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MockingQuantum posted:Are there any worthwhile online courses for novel writing, paid or otherwise? I've never had anything like a writing class, outside of the standard ones required as part of education curriculum, and I wouldn't mind having a class that maybe results in me stumbling around blindly a little less. This just popped up on lifehacker today. Maybe worth investigation. Get a Head Start on NaNoWriMo With These Creative Writing Courses http://lifehacker.com/get-a-head-start-on-nanowrimo-with-these-creative-writi-1797861082
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Aug 16, 2017 03:04
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SelenicMartian posted:No, no, the battery is the awesome bit. It's captured baby lightning. Redwall
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Feb 2, 2019 01:52
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One way to approach this is to write your book as if it's a standalone in terms of plot, but to also pay close attention to developing your setting and characters. Depending on which genre you're writing in, a sequel could spring up as easily as introducing a new planet to explore, a new killer to catch or a new application for magic. And along the way you can continue threads from the first book that weren't completely resolved. A lot of times this takes the form of an evolving romance but can also follow up on characters whose motivations the main character encountered in the first but that they're still striving to achieve. And maybe the MC owes that character a favor for how they helped them out. Now the main character puts their specific skills toward finding a missing family member or helping them climb the political/social ladder. Similarly, the main character will likely have many aspects to them that weren't fully explored in the first book. Perhaps their sibling died in the war. Where that was originally a detail that shaped who the character was, this can now become a major focus for a second book when at the end of the first book the antagonist reveals that the sibling is actually alive or actually was killed because they were carrying information that could save the country from ruin. The first book wraps up all of the major threads that originally began the journey, but raises new questions about the main character, the world they inhabit or other characters who have similarly interesting stories to tell.
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Sep 16, 2020 16:09
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Thumbtacks posted:Hi, I submitted this for a thunderdome which I’ve never done before. Used to write satire in college but it’s been a few years and I’ve never written fiction so I’m sure it’s not great but any critiques/feedback on this would be appreciated. Hi Thumbtacks and welcome to Thunderdome! You will most definitely receive critiques in the Thunderdome thread. The judges generally post them within a week of judgment. However, you chose an interesting week to join since there was an unlimited word count where normally judges try to keep it under 2k words. It's a lot to read and critique in a few days. And I think you haven't received any feedback here yet because the link in your post goes to the first page of the Thunderdome thread, rather than straight to your story. Making it easier to find (and also showing that it's not one of the 10k+ word monsters) will hopefully get you a few more eyes on your story. As for my own critique of your story: I like the idea of a moon as a tourist trap. It's kind of the natural scaling up of a concept. Right now, we've got roadside attractions as you drive from one major city to another but in space, it would definitely be a minor moon on your way to the bigger planet. So I think your setup is solid. We've got a guy who wanted to be an explorer of the stars, but all the further he got was a salespitch guy on a moon of Jupiter. But after the setup, the narrative doesn't really go anywhere interesting. Since the entry is so short, it shouldn't spend a ton of time on exposition and backstory like this one did. (This was the week to go hog wild on backstory though since words were just free for the taking.) However, in a flash fiction piece the aim is to establish motivation and any necessary support for that motivation in fewer words so that the story can get back to the growth of the character and any scenes showing how that character will explore their current situation to either get closer to their goal or interact with others based on their goal. What this story does is setup present circumstances, setup past desires and backstory, then provide a short scene in which the character continues to do very little and dies via Chekov's laser gun. It's fairly predictable and nothing interesting happens to the main character who the audience is supposed to care about and want things for them. I was at least hopeful for a second that someone would actually be interested in a timeshare. That would have provided him some agency. Even if he didn't find himself hopping from planet to planet as he'd dreamed, perhaps in a salespitch the reader could see his passion for talking about the beauty of space rocks. But I get the feeling that even had someone asked he wouldn't have actually tried at that either. My biggest advice, for flash fiction especially, is to set up the motivation/desire of the character and then deliver on it by the end of the story. Not necessarily character wants x, character gets x (though obviously that would be good too). But character wants x and this is how x shapes and directs character's interaction with their surroundings. Hope this helps a bit.
