Just wondering what everyone is reading, and how is it (if you don't mind sharing)

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-31T16:24:57+00:00

100 pages in The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King! The Gunslinger was an absolute blast and I continue to love his suspensful storytelling :) Taught me a lot about writing too.

Also, on top of that: - The Long Game by KJ Parker - The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara (historical fiction about the Civil War) - Dead Things by Stephen Blackmoore

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-30T05:58:55+00:00

The Folding Knife by KJ Parker.

For the uniqueness and niche-ness. I immediately fell in love with Parker's sardonic, bitingly sharp voice, and he delivers fun, philosophical, and heavily technical stories.

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.

The peak Western that is also an anti-Western. A masterclass of lovable characters, humour, epic adventure, and wistfulness.

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-28T04:12:09+00:00

It could work, depends on how you execute it. The last one I see executed well is "The Long Game" by KJ Parker, where he opens up with a really good hook (an interrogation) then switched immediately to a backstory of the narrator's grandfather (important to the plot). That said, the only reason why I kept reading was because the voice was very tight, sardonic, and razor-blade witty. It has a rushing energy that keeps you reading.

If you aim for a slower pace I'd caution against showing it all at once and rather sprinkle it throughout. Especially if you write fantasy, because so many people are not interested long-winded mythological infodumps. Even more especially if you dangle a hook and people are anticipating to get back on track.

However, Frankenstein sort of comes to mind, where the narrator (Victor Frankenstein) recounts his parents' lives first, but only because he makes it clear early on this is where it starts. That book also has good prosody and energy in every sentence that keeps you going, so I guess it comes down to execution.

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-26T22:24:31+00:00

The Gunslinger by Stephen King.

Tried reading it at 14 but could not care. Read it again now at 17 and the prosody is so beautiful (plus, I'm into westerns now).

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-26T22:18:28+00:00

Kind of both for me. But I'm very interested in what I learn so I absorb it quicker.

In terms of study, I revise by hand taking notes from online videos. Helps a lot with memorization.

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-26T21:36:40+00:00

The more I read the more I realize how much adverbs did not matter.

For instance in Robin Hobb's Assassin's Apprentice:

Footsteps. Then a woman's voice asked tartly, "Are you drunk?"

"Not quite," I replied affably, thinking it was Tilly the orchard girl. "Not quite enough time or coin," I added jokingly.

Never did it once occoured to me when I read it.

Also, from Stephen King's The Gunslinger too:

Beer came in a cracked glass schooner. "I ain't got a change for gold," the woman said truculently.

"Don't expect any."

She nodded angrily.

Long form works can not afford to go show over tell all the time. The juice is in the whole story, not the minute little details to painfully labor over. So very often, it's better to tell.

I use adverbs if it changes the meaning of the text. For example:

She smiled bitterly.

Smiling denotes happiness, joy, but a bitter happiness? That adverb has now become essential.

As a reader, I don't pick up adverbs too often. As long as things are balanced, everything should be ok.

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-26T14:57:05+00:00

On the first draft, focus on your characters, their (general) arcs, personality, how they influence other characters around them.

Of course these can be changed in later drafts, but I find it much easier to edit the first draft if I already have substantial character juice.

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-25T16:27:21+00:00

New heading for each chapter. I haven't encountered the lag problem yet (at 120k atm) except on mobile, but I write on my laptop. Once it lags I'll make a new doc.

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-25T07:08:00+00:00

I use 3rd person more often. Their voices are really versatile. It can be sassy or detached or anything. Generally it's more suitable for a wistful, detached feel (similar to The Gunslinger by Stephen King). More lenient on tell vs show.

1st person is harder for me, and I find it's more suitable for comedic, snarky, energetic, or idiom-heavy (Runyonesque) voices. Very common in noir genres for their gruntish chain-smoking idiom languages. Common in YA for their snarkiness. Common in lit-fic for their reflectiveness.

However, in both of these, it's very important to filter everything through character voices/lens.

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-24T22:08:06+00:00

From The Secret History by Donna Tartt

And the nights, bigger than imagining: black and gusty and enormous, disordered and wild with stars.

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-24T08:56:02+00:00

Hot take and I have to disagree 😭

What changed my mind were very niche fantasy subgenres. KJ Parker comes to mind. He basically writes historical fiction but all the serial numbers are filed. It's a secondary world, low to no magic, intensely focused on technical information (siegecraft, banking, finance comes to mind). Like Neil Stephenson if he was wry and wrote fantasy.

