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 Actually, I just want to bookmark this thread and make it easy to find all my (probably not helpful) posts. This is really, really good, Dr. K!
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Jan 28, 2017 02:02
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So, I got an acceptance AND feedback from four editors! Yay! Only they all have different ideas about what would make the story better. The person who likes the story most also gave the most accurate summary of what it's about, but the other editors want totally different things, ranging from killing the main characters to literally making the story about something else. Now they're waiting for me to make changes (or not), and I don't know what to do! I guess it's already been accepted, but I am a little at a loss as to how I should respond. I've been asked to make changes before, but it was more of a unified "this is what we think you should do, let us know if that's acceptable" type thing. I just don't want to come off poorly.
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Jan 30, 2017 21:11
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General Battuta posted:Huh. What markets are the four editors with? http://everydayfiction.com/ It's a small publication, but they gave a lot more feedback than I was expecting so I want to respect the time they took in reviewing the story.
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Jan 30, 2017 21:42
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Crossposting from Thunderdumb:Sitting Here posted:Just in case people missed it, or are looking for more ways/places to post about writing:
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Feb 10, 2017 08:09
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22 Eargesplitten posted:Oh, hey, one of the first writing questions in a new thread. How would you show rather than tell someone noticing that someone had changed since they last saw them? In terms of demeanor, not physically. The last time they saw them was before the story started. Another option is to have Character 1 behave normally around Character 2, but Character 2 doesn't respond normally. Then Character 1 could pause and reflect on Character 2's change of behavior. Like, if you have two friends who used to joke around all the time, then one day one of them is more solemn or stoic than usual, that would illustrate what you're talking about. Depends a lot on the exact scenario, though.
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Feb 17, 2017 03:33
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:People want me to post this in FA: I don't have anything to add to this, but it's interesting and helpful. Dan Harmon's structure has been the most helpful one I've encountered so far, but this is a cool synthesis. Intuitively, I want there to be a beat between the final showdown and riding off into the sunset...something like a realization of never being able to go back to the state the story began in? IDK, maybe that wouldn't work for every story, and maybe you can incorporate that into the final beat, but my brain looks at those last two beats and wants there to be something in between them. The the marriage/murder/ride into the sunset bit feels like an epilogue. I want there to be more of a denouement before the final scene.
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Feb 27, 2017 22:04
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A human heart posted:Isn't a lot of this advice quite biased in favour of extremely formulaic genre fiction narratives with plot and characters as the main focus. like you're spending all this time talking about plot but lots of great books don't have much of a plot or its fairly unimportant? The people reading this thread are probly not the ones who are going to write a dadaist masterpiece, tho
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Feb 28, 2017 20:51
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:HEY GUYS LET'S MAKE A HUMAN HEART HAPPY, BUT I ALSO HAVE A REAL QUESTION With Invisible Cities in particular (which sebmojo finally got me to read), I think it's primarily the novelty that pulls the reader forward. Like, each city can be seen metaphorically, or you can just sit back and enjoy the dreamy imagery if you want. So you can experience some fragment of truth, immersion, or both. Calvino has a skill that can't be taught, IMO, which is rendering extraordinary and whimsical things in a way that's almost...familiar and even nostalgic for the reader (maybe that was just me). I kind of fell forward through the book, kind of like how dreams tend to drag you along with no rhyme or reason. ...Which is all well and good, and is fun to talk about, but in terms of this thread, but I don't think you can tell someone how to write like that. Or how to do whatever the hell that book Thranguy mentioned did. You just have to try it and see if it works. A LOT of people in here want to write more traditional narratives though, which is why a lot of the advice is skewed that way. It's also easier to talk definitively about what makes a good/bad plot for a traditional narrative.
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Mar 1, 2017 04:41
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also, sign up for Long Walk. Writing lots of words in a dead panic is good for you, like veggies and dogs https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3812360
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Mar 4, 2017 22:45
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In a jarring change of tone, here is some handwritten writing advice I randomly got from an 80 year old poet at an open mic  While I'm not sure how helpful a lot of the advice actually is, I thought it was really sweet, plus she writes legitimately amazing poetry. And I say that as someone who doesn't really 'get' poetry.   
