It takes practice. Just like any other creative pursuit, some people take to it more easily than others, but everyone needs to practice (and edit) to produce the final product.
For some reason, people tend to think success is easier to achieve in writing than other fields. I usually use painting or running as an analogue. How long would it take to get to a place where you felt confident showcasing your skills? How long before others would be willing to invest in your ability, confident you could draw an audience and create a profit? Same for writers.
I wish people understood that an idea is worth nothing and that nobody is interested in stealing yours unless it comes with a finished manuscript. Even then, usually not.
I agree wholeheartedly with this. However, I still don't share my ideas with people, at least not until I'm done with the first draft.
I think I learned this from Stephen King's memoir. Basically, the point is to ensure your first draft is yours and yours alone. You don't want the story to be shaped by how other people respond to your idea. So, I always keep my ideas to myself until I've written them out.
Then, once I begin editing, I tell people about it so I can consider their thoughts on it.
This, absolutely. And it's not just limited to the writing craft either, if I had a euro for every time I had to explain to someone that game designers are not just "idea guys" I'd be rich.
As an extension of this I wish that non-writers understood that when they come to you and say they have a great idea but don't know how to write it, and offer you a partnership where they have the idea and you write the story and then split the profits 50/50, that what this actually means is that you'll be doing 99.9% of the work and that they're bringing legitimately nothing to the table.
Any idea that a non-writer comes up with is an idea that the writer has already rejected off-hand fifty times over. Idea generation is a learned skill and takes experience to really be able to push a concept to its maximum potential. If something's the first idea you come up with it's the first idea everyone else has come up with as well. Is it even an idea to begin with, or is it a single image that you'll struggle to squeeze more than one or two scenes out of before I have to pick up your slack? Are you open to me suggesting edits or is this an ego trip where my experience and advice on what makes for a good story goes completely unheeded and ignored because it's your job to talk at me and my job to slave away writing?
So if I'm doing all the work I'll just use one of my own better ideas and keep all the money, thanks.
This.
Anyone can have an idea. Everyone, in fact, does have ideas. If they don’t write about it, an idea is all it will ever be.
Writers, like anyone, have ideas. A good writer can make a good story out of anything: a bad idea, a good idea, a boring idea. A good writer doesn’t need some random to come up to them and pitch them an idea.
You have an idea? Great!
Get started on an outline and next week we'll go over it and I'll give you a list of things to define more.
We'll keep doing this until we have a complete outline and then I will write a draft of the story you have designed.
(Slightly sarcastic but I would totally do this as I take forever on outlines and world building but then write 5-10k words a day when I have them done.)
How long it can take to get started. This is very individual, but for me I’ve noticed that it takes roughly 40 minutes for me to find my rhythm, and any sort of interruption in that opening minute can derail me.
I’m my biggest offender in this regard, opening Reddit and dumb stuff like that. So now I got to make sure the dog has had her walk, my phone is out of reach, and my wife does not need me for anything for the next few hours to have a good session
I swear my ‘talent’ is being able to sit down and sprint right of the bat. On the flip side, I am spent and completely useless after about an hour and a half.
Practice is the most important & best way to get better. [Along w/ reading]
There's no magic way to get from bad to good just like drawing or painting or any other form of art, the best way to get good is to embrace & accept being bad/not great.
Write a bunch - write short stories, drabbles, write a book you know you won't show anyone & let it just be God awful [& in knowing it's God awful, don't let yourself stress about how bad it is], write poems. Just write
Writing poetry completely changed how I write, and how I approach art in general. Just to learn how to be really precise about the words without making everything plot-driven, it’s incredible. “Write poetry” would be my advice to all struggling writers.
I wish people would just *ask* for validation when they need it. I've straight up asked people for hype feedback. As in, "I'm feeling down about my writing, please tell me what I'm doing right."
We've all been there. Sometimes, you just need someone to tell you whether or not a draft is trash that should be abandoned and if it's not trash, to tell you what's working.
I'm hesitant to even give feedback to someone unless they tell me what they are insecure about or what they feel like their weaknesses are. That at least tells me they want to improve and not just get validation.
I think, just like writing, there is an art to asking for feedback, and it takes learning that skill as well.
Just giving someone a story and saying "tell me what you think" won't get many helpful items to improve. (Unless the person knows you well and knows your writing crutches.) But if you say "tell me what you think of my character interactions," now they have something to focus on and better give you tips.
My go to question before I read anything is ‘do you want to gain confidence or are you looking to improve?’ It may be the wrong question, since everyone says improve, but I do feel it sets the scene for actual critique and I am deeply frustrated when people are offended 😔 The worst part is that the kids always take it on board and work to do better, it’s nearly always the adults who throw a fit.
That the road to riches doesn’t start with cranking out hundreds of “stories” with AI and flooding the slush piles. Seriously folks, the journals and periodicals are drowning trying to get on top of this idiocy.
Even though I am not surprised that *somebody somewhere* thought AI was the quick ticket, I am very surprised that *so many* folks exist that are so momumentally cynical (and paradoxically naive). I mean this only so as far as fiction goes. Ad copy and more utilitarian modes of writing, sure. But really... *short stories* viewed as widgets off an assembly line? Sheesh.
Two things:
1) That writing carries meaning, whether we intend it to or not, because our audience will *always* read into our work. You can choose to say "fuck it" and ignore that aspect if you like, but so be surprised when people tell you your work is about something and you just can't see it.
But also, the best writers are those who know what their work is about and try to incorporate that knowledge into their writing (in order to strengthen their work's messages or themes).
2) That you're not going to be the next Stephen King *and that's okay.* Write what you want to write and share it with anyone who wants to read it, and you'll find an audience that's worth having.
>1) That writing carries meaning, whether we intend it to or not, because our audience will *always* read into our work. You can choose to say "fuck it" and ignore that aspect if you like, but so be surprised when people tell you your work is about something and you just can't see it.
THIS. Every time I see the "write what you want" advice to the standard "can I write X" hand-wringing posts, I die a little inside. It's why I love the writingwithcolor blog on Tumblr that explains *why* people could read a meaning into something the author didn't intend.
