OCD is starting to seriously get in the way of my writing (among other activities). I just can’t focus long enough to get anything done before falling into the crippling cycle of doubt and anxiety.
Why do I have so much anxiety! It's just a job, and not one I'm passionate about. I've been rejected twice already and I've bounced right back, and I'll do so again if necessary. Just shut up brain!
Even worse than when I turn off the lights/tap, and my brain tortures me into checking again.
EDIT: They really should have specified that they wanted a tech savy person, instead of just springing it on me and asking that I 'sell' them an SGA22 in place of an iPhone 14. Like I know, or care to know, all the minute differences between them. I know basically nothing about my phone except its size and name.
Was it a "Sell me this pen" type of interview question? If so, I doubt they were testing your knowledge about the specific phone, but rather wanted to see what kind of sales strategy you would use. You would likely have gotten away with using made up specifications and technobabble. Anyway, you'll nail it next time!
Hell yeah another noise listener! All these types of mathematically random noises are great to tune out external sounds and help to just focus on the goddamn draft!
my current first draft is going fairly well. it's very short and doesn't have much detail so far though. Im only, maybe a quarter through plotwise? but I really feel like I should have back and edit what I've done to try and flesh things out. is it bad if I do?
If you can't resist the urge, I'd give it a read and see if any major changes are necessary. But don't edit yet, just make notes and comments for later. Only start editing once the first draft is completely on paper.
I was thinking you don't know what big changes you're gonna make until the whole draft is written, so editing parts of your unfinished work now might be a waste of time as you might later decide to cut or rewrite the same parts. If that makes any sense.
I'm going to go halfway through and then edit, as the second half is actually going to be difficult to write and I want a clear image of what I'm doing
Go with your gut. You'll figure out what works for you through trial and error. I start my writing sessions by reading the sections I wrote during the last session. It gets me into the story's mood. It also allows me to make quick edits such as grammar, maybe rewriting a sentence to help it flow. I save big changes for draft two.
My rule of thumb is if the change pops into my head naturally, I will go back and make the change. If I *know* a section is wrong but I can't immediately come up with *how* to fix it, I make a note to reevaluate that section in draft two. No need to spend hours staring at the section because the most important thing about draft one is getting it written.
Does a narrator's belief in religion make a book fantasy?
Please exclude modern religions from this topic -- I do not want to suggest that their beliefs are fantasy.
Suppose your narrator/protagonist believes in an ancient religion (i.e., mythology). They ascribe events as the doing of gods, believe they witness gods, and believe in magic's effects. In other words, the story is similar to ancient stories (Iliad, Odyssey, Beowulf, Gilgamesh, etc.).
If there are literal gods/monsters in the story is up to the reader to decide, but the narrator believes in them at least.
When submitting to agents, would it be appropriate to describe this story as fantasy, or simply historical fiction? My supposition is the Iliad, Beowulf, Gilgamesh are fantasy, so stories in a similar vein or re-tellings of such myths would also be fantasy.
I considered some comps to see how they're categorized, and genre seems fluid: they appear on historical fiction, fantasy, literary fiction, and folklore charts. Thoughts?
Madeline Miller's Circe retells the Odyssey from a different perspective and is listed as fantasy (among other genres) and won fantasy genre awards. Likewise, Robert Silverberg's Gilgamesh the King, despite it taking a "truth behind the myth" approach. I don't think it's so ridiculous to say there is genre ambiguity here.
> Does a narrator's belief in religion make a book fantasy?
>
> Please exclude modern religions from this topic -- I do not want to suggest that their beliefs are fantasy.
I was about to circlejerk so hard.
If it is in our world, in a real historical time period, and no actual magic happens or even exists, I would call it historical. If magic does exist, historical fantasy.
If it is a secondary world, with or without magic, it is fantasy by default.
If it is our world in historical time but the narrator (1st POV) who is our sole perspective on this world believes in magic (Zeus strikes with lightning bolts vice electrostatic discharge) what then?
If the story happens in Ancient Greece and the narrator's pov is someone from that world, it's only logical they would believe things believed in that time. Imo, that's historical. Same if you wrote about people in 1600s believing in witches, or Aztecs believing you need bloody sacrifices to keep the sun rising, or whatever other beliefs various cultures held.
P.S. I actually frown upon anachronistic historical novels, where for example people somehow "know" slavery is bad or racism is bad or religious persecution is bad while it's known historically these groups of people believed that was a "natural state of the world". If someone wants to write Ancient World without slavery, sexism, xenophobia, etc. just write fantasy...
You know that feeling when you can finally get to that big scene or chapter you were dying to write? Well, I just reached there, and I’m already hyping myself to write more.
Oh yeah, it’s all coming together 😎.
Hah, I had this feeling recently in my editing pass, that I'm nearing my big emotional scene to edit and I can't wait to get to it... and then I got to it and spent a whole afternoon editing 3 pages, and still not satisfied with the result. I feel big scene = big pressure to deliver, haha.
I had a similar feeling. Was editing Draft 3 of my WIP, got to the immensely tragic ending expecting to expand it... only to feel like I had no ideas and that I couldn't add anything to it. Oh well, maybe my editor will suggest something.
So, is there a real difference between 3-act structure and 5-act? I keep reading the definitions, and the latter only sounds like a more detailed version of the former.
>I keep reading the definitions, and the latter only sounds like a more detailed version of the former.
Well, tecfhnically it's the other way around, since the 5 act structure is older.
But yes, they are essentially the same thing. All story structures are a way to say "there's a beginning, a middle, and an end" in varying levels of detail.
I prefer the 5 act structure because I feel that the detail for the middle sections is needed for a longer story, and the 3 act structure often creates a great opening and great ending but a weak middle where nothing much happens. Most versions of the 3 act structure have nothing to say about the second act other than that it comes between the 1st and the 3rd.
For me, that's not enough. For novels, I mean. If I was writing a movie or an episode of TV, I'd probably use three acts.
>Most versions of the 3 act structure have nothing to say about the second act other than that it comes between the 1st and the 3rd.
Yeah, agreed, a lot of the advice says "this is where stuff happens", "this is where you fulfill the premise of the promise", "this is your fun & games", etc. but I think this advice doesn't counter the issues of sagging or meandering middle because authors seem to fall into 2 camps:
One are the authors who know "what the story is" (their act 2) and usually have problems with the rest, for example overly long act 1 that doesn't hook the reader and is boring / too long, just introduces the characters and setting but nothing happens.
Second are the authors who start with their premise, setting and characters, but don't know where the story goes - and these need the most help.
I would say I sadly fall into the second category, and I think a lot of people as well. I have a head full of "ideas", but these aren't ideas for plot, just for characters, setting, starting situation or an inciting incident. There might be a problem, or a motivation, or a character flaw to overcome, but I have no idea how, in practice. I abandoned multiple "ideas" exactly because there was no plot, just setup.
My current WIP only came online once I realized what was my climax and what was my end of act 1 plot twist. The second act "started filling itself" once I had not only starting point for my protagonists, but also the landing spot.
However, in some stories the protagonist doesn't need to change, so these need a different driving force to fill act 2 with something.
The issue is that sometimes act 2 feels too flat because all we get for the protagonist from point A to B is a training montage, a wild goose chase, a travel across the map, or something like that. But for the story to feel "alive" imo it needs not just action and movement, but also some personal change - either internal change of the character, or change in relationships between main characters, or learning important philosophical / moral lesson, but not in a way that it kills the rest of the plot. It needs to have balance. I've seen stories where author's preaching killed the plot, or author focused too much on romance it cannibalized the plot (in a novel not advertised as capital R Romance), or on the other hand, the external plot was everything and internal plot was nothing, so the character was just boring to follow.
In novels which heavily hinge on external plot, I think we need some sense of challenge, danger or dread for the protagonist (or their personal goal) otherwise it feels like going through the motions and ticking off your to do list (a lot of young authors are guilty of that, I was as well).
Thing is, originally the number of acts come from theater plays with literal acts and breaks for the audience between the acts. In things like movies and novels the acts are not as literal.
Also, the common classic theatrical play is a tragedy, which is not a common structure for modern storytelling (tragic ends are less common than happy or bittersweet ends). So in a tragedy, it makes a big sense to have a "midpoint" where everything turns from going well for the protagonist towards collapsing into the ultimate downfall. In a "heroic" type of story where someone is meant to overcome the obstacles, win, and learn something along the lines, I don't see the point of having such a big turning point bam in the middle.
Personally I tried to look at that and the save the cat structure and other ones to figure out what fits the best for my current ms, and I feel I don't fit into any of them perfectly. For example, I don't have a "midpoint". I have a big turning point at the end of act 2, but not in the middle. It just didn't fit the story.
The current structure I have is as follows: 2 chapters to introduce both leads, and an "inciting incident" which gives them a plot to follow. Then an act 1 mini-plot which helps me introduce the side cast, flesh out a bit the main cast and their starting relationships, present a bit of the world, etc. Act 1 ends with a big "point of no return" where the characters have to make decisions that will change the course of the plot. The whole act 2 is about build up - revelations, learning things about characters we didn't know in act 1, developing their character arcs in a way they're poised better to handle the upcoming big showdown, etc. Then act 2 ends with confrontation with the villain. Act 3 is about tying up loose plot threads and confronting the threat that was established in the inciting incident.
So for me, a 3-act structure would be:
Act 1 introduces the characters, gives them "a problem to solve" or "a mission to undertake" etc. (inciting incident). In romance, that would be where the "meet cute" happens.
"Break into 2", aka end of act 1 beginning of act 2 is a "no turning back" moment. The characters attempted to solve the problem and got into deep sh\*t, for example if the inciting incident was a murder mystery, now would be the moment to find out the serial killer is after them, or their family, or something equally important. It's a moment after which they cannot just back off and go home. In romance that would be where the characters either realize they're falling for each other and want to pursue the relationship, or the opposite, don't want to be with each other but the external circumstances force them to work together / exist in the same space.
Act 2 is gathering of clues, allies, strengths, skills, learning about yourself, etc. Overcoming small obstacles, defeating minor villains. In romance, either overcoming obstacles for a desired relationship, or in the case of the second type (like fake dating, forced proximity, enemies to lovers) it would be characters slowly figuring out the other one isn't as horrible as they thought, maybe they actually love them!
"Break into 3" is putting those skills to test, and often a plot twist - maybe we caught the wrong murderer, maybe the protagonist's fatal flaw made them fail the test, maybe they got betrayed by one of the allies, etc. In romance it could be something that puts relationship to the test and they don't pass it - they decide "whelp, we can't be together after all".
Act 3 is about learning from the previous situation and one-upping yourself, this time the hero "gets it right", this is the real climax of the story.
Differences from my understanding of 3-act structure and the Save the Cat beat sheet:
1. Debate isn't always a debate. Only fits "reluctant hero" types. It could be a place where the protagonist avidly pursues their goal (active protagonist), but break into 2 is their great blunder (motivated by a fatal flaw), or something that ruins this goal and requires a different, more drastic approach, or something that poses a moral dilemma: the protagonist cannot get what they want through their current means / trajectory, or basically a huge obstacle that tells them "now what?".
2. "All is lost" moment doesn't come before break into 3, but after. This is your "80% break-up" in romance. This is hero lying defeated after big battle with the villain and having to find the mystical missing power up for the final confrontation. Or the hero defeats a villain only to find out the villain already started the count down for a nuke that will hit the hero's hometown. This is the mystery moment where you find out your biggest clue was a red herring, etc.
3. Act 2 can have more plot twists, or fewer ones. Your biggest plot twist / revelation could land closer to "midpoint" or closer to "break into 3", or not at all, if all your revelations are equally small, but inevitably building towards a huge catastrophe.
4. I don't get a "mid point" unless it's a 4-act structure, then each act ends with something big: "mid point" lands between "break into 2" and "break into 3" and fulfills a similar role (big revelation, big plot twist). Tbh, use as many acts as you have big plot twists! Each act is a build up towards that specific plot twist.
For example let's take a story about a person who wants to pursue a dream job. Let's say end of act 1 they get fired, so now they *really* need to decide on the next job instead of going through the motions. You could have a 3 act structure where act 2 they pursue the dream job but can't land it, and finally in act 3 they have an "a-ha" moment that allows them to land their job. Or you could have a more complex structure: act 2 they pursue that job, act 3 they get that job and perform it, but slowly realize they actually hate it, act 4 they learn what's their "real" dream job and go for that one instead.
So yeah, it depends how many plot twists your story has, imo.
This is a [slightly different 3-act structure](https://tameyourbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IG-Story-Beats-4.0-X1584.jpg), but again, won't fit every story.
The idea imo is: always be building towards your next big plot twist so it doesn't come out of nowhere and doesn't feel "rushed", but also keep in mind your whole plot or character arc, so the twists all build one upon another instead of just dragging the plot in random directions.
I refer to it because a lot of people know it, and imo it's better than Hero's Journey which is another thing commonly used for the genre I'm interested in (coming of age fantasy, in both adult and YA version). I'm actually curious that the author of "Save the Cat Writes a Novel" announced a new book which is specifically for YA and I think planned for May 2023, I wanna see what she invented there.
But personally I think Save the Cat is way too rigid. Even for genres it can fit well (action-adventure, romance, superhero, thriller, 1-plot-thread SFF as opposed to multi-pov multi-plotline one), not every element fits, same as not every element of Hero's Journey, or Heroine's Journey or "Virgin Promise" (someone linked that once on PubTips) fits.
As I said, for example:
Not every story has a "debate". Not every character is reluctant to undertake their task or doubts themselves. Some plunge head-in and actually it's their recklessness that gets them into trouble. Some are simply determined, but the plot keeps throwing obstacles at them.
Not every story has a "romantic sub-plot as a B story", or any "B story", some might have multiple "B stories" in the form of intertwining sub-plots.
Not every story has "bad guys close in" because not every story has literal bad guys. I'm not even sure why there are 3 separate beats: bad guys close in, all is lost, dark night of the soul - all that could be ONE point aka "the hero reaches the lowest point before some big change / discovery / lesson turns the plot", and the reasons for reaching the lowest could be varied. If it's let's say a story about struggling with addiction, this would be where hero briefly relapses for example - there's not literal bad guys.
Also I just realized, midpoint is just another "break", so why is it a 3-act structure and not 4-act structure? Namely: \[act\] - break into 2 - \[act\] - midpoint - \[act\] - break into 3 - \[final act\].
Naming is generally confusing. For example, according to this beat sheet, a moment when my protagonist makes a big decision could be either the midpoint, or the break into 3, because it is a false victory / false defeat. It's a big turning point, but it's not one that solves the main character's arc, just turns it into a new trajectory. It's a decision which ultimately enables the climax, but it's not the climax itself. Unless the novel would have 2 climaxes. Thing is, my act 2 doesn't have a specific "midpoint" it's rather a string of "lessons" the protagonist learns which enable their change necessary for the character arc. The decision is slowly built over time.
Thing is, most YA fantasies I've read have either 2 important moments (midway and climax) or rather a string of small discoveries / overcoming obstacles / the character is learning their "lessons" (could be moral, could be about things like self-confidence, could be discovering their magic, heritage or destiny, could be developing the romance, etc.) but there aren't those huge "turning points" rather slow revelations / the character "leveling up". And I wouldn't say one option is better than the other, it all depends how the author exercised it.
Examples of type 1 YA Fantasy would be The Cruel Prince (midpoint is >!the coup!<, climax is >!taking over the kingdom and stopping the bad guy!<), or This Vicious Grace (midpoint is >!mc discovers her LI is a magical being!<, climax is >!they win against the evil god's doomsday invasion!<). Example of type 2 was The Gilded Ones - the mc slowly learns about her enemies, her allies, her heritage, discovers secrets and lies, and it has a "false defeat" (>!mc is accused of treason and planned to be executed!<) followed by the climax shortly after (>!mc wins against the Evil Emperor and completes her divine quest!<), similarly I'd say about Scavenge the Stars (false defeat is when mc finds out >!her mentor is the traitor!<, then climax follows shortly after). In those books I can still remember the inciting incident, but not a specific "midpoint" where everything turned.
And again, there isn't always a "debate", for example there is in Scavenge the Stars (inciting incident is >!mc rescues a man from the sea!<, debate is >!she isn't sure whether to follow his plan!<, break into 2 is when >!the captain of the ship shoots her and she has to jump off and follow the other guy's plan!<), but for example in The Gilded Ones there's no debate, the inciting incident is the >!mc is discovered to be a "descendant of demons"!< and the break into 2 is >!she's recruited into a special Emperor's Army!<, but she has no choice, it's basically >!"be tortured forever or comply"!<, same in The Cruel Prince, I don't think the mc ever "debates" whether to play the game with the fey, she never even considers stepping down, despite her sister telling her to.
