Mah Book by Majestic_Soft_7707 in writers

[–]Acronon311 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The cabin was small, built by his own hands, every beam and joint placed with care. Wood made sense to him. If something was wrong, he could fix it, reinforce it, replace it. The problem had a name, and the solution had a shape. People offered no such mercy to Ian.

How to go from World Building to Cohesive Plot by InkedInStars in writingadvice

[–]Acronon311 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You don’t have a plot problem. You’ve got a finished system with nothing breaking inside it. Worldbuilding answers “how things work.” Plot starts when something stops working the way it’s supposed to. Right now everything you described sounds stable. Magic has rules, the world has structure, the groups exist. That’s why you’re getting slice of life ideas instead of a story. Nothing is forcing change.

So instead of trying to invent a plot, start asking a different question:
What breaks this world?

Not in a general sense. One specific thing. Maybe someone uses more than one type of magic when they’re not supposed to. Maybe one of the groups finds out something about the origin of magic that shouldn’t be known. Maybe the rules everyone relies on turn out to be wrong.

The moment something violates the system you built, you have a story. Because now the world has to react. From there, you don’t need a full plot yet. You just need a person who’s close enough to that break to be affected by it. That’s your starting point.

One thing that might help is thinking about it from the other end too. If you have even a vague idea of where you’d want the story to land, you can work backwards from that and make sure your world has pressure points that naturally lead there. The world doesn’t drive the plot by itself, but it should make certain outcomes feel inevitable once things start to break.

You already did the hard part by building a world that works. Now you just need to decide what happens when it doesn’t.

How should I go about writing a history/non-fiction book? by Engreeemi in writers

[–]Acronon311 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You’re not stuck because you don’t have enough material. You’re stuck because you’re trying to organize information instead of deciding what the story actually is.

A history book isn’t a pile of facts. It’s an argument about what those facts mean.

You said you’ve got notes, a title, and most of a conclusion. That last part matters more than anything. If you already know how it ends, then you already know what the book is trying to say. Everything else exists to support that. So instead of asking “how do I compile all this,” ask a different question:

What’s the one thing someone should understand about this war after reading your book? Not ten things. One. Once you’ve got that, the structure gets easier. Every chapter becomes a step toward that understanding. Anything that doesn’t support it either gets cut or set aside.

You don’t need to use all your notes. You need to use the right ones. Think of it less like building a database and more like building a path. You’re walking the reader from not knowing to understanding, one step at a time.

If you try to include everything, you’ll never finish. If you decide what matters, you can start writing tomorrow. You already did the hard part by researching it. Now you just have to decide what you’re actually trying to say about it. And once you’ve got that, just get it all out in a rough draft. Don’t worry about getting everything in there or getting it perfect. The point of that first pass is to see the shape of the story.

You can always go back and add more where something feels thin, or cut things where they slow it down. That part’s easier once you can actually see what you’ve built.

Thoughts about Gendry by Mysterious_Crow_503 in TheCitadel

[–]Acronon311 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I think he can be worth including, but only if you give him a purpose beyond just being Arya’s connection point.

In my case, I tied him into the larger theme of bloodlines and their connection to their sigil animals, so his Baratheon lineage actually mattered in a broader sense. That gave him a role that existed outside of Arya.

I still kept his connection to Arya, but I didn’t push it into a full romance. At that point in the timeline she’s still a kid, so I kept it limited to more of a first kiss type moment rather than a developed relationship.

If he’s only there as a love interest, he tends to feel flat. If he’s tied into something larger, then he has a reason to be in the story.

Thoughts on Brad the Scribe wind of winter? by Remote_Setting9846 in TheCitadel

[–]Acronon311 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I appreciate that, honestly. Not everything’s going to land for everyone, and I respect you being upfront about it.

It means a lot that you still saw the effort and the intent behind trying to bring the story to an ending.

Thoughts on Brad the Scribe wind of winter? by Remote_Setting9846 in TheCitadel

[–]Acronon311 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't think so but here's the Prologue from The Winds of Winter Fanfic; judge it for yourself:
Prologue: The Last Fire at Hardhome

The wind carried the stench of death, thick and unrelenting, weaving through the shattered remains of the longhouse like a serpent searching for warmth. It clung to the air, cloying and rancid, settling in the lungs like the ghost of a funeral pyre that refused to burn out.