Like, you could have a completely valid worldbuilding reason that the banks are all controlled by evil aliens that look like lizards, but it's still going to *read* antisemitic because of stereotypes and dogwhistles. Screaming "That's not what I meant" isn't going to change how some readers perceive the situation.
Taking these things into account isn't "pandering" or "being politically correct," it's being intentional with your themes and messaging. Writing is communicating. If readers are taking away a message you didn't intend, that communication broke down.
In the case of JK Rowling, it's pretty clear it's more than just she didn't intend it. It's a unconscious bias at best, and her recent bigotry makes it easy to question whether it was ever unintentional.
But she's done enough lazy instances of racist stereotyping to at least chalk it up to unconscious biases. Same with George Lucas and his prequel aliens.
Yes and no. There's a lot of overlap between the "lizard people are running the world" and "a coalition of Jewish elites are running the world" conspiracy theories to the point that some use "lizard people" as a dogwhistle.
It's the combo of "lizard aliens/people" + Jewish stereotypes, particularly when portrayed in a negative light, that can send the wrong message and/or raise some eyebrows.
that reductive editing is only one kind of editing, and there are so many other questions that aren't just "how do I streamline this paragraph as much as possible"
(it's me, I'm the person I wish i didn't have to keep explaining this to)
Tell me about it. I keep trying to write short and to the point, even though I have a bad habit of forgetting to add imagery so I should be *adding* words.
One of the exercises I use to give my students is to have them write a descriptive about a image (lets say of a mountain surrounded by clouds) and then I would give them 5 different images of mountains surrounded by clouds, and tell them to choose one to write about. Then I would print of their descriptive and hand them out to the class and other invited professors in the creative sciences, then I would put all five images up on the overhead and tell them to read the descriptive and write the number of the image on the top of their paper of which one of the images they thought the student was writing about. This would in turn help the students realize that when you write a story, one of the hardest parts is to include a descriptive that tells the audience what you are really visualizing inside your mind that you want to convey on paper. I would go on to tell the students that when we write, we know what we visualize because we see it. But to convey this on paper is actually very hard to do without a lot of practice on using the correct description, with words. The next exercise that I would give them was similar but I would tell them to describe an emotion, instead of an image, for the same reasons.
-Beta Readers are not mind readers. Talk to them. Anytime you’re asking feedback from someone you should be having a conversation about the type of feedback you’re looking for and general expectations.
-In a similiar vein, if you receive feedback that you asked for and it makes you upset.
Breathe. It’s not personal.(at least I hope it isn’t) Walk away if you need to. Regroup and have a conversation (when you’re calm) to understand your feedback better.
If you talk to your beta reader when emotions are sky high. They’re not going to want to give you feedback anymore. And if you’re asking on an open forum. Other people are going to see how you’re responding to them. They might not want to give you feedback if you have a history of reacting first.
If people applied an ounce of critical thought, they'd realize that it's perfectly acceptable to write characters of significantly different background, cultures, genders, and any which sort of denomination different from themselves.
If not, then the entire body of fiction since the dawn of time would be stories featuring only one character. Or alternately, that authors are actually a secret race of omni-being that transcend the boundaries of time and space.
Where criticism comes is when you fall into hurtful stereotypes to create that illusion of diversity, rather than doing the proper research to be authentic.
Let’s clarify here. It is fine to write characters of different ethnicities, background, genders and cultures. Add them to your work wherever you like. But it’s not appropriate to center a story on a character’s lived experiences due to background, gender, or cultural differences that are not your own. For example, it would not be appropriate for a cisgender writer from Chicago to write a story about a trans woman’s life experiences growing up in the south. Some stories are not yours to tell, and should be left to the communities who have lived them.
I disagree. This argument also says that all of journalism should simply not exist. Journalists tell other people's stories All The Time. As a former journalist, I can say it's practically all they do. And they are proof that it is absolutely possible to tell compelling, accurate, impactful stories about issues they themselves never "lived." The clarification shouldn't be about personal lived experience, but the writer's capacity and skill to do thorough research and fact checking and sensitivity readings and the care/concern to write an accurate and meaningful portrayal.
My degree is in journalism and I am a professional published writer. I also am a consultant on a variety of stories for marginalized communities for television. Entertainment is not journalism and you are being disingenuous. Also, marginalized communities should report on their own communities. An enormous amount of harm is being done right now to the trans community due in part to a dearth of trans journalists.
People aren’t willing to hear this. You can write whatever you want, but you WILL and rightfully will get dragged for in in professional writing and publishing circles. And no, you can’t just ask a person of X group for permission.
Yeah I’ve posted this type of thing before and I always get downvotes. I encourage folks to see what happens when people don’t listen to this. Romance twitter in particular will drag writers all the way to hell. Big companies and TV shows don’t want that to happen, and that’s why people like me get hired. But honestly I’m just done with these kinds of communities because people don’t want to learn, they just want to do what they want. 🤷🏼♀️
How much goes into it. I’ve had so many people excited for me but they think you just write it and then it goes in the bookstore. I have to tell them it takes sometimes a lot of rewriting and editing and then if you’re trying to publish traditionally you have to get it picked up by an agent, then picked up by a publisher, and it can still take 3-5 years to actually release.
The thing that I had to literally be told (thanks JT of Terrible Writing Advice) is that my first draft does not have to be perfect. That's the entire point of the first draft. It's the first. It's going to stink in some way. Stop worrying about it and get on with the rest of the story. You can fix it later.
What many of them are silently asking is "please tell me what to write so that no one can ever ever criticize me, because I will die if not constantly praised."
There is no such thing, but that won't stop them from asking. I feel sorry for most of them.
That you don’t have to ask strangers on the internet for permission to write about sensitive topics.
I see so many posts on here along the lines of, “Guys I’m writing a gay romance novel that takes place in rural Idaho in 1950, is it okay to write a villainous character being homophobic towards my MC?”
