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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:It's been quite a while since I've read this thread, largely because I tried to forget about writing and took a long break. So I took a little while to catch up on the last 50 or so pages of the thread. How much if this book is written? I get the impression you are working the first chapter and nothing else is written. If this is true my advice would be to Just Write. Forget all that and Just Write. I recognize this is hard. I used to struggle with it as well, but your first draft will be different from your second, and different from your third. If you spend all your time trying to get the start just right you will one, get sick of the drat thing, and two, not be willing to rewrite it when your story inevitably changes.
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Oct 9, 2023 04:58
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Eh, I dunno bout that. I’ve had to do a lotta false starts on some stories like trying to work my rear end back into my writing chair and make it comfy again. Better advice is do whatever you need to that keeps you writing. If that’s writing three different beginnings and throwing two out, that’s fine (which isn’t the same as reworking one over and over like trying to get a truck out of a rut by going back and forth and going nowhere). Sometimes it’s not worth trying to continue with a false start if it sends you off track right from go. Finding the right scene to start with, the right point in time, is one of those things that throws me, but once I get on the right track I’m off and running But you’re right, it’s key not overworking a first draft so you’re too invested in it Being willing to throw out whole chunks of draft while you figure poo poo out is just part of the process for some
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Oct 9, 2023 05:25
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:In my current WiP, I originally tried starting diving right into the action, with an attempt on my heroine's life in the middle of a big public speech (the Inciting Incident), then only after that, to do some major character introductions and a flashback. I recently saw something on story structure where the very first part is noted as the Exposition which should set up what counts as "normal" for the protagonist. It sounded reasonable, so I rolled the clock back a bit to 3 or 4 hours before the assassination attempt to do some exposition and setting stuff there. (But I agree with Stuporstar that it could just be that you're being impatient, which is a thing to try and curtail) Stabbey_the_Clown posted:However, there are two things about this change I now have to consider. The first is that a reader is not going to immediately know who major, minor and walk-on characters are if I give them all names. Is the best way to handle that to just not name some of the background characters (even if she would likely know their names)? But like. I also get poo poo from every beta reader and crit partner about how many characters I start every book with so lol, maybe I'm not the one to advise anything here.
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Oct 9, 2023 13:39
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Stuporstar posted:Being willing to throw out whole chunks of draft while you figure poo poo out is just part of the process for some That’s true. I was making a bit of an assumption there.
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Oct 9, 2023 15:22
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Wungus posted:To somewhat counter this pretty often given advice, I find the reason a lot of in media res intros don't work for me isn't because we're starting directly in the action, but because the action isn't being used to introduce the protags. Not all action sequences need to be a tool to bring tension--especially in something that's somewhat of a comedy. A story can open quite easily in the middle of some poo poo, so long as it's not being written to try and make me feel stressed out or whatever, and that's the key (for me) to a story starting directly in the action. I can't be expected to give a poo poo about the stakes of an action sequence if I don't know who it's about--but if the action sequence is less about stakes and more about telling me who the book is, then I'm here for it. I know I've read plenty of (and written some) first chapter gunfights/pirate raids/etc that (imo) work just fine. If starting with the action makes the most sense for the story, then why not do it and work out how to do it, rather than just avoid it because of some advice. I wanna add to this an example, the first page of Anna Burn’s Milkman. Like lookit all these characters introduced (note: she always refers to people this way, never naming them). Lookit how she starts with almost getting shot. But this isn’t en media res at all. Instead it’s a breathless recounting of events because she’s trying to explain herself, and it veers all over the place on purpose.  This might not be the best way to start a conventional genre fic (unconventional genre fic tho? Go Ham), but it shows how far you can go if you’re considering voice, specifically how and why the protagonist is telling the story, rather than what plot pieces you think need to go first because you’re used to writing conventional 3rd person rather than 1st Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Oct 9, 2023 |
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Oct 9, 2023 15:43
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I've never read The Milkman but whew, I'm going to have to pick it up. That's a phenomenal example of voice--wide variations in sentence length, subjects and verbs in long distance relationships inducing tension and whiplash pacing and immediately grounding the reader in set and setting. 
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Oct 9, 2023 16:03
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I think we need to distinguish between starting in medias res in a scene on one hand and skipping ahead to the inciting incident on the other. Lots of action movies start in the middle of the protagonist defeating some low-level mooks, only to reveal that this is business as usual for them, and then later they get framed for murder or something, and that's the incident incident for the story. You can start in the middle of the action without affecting the overall story structure at all. Also, story structures are guidelines, not rules. If you want to start with the inciting inciting and fill out the backstory with flashbacks and/or dialogue, that's perfectly fine. You can always move the scenes around later if it doesn't work.
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Oct 9, 2023 16:19
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First of all, thank all of you so much for the detailed feedback. Your different perspectives helped me. Trying to think of how to explain has focused on what I want the scene to do, both on the surface plot level and thematically. I've got a better sense of what the real goals of the scene are: Plot-wise, the Goal of my heroine's goal (Princess Charlotte) now isn't necessarily about her giving the speech, but for preventing an announcement from going public[1]. The Conflict is that the decision was already made in private and the King's attention is focused more on the current crisis. The Setback is that, spoiler alert, not only does she fail to stop the announcement, but there's now an unexpected problem - namely an attempt on her life. Thematically, what I want this chapter to achieve is to establish how Charlotte feels disrespected and adrift, but also that she is willing to stand up for herself. In terms of Background, what I want to establish (without going into much detail at this point) is that the current royal line is short[2], and that the first king in the line was actually a commoner who was effectively appointed king after a war by the winning side. There may be lingering concerns about. I also want to establish that the country is currently being invaded, and is losing the battle. That's not technically "normal," but I want to start the story's timeline close to the assassination attempt, and then I'll flash back to the start of the invasion crisis to establish the threat in more visceral terms. [1] This post is too long already to go into it, but it concerns Charlotte's future, and she's not pleased that the decision was made without anyone even asking her. [2] By short, what I have in mind right now is 7 kings and about 200 years. I did want it to at least be longer than one human lifetime ago... but as I think about it, maybe it could be as short as 3-4 kings (including first and current) and 75-125 years. That would weaken the confidence in the current royal line. Queen Victorian posted:I feel it kind of defeats the establishment of the ordinary state by telling you what the inciting incident is first thing. It also seems like it's preemptively removing any tension there might have been in the lead-up to the actual assassination attempt. Stuporstar posted:At root the problem with both openings is your impatience to get to the meat of the plot (which is why they don’t feel different). But trying to establish reader sympathy by opening with “I was almost assassinated” is actually less effective (being an overused ploy) than having her explain what she was trying to do before she was assassinated. Wungus posted:I find the reason a lot of in media res intros don't work for me isn't because we're starting directly in the action, but because the action isn't being used to introduce the protags. All of you are absolutely right, I'll