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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Comic sans trick, dawg: make a copy of the doc, switch it into comic sans, print it off and read it like that. It'll instantly feel like a book written by somebody else. I use it to clear those post-draft editing humps all the time, no idea why it works but it does, try it if you don't believe me. I do this but with Lucida Sans Typewriter or something along those lines.
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Sep 27, 2022 21:23
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 00:00 |
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All marketing is rooted in cynicism.
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Oct 3, 2022 15:53
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Does it need to be exactly 500 words? 'Cause I just wrote 804. Will edit it down if required.
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Nov 16, 2022 15:06
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eh gently caress it, I wrote it, I'll post it. I didn't write it for the prize, it just seemed like it might be fun. ------------------- “Yeah, hello?” “Taze! Hey how you doin’, it’s me, Mike. Hey listen, I don’t know if you remember me but I used to be pretty regular.” “poo poo yeah I remember you dude, what he hell happened? I honestly figured you were dead or went away or something--” “Yeah no, I’m fine,” Mike interrupted. “Things just changed, life, you know. Hey listen, I need a little something, can you still hook a guy up?” “Sure. The usual, like you used to—” “Yeah that’s perfect. Because listen, you know how I used to write and poo poo? I have those two novellas I published on Amazon, I dunno if you remember them, but anyway I stopped writing for like years, because I got to thinking that to be honest it’s not exactly like I’m loving Faulkner and if you’re not loving Faulkner then what’s loving point in even trying, you know?” “You okay man? You sound—” “Anyway I started writing a little something again a couple weeks ago, I just kind of got an itch in my brain and had to work it out of my system, you know? So I’m writing this story about this girl who finds this sword, except it’s set in the modern day so a sword is a really weird thing to find, then she comes home and finds her mother’s loving catatonic and her sister’s missing, right?” “Dude, I read that one story for you like ten years ago but to be honest I was stoned out of my mind when I agreed—” “And then, and THEN, there’s a guy in her kitchen, he’s opening and closing the fridge over and over like it’s some kind of alien poo poo, and he knows her name and says he’s Charlemagne and he needs her help. But the thing is, he really is a time traveling Charlemagne, and—” “Wait, hold up. How the gently caress can they even communicate then? That dude was French and I’m pretty sure English hadn’t even been—” “No there wasn’t any such thing as French back then either but that’s not the point, who cares how they communicate, it’s magic okay? Anyway, that’s where I’m stuck. I got this whole zany time traveling adventure all mapped out in my head and it’s loving awesome but I can’t figure out how to realistically get her to listen to him long enough for some exposition, instead of screaming and calling the cops or pepper spraying him or something. I thought about the pepper spray thing, it might be pretty funny, but it doesn’t quite fit. So that was, like, a week ago, and I’ve been just loving depressed ever since. I tried posting about it on reddit but those loving nerds are so high on their own farts it’s no use talking to them. There’s this thing called talent, you know? And they don’t have it. And neither do I, I got to thinking, so maybe I should just scrap the whole thing.” “Dude, I really need to—” “But then this afternoon it hit me—I need drugs! And booze. I just need to get really hammered and then do an 8-ball and inspiration will hit me and I’ll crank out some awesome poo poo, I know it. That’s what Stephen King does and I mean, he’s Stephen loving King. So that’s why I called, I’ll swing by your place on the way to the liquor store and then we’ll be rolling, baby!” To Taze’s astonishment Mike actually stopped talking. There was a long pause. Taze was reflecting that he wasn’t so sure he wanted this guy coming to his house. “Are you sure that’s—” “I’m just so loving frustrated right now, you know? Like, 21st century American girl teaming up with Charlemagne, it’s so awesome. But God, how can I get there, how can I get her to actually listen to him when—” “Dude, I DON’T GIVE A gently caress, okay!? Just have her be stoned when it happens and say what the gently caress ever, she’s stoned, she’s rolling with it. I don’t care! Do you want this poo poo or not? I’m busy!” Silence. Thirty silent seconds passed. Finally Taze ventured to speak. “Hello? Mike? You still there?” “Taze! That’s loving amazing! She was high! No, drunk! No, maybe both—no, no, just high. You’ll go with any kind of poo poo when you’re stoned. I hadn’t actually thought of her from that angle, but that totally works! By the time the high wears off she’ll already be back in early Francia and then poo poo can just fly. That’s awesome. I’ll call you back, I’ve got to go write this right now.” And that’s how the call ended. Taze stared at the phone for a long moment. He shook his head, and blocked Mike's number. e: ...dammit Wungus. Eric the Mauve fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Nov 16, 2022 |
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Nov 16, 2022 16:00
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Other than lying-not-laying that's not really awful prose, depending what style you're going for. The only major issue is that if she's been on spaceships before and can recognize when she's in one then you can skip straight from "rose slowly to her feet" to "she recognized the familiar sights and sounds of a spaceship's bridge", and if she hasn't then it becomes more of a show-don't-tell exercise where you balance when she figures it out with when the reader figures it out. IMO the mechanics of sentence construction are inseparable from narrative style, which is too personal for an expert to teach you per se. It's something you develop through lots of reading and lots of writing. In between writing sessions, find a few authors whose structure and style you admire and read everything of theirs you can. As for polish, the best option is to hire a skilled editor but the expense isn't always realistic, in which case it's another skill you'll need to develop. But write the story first, then go back and work hard on polishing individual sentences and tightening individual paragraphs. Don't be me and constantly keep trying to do that while writing, you'll never actually finish the story that way (ask me how I know). I'm sorry I don't have a more direct answer than that. I'm as curious as you are if others think there is one.
