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Ihmemies posted:This is definitely the hardest part. I think they all are quite good suggestions. I'm not the most typical person, I mean it's often hard to think about what regular people would do in many situations, or what they think, or how they feel.
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Aug 3, 2023 01:12
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The bigger problem with the Chinese Room is that it proves too much: everything it says about the incapacities of machine intelligence is necessarily just as true of the biological kind. Searle is a materialist and so cannot dodge thus by invoking souls or the like. He vaguely waves his hands at quantum woo instead, but that doesn't help; it is easy to imaging a Chinese Roon with a quantum randomn number generator occasionally invoked by the instructions to the operator, and that doesn't affect the argument in any way.
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Aug 3, 2023 03:09
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Thranguy posted:The bigger problem with the Chinese Room is that it proves too much: everything it says about the incapacities of machine intelligence is necessarily just as true of the biological kind. that's my issue, though it's hard to imagine a more perfect demonstration of the thought experiment than chat gpt.
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Aug 3, 2023 03:22
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Just write your books, using AI won't make you a better writer and the end result will be bad
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Aug 3, 2023 03:24
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change my name posted:Just write your books, using AI won't make you a better writer and the end result will be bad its a technology, like a word processor or a camera. use it if it's useful, don't if it's not.
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Aug 3, 2023 03:37
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technology isn’t value neutral and that analogy is unconvincing
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Aug 3, 2023 04:19
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shut up nerds
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Aug 3, 2023 04:56
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Fat Jesus posted:shut up nerds 
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Aug 3, 2023 04:58
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Wungus posted:I'm not going to address all of this and I'm not going to bother going into my own neurodivergence, but I am going to ask: why does your story HAVE to be about someone "regular" or whatever? I've read ten thousand stories about regular people. I have read a lot less about characters who are actually atypical. You've got a unique viewpoint. You could always try writing characters somewhat like you, to get practice writing any decision, and then move laterally away. Well, I thought people want to be with similar people. Thus they also probably want to read about similar people too, not some weird rear end guys. Who wants to read stuff where the reader is always like “Why does he think like that? Why he does actions like that? What’s wrong with him??” In my opinion sounds exactly like the book would be just left unread.
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Aug 3, 2023 06:53
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https://www.penguin.co.nz/books/extremely-loud-and-incredibly-close-9780141012698
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Aug 3, 2023 06:59
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Aug 3, 2023 08:27
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Ihmemies posted:Well, I thought people want to be with similar people. Thus they also probably want to read about similar people too, not some weird rear end guys. Who wants to read stuff where the reader is always like “Why does he think like that? Why he does actions like that? What’s wrong with him??” not trying to be an rear end, but this same thought process can be applied to any minority group. "why would people want to read about queer people? most people are straight and cant relate." i dont have any metrics to back it up, but it seems like with the rise of more overt queer media that it isnt true that people will only consume stuff about the default, "normal" people. so i think there is a space for more neurodivergent protagonists and narrators as the space for media is expanding
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Aug 3, 2023 14:43
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flerp posted:not trying to be an rear end, but this same thought process can be applied to any minority group. "why would people want to read about queer people? most people are straight and cant relate." i dont have any metrics to back it up, but it seems like with the rise of more overt queer media that it isnt true that people will only consume stuff about the default, "normal" people. so i think there is a space for more neurodivergent protagonists and narrators as the space for media is expanding This. My favorite book of this year so far has been Manhunt, which has literally 0 cis men in it (of which I am one) change my name fucked around with this message at 14:54 on Aug 3, 2023 |
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Aug 3, 2023 14:51
