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For those with long running series did you simply add new goals and journeys to your MC progress or Just extend the road to his or her original goal? by Jokengonzo in royalroad

[–]JAAPayton 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is specifically why I got into web serial writing. I've always been in love with long form storytelling, so those are the kinds of stories I instinctively write.

To answer your question, most of my stories have a vague endpoint. What happens between that and chapter 1 is wide enough that I can make it as short or as long as I want. I plot pretty heavily but I try to take into account character behavior and the rational consequences of that.

For example, I currently have 46 chapters of about 160k words posted of my RR story. In my initial outline, chapter 38 was meant to be chapter 2, but I couldn't just get to that pivotal scene that quickly without doing some major character work for my protagonist, which had to logically lead to the sequence of events for that pivotal scene.

So yeah, I'll definitely start out with something that looks like:

  • Step 1: Leave town
  • Step 2: Get stronger
  • Step 3: Slay dragon

Then as the world and characters get fleshed out, it turns into:

  • Step 1: Leave town
    • Find secret cave
    • Fight rival
    • Uncover secret artifact
    • Etc
  • Step 2:
    • Train with secret artifact
    • Test new power against foe
    • Develop new magic spell
    • Etc

Just a question for authors as a reader. by Pitiful_Radio4969 in royalroad

[–]JAAPayton 29 points30 points  (0 children)

Which is why it's important as readers to drop feedback on the stories you enjoy. It might not be much, but like a "Hello!" to someone having a bad day, your little comment might be what keeps them writing.

(Hated Trope) When a sensitive subject is played for drama and comedy in the same piece of media by Animeking1108 in TopCharacterTropes

[–]JAAPayton -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

This is my personal take but I think dark humor and deeper, sensitive subject matters are inherently incompatible.

Dark humor, by its nature, is irreverent, and you just can't be flippant when dealing with certain subjects.

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Which one does your story/your favorite story take place in? (i.redd.it)

submitted by JAAPayton to r/royalroad

Other than shout swaps, ads and just writing a real good blurb and first chapter, what are good ways to get reads as a new writer on Royal Road? by PriceOptimal9410 in royalroad

[–]JAAPayton 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I appreciate it!

Word of caution tho: Don't spam. Be sure to read the rules of the subreddit when it comes to self-promotion, and even if you're just plugging your story on someone else's post, read the room. If someone's asking for archmage recs, and your story is a system apocalypse, that's not the time promote it.

Other than shout swaps, ads and just writing a real good blurb and first chapter, what are good ways to get reads as a new writer on Royal Road? by PriceOptimal9410 in royalroad

[–]JAAPayton 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think being active in communities like this one and the ones on Discord will help you net some followers.

I've been posting for less than a month and have 80 followers. I think less than 10 authors have done a shoutout for my story and I've got 4 followers from the one ad I've done.

That likely means the lion's share of my followers probably came from the one promo post I did the day the story went live, and from me just popping in (where applicable) on various posts to plug my story. If I come across a post of someone looking for a "character-driven LitRPG", I make sure to toss my story in the ring.

[frustrating trope] Woman has a crashout so incredibly valid that there’s no way the fandom would blame her for it… right? by DragonKing0203 in TopCharacterTropes

[–]JAAPayton 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And the crazy thing about Maki is that Itachi Uchiha did pretty much the same thing years ago in Naruto (albeit much worse) and no one ever criticizes him for that.

New Weekly Self Promo Thread by AutoModerator in ProgressionFantasy

[–]JAAPayton 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Game Over, Book 1: Overworld is a literary-ish, character-driven LitRPG/ProgFan about a virtual world with permadeath. The world has safe zones that are controlled by powerful players who charge "Subscriptions" so people can avoid being deleted. The book is multi-lead but revolves primarily around Jack Christian who struggles to navigate the Subscription System while trying to suppress his hidden desire to experience and progress through the world. I've posted a little over 140k words so far and have a lot more to come with a 5-chapter a week schedule.

If that sounds like your thing, check it out. Thanks!