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Oct 29, 2020 11:56
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If you're a writer and it's blocking you, that's all that matters. But since the source of these issues for every writer tends to be different, the ways to overcome it are myriad. The way you describe your problem it sounds as if you know the cause, which should help in finding ways to combat it. If you're just trying to finish it as a draft and you know you're going to come back to everything later and retool/reshape, then you can try framing your particularly problematic section in those same terms. Then it becomes just like the rest of the work and hopefully will then create no more anxiety than the general ugh editing anxiety that always looms in the future for writers. If you don't think that you can move on at all until you have a solution in mind for that particular section then I think it's worth brainstorming possibilities for what to do. Having a plan means that you're again in control of the situation, giving your brain room to be creative again. If you think you can go back and write it better, that's one option. If you think that it's beyond your capabilities or you just have no idea how else to do it/it can be done, you might plan to discuss that particular section with someone else to see what their take is. Talking to others has always been the best way for me to set my brain on another and usually more interesting path when it comes to my writing. It's also a pretty standard practice to finish a work, set it aside for a week at least to give yourself some space. And then when you come back to it, you're seeing it with a new brain filled with new experiences and thoughts. And that's a nice jumpstart as well. There are other things you can probably do as well, but I think the most important part is to find the thing that allows you to finish the work first. Write what makes sense to you now even if the description of the issue is [Something happens that makes the characters feel strange and detached from each other] or whatever it is you need the story to do. And who knows, maybe once you've reached the conclusion you'll have generated new ideas of what that could be. Keep going! I hope this helps. And good luck.
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Feb 2, 2021 19:16
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Psychomax posted:I have the opposite issue, my scenes are all too short... How do I tell what a scene is missing? In case this was a serious question: One issue that might be happening is that the scene is all action. It moves from one action to another and another which progresses the narrative but not necessarily the character development/other plot points. You might think more closely about who your characters are, what they would be noticing, how they would be feeling and reacting to whatever is going on. Not only does this add to the interest of helping the reader understand what the characters are going through, it might also lead to a few more actions. Example: based on who Jim is as a character, he hates confrontation and so instead of walking into a scene to get the necessary plot conversation encounter he needs in this chapter and getting out with minimal words, he agonizes over having to meet a person, he practices what he might say that will make him out to be the better person, and then doesn't actually do any of that when he finally musters up the courage to face the conversation. Just a simple example, but it tells the reader a lot about Jim, still advances the plot and gives you, the author a lot more words to flesh out the chapter. This can still be done if you're trying to keep scenes short, you just have to judicious about the exact words. A sentence here or there that does double or triple duty with description. If this is not your problem, ignore!
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Aug 22, 2021 11:16
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It depends on what the story is. Everything in service of the story. Usually the story is so intertwined with one character that it wouldn't make sense for the character to die in the middle of it because that would be the end of their particular story. If the story is actually the story of a place or a family or humanity in general, etc. then yes, people die all the time and that will make its own ripples in the story. David Mitchell's books come to mind when I think of death as a narrative device that is built into the nature of the stories he is trying to tell. He includes beings that are a bit beyond death which means that death feels different for the reader than when an individual dies who will not be coming back in any form. Authors can play with death in a lot of different ways, again, all depending on how they want to make the reader feel. Since they're writing fiction and not history, death can do and be whatever the author wants. Have dead people continue their narrative as flies on a cosmic wall, continuing to narrate the ongoing struggle but as an omniscient narrator now. Go wild.
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Jan 23, 2022 18:37
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Anyone got any good advice/resources on pacing, tension and stakes? Doesn't matter if it's about short fiction or novels, I need help with both. But especially looking for advice on doing it right in a novel length work.
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Feb 16, 2022 20:05
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Nae posted:Donald Maass's "Writing the Breakout Novel" has a section on pace in novels about two-thirds of the way through, and is a useful resource in general. He also talks a lot about stakes, including what they are and how to raise them. For creating tension, Robert McKee talks about how to dispense information through suspense, mystery, and dramatic irony in "Story," which is another great general resource. Thanks for the recommendations! I've got all of them zooming toward me now via Interlibrary loan. All except for K. M. Weiland's book which I'm a little sad isn't requestable (only two copies in the state and all marked as unavailable) because I have her website bookmarked: https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com (in case anyone hasn't perused.) I'm sure most of the information is there too, but it's easier for me to pull out a physical book and read than it is for me to find time on a computer/phone to read these things. But I'll have to make a point of it.
