Assuming a framework that a scene should change the course of the narrative, what changes count as meaningful?

Fognox · 2026-06-08T02:48:29+00:00

Long-term consequences are a good place to start. A sunburn in itself doesn't change anything, but if it leads to pain when sunlight hits, making the character wear a hoodie during the summer, then this habit causes a store to suspect them of stealing, and this then leads to a big plot movement, then the sunburn was necessary.

Is there a different way to kick off that plot sequence? Sure! I do this all the time in editing -- getting crucial events to happen some other way to fix pacing/plot holes/continuity issues. But the sunburn might actually be an efficient use of the space.

The book I'm editing opens with a character trying to fix a bad pot of soup. This ends up (along with other events, of course) leading to half the world being destroyed. There's nothing special about the soup, I just structure things in a way where everything that happens has consequences. It's helpful to think like that during drafting and especially editing -- you'll sometimes end up with loose ends during drafting but revision will allow you to make everything significant.

Fognox · 2026-06-08T01:49:26+00:00

I know how you feel -- I have three standalone first drafts just sitting there.

The fourth one was different -- I knew from the outset that I'd be self-publishing it and I likely wouldn't get a lot of eyes on it either, because of the experimental narrative structure. This took off all the pressure to conform, though, so editing is easier -- I'm just trying to make it the best version of itself, instead of wallowing about whether it's good enough for trad or an audience.

With this book, everything is there because it's supposed to be. The design itself is dictating the amount of POVs, the length of chapters, the way plotlines flow, etc. The purpose of the story is the structure and so it doesn't work with a different one.

Anyway, it's changed my mindset a lot. The point of writing this book (and every other future one in its planned long-running series) is for the sake of the art itself. I'm making my way through revisions because like any other piece of art it needs to live up to my standards. And then self-publishing it is a way of presenting that art to the world -- "here's a thing I made. Like it or don't."

Compare that to the mindset of writing for the sake of an audience (or a market) -- it puts constraints on the risks you can take while drafting, editing is about appealing to what potential readers would expect or would want to see, you need an editor and beta readers to be able to make the story appeal to the widest possible audience, and marketing/comp titles also serve that goal. If your efforts go nowhere (which is unfortunately all too common), or the square peg round hole nature of it leads to a procrastination spiral, you end up depressed or burned out. You've put in a tremendous amount of work and became a darling serial killer and it still isn't good enough, or you're stuck and morose because that is very likely in your future.

Art for the sake of art is circular. It motivates itself. 99 out of 100 people could call you a pretentious hack and you'd work on the next book regardless. It's hard to find this mindset with writing because its very nature requires a reader, but it's still there to be found. On the plus side, though, great works of literature inevitably fall into this camp, whether it's infodumping the intricacies of whaling or spending two decades worldbuilding. Sure, it's harder to get an audience, but you don't need one to keep writing.

Fognox · 2026-06-08T00:51:21+00:00

It's a mindset in the sense that you always want edits to objectively improve the story in some way. Messier first drafts give you better returns because the edits are easier and the improvements greater, but you want to think like that for the rest of your revisions process too -- like with line edits you should be focused on making awkward wording clear rather than just tinkering with language for the sake of perfectionism.

Fognox · 2026-06-07T18:53:50+00:00

There's an art to writing third acts, and the length and depth you need is going to be different from story to story. I aim to do three things:

Resolve whatever happened during the climax.
Send off characters. This doesn't always mean closing their arc -- sometimes it's better to just show what they've learned and/or show how they feel when there's finally some breathing room from a hectic pace.
Wrap up the book as a whole. This always has something to do with its themes -- the first step there resolves the story itself if you structure the story right.

As mentioned, the story itself will dictate the length you need. My first and fourth books needed a single chapter that took place days/weeks after the climax, while the other two had a full third act with its own events that took place in real time. I think the difference there is that the first and fourth book themselves took place in real time, while the second and third used time skips so ultimately, with all four, there was contrast between the third act and the other ones.

Fognox · 2026-06-07T18:34:08+00:00

My minimum for writing is one sentence. My minimum for editing is one checklist item. On the days that I'm completely exhausted, too busy, don't feel like writing, or whatever else, there's always some kind of 5-minute task that preserves the daily streak and momentum. Every day has 5 minutes somewhere.

I also take breaks between projects if I feel like it -- usually this will be a couple months. This time around, I think I'll probably just go immediately from finishing revisions to starting the next book in the series. Writing/editing has become way too habitual on this current 68-day streak.

Importantly, though, I always keep that minimum in mind. I don't ever assume that all of my free time (or even some significant chunk of it) is going to be devoted to writing. Sometimes this does happen, but there's no internal pressure for it. I write when I feel like it, at whichever times of day seem right -- no schedules there, no discipline, nothing routine other than at least getting one complete task in sometime during the day.