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Mar 8, 2017 03:00
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A human heart posted:Is there like a stone tablet somewhere that says 'usual practice' that all the new writers need to adhere to or something They are welcome to ignore this thread! This is one of my most favorite internet things. Someone is like "here is what I think about [topic]" and someone else comes in like WHY DO YOU THINK YOU'RE THE BOSS OF EVERYONE?! It's like, this is a thread on an ancient irrelevant comedy forum, not a mandate from the queen of literature (sorry dockloc). But honestly, I've critiqued a ton of amateur fiction. Many, many new writers are basically relearning how to communicate. The language of description, exposition, dialog, and action is different than the language we use to chat with coworkers or write facebook messages. Like every language, it has rules that you can bend or break depending on how well you know them. When you're learning a new language, you learn the grammatical structure and usually common, useful phrases at first. If you're learning French, you're not going to go from 0 to elaborate french poetry, that would be dumb and confusing. And even if you translated that poetry successfully, it wouldn't give you a very good idea as to how to have an ordinary conversation with a french person. I think writing is a bit the same way; if you're a new writer and you want to be the next Pynchon, or whatever, and you want to go straight from "blithering amateur" to "avant garde darling", you are going to end up skipping a lot of rules/tools that could be potentially useful. There are always outliers. There are people whose vision or genius surges through them, regardless of practice or education, and produces something that engages the reader. You have outsider artists and people who fill a niche just by virtue of having the right aesthetic at the right time. There are all kinds of scenarios where, yes, someone who didn't learn "the rules" finds success and is able to communicate something valuable to the reader. But it's basically impossible to tell people how to accomplish that. And frankly, I meet a lot of MFAs who are trying so goddamn hard to break the rules just for the sake of breaking them because their professor told them that, for example, genre fiction is trash. These are the kind of people who have to tell you all of their writing qualifications and accolades before you ever read/hear their story, as if the reader needs to be reassured, "Don't worry, you're in professional hands"  Regarding this thread, Dr. Kloctopussy wrote it with her audience in mind. Creative Convention is full of people who want to write plot/character driven fiction, so that is what our discussion has been oriented around for the last few years. Other approaches to literature are welcome (and maybe even much needed, IDK), but it helps if you, ya know, actually have something to talk about. Right now you're basically stomping into a thread to say I DON'T LIKE THE CONVERSATION YOU'RE HAVING ABOUT FICTION, without contributing much yourself. Also, there are still plenty of people who are happy to discuss non-traditional approaches to writing. A couple of them have posted within the last page! But I think you are mainly here to be contrarian, and not to build a constructive conversation together. showbiz_liz posted:Some people really need to be told to reign it in and learn the rules, but the way I was initially taught creative writing was kind of paralyzing, because it had me convinced that the main focus of learning to write should be constant vigilance for all the mistakes I was sure to make, instead of like... trying to come up with interesting ideas and express my thoughts on paper and have fun with it. Writing is part exploration and part execution, IMO. The exploration period is where you should allow yourself to have fun and give no shits. The execution part is where you have to bust out the lash and start self-flagellating.
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Mar 9, 2017 19:40
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a cornucopia of verbiage
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Mar 10, 2017 01:16
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a pedantic of goons
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Mar 10, 2017 03:23
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Ironic Twist posted:Can everyone share their own strategies for writing dialogue? Besides stalking/wiretapping my strategy is to talk to people who talk cool and emulate them
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Mar 10, 2017 04:59
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anime was right posted:i do henceforth declare that this is precisely how the common man articulates No one wants to know how you articulate e: srsly man that's really gross, TMI Sitting Here fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Mar 11, 2017 |
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Mar 11, 2017 04:28
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A human heart posted:I don't really agree with the notion that prose can get in the way of ideas, it's usually the reverse that happens. Content derives from form. If the form is bad, then I don't care about the content. Whereas fairly banal content or ideas can be great if the prose is good. Genuine question: how much fiction have you critiqued? Because I can tell you from personal experience that amateur authors and even authors with some low-tier publications under their belt can abso-loving-lutely muddy up a workable idea with a misguided attempt at non-traditional prose (or any other writing gimmick, and yes, a technique can become a gimmick in the wrong hands). And those are the people posting in this thread. You sound like you've probably read a lot of polished, stylized literary fiction. Which is great! But this thread isn't populated by a bunch of celebrated literary figures. Not everyone is aspiring to be the Frank Zappa of writing. Maybe you could help us understand where you're coming from by showing some of your own work? And explaining why you made the stylistic choices you did? I'm assuming you have documents full of the type of writing you're describing, since you seem very enthusiastic about discussing it in this thread for fiction writers.
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Mar 13, 2017 19:13
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anime was right posted:for real someone post some actual fiction advice that isnt just an insular td circle jerk, i have tried asking actual questions already. Hmmm.... anime was right posted:why wont agents respond to my inquires about my high quality boruto (the sequel to naruto, if you're more of a Bleach fan) fanfics anime was right posted:this thread is way worse than the old one. fight me if i'm wrong. anime was right posted:you're not my real dad anime was right posted:i do henceforth declare that this is precisely how the common man articulates  Your story doesn't add up, that's my critiqueThough TBF... anime was right posted:also anyone want to trade test reading? around 10k words, first threeish chapters of a book. around early next week. no hard deadline. i dont care what genre your book/story/whatever is. you did ask if anyone wanted to test read your novel, which would be cool and good of them. I would, but I'm trying to get my novel to a test-readable place. I don't really have any fiction advice because I'm uuuuh struggling to write a character-driven story. I have an outline and have been sticking to it structure-wise, but when I actually sit down to write the interactions between characters, I tend to discover new motivations/subtext/subplots. So then I have to go back and adjust the outline, and by the time I'm done doing that, a bunch more ideas have popped into my head... but by god I am trundling along. So yeah those are my words about fiction.