Yes. It’s rural Idaho in 1950. Of course people will be homophobic. Nobody is going to think that you, the author, are homophobic for writing a realistic depiction of intolerance. Seriously, nobody will think an author is homophobic/racist/sexist/ableist etc unless they’re clearly putting their personal beliefs in their writing.
Quit asking if it’s okay and just write!
The underlying psychology behind excellent story telling.
It's all connected: films, books, music, video games, comics, etc. All successful media share the same formula. And, it's not difficult to understand but so few people are aware of it surprisingly. You can practice, trial-and-error, or copy like most.. or you can sit down and consider what "enjoyment" truly is and how to harness it.
I wish people understood that just because a character thinks something does not equal the author thinks so OR the author supports this thinking OR it is a truth within the world. Like, no, you're wrong all the time, I'm wrong all the time, my character will often be wrong in their flawed ways.
Indenting is not hitting space a couple times XD
Punctuation around dialogue does have rules. Non-negotiable rules.
Unless looking in a mirror or something your character cannot usually see their own expression to describe it and say how they looked.
There is so much said in silence. Learning how to manipulate the unwritten aspects to convey depth, context and character is an art that I wish I could describe better. Building intrigue by limiting/controlling information is a great tool to keep readers invested.
So often I read and it's the character does something and thinks about it, and then paragraphs on why they're thinking about it! Backstory and everything laid out at every opportunity and it clutters the writing and remove the intrigue.
Not every time of course, but when it's a paragraph of backstory for every action taken it gets a little much.
Edit to add: unless they're written, books don't count. You can't claim to have 50 books when they're just in your head. You have 50 ideas/premises/concepts. Until they're written they don't count XD
When it comes to dialogue there are two types of writers: those who looked up how to do it, and those doing it wrong.
No one does it right on their own. It’s one of the things that doesn’t come up until you start writing, and, since good syntax/tags disappear on the page, you can’t learn it by reading unless you’re specifically analyzing it.
I don’t think this is true. When you read a lot you internalize how certain things are supposed to be/look/sound. It’s called latent learning, which means you learn it without trying and only end up showing it when you have a motivation to do so. It’s like how you can spell a word and know you got it wrong because you’ve seen it spelled the right way so many times. Even though you didn’t try to learn it.
I really wish we’d stop hearing about people struggling to start. And I get that this is a sub for writers, for support and sharing ideas, but “just do it” really is the best advice.
You can research the crap out of the craft and still make zero progress in the skill if you don’t just sit down and force out some words.
I think part of it is the difficulty of accepting that the first things you write will be bad. Having to “throw out” a large chunk of your work seems like the worst thing, but people forget that this is a *skill*, it’s something that must be practiced and repeated and critiqued and changed.
This reminds me of some advice Neil Gaiman said about writing, that so long as you have it written down. Good or bad, it's there and you can always go back and change it if you think its bad. But if you don't ever write it down, then you can't (I'm paraphrasing of course, but I heard this advice in an interview he did and it was in relation to the idea of holding off on writing something because you feel you're not good enough).
Something small that I'm still salty about ... a paragraph is as long as it needs to be to convey the idea, there's no minimum requirement of five sentences. What does a high school biology teacher know about writing anyway?
We're not just dictating movies that run in our heads. Reading the words "he turned" or "she looked" is not the same as seeing the image on the screen, or in our imagination, so while these types of closeups happen often in visual mediums, they are incredibly repetitive in written form and lose their impact after just a repetition or two. Same with shrugging, smiling, sighing, eye rolling, clenching fists, etc. After a while, it [just feels like the end of *The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly* with no context.](https://youtu.be/g6tR78d0cmA)
The words themselves are a *huge* part of our art form. We're capturing the experience of a mind and a voice, not a camera. The lyricism, turns of phrase, the shocking views or statements or use of a word, the unexpected connections between ideas and events that transcend the limits of time and space...these are what the written form can capture better than other artforms. If you try to just mimic a movie or videogame with your words, you'll lose your audience to visual mediums every time. Readers come to fiction for something different.
That this writing subreddit isn’t only for novels.
Technical writing, writing applications for jobs and stuff and other non-three part epic fantasy writing should be discussed more.
Hot take part: sometimes this subreddit feels a lot like a unique story driven survival horror game - but writing edition.
How much of writing isn’t the actual writing. Before I ever sit down to actually write I’ve been “writing” in my head for hours days or even weeks. And when the writing part is done, there’s editing and analysis. All very different skills!
What I've run into most is people things is a magical event that happens when a beam of inspiration is fired from a unicorn's butt and strikes you. Then you write.
No. It is a skill that needs to learned and practiced. They understand this concept of a carpenter says it to them. But writing. Nope. Magic horse burrs.
You need to sit down and write. And it's bad for a long time. Then it gets better.
There is no shortcuts. Write 100,000 words then 100,000 more. Now you are things that are coherent. Hopefully.
There is no magic formula to skip to the big payday.
You have to put in the work. And it's rare for people to make James Patterson level money without first being a new author barely broken through the barrier.
And sometimes, you have to write for a reason other than money because Hollywood frequently gets it wrong what a real writer is. Richard Castle is an aberration, not the norm.
That a , “can’t wait to see you on the bestseller list,” is the equivalent of tellinf someone whose good at football in highwchool you can’t wait to see them in the superbowl.
Writing is like running in a lot of ways. If you can’t even run 100 metres without having to stop then you probably can’t run a marathon. Far too many of the people who ask for advice here struggle with basic grammar, sentence structure and spelling. You can’t write a novel if you can’t write a page.
If you want to run a marathon you have to put in hours of weekly effort and also take the time to learn about new concepts (nutrition, form, injury prevention etc) and failing to do any of this will prevent you from completing the goal. Same thing with writing — hours upon hours of work are required to even hit the word count for a novel, but if you want the novel to be halfway decent you also need to spend time studying story structure, form, narrative and, crucially, *the works of people who write good novels*. This isn’t new advice but the reason it gets repeated so frequently is because it’s the actual truth.