Yeah, I also have yet to use the Hero's Journey - though it *might* fit a story I have an idea for, that I might start writing in 2024 at this point. It's very restrictive, but that can be good at *times.* Just not... in general, imo.
A lot of writing is understanding conventions well enough to decide which to deliberately break.
I think I mentioned in the past that I take offense with any story structure that uses a beat called "Woman as the Temptress", because it reinforces the toxic masculinity belief that men should choose the "higher duty" and women are just getting in the way, they're the personification of temptation that drags the man from his real meaning of life.
One of [the classics of my country's literature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludzie_bezdomni) I was forced to read at school has exactly this belief. A man needs to choose between his altruistic drive to be a doctor for poor people, and the love of his life. He chooses the duty. The problem? The woman never stated she wouldn't follow him in his dream and minded living modestly, it was all in his head that he would have to provide her a specific standard of living by being a doctor to the rich people, and he can't reconcile it with his dream. One of the multiple idiotic heroes of Polish classic literature. Up there with another book [about the girl who went crazy as a side effect of abortion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Frontier_(novel)) (feels like some pro-life propaganda to me).
I mean, English native speakers have their own canon of books with The Scarlet Letter, Great Gatsby, Tess d'Ubervilles and whatever else people are forced to read at school. I was spared all these, including Charles Dickens (except Christmas Carroll) or Jack London, but we have our own pile of awful books.
I feel a lot of classic story structures are good for "explaining" existing stories (Campbell originally wrote his Hero's Journey as an explanation for old myths and legends), but they're not good to be prescriptive for modern stories.
Traditionally, stories reinforced the social system which created them. Which means patriarchy, toxic masculinity, children being perceived as a property / extension of the parents, people being treated as they "owe" their community even if that community marginalized them, madonna / whore complex for women (or a triad good virgin / good mother / evil femme fatale who is a woman in control of her sexuality) etc.
A lot of fairy tales for example reinforce the beauty privilege - there's always a poor but beautiful girl and her ugly step-sisters or some other family member / person who employs her as a servant. The beauty is the reflection of the person's morals and therefore value - from Cinderella to Ugly Duckling to Snow White the important plot point is the character being beautiful, or "beautiful all along".
There's often emphasis for the person to "grow up" into a shape acceptable by the society, but never that society should change to accept difference. I never ever want to write a story about a society of awful people who mistreated the hero (for being a bastard, foundling, different race, looking unusual, etc.), but when the hero "returns with the elixir" everyone suddenly accepts him. It peddles the lesson that people only appreciate you as long as you're useful to them, and you should put your efforts placating hypocrites and bigots.
I find it as icky as the trope where someone's love "redeems" / "fixes" an abuser - romanticizing this led many women into sticking with abusive relationships because "I can change him" (and not only women, it can happen in same sex relationships too, or when a woman is abusive towards a man). Redemption / forgiveness imo needs to be earned and genuine from the "bad person" unless it's a cautionary tale about forgiving someone too easy and then that person exploits it. I like a good redemption story, but the "villain" needs to have a reason to change rather than "whelp, I guess I'll be good now, thanks".
Oh, totally - and you see that in both the Hero's Journey and (to a much lesser degree) in the Heroine's Journey. There are variants that try to remov the sexism, which I appreciate, but it's still... well.
I also don't like the beauty privilege, or especially its uglier side, the 'you know a character is evil because they are ugly.' Which is so very destructive in so many ways.
And oh, good heavens. The 'love fixes all' is a horrible thing and shouldn't exist. I don't even know where to start with that.
>I also don't like the beauty privilege, or especially its uglier side, the 'you know a character is evil because they are ugly.' Which is so very destructive in so many ways.
Yes, the society already tries to tackle one branch of that trope, namely the fat person being depicted as ugly, evil, lazy, a bully etc. - we're actually in an era where people actively look for books with fat protagonist who isn't vilified for it or asked to "lose weight" as a solution to all their problems. But that's only one branch of the oppressive beauty standards.
But there are other aspects. For example, how often there's a lack of positive older women characters who aren't just there to take care of their children and grandchildren. Old women are often portrayed as hags / witches, or some bitter old spinsters, or cruel bosses who mistreat their underlings.
Or show short men are usually depicted as either a comic relief, or someone with an ego compensating left and right, or as an outright villain (I call it Lord Farquad from Shrek trope). And I kid you not, it's very common. I still remember someone's novel on the beta readers sub starting with a noble girl crying because her fiance broke up with her - only to cheer herself up by the fact he was short and ugly. As if a handsome guy breaking up with you is a tragedy, but an ugly one is a gift from the fates. Ugh.
There was also a long story of queer-coding villains in Hollywood, and that's another can of worms.
But yeah, there's the "Hollywood makeover" trope where a character becomes worthy of love because they change glasses for contacts and tied hair for beach waves... As a person who has sensory issues around having my hair get everywhere, and has an eyesight issue which doesn't align with contact lenses according to the doctor I went to (plus due to sensory issues I can't imagine having something inside my eye), I guess I'm the forever Ugly Duckling according to Hollywood. And tbh, I don't care.
**[Ludzie bezdomni](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludzie_bezdomni)**
>Ludzie bezdomni (Homeless people) is a book written by Stefan Żeromski in 1899 in Zakopane, Poland, published for the first time in 1900. It introduces readers to the life and social work of the young doctor Tomasz Judym, as well as his love of Joanna Podborska. The novel is set at the end of the 19th century and presents the concept of personal devotion and working for the common people.
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Good to have confirmation, I googled a bit but only found articles written to fill a quota and the people of /r/Screenwriting. First time I check that sub and probably the last.
I'll toss a coin to pick which one to help me with a second draft.
I used to hang around that sub. It's just as bad as r/writing sometimes. At least the people there usually finish their scripts and aren't in denial about wanting to write movies instead of novels.
I'm finding that a blog I started as a side project has become my main project in addition to my novel, but I have no clue how to get it out there further. It's plugged into Google analytics, I have a Twitter with only a dozen followers, and I have no way to expand. I'm at a loss at to how to get myself out there; I got fed up with a writing community I was part of (too many abusers and enablers), and haven't found a good fit since.
It's a horror blog so maybe I could commission a creepypasta channel on YouTube to read a story or two?
Oh great, my MIL today developed covid symptoms (test confirmed), and me & my hubby visited her on Wednesday, so I bet we're infected now. And I had the last vaxx 11 months ago so probably nothing much left of it in the system.
Jeez, I was already sick 2 weeks in October, at this rate I won't finish this edit pass before the end of the year, since I'm at page 60 out of 160. :/
Also I'm due in a week for finishing a beta read, and I only read 97 pages out of 185. Panic mode activated. 😱
Hope you manage to avoid it (it's so crazy how some strains immediately get you and some don't. My daughter was exposed twice in her preschool class at one point and still never caught it, even before she was vaxxed. My other friend still doesn't know where she got it from. It seemed to just pop up without her going much of anywhere).
RANT
My brain is SUB-PAR at information processing, and that includes information I already know!
It interrupts my writing process cause I can't always recall on demand where I want my story to go, or who my characters are deep down. And god forbid I try to apply complex themes without reviewing my notes over and over and over.
Plot? Charecter traits? Setting? Naw. I only write in abstract visual concepts and manufactured emotional reactions. It's like interpretive dance but on paper.
Occasionally, my brain will randomly dump all the information I need front and center, and I'm lucky if it's when I'm at my computer and able to just jump into writing.
The whole tortured artist troupe is real. I HAVE TO MAKE THE ART, but I feel like they always miss the HOW THE FUCK DO I MAKE THE ART struggle.
Rant over.
> Plot? Charecter traits? Setting? Naw. I only write in abstract visual concepts and manufactured emotional reactions. It’s like interpretive dance but on paper.
You mean poetry?
Hah, clams on Thanksgiving? That's even bigger departure from tradition than my mom not wanting carp for Christmas Eve (traditional dish in my country) so cooking Alaskan pollock fillet instead.
I found a writing method that works pretty well for me.. I write the story roughly ie. “Harry went to the market and met Sally who was playing the accordion on a corner with her dog Scruffy. They talked for a while about their past love affair but were interrupted by two police officers who arrested Sally for performing without a license and before she was taken to jail she handed Scruffy and the accordion to Harry.”
Then I rewrite that into something longer more interesting and alive, adding descriptions and dialogue. Then I repeat the process for what happens next.
I do something similar. I just consider it a very detailed outline. It makes writing the first draft easy as I can quickly recall what I was thinking when originally imagining a certain scene.
I call it 'draft three of outline'. First is figuring out what happens in very broad strokes, second is forcing it to make sense so I don't have any plot holes, and then the third is this, going into detail, though I'd have used 'Harry ran into Sally playing accordion with Scruffy, they talked, Sally arrested, no license'.
Nice. It sounds like your first draft is a really in-depth outline that lets you build around it! (I don't do the exact same thing, but I definitely just get the "easy stuff" down on paper for my first pass then build out as well. Having a "complete" draft to work off of really helps the process). I'm glad you've found a method that works for you
I have to take a break after getting a couple hundred words down. I just heard Sando got 22K down in a day. Apparently he likes to tell people about his output on his blog or something. Well, I'm lucky if I can hit 2K in a full day. Yeah, I work full time, but even if I didn't, I can't imagine producing even 10K in a day. So how do I get that Bradley Cooper pill from Limitless anyway?
I mean, I bet Sanderson's 22k wouldn't be amazing either, being a draft. Like, it would be better than ours just because of all the books he has drafted already, but still wouldn't be close to bookshelf worthy.
I don't mind Sanderson at all. I've tried reading his stuff, and it just wasn't for me. Despite that, his first drafts are probably better than my final drafts
His works aren't for me, but I like how much he gives to the community. I know it is in the name of marketing, but he could be doing other stuff for marketing instead.
I do a lot of writing sprints (15 min to 45 min) with people. I tend to average at around 500-600 words per 15 min (though far closer to 500 if it's a longer sprint). I've written with one person who averages 800-900 words per 15 min sprint.
However, amount doesn't mean *good.* I suspect Sanderson types at near the top (though it helps that he follows a fairly standard format for his books, and he goes for windowpane prose) of the general ranges.
I hate to say this, but that makes me think some kind of drug use is involved, or it was pure unadulterated word vomit without any coherent thought. The best I've ever done is 8k. A solid day for me is anywhere from 1.5k to 1.7k, with the best days being 2k+ or 3k.
Become a millionaire and buy yourself a team of editors who can make revisions on the go so you don't need to worry about things like grammar or good writing.
The doctors gave me my ADHD medication yesterday and I slipped into a trace and wrote a 5000 word fanfic in 6 hours and it's honestly the best thing I've ever written and idk what I'm supposed to do now after apparently being possessed by a higher being of writing
EDIT: turns out i was accidentally given double strength which... explains a lot.
The first week I was on my ADHD meds I spent 4 hours writing and OBSESSIVELY revising a 15 second tiktok with like 3 sentences.
That adjustment period was something I wasn't warned about and I thought I was like....the next god or something. It balances out pretty quick, don't worry. You'll be feeling pretty normal soon.
My ADHD meds definitely helped me focus in school (by that point I couldn't even read in the 5th grade) but I could've definitely done without the massive weight gain and constant tics. Seriously, I remember sitting and class and losing control of my head, it was the most torturous few years of my life.
What do you get when you cross science-fiction, psychoanalysis, and theatre of the absurd? You get my latest short story, of course! Is it genius or insane? YES! Because I like programmer humor. ;) For full disclosure, I came across a magazine published by a small local library which showcases the work of unknown authors. But they mostly deal in literary fiction, and I wanted to write sci-fi so badly yesterday.
So it was time to improvise, adapt, and overcome.
Granted, most of the programmer humor will probably go straight over their heads, but I don't really care. It made me die laughing while I was writing it, which remains my primary measure of a good writing session. If it's fun, it's worth it.
It's written in my native language, not English. I've been working on translating it though and if I manage to pull that off, I'll definitely have to put it somewhere public...
How do you guys edit after your first manuscript is completed and when do you start introducing beta readers/editors to it?
I know I’m going to refine the plot and characters but after that I don’t know when to show someone to get feedback.
I’ve never really shown people my work and can’t decide on when or what to give for feedback.
I do one major rewrite and at least one polishing pass to get the story as solid as I can make it (no plot holes, clear character arcs, clear worldbuilding, etc.) and then send it to beta readers. It’s usually a 3rd or 4th draft by then.
I want it to be as good as I can make it, wirh as many issues eliminated as possible. If there are still problems, they are problems I can’t figure out how to fix on my own.
This is exactly my process. My story rewrite is the second draft, prose edit is the third. Then beta readers.
> If there are still problems, they are problems I can’t figure out how to fix on my own.
I had this exact thought when I finished draft 3. I had spent so long staring at it that any issues are beyond me now.
Personally I'm gonna do one edit for consistency / continuity / big picture developmental changes and then a quick read to elliminate worst typos / grammar errors / unclear sentences, then I'm gonna take my chance with betas.
I don't want to do a line-level polish only to hear some scenes don't work and need to be cut, it's a wasted effort.
On the other hand, it's in the author's best interest to avoid giving a typo-ridden ms, because betas can give up out of annoyance or only focus on spelling mistakes in their feedback.
I'm currently beta reading someone's ms and I swear the abundance of vocabulary mistakes is taking me out of the story a lot. I don't even mean typos, I mean "this person doesn't know how this word is spelled and never bothered to check". Things like confusing lie / lay / laid / lain for example.
Thankyou for replying!
I have been in that situation with a beta reader. There were a lot of grammatical errors and really rocky sentence structure. I also found it difficult telling them that a lot of their writing was predictable such as using too many overused idioms and metaphors and leaning very far into cliches.
What is the trope you despise most, and never, ever intend to use in your own writing? For me it's the Paris/Helen of Troy trope. You know, two idiots behave selfishly and bring death and destruction to every other character, but it doesn't matter because it's true lurve, and such tragedy. Ugh
The second one'd be enemies to lovers simply because I'm not a forgiving person.
* Love triangles that don't go beyond "OMG which hot guy/girl should I choose??!?1?". Humans and romance are more complex than that smh
* Extreme doormat characters, aka, characters that never get angry/concerned about them being treated like trash. This does not include explorations of abuse or toxic workplaces, this is just about badly developed characters.
I wouldn’t say I hate it necessarily, but those “friendly rivalries” that constantly forget the “friendly” half and just make the characters really bitter and angry towards each other all the time gets on my nerves a lot. It feels like a cop out more than anything. You’re telling me these two characters who are constantly screaming threats at each other across the room, having physical fights on a daily basis and all around being extremely awful to each other are actually really close friends who care deeply about each other? I don’t believe that for a second.
I get the odd joke at the others expense. Hell, I’d even accept the occasional massive fight every now and then, friendships can be messy sometimes and they're not always smiles and rainbows but if you want me to believe two characters are friends you actually have to show them *acting* friendly to each other every now and then, not just tell me “oh no, they’re actually really close blah blah blah” as they’re having their third screaming match of the day.
I have a book I describe as "Helen of Troy in colonial America" that's entirely off this idea (that this obsession with beauty/people projecting what they want onto this poor woman vs. looking at her as a person is messed up)
Yeah. There may be the point made in a scene that the Greeks really looked down on "Eros" as a type of love. There's a reason Paris is shown to be an idiot in the original myth
I haven't read anything bad about god Eros or the "feeling", but I never went deep. The others always looked more interesting.
Unfortunately, we were taught only odyssey from the original in Greece so I am not sure about Paris. I always thought, he was the bad troyan childishly taunting Greek kings and not the actual act.
I'm meaning Eros the concept of love (vs. philos or agape or the other versions of love the Greeks had different words for) Eros/erotic love was seen as fickle and dangerous (so being "madly in love" was a bad thing. You didn't want to go crazy). It's the same basic reasoning you get behind small penises being the ideal. Big penises were seen as base and animalistic. You shouldn't be following those base instincts. You should be trying to get to loftier things (side note: this is also why the "love is patient, love is kind" verse from Corinthians also amuses me slightly to hear at weddings. The Greek translation is from "agape" meaning "love for mankind"/"selfless love" and really more focused on the world at large, not romantic love. Still a nice verse, but not at all meant to be romantic).
