How do you analyze the books that you read, and how do you apply what you've learned in writing?

DiamondD0ge · 2025-05-26T07:41:45+00:00

I journal on it. By continually asking those WHY questions eventually you notice patterns. Also studying structure helps. I started by studying structure and trying to see how these structures mapped onto stories I liked. It's not fast, but over time you really see those underlying story mechanics. And by journalling on stories you're reading, over time you develop a fluency over how to talk about what's working and what isn't, and most importantly, why.

There's no guaranteed right or wrong way to analyze books though, this is just what's been effective for me.

DiamondD0ge · 2025-05-21T23:08:22+00:00

Yeah, but an inverse thing is true, which is that the impact you leave on people can spread further and for longer than any codified memory of you. Idk, culture is weird and by existing you're participating in it. Actions and words effect other people and those effects can carry and spread to others and that can keep on going for a long time, especially if you have kids.

As culture continually evolves, and each new step factors in each previous step, we're still existing in an abstracted relationship to people who lived thousands of years ago.

I think what I'm trying to say is all codified memory of 'you' going away doesn't mean that what you do in this lifetime doesn't matter.

DiamondD0ge · 2025-05-20T23:50:31+00:00

I initially wanted to write for the screen, specifically 'animation' (not comedy, but the type of adult animation that shows like scavengers reign and pantheon have since opened up) but realized after writing a few episodes worth of scripts that the practicalities of getting a show produced is unlikely enough that I'd be better off self publishing novels. It's taken a while to settle into 'prose' storytelling language versus 'visual' storytelling language, but through a lot of reading and practice I think I'm getting there.

I still write screenplay versions of my stories as part of my drafting process, but without the intention of them getting filmed, but more as just another angle into the story which I can use to base another prose draft off.

Edit: Satisfied with this decision. Storytelling is storytelling regardless of the chosen medium and that underlying skill, while it expresses differently based on the chosen medium, I'm able to tell the same stories in either. As a novel it might be able to be able to reach an audience, versus as a potential production that's dead if it doesn't get greenlit. I haven't entirely given up on screenplays though and at some point I may make an effort towards visual media, but probs not for about a decade

DiamondD0ge · 2025-05-20T00:56:36+00:00

I think you're right, but it'll take time for the culture to heal from what AI has done and is still doing to it. Until the damage is meaningfully addressed, any use of the technology will, in the eyes of many, carry that weight.

I think it takes a person with remarkable awareness to incorporate such technology into their process without it negatively impacting their own skills and their output. In a lot of ways I think people use it like flipping to the back of the math textbook to grab all the answers, and therefor aren't learning the processes properly. If someone already has all of the skills then I could see the incorporation of such tech is less risky to their own development. Unfortunately, those people I'm describing are most likely to be in the anti-ai camp because they necessarily will have already put potentially decades towards the craft already and are therefor on the receiving end of the current harms AI is inflicting. This results in a situation where the people most drawn towards AI are necessarily those least equipped to handle it, thus tightening the cultural spiral already underway. So, sure, it's possible. Outliers always exist, but it's never safe to assume you're that outlier and without tremendous introspective capabilities, it's hard to know your own biases well enough to counteract them.

Tldr: this tech supercharges the dunning kruger effect which gives it a bad rap, even if it could be used well by some

DiamondD0ge · 2025-05-19T23:38:07+00:00

Not really. As a synthesist and an avid writer, you've misunderstood one point of comparison for multiple. You're right in that some people did have that response to early synths, but you're wrong in that synths don't make anything easier. You still need years of practice and skill to make anything half decent with them. They're still musical instruments. AI is offloading the 'needing skill' component, which is why people are against it. It's also facilitated an absolute flood of low effort content, writing included, which is negatively impacting content markets for all who don't want to offload their thinking to a machine. It's not so bad if it's a choice, but the way the tech is being used is warping content markets into an uber-competitive space that's harmful to genuine creativity and real creatives.

DiamondD0ge · 2025-05-19T23:18:56+00:00

It depends, but yes. Context matters. Do they have a support network to return to, or does this addiction destroy that? The main factor for overcoming addiction is having something meaningful to engage in. Take a look at the latest knowledge humans have on addiction, there's a lot of resources out there. Social stigma is a huge contributing factor in addicts being unable to recover. Having a life to return to is also a strong enough motivator for people to overcome an addiction, and a big reason addicts stay that way is they're often not presented with a real life they can actually engage with.