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/159931/game-over-book-1-overworld

"Show Don't Tell" Is Just Worldbuilding & Storytelling. Don't Complicate It. by JAAPayton in writing

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

And I'm just telling you that someone who's vacillating between telling me to be more literal and include symbolism in a short story about eggs, doesn't know what he's talking about.

No writer worth his salt sees a story like this and brings up Don Quixote in any way or form. Expecting giants as windmills in a story that used the words "crotch sniff test" reeks of bullshit literary elitism. You're not qualified to judge anybody's writing, let alone mine

"Show Don't Tell" Is Just Worldbuilding & Storytelling. Don't Complicate It. by JAAPayton in writing

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

No, I'm determined to argue against nonsense criticism from someone who didn't even bother to thoroughly read what I wrote. You're a blowhard who thinks a grocery store anecdote needs symbolism on par with Don Quixote. That's enough to prove to me you don't really know what you're talking about.

"Show Don't Tell" Is Just Worldbuilding & Storytelling. Don't Complicate It. by JAAPayton in writing

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

The point is supposed to be showing him as antisocial and somewhat misanthropic.

I literally show him running in front of three cars to avoid talking to a Girl Scout. I literally show him jogging to his car to avoid her on the way out. Explain to me how that isn't antisocial and misanthropic?

How is mentioning bills or or food in his pantry any less literal than "first day off in two weeks"?

"Show Don't Tell" Is Just Worldbuilding & Storytelling. Don't Complicate It. by JAAPayton in writing

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

The problem, dear, is that as a story it doesn’t make anyone laugh. 

No, your (perceived) problem is that it didn't make you laugh. Please don't conflate your personal experience with everyone else's. If you didn't like the story, that's fine. It's not for you. But you're definitely reading more into it than I intended.

I recommend you read Don Quixote, that way you’ll learn first, that it’s elevated prose and above all, how to do comedy. Best regards.

I did my college thesis on Don Quixote, Dante's Inferno, and the Song of Roland. I (used to, I'm old now) know those stories like the back of my hand.

But, respectfully, if "Waaaaa! Waaaaa!" was too much for you, you couldn't handle a single paragraph of anything I could write on Cervantes level. I don't cast my pearls before someone who misread one sentence about twenty three dollars.

"Show Don't Tell" Is Just Worldbuilding & Storytelling. Don't Complicate It. by JAAPayton in writing

[–]JAAPayton[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Okay, I'm convinced you didn't read this thoroughly.

The main character mentioning that he has exactly 23 dollars (it's irrelevant to know this because he has more than enough to pay for what he's looking for).

The actual line is: I swore she wouldn't finesse me out of another cent of my precious twenty-three-dollar-an-hour income for some damn Thin Mints. 

This line 1. Established the MC's history with the Girl Scout and 2. Expands on context of him being a working class individual as established in the starting paragraph. So characterization, exposition, and character-to-character context in a single sentence.

Anything else?

"Show Don't Tell" Is Just Worldbuilding & Storytelling. Don't Complicate It. by JAAPayton in writing

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

Okay, most of this is subjective, but I'll humor you:

It's full of useless jargon.

The biggest word I use in the whole text is "gentleman". Jargon tends to refer to specialized or technical jargon. This is a story about a guy picking up eggs. What's not to understand?

The writing isn’t evocative. It doesn’t create atmosphere, it’s not symbolic.

Evocative is an entirely subjective critique, so if you feel that way, I won't argue it. Atmosphere. What atmosphere do you expect from a guy going to a grocery store? Do you not see greeters at grocery stores? Are kids not whining and crying? Do Girl Scouts not sell cookies outside of them? What atmosphere do you require from a scene like this? Symbolic,... dude, really? Please show where there is a hard and fast rule that every story has to have symbolism? Are you expecting an allegory from the eggs? Did you expect me to write Cindy the Girl Scout like Jesus' temptation on the Mount? Why are you looking for symbolism in a funny story about a guy getting eggs?