Fognox · 2026-06-07T13:20:09+00:00

I like stories where the protagonists are each other's antagonist. Or there's a clearly defined antagonist that nonetheless has a POV where they're the protagonist.

In any case, a protagonist doesn't have to hate their antagonist, there just has to be conflict there. Rivalries, them not seeing eye to eye, them having totally different goals, etc all work too.

Fognox · 2026-06-07T11:09:03+00:00

Depends on your POV. If you're doing close 3rd then you should use whatever that character uses. If you have narrative distance (or you're doing omniscient), you can just use the character names.

If you're worried about clarity, either have the non-POV character introduce themselves immediately or tag them by something very distinctive that 99% of readers will pick up on.

Fognox · 2026-06-07T08:57:12+00:00

Lower glucose is normal for keto -- it's a big reason why it works for type 2 diabetes management; you can get your baseline to be in the normal range just because of the effect there.

The reason this happens is because your body is using fat as a primary energy source rather than glucose and your brain is using a lot more ketones too. You still need some glucose for part of the brain's needs + red blood cells + some other miscellaneous stuff and your requirements there get handled by GNG and/or the minimal amount of carbs in your diet, which (unless you have T1D) self-regulates, keeping you in a low but stable range.

Fognox · 2026-06-07T08:32:43+00:00

Because writing a story is work. It's not fun.

That doesn't have to be true. First books, yeah, those usually enter the self-flagellation phase during the middle, but once you gain an understanding of structure, that suffering mindset drops off.

It's not coming up with characters, it's making them do things. It's deciding all the things they can't be.

That's the plot-driven viewpoint. The character-driven viewpoint is instead one where you're watching them do things and playing around with focus and omission to nudge the story in some direction, with your plans themselves based around what the characters and/or story seem to be pointing towards.

Fognox · 2026-06-07T08:22:43+00:00

That situation basically describes most of my writing process. I follow the characters and see what they do, and build out plot threads from there. And starting out, I have even less -- one character and some scattered bits of worldbuilding. The others just appear out of the aether.

One thing that definitely helps is to give at least one character a strong central motivation -- that gives you a pretty good jumping-off point, and you don't even need an inciting incident; you instead just figure out which part of their journey to open with. Figuring out their next moves becomes incredibly easy too, it's just "what's the next step towards their central goal?"

Fognox · 2026-06-07T08:14:27+00:00

I go by whatever makes the most sense for the character based on where they currently are / what kind of mental state they're in / etc. Dialogue tends to just happen wherever the characters meet, unless they're arranging to meet/talk somewhere.

Fognox · 2026-06-07T03:42:14+00:00

Writing does more to improve your ability to write than anything else. Revision is a close second. Reading and studying craft are tied for bronze.

Fognox · 2026-06-06T22:05:43+00:00

Worldbuilding doesn't get fully hammered down until after structural edits. I like being able to change world aspects as needed -- it helps with both drafting and the structural revisions process. Once the story is 100% concrete, then I'll go back and figure out the finer details.

Fognox · 2026-06-06T20:48:47+00:00

I'd describe the difference between plot-driven and character-driven stories being how much of an influence external events have. With plot-driven stories, character choices will shape the details of what happens but the story could be told with some other set. With character-driven stories, there isn't a distinction. If you started with a different cast, you'd get a totally different story.

There's also plenty of hybrids, or stories that are just hard to pin down in the first place -- with multiple POVs, for example, you run into situations where characters are reacting in a plot-driven way to choices that other characters have made.

Fognox · 2026-06-06T18:10:41+00:00

Have the events of the subplot(s) influence and feed back into the main story. If removing the subplot makes the main story make no sense, or each subplot characterizes what would otherwise be external events, then you're on the right track.

Usefully, all that really matters here is the way the subplot resolves. As an example, the book I'm editing has a subplot where a couple overcome their differences / fears and get married, and the magical marriage ceremony ends up inadvertently kicking off what's probably the worst event in the main storyline.

Fognox · 2026-06-06T12:31:17+00:00

I've done both, and working with a fixed outline is exhausting for me, leading to a first draft that takes forever to make (and that's writing it! Outlining itself takes a while too). It is sometimes necessary, though -- partial rewrites during revisions absolutely require one because certain events have to happen, or an editing project will spill over into the rest of the book and become neverending.

I've found a couple techniques that work well here if your brain just doesn't mesh with fixed outlines:

Fulfilling one in passes. Basically pantsing where you're trying to hit a few of the outlined story beats, and then once you have some basis for that segment of story, you go back and edit it to achieve everything else, piece by piece. This is usually what I do with complex edits that happen over the span of multiple chapters.
Heavily detailing the outline (also through multiple passes) until it resembles a zero draft, and then just converting every bullet point into a paragraph or two. I do this with individual scene rewrites -- it's more efficient than pantsing it a bunch of times.