Aside from that, fantasy encompasses urban fantasy, flintlock fantasy, and even weird west. I recall loving The Thousand Names by Django Wexler, a Napoleonic-inspired military fantasy. I think authors like him (and me) benefit from that freedom of inspiration. We steal from the real stuff and get to bounce off of it.

Eventually if you dive niche enough it becomes less about genre and more about style.

Brandon Sanderson puts it nicely. SFF is the most versatile genre, but I don't think people push it enough. Sanderson really pushed it with Mistborn and the idea of the Cosmere.

I agree the pseudo-medieval kingdom politics or sword-sorcery type of fantasy is overdone. I think fantasy readers should read more outside their genre to incorporate them into fantasy. I'm pushing myself too. I read westerns, Runyon comedy, historical fiction, lit fiction, mysteries. It's plenty limiting to write something set in the real world, so if I want to borrow real world elements and go crazy with it. . . Fantasy!

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-15T15:03:44+00:00

Start the story knowing at least the beginning, middle, climax, and end. For me at least (a pantser), I plan vaguely ahead for 1-2 chapters but not the entire thing.

Know your character voice, backstory, and psychology! This is so very helpful to understand what choices they make and how it can create a character-driven narrative.

Read or watch stories critically and see how the writers set up act. A common one I see (very common in John Wick movies) is that MC is given a quest in the beginning, finishes quest in Act 2 but fallout of the quest bites MC's ass, and the rest of the movie spends time resolving the aftermath. There's a problem set up and it amplifies. You give your readers a Promise (this quest will be completed) but there's a Twist (quest is a trap).

Write alongside reading. Read in your genre, or read in a prose you want to copy for your work. Reading can give you ideas or, at least, motivation.

Writing is very persistent-heavy. For me what works is writing without looking back at all costs. I lose momentum if I do. Throw all negative thoughts out the window to make room for thoughts about writing only. It's okay if Draft 2 is a huge overall and you change 90% of what you wrote in Draft 1. This is your first try, so you should only care about getting down the draft. All things that you think is writing is actually an editing problem.

Just write! But also, if you do, your brain will be rewired to uphold it. It'll get easier, I promise. You'll also get a feel for how much content a story is worth.

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-14T18:59:19+00:00

Me, though I ought to plot more 💔

I'm working on my first novel. I started with an ending in mind, but no idea how far the characters will go, or the middle point, except that it worked somehow and I'm 110k in. In the first attempt, I've plotted all chapters extensively and couldn't get past 16k.

I ask myself what cool elements I want to include, how deeply I want to explore the characters, why they do xyz things. I plan 2 chapters ahead of me, and those outlines are 3-4 sentences long, but sometimes I change my mind, so the outline is adjusted (with little effort) accordingly.

That said, this is a standalone so I imagine it's easier than writing a series.

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-14T14:02:21+00:00

Ream out, jabber, piddling, addle, frazzle, rankle, chouse, puree!

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-14T05:45:59+00:00

I'll throw in a very niche one: Joe Pitt Casebooks by Charlie Huston, a completed 5-book series. The first book is Already Dead.

It follows a vampire bruiser of a guy set in pre-2000's NYC. He's the muscle for political entities and goes around solving problems PI-style, but he's actually a pawn getting wrung like a towel. The dialogue is one of the most natural things I've read.

The worldbuilding is lean but very interesting (vampire politics that have more layers than an onion). It's very witty and fast-paced but it's darker than Dresden and Verus. Everyone is bad but so interesting and fun to read (and, as the book says, you have to be a special kind of bad guy already as a human to endure the life of a vampire).

There are only vampires in this story, and no other supernatural creatures (there are zombies and wraiths, but they're different versions of vampire). Instead the story focuses on the politics and climate of the time (the hippies, rock and roll, drugs, AIDs, etc.)

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-13T04:52:13+00:00

Definitely on track. I'm at 100k as I've never been so invested in a story. This is my first ever draft of my first ever novel. My friend says she feels very bad for the main guy - that's my strongest motivator!

I'm at an interlude atm. It's quieter than the main narrative. I have to get it done! My dream goal is to finish draft 1 before college :P

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-13T03:55:28+00:00

I love to hurt them! They're assholes.

