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Are there any good resources out there improving characterization? Even some recommended reading (preferably short fiction) would be awesome. I've realized that my biggest writing weakness is having characters grow out of a plot idea rather than the other way around, and I need to learn how to write believable characters that don't just observe the story going on around them.
Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Apr 30, 2014 |
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Apr 30, 2014 03:25
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Kind of an odd question, but is there a general "best" range in word count for trying to get short stories published? Like obviously if you are George Saunders or Alice Munro something you can get away with writing basically novellas, but for the average person with no credentials, I'm curious how long a story should typically be. I've heard that under 1k words is just considered flash fiction and isn't particularly marketable, and I've also seen advice from published writers claiming that 2-3k words is the sweet spot for most publications.
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May 5, 2014 20:31
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I'd love to be a part of a writing group that wasn't afraid to be honest and actually had some semblance of a regular schedule. I'm primarily interested in short fiction right now, but provided that isn't a problem it would be a great opportunity to work on my biggest weaknesses.
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Jul 11, 2014 06:38
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It sounds like maybe a combination of IRC and an offsite forum would be ideal (or a dedicated thread in CC, dunno if that's kosher). systran, my interest is also in short fiction, but I don't see any reason a group couldn't offer feedback on both short stories and novels. There's a lot of people that seem interested, so maybe if it's necessary there can be a group for each? Burnout and people just dropping are probably the biggest issues to address, though.
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Jul 11, 2014 15:33
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Yeah, I really like deadlines for motivation, but I think it can get dangerous if it becomes a "turn this in in 2 hours or you're kicked out" type of situation. If everyone is just racing to churn out bullshit, it won't benefit anyone. That said I have no problem working in a group with people that are writing novels. Personally I prefer writing short stories in the 3-5k word range, but provided everyone could settle on reasonable deadlines I think anyone could benefit from an organized group regardless of their goals. Hell, just having a community of people that take it seriously is a pretty good motivator.
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Jul 11, 2014 16:16
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organburner posted:I'm in a funk, been in one for a week now. I assume you mean you don't know where plot threads are going, what character motivations are, etc.? This is where outlines come in! I think a lot of people consider outlines as more of a tool for novel-length pieces, but they are honestly pretty important for short stories, too. How detailed you get depends on you. Some people just need broad strokes, while others go nuts and write D&D-style character sheets for every single character that appears in their piece. I used to write without outlines, and while my technique improved, I found that I wasn't getting any better at telling an actual story. Now I try to do at least a rough outline for everything, regardless of length. I'm still very much learning by trial and error (and by getting torn apart by better writers), but I basically went through the exact same process that you're going through now. On the other hand, if this is something that's never happened before, it might very well be a situation where you just need to take a step back before coming at it again. You can definitely get to a point where you are too "deep" into a piece and it suddenly feels like everything you do is aimless. You said this is a second draft: are you rewriting major chunks, or just going through and tightening things up?
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Jul 12, 2014 21:44
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blue squares posted:This is a very simple question, but I'd like to get a little more in-depth than just "here's the general rule." Tense. I read a lot of Pynchon, and both Gravity's Rainbow and Mason & Dixon are written in the present tense. Lately, I've been experimenting with this and having a lot of fun with it. Anyone else write in the present tense? It's not the traditional choice by any means, but I think it really works well. As a reader, I don't mind present tense when it's done well. Check out Carve magazine (all their stuff is online for free). They publish a lot of stories that are not only in present tense, but in 2nd person as well, which is probably one of the most jarring combinations you could write in. None of those people are Pynchon by a long shot, but it works just fine. Honestly the only time I'm distracted by tense or POV is when the writing sucks, or if the author doesn't think their choice through (i.e. 1st person narrators with unjustified omniscience, etc.). I've heard people say that you shouldn't write in present tense without a good reason, such as it being a really tense, action-driven piece, but I don't really subscribe to that. Present tense gives you some interesting tools to work into your writing, so I say take advantage of that if you want to and go for it. If you aren't happy with the end product you could always go back and change the tense up once the story itself is hammered out.