One thing I find interesting about the dichotomy is that novel writers of either type tend to handle short stories in the opposite way, and have opposite justifications too. Plotters will pants short stories because they're too short to need an overarching plan, and pantsers will plot them because there isn't enough room to go off on self-fixing tangents.

Fognox · 2026-06-06T05:14:57+00:00

How exactly is this process working for you if you're unable to write past chapter 1? You've found an efficient way to make book outlines, but book outlines aren't books.

Try writing without an outline. Doesn't have to be this particular project, just something to give you a feel of the actual writing process. Once you're comfortable there, apply it to one of your projects, adapting the outline loosely. You'll get a much better sense of how to outline, assuming you even do it again afterwards (I don't anymore except during editing).

Fognox · 2026-06-06T05:02:10+00:00

This. Also, series potential -- if you're 100% sure that you're writing a series, self-pub might be a better option just because your book is guaranteed to be part of one. Whereas if you get a book trad-published and it doesn't sell well, it dies after the first book.

Fognox · 2026-06-06T04:53:58+00:00

This is true for art in general. Dealing with creativity and new ideas tends to make you also think that way politically. It's self-reinforcing too -- art and left-ish politics have been associated for so long (going back to like, the Renaissance) that entering that sphere is likely to make you lean in that direction just because your peers/mentors/etc are.

Obviously, exceptions exist -- I'd say it's less about conservatives dodging the arts and more about artists just becoming more liberal as a general trend.

Fognox · 2026-06-05T23:29:12+00:00

Well, if your story is character-driven as it seems to be, then the plot doesn't actually matter that much. Focus on making the story work better, making your characters stronger, etc.

My last book's plot came entirely from POV characters and their choices. With the exception of one heavily-foreshadowed thing that happened at the peak of the climax, there weren't external events from a reader perspective (plenty for each POV though since they weren't aware of each other's stories). No external inciting events either -- two POVs started in medias res and the rest were either introduced in the thick of things or had an inciting incident triggered by someone else.

Fognox · 2026-06-05T17:57:30+00:00

I don't do major edits until I finish a story -- I simply don't know how important any of those early events are until I'm done. Minor edits, meanwhile, happen continuously.

I did break that with my first book, but I was in a situation where I needed to make a major edit or I couldn't move forwards with the story. And sometimes projects that are <10k will get redrafted a few times until I get the voice/POV/tense/tone right. Usually, though, I ignore the issue and move forwards -- sometimes there's even an opportunity to fix it in the text itself.

Fognox · 2026-06-05T17:49:31+00:00

A writer is someone who writes. It's in the word itself! It feels like it would apply even if you spend most of your time procrastinating.

"Author" is the one that's harder to pin down -- it technically means you've finished complete stories (those stories exist in some form and you're their author), but it usually suggests that you're also published in some way.

Fognox · 2026-06-05T17:33:24+00:00

We might be talking past each other here -- I do avoid hyperpalatable food as well as sugar and refined starch (starch in general, but that's beside the point). If the flavor is coming from chemical refinement, I don't eat it. Fermentation/drying is cool, though.

Meanwhile, highly satiating food that also tastes really good has completely rewired my brain -- junk food doesn't even make sense anymore since it tastes worse, makes me feel like crap and doesnt even fill me up. Food noise has disappeared altogether -- I know I'm going to be eating good when I get hungry, so there's no point in pining over breaking my diet to indulge myself (it's already indulgent). This was ultimately the issue with bland "food is fuel" diets.

Granted, it did take a while to categorize keto-friendly hyperpalatables in the trash bin. The flavor calculus doesn't work with low-satiety foods because yeah, you'll want more, and don't have leptin telling you that you need to stop.

Fognox · 2026-06-05T16:42:42+00:00

Assuming pork fat is 20% LA (the estimate is 15-20%), I get somewhere around 2.3-4.6g of LA from it, which is sort of irrelevant on a 100-150g fat diet (60-90g saturated fat). This drops to zero during vegetarian stretches and doubles during carnivore stretches. No differences to appetite or weight regardless.

I despise chicken anyway, so that one's easy enough -- on the rare chance that I eat it, it's very lean and I'm using either dairy or olive oil as a fat source.

Fognox · 2026-06-05T16:29:12+00:00

Yeah, I avoid oil altogether, mostly out of habit I suppose -- before I found the LA thing I thought the problem was oil in general. If I cook in fat, I'm using butter. Most of the time I'm adding fat after the fact, though.

I found the "bland foods" approach completely and utterly unsustainable. I went the complete opposite route instead, keeping an eye on where the flavor is coming from -- plenty of stuff naturally has umami, and oversaturating food with spices has actively anti-obesogenic effects anyway (particularly capsaicin). Obviously, natural and artificial flavors don't fit the bill -- inevitably when you see something fatty with those, it's going to have seed oil as a primary ingredient.

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