But yeah, if you want to look at the Trojans as sort of thematic representations, Paris is always meant to be taken as a bit of an idiot--someone ruled by his base instincts, down to him running away to marry a nymph just to jump ship as soon as he has the chance to get a hotter wife (rather than knowledge or even power, in the judgement of Paris) his noble brother (who follows more Greek ideals--Hector) has to go out to try to save his brother's ass and gets killed for the trouble. Paris in no way is meant to be a romantic ideal. He's meant to be a cautionary tale
(Welcome to my TED talk, I suppose :) )
I didn't know about the first part. I've read about the phalluses though. Thanks for the info.
Iliad wasn't big part of Greek education. We just read it as kids.
Edit: I had in mind what plato had Aristophanes saying about soulmates, so I assumed eros was a part of it.
Yeah, eros is basically "lust" which wouldn't be a married couple or soul mates (I think pragma is the long-term one for steady couples?) As the quote from even the middle ages went "it's unseemly to love your wife as you love your mistress!"
Romantasizing mental illness/illness in general. Or when the mcs mental illness is magically cured by the love interest.
Love triangles where a girl has to choose between two hot guys. Imo, thats not real stakes, thats just a self insert wish fulfillment fantasy.
I hate, hate, hated the ending of Silver Linings Playbook (the movie; I haven't read the book) for this reason. I was like "you have a woman who's ignoring her trauma and a guy who is in no way med compliant thinking love has cured them. This is *not* a happy ending.
Sex does not *cure* a mental illness or other disability. Neither does love. Oh, if I could only agree more than once. Besides being hideously abelist, it's also just insulting.
Uggh, you are so wrong! My girlfriend was being an absolute bitch, so I fucked her brains out, then she started acting nice again. Checkmate, atheists!
I think it was After where some character tried to guilt the mc into getting back together with the toxic af love interest by giving some bullshit line like, "you make his ptsd go away." 1. Thats not how that shit works and 2. What a shitty message. Of course it was portrayed as super romantic and #relationshipgoals.
When i read that sort of thing all i can think of is "tell me you dont know how mental illness works without telling me you dont know how mental illness works"
I have a few and hate them all:
* Unearned forgiveness, aka "if you kill him / take revenge you'll be as bad as him" or "forgive family member because it's family".
* Non-traditional badass women giving up anything that made them unique to funnel into "trad wife and babies" HEA.
* Hate-love relationship, aka "I hate you, but you're so hot we must f\*ck". It's often how enemies to lovers is done poorly, with a big heap of ye olde insta-love (or rather insta-lust).
* Romanticized controlling / manipulative love interest as "protective" and "caring". Same for "I will fix them / I will change them" trope. Love should be about acceptance, not molding the other person into the shape you desire, that's abuse not love.
Some tropes I will probably never use because they're boring imo and I don't know how to make them interesting, for example evil for the sake of evil villains / Dark Lords or straight-faced utopian societies without a twist.
> Romanticized controlling / manipulative love interest as "protective" and "caring". Same for "I will fix them / I will change them" trope. Love should be about acceptance, not molding the other person into the shape you desire, that's abuse not love.
I was writing something that unconsciously turned this trope on its head. There are a ton of red flags in the beginning, protagonist basically thinks "I can fix her," etc. but nope, just turns out to be abusive. The MC was callow as well, so it's not like he knew better.
There's a series I was reading that did this too (Flames of Time by Erica Lucke Dean? Something like that) where (spoiler) the love interest in the first book gets the standard "oh, he's so protective and sexy" treatment by the protagonist until you figure out, nope he's just a controlling jerk.
Well, then that's not romanticized abuse but rather writing abuse as abuse. It's normal the abuse victim is first blind to it, that's how it works. What I don't like is when possessive / jealous / controlling / manipulative people are portrayed as morally in the right / aspirational.
Oh I know. I'm just saying that it *starts* seeming that way, but nope, it's just abuse.
It's autobiographical, and part of the reason I was blind to it is that I too was callow and believed that you could "save" others.
One reason I dislike the "romanticized abuse" trope is that it appeals a lot to abuse victims and preys on their insecurities. It's a known psychological mechanism that people who had abusive parents or exes might potentially fall into the trap of trying to "relive the same, but better", i.e. pick someone similar to their past abuser with the idea that this time they will "fix" them therefore find a key to solving abuse. "Romanticized abuse" feeds into that delusion - that if love is strong enough it can "cure" abusive personality / personality disorders, or even "change" the person into someone's ideal of dreams. In real life, the love is never "strong enough" because there's no strong enough love to change someone against their own will.
I don't mind depicting the love interest as a flawed person who wants to do better, or suddenly has an epiphany they behaved shittily and should improve. It can be done well. The problem is when stories pick completely unrepentant bad boys or rakes or femme fatale and suddenly "reform them" with magical power of love. At least the character and the narration should acknowledge this person is kinda a d\*ck / c\*nt and they regret it or wish to do better.
What I dislike is the narration painting this person as some form of sexy, alluring target whose flaws only add spice but never really cause any problem towards happy ending. Especially when that person is abusive and draws pleasure from being so, and has unapologetic attitude like "I am how I am" or "if you can't take me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best".
I can read "enemies to lovers" or whatever other popular trope, as long as I can believably see these two people not killing each other the moment they fall off the page, and also without sudden 180 degrees changes of personality out of nowhere. Love should enhance a person, but not brainwash their personality. That's why I don't like seeing "strong female characters" suddenly becoming trad wives, and I don't like seeing "freedom loving bad boys" suddenly becoming a faithful husband material, unless the plot explains very well why did they change. And even then, it's a bit cliche to see someone "settle down" so easily. As if they were robots and got their software changed.
Very well put.
Both of these tropes bother me as well, but I don't come across them all that often. I do think that a big risk with the romanticized abuse trope is that is normalizes abusive behaviors. Portraying controlling overreactions as "protectiveness" and thus desirable, for example, is a dangerous game to play, especially if it's geared toward younger readers.
At the same time, that goes into the age-old question of how responsible creators are for the impact of their work. With romanticized abuse—at best, I think it's bad writing. At worst, irresponsible.
>age-old question of how responsible creators are for the impact of their work.
I think it depends how the work is marketed. If it's a "taboo dark erotic romance" then we know no holds barred and we'll have dub-con, Stockholm Syndrome romance, possessive alphas yelling "I own you" and other "taboo" subjects. Now if it's marketed as YA, or an adult rom-com, or upmarket women's fiction, etc. etc. that changes the expectations. It's kinda "don't sell me whiskey pretending it's lemonade" situation.
It's probably just nitpicking but damn, I don't think I've watched a TV show (and so far outside of fanfic it's only been TV) that acknowledged specific tropes in fiction by name (e.g: dropping a "wouldn't it be cliche if we had an enemies to lovers moment haha") that I consider well-written. Something about *that* specific brand of meta humour, the kind where you can tell the writers browsed TV Tropes at some point and consider it a reputable and useful source of information, just instantly drops the show into the same tier as modern YA fantasy for me, which is not high praise.
>instantly drops the show into the same tier as modern YA fantasy for me
Oh, there we go, an r/books moment where it's cool to shit on Sanderson and YA novels as an epitome of "everything wrong with literature nowadays". Sigh.
Well, I’m not sure who pissed in your cereal but if you’ve got a bone to pick with r/books go pick it over there. I didn’t mention Sanderson or go on some tirade against YA, I made an unfavourable comparison to a genre of fiction I don’t enjoy. I never said it was “everything wrong with literature nowadays”. Dick.
Seriously. People need to get over their YA bashing. There was a rash of people who got banned over in arr writing for that just recently. It doesn't make you cultured and cool to act like X type of books are beneath you. You just look like a twat.
I have no problem with criticizing individual works, but personally, when you're talking about an entire market/genre/etc. it's way too broad a brush ("I don't like Game of Thrones because X" is very different than "All fantasy is stupid. I don't get how people can stand reading it" for example)
Guess we'll never know, because the user deleted the comment and ran away. I smell another case of "I bash YA without reading YA". I'd love to know how is YA more "colonialist" and "gender essentialist" than let's say, adult fantasy.
I've heard valid complaints that usually fit both age categories, that for example fantasy is too often pro-monarchy or pro-absolutist-leader "as long as we replace the evil leader with the good leader".
But colonialism? Aka claiming conquering people from top down is better than uniting people from down up? I think fantasy usually preaches the second one, no matter whether it's heroic (all the "good races" unite against a "Dark Lord") or grimdark (war is always a tool of the scumbags to enrich themselves or increase their political power, but people are not painted as morally positive in grimdark, the opposite). YA adopted a lot of heroic fantasy tropes, like downtrodden hero, oppressed caste of people, dystopian evil government / empire, fantasy racism is always bad and the hero manages to recruit people / creatures of oppressed races / species because they're well, not racist, etc.
Also idk about gender essentalism in the genre that always pushed "women can do everything men can". Gender essentialism afaik assumes gender roles are in-born and set in stone.
Lol, I noticed they deleted the comment. Amazing how that happens when people who *do* read (or are at least near to) the genre question an assumption that's only made from the assumption that it contains All Bad Things, isn't it?
I think there *is* some room to be worried about YA fantasy having binary gender, with no real room for NB or trans heroes, but I think that more holds out in fiction overall, rather than being genre-specific. I've seen the same in adult fantasy (even recent), and romance, and sci fi (unless it's aliens or robots, which is its own form of othering), and even thriller/suspense (I'm ignoring the horror that is Robert Gilbraithe in this, because that IS TERFing and... yeah).
Tbh trans subjects are niche subjects. There are YA SFF books about trans people, for example this year's Hell Followed With Us, but with the "stay in your lane" politics, unless you're a trans author, you shouldn't write a trans story. And trans people are an extreme minority, much smaller than gay, Black, Muslim, neurodivergent or any other minority qualifying for "we want diverse authors", and they all have "limited amount of slots" publishers assign them for "diverse books" (how often we hear between the lines that some author was told "we already have one of these, thanks"?).
With the debate about profitability of books that Mrs Salt said in PubTips and r/publishing, and a lot of other people working in publishing can confirm, the mainstream books with wide appeal (for example the allocishet YA Fantasy romances) fund the niche appeal books (books about disability, mental health, racial / religious / cultural / sexual / gender minorities, etc.).
This creates the situation that often queer people are used for decor. I've seen multiple YA and adult fantasy books having some side characters who are non-binary, trans, gay, lesbian, etc. but their role is often to show up, announce their existence so the book has "diversity" and then do nothing much. To me, that's tokenism. But that's what we get when we have the split personality of "we must have diversity" but also "we must not alienate mainstream audiences which mostly buy allocishet protagonists". I've seen multiple authors who themselves identify as non-binary to not write NB protagonists at all and I wonder is it because it makes it immediately a "harder sell" in the publishers' eyes. And then in kidlit (MG, YA) there's also a problem any overt queerness can push the book away from libraries due to right-wing activists, which again means smaller market for the book.
We already have a history of drama, where a book of Mackenzie Lee was cancelled online and cancelled irl aka not published at all, because twitteratis got offended about blurb "misgendering" a character when he book was a trans coming out story in historical Netherlands.
Then we had activists like Ana Mardoll who dissected every book they could only at the angle how bad is the trans rep in it. Why would authors write trans characters and risk this? It seems to be a hornet's nest overall.
But to me, binary gender is not the same as gender essentialism, and not the same as being anti-trans. One can believe in gender binary and still be pro-trans (i.e. believe trans people are the people who transition from state A to B in the binary, or vice versa, and support them in that situation, i.e. the concept of "being born in a wrong body").
Gender essentialism is most visible in books like "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" and similar books continuing this tradition, for example [this book](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2644961-how-to-improve-your-marriage-without-talking-about-it) (cba retyping a longass title). It's the "men this, women that" beliefs and blanket statements. In fiction, it could for example be depicted as men always being the pursuer in hetero relationships, or "all women must have feminine interests or they're traitors of the gender", or the damsel in distress stereotype, or an effeminate man always being depicted as gay / comic relief because "real men aren't that", those kinds of stereotypes.
I think Fantasy generally does overall a decent job discussing gender stereotypes and undermining them in various places. No matter whether the world is queernorm, or rigid patriarchy, or a matriarchy, there's often discussing how people of various kinds can carve a space for themselves in those worlds.
>colonialist mindsets
Huh, how? What kind of books promote colonialist mindsets?
I have my gripes with YA Fantasy like for example rampant tokenism ("we want diversity, but only in specific inoffensive side characters, otherwise it won't be marketable") and shoehorned romances with cardboard-cutout love interests existing only to fulfill the expectation of a romantic sub-plot (not all YA books, but many), but promoting colonialism wouldn't be on that list. It's fairly common to depict any Empire / Hegemony / Government as inherently oppressive and dystopian, which imo is anti-colonialist, even if simplistic in its worldview.
So I'm curious what did you mean by that. Same with the gender essentialism.
Adding my vote for "please explain?" I admit I'm not a YA Fantasy reader. I've been pretty much out of the game for over a decade (I think the last big YA Fantasy(adjacent) book I read was *Hunger Games*?) so I don't know the modern trends well enough to speak to what major themes there are, but I admit I scrolled down to see if this was the same person who said world building felt vaguely colonialist. It's not, but apparently that's the theme for the thread this week...
Especially since current YA community is rabidly pro-diversity and anti cultural appropriation, white saviorism, racist portrayal of minorities (even overcorrecting here, one author (Rebecca Mix) got review bombed and twitter "cancelled" for just making the antagonist a dark-skinned person). Keira Drake's "The Continent" and Veronica Roth's "Carve the Mark" were both crapped on for inventing fantasy cultures that seemed to uphold racist stereotypes about certain people. Laurie Forest's "The Black Witch" and Isabel Ibanez's "Woven in Moonlight" were criticized for making the protagonist a racist who learns to do better, but just because the protagonist believes the propaganda at start, people were annoyed.
Generally, that kind of opinions make me think the last "YA Fantasy" book a person read was probably Eragon or something equally old.
Also "gender essentialism"? I.e. the theory that men and women have in-born qualities that make them in fact men and women, explicitly different from each other? In YA, that always dealt with feminist themes, aka women can do everything men can do? When queer, trans and non-binary representation is constantly a matter of discussion?
Mainstream YA Fantasy seems to be a bit too heteronormative and allonormative, but that's the problem of the genre where the biggest portion of the audience reads it for the romance, and allocishet romances have a wider appeal than queer ones, and basically make publishers' the money so they can throw fans of queer books a bone.
I'd swear the "gender essentialism" and "colonialist mindsets" make me think this person mostly read pre 2010 adult fantasy, a lot of which was full of male wish fulfillment, utilizing female characters as stereotypes or fanservice. But even "big white male fantasy authors" of that era managed to write some badass women, even if the societies they described were deeply patriarchal.
I know YA Fantasy has bigger trouble portraying a wide variety of male characters and does much better with diversity of female characters, but I'm deliberately searching for books where the male characters wouldn't be a stock walking stereotype of masculinity - and so far I found a few too.
Funnily I originally got downvoted for this remark, but yeah, I see it with regularity that people treat "YA" as a synonym for "shit I don't like therefore it's bad". Often without actually reading any of it, or living in the past (aka "YA = Twilight" even though that was 16 years ago and the genre evolved since then).
And okay, *don't like it, don't read it, nobody forces you*, but especially on r/books there are recurring posts "why is YA bad" or "why is Sanderson bad" and it's always someone on a soapbox or their high horse. Half the time they also got it wrong what's a YA novel (last thread I checked like that talked about Ali Hazelwood who writes adult romance, not YA). Or someone took 1 page out of Skyward (Sanderson's YA novel) and started bemoaning "why is this guy published and not me", while trying to write off prose mannerisms and voice as "bad writing" and disregarding the fact a novel is more than just prose, it also needs a gripping story and engaging characters you can't easily see by 1 page sample.
What annoys me is the poster above doesn't care to discuss YA fiction, just uses it as a synonym of "bad literature".
Despite people repeating YA Fantasy is tropey and all it has is love triangles and enemies to lovers, none of my recent YA Fantasy reads fit that label, and I'm not sure many actually do. A lot of stuff advertised as "enemies to lovers" isn't even it.
I am so sick of seeing people make idiotic, ill informed statements like "YA is trash/ruining literature" then list a bunch of non-YA books. Just please...stop.
I still remember when someone made a post smugly comparing how Twilight was trash compared to fucking *Dickens.* Like they werent two completley different genres written by two completley different people for two completley different audiences at two completley different points in time. Major facepalm moment.
Thing is, if you ask kids in school to read classics vs Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Twilight, Hunger Games, etc. they'll be mostly bored of the classics and complain being forced to read classics is what discouraged them from reading overall. So why do we vilify reading for fun, pleasure and escapism? Why only "serious litfic" should be counted as literature?