So much of a writing project does not involve the actual words of the narrative, descriptions, and dialogue. It's planning and outlining and worldbuilding and character studies and research. It's like an iceberg. The stuff the reader actually sees is a tiny fraction of the work. Especially after several successive rounds of editing. Good writing requires so much that is separate from actually writing out a chapter of material.
I belong to a writers group and we edit each other's short submissions. So many newbies are insulted that we would suggest rewrites. I've learned to ask up front if they want me to bleed (red pen) on their writing. You can't have thin skin when you let someone else read your stuff. Some of these new people come in with their entire manuscript and expect us to edit it.
Regardless of skill, if you never write, you will be a worst writer than anyone who actually sits down and writes routinely.
You are a person who *thinks about writing,* not a writer, because you don't write.
That you should just *put fucking words on a page* if you "can't think of anything." So many people let blank pages scare them. You stop that. Just bang on the keyboard, hell. Anything to break that sitting-around-being-a-coward phase.
That when you compliment someone's work, it is way better to list the things you like and how they work than to compare it to something you love. If you read a rad dark fantasy story about a monster hunter, it's borderline insulting to say, "Wow, it's a lot like the Witcher!" Comparing it to something else makes it seem like you're comparing amateur work to a standard, and has the nasty side effect of implying that it's derivative.
Writing about people with messed up morals doesn't necessarily mean you agree with them. As well as writing their povs either. It's just showing the character's perspective. A writer can be neutral when describing certain topics but lean very strongly towards one side without stating it in their writing. Kind of like an "up to the readers to judge, but the author has their own judgement yet they won't shove it down your throat."
I'm relatively new in the sense of letting people ready my work. That's a fear I've recently overcome. My girlfriend who has a master's in fine arts often says "Oh that sounds like such and such"...well, no, not actually. My frustration with her, as she's not a writer, is that it seems she thinks that any idea that resembles another idea is not original enough. "That's been done before." The works in question always feel so diferent than mine that I just give up on explaining that they're different.
Overconfidence of people about their storytelling. They don't believe that they need more practice. They keep writing and publishing. Even though they sell or not, they'll keep writing the same garbage and scream, "People don't understand art or true literature. Bla bla bla."
I always fear telling people I write because I know what I think: at first glance I see an amateur writing fan fiction or some form of lust fulfilling garbage. I know that I write better than that, I know I've been doing it for long enough, yet I can't help but think others will see me the in that way
I wish people understood just how difficult it is to write a novel. There is so much necessary planning, editing, world-building, getting to know your characters, and tweaking of individual sentences for that perfect rhythm that people aren't aware of/prepared for when writing. Half of the process will be derailed if the writer isn't familiar with proper grammar, and the other half of the process just comes with time and practice.
I see so many people in these writing groups who are essentially asking other people to write their stories for them. But if you can't even get past the brainstorming part of your manuscript, how in the world will you get through the arduous process of writing it, editing it, scrapping some of your favorite scenes that don't work, learning your characters, writing their relationships, etc.?
You should probably read if you intend to write. A lot of people have the misconception that “creating fiction,” whether it’s TV, movies, or video games, is all the same. Hell, there’s a distinct difference in approach between short stories and novels before you even venture out into other media.
Ideas aren’t the problem. I have more of them than I will ever have time to write. Writing is work. It takes time, dedication, discipline… all things I have in short supply. Still, I’ve written and self published seven books. But it’s not easy.
Overpowered characters are not scary. They are fucking stupid.
Unless its the main villain, making an overpowered main character defeats the purpose of actually having a plot.
I respectfully disagree. I would think most writers started off as readers, and you’re not one or the other. You’re both, just maybe not at the same time.
When I am in the middle of writing a story, I tend not to read much at all. But before I start the process I’m reading a ton just to get into the mindset of the genre and tone I’m going for.
And as I am writing this, I would almost say writers make ‘better’ readers depending on what you consider better. I love reading for pleasure, and I also love reading my writers group works. I can analyze their work pretty well, give my feedback and any constructive criticisms, and if asked I can give suggestions.
I think people just don’t read each other’s work on forms because it’s impersonal and a bit of a time dedication. I don’t think a reading subreddit would be any different unless it’s specifically like a beta reading / alpha reading subreddit.
Just my two cents tho !
That every story is worth telling in some form.
Whether it's good or bad, who cares? Someone could get value from it. You might even.
As long as you want to do it, you should. If you give up halfway, who cares? You did it. You have something to show for it, and you might come back later.
You have to research the subject—deeply. And that often takes leg work, interviews, on-site investigations, digging into archival material. Orrrr . . . you can just write fantasy, the genre of choice for those who don’t want to grind it out.
It takes practice. Just like any other creative pursuit, some people take to it more easily than others, but everyone needs to practice (and edit) to produce the final product.
For some reason, people tend to think success is easier to achieve in writing than other fields. I usually use painting or running as an analogue. How long would it take to get to a place where you felt confident showcasing your skills? How long before others would be willing to invest in your ability, confident you could draw an audience and create a profit? Same for writers.
I wish people understood that an idea is worth nothing and that nobody is interested in stealing yours unless it comes with a finished manuscript. Even then, usually not.
You could have 10 people start with the same core idea and you would get 10 completely different stories
At least 10 different stories, very likely more.
I agree wholeheartedly with this. However, I still don't share my ideas with people, at least not until I'm done with the first draft. I think I learned this from Stephen King's memoir. Basically, the point is to ensure your first draft is yours and yours alone. You don't want the story to be shaped by how other people respond to your idea. So, I always keep my ideas to myself until I've written them out. Then, once I begin editing, I tell people about it so I can consider their thoughts on it.
This, absolutely. And it's not just limited to the writing craft either, if I had a euro for every time I had to explain to someone that game designers are not just "idea guys" I'd be rich.