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Feb 18, 2022 01:19
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newts posted:Editing sucks. Anomalous Blowout shared this method for revision at some point and it's the one I'm following right now: https://hollylisle.com/one-pass-manuscript-revision-from-first-draft-to-last-in-one-cycle/ While I think this method requires a certain level of writing attained before hand to be able to work in literally one pass (lol, 1:4 ratio of edited pages, not for me) I think it does help cut down the number of revisions necessary by setting out the most important parts and making those forefront in your brain as you go. For my current project, I wrote a first draft, did an almost total rewrite using the first draft as basically a detailed outline as the second draft and now I'm using this method of revision to make my third draft while also having a really awesome team of fellow writers read chapters. And I can see that if there's already a level of fairly decent prose after the first/second draft that this one could be the last. I know I'll need another, targeted pass to get my weaker aspects up to a better level. Still, it's better than going through to revise for characters, then again for plot, then again for tone, etc. Here's hoping you'll find something useful in it.
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Mar 10, 2022 22:11
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Does anyone have good recs for books or links that delineate the agent querying process as well as provide good examples? I've got some down time between beta reads and my next round of edits and I want to start familiarizing myself with this process so that I'm extremely prepared! Also, anyone interested in beta reading my 86k word, no-romance, new adult, second world fantasy novel? I can post the hook if anyone wants to know more or you can PM me. Always happy to crit anything in return of any length when I'm not flogging myself to meet my own writing goals and deadlines. So sorry for not jumping on other people's requests before.
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Apr 22, 2022 02:18
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Leng posted:I'm up for this if you don't mind waiting until I'm done with my own revisions next month. I'll PM you. Thank you! And I will gladly read your next iteration.
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Apr 23, 2022 20:47
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Hey, that's awesome! That's a lot of words and if most of it is coherent to a single story, that's even better! Dedicating yourself is one of the biggest hurdles sometimes and it shouldn't be minimized. And every author works differently, but I find that I cannot do both generative writing and meta writing (like outlines and structure structuring) at the same time. Because one I do without a ton of thinking, allowing each sentence to lead to the next. So I have to carve out time to do the other which involves more thought first and then bursts of writing to copy down everything my brain worked out before I forget it. And the latter definitely makes me feel less productive because there's not as much product to show for it. If you find you don't have the time to add hours to your writing day, you can try alternating days or fitting it into small amounts of time you find yourself with consistently. I used to do a lot of thinking on my lunch breaks where I could jot down notes but couldn't really get in the mind space to do generative writing. And seconding the appreciation for the thread. It's great to read others' thoughts on writing even if I don't feel like I have a ton of stuff to say on my own. Everyone is doing good work.
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May 7, 2022 14:29
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Chairchucker posted:They are also bad advice for children. No they're not. Kids need to be encouraged to play with language. Personally I hate the restriction for professional writers. And obviously the really good ones ignore it anyway. But putting limits on kids who need more opportunities to just go hog wild while they're also learning the conventions of a language do not need to then be further limited by the expectations of an arbitrary decision in an industry they may never be a part of.
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May 9, 2022 16:43
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What is your goal for your novel?
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Jun 24, 2022 15:47
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General Battuta posted:Was feeling really anxious about these edits so I made some nice hot ginger tea and I put honey in it and then I poured it on my dick #amwriting Huh, I never see these tweets when I search the hashtag. Clearly Twitter is failing.
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Nov 9, 2022 02:19
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I need help thinking. I have a tendency to not do it critically without serious effort. Which is highly useful when I'm helping the public. But not so helpful when I'm trying to get better at writing. I was talking to another writer and apparently this is not their standard. I can read an entire book and enjoy it because it had a good plot. Yet I miss the finer points of the characters, setting, any implications of foreshadowing and clues. Basically I'm the perfect reader because I can never see the twist coming or determine who the villain is. And themes and subtext might as well be nonexistent. My default is to appreciate and be along for the ride of the story. It's only if I'm judging Thunderdome or I sit down with the express purpose to look for the scaffolding of a novel am I able to flip the switch. Obviously this is a problem as I try to improve my writing. It's not really as dire as I make it out to be, but I would like to know if any of you all have advice for how to pay better attention while I'm reading so that I can critically evaluate other authors' works and also apply similar evaluation to editing my own writing. I'm very much a checklist type person, and while I can check the box "develop your characters" all day long, I need to hone my ability to identify, evaluate and project the consequences of my character choices. So yeah, any advice or even general musing on this subject would be fascinating to me. Thanks!
