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I really enjoyed the post about getting feedback. Who knew a guy who does game design would have such relevant advice for all the arts? This changed the way I approached feedback responses, and pushes me to work that much harder. I mean, I think I'd rather have someone read what I wrote all in one sitting and then angrily email or scream at me about how pissed off it made them and how terrible it was. ANYTHING other than a tepid response from someone who had to force themselves to read it! Nika fucked around with this message at 06:20 on Jul 14, 2014 |
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Oct 21, 2013 06:47
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Dr. Kloctopussy posted:This is a real thing that exists. I started looking through that on Amazon and actually found it to be helpful enough to get for my Kindle. I've often had a lot of problems describing body language for certain emotions and it seems to have some interesting things covered like jealousy, impatience, shyness and such. Nika fucked around with this message at 06:19 on Jul 14, 2014 |
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Dec 20, 2013 08:45
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General Battuta posted:Yeah, agreed. 'Said bookisms' are one of the most commonly recognized and mocked marks of bad writing. I realize this is what people say, but I'm always confused as to how this became such a hard and fast rule. I mean, every single book I've got on my bookshelf uses words other than "said" for dialogue tags, though it's only a few times every several pages or so. And I sure as hell don't read THAT much YA. Is it like every other rule: don't overdo it? I wonder if people don't even see the tags other than 'said' when they're done well, and so this rule came about that just seems weird upon further examination of a lot of published work. Your Dead Gay Son posted:Regarding the "said Nancy" and "Nancy said" thing. I had a hard time remembering which of these was "correct" until someone pointed out to me that if you replace the proper noun with a pronoun, it becomes immediately obvious which one is right. "I have been waiting for you," he said. vs. "I have been waiting for you," said he. The second one sounds like some kind of creepy romance novel.
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Jan 2, 2014 23:20
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Editors despise epithets for a reason. Although the goal of minimizing tedious-sounding sentences is a worthy one, there are definitely better ways to go about it.
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Mar 11, 2014 19:25
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CB_Tube_Knight posted:Has anyone here had to write a character that was of a different sexual orientation than them? I have a female character that I'm pretty sure is gay. It's not that I wrote her to be gay or anything. I just feel that she is and it's not because of any specific other trait she has. I'm kind of nervous to write anything too concrete to do with her and another woman because I feel like it would come off as odd or as being some kind of wish fulfillment. Maybe I'm explaining it wrong, but if I do something even slight with two women I want to approach the subject carefully. I've never actually run into many lesbian characters in books or non-offensive gay characters. This is just one queer girl's opinion, but I would consider working out the particular nature of her sexuality before too long. (Unless of course her discovery of it is part of the story itself, but that doesn't sound like the case here.) I definitely appreciate wanting to be sensitive and accurate when portraying something so different from your own experience, and it's certainly possible for an author to do that, but authenticity for something as integral as sexuality requires at least a solid understanding of how said thing works. DivisionPost posted:But in the end, it's like everyone else has said: just as you would ideally treat a gay person no differently than you would treat anyone else, you should write your gay characters just like anyone else. Most likely, their sexuality will only be a minor to moderate detail that won't affect your story at hand. quote:Gay love is really no different than straight love Well...I promise I am not trying to kick up poo poo in here, but in most instances I can think of, the only people I've heard say these kinds of things are straight white men. Similar to this getting thrown around: "just write a black character like you would a white character" or to write an "Indian character just like you would a Mexican character". We're all just people! Color blind! Gender blind! That's exactly the kind of thinking that leads to embarrassing stereotypes, even in spite of good intentions. Through absolutely no fault of their own, people born with the default majority race, gender, and sexual orientation can take a lot of things for granted--again, because these are the default positions according to society and so they've have never had to question why those particular things are the way they are. I think this is where the "if there's no sex scene, then don't even worry about if they're gay or not!" thing comes from, because most heterosexual people don't have to explicitly think of just how much their sexuality really affects their own lives, how often it influences their decisions and interactions with people. Life is different for LGBT folks, even while we're outside the bedroom. Lesbian relationships really aren't the same as gay male relationships, which aren't the same as heterosexual relationships, etc. Even notwithstanding social mores and pressures, men and women usually relate to each other in different ways; gender really does make a difference, even if we preferred that it didn't--and the differences here are not just sexual, either, though they are certainly the most obvious. Even if you plan to write no sex scene at all, a character is still likely to be a sexual creature, something in which gender does play a role. So that should still be accounted for by the author, even if it never shows up on the page. The nonsexual differences between straight and gay relationships are subtle, but certainly still present. Like, because women in most countries are not conditioned, as boys