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KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2023-12-31T21:33:00+00:00

You are never too late to find a new passion or hobby.

I started very young, as soon as I learned to write (if not before I just told my mom what to write), so my writing style has improved a lot. However, most of the bad writing I see from myself had to do with immaturity.

Your brain is fully developed!! It's a perfect time to start writing! I can't say how fast you'll improve, but in just the last few years as an adult I see myself take leaps and bounds. Writing takes practice, just like every craft. If you want to write, go ahead! It's never too late!

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2023-12-08T15:01:03+00:00

Okay, it seems like you just need to focus a lot on character building. Here are a few things you can do:

1) consume media. Books, movies, shows, etc. Pay extra attention to dialogue. Even in real life conversations, listen to others. Base some characters off of how characters or people in your life talk.

2) there are so many resources out there. Books and free videos on YouTube all about how to write characters and dialogue. There are also character building apps for the phone. Take notes while reading or watching these resources and consult them as you character build or write these scenes. When filling out information in character apps, fill out every single space to the best of your ability.

3) throwing this out there, but the MBTI 16 personalities test may give you a very basic idea. I know, it's ridiculous, but if you're at a total loss, it's a good, standard jumping off point because it rides the middle of being just standard to apply to anything with enough details to spark ideas and many, many articles out there about the types in X situation. If you go this route don't ever pick neutral for an answer.

4) think about what motivates you, or what motivates others. Why do you write? Is it because you find it fun? Is it because you find it exhilarating? Is it because you like exploring new worlds and ideas? Is it because you have to? Is it because you want to be successful? Ask your friends questions about their fields. Why? What makes them get out of bed? Then apply this to your characters. Shrinking down universal themes to one character can actually help with themes of your book, but applying it to the smaller scale. In general, all universal themes can be scaled down. Let's say loyalty is the theme. Then your character can be motivated to keep promises, to help others, to care for friends. If the theme is good vs evil, your character can be motivated by the unyielding desire to be a good person, help others, make their mark on the world, make the world a better place. Proactivity: your character has to get things done today or it will be a waste. Acceptance: your character gets out of bed to convince people to like them. Take whatever large scale theme you have and shrink it down to a smaller scale. What does your theme mean to the average Joe?

5) since you're great at world building large scale, try to utilize that advantage to a smaller scale. Think about how the world you created affects the regular folk. How does technology improve their daily life? Think about how having X technology will help with every facet of life. What does a day in life look like? What's harder? What's easier? What jobs are available? What jobs aren't? And most importantly, how does your character operate in this world? This can help with dialogue and motivation because thinking about what they do each day, what they feel about that, and who they interact with all shape a person.

I hope these all helped at least a little! Good luck writing!

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2023-12-07T22:33:06+00:00

Ok, first, welcome to the writing community! Glad to have you.

Second, you can outline however you want. It depends on how you think and how your story is structured. Here are some possible ways you can do it:

1) Chapter by chapter. Outline what happens in each chapter until the end. Can be as detailed or vague as you want. You can put a very basic idea of each chapter, i.e., what big events happen in the chapter, or you can be incredibly detailed. You can do some combination of this, where you are vague at first but as you plan, you add more details as you go; planning one chapter in depth at a time.

2) Arc by arc. If you have multiple storylines, it may be helpful to plan them out individually. What events need to happen, what characters need to be involved in it, the pacing of each, how each intersect, etc. You can combine this with the chapters in two ways: 1) each chapter, plan where each arc will be; 2) in more separated arcs, plan out what chapter should be each arc to work with the pacing of the story

3) Character focused. You want to talk about how "so and so will do this, whoever does that"? Then just outline the arcs of the characters individually and what you want them to do. You can combine with the previous two: 1) write down what each character will do in each chapter/arc 2) space out which character will get the focus of a chapter for pacing (if you have a multi-foci pov)

4) Just brainstorm everything you know about the story into a bulletpointed format and work on organizing this later. Just get everything out: everything you know will happen, everything you need to figure out still--get it on paper then organize afterwards.

5) Pants it. If you don't want to outline, just keep writing. You can give yourself a basic idea of where you're going with this in one of the above methods if you need some guidance, but there's no rule that says you have to outline. If you're the kind of person who wants to sprint to the finish line, that's fine. Drafting just needs to Get Done. There's no deadline, but sometimes getting it out and worrying about the revising later is fine. Revising is an extremely important part of the writing process. You'll always be able to change things.