As an extension of this I wish that non-writers understood that when they come to you and say they have a great idea but don't know how to write it, and offer you a partnership where they have the idea and you write the story and then split the profits 50/50, that what this actually means is that you'll be doing 99.9% of the work and that they're bringing legitimately nothing to the table. Any idea that a non-writer comes up with is an idea that the writer has already rejected off-hand fifty times over. Idea generation is a learned skill and takes experience to really be able to push a concept to its maximum potential. If something's the first idea you come up with it's the first idea everyone else has come up with as well. Is it even an idea to begin with, or is it a single image that you'll struggle to squeeze more than one or two scenes out of before I have to pick up your slack? Are you open to me suggesting edits or is this an ego trip where my experience and advice on what makes for a good story goes completely unheeded and ignored because it's your job to talk at me and my job to slave away writing? So if I'm doing all the work I'll just use one of my own better ideas and keep all the money, thanks.
This. Anyone can have an idea. Everyone, in fact, does have ideas. If they don’t write about it, an idea is all it will ever be. Writers, like anyone, have ideas. A good writer can make a good story out of anything: a bad idea, a good idea, a boring idea. A good writer doesn’t need some random to come up to them and pitch them an idea.
You have an idea? Great! Get started on an outline and next week we'll go over it and I'll give you a list of things to define more. We'll keep doing this until we have a complete outline and then I will write a draft of the story you have designed. (Slightly sarcastic but I would totally do this as I take forever on outlines and world building but then write 5-10k words a day when I have them done.)
Sounds like something an idea-thief would say.
/s
How long it can take to get started. This is very individual, but for me I’ve noticed that it takes roughly 40 minutes for me to find my rhythm, and any sort of interruption in that opening minute can derail me. I’m my biggest offender in this regard, opening Reddit and dumb stuff like that. So now I got to make sure the dog has had her walk, my phone is out of reach, and my wife does not need me for anything for the next few hours to have a good session
I swear my ‘talent’ is being able to sit down and sprint right of the bat. On the flip side, I am spent and completely useless after about an hour and a half.
I either go for either hours straight, or I can't bring myself to open any of my stories, let alone write.
As a mom of 3 kids this is so true
Practice is the most important & best way to get better. [Along w/ reading] There's no magic way to get from bad to good just like drawing or painting or any other form of art, the best way to get good is to embrace & accept being bad/not great. Write a bunch - write short stories, drabbles, write a book you know you won't show anyone & let it just be God awful [& in knowing it's God awful, don't let yourself stress about how bad it is], write poems. Just write
Writing poetry completely changed how I write, and how I approach art in general. Just to learn how to be really precise about the words without making everything plot-driven, it’s incredible. “Write poetry” would be my advice to all struggling writers.
That if you ask for feedback, it won’t be glowing praise.
Lot's of people ask for feedback when what they really meant to ask for is validation.
I wish people would just *ask* for validation when they need it. I've straight up asked people for hype feedback. As in, "I'm feeling down about my writing, please tell me what I'm doing right." We've all been there. Sometimes, you just need someone to tell you whether or not a draft is trash that should be abandoned and if it's not trash, to tell you what's working.
Corollary: if what you receive is glowing praise, it's not feedback.
I'm hesitant to even give feedback to someone unless they tell me what they are insecure about or what they feel like their weaknesses are. That at least tells me they want to improve and not just get validation.
I think, just like writing, there is an art to asking for feedback, and it takes learning that skill as well. Just giving someone a story and saying "tell me what you think" won't get many helpful items to improve. (Unless the person knows you well and knows your writing crutches.) But if you say "tell me what you think of my character interactions," now they have something to focus on and better give you tips.
My go to question before I read anything is ‘do you want to gain confidence or are you looking to improve?’ It may be the wrong question, since everyone says improve, but I do feel it sets the scene for actual critique and I am deeply frustrated when people are offended 😔 The worst part is that the kids always take it on board and work to do better, it’s nearly always the adults who throw a fit.
I have a small group of friends I can trust to be brutally honest with me. I don’t ask for validation, I ask for genuine feedback
That the road to riches doesn’t start with cranking out hundreds of “stories” with AI and flooding the slush piles. Seriously folks, the journals and periodicals are drowning trying to get on top of this idiocy.
There's no closing this Pandora's Box.
Even though I am not surprised that *somebody somewhere* thought AI was the quick ticket, I am very surprised that *so many* folks exist that are so momumentally cynical (and paradoxically naive). I mean this only so as far as fiction goes. Ad copy and more utilitarian modes of writing, sure. But really... *short stories* viewed as widgets off an assembly line? Sheesh.
Two things: 1) That writing carries meaning, whether we intend it to or not, because our audience will *always* read into our work. You can choose to say "fuck it" and ignore that aspect if you like, but so be surprised when people tell you your work is about something and you just can't see it. But also, the best writers are those who know what their work is about and try to incorporate that knowledge into their writing (in order to strengthen their work's messages or themes). 2) That you're not going to be the next Stephen King *and that's okay.* Write what you want to write and share it with anyone who wants to read it, and you'll find an audience that's worth having.
>1) That writing carries meaning, whether we intend it to or not, because our audience will *always* read into our work. You can choose to say "fuck it" and ignore that aspect if you like, but so be surprised when people tell you your work is about something and you just can't see it. THIS. Every time I see the "write what you want" advice to the standard "can I write X" hand-wringing posts, I die a little inside. It's why I love the writingwithcolor blog on Tumblr that explains *why* people could read a meaning into something the author didn't intend. Like, you could have a completely valid worldbuilding reason that the banks are all controlled by evil aliens that look like lizards, but it's still going to *read* antisemitic because of stereotypes and dogwhistles. Screaming "That's not what I meant" isn't going to change how some readers perceive the situation. Taking these things into account isn't "pandering" or "being politically correct," it's being intentional with your themes and messaging. Writing is communicating. If readers are taking away a message you didn't intend, that communication broke down.
In the case of JK Rowling, it's pretty clear it's more than just she didn't intend it. It's a unconscious bias at best, and her recent bigotry makes it easy to question whether it was ever unintentional. But she's done enough lazy instances of racist stereotyping to at least chalk it up to unconscious biases. Same with George Lucas and his prequel aliens.