are, to be assertive in pursuing a love interest, women in a lesbian relationship might struggle to progress to the next level because neither woman knows how to make the next move. Sometimes one woman is more stereotypically masculine than the other and thus makes all the moves, but this isn't always common. These are just quick n' dirty examples, but still something to think about. In any case, I really hope I'm not scaring anyone off the idea of trying something different. It is perfectly possible for non-queer folks to write LGBT fiction well. If they are in full control of their characters, have done the research required that any good author would do, and don't let their subconscious needle in little stereotypes here and there, then it would be very difficult to make that character offensive. And just as I would recommend reading science fiction to an author who wants to write science fiction, I would recommend reading lesbian fiction--or at least, fiction with good lesbian characters--to anyone who wants to write about such a character. While decent LGBT fiction is certainly a bit thin on the ground, it's out there. Lethemonster posted:Edit: In regards to writing gay/queer characters, as a queer young lady myself I always appreciate it when it's just treated as a normal everyday thing by the characters in a story. I think unless conflict about LGBT issues is the point of the story it's a nice difference to just get to read about people being decent and normal around the characters who are 'different' in some way. It's actually a bit tedious to see negative encounters wedged into some plots as a side event just because a number of writers think they HAVE to have something confrontational or negative in there if the characters are openly gay. Yes, yes, yes, agree 100%. None of what I said above should be construed to mean that a character's sexuality must be the entire point of a story, or even that it must factor into the story itself at all. All I'm saying is that a person's sexuality does matter, and will necessarily inform what kind of character they are and how they see the world around them. If the author simply addresses that, they're gold! General Battuta posted:Show your reader that you thought about everything. Never take the easy route. I wouldn't even write an I Confront Homophobia scene or an I Come Out Awkwardly scene - the stock narratives about gay people in straight eyes - unless I felt it was necessary and true and I'd bounced it off some queer friends. You nailed it. You're awesome. Nika fucked around with this message at 08:59 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 08:51
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As an editor this topic teased at a particular nerve of mine, and so this post ended up kinda big with lots of examples. Sorry, but hopefully it is helpful to someone! magnificent7 posted:Shawn Of The Dead is about a zombie apocalypse. The plot is taht Shawn is a shoddy boyfriend, doesn't really control much in his life, and by the end, he's a leader and a committed boyfriend, (I think?) This may get into nitpicky industry territory, but what you're describing is generally considered concept vs. premise; most good stories are strong in both areas, which when combined make for the most compelling material. As in: Shaun Of The Dead takes a pretty well-worn concept (a zombie apocalypse) and extrapolates it into a great premise (A boy must become a man to save his relationship from stagnation and also zombies) in order to make a great plot. Neither the relationship troubles nor the zombies would, by themselves, be seen as terribly interesting. But together they make for a funny and engaging story. Hope that makes sense. Another good example of this in action can be seen in the jacket copy for Ian McEwan's book Solar, which is described as: "a satire about a jaded Nobel-winning physicist whose dysfunctional personal life and cynical ambition see him pursuing a solar-energy based solution for climate change." Again, neither element (the climate change, nor dysfunctional personal life) are immediately compelling on their own, but together they make for good reading. The best stories are often well-worn concepts set against a fantastically fresh premise--something that feels familiar, yet original at the same time. This is a big part of how Theme emerges. It's one reason why, for example, The Dark Knight was so cool: the backdrop (joker vs. batman) has literally been done hundreds of times, but now there is a villain who wants to "watch the world burn" vs. a hero who, to stop an enemy with no motivation other than chaos, must "burn down the forest", thus becoming a kind of villain himself. Here are a few more examples: Up In The Air wasn't 'about' a guy with a lot of frequent flier miles going around the country as a consultant to fire people; it was about a man who spent so much of his life despising the idea of being trapped or beholden to any one place or person, to the point where he eventually realized he belonged nowhere at all. (and piss off, it was a great movie and i'll claw out the eyes of anyone who disagrees  )Kill Bill wasn't 'about' The Bride's revenge-y killing spree; it was about (literally, in the film itself) the validity of the question of whether or not a Superman could ever fool the world into thinking he/she was a Clark Kent--and Bill's refusal to believe that the love of his life could ever live as a Kent, going so far as to kill her because the very idea of it caused him so much pain. The concept is: Epic revenge story. The premise is: Woman loses her baby at hand of former lover, and must erase her past as an assassin so she may begin again as a mother. I'll grant that some of the terms and ideas here are not always agreed upon or well-defined, but in my experience the above stuff represents the differences between concept and premise at least reasonably well and why both are usually important to crafting a good story. I can say for certain that often while working over a MS I have banged my head against the desk, wishing that more authors understood this stuff. As in: go ahead and write that story of your painful breakup with your girlfriend or whatever...but set it against something interesting happening. Give your story some kind of universal appeal, some conflict and tension that goes beyond the very mundane; give it a great premise.
