|
SkaAndScreenplays posted:I'd settle for being the Residents or Captain Beefheart of the literary world in all honesty... 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.
|
#
¿
Mar 21, 2017 16:09
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 2, 2024 01:04 |
|
|
crabrock posted:Especially and quite are garbage words. If you delete them your story will be 99.99% the same I'm agreeing with this. They sound natural and you put them in naturally but they don't add much unless you're going for a conversational style of prose. Even then, when you're going for a colloquial, naturally rambling style it's better to chose a few particularly standout sentences where their usage emphasizes the tone and voice than to shove them in everywhere. In a lot of ways they're almost invisible as you read along, but only as the author because you're giving the words different attention than a reader. For a reader they'll come across as mealy mouthed and simply taking up space, at best. More often your story will read like the author is rambling in their storytelling and thought process, rather than just using a hesitant or rambling style of prose or voice. Like crabrock said, "just," is another one, and others have added to the list as well as, there's also "only," and "really." Try and be more definitive in what you're saying even if you don't feel it in your thoughts as you're writing. It'll come across better to the reader. Basically, think long and hard about a word that in some way qualifies another. If it can survive as definitive you're (probably) better off.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 16, 2017 12:19
|
|
|
About submitting work to journals. This article says, "If you are submitting your work, you will inevitably deal with rejection. The average short story or poem may be rejected twenty times before it is accepted, and even famous writers deal with rejection daily. " https://electricliterature.com/lit-mag-submissions-101-how-when-and-where-to-send-your-work-887f826ff7d9 They've mentioned it a few times on that site, the twenty rejections number. Is that true? Or even generally accurate? I know they say, "may be rejected," but even then that seems like a lot.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 29, 2017 19:05
|
|
|
It's fine to edit as you go. It's just one of any number of ways to write. The whole, "Get the first draft down," thing is advice because it gets an entire body of work down before you have a chance to slack off or fall away from the piece. If that's not a problem for you, or you simply like editing as you go as the way you work, it's fine. There's no need to be prescriptive about anything with writing. Some things work for some people, others for other people. Do what fits with you.
|
|
#
¿
May 2, 2018 14:05
|
|
|
I think non-fiction, or at least some forms of non-fiction, is one of the few areas where they'll accept pitches. I've never written non-fiction, but know a few people who have, and they've all sent emails to publishers, outlining what they were writing and seeing if there was interest. Generally a detailed chapter list, with details of all of what you were going to address was needed. If you're writing memoir, I'm not sure if this applies. But for other stuff it could. If it's series of essays, unless you're famous or have expertise in the area, you're probably out of luck.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 14, 2018 13:29
|
|
|
With permission from Sebmojo I'm pimping my feedback thread in here. I wrote a book, hopefully a better, tighter, more purposeful book than my last attempt. I'm looking to get feedback on it, but since posting it it's been deadville. Previously people were happy to tell me what I wrote was a load of shite, so I hope no-one's hesitant in offering their thoughts. I'll copy and past the basic blurb into this thread, and the thread with a link to the book and the place for feedback is here. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3894903 quote:It’s been three weeks since Natalie wandered in league with the city, conquering her own fears and thoughts, righting all the wrongs inflicted on her and the world. It’s two weeks since she began attending the psychiatric day hospital after her latest psychotic episode. ‘What Even Is Harmony' tracks Natalie’s life, starting with “in the home care” and daily trips to the hospital, progressing over the weeks, months and years recovering from a frightening bout of illness.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 6, 2019 13:18
|
|
|
Siddhartha Glutamate posted:Hi! I don't do this normally, but I've heard that a good way to get better at writing is to give crits (if this isn't true, please blame Thunderdome.) So I decided to read the first three or so pages of your story and provide some feedback... I hope it does without saying that I might be completely wrong, and that you should take what you like and leave the rest. Thanks for marking that up, I appreciate the effort you've gone to, but could you take down that document? People have already told me about making private copies to read over, but I didn't think I'd need to say that sharing versions publicly, especially of the entire document, that I have no control over isn't something I'd like to happen. Edit: Gonna take most of this down as it's really only valuable for me working out how to interpret the feedback for what I need/want to do. But the sum of point is in the following sentence I've left. How do you make clear that the questions the reader has, the parts the reader wants more details on, are actually the whole purpose of the book, or at least a very strong point of it? Again, thanks for your comments. It's definitely making me think about how to straight-up state in the first chapter what the entire purpose of the book is, and how to make it clear to the reader that the questions asked are the themes of the story. Mrenda fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Aug 7, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2019 15:16
|
|
|