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Wungus posted:I'm not going to address all of this and I'm not going to bother going into my own neurodivergence, but I am going to ask: why does your story HAVE to be about someone "regular" or whatever? I've read ten thousand stories about regular people. I have read a lot less about characters who are actually atypical. You've got a unique viewpoint. You could always try writing characters somewhat like you, to get practice writing any decision, and then move laterally away. Ihmemies posted:Well, I thought people want to be with similar people. Thus they also probably want to read about similar people too, not some weird rear end guys. Who wants to read stuff where the reader is always like “Why does he think like that? Why he does actions like that? What’s wrong with him??” flerp posted:not trying to be an rear end, but this same thought process can be applied to any minority group. "why would people want to read about queer people? most people are straight and cant relate." i dont have any metrics to back it up, but it seems like with the rise of more overt queer media that it isnt true that people will only consume stuff about the default, "normal" people. so i think there is a space for more neurodivergent protagonists and narrators as the space for media is expanding To make this completely circular logic, there are people out there that would say lhmemies shouldn't write about a neurodivergent protagonist unless they have personal experience. You can wrap yourself around this question so much that you wind up not writing. In the end, you should just write. Edit: And accept the consequences of your action. You write a boiler-plate noir novel, don't be shocked when people call it boiler-plate. DropTheAnvil fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Aug 3, 2023 |
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Aug 3, 2023 14:54
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Ihmemies posted:Who wants to read stuff where the reader is always like “Why does he think like that? Why he does actions like that? What’s wrong with him??” To flip the question, who wants to read stuff that is just the stuff they've already read but with differently spelled names? Who wants to write that?
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Aug 3, 2023 14:59
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Wungus posted:To flip the question, who wants to read stuff that is just the stuff they've already read but with differently spelled names? Who wants to write that? Here is the answer to your question Wungus posted:"What's wrong with him I can't look away" is like every protagonist I write. Every book I love. Every character people online go apeshit for. Every book that takes off. Everything interesting. People like/love different things. Janet Evanovich has a 30 book series on Stephanie Plum.
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Aug 3, 2023 15:22
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DropTheAnvil posted:People like/love different things. Janet Evanovich has a 30 book series on Stephanie Plum.
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Aug 3, 2023 17:47
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So what kind of version control you use? Or backup? I have my Scrivener project in a OneDrive folder. I also made a github repo for it. The disk is backed up to my NAS with Acronis and to a cloud from Crashplan. Is it a bad idea to use Onedrive and/or Github?? Will Microsoft now get everything I write and use it to train more AI? 
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Aug 4, 2023 20:51
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I use iCloud Drive for storage. I have Scrivener backup to my local drive. I also save new versions of the files for any edits more than a page or two. I know Scrivener has versioning but I don't trust anything to do what it's supposed to when my writing is concerned. When I finish something and start shopping it around I print out a paper Gold copy and keep it in a file drawer for an archive. I'm not going to preach which services will steal your work and which won't*, but personally I don't trust Google Drive at all. I barely trust OneDrive, but I don't use it regularly. I trust iCloud enough to use it. *Because they probably all do it.
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Aug 4, 2023 21:01
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I use scrivener too, and since it uses Dropbox to sync, there is a copy of my current stuff in that account. I sync my Mac's work directory to my Synology NAS, so a current version always resides on both my Mac HD and the NAS. The NAS backs up nightly to backblaze. I've had catastrophic data loss in the past and I don't like it one bit. If I move to cheaper digs, I plan to rent a storage unit to keep a spare HD and paper copies of everything there so I have physical stuff offsite.
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Aug 4, 2023 21:28
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All that nerd talk got me to try Grammarly. I cut and paste Erskine Caldwell and William Faulkner and it says their prose is bland. Very impressive.
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Aug 5, 2023 04:40
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Fat Jesus posted:All that nerd talk got me to try Grammarly. I cut and paste Erskine Caldwell and William Faulkner and it says their prose is bland. Very impressive. Now paste Hemingway's prose into the Hemingway Editor. Grammarly really seems to have gone to poo poo lately. It used to fix my grammar and point out passive voice usage. Now, most of the suggestions seem to be sentence rewrites that fundamentally change the tone and meaning of the sentence. Maybe my grammar just got so good that there is nothing to fix anymore. 