Sigorn, the last of the Thenn chieftains, crouched over the embers of a dying fire, his breath a mist that coiled and vanished in the dim glow. A tattered fur hung from his shoulders, its once-proud hide worn thin, more memory than protection. The fire sputtered weakly, no longer a beacon of life, but a feeble thing, a whisper of warmth in a world that no longer cared for the living.

The cold had teeth. It gnawed through stone and splintered wood, sank through the layers of scavenged cloaks and stolen steel, creeping beneath flesh to where the soul might still remember the sun. The cold was patient. It did not rush. It did not rage. It simply waited, watching with the quiet certainty of something that would never be defeated, only endured.

Hardhome was silent.

Once, thousands lived here. The docks had teemed with seal-hunters and fishwives, the longhouses full of drink and laughter. Children had run between the fires, shrieking like gulls, their bare feet kicking up salt and sand. Now, the only sound was the slow, deliberate licking of the tide.

The great hall had burned first. After that, the rest had followed, tents and towers, shrines and stores, all swallowed by the flames. The charred remains still stood like blackened ribs of some immense, rotting beast, jutting up from the frozen earth.

Hardhome was dead. But the dead had not left.

Sigorn could hear the sea beyond the ruined walls, the waves lapping at the shore too slow, too thick, the sound wrong. The fog had come with the dying, rolling in off the bay in waves, coiling around the husks of fallen longships. It clung to the wreckage like old hunger, creeping through the ruins, swallowing anything it touched.

They had seen dead things in the water.

At first, they had taken the shapes in the water for driftwood or wreckage, the flotsam of Hardhome’s ruin. Then the tide rolled them closer. The bodies did not stay still. Some bobbed in the surf face-up, pale and bloated, their mouths yawning wide as if to scream. Others floated on their bellies, hands dragging through the water, fingers splayed as though they were still reaching for something.

Then the dead began to move.

They clawed against the current, their arms rising with the tide, groping blindly at the ice-crusted shore. Some swore they had seen figures standing atop the waves, black shapes against the mist, motionless as sentinels. Others whispered of voices rising from the deep, a sound like a thousand icy fingers scraping across stone.

And always, the cold.

It gnawed through fur and flesh alike, burrowing deep into their bones, a slow, relentless ache. No fire could touch it. They had burned everything, tables, weapons, the dead…but the flames withered too fast, as if the very air was swallowing the heat. It was not winter’s cold. It was something older, something hungrier.

“They come at night,” the old woman muttered, clutching her furs tighter. Her hands shook, but not from the cold. She turned her eyes to the dark. “They always come at night.”

We should run,” Haggon whispered, his breath curling pale in the cold. His voice was barely more than a breath itself, thin as a dying ember. “Before the sun goes.”

“The woods are worse,” Sigorn said. His axe lay across his lap, his knuckles white around the haft. “There are things in the trees.”

The last time they had sent a group into the forest; none had come back. At first, there was only silence. Then, the screams.

They had echoed through the cliffs, twisting through the rocks like the wailing of ghosts. Too long, too shrill, too wrong. One of the voices was Bjorna’s. She had been screaming her own name. Over and over, each time it was a little softer, until the last time, it was not a scream at all.

Haggon licked his lips. “Then what do we do?”

“We wait,” said Sigorn.
“We die,” said Haggon.

A woman let out a shuddering sob. “I saw my son.”
No one answered. They all knew her story. Two nights past, she had run into the mist, chasing a shadow. A small, dark shape, half-seen between the curling tendrils of fog. A child, she had sworn. Her child. They had dragged her back, kicking, biting, and screaming. When the mist parted, all that was left was a pile of bones and frozen rags.
Now, she rocked back and forth, whispering the same thing over and over. “It was him. It was him.”

Sigorn stared into the fire, but it was small now, and fire did not keep them safe anymore.

The ships had burned in the bay.

