Current Events > CE Writing topic -- This Time It Won't Purge? Edition

(+) Yeah! (+)

ah okay i misread. its more of an exclusive thing. And yeah im not trying to traditionally publish after putting it up but if I do go my own route I'd hate to give away the thing to another entity.

yeah i'd be interested to see what the better route is but i guess for a first book im probably best suited for unlimited.

My book is probably around 320 pages so I guess that'd be (using your math) about 1-2 bucks per read through

30 chapters in on this rewrite

realized I thought a gulfstream g550 was much larger than it actually is haha

i also now know how long it takes for a plane, on average, to decrease altitude safely during an emergency

Wow, why haven't I noticed the writing topic before?

*tracks topic*

So do we have anyone willing to form a writer's group or become beta readers for each other?

---

i think some people would be willing to beta read

im near the point where i may want to have someone i dont know at all look at it

id put what genre you are writing in and see if someone wants to take a look.

finding it much MUCH easier to completely rewrite sections and make it better without losing any story after letting this thing sit.

sometimes I wonder if my descriptions and dialogue are too "light" and rushed though. I just don't like too much filler

Brandon Sanderson recently gave a great talk and I thought of us guys when I heard it. XD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH9sJrAVeC0

It's basically about being realistic about writing and success and making an actual living out of it. He says we say the "you can do anything you set your mind to" cheer far too often, especially in media and whatnot. The odds of any of us becoming successful writers financially are pretty low. But the point is that's okay as long as you're in it for the right reasons, or in other words, depending on how you define success. You should write because it's a hobby that you enjoy doing, not to become the next...well, Brandon Sanderson. I mean I know I'm not gonna make it big with my Amazon self published books, but I'm still writing them because I want to. I published my first book and it didn't sell well, and I'm gonna keep going because it's satisfying to me.

People just think weirdly about writers. He uses an example I love that I've heard him use before. He says people play basketball all the time. Older guys, they go and play pickup games, at the gym, the park, whatever. It's a good thing that they do this, it would probably do us all some good, it's exercise, it's fun, etc. But nobody ever asks those guys, "oh, so when are you going to go professional?" Or "oh, so do you think you'll make it to the NBA?"

Asking a guy who writes for fun as a hobby "so when are you going to get it published?" is sort of like that. The odds aren't quite that bad, but they're up there, and if you're talking big huge money then yeah, the odds are just as slim. But people still ask that anyway. It's like many people can't accept that writing can just be a satisfying hobby. But it can be, and it should be if you don't want to get heartbroken or whatever that you're not on a bestseller list.
---

Oh yeah thats why its always good to have a day job

I need to write an action scene and I have zero inspiration. :(

It's a medieval fantasy, set in a middle east style city. A bunch of weapon-wielding cult members need to harass a couple main characters in an Indian Jones-esque action scene, but I'm so blah about it. Don't know what to do. The book needs it here, but I'm uninspired. Have 'em get chased through the city with a little sword fighting? Just feeling so mundane right now. I need a set piece or something interesting to make it memorable. Halp me CE. D:
---

spanky1 posted...

I need to write an action scene and I have zero inspiration. :(

It's a medieval fantasy, set in a middle east style city. A bunch of weapon-wielding cult members need to harass a couple main characters in an Indian Jones-esque action scene, but I'm so blah about it. Don't know what to do. The book needs it here, but I'm uninspired. Have 'em get chased through the city with a little sword fighting? Just feeling so mundane right now. I need a set piece or something interesting to make it memorable. Halp me CE. D:

do you have magic in this one? if so, would there be schools for it? Have them chase through the school and showcase the variety of magic possible in your world

if no magic, maybe chase through the area where your main story DOESN'T show a lot of that way you can make the place seem more robust

No magic, no.
---

I finally got inspired enough to care about the scene. :)
---

Fuck.

I was on a roll. Wrapped up the first draft of the first arc in this story, a decent 10,000 words. I re-read it a few times, figured out everything I wanted to change to make it more interesting and cohesive, and booted up a new document to get started on the second draft and as I try to type...



Ugh. Now I need to start working lol.