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Aug 5, 2023 08:12
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its 100% targeted at college students and people writing emails if thats the suggestion its going for lol
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Aug 5, 2023 21:58
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General Battuta posted:Publishers may at one point have believed that Influencers Do Numbers but I’m honestly not sure that’s panned out. This trend died exactly the death it deserved, sometime around 2019-2020
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Aug 5, 2023 22:45
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Doctor Zero posted:I use iCloud Drive for storage. I have Scrivener backup to my local drive. I also save new versions of the files for any edits more than a page or two. I know Scrivener has versioning but I don't trust anything to do what it's supposed to when my writing is concerned. When I finish something and start shopping it around I print out a paper Gold copy and keep it in a file drawer for an archive. Scrivener is rock solid and does exactly what it says RE: backups/versioning. Also no one’s going to steal your great American novel. Back your poo poo up.
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Aug 5, 2023 22:49
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I use the service Backblaze for the 'catastrophic data loss' case. It's not intended for anything else but it's cheap and reliable when it comes to that specific situation (and I've already used it once to do a full restore of all my data when a previous computer died, so I know it works).
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Aug 8, 2023 23:22
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I use obsidian, but i pay for their syncing. if I didn't, I'd use google drive to sync it or probably github.
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Aug 11, 2023 23:58
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I am gearing up to start querying, but I realize I'm not clear on how to handle spoilers when writing a synopsis. Or writing synopses in general. I feel like I write pretty snappy and solid blurbs, but when I try to change gears and write a synopsis, my brain just explodes with static. I sat in on a querying 101 webinar last night that gave me some good food for thought, but does anyone have some go-to advice they found helpful for writing a novel synopsis?
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Aug 15, 2023 23:59
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I've done a few synopsis, gotten a few full requests, but haven't sold a novel yet, so take my advice like the grain of salt it is: Read wikipedia / tvtropes to get used to spoiling your story and see what people do to summarize a story. A synopsis shouldn't look like a wikipedia article, but its a good starting point. A synopsis doesn't need all of your plot and subplots, but it does need the overall structure. Just like a blurb, spoil everything, but only put in the necessary elements for the structure of your novel. Look up a style guide on synopsis, some like only 4 named characters, names capitalized. DropTheAnvil fucked around with this message at 00:18 on Aug 16, 2023 |
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Aug 16, 2023 00:06
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Query letters aren’t the time to play coy. Spoil the genre, story milieu, word count, the primary protagonist/antagonistic forces and central story conflict. Demonstrate voice. Give the agent a clear and vivid idea of what they’re in for when they request the full. Include a small blurb about yourself at the end. Thank them very briefly for their time. You should be the kind of person who seems pleasant and hassle-free to deal with, and reflect that in this section. If you’ve had absolutely any contact with a specific agent before, PUT THAT AT THE TOP in front of anything else when querying that agent. I’ve sold multiple titles and there’s no real magic to querying aside from sticking to the format, putting your best foot forward, and having a great pitch that calls out to be read. Chillmatic fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Aug 16, 2023 |
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Aug 16, 2023 04:17
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Beezus posted:I am gearing up to start querying, but I realize I'm not clear on how to handle spoilers when writing a synopsis. Or writing synopses in general. Have you been reading queryshark? Remember that a synopsis, like a query, should not be a summary of your book. It is a tiny story that must be incredibly compelling. Don't mention anything which doesn't contribute to the story of the synopsis. Think of it like a movie trailer but it spoils everything (so, like a movie trailer, ha ha ha ha!) You want to edit the synopsis itself to be propulsive and fun to read.