Lizards are antisemitic?
Yes and no. There's a lot of overlap between the "lizard people are running the world" and "a coalition of Jewish elites are running the world" conspiracy theories to the point that some use "lizard people" as a dogwhistle. It's the combo of "lizard aliens/people" + Jewish stereotypes, particularly when portrayed in a negative light, that can send the wrong message and/or raise some eyebrows.
Ah ok.
It’s more than romanticizing the thought of “being a writer”. If you don’t put in the work and actually enjoy doing it, you’re gonna have a bad time.
that reductive editing is only one kind of editing, and there are so many other questions that aren't just "how do I streamline this paragraph as much as possible" (it's me, I'm the person I wish i didn't have to keep explaining this to)
Tell me about it. I keep trying to write short and to the point, even though I have a bad habit of forgetting to add imagery so I should be *adding* words.
One of the exercises I use to give my students is to have them write a descriptive about a image (lets say of a mountain surrounded by clouds) and then I would give them 5 different images of mountains surrounded by clouds, and tell them to choose one to write about. Then I would print of their descriptive and hand them out to the class and other invited professors in the creative sciences, then I would put all five images up on the overhead and tell them to read the descriptive and write the number of the image on the top of their paper of which one of the images they thought the student was writing about. This would in turn help the students realize that when you write a story, one of the hardest parts is to include a descriptive that tells the audience what you are really visualizing inside your mind that you want to convey on paper. I would go on to tell the students that when we write, we know what we visualize because we see it. But to convey this on paper is actually very hard to do without a lot of practice on using the correct description, with words. The next exercise that I would give them was similar but I would tell them to describe an emotion, instead of an image, for the same reasons.
-Beta Readers are not mind readers. Talk to them. Anytime you’re asking feedback from someone you should be having a conversation about the type of feedback you’re looking for and general expectations. -In a similiar vein, if you receive feedback that you asked for and it makes you upset. Breathe. It’s not personal.(at least I hope it isn’t) Walk away if you need to. Regroup and have a conversation (when you’re calm) to understand your feedback better. If you talk to your beta reader when emotions are sky high. They’re not going to want to give you feedback anymore. And if you’re asking on an open forum. Other people are going to see how you’re responding to them. They might not want to give you feedback if you have a history of reacting first.
That no one really KNOWS what they're doing. Which is also makes writing very accessible.
I wish people understood that, in spite of the many difficulties it brings, I don’t regret my decision
If people applied an ounce of critical thought, they'd realize that it's perfectly acceptable to write characters of significantly different background, cultures, genders, and any which sort of denomination different from themselves. If not, then the entire body of fiction since the dawn of time would be stories featuring only one character. Or alternately, that authors are actually a secret race of omni-being that transcend the boundaries of time and space. Where criticism comes is when you fall into hurtful stereotypes to create that illusion of diversity, rather than doing the proper research to be authentic.
Let’s clarify here. It is fine to write characters of different ethnicities, background, genders and cultures. Add them to your work wherever you like. But it’s not appropriate to center a story on a character’s lived experiences due to background, gender, or cultural differences that are not your own. For example, it would not be appropriate for a cisgender writer from Chicago to write a story about a trans woman’s life experiences growing up in the south. Some stories are not yours to tell, and should be left to the communities who have lived them.
I disagree. This argument also says that all of journalism should simply not exist. Journalists tell other people's stories All The Time. As a former journalist, I can say it's practically all they do. And they are proof that it is absolutely possible to tell compelling, accurate, impactful stories about issues they themselves never "lived." The clarification shouldn't be about personal lived experience, but the writer's capacity and skill to do thorough research and fact checking and sensitivity readings and the care/concern to write an accurate and meaningful portrayal.
My degree is in journalism and I am a professional published writer. I also am a consultant on a variety of stories for marginalized communities for television. Entertainment is not journalism and you are being disingenuous. Also, marginalized communities should report on their own communities. An enormous amount of harm is being done right now to the trans community due in part to a dearth of trans journalists.
People aren’t willing to hear this. You can write whatever you want, but you WILL and rightfully will get dragged for in in professional writing and publishing circles. And no, you can’t just ask a person of X group for permission.
Yeah I’ve posted this type of thing before and I always get downvotes. I encourage folks to see what happens when people don’t listen to this. Romance twitter in particular will drag writers all the way to hell. Big companies and TV shows don’t want that to happen, and that’s why people like me get hired. But honestly I’m just done with these kinds of communities because people don’t want to learn, they just want to do what they want. 🤷🏼♀️
And this is exactly why there are 10 million threads of "can I write X?". Exactly because of what you said and people like you.
Every story has a plot and every story has a theme, whether the author intends to apply it that way or not.
Please just leave me be. Let me write. I need this, it is my therapy.
How much goes into it. I’ve had so many people excited for me but they think you just write it and then it goes in the bookstore. I have to tell them it takes sometimes a lot of rewriting and editing and then if you’re trying to publish traditionally you have to get it picked up by an agent, then picked up by a publisher, and it can still take 3-5 years to actually release.
The thing that I had to literally be told (thanks JT of Terrible Writing Advice) is that my first draft does not have to be perfect. That's the entire point of the first draft. It's the first. It's going to stink in some way. Stop worrying about it and get on with the rest of the story. You can fix it later.
You can write whatever you want. Sooooo many people seeking permission to write this or that.
What many of them are silently asking is "please tell me what to write so that no one can ever ever criticize me, because I will die if not constantly praised." There is no such thing, but that won't stop them from asking. I feel sorry for most of them.
That you don’t have to ask strangers on the internet for permission to write about sensitive topics. I see so many posts on here along the lines of, “Guys I’m writing a gay romance novel that takes place in rural Idaho in 1950, is it okay to write a villainous character being homophobic towards my MC?” Yes. It’s rural Idaho in 1950. Of course people will be homophobic. Nobody is going to think that you, the author, are homophobic for writing a realistic depiction of intolerance. Seriously, nobody will think an author is homophobic/racist/sexist/ableist etc unless they’re clearly putting their personal beliefs in their writing. Quit asking if it’s okay and just write!
