the 2 hour livestream replay. It's not every day that you can pick the brain of somebody who has made the NYT bestseller list
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Jan 2, 2023 11:58
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If anyone is still needing beta readers, I will offer myself up. As always, I don’t have much to contribute, feeling like I might finally have a bit of spark to organically start building more motivation, etc. Hoping to do better all around in ‘23, we’ll see how it pans out.
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Jan 2, 2023 16:32
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2022 was an interesting year in terms of writing for me. I hadn't written anything at all for like ten years, with a long-simmering fantasy project indefinitely shelved due to being utterly unable to get back into the right headspace for it, and no ideas or inspiration for anything new. But then out of nowhere in late October I was struck with a nearly complete fantasy story and possessed by a rabid muse and I finished the super rough zeroth draft of this thing the other day. Literally within two months  The draft is sparse, kind of chaotic, and full of giant holes (was writing so fast that I got way ahead of my worldbuilding), but I finished a thing holy poo poo. Now I'm forcing myself to sit on it for a couple weeks before revising and starting in on the next draft (which will be a straight up rewrite). So in the meantime I've gotten a few thousand words into book 2 (which is now more or less fully formed in my head I just need to write it down). But I really need to take a real break and read some newer fantasy stuff to get a sense of what's going on with the genre these days (in addition to not writing for a decade I hadn't read much either). And I owe an alpha read, which I'm looking forward to. Overall it's been a passion project bordering on obsession. This story is literally all I can think about these days and I get all irate if I don't get my time to write (or at least zone out and conjure up new scenes or something). Basically, it's been like having an emotional affair with myself. So yeah, I think 2023 will be a good year for writing. Hell, maybe I'll get the first book in a good enough state to start sending out to agents.
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Jan 2, 2023 17:53
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If it’s of any help, iPhone (and I’m sure android too) do a decent talk-to-text feature in notes if you’re walking/driving/etc. and need to get an idea down before it burns out.
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Jan 2, 2023 18:33
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| # ? May 21, 2024 14:21 |
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General Battuta posted:I honestly have no god drat loving idea how this year went. I guess pretty lovely. I got about two hundred thousand words into a draft and realized it sucked and I needed to just start fresh blank page gently caress you all over. I have another book that's been trapped at the publisher for years and maybe they're actually moving on it? Who god drat knows.
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Jan 2, 2023 23:52
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