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Jul 18, 2014 06:17
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qntm posted:Gosh. You can do this, but I wouldn't wish the task on anybody. I find switching the tense of even a single page of text is very tiring and aggravating, and usually I blink and miss a few things anyway, requiring some very alert proof-reading. To the extent that, every now and then, I entertain the possibility of writing a computer program to perform tense switches for me. Oh, yeah, I didn't mean like literally going through and trying to Find-Replace your tense or anything. I meant more along the lines of a rewrite from scratch with the benefit of having characters and plot points and all the fiddly details already worked out. Personally I'd rather just write it in whatever tense appealed to me at the time. If it's not a good story in present tense, it's probably not going to be a good story in past tense either. If you are concerned about marketability, though, it may be something to consider. I don't know if there's any actual data or anything to support the idea that present tense writing doesn't sell (I don't think you could actually measure that in any meaningful way to begin with), but outside of submission guidelines specifically telling you they don't want present tense pieces, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.
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Jul 18, 2014 17:27
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Yeah, I mentioned Carve magazine earlier (unless I got my threads mixed up) because there is a surprising amount of good fiction written in 2nd person present tense that they publish. A lot of it is by first time authors, and I don't think any of it was by an author whose name I recognized. If the story is good and your prose is competent, I imagine any combination of tense and POV is perfectly viable.
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Jul 21, 2014 05:26
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I mean it depends on what you are writing, too. I remember someone linking info from self-pubbing that showed short literary fiction was basically a wasteland in terms of money, with sci-fi and fantasy doing a touch better but still nowhere close to being able to make a living, YA being a bit better than that (but still abysmal all things considered), and erotica having the potential to make absolute assloads of money for people that are prolific. So yeah, basically unless you are pumping out tons of erotica, short fiction is probably not ever going to be anything more than beer money. I am curious, in the case of someone like Ken Liu, I wonder if it would be possible to squeeze out a living if you wanted to sell yourself hard enough. Like speaking fees, books on writing, etc. I don't know how much of a market there is for any of that, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a good number of potential ways to make money that could add up. I imagine at the end of the day it would probably be pretty soul-crushing, though, if it's even possible.
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Aug 21, 2014 20:11
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LaughMyselfTo posted:
Few things to start off: CC as a whole is not necessarily geared towards novels. Thunderdome and Fiction Farm are both short story (drat near flash fiction) oriented, and I've seen everything from 6 word stories to novellas to full-blown space operas get feedback on here, so don't feel like you can't share anything. There are also threads for just about every medium you could think of, and if your project doesn't fall under any of them, you can post it anyway. You are a little vague on the project and medium so it's kind of hard to actually give you a useful answer, but I guess I can say this: "political" works are at their most effective when the politics are an organic part of the story. If you are just using whatever medium you are using to shout a message from the rooftops, it's probably going to be poo poo. That said, unless the political view is extremely unpopular and / or whatever you produce becomes widely known, I wouldn't worry about it making a stain on your future projects or anything. Hell, if you are really concerned about it, just put this project out under a pen name. That said, there are plenty of fine "political" works out there, regardless of genre. Off the top of my head: Starship Troopers, The Sheep Look Up, Master and Margarita, The Jungle, drat near everything Dickens wrote, etc. Coetzee writes very "political" novels and he's won a Nobel for literature. The reason everyone hates Ayn Rand (aside from objectivism being repulsive) is that her books end up being a bunch of cardboard cut-outs arguing talking points back and forth, interspersed with the kind of rambling tracts that a crazy person on the street corner would hand out. Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Sep 19, 2014 |
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Sep 19, 2014 15:39
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CommissarMega posted:All right then, thanks crabrock, systran, bauxite and Entenzahn- it would seem I'll have to hold off the pretentious bullshit and work on something more straightforward for by next Thunderdome entry. Hemmingway and Marquez are definitely great places to start. I'd also toss a recommendation in for the "Best American Short Stories" anthology that comes out each year. Here's an Amazon link. You can find ones from a few years back for really cheap in both physical and ebook form. The collections usually have good editors with impressive credentials, and it gives you a broad-spectrum view of the modern short fiction landscape. Single-author collections are great too, but it can be refreshing to see so many different voices once in a while. There's also a reasonable assurance of quality since every story was previously published, then hand-picked and shortlisted for the anthology on top of that. 20 Under 40 is a pretty good collection from the New Yorker, as well. I've heard some people grumble that it's basically just who's-who of New Yorker poster children, and there's definitely a few stories that were underwhelming, but as a whole it's very solid and it does a great job of exposing the reader to authors of different backgrounds.