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Jan 15, 2023 04:56
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Pictured: An excerpt of prose that would never in a million years get past a modern publishing-house editor if they didn't already know Cormac McCarthy wrote it.
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Jan 27, 2023 22:23
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My mother has about 17 million books titled The [dessert] Murder, I assume that's about as Cozy Mystery as you can get.
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Jun 3, 2023 03:37
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I would characterize it more as it can write stories with some competence, but it's still hopeless at editing them. Theme, pacing, plotting at a horizon longer than a page or two... it can lay bricks, but it can't do architecture. Yet.
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Jul 5, 2023 00:26
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It may also be relevant that in Tolkien there are very few magic wielders, and the few we see are supporting characters. Whereas in most modern fantasy the core cast are always magic wielders, and you can't blindfoldedly throw a rock without hitting one. I wouldn't categorize it as a bad thing, though. A lot of readers are in fact there for the magic. Sanderson's Scrooge McDuck swimming pool full of money speaks for itself.
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Jul 27, 2023 14:51
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Re-reading good stuff is far better than reading mediocre stuff IMHO.
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Sep 18, 2023 21:49
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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. Every word you possibly can. More seriously, everyone is different but I find the hackneyed editing tactic of "put yourself in a headspace where you believe you're being paid $50 per cut word" very useful for myself. I philosophically subscribe to the Saint-Exupery definition of elegance, but my writing is very much the opposite of that before I get out my editing machete. Even with that though, if you're 25% over your word count target you're not going to get there just by cutting out words. You're looking for paragraphs, even scenes, that can be cut.
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Oct 16, 2023 16:30
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Wungus posted:Anything you write will be attacked if you do it badly and praised if you do it well. I'd be leery of putting it like this to an aspiring writer. The reality is if you do it well you just might sell it and get it published; and if the general public becomes aware of your writing, you can definitely expect a certain number of self-appointed Literary Experts who will take time out of their busy schedules to explain to you at great length why your writing is terrible and you are a bad person who should feel bad.
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Nov 11, 2023 18:46
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Just please don't do that thing where you try to show a particular character is an intellectual by their not using contractions.
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Nov 29, 2023 14:45
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To be honest I don't see why your writing group needs a famous work to compare it to. If it gets to shopping it to agents then you'll want a hook of that nature. But with the group, your writing stands on its own for better or worse IMO. Unless "you have to provide a famous book/story your work is similar to" is a group rule or somesuch.
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Jan 6, 2024 18:00
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As a copy editor in a previous life, let me tell you, you'd be amazed how poor the grammers are of some people who have made millions of dollars writing books.
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Jan 27, 2024 15:25
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The whole line feels like a non-sequitur to me. So, like, if I get the right balance of raw power and practiced technique, then can I solve all my problems with magic? I'm not even sure I understand what point he's actually making, but I would have written it more along the lines of: "'Kids think they can just learn a few spells and be masters of magic. It's not just about power. You need to study."
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Mar 9, 2024 16:14
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Yeah it took me too long to realize that, while "Fantasy" is often used to mean "Tolkienesque" it absolutely is far broader than that. See also a lot of Neil Gaiman's work.
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Mar 22, 2024 15:12
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Can't say this is necessarily the right answer for anyone who isn't me, but when I've found myself in that spot, I drop it and move on to the next thing. Once I went back a couple years later and rewrote the story I'd dropped and it turned out adequately. The other two times I never went back. It happens. Another thing you can do that I did once with a story I decided like 20,000 words in was Not Working was to start over but do it radically differently in terms of perspective and narrative style.
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Mar 30, 2024 19:04
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 00:00 |
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Fun experiment if your story's not clicking and you're getting frustrated with it: Go all J.M. Barrie/Lemony Snicket on it. Seriously, just rewrite it in the voice of a narrator who thinks the story is trash and the characters deserved more suffering than they got. What you end up with won't likely be any good on its own. But it's fun, and the exercise might open up some possibility space for you.
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Mar 30, 2024 22:47
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