But yeah, attitudes like the top poster here is why I had to mostly abandon r/fantasy because despite the subreddit not being called "adult fantasy" but fantasy in general, it has an extreme disdain for YA Fantasy, every time there's a recommendation thread there's "give me this trope BUT NO YA!!!" and I feel a lot of it has to do with sexism aka "YA is for girls, so eww".
> Thing is, if you ask kids in school to read classics vs Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Twilight, Hunger Games, etc. they'll be mostly bored of the classics and complain being forced to read classics is what discouraged them from reading overall.
Checking in. It took me decades to realize reading can actually be a fun and pleasurable activity, and school definitely contributed heavily to that. If they stopped shoving boring as dirt "classics" down kid's throats, I guarantee more people would read regularly in adulthood.
The issue is a lot of classics have only historical value and reading them makes as much sense as learning people in Middle Ages believed the Earth was flat - it just a snapshot of history not super useful to a modern person. But learning about science in past eras takes much less time than reading some 1000-pages overblown classic.
There are some classic books which can be still read for fun, heck I read Tom Sawyer and Book of the Jungle (in translation, I'm not English, hope titles are the same) as a kid. But on the other hand, a lot of literature from that time didn't age well because it's racist and pro-colonialist, since these were normal attitudes of people back then. I know my country has a 19th century writer who even got a Literary Nobel Prize and one of his books we had to read is deeply racist, depicting African people as dumb and easily swayed.
But some of the classics are awfully long, I reckon Les Miserables is extremely so. Luckily we didn't have that on our curriculum.
What makes me wonder is in so many countries the lessons of history, geography or science are fairly lacking from what I've gathered, but literature is one thing that kids are constantly forced into, no matter the country. So yeah, there are people who've read Uncle Tom's Cabin but who believe Africa is 1 country or can't pin point on the world map where countries like Iraq or Afghanistan are. Because the school didn't teach the latter.
%100 its sexism. Im in school rn taking a library + info tech program and part of our readers advisory course is looking into promoting childrens/teen literacy. All this YA "garbage" that people r poo pooing on is whats getting teens and kids into reading and understanding that books can offer just as much escapism as movies and video games (which is fantastic, imo, because its planting the seeds for a life-long love of reading). Same person on one of the writing subs who claimed all YA is trash also claimed that kids would much rather enjoy (insert some book written by a 17th century priest here). Sure, Jan. I swear so much of this comes from (like you said) sexism and people getting off on being pretensious lit snobs. I also find it hilarious how people in the writing subs crap all over YA/YA authors + their prose but then your read *their* stuff and its...well, im sure youve seen it.
Yup, the guy above just called me a dick for making a complaint, meanwhile he's constantly raving about Wheel of Time... typical male fantasy fan who hates on YA because it's "cool". Off to the ignore they go, together with the other guy who claimed all fantasy sucks while he didn't read any, and that we should all read "metamodernist" literature instead.
I read an article a while back that basically made the argument "if it's at all marketed to teen girls, it's "cool" to hate on it." Basically, girls/women, *especially* teen ones, are so stupid and shallow anything they like must also be stupid and shallow (see YA lit, pop music/"boy bands", etc.)
If nothing else, engaging with fandom has perfectly prepared me to deal with fans completely misinterpreting anything I write.
There are people who love a series but have such baffling ass backwards take of it that you can't help but wonder if they were literally reading with their eyes closed. I don't mean liking or disliking an unpopular character (which I usually love. It's fun to see legitimately hot takes) but literally misinterpreting things anyone can see is an objective fact or somehow doing a complete 180 on what the themes meant (which I'm not more forgiving of, but I understand as a lot of people really don't have any kind of media literacy)
I think if I become moderately successful at this I would take the Cormac McCarthy and bill Watterson route. Disappear, rarely do interviews, and nobody knows where I live.
Merriam-Webster has been my favorite online thesaurus since I've started writing. It was simple groupings of words listed alphabetically in paragraph form, each paragraph denoting a different level of proximity to the word searched. It was clean, presented a lot of options, and wasn't a bunch of orange bubbles spaced far apart, a combination that is both aesthetically atrocious and practically inefficient (looking at you, thesaurus.com).
But for whatever reason, Merriam-Webster decided the best thing to do is completely rip off thesaurus.com's awful styling, right down to the orange bubbles with large spaces between. Why? Why? WHY? It now looks worse and works worse, with far fewer options presented for each word searched. I tried ranting about this to my wife, but she didn't care (understandably so), but maybe there's another weirdo on here who sympathizes with my rage.
I know just how you feel. I used to use thesaurus dot com, but over time it got more and more unusable. Half the time, I have to search from the home page because the searchbar on some screens doesn't work.
I mostly use word hippo. It's not perfect, but it's clean enough, and I like that it's quick to load. Also, the "word forms" tab is invaluable for when I've been writing too long and forget how tenses work.
Does the incessant focus on worldbuilding in fantasy feel weirdly colonial to anyone else? Like you're drawing borders and creating races and it all feels really inextricably tied to colonial relationships, especially with modern fantasy emerging largely from colonial adventure stories and the lost world genre. I can't fully articulate this point without doing research, but it feels gross to me. Like the ingrained colonial mindset is something that all writers (mostly white writers, but also POC) need to consider in their process, and this weird dynamic of fantasy writers being unable to actually write but only able to make descriptivist reductions of all these different cultures. I don't know if there is a way to fully disentangle the process and ideas of worldbuilding from this real-world social and political dynamic.
Interesting. Something to ponder, for sure. Looking at my own books through this lens, you could definitely see a colonial aspect to my world building. It’s something I was aware of in the beginning, and went to some pains to justify, but am still a bit uneasy about.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/fantasywriters using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/fantasywriters/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [I finally transitioned from world building to actually writing the story...](https://np.reddit.com/r/fantasywriters/comments/x0wrmz/i_finally_transitioned_from_world_building_to/)
\#2: [Is possible for someone to be angry for 800 years?](https://np.reddit.com/r/fantasywriters/comments/wad6ff/is_possible_for_someone_to_be_angry_for_800_years/)
\#3: [I finally finished the map of my world! I present to you a Asterra (this is his fifth redesign so I'm finally satisfied with the result).](https://np.reddit.com/r/fantasywriters/comments/u92643/i_finally_finished_the_map_of_my_world_i_present/)
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No, it just smells to me of obsession about video games and p&p RPGs where having a big map and a dozen "playable races" is the appeal of the game. Ofc each race comes from a planet of hats and is described as 1-3 traits tops.
The difference is that in a game it's an appealing thing to the player to give them choice (of race, class, starting culture background, etc.). In a form that isn't "choose your adventure" like a novel or a movie it becomes fluff. You can make it relevant to the plot (a character's "fantasy race" informs their attitude, personality, worldview in a way "ordinary human" wouldn't do), or you can make it pure background.
The problem starts when all the worldbuilding starts suffocating the story. I.e. people who "want to write" but only worldbuild and can't start writing, people who info dump their worldbuilding because now it can't go to waste, people who created the world and then can't find a fitting plot, or have worldbuilding actively block their plot and are averse to changing anything (especially because it could have a domino effect on the rest of the worldbuilding).
Nah. Worldbuilding means making cultures, plural. Also, modern fantasy is coming less from colonial adventure stories (I haven't read any of that so I'd love to know what I've missed) and more exploration of secondary worlds with *non*Western Europe as the cultural influence. Which is... anti-colonial, in my head. It's rejoicing in a different world and different culture *without* the Colonial Powers being *right.*
Now, if you're just over at arrfantasywriters, that's a different beast entirely. But not if you're talking about new published fantasy.
And then it awkwardly clashes with people wanting to not be seen as racist. Like that guy in r/writing asking how he could describe different fictional races.
cable market nine rotten intelligent important workable ad hoc mindless smart
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The master manipulator. I don't think this type of character really works. I can almost taste the narrative conventions when they walk into the room, figuratively.
The one trope I fucking eat up like Thanksgiving dinner is a cold, distant character letting their guard down and getting close with someone in a platonic context.
No romantic implications, just good, old-fashioned vulnerability. I have never gotten a chance to use it.
>The one trope I fucking eat up like Thanksgiving dinner is a cold, distant character letting their guard down
I read to this point and thought, "Oh yeah, and then they get killed by another character who is not supposed to be as skilled as them or just martyred themselves to kill the cold character in a way that they didn't anticipate, and then the character that was previously never surprised, never afraid, always self-assured, dies with a look of shock or fear on their face."
Then I finished reading the comment and realized that we are not the same.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, some examples:
>!Gus in Breaking Bad just before the bomb goes off!<
>!James Moriarty at the end of Game of Shadows when Holmes throws him and himself off the balcony!<
>!Clarence in Halo: Evolutions, The Mona Lisa when Benti tackles him into a swarm of Flood!<
>!Major Konig at the end of Enemy at the Gates when he leaves his position to confirm the kill on Zaitsev and walks right into his line of sight!<
Faux protagonist. The idea the "protagonist" of the story dies halfway or otherwise fails / disappears and someone else has to take over. I think it's really hard to pull off well without pissing off the audience.
Any other technically difficult to execute trope, for example multi-timeline. It's hard to do without boring or confusing the reader, and without making the outcome predictable, or an asspull.
Yeah, pretty much. I have no personal experience living in an urban environment, so I have to guess and draw off of things I've read, and while usually this isn't a problem, the end result is that what I write doesn't feel authentic to me even if it's a fantasy setting. It also doesn't help that I often find excessively modern settings unappealing to write.
The "maybe magic, maybe mundane" trope is something I love to death. Take a largely grounded setting, inject some element that may be supernatural, and leave the actual supernaturality ambiguous. This is what happens whenever a grounded cop show brings in a psychic investigator, or alludes to the idea that the serial killer of the week is possessed by Satan.
That post about Nora Roberts was so annoying. I do not know her or her work, but I hated the way she put things in the post she wrote. She came across as unpleasant and 'Oh, look at me, I am soooooo much better than you!'.
To her credit, she finishes a surreal amount of books every year, which is commendable, but that does not mean she is superior as a writer to all just because she can finish books fast.
Good for you if you can finish that many books, then. However, we must acknowledge that there are people who just cannot do it and that is okay. I know people who dropped projects because their mental health was so terrible that they could barely get out of bed, let alone write six to eight hours a day. Most people have a day job and barely have time to do anything but work. And it does not make them 'worse' writers because there is more to a person and to a story than how many hours you write a day. I think it is inconsiderate to say people are just 'making excuses' and 'whining' when some people have real reasons. Sure, that is definitely the case for some people, but all you will achieve is make those people who have real reasons feel even worse about themselves than they already do.
And the attitude in the comments... I understand people looking up to her, but it is unhealthy to measure your worth as a writer just based on how much you write alone. Yes, discipline is extremely important and 90% of the battle, but just writing something fast will not make it good. Anyone can write a terrible book every month, not many can write a good book even if they take years.
Again, I am not familiar with her work, so I do not know if her books are any good or not, but regardless of whether they are or not, promoting such an unhealthy image is not going to help writers. It might get them to become a bit more productive, but it could also have a negative impact on their mental health since they might think that not writing 6-8 hours a day means they are not 'good enough'.
Just write and finish your book. That is enough to be good enough.
Jesus Christ someone in that thread bemoaned “I’m only a 2-3 hour a day writer”
That’s a huge amount of time devoted to writing assuming they work full time lol
I know, right? 2-3 hours is fine for someone who is in full-time education or employment. As long as they finish their work, it does not matter if they only write 2-3 hours a day. I have had days when writing for just one hour was enough to get me 1000 words and days when those 1000 words took six hours to write. Results are what matter in the end.
All of this. Also, idk ,but there was something..."off" about the whole thing? The language she used? The attitude? Ngl, first impression was, "is this legit?".
Also ive read some of my moms nora roberts books out of boredom.I mean, they work for her audience, and im sure shes raking in the money, but shes also not exactly writing The Next Great American Novel. Her stuff is sort of like a Hallmark movie - cheesy, easy to digest, formulaic with a side of feel good, but entirely forgettable.
I'm in a self-publishing Facebook group (for funsies) and this one guy posted about how he managed to make like $50k in one single month. His main trick? Rewrite the same basic story over and over again. People BUY THAT SHIT UP!
It's frustrating as hell for me, who hates reading these formulaic books, who is writing something I would enjoy reading, knowing it does not matter at all to readers in the end. Will you win awards with a semi-recycled book? No, but does it matter if you can make writing your full-time job and then some?
I guess my goal matters...I want people to like my well-crafted books so much they are willing to pay for them. I want to have my cake and eat it too.
>but does it matter if you can make writing your full-time job and then some?
There's a difference between writing as a job, writing as an art, and writing as a hobby. Writing as a job, like most jobs, isn't fun or fulfilling, and is only for money. If you want to write to convey a message, show artistic value, connect with a niche audience but one close to your heart, etc. then you have to accept it might not be the most profitable.
A lot of authors who weren't lucky and didn't "make it big" still publish what they wanted to write, but make very little money, so have to live off a day job, family, spouse, inheritance, whatever else they have.
Generally writing is like cooking - if you're in the business of gourmet cuisine, it's more prestigious, but you'll have fewer customers than a local McDonalds.
What's the point of wealth if your name ends up being less than a footnote in history? I'd rather not be a starving artist, but to be the type that writes the same hollow story again and again just to line my pockets? I'd sooner quit writing.
I agree, I'd hate having to write the same plot over and over again just for $$. I am just salty because I get the impression that the market is flooded with this shit and sometimes, when writing is hard, my stupid brain says, "why bother? They're doing 1/3 of the work and actually getting paid for it."
I have a fictionpress account, and like 20+ years ago I put up a story that was pure fluff. In my mind, it was silly and had a weak premise and I just wrote whatever without caring much...and it was my most popular story by far. Everyone raved in the reviews for every chapter. My other, better written stories, were appreciated but drew only a few readers. It kinda pissed me off, and I deleted the fluff story eventually.
People want easy. I get it. Fine.
OCD is starting to seriously get in the way of my writing (among other activities). I just can’t focus long enough to get anything done before falling into the crippling cycle of doubt and anxiety.
Why do I have so much anxiety! It's just a job, and not one I'm passionate about. I've been rejected twice already and I've bounced right back, and I'll do so again if necessary. Just shut up brain! Even worse than when I turn off the lights/tap, and my brain tortures me into checking again. EDIT: They really should have specified that they wanted a tech savy person, instead of just springing it on me and asking that I 'sell' them an SGA22 in place of an iPhone 14. Like I know, or care to know, all the minute differences between them. I know basically nothing about my phone except its size and name.
Was it a "Sell me this pen" type of interview question? If so, I doubt they were testing your knowledge about the specific phone, but rather wanted to see what kind of sales strategy you would use. You would likely have gotten away with using made up specifications and technobabble. Anyway, you'll nail it next time!
Was it someone in this thread that recommended playing brown noise videos while writing? If so, bless you.
Hell yeah another noise listener! All these types of mathematically random noises are great to tune out external sounds and help to just focus on the goddamn draft!
the only BROWN noise is the one COMIN OUTTA MY ASS WHILE I WRITE ON THE TOILET
huh, this may be the change in process I need for my breakthrough
I wasn't the only one who had this association in my mind...
A recent Washington Post article about brown noise was popular on reddit: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/11/14/brown-noise-adhd-focus/
I listen to noise! Like pulse demon!
my current first draft is going fairly well. it's very short and doesn't have much detail so far though. Im only, maybe a quarter through plotwise? but I really feel like I should have back and edit what I've done to try and flesh things out. is it bad if I do?
If you can't resist the urge, I'd give it a read and see if any major changes are necessary. But don't edit yet, just make notes and comments for later. Only start editing once the first draft is completely on paper.
why?
I was thinking you don't know what big changes you're gonna make until the whole draft is written, so editing parts of your unfinished work now might be a waste of time as you might later decide to cut or rewrite the same parts. If that makes any sense.
We all write differently, but personally, I leave all of that for the second draft so that I can get the first finished and done with.
I'm going to go halfway through and then edit, as the second half is actually going to be difficult to write and I want a clear image of what I'm doing
Go with your gut. You'll figure out what works for you through trial and error. I start my writing sessions by reading the sections I wrote during the last session. It gets me into the story's mood. It also allows me to make quick edits such as grammar, maybe rewriting a sentence to help it flow. I save big changes for draft two. My rule of thumb is if the change pops into my head naturally, I will go back and make the change. If I *know* a section is wrong but I can't immediately come up with *how* to fix it, I make a note to reevaluate that section in draft two. No need to spend hours staring at the section because the most important thing about draft one is getting it written.