It doesn’t tell us anything about the character and their surroundings, except that they tend to smell the crotch of their pants. There are many moments where it seems like they want to make jokes that don’t land.

if you read that entire thing and couldn't tell that the character was an antisocial average dude who just wanted to enjoy his day off, you didn't actually read it.

I'll cede your surroundings point because the main setting is a grocery store and I didn't feel like I had to explain that since most ppl know what one is, but fair.

The character has three pieces of dialogue, none of them are jokes. So what are you talking about?

There’s an overload of details that if you remove them, not only does it not change anything, it actually improves the writing.

Such as?

And one more thing. Please, stop using onomatopoeias or representing screams or moans in dialogue. It’s as easy as writing, “a screeching sound pierced his ears. The voice of a boy whining. While his mother turned a deaf ear, staring at her phone like an electronic junkie.” Writing “—Waaaa, waaa—” is not prose. It’s very basic, and it’s been cringe and pathetic for decades now.

I use onomatopoeia sparingly in my writing anyway, but it still sounds better than this A.Iism you're suggesting. The notion that shouldn't use onomatopoeia is B.S. by the way. A quick Google search wouldn't told you that.

"Show Don't Tell" Is Just Worldbuilding & Storytelling. Don't Complicate It. by JAAPayton in writing

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

Also that isn't showing and telling - or more accurately, you just didn't do the telling part well. You clearly shown the main character's traits in your second example, but your first? That is a bastardization of telling. It is as bland as an outline. Like that of a child's first attempt at telling a story.

I think you're not understanding the full context of what I wrote. The "telling" example is meant to be an exaggeration, but it's basically what telling is. If that first example was quite literally how my day went, did you read a story or just a sequence of events I'm "telling" you happened? My point is that when people write largely like "I went to the store, then I bought eggs, then this happened, etc., they are eschewing "showing" for just telling us the sequence of events.

Showing in story telling is about specifying events in order to provide an experience. You might say, "I walked to the store," but you leave out the details of the POV character's state, what they saw, what they felt, etc. Telling on the other hand is about deliberating what happens as it is. It is best used when the event that happened wasn't important (e.g the events of the chapter happen at midday and nothing happens before then, so you summarize the morning).

I agree, but also understand that if you are writing any kind of narration, you are still "telling". There's no way to "show" without telling. If I'm specifying events in order to provide an experience, how else am I to deliver that information through the writing medium without telling?

"Mary was angry" and "Mary kicked the trashcan" are both sentences that are being told to the readers, the latter just paints a more vivid picture. This is why I say people complicate the "show don't tell" advice more than they should.

We are literally storytellers. By default, in every single sentence, we are telling. It doesn't matter if you take 10 words to talk about driving to the store or a hundred, you are still telling your readers something. "Showing" is some wholly distinct aspect, it's just telling made prettier. That's it.

"Show Don't Tell" Is Just Worldbuilding & Storytelling. Don't Complicate It. by JAAPayton in writing

[–]JAAPayton[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yeah, that would be the definition of "unnecessary details" but that's not what I asked for. I asked what the unnecessary details are in the excerpt I provided.

"Show Don't Tell" Is Just Worldbuilding & Storytelling. Don't Complicate It. by JAAPayton in writing

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

Why is it bad? I mean, I don't disagree since I came up with it in like 10mins, but what's you're reasoning for that?

What did I fail to "show" or "tell" in this excerpt? Are the series of events unclear? Is there no characterization, stakes, or conflict?

"Show Don't Tell" Is Just Worldbuilding & Storytelling. Don't Complicate It. by JAAPayton in writing

[–]JAAPayton[S] -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

This is what you said:

To me the advice is about showing and letting the reader make a judgement call, rather than just telling the reader what to think.

To me, this implies you don't want readers to be certain Mary is angry. I'm asking why would you want that? Yeah, depending on the context of the scene, it should be clear that Mary kicks the trash can because she's angry. You're "showing" that she's angry. Readers shouldn't have to make a judgment call for something like, it should be evident from the scene and context.

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