FunkyAl posted:

Hello fiction writing thread, I wrote a Frasier Fan Fiction, please enjoy

Dr. Kloctopussy posted:

Welcome to the Fiction Writing Advice (and general discussion) thread!

Writing fiction is hard, frustrating, fun, and rewarding, and it is awesome that you are doing it (or thinking of doing it)! This thread is the place for you to ask and answer all sorts of questions regarding fiction writing. Also to post all your successes and (if you feel like it) failures, and get appropriately enthusiastic and encouraging responses. Also possibly appropriate and enthusiastic critiques. It’s a good place to engage in dialogue with other people who are writing fiction, at all levels of “accomplishment” or whatever.

Chances are good that by the time you are reading this thread, it will be very long and you just won’t have the time to read the entire thing. That is fine! No one really expects you to.  Please do us all the favor of reading AT LEAST THIS FIRST loving POST FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

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4) IF YOU WANT FEEDBACK:

If you want advice on specific things you are writing, you have a couple options. If it’s just a few sentences, you can post it in here. If it’s 1000 words or less, it goes in the Fiction Farm. If it’s longer than that, start a new thread. You can link here and ask for crits. Never ever ever post something that you haven’t already read and revised yourself.

Echo Cian posted:

Seems you need to add a troll clause.

Deltasquid posted:

That was a good read, yeah. I do like you touching upon "reader expectations" because I never really linked that with genres specifically. It's the reason why so much fantasy seems to be formulaic as well: the reader signed up for a story about elves, dragons, possibly kings and queens. To market yourself as a fantasy story and then to not deliver on that is a waste of your reader's time, no matter how good your story is. Conversely, people who might like your story, dodge your book because they expect traditional fantasy poo poo and they have 0 interest in any of that world-saving magic nonsense.

anime was right posted:

my expectation is now excel spreadsheets about the magic system

Deltasquid posted:

I recently read Robin Hobb and although probably not an elf, the Fool (if that's his name in English?) is definitely similar enough to count.

Spades of dragons though.

EDIT: I may have been reading fantasy books written 20 years ago

After The War posted:

Because Japanese is matched only by German in "single word to mean incredibly specific thing," and even then, the German would probably be something like hauptfiguranderetransportiertwerden.

Dr. Kloctopussy posted:

What Wiz Zumalt could do with computers was magic on Earth. Then, one day the master computer hacker is called to a different world to help fight an evil known as the Black League. Suddenly, the Wiz finds himself in a place governed by magic--and in league with a red-headed witch who despises him.

ExtraNoise posted:

Actually this is a great idea. B&W laser printers aren't too expensive these days. (I have an ink jet but trying to print out hundreds of pages on it seems like the worst idea.)

I hadn't thought of this option. I think I will start saving my pennies.

cash crab posted:

No, I don't need anything really specific, but all the agencies I've looked at are pretty specific about people assigning genre with their queries. But thanks for the tip about the letters.

cash crab posted:

No, that could probably work. I'll look around. Also:


I was just thinking, this could be a pretty good solution to your problem. In addition to getting your own printer, you could probably cut costs by having just a few people test read it at a time and circulate those copies, presuming they don't get marked up.

Safety Biscuits posted:

Don't write origin stories, they are bad and stupid.

Hungry posted:

Anybody got any favourite/preferred outlining methods?

I used to be big on discovery writing until I made a huge mess of a first draft and used outlines to dig around and figure out what I was trying to do with the story. But until today I've never started a project by specifically trying to outline before writing at least 20-30k words (which usually end up trashed fast because I'm just stumbling around). I'm trying to outline first this time, and it's unexplored territory for me.

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.

Dr. Kloctopussy posted:

p.s. we should definitely be calling him Brandy Sandy, right???

HIJK posted:

Sounds like a typical first draft to me

Dr. Kloctopussy posted:

When am I FINISHED?

1) Now
2) When it’s due
3) When you give up
4) When you’ve made it as good as you think you reasonably can
5) When you realize that all further edits are just pushing you into an unending spiral of desolation and there is no end other than resignation
6) When you die
7) When it’s perfect

At some point you must be finished with whatever you are writing. I highly recommend not allowing that point to be when you die. And there’s a reason why “when it’s perfect” comes after “when you die” in the list above (it’s because you will die before it’s perfect). The rest of the list is in no particular order though, because honestly, you need to figure it out for yourself. And figuring it out for yourself, other than in the blessed situation of “when it’s due,” can sometimes result in existential crises, panic attacks, or an overwhelming sense of relief.

If you have written your story start to finish, given it multiple editing passes, and tinkering with it is no longer enjoyable, let it go. If you were planning to submit to a contest on a certain date, submit it.

Writing requires a bravery bordering on recklessness.

Should I finish everything I start?

While some people advise this as a way to avoid starting a bunch of things but never finishing them, I don’t think an absolutist position on finishing everything is helpful. Sometimes you’re going to start something and realize it’s going nowhere and that continuing to work on it is pointless. When that happens, it makes sense to give up on that particular piece. Otherwise you are just wasting valuable time and energy.