remove the mention of the assassination attempt, and not start the scene in media res. All I need to do is keep the reader interested in finding out why, and the suspense of why the heroine is so angry and wants to slam the king in public should be enough of a hook to keep the reader turning long enough for some of the additional hooks I've laid in to catch. In addition, there’s another good reason to not mention the assassination attempt: it’s kinda cheating. It is the only place where I intend for the protagonist to convey something to the reader which hasn’t happened yet. Everything else is essentially being “told” as it happens. Queen Victorian posted:The heroine going about her prep routine to give this speech is an establishment of the ordinary. Has she done this before? What is the speech about? This is stuff which I would be established in the chapter, but the speech would be to open the capital city's spring fair. She would have given speeches in events like that before, and usually they're just ghost-written and insufferably dull - so much that the royal family has an unofficial tradition of drawing straws, loser has to give the speech, so she's only got a 1 in 3 shot, which is one of the complications. Instead of putting in an assistant here, I can just say "I'll have my assistant make the arrangements." For my purposes, that's even better because it comes across as even more dismissive. Stuporstar posted:If you’re going for a jokey tone, because that’s how your protagonist tries to gain rapport with people (including the reader), then opening with her trying to get away with making an ill-considered career-destroying speech and establishing why she needs to seems like a good way to go. I don't actually have any "intended reader" on behalf of my narrator, or have them acknowledging they are telling this story for an audience. I don't know if that's a problem, but I don't think it should be, I've read many first-person PoV books which do that. As for 'career-destroying,' the next few lines clarify that the narrator thinks she might be able to get away with it because she is the King's daughter. (And there's a little comedy as she reads what she wrote and thinks maybe it's going too far and she should essentially edit it for tone.) Doctor Zero posted:How much if this book is written? I get the impression you are working the first chapter and nothing else is written. I have the cast of characters: heroes, villains, and red herrings, and I know their motivations and goals. I have both the key main plot structure and internal journey plotted out based on the 12-point "Hero's Journey"/"Hero's Inner Journey" archplot structure. And of course I have a bunch of scenes and scene sketches - largely for key points - which I wrote down as I thought of them. It's enough of a framework to give me guidance, but it's not so detailed that I'm locked onto rails. You’re not wrong that I need to spend more time writing and less time revising on the spot, that’s a weakness. But just now I was talking about writing through a new scene, trying to see what fits and what doesn't, and then I had to stop because I recognized that plowing forward without establishing a clear goal for my main character means the scene was going to be muddled and not work properly. I think being able to spot structure problems before slapping down a few hundred words is not a bad thing to have. Yes, it is possible to get bogged down, and yes, I need to watch out for that. I don't just start writing A, straight through to Z and ignore anything which isn't immediately next. If an idea comes to mind for a later scene, I write it down in as much detail as I can think of at the moment. Will I end up throwing it out or changing most of it later? Maybe (and in some cases I have already thrown out stuff or changed it for better stuff). But that's how it goes. Better to have it and never use it than to never write it down, forget most of it and later realize you needed it. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 18:33 on Oct 9, 2023 |
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Oct 9, 2023 18:02
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I don't actually have any "intended reader" on behalf of my narrator, or have them acknowledging they are telling this story for an audience. I don't know if that's a problem, but I don't think it should be, I've read many first-person PoV books which do that. I think all good 1st person povs consider why the narrator is telling this story whether they protagonist has an audience in mind or not. If you’re writing a diary, you’re probably doing it to help figure things out for yourself and hope no one else will ever see it, but the author can always play with that aspect—its intended secrecy—as well. A good example is We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, where the narrator dares not confess certain thoughts so leaves them out with elipses hoping the secret police never see it but just in case… Writing in 1st person is always an opportunity to play with voice and figuring out the reason for telling this story—what the narrator hopes to get out of the exercise—is the best focusing tool at your disposal. Whenever you’re not sure of a scene or a detail or anything, all you gotta do is ask yourself, “Why is she telling me this?” and if there’s no good answer you can skip (usually boring) poo poo and move on. I should write a huge effort post on what I wish more writers would do with 1st person povs to make them the obvious better choice over 3rd (in some cases), cause I notice a lotta 3rd person habits in some attempts at 1st person that often don’t work, and I’ve read a lotta 1st person novels that absolutely sing in comparison and think a lot about why quote:I don't just start writing A, straight through to Z and ignore anything which isn't immediately next. If an idea comes to mind for a later scene, I write it down in as much detail as I can think of at the moment. Will I end up throwing it out or changing most of it later? Maybe (and in some cases I have already thrown out stuff or changed it for better stuff). But that's how it goes. Better to have it and never use it than to never write it down, forget most of it and later realize you needed it. This is cool and good. I write scenes all out of order as they come to me, knowing they could just be throwaway in the end, but writing them out keeps me writing and helps me explore where I want to go with the story from different angles. I spew them out and then don’t revise them till I do a more linear revision trying to fit all the pieces together. Getting the puzzle pieces all out of my head is one of the hardest parts of writing, so I’m a drat fool every time I pass up writing a scene as it comes to me in a flash just because the story isn’t ready for it yet Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Oct 9, 2023 |
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Oct 9, 2023 18:56
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Stuporstar posted:I think all good 1st person povs consider why the narrator is telling this story whether they protagonist has an audience in mind or not. If you’re writing a diary, you’re probably doing it to help figure things out for yourself and hope no one else will ever see it, but the author can always play with that aspect—its intended secrecy—as well. A good example is We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, where the narrator dares not confess certain thoughts so leaves them out with elipses hoping the secret police never see it but just in case… Honestly, I still don’t get it. Is the story I’m telling important to my protagonist? Absolutely. Will the story I’m telling have ripples that could change the kingdom? Yes. But ask me “who is the protagonist telling the story to” and I don’t have an answer, and more importantly, I don’t understand why I need to have an answer. One book I read recently (after I wrote my original line, I should note – I didn’t steal the line or style) was “Kill the Queen” by Jennifer Estep. It’s told in first-person, past-tense, and the narration has a feel of immediacy to it. Other than the opening line “The day of the royal massacre started out like any other,” I can’t think of any (maybe there aren’t even any more) further instances of the narrator (Evie) knowing things which have not chronologically happened yet. (And even that first line could go, because there’s a handy title card called “Part One: The Royal Massacre.”) Is Evie writing a book or her memoirs, is she talking to a person, is she writing a diary as she goes? Other than the fact that it’s doubtful she’s jotting down her thoughts in a diary as she’s hurtling through the air towards the river, there’s no indication about who the story is aimed at. Is that wrong or make it a bad story?  That’s in the eye of the beholder. All I can say is that the lack of indication of who the "intended reader" is didn’t hurt my experience reading it, at least.Stuporstar posted:This is cool and good. I write scenes all out of order as they come to me, knowing they could just be throwaway in the end, but writing them out keeps me writing and helps me explore where I want to go with the story from different angles. Unexpected angles are great. One scene I half-wrote, half- sketched was at the “Major Setback” plot point. After the bad guy finishes their villainy and leaves their minions to finish off the heroes, things were looking really bad. I wrote “and then [character], who everyone thought died a quarter of the book ago comes in and turns the tide – and, here’s the thing – until that very moment, I hadn’t even thought for one moment that they wouldn’t have been with the group the whole time. It was a real “Ohhhhhhhhh…. “ moment. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Oct 9, 2023 |