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Oct 1, 2014 05:28
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Cache Cab posted:I'm really interested in poetry...but I don't want to write it, and to be honest I don't really like reading it either. I get what you are going for, but yeah, you probably aren't going to make much headway if you aren't willing to even read poetry. I don't think that specifically writing poetry is a prerequisite for "poetic" prose style, but you do need to be familiar with concepts of prosody and reading poetry is certainly a good place to start. Of course, you can also read prose by authors that are noted for their lyrical style. A few that spring immediately to mind: Calvino, McCarthy, D.H. Lawrence, Nabokov, Joyce, and Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald is particularly interesting because he flat-out stated that some of his writing was an attempt to ape the style of Keats' poetry and apply it to his prose. I'll see if I can dig it up, but there was a pretty interesting article that showed how blatant his attempts were in some places. He would pick lines from Keats that he loved the sound of and basically find+replace the words so that he ended up with lines that matched stuff like cadence, stresses, etc. Obviously you don't have to go to that kind of extreme to have poetic prose, but at a rudimentary level it probably would do you some good to sit down and just tear apart some of your favorite lines of poetry to see what makes them tick. Sometimes an author strings together the perfect combination of words and it just sounds musical. Other times the words are perfectly ordinary but the rhythm / meter are carefully crafted to evoke a certain feeling. There are a lot of different factors at play and it can result in tremendously different styles: McCarthy loves winding, abstract, drat-near Biblical sentences that do an incredible job of capturing mood and painting a picture, while others like Nabokov can write a simple declarative sentence with such precision and insightful choice of words that it becomes much greater than the sum of its parts.
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Oct 8, 2014 20:32
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Cache Cab posted:Because you're not part of the circlejerk that runs Thunderdome. Thunderdome is not about ripping people apart for no reason. There is a tough love element at play, but the vast majority of people involved genuinely want to see people improve as writers. I have literally never seen an instance where not knowing an in-joke has led to unfair criticism or treatment, and I say this as someone that is pretty new to the dome myself. As for "posting right": there are very clear instructions in the OP and in each individual week's prompt. If you want to write, reading comprehension is a pretty important skill to cultivate. There's some gentle ribbing if you gently caress up formatting or don't follow the rules, but nobody is going to hunt you down and kick in your door over it. Worst case scenario, you get disqualified, and even then you will often still get feedback. Yes, people do get upset if you constantly and repeatedly bumble around in the thread like Mr. Magoo, blatantly ignoring advice and instructions, but the structure and organization of the thread is part of why it's been so successful. It's not some old-guard clique looking to kick over the new guy's sandcastle. Yes, it would be cool if more writing got posted outside of the dome in CC, but this has always been a low-traffic subforum and I remember lurking in CC a few years back when Thunderdome didn't exist and it was a goddamn ghost town. Like 1 story on the first page with 0 replies. There are lots of people here that are willing to critique stories and provide opinions, but the sad fact is that there's not enough people producing other work to critique. The existence of Thunderdome doesn't preclude anyone from posting anything else...it just doesn't happen.