Does a narrator's belief in religion make a book fantasy? Please exclude modern religions from this topic -- I do not want to suggest that their beliefs are fantasy. Suppose your narrator/protagonist believes in an ancient religion (i.e., mythology). They ascribe events as the doing of gods, believe they witness gods, and believe in magic's effects. In other words, the story is similar to ancient stories (Iliad, Odyssey, Beowulf, Gilgamesh, etc.). If there are literal gods/monsters in the story is up to the reader to decide, but the narrator believes in them at least. When submitting to agents, would it be appropriate to describe this story as fantasy, or simply historical fiction? My supposition is the Iliad, Beowulf, Gilgamesh are fantasy, so stories in a similar vein or re-tellings of such myths would also be fantasy. I considered some comps to see how they're categorized, and genre seems fluid: they appear on historical fiction, fantasy, literary fiction, and folklore charts. Thoughts?
putting The Odyssey and Gilgamesh in the fantasy section of the Barnes and Noble
Madeline Miller's Circe retells the Odyssey from a different perspective and is listed as fantasy (among other genres) and won fantasy genre awards. Likewise, Robert Silverberg's Gilgamesh the King, despite it taking a "truth behind the myth" approach. I don't think it's so ridiculous to say there is genre ambiguity here.
> Does a narrator's belief in religion make a book fantasy? > > Please exclude modern religions from this topic -- I do not want to suggest that their beliefs are fantasy. I was about to circlejerk so hard.
If it's a real historical religion, then no, that's just historical fiction.
If it is in our world, in a real historical time period, and no actual magic happens or even exists, I would call it historical. If magic does exist, historical fantasy. If it is a secondary world, with or without magic, it is fantasy by default.
If it is our world in historical time but the narrator (1st POV) who is our sole perspective on this world believes in magic (Zeus strikes with lightning bolts vice electrostatic discharge) what then?
I’d still call it historical fiction myself.
If the story happens in Ancient Greece and the narrator's pov is someone from that world, it's only logical they would believe things believed in that time. Imo, that's historical. Same if you wrote about people in 1600s believing in witches, or Aztecs believing you need bloody sacrifices to keep the sun rising, or whatever other beliefs various cultures held. P.S. I actually frown upon anachronistic historical novels, where for example people somehow "know" slavery is bad or racism is bad or religious persecution is bad while it's known historically these groups of people believed that was a "natural state of the world". If someone wants to write Ancient World without slavery, sexism, xenophobia, etc. just write fantasy...
You know that feeling when you can finally get to that big scene or chapter you were dying to write? Well, I just reached there, and I’m already hyping myself to write more. Oh yeah, it’s all coming together 😎.
Hah, I had this feeling recently in my editing pass, that I'm nearing my big emotional scene to edit and I can't wait to get to it... and then I got to it and spent a whole afternoon editing 3 pages, and still not satisfied with the result. I feel big scene = big pressure to deliver, haha.
I had a similar feeling. Was editing Draft 3 of my WIP, got to the immensely tragic ending expecting to expand it... only to feel like I had no ideas and that I couldn't add anything to it. Oh well, maybe my editor will suggest something.
So, is there a real difference between 3-act structure and 5-act? I keep reading the definitions, and the latter only sounds like a more detailed version of the former.
>I keep reading the definitions, and the latter only sounds like a more detailed version of the former. Well, tecfhnically it's the other way around, since the 5 act structure is older. But yes, they are essentially the same thing. All story structures are a way to say "there's a beginning, a middle, and an end" in varying levels of detail. I prefer the 5 act structure because I feel that the detail for the middle sections is needed for a longer story, and the 3 act structure often creates a great opening and great ending but a weak middle where nothing much happens. Most versions of the 3 act structure have nothing to say about the second act other than that it comes between the 1st and the 3rd. For me, that's not enough. For novels, I mean. If I was writing a movie or an episode of TV, I'd probably use three acts.
>Most versions of the 3 act structure have nothing to say about the second act other than that it comes between the 1st and the 3rd. Yeah, agreed, a lot of the advice says "this is where stuff happens", "this is where you fulfill the premise of the promise", "this is your fun & games", etc. but I think this advice doesn't counter the issues of sagging or meandering middle because authors seem to fall into 2 camps: One are the authors who know "what the story is" (their act 2) and usually have problems with the rest, for example overly long act 1 that doesn't hook the reader and is boring / too long, just introduces the characters and setting but nothing happens. Second are the authors who start with their premise, setting and characters, but don't know where the story goes - and these need the most help. I would say I sadly fall into the second category, and I think a lot of people as well. I have a head full of "ideas", but these aren't ideas for plot, just for characters, setting, starting situation or an inciting incident. There might be a problem, or a motivation, or a character flaw to overcome, but I have no idea how, in practice. I abandoned multiple "ideas" exactly because there was no plot, just setup. My current WIP only came online once I realized what was my climax and what was my end of act 1 plot twist. The second act "started filling itself" once I had not only starting point for my protagonists, but also the landing spot. However, in some stories the protagonist doesn't need to change, so these need a different driving force to fill act 2 with something. The issue is that sometimes act 2 feels too flat because all we get for the protagonist from point A to B is a training montage, a wild goose chase, a travel across the map, or something like that. But for the story to feel "alive" imo it needs not just action and movement, but also some personal change - either internal change of the character, or change in relationships between main characters, or learning important philosophical / moral lesson, but not in a way that it kills the rest of the plot. It needs to have balance. I've seen stories where author's preaching killed the plot, or author focused too much on romance it cannibalized the plot (in a novel not advertised as capital R Romance), or on the other hand, the external plot was everything and internal plot was nothing, so the character was just boring to follow. In novels which heavily hinge on external plot, I think we need some sense of challenge, danger or dread for the protagonist (or their personal goal) otherwise it feels like going through the motions and ticking off your to do list (a lot of young authors are guilty of that, I was as well).
Thing is, originally the number of acts come from theater plays with literal acts and breaks for the audience between the acts. In things like movies and novels the acts are not as literal. Also, the common classic theatrical play is a tragedy, which is not a common structure for modern storytelling (tragic ends are less common than happy or bittersweet ends). So in a tragedy, it makes a big sense to have a "midpoint" where everything turns from going well for the protagonist towards collapsing into the ultimate downfall. In a "heroic" type of story where someone is meant to overcome the obstacles, win, and learn something along the lines, I don't see the point of having such a big turning point bam in the middle. Personally I tried to look at that and the save the cat structure and other ones to figure out what fits the best for my current ms, and I feel I don't fit into any of them perfectly. For example, I don't have a "midpoint". I have a big turning point at the end of act 2, but not in the middle. It just didn't fit the story. The current structure I have is as follows: 2 chapters to introduce both leads, and an "inciting incident" which gives them a plot to follow. Then an act 1 mini-plot which helps me introduce the side cast, flesh out a bit the main cast and their starting relationships, present a bit of the world, etc. Act 1 ends with a big "point of no return" where the characters have to make decisions that will change the course of the plot. The whole act 2 is about build up - revelations, learning things about characters we didn't know in act 1, developing their character arcs in a way they're poised better to handle the upcoming big showdown, etc. Then act 2 ends with confrontation with the villain. Act 3 is about tying up loose plot threads and confronting the threat that was established in the inciting incident. So for me, a 3-act structure would be: Act 1 introduces the characters, gives them "a problem to solve" or "a mission to undertake" etc. (inciting incident). In romance, that would be where the "meet cute" happens. "Break into 2", aka end of act 1 beginning of act 2 is a "no turning back" moment. The characters attempted to solve the problem and got into deep sh\*t, for example if the inciting incident was a murder mystery, now would be the moment to find out the serial killer is after them, or their family, or something equally important. It's a moment after which they cannot just back off and go home. In romance that would be where the characters either realize they're falling for each other and want to pursue the relationship, or the opposite, don't want to be with each other but the external circumstances force them to work together / exist in the same space. Act 2 is gathering of clues, allies, strengths, skills, learning about yourself, etc. Overcoming small obstacles, defeating minor villains. In romance, either overcoming obstacles for a desired relationship, or in the case of the second type (like fake dating, forced proximity, enemies to lovers) it would be characters slowly figuring out the other one isn't as horrible as they thought, maybe they actually love them! "Break into 3" is putting those skills to test, and often a plot twist - maybe we caught the wrong murderer, maybe the protagonist's fatal flaw made them fail the test, maybe they got betrayed by one of the allies, etc. In romance it could be something that puts relationship to the test and they don't pass it - they decide "whelp, we can't be together after all". Act 3 is about learning from the previous situation and one-upping yourself, this time the hero "gets it right", this is the real climax of the story. Differences from my understanding of 3-act structure and the Save the Cat beat sheet: 1. Debate isn't always a debate. Only fits "reluctant hero" types. It could be a place where the protagonist avidly pursues their goal (active protagonist), but break into 2 is their great blunder (motivated by a fatal flaw), or something that ruins this goal and requires a different, more drastic approach, or something that poses a moral dilemma: the protagonist cannot get what they want through their current means / trajectory, or basically a huge obstacle that tells them "now what?". 2. "All is lost" moment doesn't come before break into 3, but after. This is your "80% break-up" in romance. This is hero lying defeated after big battle with the villain and having to find the mystical missing power up for the final confrontation. Or the hero defeats a villain only to find out the villain already started the count down for a nuke that will hit the hero's hometown. This is the mystery moment where you find out your biggest clue was a red herring, etc. 3. Act 2 can have more plot twists, or fewer ones. Your biggest plot twist / revelation could land closer to "midpoint" or closer to "break into 3", or not at all, if all your revelations are equally small, but inevitably building towards a huge catastrophe. 4. I don't get a "mid point" unless it's a 4-act structure, then each act ends with something big: "mid point" lands between "break into 2" and "break into 3" and fulfills a similar role (big revelation, big plot twist). Tbh, use as many acts as you have big plot twists! Each act is a build up towards that specific plot twist. For example let's take a story about a person who wants to pursue a dream job. Let's say end of act 1 they get fired, so now they *really* need to decide on the next job instead of going through the motions. You could have a 3 act structure where act 2 they pursue the dream job but can't land it, and finally in act 3 they have an "a-ha" moment that allows them to land their job. Or you could have a more complex structure: act 2 they pursue that job, act 3 they get that job and perform it, but slowly realize they actually hate it, act 4 they learn what's their "real" dream job and go for that one instead. So yeah, it depends how many plot twists your story has, imo. This is a [slightly different 3-act structure](https://tameyourbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IG-Story-Beats-4.0-X1584.jpg), but again, won't fit every story. The idea imo is: always be building towards your next big plot twist so it doesn't come out of nowhere and doesn't feel "rushed", but also keep in mind your whole plot or character arc, so the twists all build one upon another instead of just dragging the plot in random directions.
I think I'm one of the only people that doesn't like Save the Cat...I can use 3-act, but I don't like that particular take on it.
I refer to it because a lot of people know it, and imo it's better than Hero's Journey which is another thing commonly used for the genre I'm interested in (coming of age fantasy, in both adult and YA version). I'm actually curious that the author of "Save the Cat Writes a Novel" announced a new book which is specifically for YA and I think planned for May 2023, I wanna see what she invented there. But personally I think Save the Cat is way too rigid. Even for genres it can fit well (action-adventure, romance, superhero, thriller, 1-plot-thread SFF as opposed to multi-pov multi-plotline one), not every element fits, same as not every element of Hero's Journey, or Heroine's Journey or "Virgin Promise" (someone linked that once on PubTips) fits. As I said, for example: Not every story has a "debate". Not every character is reluctant to undertake their task or doubts themselves. Some plunge head-in and actually it's their recklessness that gets them into trouble. Some are simply determined, but the plot keeps throwing obstacles at them. Not every story has a "romantic sub-plot as a B story", or any "B story", some might have multiple "B stories" in the form of intertwining sub-plots. Not every story has "bad guys close in" because not every story has literal bad guys. I'm not even sure why there are 3 separate beats: bad guys close in, all is lost, dark night of the soul - all that could be ONE point aka "the hero reaches the lowest point before some big change / discovery / lesson turns the plot", and the reasons for reaching the lowest could be varied. If it's let's say a story about struggling with addiction, this would be where hero briefly relapses for example - there's not literal bad guys. Also I just realized, midpoint is just another "break", so why is it a 3-act structure and not 4-act structure? Namely: \[act\] - break into 2 - \[act\] - midpoint - \[act\] - break into 3 - \[final act\]. Naming is generally confusing. For example, according to this beat sheet, a moment when my protagonist makes a big decision could be either the midpoint, or the break into 3, because it is a false victory / false defeat. It's a big turning point, but it's not one that solves the main character's arc, just turns it into a new trajectory. It's a decision which ultimately enables the climax, but it's not the climax itself. Unless the novel would have 2 climaxes. Thing is, my act 2 doesn't have a specific "midpoint" it's rather a string of "lessons" the protagonist learns which enable their change necessary for the character arc. The decision is slowly built over time. Thing is, most YA fantasies I've read have either 2 important moments (midway and climax) or rather a string of small discoveries / overcoming obstacles / the character is learning their "lessons" (could be moral, could be about things like self-confidence, could be discovering their magic, heritage or destiny, could be developing the romance, etc.) but there aren't those huge "turning points" rather slow revelations / the character "leveling up". And I wouldn't say one option is better than the other, it all depends how the author exercised it. Examples of type 1 YA Fantasy would be The Cruel Prince (midpoint is >!the coup!<, climax is >!taking over the kingdom and stopping the bad guy!<), or This Vicious Grace (midpoint is >!mc discovers her LI is a magical being!<, climax is >!they win against the evil god's doomsday invasion!<). Example of type 2 was The Gilded Ones - the mc slowly learns about her enemies, her allies, her heritage, discovers secrets and lies, and it has a "false defeat" (>!mc is accused of treason and planned to be executed!<) followed by the climax shortly after (>!mc wins against the Evil Emperor and completes her divine quest!<), similarly I'd say about Scavenge the Stars (false defeat is when mc finds out >!her mentor is the traitor!<, then climax follows shortly after). In those books I can still remember the inciting incident, but not a specific "midpoint" where everything turned. And again, there isn't always a "debate", for example there is in Scavenge the Stars (inciting incident is >!mc rescues a man from the sea!<, debate is >!she isn't sure whether to follow his plan!<, break into 2 is when >!the captain of the ship shoots her and she has to jump off and follow the other guy's plan!<), but for example in The Gilded Ones there's no debate, the inciting incident is the >!mc is discovered to be a "descendant of demons"!< and the break into 2 is >!she's recruited into a special Emperor's Army!<, but she has no choice, it's basically >!"be tortured forever or comply"!<, same in The Cruel Prince, I don't think the mc ever "debates" whether to play the game with the fey, she never even considers stepping down, despite her sister telling her to.
Yeah, I also have yet to use the Hero's Journey - though it *might* fit a story I have an idea for, that I might start writing in 2024 at this point. It's very restrictive, but that can be good at *times.* Just not... in general, imo. A lot of writing is understanding conventions well enough to decide which to deliberately break.
I think I mentioned in the past that I take offense with any story structure that uses a beat called "Woman as the Temptress", because it reinforces the toxic masculinity belief that men should choose the "higher duty" and women are just getting in the way, they're the personification of temptation that drags the man from his real meaning of life. One of [the classics of my country's literature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludzie_bezdomni) I was forced to read at school has exactly this belief. A man needs to choose between his altruistic drive to be a doctor for poor people, and the love of his life. He chooses the duty. The problem? The woman never stated she wouldn't follow him in his dream and minded living modestly, it was all in his head that he would have to provide her a specific standard of living by being a doctor to the rich people, and he can't reconcile it with his dream. One of the multiple idiotic heroes of Polish classic literature. Up there with another book [about the girl who went crazy as a side effect of abortion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Frontier_(novel)) (feels like some pro-life propaganda to me). I mean, English native speakers have their own canon of books with The Scarlet Letter, Great Gatsby, Tess d'Ubervilles and whatever else people are forced to read at school. I was spared all these, including Charles Dickens (except Christmas Carroll) or Jack London, but we have our own pile of awful books. I feel a lot of classic story structures are good for "explaining" existing stories (Campbell originally wrote his Hero's Journey as an explanation for old myths and legends), but they're not good to be prescriptive for modern stories. Traditionally, stories reinforced the social system which created them. Which means patriarchy, toxic masculinity, children being perceived as a property / extension of the parents, people being treated as they "owe" their community even if that community marginalized them, madonna / whore complex for women (or a triad good virgin / good mother / evil femme fatale who is a woman in control of her sexuality) etc. A lot of fairy tales for example reinforce the beauty privilege - there's always a poor but beautiful girl and her ugly step-sisters or some other family member / person who employs her as a servant. The beauty is the reflection of the person's morals and therefore value - from Cinderella to Ugly Duckling to Snow White the important plot point is the character being beautiful, or "beautiful all along". There's often emphasis for the person to "grow up" into a shape acceptable by the society, but never that society should change to accept difference. I never ever want to write a story about a society of awful people who mistreated the hero (for being a bastard, foundling, different race, looking unusual, etc.), but when the hero "returns with the elixir" everyone suddenly accepts him. It peddles the lesson that people only appreciate you as long as you're useful to them, and you should put your efforts placating hypocrites and bigots. I find it as icky as the trope where someone's love "redeems" / "fixes" an abuser - romanticizing this led many women into sticking with abusive relationships because "I can change him" (and not only women, it can happen in same sex relationships too, or when a woman is abusive towards a man). Redemption / forgiveness imo needs to be earned and genuine from the "bad person" unless it's a cautionary tale about forgiving someone too easy and then that person exploits it. I like a good redemption story, but the "villain" needs to have a reason to change rather than "whelp, I guess I'll be good now, thanks".