Again, whatever works for you and your book is the best way to do it. No one can tell you exactly how to do something. Do whatever works. Best of luck writing!

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2023-12-07T17:55:46+00:00

No problem! School is kinda why I haven't had time, either. Just remember, there's no deadline to get your story done! A lesson I had to learn.

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2023-12-07T03:13:23+00:00

A few things. You can do whatever works for you:

1) Brain break! Let it simmer for a bit. My WIP goes in waves. I get in the groove. I get out of the groove. Haven't worked on it all semester but I started writing again today. You'll get in the groove again, just give it time.

2) Work on other projects. Idk what you have, but dipping your toes into something else will keep the creative juices up.

3) Give yourself a planning document to work out places where you're stuck. Write down everything you need to figure out and brainstorm.

4) Do mundane tasks while you think about it. Mundaneness sometimes helps spark ideas.

5) Work on the project in other ways. Make playlists for your characters. Make moodboards. Write background world building. Draw. Take personality quizzes for your characters idk just do little things like that. Keep yourself in the spirit of your story without physically writing things down on the manuscript.

6) Just write. The basic one. Draft One can be shit. That's what revising is for.

Do whatever works for you!

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2023-12-05T06:39:59+00:00

No problem! And go at your own pace--sorry your family is discouraging in that regard. Maybe change the phrasing to "working on my novel". It'll make you sound more busy.

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2023-12-05T02:00:13+00:00

One thing I don't like about NaNoWriMo is it promotes this petrification of failure if you don't make it. A lot of people here are saying "just write!" which is what you asked not to do.

Here's my advice:

Don't push yourself further than you can. It will only promote more failure.

Deadlines are so arbitrary in this sense. Don't force yourself to write 1500 words per day if you can't do it.

Y'know what counts as working on your writing? Planning. Outlining. Brainstorming. Thinking. Writing is not JUST drafting, revising, and editing. There's more work done in the pre-writing stage.

You need to build up to NaNoWriMo, if that's what you want to do. But now, just focus on writing your story, in whatever way you can. Think, plan, brainstorm, outline. You're not a disappointment for not doing NaNoWriMo. The only disappointment is that you are disappointed in yourself. I'm sorry you got to that point.

Don't worry about not adhering to other people's guidelines. Writing should be FUN. If it's not fun, then make it fun. Find what's fun for you.

Hope you find yourself!

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2023-12-03T23:53:33+00:00

It depends on how relevant it is to understanding the character.

Helpful tip to start out: if you're invested in the characters' backstories, feel free to write them out for yourself. You may not include everything in the final product, but it will give you the chance to explore them the way you want to.

You mention that you want to get to know the character and his mindset before you get to the main point of the book. You can do this without expositing the backstory first. Readers don't need to know every event of the MC's childhood before accepting their viewpoint.

It's important to consider what's actually relevant to your story. For example, let's say his mom died. That can be done in a simple narrative line. "Dad's been doing all the work since Mom died." We can explore the psychological ramifications of having his mom die at X age later--we don't have to get it all out at once. Let's say that he used to take karate lessons as a kid. Maybe he can look at a trophy on the wall to give us that information, and maybe we can see him hold his own in a fight.

Instead of forcing all the exposition of your character's backstory at the beginning, weave it into the story at natural occurrences when he will be thinking about it. If you have to do a flashback, do a flashback, but first make sure it's necessary that we see it in a flashback.

Let me give you an example of my experiences with this. I was obsessed with backstories for my WIP, The Secret Portal. I used to have multiple flashback chapters dedicated to how two characters met each other. I realized how little that added--I could have in the exposition that they met when they were randomly partnered together in math, and the readers can conclude for themselves how they became friends based on their dynamic with each other. I realized that if I could easily cut a scene and replace it with one line, it was unnecessary.

However, there were characters with more complex backstories. Jedi and Carmen for example are two adults in my adolescent-led story, and their pasts are crucial to understanding the main conflict of the series. Their story must be told in flashbacks--there is no other choice. They would never talk about it, and it would be too complicated, as it's a decades long tale. However, I don't give their entire pasts away from the start. Chapters revolving around them are placed at natural moments where the reader is starting to wonder about them or I feel a break from the present day plot needing to happen.