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Oct 9, 2014 23:24
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Sithsaber posted:This started because an rear end in a top hat told me not to write. That goes opposite to the point you, SM, tried to just make. It was quite obviously a snide remark, nobody is telling you not to write. You came in and asked whether you should give up after losing the only existing copy of your edited works (at the very least I hope you learned your lesson there) or start over, which is a supremely stupid question to ask a bunch of strangers on an internet forum. Either you care enough about your writing to push through the setback, or you don't. If you feel the need to defer to a forum consensus on the issue, you might need to ask yourself if this is really something you actually care about. People are hostile toward you because everyone remembers the last time you came here and tons of really helpful people heaped literal mountains of advice onto your head, and you ignored every single bit of it, often insulting those people or belittling their efforts to help you in the same breath. It's not some Thunderdome goon squad lighting the signal fires every time you wander into town. People had an incredible amount of patience considering how abrasive you were. Yes, it is a fact that there's not a whole lot of good will aimed in your direction around these parts, but it's literally 100% your own fault. Bad writing can be overcome. We've had people come in here and grow in leaps and bounds, because they internalize feedback, don't get defensive, and keep coming back even after someone tells them a story is poo poo (Which, by the way, has happened to goddamn near every single person that posts regularly in the dome, myself included). If you put in the work and take criticism in stride, and if you take what people are saying and actually apply it instead of putting on blinders, anybody can improve. If you roll up and tell us we are all wrong and don't get your special snowflake story and we are all assholes because we didn't heap praise at your feet, then don't be surprised when people tell you to gently caress off. And Cache Cab: I really wish you'd chill and just put your nose to the grindstone. Yeah, you lost a round. It sucks. Nobody ever turns in a story and expects to lose. But keep writing. There are actually a decent number of scary Thunderdome bogeymen that saw some potential in your Space Cowboy story, and you have enough self-awareness to improve your writing if you can get out of "woe is me" mode. Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Oct 10, 2014 |
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Oct 10, 2014 02:30
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Sithsaber posted:The holier than thou crap is really unnecessary, especially considering how I've just finished reading the books and improving the stuff people said I should. Honestly I didn't think or care about past history here; I just wanted to bitch. Bitching beats banging my head on the stove. So prove it. If you've been focusing on the fundamentals and actively trying to improve for 3 months, then anything you write now should show it. If you post a new story in CC (doesn't have to be the dome) I will do a full line-by-line crit of it. I'll even promise not to be an rear end in a top hat. I will go through it with a fine-toothed comb and pick out issues with grammar, syntax, word choice, characterization, plot, pacing. etc., etc. without an ounce of malice.
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Oct 10, 2014 02:36
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Cache Cab posted:I guess my joke wasn't very funny. Look man, I get where you are coming from. You just need to realize that it's not like you've burnt all your bridges and have an angry mob chasing you out of the thread. You wrote a bad story that lost, and that's okay. I've done it too. So have a lot of people. If you go look at almost anyone's history in the dome, you are going to find losses and DMs. The thing is, it's only a mark of shame if you make it one. Or you can make it a challenge. Make it light a fire in your belly, keep writing, and show us what's up. I promise it's not too late to improve your writing if you are willing to put in the work. Keep entering and don't get discouraged when you don't do so hot. Read every crit judges post, not just yours. You can learn a hell of a lot by looking at what works and doesn't work for others. You'll find other stories that have the same problems yours do, and you'll find stories that handle it in a way that works. Learn from both. quote:See, that's what I was about to do when I lost everything. (Hence the bitching) On the bright side, if you've already done a full edit on an earlier piece and you legitimately feel that you've improved, it probably won't take you long to do it again. Or write something completely new. Either way, my offer stands. I will line-by-line the next thing you post for critique as if it's the first post of yours that I've ever seen. Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Oct 10, 2014 |
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Oct 10, 2014 02:46
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I once wrote an unintentionally super-homoerotic story about two space cop friends that did absolutely nothing exciting.
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Oct 10, 2014 03:00
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Sithsaber posted:That was 3 or 4 months ago, people. The long term memories here are ridiculous. When someone walks into the room, squats down, pulls their buttcheeks apart with their hands, and drops a loaf on the proverbial linoleum, it tends to stick in people's memory.