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Oct 9, 2023 21:19
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Honestly, I still don’t get it. I won’t say it’s wrong, but the idea of using 1st person because it feels more immediate, like you’re in the protagonist’s head, without anymore consideration of pov choice than that, is frequently haphazardly applied in YA fiction. So anything using it for that reason is in danger of taking on a YA feel (if intended, ok—but better YA does consider the whys of the chosen pov). Like I took at look at the book you mentioned and my first impression was, “This is YA” because it features that immediate 1st person of a snarky immature-seeming protagonist and instantly went, NOPE not for me. E. The problems, which are ones that make me nope out, is the narration being unfocused and using badly applied 3rd person techniques, like too many action beats that are focused outside the narrator’s head (like them describing their own facial expressions and body positioning from outside rather than what they’re feeling inside). Ungrounded exposition just because it needs to be there but is written in such a way that makes the reader scream, “Why are you saying this?” Because in immediate 1st person, a person isn’t thinking out the entire background of their culture in bland expository prose—instead they have opinions about things. Good first person narration is subjective not objective, so using objective 3rd person techniques don’t really work—they’re misapplied (unless used extremely thoughtfully—there are always exceptions) In contrast, stream-of-consciousness 1st person used in say The Handmaid’s Tale, was more of a confessional. There wasn’t any overt indication of who she was telling this to in the narrative itself, only outside in the frame where it’s revealed she was talking into a tape recorder the whole time and it’s being listened to by historians. You don’t even need to make a frame like that overt, but a character making a confessional statement is typically trying to make sure their side of a story is heard. Offred desired to be witnessed, to be seen as a person again, and that’s why she’s telling her story. Does the intended audience matter? They could be confessing to the world, or to a god they believe in, or in their diary. Knowing that can help (it’s really helps me focus my novel’s narratives sometimes), but it’s not required, no. What’s more important is knowing the protagonist’s desire to be heard, and how they want to present themselves, even if only secretly in their own head Everyone writes a story about their own life. This is how most autobiographical memories are formed. If you’re choosing to depict that process in action, with a present tense narrative, that’s fine. Realizing that’s what you’re doing helps though. Because what a person notices verses what they don’t, what they remember vs. what they don’t, what they admit to themselves or won’t—all these things form a character’s personality and being aware of that helps a writer figure out what’s important to the story they’re telling E. I will also say (and this is just like, my opinion, man) is a jokey princess protagonist really appeals to me if her reason for telling her story is, “Lemme tell y’all why you all suck” with the intended audience being everyone who sucks (whether or not she’s just doing it in her head for her own satisfaction or writing a novel-length tirade against the realm) and if that was the angle you went with I’d be all hell yeah! Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Oct 9, 2023 |
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Oct 9, 2023 22:16
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:
Honestly, you do you, and keep writing. I know that some authors get focused, and can thwart away their inner critic, by having an answer to the questions Stuporstar is asking.
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Oct 10, 2023 02:49
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DropTheAnvil posted:Honestly, you do you, and keep writing. I know that some authors get focused, and can thwart away their inner critic, by having an answer to the questions Stuporstar is asking. That’s really it. When I know why the protagonist is telling the story the way they are I feel more confident I’m on the right track. This method has really paid off for me. Since I started focusing on character and voice, I’ve found beta readers are way more into whatever I’m writing, even if the plot is thin—like my protagonist can bullshit away and so long as it’s interesting, people just go with it. It’s been a huge change from earlier drafts of poo poo where reader response has been kinda meh I mean, if you look back on that example I posted from Milkman, that novel is long and meandering and only looks at the Troubles in 1970s Ireland kinda sideways, but if you’re into the voice from go, it’s fantastic, it’s mesmerizing I can’t recommend trying for voicey prose enough, but hey I get some people aren’t up to it (I just wish everyone would try cause drat it’s fun)
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Oct 10, 2023 03:38
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Stuporstar posted:Excellent words about writing in first person So I'd actually been toying with the idea of doing a self-indulgent creative exercise in which I rewrite the first chapter of my story (which is (pretty deep) limited third) in retrospective first person just for the hell of it. And now you're making me really want to do it even though I really don't have time for it. In pondering how it might work, I've realized that EVERYTHING changes. And there are so many questions. What's the retrospective lens? Is my protagonist looking back from having recently finished his arc (putting him in his early 20's), or is he looking back as a much older man? Either way, he's been through some harrowing poo poo, so how does his experience color his retelling of the event that started it all? How does he view the naive attitudes/choices of his past child self? Is he sympathetic towards them? Bitterly cynical? How does he introduce/describe important characters? How does he talk about the people he encounters as a kid who later become enemies that he kills? I could go on. There's so much nuance and so many things that affect and inform the narrative and voice. Even writing in strict limited third, I find myself making a lot of the same considerations that I'd make writing in first person. I am very much in my characters' heads, delivering the story as they see/experience it through their eyes and filtered through their understanding and opinions, and the narrative never jumps outside the character's mind for those "little did he know" omniscient moments for the reader's benefit. It's really fun and rewarding to write, as a huge reason I write is to get out of my own head and into different characters, and gives me the opportunity for a lot of variation in narrative voice for the different POVs, but it also comes with a slew of narrative challenges, namely that it limits how much contextual exposition I can provide (because lol who sees their best friend and then stops and thinks about what they look like in excruciating detail?), and requires me to be very careful about how I design scenes and sequences and place POV characters so I can get the story coverage/context that I need. Now that I'm thinking about it, you get back some narrative leeway in retrospective first person because your narrating character has the advantage of hindsight, so that could be a tool for providing context beyond what a character is experiencing at the moment (as opposed to immediate first or limited third). Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I recently saw something on story structure where the very first part is noted as the Exposition To add the chorus of Just Write, don't worry too much about all this stuff while you're writing, especially your first draft, and especially if you feel hobbled by trying to adhere to all the bullet points. I got curious and dug up some online articles on story structure etc and even though they say that there are no hard and fast rules and that it's just guidelines, some of them were written in a very prescriptive sort of way. Ack. If you want to write a scene, just write it and don't fret about whether it hits one of those prescribed plot beats or whatever. Once you have the whole thing, you can look back on it as a whole and revise/add/subtract as needed. I personally find that looking into story structure is much more helpful for self-analysis and troubleshooting after you've written a bunch of stuff than it is for guiding your writing. For example, I was grappling with the odd two-act structure I'd arrived at in my book, in which there's a major poo poo-hits-fan moment mid-story that divides it into two "acts", before and after poo poo hits the fan. It's definitely NOT a three-act structure, but then I did some digging and it turns out that structurally, it's basically Freytag's Pyramid, down to the centrally positioned "climax" and the "catastrophe" at the end. Did I set out to write this structure on purpose? Nope. It just happened. Besides, all those writing articles would tell you that using Freytag's Pyramid is a dumb because it's dated and overly focused on tragedies. But now that I've identified the sort of structure it ended up being, I'm having an easier time adjusting narrative beats and such. Same kind of thing happened with hero's journey. I didn't go out of my way to hit all the beats, it just kind of happened, and I was able to go back and analyze what was going on so I could make it better/clearer.