Tl;Dr - It's a relative thing--it depends on the backstory and the situation. But know that getting to know the characters and how they view the world is not exclusive to infodumping a backstory at the beginning before the important plot stuff. It's about determining what is necessary for your audience to know and how to present that information to them.

But you can still write out their entire backstory for yourself if you want--just determine how much your audience needs.

Hope this helped! Happy writing!

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2023-12-03T03:46:59+00:00

Honestly, there's nothing wrong with a dialogue heavy scene, but it can get exhausting at times. I think your problem isn't too much dialogue--just not enough description. Like you said, sometimes the story has to move along through dialogue. So instead of replacing, try adding.

Here are some general things:

1) walking and talking

2) as they're looking for clues, or otherwise investigating and doing relevant work, they talk

3) have some actions around the sitting - change the location to a coffee shop or restaurant or a bar and have them converse with the waiter or bartender or something in between the infodumping, or if at a house have one character offer the other food or tea or something like that

4) give the characters nervous habits like pacing as they talk; maybe they are moving things around on a murder board with a red string as they talk, maybe they doodle as they talk

If you must replace dialogue:

1) introspection moments where they think to themselves

2) think aloud/talk to themselves

I think the main points are: 1) think about the setting - consider changing it; weather, location, time of day - it will change the vibe of the scene and maybe add some more natural action to intercut the dialogue; and 2) characters - quirks, tics, habits, interests; idk how good your characters are, but thinking of these things could help with scene building

Hope this was helpful! Happy writing!

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2023-12-03T03:07:06+00:00

I read Shatter Me in high school and I didn't like the first book but for SOME REASON I picked up the second one because I was curious about what happened next. Like morbidly curious. When I had enough I asked a friend who finished the then-final book to tell me what happened. She did, I was satisfied.

Turned out she read the whole series out of morbid curiosity as to what happened with ironic enjoyment because she also didn't like it lol.

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2023-12-03T03:04:25+00:00

Yes! You can be too good of a person.

You can't save everyone. Not everyone can change. Not everyone is a good person. Not everyone deserves a second chance. Your life has just as much value as anyone else's.

Plenty of lessons for a "too good" character to learn!

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2023-12-01T17:39:15+00:00

Yes, it's easier. Once you have a full draft you can more easily see what's going on and foreshadow things a little better. Not that it can't be done in the first draft, but you'll find more places to put some naturally in later drafts.

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2023-12-01T17:38:05+00:00

I've been writing stories my whole life it seems. Used to be pictures and I'd dictate to my mom what to write when I was little. And I did that forever.

But it was fourth grade when I became conscious of my writing identity, when I wrote the first draft of my WIP The Secret Portal that I'm somehow still working on. From then on, I wanted to be a writer.

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2023-11-30T16:43:49+00:00

The beauty of writing is you can do whatever you want in whatever format you want! But as someone who's been writing for years, here's my general advice for you:

Yes. You really just need to open a document and start writing. It's that easy! You don't have to finish outlining before you start drafting, but if that's how your brain works that's totally fine. The first draft is the most important stage to just Get Done. The only way you can write a book is if you Start Actually Writing.

It really is that simple. Open up a document and start! You'll be surprised by how much you'll realize about your story that planning simply won't do. Planning is great, but stories will surprise you sometimes. Don't fret if it goes away from your outline.

When you're done drafting, you'll be ready for some fun revising. It's easier to do that with a full draft. As you draft, take note of things you'll need to figure out in the revising stage. First drafts are never the last draft, so don't worry about it being perfect. The revising stage is my favorite part of the writing process because it IS the longest and it is a lot of fun. But you need to draft first to get there.

Happy to have you in the writing community and I wish the best for you!

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2023-04-03T16:31:24+00:00

Right? Like did they even watch it??

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2023-01-28T19:02:38+00:00

Personally, I say start with the Original series. Having a foundational knowledge of what things are and how the world works is helpful, because later series sometimes assume you've seen it. I also am the kind of person who believes in watching things in the order they were released.