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Mar 17, 2017 02:56
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anime was right posted:i asked these too dude but no one responds to the actual questions and instead the insular trash woah dude sorry, I wasn't trying to pick a fight or anything. I thought you were joking because your last few posts on this page were blatantly non-serious. A bunch of us were putting serious effort into making posts about literary style vs "traditional" character-driven plots but that kind of tapered out. I don't have any resources on writing middles because my strategy is to splart out the whole story and THEN figure out the arc. I think it's easier to deal with the middle if you don't approach it as "the middle" in the initial drafting process. But that's just me and I wouldn't necessarily advise anyone to do it the same way. That leads me to a question I wonder about a lot: how esoteric is the actual writing process for you guys? When I try to articulate my methods sometimes, they end up sounding wrong, or they just plain don't work for other people. But I get decent feedback from readers and publications, so apparently something in there is working. Obviously, writing blogs and books have to speak in general terms because they have a wide audience. How much do you guys tend to skew the process to better suit the weird machinations of your brains?
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Mar 17, 2017 03:07
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anime was right posted:how about this, how do people feel about information density? is it cool to thrust people into buzzword city so long as it makes sense as you continue to read? do you think its better to introduce elements slowly at the cost of lengthening your pace? I like to do things in bursts. Set the scene with description, have some character interaction. Usually I dump info in when the characters are transitioning between situations. Like, in my novel, there is a fair bit of world building. My protag also spends quite a bit of time moving between locations in her city, so I use those interim moments to have her observe/acknowledge whatever info I think is most relevant at that moment. The novel is fairly dialog-driven, but it's nice to break that up with cinematic description and world buildy details.
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Mar 17, 2017 03:27
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Mrenda posted:How about Garage Writing? Small writers with none of the virtuosity or out-thereness of the big names but who write passionate and touching work. im the skip spence of literature
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Mar 21, 2017 19:29
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crabrock posted:from the west coast and i get poo poo on the east coast for saying "the 101." good
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May 13, 2017 19:12
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anime was right posted:for real how the gently caress do i get test reading done aaaaaaaaaaa I really wish I could help, or that I was in a position to read a lot of words and give good crits. I can't rly help but maybe if there are more posts in this thread, someone will show up and provide an actual answer.
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May 17, 2017 04:19
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General Battuta posted:My book's finally going great guys, closing in on the end f5f5f5f5f5 I've been looking forward to the next book foreeeeeverrrr you horrible monster (well done, keep it up, you're an inspiration)
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May 17, 2017 04:33
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every time I open up the 2nd draft of this story im working on, I am overcome by loathing. Like if the words of my story were a person, I would forcefeed them drain cleaner. I'm probably going to die still wallowing around in first draft faffery. I can't even imagine going through this again when I finish my latest attempt at a novel. anyone got any tips??? 
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May 18, 2017 00:27
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Yeah, I'm basically just using this thread to vent. The lovely reality is that the editing process requires you to buckle down and treat your novel or short story like any other job. I think that's what I've been struggling the most with. It's pretty much just a matter or cultivating and maintaining discipline, which suuuuuucks. I'm noticing this super annoying cycle, where I spend a few months doing 15K-20K per month, but it's all really rough writing that I completely dread editing. Then I get burned out. Then, when the time comes to fix up my slapdash writing, I have so much contempt for the work that the editing process feels a lot like holding my face to a flaming belt sander. I'm currently sitting on the world's biggest pile of first drafts and half-finished novel attempts, like some sort of whiny poo poo dragon.
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May 19, 2017 02:09
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HIJK posted:Do you have anyone else that can look at it for you? It blows if you're the only one looking at your work. This is where a writers group comes in handy! Yes! I am fortunate to have access to lots of frank critiques from the fine goons of these very forums. Plus I will often read excerpts at literary open mics and such. The issue really is just me and my brain's reluctance to commit to things that aren't video games and Netflix. I got a chromebook so I could write on the bus easily (where there's no internet), which I've had some success with. But that's still not a great time to edit, since using the touchpad makes jumping around within a document annoying.
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May 19, 2017 02:17
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sebmojo posted:can you print it out and scribble on it? Sure, and that's fine for the beginning of the editing phase, but it doesn't really help when I'm at the stage where I am actively trying to create a quality, polished document where the words are all where I want them. I'm just whining. I feel as though I've worked tremendously hard, but don't have the diligence to polish work enough that I'm confident that the big pubs will even look twice at it. It's been an ongoing struggle and sometimes I wish my brain would let me give up, but I have like a pathological need to bottle my farts in word form.