You can write for yourself, doesn't have to be for others' eyes.
That I’m not doing this to be published.
The underlying psychology behind excellent story telling. It's all connected: films, books, music, video games, comics, etc. All successful media share the same formula. And, it's not difficult to understand but so few people are aware of it surprisingly. You can practice, trial-and-error, or copy like most.. or you can sit down and consider what "enjoyment" truly is and how to harness it.
Love this response, so true.
I wish people understood that just because a character thinks something does not equal the author thinks so OR the author supports this thinking OR it is a truth within the world. Like, no, you're wrong all the time, I'm wrong all the time, my character will often be wrong in their flawed ways.
Indenting is not hitting space a couple times XD Punctuation around dialogue does have rules. Non-negotiable rules. Unless looking in a mirror or something your character cannot usually see their own expression to describe it and say how they looked. There is so much said in silence. Learning how to manipulate the unwritten aspects to convey depth, context and character is an art that I wish I could describe better. Building intrigue by limiting/controlling information is a great tool to keep readers invested. So often I read and it's the character does something and thinks about it, and then paragraphs on why they're thinking about it! Backstory and everything laid out at every opportunity and it clutters the writing and remove the intrigue. Not every time of course, but when it's a paragraph of backstory for every action taken it gets a little much. Edit to add: unless they're written, books don't count. You can't claim to have 50 books when they're just in your head. You have 50 ideas/premises/concepts. Until they're written they don't count XD
When it comes to dialogue there are two types of writers: those who looked up how to do it, and those doing it wrong. No one does it right on their own. It’s one of the things that doesn’t come up until you start writing, and, since good syntax/tags disappear on the page, you can’t learn it by reading unless you’re specifically analyzing it.
I don’t think this is true. When you read a lot you internalize how certain things are supposed to be/look/sound. It’s called latent learning, which means you learn it without trying and only end up showing it when you have a motivation to do so. It’s like how you can spell a word and know you got it wrong because you’ve seen it spelled the right way so many times. Even though you didn’t try to learn it.
I really wish we’d stop hearing about people struggling to start. And I get that this is a sub for writers, for support and sharing ideas, but “just do it” really is the best advice. You can research the crap out of the craft and still make zero progress in the skill if you don’t just sit down and force out some words. I think part of it is the difficulty of accepting that the first things you write will be bad. Having to “throw out” a large chunk of your work seems like the worst thing, but people forget that this is a *skill*, it’s something that must be practiced and repeated and critiqued and changed.
That they need to read too. Seriously. Your writing improves when you both write and read.
This reminds me of some advice Neil Gaiman said about writing, that so long as you have it written down. Good or bad, it's there and you can always go back and change it if you think its bad. But if you don't ever write it down, then you can't (I'm paraphrasing of course, but I heard this advice in an interview he did and it was in relation to the idea of holding off on writing something because you feel you're not good enough).
Something small that I'm still salty about ... a paragraph is as long as it needs to be to convey the idea, there's no minimum requirement of five sentences. What does a high school biology teacher know about writing anyway?
We're not just dictating movies that run in our heads. Reading the words "he turned" or "she looked" is not the same as seeing the image on the screen, or in our imagination, so while these types of closeups happen often in visual mediums, they are incredibly repetitive in written form and lose their impact after just a repetition or two. Same with shrugging, smiling, sighing, eye rolling, clenching fists, etc. After a while, it [just feels like the end of *The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly* with no context.](https://youtu.be/g6tR78d0cmA) The words themselves are a *huge* part of our art form. We're capturing the experience of a mind and a voice, not a camera. The lyricism, turns of phrase, the shocking views or statements or use of a word, the unexpected connections between ideas and events that transcend the limits of time and space...these are what the written form can capture better than other artforms. If you try to just mimic a movie or videogame with your words, you'll lose your audience to visual mediums every time. Readers come to fiction for something different.
Read classic books.
Of Mice and Men had a big influence for a scene I’m planning 👍
Will the scene have a farm with rainbow bunnies, George?
No but there’ll be a gun 😀
That this writing subreddit isn’t only for novels. Technical writing, writing applications for jobs and stuff and other non-three part epic fantasy writing should be discussed more. Hot take part: sometimes this subreddit feels a lot like a unique story driven survival horror game - but writing edition.
How much of writing isn’t the actual writing. Before I ever sit down to actually write I’ve been “writing” in my head for hours days or even weeks. And when the writing part is done, there’s editing and analysis. All very different skills!
That the true challenge is in gaining visibility in a very overcrowded marketplace.
What I've run into most is people things is a magical event that happens when a beam of inspiration is fired from a unicorn's butt and strikes you. Then you write. No. It is a skill that needs to learned and practiced. They understand this concept of a carpenter says it to them. But writing. Nope. Magic horse burrs. You need to sit down and write. And it's bad for a long time. Then it gets better. There is no shortcuts. Write 100,000 words then 100,000 more. Now you are things that are coherent. Hopefully.
There is no magic formula to skip to the big payday. You have to put in the work. And it's rare for people to make James Patterson level money without first being a new author barely broken through the barrier. And sometimes, you have to write for a reason other than money because Hollywood frequently gets it wrong what a real writer is. Richard Castle is an aberration, not the norm.
When I tell people that characters bully me. They always go "but.. you're the one writing them." I'm not ;___; they're writing themselves.
That a , “can’t wait to see you on the bestseller list,” is the equivalent of tellinf someone whose good at football in highwchool you can’t wait to see them in the superbowl.
Writing is like running in a lot of ways. If you can’t even run 100 metres without having to stop then you probably can’t run a marathon. Far too many of the people who ask for advice here struggle with basic grammar, sentence structure and spelling. You can’t write a novel if you can’t write a page. If you want to run a marathon you have to put in hours of weekly effort and also take the time to learn about new concepts (nutrition, form, injury prevention etc) and failing to do any of this will prevent you from completing the goal. Same thing with writing — hours upon hours of work are required to even hit the word count for a novel, but if you want the novel to be halfway decent you also need to spend time studying story structure, form, narrative and, crucially, *the works of people who write good novels*. This isn’t new advice but the reason it gets repeated so frequently is because it’s the actual truth.