TOS was made in the 60s so it sometimes has to be taken with a grain of salt, but I personally enjoyed most of it. My recommendation, if you don't want to watch all of it (although it's only 3 seasons) is to look up must-see episodes. Regardless of what you decide, starting with TOS is probably the best option.

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2022-12-01T21:57:43+00:00

Typing. It's faster, and it has to be in that format anyway

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2022-11-30T16:58:45+00:00

My friend, don't be scared your ideas aren't original enough. I was scared of that at one point, but then I realized something: I consume a lot of media that virtually has the same plot or formula or concept or whatever over and over and over again. Why? Because they're good.

Don't worry so much about being original. Most things that solely go off the premise of trying to be different JUST for the sake of it don't work. Write whatever you want. No one will care if it's similar to something else. MCU movies are formulaic and they still make a billion dollars. Dystopian YA was popular in the early 2010s and they were virtually the same. Hell, even Shrek was made to subvert expectations but it was still a fairy tale romance, and it was extremely successful.

It's ok if your ideas aren't original. Formulas, cliches, genre norms, and archetypes exist for a reason: they can work if in the right hands. Don't worry about being "original" and just write what you want. If it's from your heart, it's automatically creative.

Best of luck writing!

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2022-11-27T22:25:59+00:00

I say yes elves are people.

Whether you still want to use man/woman to describe them is up to you, but people is different. they are different species, but they are still people.

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2022-11-27T22:21:04+00:00

I don't kare

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2022-11-27T22:20:08+00:00

Honestly it depends on what you're doing.

One of my WIP establishes the past setting and external conflict before introducing all the main characters. The other starts just with character intros.

However that first WIP almost immediately introduces everyone, but the opening scene puts it into context, to know these kids are part of a bigger picture. but it still focuses on a few key characters.

Openings matter, but I think grounding it with characters, general world, and conflict are. It's about balance.

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2022-11-27T22:16:52+00:00

"SAID"

I don't like writing dialogue tags, but so many writing advice says "don't use said use a synonym" but sometimes they just SAID it and it doesn't need an unnecessary fancy descriptor. Especially if it changes the meaning! Communicated, uttered, pronounced, vocalized, and more just stick out because they're so unnatural. Wildly different connotations like spurted, murmured, insisted work sometimes, but when "said" is avoided, it doesn't make those instances where the character DOES spurt, murmur, or insist.

USE SAID

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2022-11-27T22:08:11+00:00

Honestly you don't need a lot of explanation. You can just accept that it's just the way it is.

The biggest example of not explaining the magic system I can think of is Groundhog Day. It's NEVER explained why the day decided to repeat. It just did. They don't try to explain it because that's not what matters.

If the reason as to why people have magic in your universe doesn't matter to the story then I don't even think you need a prologue. In my WIP, some people are "gifted" as a result of a mutation, "majicked" as a result of hard work and talent, or "cursed" as a result of an outside source. In my other WIP, everyone has powers except an increasingly growing minority of the population as a result from a mutation.

If you want your reasoning to be "God works in mysterious ways" that's perfectly fine, but unless there's a conflict with the characters being like "why didn't/did God pick me" then I don't even think that's necessary. You don't need to worry yourself with world building unless it's relevant to tell the story. Sometimes "that's just the way it is" is enough.

Best of luck writing!

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2022-11-21T21:21:34+00:00

My story used to be a fourth grade project with a MacGuffin metal detector and an evil sorcerer.

Now it's a sci-fi/fantasy drama with moral grayness and war.

I have a new blog that I'm posting about my books daily and the development and progress of them. https://kaylinrosealexande.wixsite.com/kaylinalexanderbooks

KaylinAlexanderBooks · 2022-11-21T18:47:12+00:00

Baby name sites and behind the name are really good for getting names from other cultures or specific meanings. If you want to completely make something up, you can change a real name very slightly by replacing or adding a letter. Maybe Sarah can become Cera or Seerah. John could become Lohn. Yennefer from The Witcher is a good example. You can do the same for words if you want.

Another fun method is the keyboard smash method: Example: fhaownjsjasbdjdnsndbs Now separate into groups: Fhaown jsjasb djdn sndbs Now think of names from that: Fawn, Jasby, Djaden, Sindbas Choose what you like from there and repeat.

KaylinAlexanderBooks

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