I'm writing a sci-fi serial/novel (posting chapters when they're ready but there's an "end.") I think some of the readers are being really put off because, to use the TVTropes term "Uncanny Valley," this is "Uncanny Society." It's very funny.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 15, 2024 04:27
|
|
|
Really, the "valley" part is entirely unneccesary, as "uncanny" fulfills the entire logic on its own. But yeah, an "uncanny" society of humans... I started out trying to walk the line of "all dystopias are utupias"/"all utopias are dystopias" but as I've gone I've realised it's doing all the right things but it's just alien enough that you can't quite get a good read of the society. It's wrong enough and familiar enough, although I wasn't trying for this result, it might be leaning towards "disturbing" for some people. Now I have to decide how far I lean into it.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 15, 2024 15:59
|
|
|
Stuporstar posted:I want to read this When it's complete I might share the full thing. Earning money is a problem for me due to being on social welfare, and the system I'm in having no ability to manage earning, say, €150 one month and €90 the next. If I published it and got over the e-book creation system/covers I could put it on Amazon, but it'd have to be de-monetized, and I'm not sure I want to completely cut myself off from earning money in the future by committing to free. I've realised from my other work it's very difficult to get people to care about writing that comes through non-standard delivery methods, so self-hosted and the like really doesn't work.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 15, 2024 17:41
|
|
|
Mrenda posted:When it's complete I might share the full thing. Earning money is a problem for me due to being on social welfare, and the system I'm in having no ability to manage earning, say, €150 one month and €90 the next. If I published it and got over the e-book creation system/covers I could put it on Amazon, but it'd have to be de-monetized, and I'm not sure I want to completely cut myself off from earning money in the future by committing to free. I made some emails about this. Theoretically it's possible I could keep my social welfare while earning some money from writing. The way it works is my income would be constantly monitored, with me reporting my earnings. For the first few months I report every week, then my social welfare is adjusted based on how much I've earned, with a certain amount being money that doesn't affect my social welfare. After my first year of earning my social welfare is adjusted based on a tax return/yearly report. That gets reviewed every year, and at any point they deem necessary. I don't know if I can request a review. It means a bit of "invasion" into my life and my finances, and I enter a strange situation where I'm both self-employed and on social welfare. And have two governmental bodies I'm answerable to and have to be fully open with. There's obviously problems with how meticulous I have to be with everything, far more than if I was just a regular writer relying on book sales. The other problem is how front loaded book sales are, and how much of a "tail" I have. A long term problem could be if I have a relatively big hit with one book, and my social welfare is drastically reduced the next year and I have no other big hit, with it being a once-off, luck thing. It is possible, though. And I have to have a serious think about it. The next step is to talk to some family members about this. Then maybe get onto some of the writers' bodies here and see if they have advice.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 17, 2024 12:49
|
|
|
Stuporstar posted:I’m in exactly the same situation with disability benefits, so I have to make the same considerations in the future. The first thing I’m probably gonna do is publish my series as a web serial for no money, then maybe set up a patreon, and then later publish them as ebooks. I don’t expect to make any money on it for a while though. Yeah, the healthcare thing is the next step. Medical care here is a hybrid systems with it free for some people, ranging all the way to full-ish (but not US level charges), and then onto private healthcare. I need to see at what point I stop being entitled to free healthcare. And if the ruling is once you're self-employed, even if it's with the support of the disability service, you're no longer entitled to free healthcare the thinking about it stops at that point. Maybe it'll involve a few emails to TDs (MPs) to see if things can be changed long term. I genuinely think I played a part in the current system getting official guidelines because when I last checked into this they weren't available. And I emailed TDs who put written questions to the relevant government Minister, so it's on an official record somewhere. And the state/civil service doesn't particularly like having flaws in their system highlighted on the record. It took years to change, and I'm sure I wasn't the only person questioning it, but it did change.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 18, 2024 14:28
|
|
|
I've never thought of interiority as exposition. If I write third person I think it's almost always been past tense, if I write first person I write in the present, as far as I can recall. It just feels correct, I haven't justified to myself why I feel this way. Third person is also, often, close third person, with interiority focused on one particular character. Although I have had fun with jumping around, even with a sub-chapter section, with where interiority is placed. This is ued sparingly. Writing is good. Have fun with it.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 28, 2024 07:47
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 2, 2024 01:04 |
|
|
cumpantry posted:hello everyone i'm going to attempt to frankenstein some romance fantasy litrpg to life in hopes of crumbing together KU sales. here is a very brief prologue, this thread reminding me some significant and scary population of readers skip them, from being too weighty i assume. anyway be rough with me it's ok Got big clash of clans, settlers, knights and merchants, etc. vibes off this.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 21, 2024 17:37
|
|