However, if you are only starting things, and never finishing them, you have a problem (unless you don’t care about producing a finished work and just enjoy writing beginnings, I guess). At that point, it’s time to face the scary facts and look at why you aren’t finishing anything. Is “getting bored easily” secret code for “anxiety over not being good enough’? Is there some particular point in a story where you always get stuck (screw you Act II doldrums…)? Have you noticed that you don’t do anything ever without outside pressure? (I’m looking at you mirror). Try to identify and address the problem.

If you get bored easily, try writing something shorter. It’s way easier to get bored of a 1,000 page epic than a 1,000 word short story. If you get stuck on specific things, look at how other writers handle it. Maybe look at books on writing for suggestions, too. If you freak out about perfection or need an external deadline, look for things that will force you to be finished at a specific time. Here on SA you can consider the Thunderdome and the Long Walk, but there are also fiction magazines with submission deadlines and other {{writing groups}} that focus on accountability.

Omi no Kami posted:

Is the best way to handle this to just go 'screw it', write from where I am to the end, then see if physically writing out the rest of the story gives me a better idea of how to set it up?

Stuporstar posted:

Avoid X of X titles for a start. Every hack writer trying to capture the same feel as Game of Thrones have beaten that poo poo into paste.

anime was right posted:

amulet of air: ascension; a novel by a novelist, part 1 in an epic fantasy series

Stuporstar posted:

A third of those were written before it was cliche though (and another third of them are garbage).

fridge corn posted:

im only asking cuz ive got an idea for a novel i want to write but when i think about the premise of it and how i want to write it, it sounds very much like a kind of book that some other authors ive read would have written. authors with very distinctive styles.

how do you avoid the trap of mimicry or pastiche?

i know this is ultimately a dumb question cuz i haven't actually written anything yet and i won't get a chance to start writing anything for a while due to life and not even owning a computer but wondering if anyone else struggles with anything similar?

Dr. Kloctopussy posted:

It's true that style questions apply to genre books as well, BUT it's also true that we don't talk about style as much as plot and stuff, so I'm going to try to answer the question about not sounding like mimicry/pastiche, instead of arguing about genre (just imagine I c/p-ed my last post on that, ok).

First, you say the premise/how you want to write it sounds like how some other authors WOULD have written. That's a good start, b/c if I understand correctly, it's not very much like something they have already written. Second, if it feels like many authors to you, then there is a chance it won't actually sound like mimicry or pastiche, because it will be pulling elements from different places, and most likely, just by default, will have some element of yourself in it. So, baseline, I think you are probably overthinking this and worrying when you don't need to.

Second, you write what you are going to write and then you edit it, and if while doing that you think it sounds too much like mimicry or pastiche you figure out why and change it.

I was actually going to write more about style in general, but I see that you were only asking that specific question, and also that you aren't even planning to try writing it soon, so I'm gonna stop for now and hopefully get back to that subject when I have more time. I think the OPs are pretty sparse on style advice right now, too. Didn't we talk about this a few months ago? Possibly starting from nearly the exact same intro of genre v. not? Early March, I think.

sebmojo posted:

the old ceremony posted:

i meant it in a nice way

magnificent7 posted:

Haha well, my first DM was 4 years ago. I tried again, sucked again, and swore I'd never post my work alongside a bunch of high brow smarty arty writers ever again. 8 months later, I returned, sucked, slinked away, repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Al Cu Ad Solte posted:

Is it cool to ask for beta readers in this thread or should I do that elsewhere or make my own thread? FINALLY got around to editing and revising the finalish draft of one of my novels that I'd like to start shopping around.

Al Cu Ad Solte posted:

It's a little over 96k words. My goal was to write something fun with a lot of heart in it. It's a cyberpunk police procedural love story starring a sad gay woman with bionic limbs. PM me if you're interested! Or post here, I suppose?

Burkion posted:

So I'm conflicted on this.

I am very, very serious about trying to get my project published, and I want to get it as good as I can possibly take it.

Should I just keep posting chapters as I get them done to my thread? Get proper critiques from people that bother to look them over?

I should be able to remove them later on if it, hopefully!, becomes an issue. but I'm not sure anyone would really want that. I think I'm on the right track but I am so loving in my own headspace with the story it's kind of hard to say for certain.

Taciturn Tactician posted:

What's the rules on replacing thunderdome avs anyway? Are they juat straight up forever or you're a coward?

Exmond posted:

So during the start of TD I was pretty hopeful and getting good advice. Pick up punctuation books, fix spelling, fix grammar. I have gotten better on that side that the advice is no longer "pass grade 5 english". Still room for improvement of course.

The problem I'm having now is the advice im getting is.. inconsistent and vague. It's not something that has mechanics around it nor a clear-cut goal. The best crit I got for my last story was to make the start interesting. Now the advice I'm getting is to have more weight or make things move less quickly. Which isn't something I can exactly look up nor do I understand it. I get line by line crits sometimes but they seem more to be sarcasm than actual help.

Before getting a DM or Loss was okay because I was getting better advice or knew how to improve. This time it stings a little bit because I don't really know how to improve and its the fourth consecutive DM.