---

https://gfycat.com/familiargivingjackrabbit

---

Officially halfway done with my book. :3
---

nice

im chugging along

Man, working off a written outline is SO much better than just a head outline. I'm an outliner for life after this.
---

Nice!

i outline a series of impossible (or seemingly impossible) scenarios then figure out how to connect them as I go along.

really blasting through my revision here. About 50 pages left. When I first learned that the successful authors usually do 6 or 7 complete rewrites, I was like "man no way am I doing that"

yet here I am...4 rewrites into it. I feel like it can always get better....some of my chapters are pretty short (600 ish words) and I always wonder if I need to fill it out more, but I hate filler shit.

near the endpoint of the book on this rewrite

really looking forward to just reading through it and seeing how things flow after I'm done. Will be getting feedback from the wife.

depending on her reaction, it'll either be another rewrite, or maybe an outside beta reader. then finito.

quick shop talk

if I'm doing internal thoughts in the middle of prose, I'll switch to italics.

Now, if the character thinks of a question, do I italicize the punctuation as well? Or just the words and leave the question mark non italicized

or does it not even matter...im too lazy to google

btw...just finished the rewrite. Ending is really good in my opinion but thats because I wrote it haha

The real question is, after the question mark, do you just leave the attribution uncapitalized? thought Spanky, whilst fondling his balls.

You do I think, it just always looks so off to me. I just try to avoid those situations by rearranging things.

Spanky fondled his balls and pondered questions of life. Why am I here?
---

I dont tag the thought though

so more like the second example you have there

45K out of 80K done so far. :)
---

80k is your goal for the book? Or you are editing a current draft

It's my goal.
---

oh nice!

Hello writer folks. I need some world building help. I'm writing some scifi stories where, over the next couple hundred years, society uses various technologies to create a near utopia, peaks, falls into decadence, and eventually collapses into a more cyberpunk garbage state. I want the beginning of this timeline to be multiple world governments banding together to use new technologies to solve issues like climate change, hunger, disease etc. They also beef up antitrust laws to prevent the traditional cyberpunk megacorporations from forming on the backs of monopolies.

So I'm trying to figure out the best way to explain it more than "And then everyone stopped sucking and worked together for the betterment of mankind and no one was ever evil again". Because, starting from a real world perspective of right now that seems... tenuous. It worked for Star Trek I guess.

two Options come to mind

1. you have a larger story to tell and you can juxtapose two separate timelines (a past and present) for interesting results
2. just dont mention it. Build all that up in your main plot. Maybe you have a character as an antitrust lawyer or something or maybe there is some kind of futuristic cultural shift that is glaring when we read that shows how things have changed

sometimes less is more. Might take your readers a bit to get it all in their head

bit think about something like the wheel of time...backstory isnt given for quite some time and they talk about stuff you have no idea about yet.

perhaps theres a subculture that is evil still but they are undesirables on the outskirts or something.

throwin out ideas :)

Romes187 posted...

just dont mention it. Build all that up in your main plot. Maybe you have a character as an antitrust lawyer or something or maybe there is some kind of futuristic cultural shift that is glaring when we read that shows how things have changed

I'm probably gonna go with this for now. Most of my stories take place a few hundred years after the fact so this stuff would just be history anyway. My main character is a hobbyist historian so I think I'm just gonna drip feed exposition about the past through him.

You know, Brandon Sanderson is great at teaching writing. But I feel like reading his stuff actively makes my writing worse. >_>

He's not that great of a writer.

Amazing teacher. Not a great writer.
---

Well guys like Patrick Rothfuss and R. Scott Bakker blow me away, Jacqueline Carey, too.
---

I need some original compositions for bawdy tavern songs for my book. >_>

Just simple four line poems really that can be put in. Funny or sexual is all good. Something a fun bard would sing. Anybody wanna be a part of my book? :)
---

sanderson's prose is definitely interesting...but agreed he is a better teacher than writer

man speaking of song lyrics...been pretty inspired lately writing some down. Have about 5 tunes I might just make some music to.

Here's a sample

We were told by
All those wise guys
Why guys die by
Our own gun
A kiloton will
Kill a ton
But we don't care
We'll have some fun

I just wrote 6K words in two days. >_>

I'm channeling Brandon Sanderson's demon spirit.
---

And then I went and did nothing over a drunken weekend bender lol
---

Can I get a reader for a 3 page summary? I recall having someone read the summary but would like to make some changes to the outline.

---

MedeaLysistrata posted...

Can I get a reader for a 3 page summary? I recall having someone read the summary but would like to make some changes to the outline.

Hell if it's just 3 pages I'll look at it. I dont know how useful I'd be though. I'll probably just say "sounds neat" lol
---

spanky1 posted...

Hell if it's just 3 pages I'll look at it. I dont know how useful I'd be though. I'll probably just say "sounds neat" lol

Ah, okay. Just let me make the requisite changes and then you can lmk what you think.

---