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Nov 20, 2022 15:44
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General Battuta posted:[Good stuff.] Well, this is encouraging. Just need to remember to keep thinking about the book even after it's over. And I think it will be helped by... Megazver posted:Read books you like and want to emulate twice; once as a reader, once to analyze why you liked it. I just have to get over my librarian mindset of grinding through books since to recommend things, it's important to have breadth more than depth. I also need to read much faster. But I think I can achieve this by listening on audio the first time and getting the physical book for a second, focused perusal. anime was right posted:i mostly read books for fun, but when i need to improve i specifically seek out books that do what im trying to improve at and just analyze bits and pieces. Thanks!
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Nov 20, 2022 20:34
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Thanks for more additional thoughts on thinking about and making connections with the words I'm reading. I will add that another way to do it (as I found) is to read a book that is incredibly similar to a book you're writing. That seemed to make it much easier for me to draw parallels and see where what the other book did that was interesting or what I thought it could do better and what I should do better. (It also wasn't a very well written book, so that irritation made it easier to disengage from the story and let my own thoughts take over.) But all books have aspects in common in that they generally have plots, characters, themes and structure. I want to be able to make these comparisons even when I'm not reading a book that has almost the same premise of my book. And I plan to try a lot of the recommended advice. Thanks!
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Nov 27, 2022 17:01
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I am loving hearing everyone's progress from this past year! Y'all are killing it. But I specifically wanted to highlight:SimonChris posted:Happy new year, everyone! Hell yeah, Metastellar! It's an often overlooked publication to submit to. I got something published there in 2021 and then was part of their slush read team for their next round of submissions. 2022 was a year lost to revisions and rejections for me. I'm hoping to have something to show for my efforts this year. Thank you all for having opinions about writing!
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Jan 2, 2023 00:51
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Robert Deadford posted:Hey guys! Fellow writer Nae, sent me this link when I was struggling with my synopsis: https://web.archive.org/web/20210902014439/http://www.publishingcrawl.com/2012/04/17/how-to-write-a-1-page-synopsis/ And while it might not work for everything, it's a drat good place to start. I always need a fairly basic breakdown when I'm learning something new, and this helped me understand in a way I could take off from. Also, what sebmojo said,  and let Internet strangers guide you.
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Mar 18, 2023 22:35
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Beezus posted:I am gearing up to start querying, but I realize I'm not clear on how to handle spoilers when writing a synopsis. Or writing synopses in general. Nae shared this with me many moons ago and now I pass it on whenever anyone asks: https://web.archive.org/web/20210902014439/http://www.publishingcrawl.com/2012/04/17/how-to-write-a-1-page-synopsis/ It's a really great starting point in terms of getting everything you need on the page. Then, like any other creative work, you edit it to be the most compelling it can be. Good luck!!!
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Aug 16, 2023 17:53
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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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Junpei posted:https://electricliterature.com/we-need-more-non-binary-characters-who-arent-aliens-robots-or-monsters/ Hey, thanks for posting this! It also links to an article recommending books with gender-nonconforming characters which is what I'm here to ask about. This was a good start, but these articles are from 2018 and I'm hoping there's been a lot of new stuff since then. The book I'm planning to write next will have a non-binary protagonist and since this identity will come up in the plot (the whole thing is an exploration of liminal states, in which everyone thinks the protag's NB-ness is a liminal state, but, surprise, it isn't!), I want to make sure I handle it well. Does anyone here have recommendations for (spec-fic preferred) books they've read with NB characters they felt did an excellent job of representation? More articles, talks or workshops that discuss handling gender and NB concerns would also be greatly appreciated! For context, I am NB but I have only my own experience that I am most definitely still coming to understand. So I would appreciate learning as much as I can before I go presuming to represent others with a single character.