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Oct 11, 2023 03:50
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Queen Victorian posted:So I'd actually been toying with the idea of doing a self-indulgent creative exercise in which I rewrite the first chapter of my story (which is (pretty deep) limited third) in retrospective first person just for the hell of it. And now you're making me really want to do it even though I really don't have time for it. So like. You should also do this thing. If it works for me it works for everyone, that's the way of the universe, clearly. What is "time" but a stretch of space you were going to be writing in anyway
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Oct 11, 2023 11:20
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Stuporstar posted:E. The problems, which are ones that make me nope out, is the narration being unfocused and using badly applied 3rd person techniques, like too many action beats that are focused outside the narrator’s head (like them describing their own facial expressions and body positioning from outside rather than what they’re feeling inside). Ungrounded exposition just because it needs to be there but is written in such a way that makes the reader scream, “Why are you saying this?” Because in immediate 1st person, a person isn’t thinking out the entire background of their culture in bland expository prose—instead they have opinions about things. This is helpful advice. I found it much more helpful than just saying “I think all good 1st person povs consider why the narrator is telling this story whether they protagonist has an audience in mind or not.” I also do now think I sort-of get the intent behind what you were trying to say, that the narration can change if, for example, the narrator is conscious of putting their thoughts, feelings and experiences into a medium where others are expected to hear them and judge. Re: “Lemme tell y’all why you all suck.” The book will focus more on the princess’s attempts to prove herself through actions, and less so on her going “oh no you di’n’t” to all the men of the royal court, as amusing as that sounds. Queen Victorian posted:Now that I'm thinking about it, you get back some narrative leeway in retrospective first person because your narrating character has the advantage of hindsight, so that could be a tool for providing context beyond what a character is experiencing at the moment (as opposed to immediate first or limited third). I will be writing in past tense. Personally, I’m not really feeling keen about a retrospective narrator approach, because I intend for there to be an element of mystery which I want the reader to be thinking about and trying to solve alongside the characters. Going retrospective feels like either I would have to be going “wink wink nudge nudge” to undercut the mystery, or else remaining silent at the exact points where a retrospective narrator should be going “wink wink nudge nudge,” which I feel would be 'cheating' the reader. Queen Victorian posted:I personally find that looking into story structure is much more helpful for self-analysis and troubleshooting after you've written a bunch of stuff than it is for guiding your writing. To be clear, I did not start out going “okay, I have a story structure, now let me think of beats which go here.” It was “here are the rough story beats in my head, and hey, they seem to fit onto this traditional pattern.” Whether you think it’s good or bad, I chose the “Hero’s Journey” pattern because it has the most detail and concrete explanation of what the steps are, in comparison to ones which just loving have “Rising Action” as the only real description for what should go into the 70-80% of the book that part occupies. And as for “just write,” I am writing. Just hours ago for instance, I had a thought process which went approximately: This scene is in Charlotte’s study -> I can use the setting to tell the reader something about Charlotte’s character -> What would be on her desk? -> Papers about the current crisis -> numbers of refugees both estimated and actually arrived, casualty reports, economic reports on how food costs are spiking now, due to both higher demand and lesser supply, and so on -> that seems like it would be sensitive information -> would the bureaucrats just hand this over freely? -> noooooooo -> In fact they’d probably just deny or delay her requests in a patronizing and stubborn way -> Not just because they’re sexist, but because they’re also highly territorial and don’t want to risk being shown up -> So Charlotte decided to ‘borrow’ the papers she needed -> = 200+ words written down of Charlotte in her own voice explaining this in a rant -> (after tweaking, maybe it'll be more, maybe less. Parts could be in a conversation she’s having with her friend - figure that out later.) -> which serves the multiple purposes of revealing some of Charlotte’s character, the personal challenges she faces, important background on the main plot, and it teases the reader with interesting details and adds a hook (eg. “Unlike those bureaucrats, I was there at [place], and saw the destruction with my own eyes”) And that’s just from one thing in her room (probably the most important thing, but still). So just because I am doing things which people dismiss as Not-Writing (therefore useless) does not mean that I am not also Writing. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Oct 11, 2023 |
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Oct 11, 2023 13:45
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quote:So just because I am doing things which people dismiss as Not-Writing (therefore useless) does not mean that I am not also Writing. Just wanna highlight this cause it’s an important thing for everyone to remember. There’s this kneejerk response to say, “Just write. Stop thinking about poo poo,” when one suspects someone’s not furiously barfing out their first draft to completion—but not everyone works in such clearcut stages. My own process involves jumping from one stage to another and jumping from one novel to another (the Mark Twain method), because it’s the only thing that keeps my momentum up when I hit a brick wall. When I get stuck or bored on a story, I often need to pause and have a think. Sometimes it requires stopping and outlining to figure poo poo out. Or I work on another project while my subconscious works on the stuck draft on the backburner. There are times when I need to push because writing the wrong thing will help me figure out what the right thing is, but I’ve learned by feel when to keep pushing or back off. This is how I work with my ADHD to keep writing. It’s not efficient, but I do eventually finish my novels this way. I found this video series enlightened me on how my chaotic writing method is actually common enough to get labeled a writer type: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eryQEZImm6Y It’s nice to know I’m not alone in this and it helped me figure out how to work with my divergent brain rather than beating my head against it trying to “Shut Up and Just Write” Stabbey_the_Clown posted:This is helpful advice. I found it much more helpful than just saying “I think all good 1st person povs consider why the narrator is telling this story whether they protagonist has an audience in mind or not.” This is it really. But even if the narrator is not expecting their thoughts and feelings to be judged by others, they still judge themself in various ways. That can either be in the moment or retrospectively. How close you choose their perspective to be from their actions will decide how far you go with that. If they’re only looking back from moment to moment, and we’re only experiencing what’s in their head as they do that, it won’t be as informed a perspective as though they were reminiscing years later. You can make the narrator’s focus as wide or narrow as you want. quote:I will be writing in past tense. Personally, I’m not really feeling keen about a retrospective narrator approach, because I intend for there to be an element of mystery which I want the reader to be thinking about and trying to solve alongside the characters. Going retrospective feels like either I would have to be going “wink wink nudge nudge” to undercut the mystery, or else remaining silent at the exact points where a retrospective narrator should be going “wink wink nudge nudge,” which I feel would be 'cheating' the reader. Past tense 1st person doesn’t necessarily mean you have to take the retrospective narrator approach (meaning making it obvious the narrator is looking back on their past through a more experienced lens). They could be looking back on what they did moments or hours ago, which is what I meant by wide or narrow focus. The closer perspective is more narrow because the narrator doesn’t have as much future context to judge their actions by, which sounds like what you want. I don’t want you to take away the wrong idea about retrospective narrators though. Even if you were using that lens, the narrator doesn’t have to acknowledge the future (it’s just open as an option). We as readers understand a story has to be told in the right order to make the retelling of events impact us the right way. Just like