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Oct 10, 2014 04:20
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Sithsaber posted:You should be liftin' 'steada bitchin'. When you actually have any writing or anything constructive whatsoever to contribute to this subforum, I'll gladly stop "bitchin." Right now all you are doing is demonstrating why nobody is taking you seriously. I'm not sure I have the time or the crayons to explain that in a way that will get through to you, since you seem absolutely intent on plugging your ears to any and all feedback, but if you spent a fraction of the time writing that you did whining about people in this thread, you might actually improve.
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Oct 10, 2014 04:52
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Sithsaber posted:You the only one whinin'. I be shinin' wid muscle sweat. You should try lifting a book.
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Oct 10, 2014 04:58
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Djeser posted:I don't know if this is more fiction advice or just life advice, but I've been having some heavy motivation issues lately, and I'm just wondering what people use to focus and get their writing done. I think last time, you guys had suggested setting aside a certain amount of time each day, which I've thought about but never managed to put into practice. Do people have anything else they've found to motivate themselves (in general, or in specific for writing)? I feel like I should note it's not that I don't like writing, it's just that it ends up being a lot lower-effort to browse forums and play Dark Souls. Kind of in the same vein as setting aside time, but creating "deadlines" helps me, even if there aren't any actual stakes. Often reading a great story or seeing the work of another creative person inspires me, whether they are a writer or not. Seeing people chase their dreams, and in some cases succeed, kind of gets me pumped. Sometimes I feel like I am more afraid of succeeding at something I enjoy doing than failing, for whatever reason, so a little external pressure can go a long ways. I don't think it's uncommon to have fallow periods, though. I know everyone tosses around some daily number of words you must write to be a "writer," but there are tons of great authors that don't, and I think the pressure of trying to adhere to that can be detrimental to some people. Once you feel like you are behind, it's a lot easier to rationalize giving up or putting it off. Steven King has a funny little apocryphal story about Joyce: quote:“A friend came to visit James Joyce one day and found the great man sprawled across his writing desk in a posture of utter despair.
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Oct 10, 2014 05:15
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Liam Emsa posted:I saw 95 unread posts in this thread and clicked, hoping to see delightful chatter about fiction writing. Are you stuck on one particular scene? If so, it might help to "fast forward" a bit and start fleshing out a future plot element. I've definitely had times where I can't think of a good way to get from Point A to B, and sometimes just picking up at Point C can help create that bridge. That being said, I think everyone has a few moments during the process of writing a longer piece where they start questioning everything, which can definitely lead to stagnation. Some people can force their way through the plateau by sheer will, others need to take a break and work on something else, or get a fresh pair of eyes to give their impression, etc. Is there anything in specific you find yourself struggling with?
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Oct 10, 2014 06:45
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Sithsaber posted:That's a long paragraph for a kick that stemmed from a protracted DYEL joke. I still appreciate the criticism, even if I don't wholly agree with it at the time. (Different tastes, first works of fiction always partially being about one's self, experimental language and structures falling into common cliches etc) My one request is that people don't take things so seriously. You should know that I don't value people only because of their pecks. You should know that was a joke meant to diffuse the situation. Just to be clear, nobody was hostile to you when you first darkened our doorstep. People gave you some good criticism. Yes, it was harsh (because your story was irredeemable poo poo) but a harsh critique is not a reflection of you as a person. There are stories that I've absolutely hated by people that I have a ton of respect for in this forum, and that doesn't diminish them as a person or as a writer in my eyes. People turned hostile because literally (literally) everything you posted that wasn't your story was defensive, reactionary, whiny, and rude. People took time out of their busy days to give you feedback and genuine advice on a piece that an 8th grade ESL student would wipe their rear end with, (and as an aside, usually when someone dumps a story in here that hasn't even been proofread, nobody even gives it the time of day) and you heeded absolutely none of it. You actively spurned it. I'm also fairly certain you are just 100% full of poo poo, since you came in here saying you lost a pen drive with all your work on it and now apparently it's an issue with your computer wiping the data. I'm guessing you actually haven't written anything or improved whatsoever since you last showed up and dropped trou in this thread, and I'm guessing you will now use this as an opportunity to run off again. Which is fine. It's not a matter of "not taking things so seriously." People around here can be very lighthearted. CC as a whole has a very laid-back atmosphere. But a lot of people here are serious about writing because it's something we are passionate about. We are also serious about providing feedback and helping people grow. You aren't interested in any of that, and that's ok. Just realize that this might not be the place for you, then. TVTropes has a forum that would probably be right up your alley.