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Aug 16, 2023 14:58
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Beezus posted:I am gearing up to start querying, but I realize I'm not clear on how to handle spoilers when writing a synopsis. Or writing synopses in general. Nae shared this with me many moons ago and now I pass it on whenever anyone asks: https://web.archive.org/web/20210902014439/http://www.publishingcrawl.com/2012/04/17/how-to-write-a-1-page-synopsis/ It's a really great starting point in terms of getting everything you need on the page. Then, like any other creative work, you edit it to be the most compelling it can be. Good luck!!!
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Aug 16, 2023 17:53
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SimonChris posted:Now paste Hemingway's prose into the Hemingway Editor. the fuckin' wicked sick rear end stone, it means. Grammarly fell apart about six months ago for me, for what it's worth. Little querying friend, querying is hell. You've been given really awesome advice so I'm just hoping it goes well for you.
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Aug 16, 2023 19:48
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I still run most of what I write through Grammarly to find any obvious grammatical or spelling errors I miss (ah, the joys of speeding through first drafts). Occasionally it'll even suggest something that makes a sentence flow better, though that's pretty rare. Still, Grammarly is not a replacement for a good set of eyes, be they a professional editor or some trusted beta readers. That's probably stating the obvious for most people in this thread, though.
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Aug 16, 2023 20:22
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Thank you all for the advice. It gave me lots to think (and read) about. I'm not looking forward to this process, but since my novel is about Hell, I'm at least already in the headspace for suffering.
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Aug 16, 2023 22:14
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sebmojo posted:its a technology, like a word processor or a camera. use it if it's useful, don't if it's not. A word processor, and the related technology often referred to as "pen and paper," doesn't write a story for you. The significant factor is that it is a medium more than that it is a technology. A camera also is a vehicle for a medium, traditionally film. Artful camera work is not automatic and relies on the artist in various ways such as composition, exposure, f-stop, etc. Tbc use generative text if you want. Whatever. This just doesn't track. The Sean fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Aug 17, 2023 |
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Aug 17, 2023 00:06
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If you're going to write a good story with ai it will take work, I've tried a couple of times and given up because it is easier for me to just write it myself than cajole the llm into making something worth reading. I think photo vs painting is a decent enough parallel, any idiot can point and click, especially with modern cameras, and get very good results. For writing, there are absolutely people who think handwriting has the soul that computer documents lack. though tbf they're selling pens, sooo
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Aug 17, 2023 05:01
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Beezus posted:Thank you all for the advice. It gave me lots to think (and read) about. If there's one thing I wished I'd known (or internalized) before querying, it's the importance of being able to make things seem like they're marketable or part of the zeitgeist or speaking the language of the market, etc. However you want to put it, I'd put it as emphasizing being catchy and trendy over being accurate. For example, in my final few queries, I put in a line about how my sci-fi thriller was "a queer retelling of the myth of Sekhmet" and that resulted in a few better responses. Would I call that summary accurate? Not really, because I think it brings a bit of baggage with expectations in storytelling and tone which weren't matched by the story itself, even if it is literally called In Sekhmet's Shadow and stars a queer woman. But I'd say that's a line that made agents go, oh, yes, that's hot right now. Song of Achilles, Wrath Goddess Sing, etc. sebmojo posted:For writing, there are absolutely people who think handwriting has the soul that computer documents lack. though tbf they're selling pens, sooo Well, I mean, are they wrong? I'd dare say a handwritten note or letter is always going to emphasise something over a typed memo or email.
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Aug 17, 2023 10:22
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General Battuta posted:Have you been reading queryshark? That said, don't waste TOO much time on it. Make sure it's short and to the point, but also keep in mind of the hundred-ish queries I've sent out across two books so far, I've been asked to include a synopsis maybe 20-30% of the time.
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Aug 17, 2023 14:09
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Alright, got a synopsis drafted that still needs work, but I'm going to table it for the time being since the reading and advice indicate that what I really need to be focusing on is the hook/pitch, which isn't quite the same thing. I've revised and revised and revised and I think I have something promising now, but will keep tweaking it. Thanks again.
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Aug 17, 2023 17:59
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