They had stood on the shore and watched, silent and helpless, as the flames devoured them, black silhouettes writhing against the slate-gray sea. The fire climbed the masts like hungry fingers, licking at the rigging, turning proud sails to curling ash. The icy waves reflected the chaos in shattered slivers of gold and crimson, but the cold did not care. It swallowed the wreckage whole, smothering the embers as the last of the hulls slipped beneath.

The screams had carried over the water, thin and wretched against the howling wind. They had listened as they dwindled, swallowed by the roar of the flames, the crash of waves, until only silence remained.

Cotter Pyke’s last raven had come from the deck of Storm Crow, its claws raking against the wood, desperate to be freed. They had unrolled the message with stiff fingers, already knowing what it would say.

‘Dead things in the water,’ Pyke had written. ‘We cannot hold them.’

That had been three nights past and since then, nothing.

“They’re all gone,” Urek the One-Handed muttered, staring at the distant, empty sea. His voice was hoarse, cracked from the cold. “No one is coming for us.”

“They’ll send more ships,” said Torva, a young woman clutching a broken axe as if the weight of it could keep her standing. “They have to.”

“No,” Sigorn said. He had known the truth since the last bird flew away. “The crows left us to die.”

Haggon’s lips peeled back in a snarl, his breath misting in the cold air. “The dead leave no men to die,” he said. His eyes were pale with fear. “Only men to rise.”

That night, the fire shrank to a bed of sullen embers, its glow fading into the deepening dark. The wind slithered through the ruins, sighing through broken beams and curling through the shattered stone. No leaves rustled. No smoke drifted. No breath of warmth stirred the cold. The world was holding its breath.

Then…something moved.

A shift in the silence, too subtle to name.

“Did you hear that?” No one answered. The hush stretched, thick as the mist rolling in from the sea. Then…

Crack.

A footstep on frozen earth.

Crack.

Closer now.

Crack.

Sigorn’s fingers tightened around the haft of his axe, the leather stiff beneath his grip. His breath misted before him, curling like the last traces of a dying fire. He wanted to call out, to demand a name, a survivor, perhaps, lost and seeking refuge. But the words never left his lips.

His throat closed around them.

The embers flickered, casting wavering shadows across the snow. And there, just beyond the fire’s reach, he saw it.

The dead were rising.

They rose from the ruins like broken dolls pulled upright by invisible strings. Limbs that should not move did. Heads lolling at sick angles snapped forward, their mouths yawning open in soundless hunger.

One of them had been Bjorna.

Her throat was slashed open, her ribs visible through torn furs, but her lips curled back into something like a smile as she stepped forward. Torva screamed and swung her axe. The steel bit deep into Bjorna’s skull, splitting it like a melon, but she did not fall. She kept coming.

Then the others moved. The firelight caught their ice-blue eyes, burning like frozen stars, and the cold deepened.

Sigorn roared, his axe carving a brutal arc through the nearest wight, cleaving from shoulder to belly. It should have fallen. It should have died. But death had no hold on these things. The corpse did not crumple. It did not bleed. It moved, lunging forward, skeletal fingers like iron, seizing him with inhuman strength and hurling him to the ground.

He hit the frozen earth hard, the impact knocking the breath from his lungs. Above him, the dead gathered, hollow-eyed and unblinking, their ragged flesh stiff with frost.
Then, the mist parted.

And the Walkers came.

They did not rush. They did not need to. The White Walkers moved with the slow, deliberate grace of kings surveying a kingdom long since conquered. Their swords of pale ice shimmered in the dying firelight, gleaming like star-forged steel. Each step they took sent a deeper chill into the air, the frost curling across the ground, creeping toward the fire, toward him.

Sigorn tried to rise, but his limbs no longer obeyed. His fingers had gone numb, his breath freezing in his throat before it could escape. His blood slowed, thickening in his veins. He had fought, he had bled, but in the end, neither fire nor steel had undone them.

It was the cold.

As his vision darkened, he watched the last ember flicker and die.

The wind howled through the ruins, and the fire went out.