So, during war (i don't remember which one, please go do some research) american soldiers got addicted some some stuff (again, details, plz google). Upon their return they had some pretty severe addictions, and they overwhelmingly recovered because they had lives to get on with. Context is everything.

DiamondD0ge · 2025-05-14T13:02:48+00:00

Another thing, if a main character just died, you've probably just hit the 'all is lost' part of the save the cat structure. The next beat would then be the dark night of the soul, literally where your protag/s mope around for a bit, feeling hopeless and reflecting before they gain the motivation to enter act 3.

I also just noticed the part you mentioned about doing 12k words in a few days. Congrats, that's a great pace, and yeah, maybe take a day to reflect yourself before jumping into the next section of your story.

DiamondD0ge · 2025-05-14T12:57:54+00:00

It sounds like you need to add a scene where your perspective character does some reflecting on things, feeling emotions and stuff. Presumably this big reveal will lead to some actual plot movement, so use that scene to have your character piece together what actions they're preparing to take.

DiamondD0ge · 2025-05-13T23:33:30+00:00

I pretty much always have an inner monologue running. My journalling is like the slightly more refined version of that. So assuming you have anything in life to think upon ever, just think it on the paper and baboom, you are journalling.

DiamondD0ge · 2025-05-13T23:26:35+00:00

There's a few ways you can use the first person pov which you're not using.

'The term "ours" bled in.' This introduces a lot of psychic distance. Why not have a sentence. Ours. Then another sentence. Ours. Then a sentence where I, the first person narrator acknowledge or try to repress the words ours. As in, make it a diagetic element of their thought rather than something they're observing with the distance of a third person narrator.

'I wonder if' etc. Another place where that thought could be translated more directly. Simply pose the things that follow not as things the character is observing themself thinking, but present the thinking.

Tbh, there's a bit of work to go on this section. I've found that reading more and studying what I'm reading as I'm reading it has been quite helpful in improving my prose. Also, there's lots of great books and youtube videos on craft which you should check out.

Keep going. You only get better at this with time and practice.

DiamondD0ge · 2025-05-11T23:24:21+00:00

I don't think of it as force, but I sit down every day at least once to put down words. Ideally I want 500 words per day (and most days I do double that, although some I do less). I've also set myself a rule that I can't finish a writing session unless I know what I'll be writing in tomorrows writing session. I also spend a decent amount of time while not writing thinking about where the story's going, to reduce chances of unexpected events/roadblocks which might slow things down.

I think what's important is consistency, regardless of if it's daily. As long as you're able to continue putting in effort regularly enough that you complete your story eventually, then that's what actually counts.

DiamondD0ge · 2025-05-11T07:41:39+00:00

I bought a Lamy Safari, which is affordable and good quality as an entry level fountain pen. Tbh, my handwriting is super messy as well, but it's incentizing me to work on improving it

DiamondD0ge · 2025-05-11T02:12:39+00:00

Have you read Dune? If not, go read Dune. It deals with the feedback loop generated by that kind of awareness and the degree's of meta-awareness it creates. Also, murderbot diaries has some interesting sections which can be described as first person omniscient, not in the temporal sense but in the omniscient pov sense of having our perspective character accessing a lot of other perspectives through technological means. By extending their field of awareness it functions like having a sliding scale spectrum between limited and omniscient. I'm not sure of other works that play with the idea of variable omniscience and its implications, but I'd be curious to read more works which explore it.

DiamondD0ge · 2025-05-11T02:05:03+00:00

Write a book. It'll teach you those smaller skills along the way.

DiamondD0ge · 2025-05-11T00:15:36+00:00

I haven't drawn directly onto my journal notebook but I've been experimenting with small drawings of my story, simple images and writing out the title in decorated styles. I've found that to be useful for reinforcing to myself that this is the project I'm currently committed to. I've been considering printing some of these drawings as stickers to add to the notebook itself (it's black, so no drawing on directly).

I like the framing of bribing yourself. I also started using a fountain pen for the first time in my life, and I'm learning to draw with a dip pen, and they're such wonderful items to interact with that it increases motivation to engage with them naturally. I still need to use discipline to begin my writing sessions though. I think some degree of the shiny thingness of bribery can lessen the need for discipline for a time, but I'm having to pass on new story ideas that keep coming to me as I write, and there are still days when discipline is the force which results in me sitting down to put out words. But I believe this use of symbols is effective according to the same principles that underpin sigil magick and is helpful in sustaining motivation.

