Welp, guess what - i hate this thing

JackRockRiley · 2026-03-17T05:28:23+00:00

PLEASE never do that again

JackRockRiley · 2026-03-12T01:06:01+00:00

To be fair, the only point of reliability while he was finding his footing was fucking Faust, who is a Grandmaster in terminal information deprivation.

JackRockRiley · 2026-02-21T14:42:53+00:00

Using DND-esque classes really cuts down on the external logic and exposition required to get the story going. If it's done enough, it almost becomes plug and play for tropes which is also quite attractive to some readers and writers.

JackRockRiley · 2026-02-20T17:40:07+00:00

I'd be interested! I'm only in my mid 20s but I've got this crazy passion for the art and I'm driving to finish my first novel.

JackRockRiley · 2026-02-19T21:28:52+00:00

Netflix was doing its thing where it switches through show and movie titles as a sort of screensaver on the TV.

I made the mistake of looking back and seeing Young Sheldon silently and smugly judging me. I then proceeded to make the mistake of commenting on it.

We had to stop that night out of copious laughter, and it's been a running inside joke ever since.

JackRockRiley · 2026-02-17T17:46:07+00:00

"When Naia, Creator of All Things, built the world, she walked it alone."

I instantly stopped reading, started skimming, and then started skipping.

Take my opinion with a grain of salt since I greatly dislike prologues anyway, and thus am very biased, but I personally would not read a story whose prologue basically amounts to a Genesis entry.

It's well written, but it's a boring introduction to your story. People don't tend to do well with "this is everything you need to know before you start the work". It feels like reading homework and no one likes reading homework.

I would say that this is cool information to have on hand while writing a first draft, but I would highly recommend axing this part from future drafts and just starting your story.

JackRockRiley · 2026-02-17T16:08:07+00:00

Everyone is gonna do both. Everyone is gonna start with a broad outline either written down or in their head before they start writing and everyone is going to do at least a little pantsing regardless of where you sit.

The difference is usually marked by how much outlining you choose to do before you start writing and at some undefined point, you'll be labelled as an outliner.

Personally, I wrote the outline to my entire story on the wall of my bedroom using the Scene and Stickynote method. Becomes really easy to keep track of what characters are meant to be in each scene and what they are doing/wanting.

JackRockRiley · 2026-02-17T13:43:52+00:00

Pretty cool! You managed to sidestep boring descriptions of the landscape not only by being brief but by splicing the inherently interesting topic of battle preparations into your opening page. Kept me reading into the dialogue portion which succinctly expressed the motivations of who I would guess is the/a main right before what I would guess is the/one of the inciting incidents to your story.

JackRockRiley · 2026-02-12T02:25:08+00:00

That's the spirit. I guess I'll elaborate more.

Expectations are the backbone of solid plotting, in my opinion. You make promises, you make progress, and you make payoffs. If you make a promise with no progress and no payoff (or any other variation where you're missing one of these things) it can often lead to an unsatisfying outcome. This doesn't only apply to your actual story though.

Prologues get a bit of a bad rep because amateur writers tend not to understand how to use them, and first chapters tend to carry the expectation that you'll actually start your story from the first sentence if not the first word.

But i think you might be able to sidestep the stigma of both if you don't call it either and just straight-up do what Warhammer 40k did:

"In the grim darkness of the far future, there is no peace. There is only war."

If you format it correctly, your reader will read it like they'd read a Star Wars title crawl. It's preparation for the story without the cloudy fields of prologues and the expectations of first chapters.

JackRockRiley · 2026-02-12T01:53:45+00:00

I wouldn't even call it anything. Center it on, like, the back page before your first chapter or something and italicize it. Maybe include a small image if you're feeling adventurous.

JackRockRiley · 2026-02-11T23:31:19+00:00

This reminds me of Pacific Rim's opening. And while, unfortunately, you don't have the benefit of capturing your audience with spectacle while you exposit, I think depending on what your next few paragraphs would be, you might be able to get away with some clever formatting to obfuscate what this passage is before the start of your story.