no one expects the punchline of a joke to come before the joke is fully set up. Queen Victorian posted:So I'd actually been toying with the idea of doing a self-indulgent creative exercise in which I rewrite the first chapter of my story (which is (pretty deep) limited third) in retrospective first person just for the hell of it. And now you're making me really want to do it even though I really don't have time for it. Hell yes! HELL YES! Playing with all this is so much fun. This is where 1st person really shines. What it does better than even close limited 3rd. Like Wungus, I’ve completely rewritten novels for pov and voice, and yeah it takes a lotta time. I’ve never regretted it though. It’s always come out a billion times better than before. I also write novels for fun, first and foremost, and don’t have any deadlines. So if rewriting a wholeass novel from scratch feels like alotta fun, I do it. Hell yeah! There’s other things you can do in 1st person, like bullshit omniscient, where the character assumes what other people are thinking (and lots of opportunity to prove them wrong). They can recount another person’s story in 3rd from their own perspective (which I mentioned before talking about Damon Runyon), whereas if you were doing that in 3rd person for everyone you’d be switching character pov entirely. Basically the 1st person narrator is inherently subjective. The term unreliable narrator is only applied when the narrator’s unreliability is revealed to the reader, but really all 1st person accounts are unreliable because everyone misremembers, mishears, doesn’t see things, makes wrong assumptions, etc. When the writer chooses to acknowledge that fact, there’s a ton of fun to be had with it. When the writer doesn’t acknowledge the fact 1st person is subjective, they can get stuck thinking, “But this is what really happened to my character!” (which lol, it’s fiction, remember?) And have a hard time changing the story to be a better story if what they think realistically happened is boring or not working. My 1st person protagonist is a total bullshitter, so they will always tell what makes a better story over the “truth.” I always have in the back of my mind alternate possible versions of events (often ditched drafts) and I’m never wedded to any of them. It makes revising feel free and joyful rather than a slog.
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Oct 11, 2023 16:41
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My advice wasn’t meant to be “shut up and write” it was more “don’t get too hung up worrying about things that will likely change later.” Of course, there’s more texture in there than I might imply. I do know that there are a LOT of people saying they are writing something and have literally not written a single word of prose for years. (I was one.) if that’s your jam, cool, but planning isn’t going to get the book written. No gatekeeping or shade thrown - just advice.
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Oct 11, 2023 19:38
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Wungus posted:Not to encourage some possible Difficult Choices but I got 40k into my last book, realized something wasn't quite hitting right, did this, and wound up rewriting the whole thing from scratch into a really voicey first person and it absolutely made the book a way better thing. Stuporstar posted:Hell yes! HELL YES! Playing with all this is so much fun. This is where 1st person really shines. What it does better than even close limited 3rd. Like Wungus, I’ve completely rewritten novels for pov and voice, and yeah it takes a lotta time. I’ve never regretted it though. It’s always come out a billion times better than before. I also write novels for fun, first and foremost, and don’t have any deadlines. So if rewriting a wholeass novel from scratch feels like alotta fun, I do it. Hell yeah! I think I just might. For funsies. Perhaps it'll be creatively informative/helpful in getting me into the protagonist's end state headspace better (I'm a fan of understanding my character arcs in a holistic fashion) and help me loosen up and work on atmosphere and vibe. But as the story is now (and the main threads and principal cast are pretty solidified at this point), I don't think first person (or really, single POV) is a viable option beyond being a fun experiment, unfortunately. To be clear, that's not to say it's not viable because I'm unwilling to rewrite what I have - I most definitely am. Hell, a major part of my process is to fully retype/rewrite chapters as I redraft them. It's a very freeing way to (re)write and apply revisions, and despite all the extra typing, I find it faster than picking through and editing and getting overly attached to existing docs. This story absolutely needs to be multi-POV - it's a fantasy, and while the story is pretty strongly centered around the protagonist, it's bigger than just his arc and his experience, and even with the benefit of retrospect, I don't think having him narrate the stories of the other principal characters (large parts of which happen far away from him) would remotely do them justice, and I am loathe to even consider multi-POV first person without a bunch of elaborate framing to make it not awkward/confusing. Besides, I really like my other POVs (especially protag's sister, whose arc is absolutely insane and could not be done justice by being told by someone else). So deep limited third is where I landed because I can do multiple POVs and still get deep into my characters' heads and be voicey and subjective with the prose. Stabbey_the_Clown posted:To be clear, I did not start out going “okay, I have a story structure, now let me think of beats which go here.” It was “here are the rough story beats in my head, and hey, they seem to fit onto this traditional pattern.” Please don't bite (stab?) my head off for I meant no offense  It just seemed to me, from my read of your posts, that all the story structure stuff you kept referencing might have been weighing a bit heavily on your process/the way you were thinking about what you are writing, so I just wanted to say not to sweat it too much or let it stop you from writing what you feel like even if it doesn't fit/contribute to the structure/your outline or whatever. To what Doctor Zero said, I think what most of us are saying is along the lines of not getting hung up on stuff if it slows you down or pulls you away from what you want to write. Getting hung up on poo poo is a problem I have a lot and it stops me dead in my tracks a lot of the time and the only way I can move past it is to stop caring for a bit and just write something without worrying about whether it covers X plot beat or where it is on the timeline or whatever. Stuporstar posted:I will be writing in past tense. Personally, I’m not really feeling keen about a retrospective narrator approach, because I intend for there to be an element of mystery which I want the reader to be thinking about and trying to solve alongside the characters. Going retrospective feels like either I would have to be going “wink wink nudge nudge” to undercut the mystery, or else remaining silent at the exact points where a retrospective narrator should be going “wink wink nudge nudge,” which I feel would be 'cheating' the reader. So, one of the most riveting football games I've watched was one where I knew the outcome (watched via DVR). Coming up on halftime, our team was losing BADLY and I got up and left because it was hella bleak and I wasn't interested in watching them get curbstomped (by their arch rivals no less) and out of morbid curiosity I checked the score and to my utter surprise, they had won. So I went back to the TV den and kept watching because now I had to know how the gently caress they managed to pull it off, and holy crap it was exciting to see them do it. And I'll bring up Eldest (sequel to Eragon) by Christopher Paolini because it's an example of how insisting on "mystery" and having a "surprise" at the end can get in the way of a potentially much better story. In the beginning, the fan favorite character Murtagh disappears in an accident and is presumed dead despite no body. Oh noes. Then we follow protag Eragon and we also have these two other POVs which are absolute slogs. In the finale, there's a new bad guy dragon rider and it is "dramatically" revealed to be none other than Murtagh, who was not actually dead. Surprise. And we find out that Murtagh was kidnapped, hatched and bonded a dragon, got corrupted and was forced to serve the big bad and wait why the gently caress didn't we get to see THAT story?? A Murtagh POV would have been SO much better than the boring useless secondary POVs we did get, and the book might have even been good. I did not feel surprised. I felt cheated. So sometimes the most compelling mysteries are not the ones you think (will they win vs how did they win), sometimes what's compelling isn't the mystery at all, and sometimes surprises/dramatic reveals aren't remotely worth it. A retrospective POV in particular gives you ample ability to play around with this and frame your mysteries and what you reveal to the reader and when. Gauging what works can be really tough though, but this is where beta readers can really help.