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Oct 10, 2014 16:20
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:Let's talk about plotting and structure! Before I go into this, I will say that it's really easy to get bogged down in structure to the point that it gets in the way of telling your story. The issue is that there are dozens of different charts and graphs and outlines for the 3-act structure, and almost none of them agree on the "right" way to do it. For instance, Wellman has it structured like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plot_Line_Graph_Ver.2.png So there, AIII begins directly after the descending action and culminates in the climax. However, this version is also really common: http://cliffordgarstang.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/ThreeActStructureFlat.jpg Here, you have a primary climax in AII and a secondary climax in AIII. This one has AIII begin with the descending action / denouement leading into the final resolution. As you can see, the issue is that these are two contradictory definitions. There are even more of them out there, and endless arguments about which one is "correct." Personally, I think the elements are more important than the structure, in that if you incorporate things like rising action, conflict, denouement, and resolution, the structure is going to arise organically. I don't think there are a whole lot of successful authors out there (if any) that actually sit down and stress out about fitting their story into one of these structures. They are kind of interesting as a tool to analyze literature and break it down into base components for the purpose of theory, but, imo, they don't really have a place as an actual, practical writing tool in any meaningful sense.
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Oct 10, 2014 17:13
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:Well, my ending is pretty vague right now as it stands, I just know roughly that these two main guys have a confrontaton and then one shoots the other. That is literally all I have regarding "act three" at the moment. I'm just not great at getting to endings, which is why I asked the question, really. I can come up with what I think is an interesting bit, like a NaNo I wrote years ago where the protagonist was bodyguarding someone only to have to kill him in the end to solve the conflict, but it always feels really thin to me when I go into it, because I just have no idea how it should work. Honestly, I'd just sit down with some good books and take a look at how they handle the ending. Things to watch for, in my experience: 1) Is your ending showing the result of the story's main conflict? The conflict is what keeps people reading, and the ending / resolution is the payoff. Some stories state it outright, others merely suggest it. If you are going to be subtle, make sure there is enough information that the reader can reasonably infer what is likely to happen after that last sentence. 2) Is your ending drawing from the beginning / middle of the story and reaching an organic conclusion? Unless you pulling an O. Henry, you probably want one or two threads that form a throughline in your story. Your reader wants to see a logical resolution for all of the conflict and complication that the characters have gone through. 3) Is your ending stemming from the actions and challenges of your characters? This kind of ties into the previous question, but at a deeper level. So imagine your story is about a guy that desperately needs money for some reason. There are a ton of ways that can go. Does he get in debt to the wrong people? Borrow money that he might not be able to pay back? Rob a bank? Your climax and your resolution need to develop from the actions that your characters take. This is why nobody likes deus ex machina endings; imagine that in this hypothetical scenario, the character buys a winning lotto ticket on the last page. You've just taken the wind out of the story's sails. The stakes are suddenly gone and the problem is solved through pure luck. This is, technically, a resolution, but it's an awful one because the character's agency is irrelevant.
