Fiction Writing: Advice and Discussion

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Jonked: Feb 15, 2005

Do you guys have some sort of IRC channel where you put each up to this poo poo?

# ¿ Jul 26, 2012 04:16

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 23:37

Jonked: Feb 15, 2005

Nautatrol Rx, thanks a lot of that big piece of advice. It answers pretty much everything I was a bit confused or unsure about, and it feels good to know that at least I was on the right track.

Does any of the advice change if you're focusing on speculative fiction? I assume the same general strategy applies if you're trying to make a living out of it, but I also got the impression that publishers like Baen and Tor are, uh, "willing to take more chances" when accepting novels. Really more of a hypothetical question, since I'm mostly sticking to short stories and novellas at the moment.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2012 18:10

Jonked: Feb 15, 2005

Oh, it's not that I'm opposed to writing a novel. It's just that "I'll write a novel, get published, and be famous" was my strategy the last few times around, and went about as well as you expected (Four time NaNoWriMo failure, hated the novel/writing in general by December). I'm a bit burnt out on grand sweeping epics at the moment, and rather just tell fun little stories. Also they seem faster and easier to sell, which is another big plus.

Thanks for answering my dumb question though!

# ¿ Jul 26, 2012 18:42

Jonked: Feb 15, 2005

I have a sort of odd question. The serious writers here, the ones who make a living at least partially from their work... how long can you sit down and really work before you start needing to stop and do something else? And how much do you write every day?

My big problem has always been procrastinating so much that I never even get started, but I've been able to overcome that recently (sort of). Since it's always been the biggest road block for me, I'm pretty unprepared for my new problem. After a couple hours, I feel like I just can't sit still in my chair and need to DO something. I can take a break and do something else for a bit, and then come back to write some more, so I guess I'm still pretty productive. But after a few rounds of this, it feels like I can't sit still. It's not like I'm feeling creatively drained or anything, writing is still just as easy (or difficult, as the day may be), but I practically fidget out of my chair. Does it get easier over time? Or is it just something else I'll need to learn to power through?

It's weird. I still enjoy writing when I'm like this, it's just... hard to actually, physically, write.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2012 03:42

Jonked: Feb 15, 2005

Well, in a tense situation like that, 1.) Most people aren't going to think 'I can just put the pin back in', and 2.) If you're wrestling a terrorists for a grenade, you're not going to be watching where the pin goes, anyway.

I don't think anybody will hold it against you if you fudge it. At worst you just need to hang a lampshade on it - "Where did the pin go?" "Who knows" and you'll be fine. It's a pretty classic and powerful story, but I've always heard it in the context of a battlefield, like in No Man's Land. Moving it out of the war front and into the airport is an interesting idea.

Either way, I really doubt anybody will stop reading just over the premise.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2012 00:18

Jonked: Feb 15, 2005

ultrachrist posted:

Then you have poo poo like Clockwork Orange where it just involves being incredibly skilled to make it work. I recently read Mason and Dixon and I'm not even sure what Dixon's accent is supposed to sound like but it was very beautiful to read.

I just want to restate this - what Burgess did with language is absolutely amazing, and you (general unspecified 'you') won't be able to do what he did. Burgess uses a great deal of slang, but the way he uses it and the context he gives does a lot to provide meaning. Every time he uses slang, he's extremely careful to provide enough clues that you can pick up the general meaning. More importantly, the use of slang was for a very good reason - it reinforces the themes, it provides a barrier between the reader and the violence, it helps the reader imagine the world, ect ect. He didn't just throw it in for the heck of it.

And to top it all off, even he failed somewhat. I've given the book to a couple of friends for them to read. Some of them had no trouble with the slang, others liked the story but didn't like the slang, some absolutely refused to read the book because they couldn't understand it. A lot of editions come with a glossary now.

I've had similar reactions from friends who I gave Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston uses dialect very skillfully, but that doesn't change the fact that even well-crafted dialect is going to turn off a lot of people. It's not something you use lightly. If you're not absolutely sure that it adds more than it takes away, just saying somebody speaks with a drawl would be better.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2012 19:46

Jonked: Feb 15, 2005

Sorry to distract from slang chat, but I've got a question for any YA authors here. I've got an idea a story that would be pretty good for a middle school/high school audience, but it's more of a longer short story or novella length idea. I looked around on Doutrope, and didn't really see any magazines that accepted those sorts of stories - most of it seemed to be flash fiction or shorter stories, or novels. I also didn't see many major publishers on Doutrope when I searched, though. Is there just no real niche for novella length YA stories?

I guess I'm wondering if I should beef up the story and try to make it into a full-length novel. Just seems odd to me that there isn't a spot for something like this.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2012 22:13

Jonked: Feb 15, 2005

Dr. Kloctopussy posted:

Middle grade and YA are two very different audiences. As far as word-count, middle grade books tend to be novella-length, YA tends to be longer.

Seriously, though, worry about writing a good story before you worry about selling it. (not that I haven't wistfully browsed duotrope myself.) It might be worthwhile to do a little more research about middle grade and YA fiction to see what themes they cover as you work out the details of the story.

Yeah, I guess. I tend to outline my stories before I write them, and I can usually gauge the word count, give or take a couple thousand. It's not just that it's all about the money, but I can't help but feeling it's a little silly to write a story knowing that nobody is ever going to look at it. I mean, writing is about communicating with an audience, right?

Thanks for the answer though!