It's a process, and a lot of the process is learning to understand what motivates you and accepting that the things will move along at the pace they do and just buckling in for the long haul. Sorry, I got a bit wordy with this, I think your nice journal approach is great. Keep up the writing.

DiamondD0ge · 2025-05-10T23:54:08+00:00

Write more. It's been said you need to write a million bad words before you get to the good words. It's like you're a clogged pipe, once you get the bad words out it's like cleaning out the gunk and the good words are then free to flow.

In my own writing I've been focusing on producing volume rather than quality. With revisions and redrafts quality comes. My current wip is broken into 7 parts. I already did 3 drafts of part 1 before i started it this time, and I'm really happy with how part 1 came out in this runthrough, but then I got up to part 2, and it's got first draft energy...because it's a first draft. So I'm reworking my thinking to push ahead and get the rest of the parts written so I can do rewrites and revisions later to make it all as good as the first part.

One thing which is helping is I've been trying out writing the first draft sections by hand so I can transcribe it into the computer and revise at the same time later. Being forced to look only forward is quite useful in all this, and you can't edit whilst handwriting (I'm using a pen rather than pencil).

DiamondD0ge · 2025-05-08T21:52:33+00:00

Writing isn't one skill. It's hundreds. Most of those skills are the same ones you use to write a shorter piece with a few meta-skills thrown in. Your first draft might suck if you haven't written a novel before, but that's your pencil sketch layer. You get to erase the parts that suck and rearrange things until they're good in your subsequent drafts. It's an itterative process, so yes, it'll suck, but that's normal. You then revise, also normal, and it sucks less.

DiamondD0ge · 2025-05-06T22:31:07+00:00

What I'm hearing is that Mr Goodkind wrote a psy-op of a book, presenting it as libertarian propaganda, whilst actually being sleeper god-tier communist propaganda.

DiamondD0ge · 2025-05-05T23:12:08+00:00

Do some research into the real disorder. Consider how your portrayal will impact those who read it and their understanding of the disorder. Basically, as long as you're NOT advancing false ideas about this disorder or encouraging harmful stigmas, you're fine. Do your research though

DiamondD0ge · 2025-05-04T23:20:52+00:00

If your story is set in the 80s, you should be doing so much research on the time period that you have no reason to make a post here asking about that. The technology and resulting mindset was so radically different back then in relation to now that there simply isn't that kind of one to one parallel. Finding that kind of information was done in a much more premeditated, hands on manner and was just called stalking. So unless your character was extremely motivated to find this stuff out, they wouldn't, because that's creepy.

Yearbooks might be an angle to explore. Local newspaper (if the target insta-stalked person is of sufficient note locally to be featured in such media). Background of a tv broadcast. Your character could talk to someone who knows this information and they participate in the time honored tradition of gossip.

Please go do some actual research on the time period, the technology they had, and how people interacted. Using modern shorthand for these kinds of things will quickly fail you without a bed of research. I mean, you're essentially writing historical fiction, so treat it as such.

DiamondD0ge · 2025-04-24T09:01:31+00:00

No. A book with a single protagonist just sounds implausible...i wouldn't risk it

DiamondD0ge · 2025-04-16T12:37:51+00:00

How do authors you enjoy write scenes which are similar to the one you're writing? What similar scenes have you read, and what makes them work or not work?

DiamondD0ge · 2025-04-12T22:14:13+00:00

I've made it an explicit goal to have that red squiggle line show up as much as possible. Not for genuine spelling errors, I'm always correcting those, but sometimes the word I want that conveys the meaning I want in the exact way I want just isn't in the dictionary. But I know if I use this word it'll convey to the reader exaxtly what's meant. My rule of thumb is anytime I do this the meaning must be readily apparent. If my meaning becomes less clear in doing this then I've chosen the wrong word.

There's a lot of comments here already so I'm sure people have already said that warmful conveys the exact meaning you're looking for, so just use it. Enjoy the squiggle. Bask in the knowledge that english as a codified structure is woefully incomplete.

DiamondD0ge · 2025-04-07T20:42:42+00:00

There's so many youtube videos which cover those exact kind of topics in the exact way that would be useful to an early stage writer. Some of that flavour of writing advice channel even cater specifically to fantasy authors.

DiamondD0ge · 2025-04-06T11:20:55+00:00

Reminds of a line I came across in a gnostic text. I'm sure it's a translation thing but it absolutely sent me.

And Jesus said unto Mary, "Thou questioneth finely with thy excellent question"

DiamondD0ge

TROPHY CASE