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Oct 10, 2014 17:46
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Liam Emsa posted:I originally wrote the story when I couldn't think of a city to base it in, so I set it in New York City, US. Some paragraphs relied heavily on this (referring to US politics, laws, etc). As I was writing more and more, I started wanting to create a much different city than New York City, so I did. I gave it a name and I wrote a new introductory paragraph setting the scene for the city. Then I realized that this city did, of course, not exist in the United States. I'd also changed the tone to much darker than I'd written earlier, so my earlier parts didn't make sense. So I had to scan through and rewrite all those earlier parts. For now, I'd recommend focusing on finishing the broad strokes before getting too stressed out about details and world-building. Ideally, you should be raising the stakes and establishing the context of the conflict leading into whatever confrontation you have planned. What does your protagonist want? What obstacles are in the way, up to and including the main conflict? You want the reader to care why your characters are doing what they do, and giving them challenges to face is how you build characterization. It doesn't have to be non-stop pulse-pounding action, but things need to be happening that move the plot forward while showing the reader how and why your characters react to situations. If your protag isn't doing anything until they meet the antagonist, that's definitely an issue. It may sound crazy, but have you considered introducing that conflict much earlier? It almost sounds like this meeting between them is going to serve as a catalyst for the bulk of your actual story, so maybe come right out of the gates with it, or find a way to condense things that happen in the interim. I know potentially gutting everything you've done so far is probably not something you even want to entertain, but it might be worth consideration. If nothing else, you could make a thread and toss up some snippets where you're having trouble to see if having some fresh eyes helps.
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Oct 13, 2014 06:52
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Just write everything in the form of diary entries with clear date stamps.
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Oct 28, 2014 23:10
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It's really totally a matter of personal preference. Some people can turn around and start editing right away. The most common answers I've heard are "a week" and "a month or two." The idea is just to give yourself enough time that the words aren't fresh in your mind, so that you can examine them from a slightly more objective perspective. However, some people go overboard, too. Just remember that no matter what you write, a year from now you're going to look back at it and cringe. This will probably keep happening for the rest of your life. Or you can just be dumb like me and edit as you write!
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Oct 30, 2014 22:56
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Depends a bit on typeface, page size, etc., but generally speaking, about 250-300 words per page. So a Nano novel would be in the 200 page ballpark.
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Nov 1, 2014 22:20
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crabrock posted:maybe if you quit video games you'd have enough time to write something good  I'm just going to say what everybody's thinking: video game fan fics. edit: v-- Shipping my script for "Half-Life 3: Full-Life" to Clarkesword as we speak. Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Nov 5, 2014 |
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Nov 5, 2014 00:36
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Jitzu they are just ragging on blue squares a bit, nobody will ever be upset about anyone giving a crit. You are as "qualified" to give your opinion as anybody else. You can learn from good writers, bad writers, and people that have never put pen to paper in their lives. I forget who, but someone in this thread mentioned a long time ago that one of the most helpful pieces of feedback they got was "this is when I stopped reading," because it lets you know that there's a disconnect between the writing and the audience. Doesn't matter if they don't know what a metaphor is, it's still a potential springboard when you are editing.
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Nov 20, 2014 02:25
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Liam Emsa posted:I made a thread, read it! There's also a $6 ebook version on Amazon that you can access even without owning an e-reader, in case ILLs don't let you hold onto the book for long enough.
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Dec 2, 2014 20:23
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That's where observational skills come in handy. Words are more than capable of conveying subtle change. As a reader, I obviously don't want long, drawn-out descriptions of someone's weird facial contortions, but you don't have to be blunt and just tell the reader exactly what they are thinking, either. In my opinion, the best option is also the most difficult: conveying a character's thoughts and emotions through their actions. People react very differently to things depending on their feelings or personalities, and it's the writer's job to show the reader that. For a quick off-the-cuff example, imagine someone shows up at a party and starts talking poo poo about the host. Maybe one person gets pissed off and confronts them, either physically or verbally. Maybe one person wants to watch the drama and posts up in the corner. One person might feel the urge to say something, but instead they sit there and keep sipping on their beer and looking at a painting on the wall to keep themselves from getting involved. Etc, etc. The idea is to show the reader what that character is thinking through their actions, body language, speech patterns, etc. When it comes to dialogue, that's how you create verisimilitude. I forget who said it, but there's an old piece of writing advice that basically goes "If you listen to a lot of conversations, most people are talking around each other instead of to each other." Outside of asking about the weather or saying good morning, the people involved in a conversation almost always have motivations for saying what they are saying. The key is being able to pick them out and apply them to your writing in a way that feels natural. For instance, if you have a conversation between two people, and one person keeps asking a bunch of long-winded questions while the other person just gives one-word answers and keeps looking around, you've just told us a lot about these two characters without stating anything explicitly. One of them is obviously not interested in the conversation, and they are looking for an excuse to cut it short or leave. The other either has a problem with social cues, or they have a motive for trying to keep the conversation going. That motive depends on the context the author has established. Is the person asking the questions in love with the other one? Are they an undercover investigator fishing for incriminating answers? Are they trying to distract the person while their pickpocket buddy works his magic? People rarely do or say things for no reason, so if you've done of your job of painting a scene and establishing what your characters want / what stands in their way, actions and dialogue start to serve as a sort of shorthand for what's going on in your character's head. This can all change depending on tense and PoV, but the gist remains the same. Show the reader words and actions that mean something, that are a logical extension of their thought process. Minimalism is essentially a school of writing based around this idea, so if you want to see it in action, look at pieces by people like Raymond Carver, Hemingway, Amy Hempel, and Tobias Wolff. Their writing is very lean, free of all but the most essential adverbs, and depends heavily on context to derive meaning.
