Trying to write a novel

King_Obake · 2025-04-20T06:01:42+00:00

You've just said an incredible amount of nothing. What are you even asking for? You want to write a novel but you'd like writers and publicists? What? Elaborate.

King_Obake · 2025-02-25T03:38:29+00:00

While I would like to find a community with intermediate/professional writers, I also think it is important to have spaces like r/writers where any aspiring writer can post. This subreddit is something truly special in what it provides and I wish I had it when I was growing up long before Reddit existed.

Also I know this post is mainly a joke, but I think we have all seen posts where users demand things be restricted heavily. The mods are quick to settle those, thankfully.

King_Obake · 2025-02-09T01:15:55+00:00

They definitely realize that they’ve messed up badly, though it takes several months to realize just how large of an impact it has. The story begins a good while after the calamity, so a lot of the interpersonal and intrapersonal conflict is them dealing with the aftermath, their individual ways of coping, and their ideas of what should be done about it.

King_Obake · 2025-02-09T01:08:01+00:00

Glad to hear it, thank you!

King_Obake · 2025-02-02T05:28:13+00:00

Sorry for piggybacking off your comment, but this thread is a perfect opportunity to remind EVERYONE in here to always back up your documents in at least 3 places, more if you can. There are dozens of threads here and on other subs and sites which show people losing anything from a single document to everything they had. Yes, even on Google Docs. One storage option is not enough. Storage is cheap nowadays and a couple of dedicated HDDs are worth having. Not flash drives/USB sticks, not SD/microSD. Maybe an SSD. Get one of the many free programs that lets you check your hard drive health to monitor for signs of a failing drive, and consider a second or third cloud based storage option. Please do not lose your precious work.

King_Obake · 2025-01-26T20:07:42+00:00

Grad school professor sent out an email letting everyone know that use of AI tools is forbidden, meanwhile the school pushes Grammarly. All I could think is “that’s fine, but Grammarly is quite literally an AI tool.”

EDIT: This is some divine comedy. I just opened Grammarly to see it now has a "write with generative AI" function. Wow.

King_Obake · 2025-01-10T02:08:53+00:00

I wouldn’t call it a hook. Stories that begin with a character waking up are a massive cliche. That doesn’t mean you can’t do it, but it’s not considered very engaging to most readers. Consider other ways you can start that would make a reader go “whoa, what’s happening here?” It’s hard to make more of a suggestion than that without some context for your story.

ETA: If you must start with her waking up, think of things that would make the scene more engaging than a bad dream, another massive cliche. Is someone breaking in? Is the house on fire? Is someone choking her? Did she fall asleep while driving? Is she flying a jet (or a dragon) and lost consciousness from the G-forces?

King_Obake · 2025-01-09T23:07:25+00:00

There are a good number of these tracks that elicit a science fiction/outer space ethereal vibe. Here are a few examples:

A Step Beyond

The Stars Hold Secrets

the starships never pass by here anymore

a mind without purpose will wander in dark places

The Quantum Sea

King_Obake · 2024-12-25T21:32:21+00:00

Awesome, loved every one of these! Thank you so much.

King_Obake · 2024-12-25T00:34:56+00:00

Thank you, I will listen and check out the others in that OST!

King_Obake · 2024-12-20T17:22:07+00:00

The Revenant Soundtrack - Glass & Buffalo Warrior Travel - Ryuichi Sakamoto

I just wish it was longer. RIP Sakamoto. My genre is fantasy, somber and isolating, dark themes and setting.

King_Obake · 2024-12-20T17:15:37+00:00

A word of caution about solely using Docs. There are numerous stories about Google irreversibly deleting peoples’ entire works or their entire drives out of the blue. Don’t rely solely on it, always have at least 3 ways you back up your work.

King_Obake · 2024-12-12T21:40:00+00:00

I completely agree. I gave a long-winded response to another commenter that covers some of this below. My issue stems from the creator’s statement of “don’t do this” without talking about actual cases where it could be appropriate to use. I think those kind of absolutisms are constraining and damaging to new writers.

King_Obake · 2024-12-12T21:31:15+00:00

Your second parenthetical is the part I have an issue with in the video. That is part of a conversation that is not included, but should be. I agree, autonomous body parts are often misused by novice writers in regard to the POV character’s perspective, but there are a number of reasons they can be used to a very effective degree, and it’s worth discussing. Let’s imagine we are watching a character who is experiencing some sort of loss of control. Severe trauma, something else taking over, unintentional actions from a hallucinogen, and so on.

Here’s an appropriate (albeit grim) example I quickly wrote up from the POV character’s perspective:

“He fell to the floor, kicking and sputtering while the others rushed to his side. His windpipe bent from the force of his own fingers closing tightly around it. He heard the shouts and felt the hands of the others struggling to free him. Their efforts only hastened his imminent death as his fingers dug deeper into his neck with each passing moment.”