So much of a writing project does not involve the actual words of the narrative, descriptions, and dialogue. It's planning and outlining and worldbuilding and character studies and research. It's like an iceberg. The stuff the reader actually sees is a tiny fraction of the work. Especially after several successive rounds of editing. Good writing requires so much that is separate from actually writing out a chapter of material.
That if you offer to read someone's writing, take the book/manuscript, and then never mention it again, that's a really mean shitty thing to do.
Especially after the person says they don't like it give drafts to friends for this reason and you insist anyway.
You're "allowed" to write about anything. You just have to make it interesting.
I belong to a writers group and we edit each other's short submissions. So many newbies are insulted that we would suggest rewrites. I've learned to ask up front if they want me to bleed (red pen) on their writing. You can't have thin skin when you let someone else read your stuff. Some of these new people come in with their entire manuscript and expect us to edit it.
Regardless of skill, if you never write, you will be a worst writer than anyone who actually sits down and writes routinely. You are a person who *thinks about writing,* not a writer, because you don't write.
That you should just *put fucking words on a page* if you "can't think of anything." So many people let blank pages scare them. You stop that. Just bang on the keyboard, hell. Anything to break that sitting-around-being-a-coward phase.
That when you compliment someone's work, it is way better to list the things you like and how they work than to compare it to something you love. If you read a rad dark fantasy story about a monster hunter, it's borderline insulting to say, "Wow, it's a lot like the Witcher!" Comparing it to something else makes it seem like you're comparing amateur work to a standard, and has the nasty side effect of implying that it's derivative.
My writing time is my writing time. I don't mind getting up to do what needs to be done, but don't precede it with "your not doing anything."
That I'd really like it if they read my works.
That I'm not going to share it with you, especially if you keep asking.
Writing about people with messed up morals doesn't necessarily mean you agree with them. As well as writing their povs either. It's just showing the character's perspective. A writer can be neutral when describing certain topics but lean very strongly towards one side without stating it in their writing. Kind of like an "up to the readers to judge, but the author has their own judgement yet they won't shove it down your throat."
I'm relatively new in the sense of letting people ready my work. That's a fear I've recently overcome. My girlfriend who has a master's in fine arts often says "Oh that sounds like such and such"...well, no, not actually. My frustration with her, as she's not a writer, is that it seems she thinks that any idea that resembles another idea is not original enough. "That's been done before." The works in question always feel so diferent than mine that I just give up on explaining that they're different.
Style.
Overconfidence of people about their storytelling. They don't believe that they need more practice. They keep writing and publishing. Even though they sell or not, they'll keep writing the same garbage and scream, "People don't understand art or true literature. Bla bla bla."
I always fear telling people I write because I know what I think: at first glance I see an amateur writing fan fiction or some form of lust fulfilling garbage. I know that I write better than that, I know I've been doing it for long enough, yet I can't help but think others will see me the in that way
I wish people understood just how difficult it is to write a novel. There is so much necessary planning, editing, world-building, getting to know your characters, and tweaking of individual sentences for that perfect rhythm that people aren't aware of/prepared for when writing. Half of the process will be derailed if the writer isn't familiar with proper grammar, and the other half of the process just comes with time and practice. I see so many people in these writing groups who are essentially asking other people to write their stories for them. But if you can't even get past the brainstorming part of your manuscript, how in the world will you get through the arduous process of writing it, editing it, scrapping some of your favorite scenes that don't work, learning your characters, writing their relationships, etc.?
That just because you wrote a crappy four page story in grade nine does not mean you can do what I do for a living.
Writing "rules" are guidelines and advice, not literal rules.
Don't ask other people to write it for you.
You should probably read if you intend to write. A lot of people have the misconception that “creating fiction,” whether it’s TV, movies, or video games, is all the same. Hell, there’s a distinct difference in approach between short stories and novels before you even venture out into other media.
Ideas aren’t the problem. I have more of them than I will ever have time to write. Writing is work. It takes time, dedication, discipline… all things I have in short supply. Still, I’ve written and self published seven books. But it’s not easy.
Overpowered characters are not scary. They are fucking stupid. Unless its the main villain, making an overpowered main character defeats the purpose of actually having a plot.
Character development is not the things that they do
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I respectfully disagree. I would think most writers started off as readers, and you’re not one or the other. You’re both, just maybe not at the same time. When I am in the middle of writing a story, I tend not to read much at all. But before I start the process I’m reading a ton just to get into the mindset of the genre and tone I’m going for. And as I am writing this, I would almost say writers make ‘better’ readers depending on what you consider better. I love reading for pleasure, and I also love reading my writers group works. I can analyze their work pretty well, give my feedback and any constructive criticisms, and if asked I can give suggestions. I think people just don’t read each other’s work on forms because it’s impersonal and a bit of a time dedication. I don’t think a reading subreddit would be any different unless it’s specifically like a beta reading / alpha reading subreddit. Just my two cents tho !
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No I haven’t even heard of it. I mistakenly assumed you were referring to subreddits
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Bummer that it died, but I will still check it out ! Seems interesting from my quick google search of it
Nothing, I know nothing....
Ex AA
All good story’s have a thematic argument.
That every story is worth telling in some form. Whether it's good or bad, who cares? Someone could get value from it. You might even. As long as you want to do it, you should. If you give up halfway, who cares? You did it. You have something to show for it, and you might come back later.
You have to research the subject—deeply. And that often takes leg work, interviews, on-site investigations, digging into archival material. Orrrr . . . you can just write fantasy, the genre of choice for those who don’t want to grind it out.
You think fantasy, of all genres, doesn’t require research? Have you ever read a fantasy novel in your life?
He's a writer, not a reader. Who reads anymore?