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Dec 3, 2014 19:44
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:
Are you trying to trad pub it? As far as I know, single author anthologies are like the absolute hardest thing to sell, but if that's what you want to do then the advice is probably pretty much as the same as with shopping around a novel: find a publisher that puts out anthologies similar to yours / that you enjoy reading, write up a strong query letter, and cross your fingers. Self-pubbing is probably the more realistic option, but even then the general consensus seems to be that you should just try to publish each individual story first, then anthologize it later when the publication rights revert back to you. At least that way you are guaranteed some compensation (assuming you get them picked up by paying mags) and then the free exposure + potential awards / reviews / being able to say "someone else thought this was worth paying for" may help you move a few copies here and there. Sadly most people that aren't already "famous" from novels or really talented at self-promotion are probably only going to get sales from friends and family, and getting trad published with a single author anthology sounds like an enormous uphill battle. It sucks because I really enjoy reading short fiction more than novels, but apparently I'm in the overwhelming minority, at least when it comes time to actually spend money.
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Dec 4, 2014 18:07
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Not exactly highbrow lit or anything, but the Song of Ice and Fire books have like literally 30 PoV characters, so you can definitely get up there without it becoming unreadable. I think if you manage to create a unique voice for each PoV, and there's enough time devoted to each one to build sufficient characterization / justify their existence, you can get away with drat near anything.
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Dec 24, 2014 06:25
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Maybe I'm the only one, but I actually kind of hate it when authors go out of their way to reference music / other pop culture. There's a few people that can do it well (Pynchon is probably the most impressive) but most of the time, like with some of King's novels, it ends up just looking like some forced attempt to be "hip." Like every time he brings up some really specific band or song that's on the radio, there's always that faint undercurrent of "heh, this is real music," whether it's intentional or not, and when you're dealing with a 3rd person omniscient narrator, it can be kind of jarring. A lot of time it also feels like the author is trying to be too clever for their own good, like a song comes on the radio that just so happens to line up with the themes / plot of the narrative, and it's just such a smug wink-nudge moment. Very rarely does it end up being a subtle, effective way of building characterization or creating verisimilitude, etc. I would say that roughly 90% of the time, your prospective story doesn't gain anything by making a point of exactly which bitchin' Led Zeppelin album the protag is listening to. If the decade that your story is set in actually matters, and the reader can't figure it out without you pointing out that a brand-new track from the Eagles' 1973 album Desperado is playing on the radio, you have bigger problems. And of course you run the risk of your reference being so dated / obscure by the time anyone reads it, but that's probably the most minor concern at play.
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Dec 26, 2014 06:01
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I'll take your side on this so long as we establish that I have all the good parts.
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Jan 26, 2015 04:58
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Man I get in gang fights all the time and I just get arrested.
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Feb 4, 2015 01:21
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 22:43 |
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The best way to write stories is to imagine them taking place in a perpetual Don Martin strip.
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Feb 4, 2015 01:40
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