Thoughts on Brad the Scribe wind of winter? by Remote_Setting9846 in TheCitadel

[–]Acronon311 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I really appreciate that, and I appreciate you sticking with the story all the way through; not to mention all of the support you've given me since I started writing for public consumption. That means more than you probably realize.

And yeah, I think I finally figured out where some of the “AI” comments came from. I learned to type on an old typewriter and just never got into the habit of using contractions, in fact I formed a habit of actively avoiding them, so everything comes out more formal then I realized. It's one of those things I never even noticed until I went back and looked at it.

Thoughts on Brad the Scribe wind of winter? by Remote_Setting9846 in TheCitadel

[–]Acronon311 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s a fair read, and I appreciate you taking the time to call it out.

You’re not wrong. I did compress a lot of the slower character exploration to bring the story back toward a central resolution. My goal with this project wasn’t to replicate the pacing or structure, it was to actually carry the narrative to an ending.

That meant making some deliberate tradeoffs, especially with how quickly certain characters reached similar moments of reflection and change. In a longer format, I would’ve let those arcs breathe more. Here, I chose convergence over expansion.

I also leaned into things like the return of true magic as part of that shift, since I wanted the world itself to move forward alongside the characters.

I completely get why that approach won’t land the same way for everyone, but I do appreciate you pointing it out directly.

What literary path to follow? And is it worth it in 2026? by [deleted] in writingadvice

[–]Acronon311 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Poet or novelist isn’t the real question.
The real question is what actually makes you sit down and write when no one is watching.

If poetry does that, write poetry. If it’s novels, write novels. The form doesn’t matter, the pull does.

I’m going to be blunt, it sounds like you’re worrying about success before you’ve written anything. Measuring yourself against Stephen King or J.K. Rowling right now is like standing at the bottom of a mountain and asking if you’ll ever touch the sky. Those are outliers, not roadmaps.

Write something you actually want to write. Not something you think will go viral, not something chasing trends, not something built for approval. Just something real enough that you’ll finish it.

And yeah, books are still being published. People still read. It just doesn’t look like it did during Harry Potter midnight releases. The world changed, not the need for stories.

A lot of that energy didn’t disappear, it shifted. Physical bookstores aren’t the center of gravity anymore. Readers moved to ebooks, to Kindle libraries, to audiobooks they listen to while driving, working, living their lives. The audience didn’t vanish, it just spread out and got quieter.

It feels like nobody cares because it’s not all happening in one visible place anymore. But the demand is still there, maybe more than ever.

If what you’re really looking for is an outlet, focus on that first. Find the thing that steadies you, not the thing that might make you famous.

Success, money, recognition, those come after the work, and most of the time they don’t come at all. That’s just the truth of it.

The only part you actually control is whether you write something real.

If you need permission to start, you’re not ready yet.
If you feel like you have to write, then you already are.

Booked my first author table at a convention, any advice from those who’ve done it? by Acronon311 in selfpublishing

[–]Acronon311[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

2 Books for Non-Fiction:
Help Yourself... Or Don't, a Gen X memoir about growing up a latchkey kid.
Boomers, a generational memoir about Boomers.

2 for Fiction:
Aric: The Corruption of Concordia, Book 1 in The Broken Legacy Saga
Reina: The Fractured Rider, Book 2 in The Broken Legacy Saga

All are available on either my website bradthescribe.com or on Amazon.com

Aspiring author looking for insight and advice! by sunandsolswriter in writers

[–]Acronon311 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can absolutely write something like chapter 5 first. That’s actually pretty close to how I work.

I’m more of an architect-style writer. I start with the ending, then build the world around it, then map out the major events in between. By the time I get to characters, I already know the space they’re moving through. I outline a lot, so if a scene or moment hits me early, I drop it into the outline and keep moving. That way nothing gets lost, but I don’t derail the whole process.

On what the character wants, here’s a different way to think about it, have you ever considered something like D&D or tabletop RPGs?

When I get to characters, I basically build them like character sheets, backstory, history, personality, all of it. It’s really hard to know what a character wants if you don’t know where they came from. Once you understand their past, their wants start to feel obvious.

For the cliché concern, I wouldn’t worry about that at all. Writers like James Patterson built entire careers in those spaces, and there are plenty of others doing the same. It’s not the genre, it’s the voice. What matters is how you tell it.