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Oct 28, 2023 13:44
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Agreed. Le Guin is amazing. Have read it and looking for more.
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Oct 28, 2023 23:06
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Wungus posted:Just in terms of genre fiction, which is what I have been reading a lot lately, here's two with explicitly not cis or binary trans leads: Stuporstar posted:The protagonist of the Singing Hills Cycle novella series is non-binary. Each one in standalone and I enjoyed every one of them so far https://www.amazon.com/Empress-Salt-Fortune-Nghi-Vo/dp/125075030X/ Thank you, both. These are on my list! (Already read SWBTS and enjoyed it) And it's good to know that The Singing Hills Cycle are each standalone. Sometimes it takes me a while to get to the next one. Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far. For anyone else who was interested, here's what I've been finding: https://writingtheother.com/ - Resources, workshops and articles on writing all sorts of characters different from yourself https://www.tor.com/features/series/post-binary-gender-in-sf/ - A blog post series exploring works other than The Left Hand of Darkness that go beyond gender binary. (from 2014 though) https://www.writingdiversely.com/ - Blog posts and resources for writers wishing to write more diverse characters. Also a good place to find sensitivity readers. I'll keep looking! a friendly penguin fucked around with this message at 12:01 on Oct 30, 2023 |
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Oct 30, 2023 11:59
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Makes me think of Asimov's The last question But I'm unsure whether that really fits what you're going for with your story. This follows a question to it's conclusion through the people who ask it at various points. And your story may follow a war from beginning to end or generations of a family. So not sure its usefulness. But it's short.
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Jan 6, 2024 19:43
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Sailor Viy posted:OK, here's a first draft of a query for my novel. All feedback is appreciated. I want to specifically call out this sentence: "As monsters emerge from the flooded earth and buried secrets are revealed, Emwort and the Sparrows must decide if they can trust each other before it's too late." Because of the vagueness of "secrets are revealed" and "before it's too late." These need to be way more specific to set the stakes. Not necessarily to reveal what the secrets are or the true danger, but what they do to the characters/situation. Also, the passiveness of secrets revealing rubs wrong too. Before it's too late.. and everyone drowns? And everyone riots? The Sparrows are stuck there forever? When we know that the Rain King comes back every hundred years, we know that life eventually goes on, so why is it particularly troublesome this time? How does the King's dotage affect this cycle? And how is Emwort acting/changing to deal with it? How do his hopes change? Sorry for drilling down like this. I suck at distilling all this down to pointed and interesting sentences so I hope this is still helpful.
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Jan 16, 2024 15:22
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magic cactus posted:I have a bit of a specific craft request. I've been reading through a collection of Beckett's short prose, and it's really struck me how much craft the guy puts into a single sentence. I'm wondering if there are any books or resources out there that adress craft at a sentence level. Less "How 2 Write Like Beckett" and more "how to treat sentences as a part of the craft of writing." Obligatory read more, write more etc. Mr. Battuta's long form post about sentences is an interesting place to start: https://www.sethdickinson.com/2015/02/26/lets-hurt-sentences/
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Feb 3, 2024 13:52
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We had prologue discourse, so let's switch to epilogues. I'm editing a book that has a full character arc and while not all of the plotlines are wrapped up, could be considered a standalone. But only if it ends where the last chapter ends. Some beta readers have said they want an epilogue to see how things end up when the "hero returns." But the problem is that there really isn't going to be a second status quo before the next inciting incident that will start the next chain reaction of events. Anything I can think of writing opens up more questions than it answers. And mostly I think of epilogues for 95% tying up loose ends and maybe 5% hinting at stories that might come next. So I guess my questions are whether a book can feel satisfying without that establishing of the new status quo? When are epilogues necessary? What do you consider the purpose of epilogues? My novel is a fantasy if that makes a difference.
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Feb 15, 2024 00:24
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The Sean posted:I'm sorry to be vague but if it's necessary depends on the story. There are good times to wrap things up completely and there are good times to add an Animal Party-esque "where are they now." Don't be sorry! I wasn't really looking for specific answers about my book, which is why the questions are opened ended. And these are great answers and examples. Thanks.
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Feb 15, 2024 19:02
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