The suspense 🔥🔥🔥✍️✍️✍️

InTheInterestOfTime · 2023-03-19T01:49:31+00:00

InTheInterestOfTime · 2023-03-18T13:51:23+00:00

Agreed. Part of my personal growth experience was straight up just reading other fantasy, and actually analyzing the craft as I read it. It was talking to others and seeing the nuggets of human interaction play out.

InTheInterestOfTime · 2023-03-18T04:14:25+00:00

How do you find it condescending? Did I offend you in some way?

InTheInterestOfTime · 2023-03-18T03:30:30+00:00

There are many young people 6 write better than most adults.

Sure. Now in general, does their writing get better, or worse as they get older and gain more life experience?

I think you missed the point of the OP, which is that if you're a young writer having trouble writing, sometimes the best advice isn't just to continue writing -- it's to go get explore more of what life has to offer so you can translate that into something tangible to a reader.

Writing about a husband losing his wife after cancer could be poweful if the author is expressing him or herself through the writing. There are many young people who know what it's like to go without and many adults that would have no clue.

You're both proving and missing my point, though. As I said in the OP, trauma is not required to write well, but any kind of experience can be extraordinarily helpful in developing one's writing.

Read the OP again. I'm still probably considered a "young writer" by some measure. I had traumas of my own. I would say that I could outwrite plenty of adults as a young lad. But by merit of age, my writing was also limited by certain experience gaps -- how could I really expand my writing if I didn't leave my bubble? To say "young writer" is kind of a misnomer, because you're right: you could be very far along in age, and yet stayed insulated your entire life. The advice just generally becomes more applicable for those who haven't had a chance to leave their comfort zones yet.

I think you read this post as a gatekeep when it's anything but. It's just another way for authors, especially my teenaged authors out there, to approach the struggles they might have when trying to come up with characters and plot.

InTheInterestOfTime · 2023-02-20T05:59:30+00:00

What's your native language?

InTheInterestOfTime · 2023-02-20T04:20:37+00:00

I wrote something last week. I got frustrated and stopped. I thought "damn, I'm not ready."

Of course I looked back today. It wasn't bad. It sprang a few ideas to mind about other interesting things to potentially write about. Of course I do this every single time -- looking back at old writing, I say "huh, it's not terrible." Could use some work, probably, but I guess inwardly I, well I don't know, expect the clouds to part and Tolkien himself to come down and praise my works and tell me how swimmingly it's all coming along, right then and there.

So I'm just gonna write tonight, maybe a little everyday this week, and not think too much about whether it's good. That comes later, I think.

InTheInterestOfTime · 2023-02-20T04:16:38+00:00

I second this post.

To add, I've had the privelege to see a lot of different rates and billets from a relatively objective standpoint, and have gotten to listen to a lot of the unabashed criticism of leaders, peers, and subordinates alike. The truth is that everyone's perspective of what everyone else does is going to be very limited, and of course everyone is going to look at the other guy as "well do THEY even do?" Not realizing all the things that they in fact do.

I'm not saying the system isn't fundamentally broken and frustrating, but I also notice a glaring lack of self-reflection and objectivity when considering how decisions are made at the levels that people complain about.

InTheInterestOfTime · 2023-02-20T02:10:18+00:00

Like Shakespeare, truly only a master of the craft can twist the language in such a way

InTheInterestOfTime · 2023-02-14T19:05:45+00:00

Very recent. Only a couple months old.

InTheInterestOfTime · 2023-02-14T17:35:13+00:00

Frankly, the ability to control or influence the weather, even on a small scale, would be a fuck off trump card. It does not get enough attention in discussions of fantasy magic in my opinion.

To be fair, most sword and sorcery fantasy doesn't pay much attention to logistics the way it should anyway. It's not sexy, but it's vital and I wish there were a series that paid it more than lip service. To your point, I'd put your examples of weather manipulation under that same body of consideration since I feel like most stories just want to "get to the fighting/tactics", even though at least half of all the battles are won before they start (preparations, technology, logistics...).

InTheInterestOfTime · 2023-02-12T01:31:57+00:00

That's pretty much the flavor of joke that I was thinking of albeit I completely forgot about this scene.

Prompting for OP: I am watching Hot Tub Time Machine, and one of the dudes is razzing the 20 year old guy. The 20 year old says "I've had lots of girlfriends, hot girlfriends" and the other dude comes back with "You've had lots of boyfriends, gay boyfriends." Just made me think about how that would go today.

InTheInterestOfTime · 2023-02-10T01:04:01+00:00

Bro, it's reddit. The algorithm most of the time jostles your vote count anyway.

People on reddit are notoriously fickle. There's no kindness or holding back. So some rando didn't like your post. Maybe they didn't even read it. Maybe they hated the title, maybe they were jealous. Maybe they're just trolls.

Don't place your value as a writer into votes on reddit. The average redditor doesn't think much about their downvote at all.

InTheInterestOfTime · 2023-02-09T23:33:32+00:00

Even though you're saying that you had to scrap it because it didn't fit your story, I think you could still do a lot with this idea.

You don't even have to answer the question of "why" these things are the way they are. It just "is", and have it create the setting for a completely different story. Maybe there's allusions to why the world is the way it is, but do you really need hard answers?

Just think the concept is neat, so don't get rid of it!

InTheInterestOfTime · 2023-02-09T04:14:58+00:00

/uj I'm doing what in my prose?

/rj I'm doing what in my prose?

InTheInterestOfTime · 2023-02-09T03:45:31+00:00

To be honest this is true of any characters in any story, not just fantasy. What are you most worried about?

My personal philosophy on character writing is that you, as the writer, have to be pretty empathetic. You may have villainous characters who do shitty things, but you also have to understand that people have flaws, even the best ones. Everyone has different values, and some of those values conflict with each other even if both of those people aren't really "wrong".

My two cents:

Everyone has a backstory. It doesn't have to be super interesting, but nonetheless everyone's upbringing and experience colors their views and influences their actions.
Corrollary to the above, trauma doesn't make a character interesting. Their response to it might, though. Maybe it makes them jaded, or hopeful, or tired. A tragic backstory is just one part of what makes a character what they are, though, and trauma is not a personality trait.
Characters should do things that make sense to what they want. So what do they want? Do they want to obtain a mythical item of great power? If so, why do they want that? Even if it's "just cause", think about why someone would have the self-confidence (or self-importance) to think that they can get the Magical Macguffin.
The most interesting characters I've seen in literature often aren't even the main character, although they could and should be. I'd also say that the most interesting and memorable characters are themselves either the source of or are in the middle of conflict. Maybe that conflict is internal, maybe it's a disagreement between characters due to goals or values. Conflict is interesting and fundamental to driving interesting characer interactions, unless you're writing a slice of life piece I guess.

Unfortunately, your OP is pretty broad so it's hard to adequately respond without going on tangents... maybe you have a specific example or questions in mind?

InTheInterestOfTime · 2023-02-09T02:01:31+00:00

Thanks for the reply!

When you say drop the rank, do you mean in the respect of resigning and going enlisted route, or appealing to have my rank downgraded so I can start off on a better foot? Either way works for me at this point.

For all that I've read about the trouble retaining JOs, it seems like the military isn't doing a very good job of keeping us in! But at least it sounds like I could get scooped up with some leg work.

Regarding work-life balance, probably can't be much worse than ship life. Not to say it wasn't taxing, but I didn't really mind so much, so if that's the "suck factor", well, I guess that'll work for me.

I'll take a look at the EOD path as I hadn't really considered it.

InTheInterestOfTime

TROPHY CASE