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Jun 17, 2014 18:51
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I feel pretty confident that most agents would consider 50k to be too short, even for genre fiction; your stated word count is probably responsible for at least some of your rejections. Are you receiving form rejections or personalized? If they're just generic "Thanks but no thanks" replies then you're not left with much to go on, but I would definitely consider the overall plot/structure of your MS and, as you say, consider fleshing something out. I don't have any real experience with editing anything in the thriller/suspense genre but my instincts say those books could likely get by with a fairly lean word count as there wouldn't be much world building or backstory needed, but you're still going to want to shoot for at least 70k or so. From everything I've seen that's about the minimum count for adult fiction that isn't self-published, though of course there are probably exceptions. And for what it's worth, I've read a lot of self-published stuff (series mostly) that seems to fall well under that mark. quote:I'll tell you what I love more than anything. Rewriting a chapter so that it's ten times better, but, just like time travel, you create ripples that spew across the rest of your universe of novel. gently caress. Content editing can help with this once you've reached that stage.  It's very difficult for most writers to view their own work objectively or to spot the kinds of plot/character/setting inconsistencies that annoy the heck out of readers.
Nika fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Jun 19, 2014 |
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Jun 19, 2014 00:37
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PoshAlligator posted:
Again, I don't have direct experience in the mystery/thriller genre, but I do know that 50k is far too low a word count for most any adult fiction. And I'm not sure an agent would be willing to take a look at something with a count so low, because at best it means that the MS itself will need a massive overhaul/restructuring which, when coming from an unproven novelist, is probably about the lowest percentage shot that exists in publishing. You want to present something up front that is as ready as you can possibly make it, something they can get to market as quickly as possible, and 10-20k additional words aren't going to come quickly or easily. I could see an agent ignoring a 5k over/under or maybe attempt to sort it out in editing--but when you're talking differences of 10k or more for an unproven author, that just seems very unlikely to succeed considering how many reasons there are to instantly reject a query; we all know how quickly agents love to mash that 'nope' button. Nika fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Jun 19, 2014 |
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Jun 19, 2014 19:31
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Sithsaber posted:Do we have to add an extra step before introducing minority protagonists? I've heard that the reader tends to project themselves into and identify with traditional conventions like white leads, and that not going with an ethnic name or behavior right off the bat can lead the reader to be jarred by what to them is a out of nowhere ethnicity reveal/ identification of the character they invested in with "the other" outliers. You should provide your reader with any details that will affect either the story or setting, and leave out the ones that won't. No reason to overthink it. Read your favorite books and see how they convey this information, then use that as a starting point.
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Jul 14, 2014 05:48
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Sithsaber posted:As a dark skinned hispanic, I reserve the right to feel ostracized by society at large. I just don't know how to organically buildup racial tension without mocking Dixie or throwing in gratuitous spanish. Consider your own experiences as a person of color and how you've been marginalized in both real life and in fiction. And then go the other way in your own writing. And again, read your favorite books and study them; learn how they handle the issues you find most troublesome. Because without any context I'm afraid I cannot be of much help to you! edit: and yes, this, forever General Battuta posted:A good story should provide a lot of respectful, effective ways to explain who a character is and where they come from without staring in a mirror or infodumping a biography. Nika fucked around with this message at 06:18 on Jul 14, 2014 |
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Jul 14, 2014 06:16
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Sithsaber posted:I'm trying to figure out how to show my character's race without turning them into a caricature or something dishonest to my story. I'm still not entirely sure why you won't just refer to your favorite books for guidance on this, but I'll try again. This guy  wrote a book called Under Heaven, and after two pages, without even reading the book's jacket copy, I understood what the intended race/ethnicity/appearance of the main characters was supposed to be: quote:His father had been in that war, a general, honoured afterwards with a proud title, Left Side Commander of the Pacified West. Rewarded handsomely by the Son of Heaven for victory: a personal audience in the Hall of Brilliance in the Ta-Ming Palace when he returned back east, the purple sash presented, words of commendation spoken directly, a jade gift extended from the emperor’s hand, only one intermediary. I wouldn't call that a caricature at all, personally.
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Jul 14, 2014 06:45
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