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May 19, 2017 03:00
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Astian posted:I recently finished a novel of around 60k words and am looking for feedback. Does anyone with their own completed book want to do a critique exchange? Mine is literary fiction based in Cambodia. I'd prefer to read literary, but upmarket or other adult fiction would be great too. I know Anime Was Right was posting looking for some kind of exchange, don't know if the lengths of the pieces match up, though. If he sees this maybe you guys can swap? Otherwise lol give me like 6 more months...maybe a year.... 
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Jun 14, 2017 18:28
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borrowed words are only helpful if they're ubiquitous enough to convey the same meaning to lots of different people, otherwise you sound like that dumb "all according to keikaku" meme
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Jul 4, 2017 07:01
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I use a personalized version of the snowflake method, basically. I, too, have fallen into the despair inducing trap of going into a novel with a only vague idea of what I wanted the plot to look like. I was resistant to outlining because it's harder for me to "see" the events of my story if I'm not thinking about how to put them directly into prose. Starting with broad strokes and working my way down to individual scenes took away some of the intimidation factor. There is still an exploratory element to outlining. I recently hit a point in my novel where I decided to add a significant plot element, meaning I need to go back and revise my outline. But now I have an even better idea of how each scene will play out.
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Jul 28, 2017 01:19
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Stuporstar posted:I detect a new Thunderdome theme in the making. Someone make this a thing please! And also mine crabrock for more fantastic titles
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Aug 29, 2017 00:54
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CantDecideOnAName posted:I name my stories after what I feel is the most important element in them, which is why the serious ones have dumb names like Blue Star. Although last year's Nano novel was Have Phylactery, Will Travel, which is dumb for different reasons and not all that accurate to the feel of the story. So what's going on with Blue Star anyway?
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Aug 29, 2017 03:47
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This isn't really advice, but when I write a story I start with an emotion or image that is evocative for me personally. Often this involves mining my life experiences for material, just to have that kernel of realism at the core of the piece. My primary goal, even before thinking about the shape of the story itself, is to figure out how to make the reader feel the thing I feel (inasmuch as that's possible). Once I have that, I take the more formulaic approach you're talking about, creating a character and giving them hopes, fears, and desires, etc twists are not necessary, and not all sharp turns in the plot are "twists"
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Sep 6, 2017 17:43
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crabrock posted:i saw that and thought about it, but i'm guessing to win you need a pro-UBI story and tbf that sounds really boring. like as a plot point. UBI as a background might be ok but a whole story about that is dumb yeah, how dumb, no one try. in fact, everyone just forget about the contest. 
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Sep 11, 2017 17:34
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Burkion posted:If I get my revised Prologue and chapter 1 written up soon-ish, should I just stick it in my thread? Instead of making a new thread. I'm not sure how often this comes up Keep it in your thread IMO, since most of the people posting there will have it bookmarked at this point.
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Sep 13, 2017 22:58
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the old ceremony posted:what do i do when my characters come to life and start walking around talking to people in the real world and convincing them that things from the book universe are real historical events? i feel responsible because i breathed life into these people but i have no control over them anymore, they don't answer my calls tell your chars to stop saying bernie would've won
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Sep 14, 2017 17:28
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fridge corn posted:whats a good resource for culturally ambiguous names for characters? the story im writing doesn't take place anywhere specific and i don't want my readers to think it does but i definitely don't want a bunch of dumb white people names If I want to go for something non-western (e: meaning, names not found in the US, I guess) sounding but don't want to drag other IRL groups of people into it, I usually take common sounds from two different regions and mash them together into nonsense sounds. So like, for a surname, Zhang and Hansen could become Zhansen, Ortega and Dubois becomes Ortois, and so on. Just as some lovely examples off the top of my head. Then i google the resulting monstrosity to make sure I didn't blunder into using a real word/name. idk if that's a good way to do it, but no one has complained so far.
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Sep 14, 2017 19:39
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go away shitposters this is our place to shitpost 
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Sep 19, 2017 18:47
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Burkion posted:Also don't play things too close to the chest as I found out! Yeah, it was obvious in retrospect but (and I know I already said this) the tone of the story was a p big barrier for me, so I wasn't all that interested in sorting it out. I think if the story hadn't been written in a cloying folksy tone I would've picked up on the obvious.
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Sep 20, 2017 22:13
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Taciturn Tactician posted:What's the rules on replacing thunderdome avs anyway? Are they juat straight up forever or you're a coward? it's cool when people keep them for a little while b/c sometimes it brings new people to the thread. But there's not really set expectation, though dockloc is correct
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Sep 22, 2017 03:05
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