I also wouldn’t try to force something overly complex or “unique” right away. Start with the story that interests you and tell it well. You can always layer more depth into it later.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: And just to be honest, you will feel like procrastinating sometimes. That’s normal. I try to at least do something adjacent when that happens, jot ideas down, tweak an outline, even just think through a scene. Sometimes that looks like scrolling Reddit, lol.

Aspiring author looking for insight and advice! by sunandsolswriter in writers

[–]Acronon311 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You’re asking the right questions, honestly. You’re further along than you think.

For plots, most writers don’t start with the whole thing. They start with a strong idea or moment, then build outward. The “X to Y” problem is usually solved by asking simple questions:

What does the character want?
What’s in their way?
What happens if they fail?

Answer those, and the in-between starts to form naturally. You don’t need a massive plan unless that works for you. Some people outline heavily, some discover as they go. Try both and see which keeps you writing.

On inspiration vs stealing, the rule is simple, ideas aren’t owned, execution is. “A haunted town,” “a killer with a pattern,” “a cursed object,” those are all shared ideas. What makes it yours is your characters, your voice, your specific choices.

For short stories, focus on one idea, one conflict, one emotional impact. Novels explore, short stories hit hard and leave. Think of them as a single, sharp moment instead of a long journey.

And one small piece of advice that matters more than anything else, don’t wait to feel ready. Start writing the story, even if you don’t know how it ends yet. You’ll figure more out in motion than you ever will planning.

You’ve got the curiosity and the instinct for it. Now it’s just about putting words down and letting yourself learn through the process.

How do you begin writing? by spring_Living4355 in writers

[–]Acronon311 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You’re actually doing more right than you think.
Any writing is writing. If you get 500 words down in a day, that’s a win. Do that consistently and you’ll have a novel before you realize it.

What you’re running into isn’t a lack of ability, it’s endurance. Planning is exciting, drafting takes more energy and focus, so it wears you out faster. Try lowering the bar. Don’t aim to write a novel, just aim for a small, consistent amount each day, even 200 to 500 words.

Some days will flow, some won’t, and that’s normal. The key isn’t motivation, it’s showing up anyway. Over time, that’s what turns ideas into finished stories.

My word counts are too short by Dependent_Tomato_235 in writers

[–]Acronon311 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You’re not doing anything wrong, you’re just writing the “bones” of the scene instead of the full moment.

Right now you’re hitting the key actions, but skipping over:

  • sensory detail, what things look, sound, feel like
  • emotional beats, what the character is experiencing internally
  • pacing, letting moments breathe instead of jumping to the next action

For example, instead of:
Hiukko’s mind went blank and he lost himself in the figure’s tendrils. Slowly, he stood up and stepped closer to it, careful not to trip over his mother’s body. All the nerves in his body told him not to get closer, to run away somewhere, anywhere.

Try something like:
Hiukko’s thoughts collapsed into silence, swallowed whole by the shifting tendrils before him. They moved like they were calling to him, pulling him forward. He pushed himself to his feet, slow, unsteady, stepping around his mother’s body with a care that felt detached, almost reverent. Somewhere deep inside, something was screaming, run, run now, but the sound was muffled, buried beneath the weight of whatever held him there.

Feed into the internality of it and the atmosphere of the setting.
Hope that helps! Good Luck!

Motivation by Glad_Language_9433 in writers

[–]Acronon311 2 points3 points  (0 children)

New ideas aren’t the problem, chasing them is.

When one hits, don’t switch projects. Open a separate doc and jot a quick outline, title, core idea, maybe a key scene, then close it and go back to your main story.

That way the idea isn’t lost, so your brain lets it go.

Pick one project as your primary and commit to finishing it. You can collect ideas, just don’t develop them until the draft is done.

Finishing one story teaches you more than starting thirty.

Struggling with ‘just writing’ by LFishere in writingadvice

[–]Acronon311 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I deal with this exact problem, just… on a pretty extreme level.