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Oct 12, 2023 03:01
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^^These are all really great points. And this…Queen Victorian posted:I think I just might. For funsies. Perhaps it'll be creatively informative/helpful in getting me into the protagonist's end state headspace better (I'm a fan of understanding my character arcs in a holistic fashion) and help me loosen up and work on atmosphere and vibe. This is absolutely the best reason to stick to limited 3rd. But hell yeah to rewriting a bit for fun. I also tend to rewrite scenes from a blank page. For one my first drafts are complete slop with hardly any wordage worth keeping, and getting bogged down polishing a turd is the worst way to revise. I’ve tried out scenes in multiple povs as well. In one case I decided starting one of my novels with my 1st person protagonist narrating something that happened to them in 3rd person was the way to go during a period where they were completely dissociated. I also play with tense in similar ways, like switching to present tense when their retelling turns into a full on PTSD flashback. In other cases I try rewriting a scene from a different pov, and I found it a useful exercise looking outside my protagonist every once in a while—especially to demonstrate just how weird they are and how they’re really not as good at being relatable to other people as they think they are
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Oct 12, 2023 04:06
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Queen Victorian posted:Please don't bite (stab?) my head off for I meant no offense The epithet was directed at structures which just put in “Rising Action” or something equally minimal for the portion which occupies the majority of the time. There are two reasons why I'm trying to be conscious of my scenes at least having a bare structure. The first is that (in previous projects) I have indeed attempted to blindly just write through scenes before, and certain scenes didn’t work. Even I, a Certified Dumbass (I have a plaque!) could tell by the way I got bored out of my skull trying to write them. The reason why I got bored – which I didn't see at the time, only later – was that there was no conflict, only exposition. [EDIT: REMOVED] A scene which lacks a goal, conflict and/or setback after being written is not going to magically transmute later without my awareness into a scene which has them. The second reason is that I have read books from a couple of different authors (not Estep) which I have utterly devoured, sometimes in hours, definitely less than a calendar week. Not every book I’ve read was like that, and in fact most of them aren’t. I didn’t yet know the formal structure the scenes use, I didn’t have words for it. But when I did hear about the structure (Goal, Conflict, Setback), I immediately recognized that those books which I found so enjoyable an exciting to read fit the pattern. I recognized as a reader how effective that style of storytelling was at hooking me and making me want to keep reading. If it makes me want to keep reading, it probably wants to make other people keep reading too. Queen Victorian posted:So sometimes the most compelling mysteries are not the ones you think (will they win vs how did they win), sometimes what's compelling isn't the mystery at all, and sometimes surprises/dramatic reveals aren't remotely worth it. A retrospective POV in particular gives you ample ability to play around with this and frame your mysteries and what you reveal to the reader and when. Gauging what works can be really tough though, but this is where beta readers can really help. [EDIT: REMOVED] Do note the absence of the word “twist.” I said (or implied) I wanted the reader to be able to solve it. Which means making use of foreshadowing, and I have notes on various specific ways to do so. I also read a lot of mysteries and have grown savvy enough as a reader to spot when writers layer in clues and foreshadowing for later – or as use as red herrings. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Oct 12, 2023 |
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Oct 12, 2023 14:05
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I have zero idea what the gently caress you're talking about, dude. But if you write your stories in the same style as these posts, I would think twice before dismissing literally any advice.