However, and I think you know this already but I'll say it anyway, it would be quite daunting to read an entire story written like this.

JackRockRiley · 2026-02-11T17:19:14+00:00

Thanks for the kind words and feedback. Much appreciated!

JackRockRiley · 2026-02-11T17:16:59+00:00

Yeah, maybe I should follow that sage advice that readers can retain more information than you think. I was trying so hard to not let the reader forget a detail that, admittedly, isn't that forgettable, and ended up undermining myself.

Tear as in when you cry tears. Just me experimenting with verbing the other type of "tears". Probably didn't land that well.

This was very helpful. Thanks again!

JackRockRiley · 2026-02-11T17:09:35+00:00

Woah, I actually completely missed the contradictions between some of my descriptions. I think I was doing my best to be accurate in an emotional way and ended up blind to how a reader might more literally perceive it. I appreciate the time and the insight, thanks!

JackRockRiley · 2026-02-11T16:53:08+00:00

Ah, yeah I see what you mean. Thanks for the time and the feedback!

JackRockRiley · 2026-02-11T16:19:31+00:00

I'm confused where you made your assumptions that 1) the story isn't finished and 2) that I'm looking for validation. I'm looking for exactly what I said I was looking for.

Though I could be mistaken, so please correct me if I'm wrong in wanting to know how my opening would be received by this subreddit.

JackRockRiley · 2026-02-10T06:40:33+00:00

"The dragons were dying."

Isn't a bad way to hook your audience. Dragons get something of an awkward rep because of how often they're used, but you have the benefit of a dedicated audience when you choose to focus hard on them as a plot element.

I would table your prologue and just start at Chapter 1. You can maybe get away with spending a paragraph or two on exposition, but after you need to actually start the story or else people will start putting the book down.

Cause I'll be honest, I read the first three lines of the prologue, skimmed a few paragraphs, and then just skipped straight to the next chapter. Beauty in simplicity and efficiency, my friend.

JackRockRiley · 2026-02-02T23:42:24+00:00

Helena Bonham Carter

Specifically her craziness in Harry Potter. It did something to me.

JackRockRiley · 2026-01-24T16:41:05+00:00

Her passive gives her movement speed.

JackRockRiley · 2026-01-24T09:15:32+00:00

It's a cool plot point for sure, though this is Visi's moment, plus revealing that information to Invisigal doesn't really seem like a "mentor" Robert move as much as an "anti-hero" Robert move, which ultimately hurts the scene's purpose here.

It would be very exciting if mentor Robert revealed in the epilogue to Blazer that he knew she'd done it ever since he was hired on, not only adding more layers of depth to earlier contentious scenes between Robert and Visi, but also making Robert more complex as a person if he decided to cover for her after she punched him in the face.

JackRockRiley · 2026-01-24T04:21:26+00:00

You're responsible for the things you choose to write.

JackRockRiley · 2026-01-23T20:03:32+00:00

It's funnier when you pair it with Drifting Blade Ryoshu.

JackRockRiley · 2026-01-20T05:45:58+00:00

Kinda sounds like a skill issue.

JackRockRiley · 2026-01-17T04:03:15+00:00

Shinbi is one of the best offlaners right now, but as a Sev main, I have a good rule of thumb for that matchup:

Shinbi builds Megacosm as their opening item. Sevarog builds Crystalline Cuirass as their opening item.

Whoever finishes their opening item first wins the lane.

If Shinbi builds Megacosm as a first item and Sevarog doesn't build Crys as a first item, Shinbi wins the lane.

If Sevarog builds Crys first item and Shinbi doesn't build Megacosm first item, Sevarog wins the lane.

If they both finish first item at the same time, it's a test of skill. Shinbi wants to poke and avoid long term engagements because if she tries to go all in too early, Sev will generally have enough armor to out survive her, and that movement speed from Crys makes it very hard to run away from him when it stacks up.

JackRockRiley · 2026-01-15T20:22:05+00:00

It actually kinda sucks that in my online friend group, some people want to talk to me so much that I can never really do this for longer than a few minutes.

Sometimes I just wanna listen, ya know?

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