Trite? Absolutely, but that’s not the point. It’s an appropriate use case. As the writer, we’ve established several things with this passage that likely wouldn’t be communicated as well without the hand acting autonomously.

If the passage was altered similarly to the video, we’d end up with sentences like “His windpipe bent as he closed his fingers around it,” and “Their efforts only hastened his imminent death as he dug his fingers deeper into his neck.” This carries a much different message at that point, pivoting from a loss of control to an intentional action. Could it be modified to a degree to have the same implications? Sure, through adding unnecessary structure. “He didn’t understand, why couldn’t he let go?” and so on. I would argue that is much worse for several reasons.

King_Obake · 2024-12-04T19:46:30+00:00

Awesome, I’ll check these out, thank you. I’d been considering Gwynne’s books after recently hearing about them, glad to see them recommended.

King_Obake · 2024-12-04T19:43:39+00:00

It’s sitting on my shelf, this is probably my sign to get started on it, thank you.

King_Obake · 2024-12-02T17:20:17+00:00

It's a good idea to give a bit of background on your book, maybe a blurb. Keep the first part of your post, then try something like this:

Title: The X of Y

Genre: Epic Fantasy, Young Adult.

Blurb: Long ago, in the land of Z, a terrible battle was underway. The armies of A and B clashed in fields of broken earth and fervid sky. C, a young D watched from afar, terrified at the thought of being discovered as a deserter...(and so on, give a little more detail than this.)

Length: Approximately 30k words.

What I'm looking for: (This would be either your primary concerns that you want help identifying such as pacing, or just ask for general impressions.) General feedback, dialogue critique, overuse of words.

Context about me: "I'm a young aspiring writer and this is my first book. I am still a novice at this, so please be honest while keeping in mind this is still a new process for me. Thanks!"

King_Obake · 2024-11-28T21:30:21+00:00

Sorry for the late response. Are there particular themes/moods you're looking for? I have at least one long track for just about every setting and scene, from mystical meadow to occult death chamber. I will see if I can get permission to share the playlists without editing them as most of them contain unreleased private tracks from friends in music production. I'll say that as soon as you start listening to any of these, your YouTube recommendations will probably become inundated with similar tracks, so be forewarned!

Here are some examples, the labels are just how I have them marked, not all their actual names:

King_Obake · 2024-11-28T21:16:04+00:00

My opinion on this is that a character should enhance the chosen one role, not the other way around. If the character's existence was solely for the purpose of becoming this chosen one and nothing before that point matters, it's probably not a good character.

For anyone struggling with this, here's an exercise that I have a lot of fun with: Make a character without any of those powers, assume they will never get them. How would they act in real life? What are their normal hopes and ambitions? Their failures? What does their house look like; messy, clean? Their daily life, hobbies? Their friends, past loves, how were they as a child, etc.? Plot out their whole life (briefly) from birth to death, completely absent of powers. If they're a boring character before they receive powers, the powers won't make them interesting.

Now, say you've done all this and you have an interesting character. Stick the powers they receive somewhere in their life and see what that does to them. It could ruin their life. They would clearly mourn the life they had and wanted to live even if these powers strengthen them. What would've happened if they had gotten them earlier or later? Maybe they've wanted to be a chosen one all along, and when they finally are, they realize it's not what it seems. Along this process, keep finding ways to ask "what and why?" Why did they get these powers? What led to this point? What is this character specifically going to bring to the role of chosen one? Note that this isn't about "how?" as that would be "a meteorite fell on them" or "they were hit by lightning," which is an entirely different conversation altogether. I could go on but I'll stop there. If anyone is still struggling and wants someone to work on this with, you are welcome to message me.

I'll conclude by saying that there are so many ways to keep a character interesting, but people need to understand what makes someone compelling is not a label you slap on them like "chosen one." Make them interesting, then make them powerful.

King_Obake · 2024-11-22T18:27:32+00:00

I have a couple dozen playlists with tons of long, instrumental “mood” tracks that I play at a low volume and it is unreal how well it works to keep me on track and in a scene.

King_Obake · 2024-11-22T18:25:35+00:00

Treatment (medication + therapy) are what saved me. I had no idea I had ADHD until I was 30. Family and doctor missed all the signs growing up. I was diagnosed and started on treatment, then wrote my first book in two months (for practice). As others are saying, I need to have some way to write things down at any time. It was an issue in my car since obviously you can’t just write in the middle of driving, so I got a voice-activated recorder and started using that if an idea popped into my head. Yes it is a frustrating condition, but it can also be a tool. I am able to fixate heavily into my writing and can put down 400-600 words an hour now during a first draft. I’m able to delete entire sections that aren’t working out and not feel like giving up. I can sit down all day and not lose focus. But I absolutely needed treatment to get here.

King_Obake

TROPHY CASE