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Oct 12, 2023 14:55
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:A lot of the advice I’m getting, while well-meaning, to me feels like “even if you see obvious problems, you’re writing in an Objectively Wrong way if you do not ignore the problems and keep stubbornly plunging ahead at breakneck pace.” Dude, I think you’re reading too much of the old assholeishness of this forum sub into everyone’s posting now. No one here was telling you these things or trying to be a dick to you (except maybe chillmatic now that you’re being super aggro here). Just chill and try to take people’s advice on better faith
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Oct 12, 2023 15:17
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So I did a thing, mostly for my own amusement/as a warmup to that alt perspective experiment I am totally going to do, but also because I want to clarify my point about using narrative perspective as a means to manage the story's mysteries and the reader expectations around them. The thing I did was rear end-pull a random and fairly generic passage from a nonexistent story about a guy and girl who meet up and leave on some adventure/quest/thing together and then write it four ways: Preparation #1: limited third: quote:Johnny was already there when Sarah arrived, leaning against the gnarled old tree. A smile spread across his face when he saw her, one of his broad, beautiful smiles that shone in his eyes. Cool, I guess Johnny and Sarah are going to go on an adventure together? What is this thing that they have to do? And I suppose it'll maybe be dangerous (read: exciting) since they're both scared. I don't know a lot about what they're doing or where they're going, but I guess I'll read and find out. The mystery is that I don't know what's going to happen next because I haven't read it yet. My questions so far are pretty general ("what happens next", basically). Maybe I want to know more about Sarah and Johnny's relationship and where it'll go. I am curious about this in general, but I don't have any specific expectations because none besides really general ones have been set. This is what I typically write in, and it serves my style and my story quite well. You're close to the POV character and you ride with them and see/experience the things that they do as the story unfolds. You can get pretty deep with it, which makes it more visceral and voicey. Benefits include not requiring any sort of narrative framing/context, and enables multiple POVs. Preparation #2: (immediate) first person: quote:Johnny was already there when I arrived, leaning against the gnarled old tree. A smile spread across his face when he saw me, one of his broad, beautiful smiles that you could see in his eyes. Here it is again in "regular" first person. It reads very similarly to the limited third - it was basically just a pronoun find/replace and some grammatical tweaks to make it sound a bit more like someone (Sarah) could be speaking it out. You still see things as they unfold through the POV character's eyes. It's easy (and fun) to write and make the reader feel close to the character, and it generally reads pretty easily, and great if you have just the one POV. You can get away with no/minimal narrative framing/context, but also, Sarah-as-narrator doesn't come through as a distinct voice as the story teller because it's more of an extension of Sarah-as-character in the moment. You can still get nice and voicey with it. The questions I have are still the same as the limited third version because it reads so similarly and I still have the same character lens context. Preparation #3: retrospective first person done poorly: Stabbey, I made this one for you because I've gotten the sense that this is what you think we mean when we talk about retrospective first person. quote:Johnny was already there when I arrived, leaning against the gnarled old tree. A smile spread across his face when he saw me, one of his broad, beautiful smiles that you could see in his eyes. It's basically the same as the regular/immediate first person version above except with a "little did we know' interjection of vague and not very compelling foreshadowing reminding you that this is retrospective. The interjection is pretty coy and doesn't give anything away but also doesn't really provide you with anything new in terms of establishing/driving mystery or expectations. I guess it's intrigued me a little bit by hinting that they have a rough road ahead of them, and maybe some bad things happen if she wishes she'd have made a different choice. To note, when I'm talking about "mystery" here, I'm talking about it as a thing the reader doesn't know but wants to know as a literary device, not mystery as it pertains to the mystery genre (which I can't speak to because I don't think I've read a proper mystery novel since, like, middle school). Preparation #4: retrospective first person gone hog wild: Well this was a loving blast to write. Also significantly more difficult to write than the other perspectives, even in the case of adapting this disembodied little snippet, but totally worth it. quote:Johnny was already there when I arrived, leaning against the gnarled old tree. He smiled when he saw me. It was one of his old smiles, and I can still remember it perfectly, as close and vivid as though we were still standing in that forest clearing, still innocent, still whole. The memory of that smile is one of the only things I have left of him as he was before. He was never the same after his time in the Tower, after they took his eye, and even though he would still smile, there was something pale and desolate about them, like the ghosts of smiles. It was more than just his eye that they took from him, I knew, even though he would never admit it, never even speak about it. So yeah, it's QUITE different from the others in terms of vibe and voice, seeing as Sarah-as-narrator comes off much more strongly as a distinct character from Sarah-as-character, and very different in how it handles mystery and expectations. Everything really does change. Despite the fact that this version "gives away" quite a few details about what's going to happen in this story, it poses way more questions than the other versions. Basically, I've dispensed with the mysteries of "what happens" in order to replace them with more specific, and in my opinion more compelling, mysteries of "how does this happen" and "why does this happen". I've also shown the reader specifically what they can expect to find out about if they keep reading. In the other versions, my reader questions about this story were very general ("what happens next", "how does their relationship grow/change") and very few. My reader expectations were also very general ("I guess it'll be interesting", "I guess I can expect some danger and a tough journey"). But in this version? First of all, holy crap Johnny loses an eye?? How? Who takes it from him and why? Who are "they"? What's the Tower? Why was he there and for how long? What the hell even happened there to wreck Johnny like that? What does she mean when she says they used to be whole? Johnny loses an eye but what happens to her to make her not whole? What does this do to their relationship? Are they still together? Is Johnny even still alive? What's this darker realm they pass into? Is it metaphorical or literal? Why can't they ever return? So yeah, using the retrospective POV, I was able to completely change up the mystery aspects, raise a ton of questions for the reader (and myself) to stew over, steer the focus/anticipation towards certain story elements, like this Tower and whatever the gently caress Johnny goes through. There were other directions I could have taken it too, like maybe being more explicit about this Tower and being more coy about Johnny losing an eye by describing it as a price Johnny pays or something. And it turbocharges the narrative voice. Seriously, this is a super powerful narrative tool. Challenging, though, because the narrative perspective is a character it its own right that you have to develop, you need to know how everything happens and the end states of your characters so you can properly and accurately retrospect, you need to set up your mysteries and tension and stuff by choosing what you want to reveal or not, you probably need at least somewhat of a narrative frame, etc. Overall it's tons of fun and everyone should try it. Queen Victorian fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Oct 14, 2023 |
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Oct 13, 2023 05:40
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Queen Victorian posted:Some excellent stuff… This is exactly what I’m talking about, hell yeah! I basically go hog wild like this all the time now (and so does Wungus, his poo poo is so good now daaamn). Even if I’m writing in present tense 1st person, I usually have a device to explain it being semi-retrospective, like someone reliving their memories and having the future (actual present) bleed in and cool poo poo like that. I even try to go hog wild a bit like this in 3rd person, cause if you’ve read any of George Saunders recent short stories, hoo boy he can show you how it’s done. In Steering the Craft (one of the best writing books ever) Ursula K. Leguin has a section on pov and an exercise similar to what you’ve done. I did them myself and had a lotta fun with it, which I’ll post if I can dig it up.
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Oct 13, 2023 23:05
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Stuporstar posted:This is exactly what I’m talking about, hell yeah! I basically go hog wild like this all the time now (and so does Wungus, his poo poo is so good now daaamn). I go about it sort of differently, in that I more think of the POV as like, how is the POV building a story of what happened for themselves. Like, characters actively choosing to lie to themselves or forceably and deliberately pay attention to specific things that paint an "favorable" version of how they want to remember. It's still the whole "first person POV telling a record of something to someone" but it's more about how they'd tell themselves. Or how they'd paint a picture for themselves. Or how they'd try and believe their own lie It's fun as hell.