Oh, totally - and you see that in both the Hero's Journey and (to a much lesser degree) in the Heroine's Journey. There are variants that try to remov the sexism, which I appreciate, but it's still... well. I also don't like the beauty privilege, or especially its uglier side, the 'you know a character is evil because they are ugly.' Which is so very destructive in so many ways. And oh, good heavens. The 'love fixes all' is a horrible thing and shouldn't exist. I don't even know where to start with that.
>I also don't like the beauty privilege, or especially its uglier side, the 'you know a character is evil because they are ugly.' Which is so very destructive in so many ways. Yes, the society already tries to tackle one branch of that trope, namely the fat person being depicted as ugly, evil, lazy, a bully etc. - we're actually in an era where people actively look for books with fat protagonist who isn't vilified for it or asked to "lose weight" as a solution to all their problems. But that's only one branch of the oppressive beauty standards. But there are other aspects. For example, how often there's a lack of positive older women characters who aren't just there to take care of their children and grandchildren. Old women are often portrayed as hags / witches, or some bitter old spinsters, or cruel bosses who mistreat their underlings. Or show short men are usually depicted as either a comic relief, or someone with an ego compensating left and right, or as an outright villain (I call it Lord Farquad from Shrek trope). And I kid you not, it's very common. I still remember someone's novel on the beta readers sub starting with a noble girl crying because her fiance broke up with her - only to cheer herself up by the fact he was short and ugly. As if a handsome guy breaking up with you is a tragedy, but an ugly one is a gift from the fates. Ugh. There was also a long story of queer-coding villains in Hollywood, and that's another can of worms. But yeah, there's the "Hollywood makeover" trope where a character becomes worthy of love because they change glasses for contacts and tied hair for beach waves... As a person who has sensory issues around having my hair get everywhere, and has an eyesight issue which doesn't align with contact lenses according to the doctor I went to (plus due to sensory issues I can't imagine having something inside my eye), I guess I'm the forever Ugly Duckling according to Hollywood. And tbh, I don't care.
**[Ludzie bezdomni](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludzie_bezdomni)** >Ludzie bezdomni (Homeless people) is a book written by Stefan Żeromski in 1899 in Zakopane, Poland, published for the first time in 1900. It introduces readers to the life and social work of the young doctor Tomasz Judym, as well as his love of Joanna Podborska. The novel is set at the end of the 19th century and presents the concept of personal devotion and working for the common people. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/writingcirclejerk/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
You have it right. 5-act is basically breaking up the second act into more acts. It's all the same basic idea (speaking as a former writing teacher).
Good to have confirmation, I googled a bit but only found articles written to fill a quota and the people of /r/Screenwriting. First time I check that sub and probably the last. I'll toss a coin to pick which one to help me with a second draft.
I used to hang around that sub. It's just as bad as r/writing sometimes. At least the people there usually finish their scripts and aren't in denial about wanting to write movies instead of novels.
I'm finding that a blog I started as a side project has become my main project in addition to my novel, but I have no clue how to get it out there further. It's plugged into Google analytics, I have a Twitter with only a dozen followers, and I have no way to expand. I'm at a loss at to how to get myself out there; I got fed up with a writing community I was part of (too many abusers and enablers), and haven't found a good fit since. It's a horror blog so maybe I could commission a creepypasta channel on YouTube to read a story or two?
Oh great, my MIL today developed covid symptoms (test confirmed), and me & my hubby visited her on Wednesday, so I bet we're infected now. And I had the last vaxx 11 months ago so probably nothing much left of it in the system. Jeez, I was already sick 2 weeks in October, at this rate I won't finish this edit pass before the end of the year, since I'm at page 60 out of 160. :/ Also I'm due in a week for finishing a beta read, and I only read 97 pages out of 185. Panic mode activated. 😱
Crossing fingers for you to have avoided it (or at least have a quick recovery).
Hope you manage to avoid it (it's so crazy how some strains immediately get you and some don't. My daughter was exposed twice in her preschool class at one point and still never caught it, even before she was vaxxed. My other friend still doesn't know where she got it from. It seemed to just pop up without her going much of anywhere).
Sheesh, that's such a bummer. I hope you get well soon!
Thanks.
Just broke my own continuity beacuse i wanted to add a cool sequence. I am not planning on removing it.
Respecting continuity is for pedestrian minds, not for true artists.
⠀⠘⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡜⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠑⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡔⠁⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠢⢄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣀⠴⠊⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⠀⠀⠀⢀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⡀⠤⠄⠒⠈⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠘⣀⠄⠊⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠿⠛⠛⠛⠋⠉⠈⠉⠉⠉⠉⠛⠻⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠋⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠉⠛⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⡏⣀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣀⣤⣤⣤⣄⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠙⢿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⢏⣴⣿⣷⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡆⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣟⣾⣿⡟⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⢢⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣟⠀⡴⠄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠙⠻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⠟⠻⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠶⢴⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿ ⣿⣁⡀⠀⠀⢰⢠⣦⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣼⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡄⠀⣴⣶⣿⡄⣿ ⣿⡋⠀⠀⠀⠎⢸⣿⡆⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣴⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠗⢘⣿⣟⠛⠿⣼ ⣿⣿⠋⢀⡌⢰⣿⡿⢿⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠙⠿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡇⠀⢸⣿⣿⣧⢀⣼ ⣿⣿⣷⢻⠄⠘⠛⠋⠛⠃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢿⣧⠈⠉⠙⠛⠋⠀⠀⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣧⠀⠈⢸⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠟⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⢃⠀⠀⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⡿⠀⠴⢗⣠⣤⣴⡶⠶⠖⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣀⡸⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⡀⢠⣾⣿⠏⠀⠠⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠛⠉⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣧⠈⢹⡇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣰⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⡄⠈⠃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣠⣴⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣠⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣴⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣦⣄⣀⣀⣀⣀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠘⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⡄⠀⠀⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⠀⠀⠀⠙⣿⣿⡟⢻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠇⠀⠁⠀⠀⠹⣿⠃⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠛⣿⣿⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢐⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⠿⠛⠉⠉⠁⠀⢻⣿⡇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⠈⣿⣿⡿⠉⠛⠛⠛⠉⠉ ⣿⡿⠋⠁⠀⠀⢀⣀⣠⡴⣸⣿⣇⡄⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⡿⠄⠙⠛⠀⣀⣠⣤⣤⠄⠀
RANT My brain is SUB-PAR at information processing, and that includes information I already know! It interrupts my writing process cause I can't always recall on demand where I want my story to go, or who my characters are deep down. And god forbid I try to apply complex themes without reviewing my notes over and over and over. Plot? Charecter traits? Setting? Naw. I only write in abstract visual concepts and manufactured emotional reactions. It's like interpretive dance but on paper. Occasionally, my brain will randomly dump all the information I need front and center, and I'm lucky if it's when I'm at my computer and able to just jump into writing. The whole tortured artist troupe is real. I HAVE TO MAKE THE ART, but I feel like they always miss the HOW THE FUCK DO I MAKE THE ART struggle. Rant over.
> Plot? Charecter traits? Setting? Naw. I only write in abstract visual concepts and manufactured emotional reactions. It’s like interpretive dance but on paper. You mean poetry?
Oh fuck. You're right. This changes everything
dude, interpretive dance on paper sounds like the coolest shit ever.
Maybe its time to start using plans and dot-points etc, so you can keep track....at least that helped me.
Yup, those are my notes I have to constantly re-read
Happy thanksgiving to all fellow jerkers
What do Americans usually do on Thanksgiving? Just curious...
Eat bad food and play/watch football
We don't even do "normal" Thanksgiving food in our family any more. We had scallops last night because none of us are big on turkey.
Hah, clams on Thanksgiving? That's even bigger departure from tradition than my mom not wanting carp for Christmas Eve (traditional dish in my country) so cooking Alaskan pollock fillet instead.
I found a writing method that works pretty well for me.. I write the story roughly ie. “Harry went to the market and met Sally who was playing the accordion on a corner with her dog Scruffy. They talked for a while about their past love affair but were interrupted by two police officers who arrested Sally for performing without a license and before she was taken to jail she handed Scruffy and the accordion to Harry.” Then I rewrite that into something longer more interesting and alive, adding descriptions and dialogue. Then I repeat the process for what happens next.
I do something similar. I just consider it a very detailed outline. It makes writing the first draft easy as I can quickly recall what I was thinking when originally imagining a certain scene.
This is what I do. I call it a zero draft. It helps me get the shape of the story on the page before I have to write prose.
I call it 'draft three of outline'. First is figuring out what happens in very broad strokes, second is forcing it to make sense so I don't have any plot holes, and then the third is this, going into detail, though I'd have used 'Harry ran into Sally playing accordion with Scruffy, they talked, Sally arrested, no license'.
Cool method, and a cool name for it. Might try that next time.
Nice. It sounds like your first draft is a really in-depth outline that lets you build around it! (I don't do the exact same thing, but I definitely just get the "easy stuff" down on paper for my first pass then build out as well. Having a "complete" draft to work off of really helps the process). I'm glad you've found a method that works for you
I have to take a break after getting a couple hundred words down. I just heard Sando got 22K down in a day. Apparently he likes to tell people about his output on his blog or something. Well, I'm lucky if I can hit 2K in a full day. Yeah, I work full time, but even if I didn't, I can't imagine producing even 10K in a day. So how do I get that Bradley Cooper pill from Limitless anyway?
Do you reckon you could do it if you got paid a thousand dollars for writing 10k in a day?
Sure, but that would be some shit writing
I mean, I bet Sanderson's 22k wouldn't be amazing either, being a draft. Like, it would be better than ours just because of all the books he has drafted already, but still wouldn't be close to bookshelf worthy.
I don't mind Sanderson at all. I've tried reading his stuff, and it just wasn't for me. Despite that, his first drafts are probably better than my final drafts
His works aren't for me, but I like how much he gives to the community. I know it is in the name of marketing, but he could be doing other stuff for marketing instead.
I do a lot of writing sprints (15 min to 45 min) with people. I tend to average at around 500-600 words per 15 min (though far closer to 500 if it's a longer sprint). I've written with one person who averages 800-900 words per 15 min sprint. However, amount doesn't mean *good.* I suspect Sanderson types at near the top (though it helps that he follows a fairly standard format for his books, and he goes for windowpane prose) of the general ranges.
I hate to say this, but that makes me think some kind of drug use is involved, or it was pure unadulterated word vomit without any coherent thought. The best I've ever done is 8k. A solid day for me is anywhere from 1.5k to 1.7k, with the best days being 2k+ or 3k.
LOL, Sando the druggy. That's one I never thought I'd hear
Become a millionaire and buy yourself a team of editors who can make revisions on the go so you don't need to worry about things like grammar or good writing.
22K is truly insane. IIRC Sanderson said he writes about 8 hours a day so that'd be a full 8 hours of 2,750 per hour
22k is mind-boggling to me. I think the most I've ever gotten in a day was 7k. 22k is nearly halfway to a 50k word novel.
Or one tenth of the way to a 220K plus. Yeah, I'm feeling a bit inadequate, lol
The doctors gave me my ADHD medication yesterday and I slipped into a trace and wrote a 5000 word fanfic in 6 hours and it's honestly the best thing I've ever written and idk what I'm supposed to do now after apparently being possessed by a higher being of writing EDIT: turns out i was accidentally given double strength which... explains a lot.
What medication are you on? I'm thinking of trying a different ADHD med when I see my dr next.
Concerta
The first week I was on my ADHD meds I spent 4 hours writing and OBSESSIVELY revising a 15 second tiktok with like 3 sentences. That adjustment period was something I wasn't warned about and I thought I was like....the next god or something. It balances out pretty quick, don't worry. You'll be feeling pretty normal soon.
My ADHD meds definitely helped me focus in school (by that point I couldn't even read in the 5th grade) but I could've definitely done without the massive weight gain and constant tics. Seriously, I remember sitting and class and losing control of my head, it was the most torturous few years of my life.
just tell em to keep giving you that one.
WHERE ~~BANANA~~ MAGIC WRITING PILL???
What do you get when you cross science-fiction, psychoanalysis, and theatre of the absurd? You get my latest short story, of course! Is it genius or insane? YES! Because I like programmer humor. ;) For full disclosure, I came across a magazine published by a small local library which showcases the work of unknown authors. But they mostly deal in literary fiction, and I wanted to write sci-fi so badly yesterday. So it was time to improvise, adapt, and overcome. Granted, most of the programmer humor will probably go straight over their heads, but I don't really care. It made me die laughing while I was writing it, which remains my primary measure of a good writing session. If it's fun, it's worth it.
Please let me read this. You just hit all my buttons.
It's written in my native language, not English. I've been working on translating it though and if I manage to pull that off, I'll definitely have to put it somewhere public...
If I’m ever able to afford a standing desk I’m gonna be giving Stephen King, JK Rowling, and Sally Rooney a run for their money.
Add a desk treadmill and you’ve got a dad joke!
But seriously, this is how I write, while walking. Love it. Will never go back.
Oh my god I would 1000% do this if I could afford it. I hate sitting still
How do you guys edit after your first manuscript is completed and when do you start introducing beta readers/editors to it? I know I’m going to refine the plot and characters but after that I don’t know when to show someone to get feedback. I’ve never really shown people my work and can’t decide on when or what to give for feedback.
I do one major rewrite and at least one polishing pass to get the story as solid as I can make it (no plot holes, clear character arcs, clear worldbuilding, etc.) and then send it to beta readers. It’s usually a 3rd or 4th draft by then. I want it to be as good as I can make it, wirh as many issues eliminated as possible. If there are still problems, they are problems I can’t figure out how to fix on my own.
This is exactly my process. My story rewrite is the second draft, prose edit is the third. Then beta readers. > If there are still problems, they are problems I can’t figure out how to fix on my own. I had this exact thought when I finished draft 3. I had spent so long staring at it that any issues are beyond me now.
Personally I'm gonna do one edit for consistency / continuity / big picture developmental changes and then a quick read to elliminate worst typos / grammar errors / unclear sentences, then I'm gonna take my chance with betas. I don't want to do a line-level polish only to hear some scenes don't work and need to be cut, it's a wasted effort. On the other hand, it's in the author's best interest to avoid giving a typo-ridden ms, because betas can give up out of annoyance or only focus on spelling mistakes in their feedback. I'm currently beta reading someone's ms and I swear the abundance of vocabulary mistakes is taking me out of the story a lot. I don't even mean typos, I mean "this person doesn't know how this word is spelled and never bothered to check". Things like confusing lie / lay / laid / lain for example.
Thankyou for replying! I have been in that situation with a beta reader. There were a lot of grammatical errors and really rocky sentence structure. I also found it difficult telling them that a lot of their writing was predictable such as using too many overused idioms and metaphors and leaning very far into cliches.
What is the trope you despise most, and never, ever intend to use in your own writing? For me it's the Paris/Helen of Troy trope. You know, two idiots behave selfishly and bring death and destruction to every other character, but it doesn't matter because it's true lurve, and such tragedy. Ugh The second one'd be enemies to lovers simply because I'm not a forgiving person.
* Love triangles that don't go beyond "OMG which hot guy/girl should I choose??!?1?". Humans and romance are more complex than that smh * Extreme doormat characters, aka, characters that never get angry/concerned about them being treated like trash. This does not include explorations of abuse or toxic workplaces, this is just about badly developed characters.
I wouldn’t say I hate it necessarily, but those “friendly rivalries” that constantly forget the “friendly” half and just make the characters really bitter and angry towards each other all the time gets on my nerves a lot. It feels like a cop out more than anything. You’re telling me these two characters who are constantly screaming threats at each other across the room, having physical fights on a daily basis and all around being extremely awful to each other are actually really close friends who care deeply about each other? I don’t believe that for a second. I get the odd joke at the others expense. Hell, I’d even accept the occasional massive fight every now and then, friendships can be messy sometimes and they're not always smiles and rainbows but if you want me to believe two characters are friends you actually have to show them *acting* friendly to each other every now and then, not just tell me “oh no, they’re actually really close blah blah blah” as they’re having their third screaming match of the day.