# ¿ Aug 16, 2012 23:07

Jonked: Feb 15, 2005

Thanks for the advice, both of you. I do want to defend myself though. I didn't sit down and decide "Young adult fiction looks profitable, I'll try to write that." The premise, characters, and rough outline of the plot all came first before I noticed that it wouldn't be half bad as a YA story, and that novellas as a format don't seem to be very popular. The thing is, I don't want to keep writing for my own benefit anymore. Putting my work out there, having it be judged, and ultimately having a real audience read it is what really motivates me. It's what really spurred me to edit and improve my work, and put it out there publicly for the forums to critique. If there's no outlet for me to show my work, well... I have other ideas I could develop, and only so much time and energy. That's not a pure artistic reason to write, but wanting an audience is important to me at the moment.

I get what you're saying, Nautatrol Rx, about letting a story be what it will be. But the format is a conscious decision. I feel that it's important to know going in what sort of space you have to work in, and I want to pick the format that achieves what I want. I want to write a good story, yes, but I also want to write a story that I can put out there and have an audience. If I write it as a novel instead of a novella, it's going to be a different story, and one will probably be better than the other. But I just don't have the time to write every story I want to write, even if I didn't have a job.

Bleh, I'm probably just digging myself deeper. I don't want you guys to think I'm a hack, is all.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2012 04:54

Jonked: Feb 15, 2005

Martello posted:

On a side note, do the rest of you guys think I should start a thread just for talking about military/guns/weapons/combat in writing?

It wouldn't hurt. I know enough about that stuff to know that everything I learned from watching movies is bullshit. Bullets don't send you flying, rocket launchers aren't just something you have lying around, privates don't get into philosophical arguments with their lieutenant in a combat zone, ect.

But my actual knowledge is actually really limited, just enough to know how much I don't know. It probably doesn't help that the only military-themed novels are, well... Tom Clancy. Even as a kid, I knew that Jack Ryan bullseying an IRA terrorist on a speed boat after two weeks of practice at the range was bullshit.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2012 04:30

Jonked: Feb 15, 2005

Tartarus Sauce posted:

Ahh, gently caress me. Back to the drawing board.

This actually isn't that hard to fix, honestly. Just have the information be something that you wouldn't want any tom, dick, or harry having access. For example, maybe the data controls the information about how to build a nuclear bomb - not something you want anybody with a computer to know. Or maybe it contains damaging private information on innocent people - medical histories, or blackmail material on Evil Co. victims. Or proprietary data - your mole wants to destroy Evil Co, not his entire life savings.

There's lots of situations where you'd want to blow the whistle, without necessarily telling EVERYONE in the world all the dirty details. Especially if it goes All The Way To The Top(c).

# ¿ Nov 24, 2012 00:31

Jonked: Feb 15, 2005

Well, actually! That segues me into a question that ISN'T about fiction writing but there doesn't seem to be a non-fiction thread that isn't creative, so whatever. How exactly does one break into non-fiction essay writing? Like... Rolling Stone, or Mother Jones, or The New Republic. What have you.

Is it like fiction where you just submit, submit, submit and hope somebody likes your ideas? Or is it more like how (I've been told) journalism functions, where it's less on commission and more where they hire you for a position?

# ¿ Dec 6, 2012 07:57

Jonked: Feb 15, 2005

I think I'm a bit odd in that regard - I've never had much trouble estimating or predicting how long a story would be, especially if I outline it beforehand. So in general, I've found having a maximum word limit almost comforting in a way. Arbitrary limitations aren't necessarily limiting or bad in a creative work - the requirements of a villanelle, for example. On the flip side, I had a great deal more difficulty with a minimum word limit. Having so much freedom is almost paralyzing.

I dunno, I just don't think it's too hard to figure out how long it'll take to get from plot point A to plot point B. To me it seems like a very helpful constraint on the story. Minimum word counts do seem like the devil though.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2012 21:52

Jonked: Feb 15, 2005

CB_Tube_Knight posted:

The post with the genre information is kind of interesting. Thanks for that.

I've had something of a tiny hiccup with my writing and got kind of depressed over unrelated things. I basically stopped writing for a week and finally picked it back up last night. The thing that I was tackling the last time that I asked anything was the question of what to do with the Four Horsemen. I think I'm going to try some kind of variation of the mother, maiden, crone thing--except I don't know what the make the fourth one. So I'm digging around some and hunting for that.

My writing has slowed down a lot. I was doing over a K a day before and I struggled with 500 words just last night. But I think I know the direction I want to go in a little better after having a week of down time.

Oh hey cool more talk about how you can't write, won't write, want to write, are going to write, and basically everything except giving or receiving actual advice on actual written fiction. Neat!

# ¿ Apr 1, 2014 22:53

Jonked: Feb 15, 2005

systran posted:

"I got bored and stopped reading at x point is pretty useful and requires only that you can pinpoint when you
lost interest

"I was confused about why Y happened" is pretty useful as well. Boring and confusing are going to be a pretty big chunk of what loses a reader. "This sentence seemed awkward" would just about cover the rest.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2014 22:26

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 23:37

Jonked: Feb 15, 2005

Also some writers (or whatevers) are never going to be great but you only figure that out after literally decades of commitment, whether it's starting baseball in the pee-wee leagues or writing lovely short stories in the TDome. You're going to suck, you're going to get better, and eventually you're going to be the best you're ever going to be and everything afterwards will be a slow but inevitable decline. Welcome to the human condition, blood bag, now get in line with the rest of us. All of us are mortal and death waits for us all, so stop trying to figure out the odds and just write.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2015 02:32

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