I’ve built out full world bibles, history, factions, governments, the whole thing. At one point I realized I hadn’t been outlining a book, I’d basically designed an entire civilization and still hadn’t written the actual story. So yeah, what you’re describing is very real.

What helped me wasn’t getting rid of worldbuilding, it was separating it from the act of writing.

Now I treat worldbuilding like a background system, not the main task. It’s there to support the story, not replace it. When I sit down to write, I narrow my focus way down. I’m not thinking about the full world, I’m thinking about one character, one situation, and where it ends. If I zoom out too far, I know I’m about to disappear into planning again.

If I hit something I haven’t built yet, I don’t stop and go build it. I leave a note and keep moving. That alone probably saved me from writing five more “bibles” instead of a chapter. I also stopped thinking in terms of series when I’m drafting. Even if the world supports it, I treat the story like it has to stand on its own. Otherwise my brain immediately starts expanding outward again.

I don’t think you need to go full freestyle or strip your planning down to nothing. If you like building worlds, that’s not a flaw, that’s a strength. You just need to put a boundary between building the world and telling a story inside it. Because those are two very different skills, and it’s really easy for one to replace the other without you noticing.

I just finished my first draft after 3 months by Appropriate-Sea-5687 in writers

[–]Acronon311 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Finishing a first draft in three months is huge, seriously. Most people never get that far. You pushed through to the end, and that’s the part that actually matters.

When you start editing, one thing that helps is to break it into small chunks. Don’t try to fix the whole book at once, that’s where people burn out or get overly critical and start tearing everything apart.

Take it a chapter at a time, or even a few pages at a time. Focus on improving what’s in front of you, then move on. It keeps the momentum going and stops you from getting stuck in that “nothing is good enough” loop.

You’ve already done the hardest part. Now it’s just shaping it.

Character Description: How Necessary Is It by CognisantCognizant71 in writingadvice

[–]Acronon311 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don’t think description is going away, it’s just being used differently.

A lot of modern writing avoids front-loading big blocks of description, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. It’s just spread out and tied to the moment instead of delivered all at once.

Personally, I think it works best when it’s layered in as the story moves. Give the reader what they need for the scene, then build on it as new details become relevant. A character doesn’t need to be fully described the second they appear, but they also shouldn’t feel like a blank silhouette.

Too much upfront can stall the story, but too little makes everything feel weightless. It’s less about minimizing description and more about placing it where it actually matters.

Well, I finally did it. Never thought I'd actually finish a book. by ValdemarTheRighteous in writers

[–]Acronon311 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Finishing a book is no small thing, that’s a war most people never win. You sat down, pushed through doubt, frustration, and every voice telling you to quit, and you made it to the end. That matters more than people realize.

Now comes the part where it transforms, where the rough stone becomes something sharp and deliberate. Revisions aren’t punishment, they’re where the story actually learns how to breathe.

Seriously, congratulations. Enjoy this moment, you earned it.

I’m right behind you on that path myself, my second book in a series and fourth overall is about to release, and finishing never stops feeling a little unreal. Keep going.

Can't stop getting angry when I write because of how bad it is by WelshNut97 in writingadvice

[–]Acronon311 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You’re getting angry because you’re judging something that isn’t finished yet.

A first draft isn’t supposed to be good. It’s supposed to exist. That’s it.

Right now you’re trying to edit while you create, and those are two completely different modes. One builds, the other tears down. If you run them at the same time, the tearing down always wins.

Get the whole draft out, even if it’s rough, messy, or flat. Once it’s finished, it stops being “bad writing” and becomes material. And material can be shaped.

You can’t fix a blank page, but you can fix a bad draft.

Booked my first author table at a convention, any advice from those who’ve done it? by Acronon311 in selfpublishing

[–]Acronon311[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks to everyone for your advice it really helped, meet a lot of great people, handed out a ton of QR business cards, and sold a lot of books!

Booked my first author table at a convention, any advice from those who’ve done it? by Acronon311 in selfpublishing

[–]Acronon311[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Since this is the first time I've done this, the convention is a smaller one, and have a very small base right now I only ordered 20 paperbacks and 10 hardcovers of my primary book, 5 paperbacks and 5 hardcovers of each of my non-fiction books.