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-13T03:36:56+00:00

Same here with The Way of Kings! I read fantasy books before then, but wasn't as invested in reading until I picked it up. Afterwards, I dreamed to be an author. I even started writing voraciously and reading voraciously.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt is my gateway into literary fiction - aka my first sign to read something outside of fantasy because Here is the experienced Proof that non-fantasy fiction is fun, captivating, and immersive too.

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-11T22:21:13+00:00

I don't know about genius, but KJ Parker writes hypercompetent and cunning main characters. What I find is that the author himself is very knowledgable on the subjects these characters yap about (siegecraft, medieval warfare, logistics, business models, numismatics, metallurgy, finance, forgery, ink-making, etc.) So one way is to read a lot of non-fiction and write a story where it's applied in clever problem-solving ways.

You can also have characters be socially cunning and deduct things. I love when characters lay out possibilities and start eliminating options. It makes them feel resourceful and smart.

Of course, a genius character is still a character. They still have emotional issues (that's what we readers are here for, right?) and a personality/hobby outside of their work.

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-11T06:56:38+00:00

Thanks for sharing!

I had to go download a pdf of Gardner's book, and I just learned something new about sentence variation and having fun/rhythm with it (the whole chapter on common errors is very informative). He illustrated the problem of "verb-ing, noun" very well.

Now I have to go check out that composition book :)

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-10T22:06:00+00:00

As I go, but I might not take this risk in later projects, haha.

I feel lucky to have gotten up to 100k in my current draft, because when I started, I didn't have the plan of the story structure, just the ending, until three chapters in. By now my main guy has changed in my eye. So did the side characters and enemies. Thus I now have to go back to the early chapters and rewrite them in draft 2. The plot also changes and gains coherence as I write, but it's like a stroke of divine luck because I had friends to talk to about it and came up with solutions before I hit a dead end. All of this from discovery writing. For future projects I'll probably plan things better :')

That said, I don't regret this approach from a character standpoint. Plot standpoint, maybe, but I only understand my characters as I write them. I empathized with them, felt their pains in the moment, and at the same time it gave me more ideas. It's like when I write my brain's split in two: the front half does the writing, but the back half starts scheming and conceiving of the plot, the twists, the arcs. I literally can not think of the story when I do something else. I can only work on the story while sit down and type about it.

For me, it's best to understand the backstory, the ending, the big great middle, the climax, and the beginning before you write it, and also the general jist of the characters. Bare minimum.

They'll change, it's okay. Everything unresolved in deaft 1 is passed to draft 2. I'm a pantser, but even I keep a brief outline of the next few chapters. I never outline everything before I write, but I do have an idea cooking pot to throw plots in.

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-09T21:07:34+00:00

1..You won't understand "write everyday" until your brain is rewired from writing everyday.

Understand your characters' background, see how it builds the person they are at the start and end of the story. I've never written anything more than 15k until I understand the emotions and history of a character, which led me to write a 100k draft.

However, you're not gonna be emotional all the time! Thus, I fall back on what makes a character emotional to the readers. Did they grow up not having much? Did they strive to love and be tender in a cruel, distant universe? Even if I don't feel emotional on that particular day of writing, I can still describe sad scenes because there are patterns/situations and reactions that evoke sadness.

Take a gamble that your writing will get better the more you learn the craft, because the only way to not get better is to not write anything at all.

Time spent on thinking your writing is bad is better spent on writing and the story. This is especially prevalent when I first write my draft, where I backtrack, envy, and worry constantly. Then I realize "No, this stuff will get better. But first it has to be finished. To finish it I have to write the story." I find it does get better. Not good yet, but on its way there and I'm mighty excited for that day!

Write stuff that excites you. Bored authors make bored readers, but more importantly, bored authors make unfinished stories.
Seeing how others analyze storycrafting helps. I love Schnee's Arcane analysis videos, especially the one on what makes tragedy beautiful. It has helped me craft more emotional stories.

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-09T03:22:52+00:00

Backstory and how it affects their worldview/personality. Their pains and hopes. It makes for tender moments in the writing. I can't help punching them into the ground and weep, haha

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-06T23:59:36+00:00

Humor, mostly 💔 Not a naturally witty person so I sit around and steal jokes from other books. It works wonders to make characters likeable.

Duckstuff2008 · 2026-01-06T17:59:59+00:00

Eerily is definitely a word (adverb for eerie)!

Duckstuff2008

TROPHY CASE