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Oct 15, 2023 01:12
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Queen Victorian posted:A Murtagh POV would have been SO much better than the boring useless secondary POVs we did get, and the book might have even been good. Slight O/T but Murtagh, the actual Murtagh POV book, is out next month and I'm kinda excited even though the original Inheritance Cycle was somewhat meh. Anyway, to contribute: Queen Victorian posted:Now that I'm thinking about it, you get back some narrative leeway in retrospective first person because your narrating character has the advantage of hindsight, so that could be a tool for providing context beyond what a character is experiencing at the moment (as opposed to immediate first or limited third). It's worth noting that you don't always have to stick so rigidly to POV. Deliberate POV shifts (not just a POV change and not to be confused with head hopping) can have great effect when done with intention and done well. You can go from third omniscient to third limited, or the reverse, or shift from one character to the other, or go even go from third into first or first into third. Kind of like camera angle changes if you use film as an analogy. Queen Victorian posted:This story absolutely needs to be multi-POV - it's a fantasy, and while the story is pretty strongly centered around the protagonist, it's bigger than just his arc and his experience, and even with the benefit of retrospect, I don't think having him narrate the stories of the other principal characters (large parts of which happen far away from him) would remotely do them justice, and I am loathe to even consider multi-POV first person without a bunch of elaborate framing to make it not awkward/confusing. Besides, I really like my other POVs (especially protag's sister, whose arc is absolutely insane and could not be done justice by being told by someone else). So deep limited third is where I landed because I can do multiple POVs and still get deep into my characters' heads and be voicey and subjective with the prose. It's rarer to come across and harder to do well, but if you really want multi-first person POV, you can do this. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik is one example. But coming back to the original question: Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I recently saw something on story structure where the very first part is noted as the Exposition which should set up what counts as "normal" for the protagonist. It sounded reasonable, so I rolled the clock back a bit to 3 or 4 hours before the assassination attempt to do some exposition and setting stuff there. There's loads of different ways to structure a story but the thing to remember about them all is that they're frameworks for analysis. As in, somebody came up with it after listening/reading lots and lots of stories and distilled their similarities into a framework. Extreme outliners will probably disagree with me but like, so much happens between when you start (i.e. when you get the idea) and when you finish (i.e. when you call the nth draft done and go off to query it, trunk it, or publish it) that I often find if you're arbitrarily trying to force chapters to hit some beat in some framework, the story actually suffers. Also first chapters are just hard to get right. They need to hook the reader and they need to encapsulate the experience of reading the full story and often times you can't get a first chapter that works until you've finished writing the whole story. Because until you have actually sat down and written the whole thing, you can't really step back to look at it all and make sure that it all hangs together. So yeah, the best thing you can do is finish your current iteration of the first chapter and move on to writing the rest of the book. Stabbey_the_Clown posted:But just now I was talking about writing through a new scene, trying to see what fits and what doesn't, and then I had to stop because I recognized that plowing forward without establishing a clear goal for my main character means the scene was going to be muddled and not work properly. I think being able to spot structure problems before slapping down a few hundred words is not a bad thing to have. Yes, it is possible to get bogged down, and yes, I need to watch out for that. FWIW, I am a strong advocate of not blindly forging on ahead when you definitely know something is off structurally—in those cases, you should stop and work out what the issue is. I'm also somebody with a novel-length prose graveyard. But the thing I always tend to forget is that I rarely go back to resurrect prose from it. Most of the time, by the time I need something like it, I can come up with something better. Because creativity can be cool like that.
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Oct 16, 2023 04:30
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Harrow The Ninth does something amazing with it's POV but I won't spoil it if you wanna read The Locked Tomb series for yourself.
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Oct 16, 2023 04:42
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Any go-to tips for deciding on what to trim in edits? I was shooting for 8k words with my latest short story and closed out the first draft at 10.5k. I know both are in the same word count range for the sake of submitting to most places, but I'd love to tighten things up. First-person sci-fi horror (but intensely character and trauma-driven) if that helps at all.
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Oct 16, 2023 16:06
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10.5 is long yeah. Odds are (given it's a short story) that you are doing too much in scene; some of it can probably be changed into summary. Scene is like, Battuta sat at the computer and logged on to Something Awful. "Can't you post well for a change?' Battuta's roommate asked. "No," Battuta said, "I can only post badly. Would you get me a kiwi?" Battuta's roommate brought the kiwi, but to Battuta's horror, the kiwi was skinned. "I eat my kiwis with the skin ON!" Battuta howled. Battuta's heart rate monitor would have gone off, but Battuta's greasy twink wrist had shed the smartwatch some hours ago. Summary is like, Battuta posted badly on Something Awful and yelled about kiwis. It's an important structural element - the balance between scene and summary really helps manage the pace and energy of a story.
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Oct 16, 2023 16:28
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change my name posted:Any go-to tips for deciding on what to trim in edits? I was shooting for 8k words with my latest short story and closed out the first draft at 10.5k. I know both are in the same word count range for the sake of submitting to most places, but I'd love to tighten things up. First-person sci-fi horror (but intensely character and trauma-driven) if that helps at all. Every word you possibly can. More seriously, everyone is different but I find the hackneyed editing tactic of "put yourself in a headspace where you believe you're being paid $50 per cut word" very useful for myself. I philosophically subscribe to the Saint-Exupery definition of elegance, but my writing is very much the opposite of that before I get out my editing machete. Even with that though, if you're 25% over your word count target you're not going to get there just by cutting out words. You're looking for paragraphs, even scenes, that can be cut.
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Oct 16, 2023 16:30
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It's not universal (and given your story is so character driven it may be a non-starter) but one thing I'm always looking for is which characters I can cut or combine. You'd be amazed how much that can tidy things up.
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Oct 16, 2023 16:37
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change my name posted:Any go-to tips for deciding on what to trim in edits? I was shooting for 8k words with my latest short story and closed out the first draft at 10.5k. I know both are in the same word count range for the sake of submitting to most places, but I'd love to tighten things up. First-person sci-fi horror (but intensely character and trauma-driven) if that helps at all. This is what works for me mostly: First, give your brain a rest on the story. Let yourself forget it as much as you can. Second, after you've forgotten it, without going back, ask yourself what the theme/feeling/purpose you want to capture with that story is. And make sure that purpose is crystal clear in your brain. Third, read your story and cut/edit/rearrange anything that doesn't reinforce that purpose. You don't always have to be able to say, "Detail X is directly related to the theme like this." But you should be able to say, "Detail X strengthens my character's motivation which illustrates the theme like this." And it can get hard because there might be some drat good sentences that don't actually further that purpose of the story. And they probably have to go even though they are fun. But cutting them makes the whole story drat good rather than just some of the sentences. Good luck!
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Oct 16, 2023 18:00
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Oh actually - read the story out loud. When you're bored or thinking "oh my god do I have to read all this before I get to X", cut.
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Oct 16, 2023 18:15
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Thanks, all! Will probably crack into the first round of edits at the end of the week
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Oct 16, 2023 20:34
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Oct 18, 2023 05:52
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there's a word on the tip of my tongue but I can't find it for some reason and maybe someone here can help. what's another word for a feudal territory? e.g. in Major League Baseball a team's owner has exclusive rights to the territory their team resides in– what is the word for that region? like another word for a tiny kingdom or industry enclave.
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Oct 19, 2023 17:39
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Fiefdom? Domain?
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Oct 19, 2023 17:41
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:smack: oh drat, I think it was fiefdom. how did I forget that? too many goofballs on my end. ty
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Oct 19, 2023 17:52
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| # ? May 23, 2024 08:17 |
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Use demesne
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Oct 19, 2023 19:05
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