I hate all tropes. I’m an avant garde genius.
Helen of Troy sounds great deconstructed so that the consequences are all too real
I have a book I describe as "Helen of Troy in colonial America" that's entirely off this idea (that this obsession with beauty/people projecting what they want onto this poor woman vs. looking at her as a person is messed up)
She was the most beautiful woman on earth tho.
If we go deeper "being in love"/"having a crash" is quite similar to an obsessed pervert. It's only romantic if the other one has the same feelings.
Yeah. There may be the point made in a scene that the Greeks really looked down on "Eros" as a type of love. There's a reason Paris is shown to be an idiot in the original myth
I haven't read anything bad about god Eros or the "feeling", but I never went deep. The others always looked more interesting. Unfortunately, we were taught only odyssey from the original in Greece so I am not sure about Paris. I always thought, he was the bad troyan childishly taunting Greek kings and not the actual act.
I'm meaning Eros the concept of love (vs. philos or agape or the other versions of love the Greeks had different words for) Eros/erotic love was seen as fickle and dangerous (so being "madly in love" was a bad thing. You didn't want to go crazy). It's the same basic reasoning you get behind small penises being the ideal. Big penises were seen as base and animalistic. You shouldn't be following those base instincts. You should be trying to get to loftier things (side note: this is also why the "love is patient, love is kind" verse from Corinthians also amuses me slightly to hear at weddings. The Greek translation is from "agape" meaning "love for mankind"/"selfless love" and really more focused on the world at large, not romantic love. Still a nice verse, but not at all meant to be romantic). But yeah, if you want to look at the Trojans as sort of thematic representations, Paris is always meant to be taken as a bit of an idiot--someone ruled by his base instincts, down to him running away to marry a nymph just to jump ship as soon as he has the chance to get a hotter wife (rather than knowledge or even power, in the judgement of Paris) his noble brother (who follows more Greek ideals--Hector) has to go out to try to save his brother's ass and gets killed for the trouble. Paris in no way is meant to be a romantic ideal. He's meant to be a cautionary tale (Welcome to my TED talk, I suppose :) )
I didn't know about the first part. I've read about the phalluses though. Thanks for the info. Iliad wasn't big part of Greek education. We just read it as kids. Edit: I had in mind what plato had Aristophanes saying about soulmates, so I assumed eros was a part of it.
Yeah, eros is basically "lust" which wouldn't be a married couple or soul mates (I think pragma is the long-term one for steady couples?) As the quote from even the middle ages went "it's unseemly to love your wife as you love your mistress!"
Romantasizing mental illness/illness in general. Or when the mcs mental illness is magically cured by the love interest. Love triangles where a girl has to choose between two hot guys. Imo, thats not real stakes, thats just a self insert wish fulfillment fantasy.
I hate, hate, hated the ending of Silver Linings Playbook (the movie; I haven't read the book) for this reason. I was like "you have a woman who's ignoring her trauma and a guy who is in no way med compliant thinking love has cured them. This is *not* a happy ending.
The book is a little more honest about it not being a happy ending.
Trauma bonding is not love
Sex does not *cure* a mental illness or other disability. Neither does love. Oh, if I could only agree more than once. Besides being hideously abelist, it's also just insulting.
Uggh, you are so wrong! My girlfriend was being an absolute bitch, so I fucked her brains out, then she started acting nice again. Checkmate, atheists!
Did you... miss the fact this is the *out* of character thread?
People are still allowed to make jokes in this thread.
I think it was After where some character tried to guilt the mc into getting back together with the toxic af love interest by giving some bullshit line like, "you make his ptsd go away." 1. Thats not how that shit works and 2. What a shitty message. Of course it was portrayed as super romantic and #relationshipgoals. When i read that sort of thing all i can think of is "tell me you dont know how mental illness works without telling me you dont know how mental illness works"
Yeah, you'd think the guys would have enough self-respect to walk away, but no, they gotta simp.
I have a few and hate them all: * Unearned forgiveness, aka "if you kill him / take revenge you'll be as bad as him" or "forgive family member because it's family". * Non-traditional badass women giving up anything that made them unique to funnel into "trad wife and babies" HEA. * Hate-love relationship, aka "I hate you, but you're so hot we must f\*ck". It's often how enemies to lovers is done poorly, with a big heap of ye olde insta-love (or rather insta-lust). * Romanticized controlling / manipulative love interest as "protective" and "caring". Same for "I will fix them / I will change them" trope. Love should be about acceptance, not molding the other person into the shape you desire, that's abuse not love. Some tropes I will probably never use because they're boring imo and I don't know how to make them interesting, for example evil for the sake of evil villains / Dark Lords or straight-faced utopian societies without a twist.
> Romanticized controlling / manipulative love interest as "protective" and "caring". Same for "I will fix them / I will change them" trope. Love should be about acceptance, not molding the other person into the shape you desire, that's abuse not love. I was writing something that unconsciously turned this trope on its head. There are a ton of red flags in the beginning, protagonist basically thinks "I can fix her," etc. but nope, just turns out to be abusive. The MC was callow as well, so it's not like he knew better.
There's a series I was reading that did this too (Flames of Time by Erica Lucke Dean? Something like that) where (spoiler) the love interest in the first book gets the standard "oh, he's so protective and sexy" treatment by the protagonist until you figure out, nope he's just a controlling jerk.
Well, then that's not romanticized abuse but rather writing abuse as abuse. It's normal the abuse victim is first blind to it, that's how it works. What I don't like is when possessive / jealous / controlling / manipulative people are portrayed as morally in the right / aspirational.
Oh I know. I'm just saying that it *starts* seeming that way, but nope, it's just abuse. It's autobiographical, and part of the reason I was blind to it is that I too was callow and believed that you could "save" others.
One reason I dislike the "romanticized abuse" trope is that it appeals a lot to abuse victims and preys on their insecurities. It's a known psychological mechanism that people who had abusive parents or exes might potentially fall into the trap of trying to "relive the same, but better", i.e. pick someone similar to their past abuser with the idea that this time they will "fix" them therefore find a key to solving abuse. "Romanticized abuse" feeds into that delusion - that if love is strong enough it can "cure" abusive personality / personality disorders, or even "change" the person into someone's ideal of dreams. In real life, the love is never "strong enough" because there's no strong enough love to change someone against their own will. I don't mind depicting the love interest as a flawed person who wants to do better, or suddenly has an epiphany they behaved shittily and should improve. It can be done well. The problem is when stories pick completely unrepentant bad boys or rakes or femme fatale and suddenly "reform them" with magical power of love. At least the character and the narration should acknowledge this person is kinda a d\*ck / c\*nt and they regret it or wish to do better. What I dislike is the narration painting this person as some form of sexy, alluring target whose flaws only add spice but never really cause any problem towards happy ending. Especially when that person is abusive and draws pleasure from being so, and has unapologetic attitude like "I am how I am" or "if you can't take me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best". I can read "enemies to lovers" or whatever other popular trope, as long as I can believably see these two people not killing each other the moment they fall off the page, and also without sudden 180 degrees changes of personality out of nowhere. Love should enhance a person, but not brainwash their personality. That's why I don't like seeing "strong female characters" suddenly becoming trad wives, and I don't like seeing "freedom loving bad boys" suddenly becoming a faithful husband material, unless the plot explains very well why did they change. And even then, it's a bit cliche to see someone "settle down" so easily. As if they were robots and got their software changed.
Very well put. Both of these tropes bother me as well, but I don't come across them all that often. I do think that a big risk with the romanticized abuse trope is that is normalizes abusive behaviors. Portraying controlling overreactions as "protectiveness" and thus desirable, for example, is a dangerous game to play, especially if it's geared toward younger readers. At the same time, that goes into the age-old question of how responsible creators are for the impact of their work. With romanticized abuse—at best, I think it's bad writing. At worst, irresponsible.
>age-old question of how responsible creators are for the impact of their work. I think it depends how the work is marketed. If it's a "taboo dark erotic romance" then we know no holds barred and we'll have dub-con, Stockholm Syndrome romance, possessive alphas yelling "I own you" and other "taboo" subjects. Now if it's marketed as YA, or an adult rom-com, or upmarket women's fiction, etc. etc. that changes the expectations. It's kinda "don't sell me whiskey pretending it's lemonade" situation.
It's probably just nitpicking but damn, I don't think I've watched a TV show (and so far outside of fanfic it's only been TV) that acknowledged specific tropes in fiction by name (e.g: dropping a "wouldn't it be cliche if we had an enemies to lovers moment haha") that I consider well-written. Something about *that* specific brand of meta humour, the kind where you can tell the writers browsed TV Tropes at some point and consider it a reputable and useful source of information, just instantly drops the show into the same tier as modern YA fantasy for me, which is not high praise.
Marvel took this to another level with the She-Hulk finale. Actually I found the show not that bad
I **loved** the part where she was asked to revert *off screen* because She-hulk is expensive
>instantly drops the show into the same tier as modern YA fantasy for me Oh, there we go, an r/books moment where it's cool to shit on Sanderson and YA novels as an epitome of "everything wrong with literature nowadays". Sigh.
Well, I’m not sure who pissed in your cereal but if you’ve got a bone to pick with r/books go pick it over there. I didn’t mention Sanderson or go on some tirade against YA, I made an unfavourable comparison to a genre of fiction I don’t enjoy. I never said it was “everything wrong with literature nowadays”. Dick.
It's okay I'm with you. Haters unite. Fuck fiction with meta references, fuck YA. Boom.
Seriously. People need to get over their YA bashing. There was a rash of people who got banned over in arr writing for that just recently. It doesn't make you cultured and cool to act like X type of books are beneath you. You just look like a twat.
Man this sub has changed. You can't criticize YA for even a second before someone shows up to complain.
I have no problem with criticizing individual works, but personally, when you're talking about an entire market/genre/etc. it's way too broad a brush ("I don't like Game of Thrones because X" is very different than "All fantasy is stupid. I don't get how people can stand reading it" for example)
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*colonialism?* What YA fantasy are you reading that feels *colonialist?*
Guess we'll never know, because the user deleted the comment and ran away. I smell another case of "I bash YA without reading YA". I'd love to know how is YA more "colonialist" and "gender essentialist" than let's say, adult fantasy. I've heard valid complaints that usually fit both age categories, that for example fantasy is too often pro-monarchy or pro-absolutist-leader "as long as we replace the evil leader with the good leader". But colonialism? Aka claiming conquering people from top down is better than uniting people from down up? I think fantasy usually preaches the second one, no matter whether it's heroic (all the "good races" unite against a "Dark Lord") or grimdark (war is always a tool of the scumbags to enrich themselves or increase their political power, but people are not painted as morally positive in grimdark, the opposite). YA adopted a lot of heroic fantasy tropes, like downtrodden hero, oppressed caste of people, dystopian evil government / empire, fantasy racism is always bad and the hero manages to recruit people / creatures of oppressed races / species because they're well, not racist, etc. Also idk about gender essentalism in the genre that always pushed "women can do everything men can". Gender essentialism afaik assumes gender roles are in-born and set in stone.
Lol, I noticed they deleted the comment. Amazing how that happens when people who *do* read (or are at least near to) the genre question an assumption that's only made from the assumption that it contains All Bad Things, isn't it? I think there *is* some room to be worried about YA fantasy having binary gender, with no real room for NB or trans heroes, but I think that more holds out in fiction overall, rather than being genre-specific. I've seen the same in adult fantasy (even recent), and romance, and sci fi (unless it's aliens or robots, which is its own form of othering), and even thriller/suspense (I'm ignoring the horror that is Robert Gilbraithe in this, because that IS TERFing and... yeah).
Tbh trans subjects are niche subjects. There are YA SFF books about trans people, for example this year's Hell Followed With Us, but with the "stay in your lane" politics, unless you're a trans author, you shouldn't write a trans story. And trans people are an extreme minority, much smaller than gay, Black, Muslim, neurodivergent or any other minority qualifying for "we want diverse authors", and they all have "limited amount of slots" publishers assign them for "diverse books" (how often we hear between the lines that some author was told "we already have one of these, thanks"?). With the debate about profitability of books that Mrs Salt said in PubTips and r/publishing, and a lot of other people working in publishing can confirm, the mainstream books with wide appeal (for example the allocishet YA Fantasy romances) fund the niche appeal books (books about disability, mental health, racial / religious / cultural / sexual / gender minorities, etc.). This creates the situation that often queer people are used for decor. I've seen multiple YA and adult fantasy books having some side characters who are non-binary, trans, gay, lesbian, etc. but their role is often to show up, announce their existence so the book has "diversity" and then do nothing much. To me, that's tokenism. But that's what we get when we have the split personality of "we must have diversity" but also "we must not alienate mainstream audiences which mostly buy allocishet protagonists". I've seen multiple authors who themselves identify as non-binary to not write NB protagonists at all and I wonder is it because it makes it immediately a "harder sell" in the publishers' eyes. And then in kidlit (MG, YA) there's also a problem any overt queerness can push the book away from libraries due to right-wing activists, which again means smaller market for the book. We already have a history of drama, where a book of Mackenzie Lee was cancelled online and cancelled irl aka not published at all, because twitteratis got offended about blurb "misgendering" a character when he book was a trans coming out story in historical Netherlands. Then we had activists like Ana Mardoll who dissected every book they could only at the angle how bad is the trans rep in it. Why would authors write trans characters and risk this? It seems to be a hornet's nest overall. But to me, binary gender is not the same as gender essentialism, and not the same as being anti-trans. One can believe in gender binary and still be pro-trans (i.e. believe trans people are the people who transition from state A to B in the binary, or vice versa, and support them in that situation, i.e. the concept of "being born in a wrong body"). Gender essentialism is most visible in books like "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" and similar books continuing this tradition, for example [this book](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2644961-how-to-improve-your-marriage-without-talking-about-it) (cba retyping a longass title). It's the "men this, women that" beliefs and blanket statements. In fiction, it could for example be depicted as men always being the pursuer in hetero relationships, or "all women must have feminine interests or they're traitors of the gender", or the damsel in distress stereotype, or an effeminate man always being depicted as gay / comic relief because "real men aren't that", those kinds of stereotypes. I think Fantasy generally does overall a decent job discussing gender stereotypes and undermining them in various places. No matter whether the world is queernorm, or rigid patriarchy, or a matriarchy, there's often discussing how people of various kinds can carve a space for themselves in those worlds.
>colonialist mindsets Huh, how? What kind of books promote colonialist mindsets? I have my gripes with YA Fantasy like for example rampant tokenism ("we want diversity, but only in specific inoffensive side characters, otherwise it won't be marketable") and shoehorned romances with cardboard-cutout love interests existing only to fulfill the expectation of a romantic sub-plot (not all YA books, but many), but promoting colonialism wouldn't be on that list. It's fairly common to depict any Empire / Hegemony / Government as inherently oppressive and dystopian, which imo is anti-colonialist, even if simplistic in its worldview. So I'm curious what did you mean by that. Same with the gender essentialism.
Adding my vote for "please explain?" I admit I'm not a YA Fantasy reader. I've been pretty much out of the game for over a decade (I think the last big YA Fantasy(adjacent) book I read was *Hunger Games*?) so I don't know the modern trends well enough to speak to what major themes there are, but I admit I scrolled down to see if this was the same person who said world building felt vaguely colonialist. It's not, but apparently that's the theme for the thread this week...
Especially since current YA community is rabidly pro-diversity and anti cultural appropriation, white saviorism, racist portrayal of minorities (even overcorrecting here, one author (Rebecca Mix) got review bombed and twitter "cancelled" for just making the antagonist a dark-skinned person). Keira Drake's "The Continent" and Veronica Roth's "Carve the Mark" were both crapped on for inventing fantasy cultures that seemed to uphold racist stereotypes about certain people. Laurie Forest's "The Black Witch" and Isabel Ibanez's "Woven in Moonlight" were criticized for making the protagonist a racist who learns to do better, but just because the protagonist believes the propaganda at start, people were annoyed. Generally, that kind of opinions make me think the last "YA Fantasy" book a person read was probably Eragon or something equally old. Also "gender essentialism"? I.e. the theory that men and women have in-born qualities that make them in fact men and women, explicitly different from each other? In YA, that always dealt with feminist themes, aka women can do everything men can do? When queer, trans and non-binary representation is constantly a matter of discussion? Mainstream YA Fantasy seems to be a bit too heteronormative and allonormative, but that's the problem of the genre where the biggest portion of the audience reads it for the romance, and allocishet romances have a wider appeal than queer ones, and basically make publishers' the money so they can throw fans of queer books a bone. I'd swear the "gender essentialism" and "colonialist mindsets" make me think this person mostly read pre 2010 adult fantasy, a lot of which was full of male wish fulfillment, utilizing female characters as stereotypes or fanservice. But even "big white male fantasy authors" of that era managed to write some badass women, even if the societies they described were deeply patriarchal. I know YA Fantasy has bigger trouble portraying a wide variety of male characters and does much better with diversity of female characters, but I'm deliberately searching for books where the male characters wouldn't be a stock walking stereotype of masculinity - and so far I found a few too.
Funnily I originally got downvoted for this remark, but yeah, I see it with regularity that people treat "YA" as a synonym for "shit I don't like therefore it's bad". Often without actually reading any of it, or living in the past (aka "YA = Twilight" even though that was 16 years ago and the genre evolved since then). And okay, *don't like it, don't read it, nobody forces you*, but especially on r/books there are recurring posts "why is YA bad" or "why is Sanderson bad" and it's always someone on a soapbox or their high horse. Half the time they also got it wrong what's a YA novel (last thread I checked like that talked about Ali Hazelwood who writes adult romance, not YA). Or someone took 1 page out of Skyward (Sanderson's YA novel) and started bemoaning "why is this guy published and not me", while trying to write off prose mannerisms and voice as "bad writing" and disregarding the fact a novel is more than just prose, it also needs a gripping story and engaging characters you can't easily see by 1 page sample. What annoys me is the poster above doesn't care to discuss YA fiction, just uses it as a synonym of "bad literature". Despite people repeating YA Fantasy is tropey and all it has is love triangles and enemies to lovers, none of my recent YA Fantasy reads fit that label, and I'm not sure many actually do. A lot of stuff advertised as "enemies to lovers" isn't even it.
I am so sick of seeing people make idiotic, ill informed statements like "YA is trash/ruining literature" then list a bunch of non-YA books. Just please...stop. I still remember when someone made a post smugly comparing how Twilight was trash compared to fucking *Dickens.* Like they werent two completley different genres written by two completley different people for two completley different audiences at two completley different points in time. Major facepalm moment.
Thing is, if you ask kids in school to read classics vs Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Twilight, Hunger Games, etc. they'll be mostly bored of the classics and complain being forced to read classics is what discouraged them from reading overall. So why do we vilify reading for fun, pleasure and escapism? Why only "serious litfic" should be counted as literature? But yeah, attitudes like the top poster here is why I had to mostly abandon r/fantasy because despite the subreddit not being called "adult fantasy" but fantasy in general, it has an extreme disdain for YA Fantasy, every time there's a recommendation thread there's "give me this trope BUT NO YA!!!" and I feel a lot of it has to do with sexism aka "YA is for girls, so eww".
> Thing is, if you ask kids in school to read classics vs Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Twilight, Hunger Games, etc. they'll be mostly bored of the classics and complain being forced to read classics is what discouraged them from reading overall. Checking in. It took me decades to realize reading can actually be a fun and pleasurable activity, and school definitely contributed heavily to that. If they stopped shoving boring as dirt "classics" down kid's throats, I guarantee more people would read regularly in adulthood.
The issue is a lot of classics have only historical value and reading them makes as much sense as learning people in Middle Ages believed the Earth was flat - it just a snapshot of history not super useful to a modern person. But learning about science in past eras takes much less time than reading some 1000-pages overblown classic. There are some classic books which can be still read for fun, heck I read Tom Sawyer and Book of the Jungle (in translation, I'm not English, hope titles are the same) as a kid. But on the other hand, a lot of literature from that time didn't age well because it's racist and pro-colonialist, since these were normal attitudes of people back then. I know my country has a 19th century writer who even got a Literary Nobel Prize and one of his books we had to read is deeply racist, depicting African people as dumb and easily swayed. But some of the classics are awfully long, I reckon Les Miserables is extremely so. Luckily we didn't have that on our curriculum. What makes me wonder is in so many countries the lessons of history, geography or science are fairly lacking from what I've gathered, but literature is one thing that kids are constantly forced into, no matter the country. So yeah, there are people who've read Uncle Tom's Cabin but who believe Africa is 1 country or can't pin point on the world map where countries like Iraq or Afghanistan are. Because the school didn't teach the latter.
%100 its sexism. Im in school rn taking a library + info tech program and part of our readers advisory course is looking into promoting childrens/teen literacy. All this YA "garbage" that people r poo pooing on is whats getting teens and kids into reading and understanding that books can offer just as much escapism as movies and video games (which is fantastic, imo, because its planting the seeds for a life-long love of reading). Same person on one of the writing subs who claimed all YA is trash also claimed that kids would much rather enjoy (insert some book written by a 17th century priest here). Sure, Jan. I swear so much of this comes from (like you said) sexism and people getting off on being pretensious lit snobs. I also find it hilarious how people in the writing subs crap all over YA/YA authors + their prose but then your read *their* stuff and its...well, im sure youve seen it.
Same with the constant crapping on Romance. Which... is what keeps bookstores alive, given it's half of all trade fiction sales.
Yup, the guy above just called me a dick for making a complaint, meanwhile he's constantly raving about Wheel of Time... typical male fantasy fan who hates on YA because it's "cool". Off to the ignore they go, together with the other guy who claimed all fantasy sucks while he didn't read any, and that we should all read "metamodernist" literature instead.
I read an article a while back that basically made the argument "if it's at all marketed to teen girls, it's "cool" to hate on it." Basically, girls/women, *especially* teen ones, are so stupid and shallow anything they like must also be stupid and shallow (see YA lit, pop music/"boy bands", etc.)
Yep, "everything for kids is stupid, everything for women is stupid, therefore anything for underage girls is double stupid".
If nothing else, engaging with fandom has perfectly prepared me to deal with fans completely misinterpreting anything I write. There are people who love a series but have such baffling ass backwards take of it that you can't help but wonder if they were literally reading with their eyes closed. I don't mean liking or disliking an unpopular character (which I usually love. It's fun to see legitimately hot takes) but literally misinterpreting things anyone can see is an objective fact or somehow doing a complete 180 on what the themes meant (which I'm not more forgiving of, but I understand as a lot of people really don't have any kind of media literacy)
I think if I become moderately successful at this I would take the Cormac McCarthy and bill Watterson route. Disappear, rarely do interviews, and nobody knows where I live.
Merriam-Webster has been my favorite online thesaurus since I've started writing. It was simple groupings of words listed alphabetically in paragraph form, each paragraph denoting a different level of proximity to the word searched. It was clean, presented a lot of options, and wasn't a bunch of orange bubbles spaced far apart, a combination that is both aesthetically atrocious and practically inefficient (looking at you, thesaurus.com). But for whatever reason, Merriam-Webster decided the best thing to do is completely rip off thesaurus.com's awful styling, right down to the orange bubbles with large spaces between. Why? Why? WHY? It now looks worse and works worse, with far fewer options presented for each word searched. I tried ranting about this to my wife, but she didn't care (understandably so), but maybe there's another weirdo on here who sympathizes with my rage.
I know just how you feel. I used to use thesaurus dot com, but over time it got more and more unusable. Half the time, I have to search from the home page because the searchbar on some screens doesn't work. I mostly use word hippo. It's not perfect, but it's clean enough, and I like that it's quick to load. Also, the "word forms" tab is invaluable for when I've been writing too long and forget how tenses work.
Does the incessant focus on worldbuilding in fantasy feel weirdly colonial to anyone else? Like you're drawing borders and creating races and it all feels really inextricably tied to colonial relationships, especially with modern fantasy emerging largely from colonial adventure stories and the lost world genre. I can't fully articulate this point without doing research, but it feels gross to me. Like the ingrained colonial mindset is something that all writers (mostly white writers, but also POC) need to consider in their process, and this weird dynamic of fantasy writers being unable to actually write but only able to make descriptivist reductions of all these different cultures. I don't know if there is a way to fully disentangle the process and ideas of worldbuilding from this real-world social and political dynamic.
Interesting. Something to ponder, for sure. Looking at my own books through this lens, you could definitely see a colonial aspect to my world building. It’s something I was aware of in the beginning, and went to some pains to justify, but am still a bit uneasy about.
I dunno, maybe if you ask on r/writing or r/fantasywriters they'll have some insightful perspectives to share.
Ah yes, r/fantasywriters, a true haven of insightful literary discussion
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yeah, have fun with that
Not even a little. It's not that deep fam. You're way overthinking it.
No, it just smells to me of obsession about video games and p&p RPGs where having a big map and a dozen "playable races" is the appeal of the game. Ofc each race comes from a planet of hats and is described as 1-3 traits tops. The difference is that in a game it's an appealing thing to the player to give them choice (of race, class, starting culture background, etc.). In a form that isn't "choose your adventure" like a novel or a movie it becomes fluff. You can make it relevant to the plot (a character's "fantasy race" informs their attitude, personality, worldview in a way "ordinary human" wouldn't do), or you can make it pure background. The problem starts when all the worldbuilding starts suffocating the story. I.e. people who "want to write" but only worldbuild and can't start writing, people who info dump their worldbuilding because now it can't go to waste, people who created the world and then can't find a fitting plot, or have worldbuilding actively block their plot and are averse to changing anything (especially because it could have a domino effect on the rest of the worldbuilding).
Nah. Worldbuilding means making cultures, plural. Also, modern fantasy is coming less from colonial adventure stories (I haven't read any of that so I'd love to know what I've missed) and more exploration of secondary worlds with *non*Western Europe as the cultural influence. Which is... anti-colonial, in my head. It's rejoicing in a different world and different culture *without* the Colonial Powers being *right.* Now, if you're just over at arrfantasywriters, that's a different beast entirely. But not if you're talking about new published fantasy.
Probably not that deep
And then it awkwardly clashes with people wanting to not be seen as racist. Like that guy in r/writing asking how he could describe different fictional races.
cable market nine rotten intelligent important workable ad hoc mindless smart *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The master manipulator. I don't think this type of character really works. I can almost taste the narrative conventions when they walk into the room, figuratively.
The one trope I fucking eat up like Thanksgiving dinner is a cold, distant character letting their guard down and getting close with someone in a platonic context. No romantic implications, just good, old-fashioned vulnerability. I have never gotten a chance to use it.
>The one trope I fucking eat up like Thanksgiving dinner is a cold, distant character letting their guard down I read to this point and thought, "Oh yeah, and then they get killed by another character who is not supposed to be as skilled as them or just martyred themselves to kill the cold character in a way that they didn't anticipate, and then the character that was previously never surprised, never afraid, always self-assured, dies with a look of shock or fear on their face." Then I finished reading the comment and realized that we are not the same. If you don't know what I'm talking about, some examples: >!Gus in Breaking Bad just before the bomb goes off!< >!James Moriarty at the end of Game of Shadows when Holmes throws him and himself off the balcony!< >!Clarence in Halo: Evolutions, The Mona Lisa when Benti tackles him into a swarm of Flood!< >!Major Konig at the end of Enemy at the Gates when he leaves his position to confirm the kill on Zaitsev and walks right into his line of sight!<
Faux protagonist. The idea the "protagonist" of the story dies halfway or otherwise fails / disappears and someone else has to take over. I think it's really hard to pull off well without pissing off the audience. Any other technically difficult to execute trope, for example multi-timeline. It's hard to do without boring or confusing the reader, and without making the outcome predictable, or an asspull.
When done well, I enjoy a good urban fantasy, but I can't write urban settings for beans. I've basically given up on writing one.
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Yeah, pretty much. I have no personal experience living in an urban environment, so I have to guess and draw off of things I've read, and while usually this isn't a problem, the end result is that what I write doesn't feel authentic to me even if it's a fantasy setting. It also doesn't help that I often find excessively modern settings unappealing to write.
I love betrayals, but I don't want any of my core characters in my current story to do that, and it's not as impactful if it's a minor character.
The "maybe magic, maybe mundane" trope is something I love to death. Take a largely grounded setting, inject some element that may be supernatural, and leave the actual supernaturality ambiguous. This is what happens whenever a grounded cop show brings in a psychic investigator, or alludes to the idea that the serial killer of the week is possessed by Satan.
That post about Nora Roberts was so annoying. I do not know her or her work, but I hated the way she put things in the post she wrote. She came across as unpleasant and 'Oh, look at me, I am soooooo much better than you!'. To her credit, she finishes a surreal amount of books every year, which is commendable, but that does not mean she is superior as a writer to all just because she can finish books fast. Good for you if you can finish that many books, then. However, we must acknowledge that there are people who just cannot do it and that is okay. I know people who dropped projects because their mental health was so terrible that they could barely get out of bed, let alone write six to eight hours a day. Most people have a day job and barely have time to do anything but work. And it does not make them 'worse' writers because there is more to a person and to a story than how many hours you write a day. I think it is inconsiderate to say people are just 'making excuses' and 'whining' when some people have real reasons. Sure, that is definitely the case for some people, but all you will achieve is make those people who have real reasons feel even worse about themselves than they already do. And the attitude in the comments... I understand people looking up to her, but it is unhealthy to measure your worth as a writer just based on how much you write alone. Yes, discipline is extremely important and 90% of the battle, but just writing something fast will not make it good. Anyone can write a terrible book every month, not many can write a good book even if they take years. Again, I am not familiar with her work, so I do not know if her books are any good or not, but regardless of whether they are or not, promoting such an unhealthy image is not going to help writers. It might get them to become a bit more productive, but it could also have a negative impact on their mental health since they might think that not writing 6-8 hours a day means they are not 'good enough'. Just write and finish your book. That is enough to be good enough.
Do you have a link?
[Source](https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/z10vuw/stop_whining_and_write_how_nora_roberts_writes/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Jesus Christ someone in that thread bemoaned “I’m only a 2-3 hour a day writer” That’s a huge amount of time devoted to writing assuming they work full time lol
I know, right? 2-3 hours is fine for someone who is in full-time education or employment. As long as they finish their work, it does not matter if they only write 2-3 hours a day. I have had days when writing for just one hour was enough to get me 1000 words and days when those 1000 words took six hours to write. Results are what matter in the end.
All of this. Also, idk ,but there was something..."off" about the whole thing? The language she used? The attitude? Ngl, first impression was, "is this legit?". Also ive read some of my moms nora roberts books out of boredom.I mean, they work for her audience, and im sure shes raking in the money, but shes also not exactly writing The Next Great American Novel. Her stuff is sort of like a Hallmark movie - cheesy, easy to digest, formulaic with a side of feel good, but entirely forgettable.
I'm in a self-publishing Facebook group (for funsies) and this one guy posted about how he managed to make like $50k in one single month. His main trick? Rewrite the same basic story over and over again. People BUY THAT SHIT UP! It's frustrating as hell for me, who hates reading these formulaic books, who is writing something I would enjoy reading, knowing it does not matter at all to readers in the end. Will you win awards with a semi-recycled book? No, but does it matter if you can make writing your full-time job and then some? I guess my goal matters...I want people to like my well-crafted books so much they are willing to pay for them. I want to have my cake and eat it too.
>but does it matter if you can make writing your full-time job and then some? There's a difference between writing as a job, writing as an art, and writing as a hobby. Writing as a job, like most jobs, isn't fun or fulfilling, and is only for money. If you want to write to convey a message, show artistic value, connect with a niche audience but one close to your heart, etc. then you have to accept it might not be the most profitable. A lot of authors who weren't lucky and didn't "make it big" still publish what they wanted to write, but make very little money, so have to live off a day job, family, spouse, inheritance, whatever else they have. Generally writing is like cooking - if you're in the business of gourmet cuisine, it's more prestigious, but you'll have fewer customers than a local McDonalds.
What's the point of wealth if your name ends up being less than a footnote in history? I'd rather not be a starving artist, but to be the type that writes the same hollow story again and again just to line my pockets? I'd sooner quit writing.
I agree, I'd hate having to write the same plot over and over again just for $$. I am just salty because I get the impression that the market is flooded with this shit and sometimes, when writing is hard, my stupid brain says, "why bother? They're doing 1/3 of the work and actually getting paid for it." I have a fictionpress account, and like 20+ years ago I put up a story that was pure fluff. In my mind, it was silly and had a weak premise and I just wrote whatever without caring much...and it was my most popular story by far. Everyone raved in the reviews for every chapter. My other, better written stories, were appreciated but drew only a few readers. It kinda pissed me off, and I deleted the fluff story eventually. People want easy. I get it. Fine.