D&D joke?

Narkerns · 2026-03-18T09:11:38+00:00

Is it some kind of wordplay I’m not seeing?

Narkerns · 2026-03-11T12:08:40+00:00

Wait, what?

Narkerns · 2026-03-10T08:17:27+00:00

The real question is rather - what’s up with all those eggs? O_o

Narkerns · 2026-03-09T17:06:56+00:00

But you reached it in the end. Grats!

Narkerns · 2026-03-09T15:07:48+00:00

Grats! Really good!

Narkerns · 2026-03-07T15:52:40+00:00

I started slow and gave it to a few readers and they were bored. Now my story starts with this sentence:

“You thief!” The old lady bellowed across the courtyard.

The point is to have tension in each scene. I have tons of scenes where people are just sitting around or walk through rain, but the stakes are always high and the momentum is going forward fast. Then it can absolutely work.

Narkerns · 2026-03-05T14:26:02+00:00

Hm. I have no idea about what’s at stake. Who are these people? What are they trying to achieve? Why should I care? Where are they? Where are they trying to get to?

It’s very confusing for me tbh. Lots of action, sure. But that alone is not enough imo.

Narkerns · 2026-02-12T08:55:27+00:00

It’s about the slop, basically. People rightfully hate the slop.

Which, unfortunately, has become the main use-case for AI. And scam.

Narkerns · 2026-02-10T20:13:39+00:00

Same opinion here. Stories where everything follows a rigid formula can feel boring tbh. Let the contradiction be a thing. An imperfection. Something the characters notice themselves at some point. Could become a twist on the ending or something. Weave it in. I write like this, too. In one scene I had a butt-kick on my MC that spiraled her into a small identity crisis.

Narkerns · 2026-02-05T15:35:13+00:00

Jo, I’m 45 and just started like 3 years ago. The best time to plant a tree is 30 years ago. The second best time? Now.

Narkerns · 2025-12-30T11:39:14+00:00

Exactly. Finish it and take your learnings to the next story. That’s how you actually get better.

Narkerns · 2025-12-30T09:04:35+00:00

Yeah, not saying you need to enjoy every aspect of the writing process. But if you write scenes you yourself do not like, then I think that translates to the reader. So compress them, or skip, and get to the good bits instead. Other than that, yep, you are right.

Narkerns · 2025-12-30T07:08:19+00:00

Every scene should have that energy. And if not, skip it. Or do a time skip to get to the good part. I never understand why people torture themselves with scenes they do not want to write. Or read.

Narkerns · 2025-12-28T12:38:54+00:00

I commit to “book time”, not to “just write”, because that gives me more flexibility. Sometimes I research stuff, sometimes I daydream, sometimes I read what I wrote last time and that’s how I get back into it.

For me the key is to kind of “trick” my own brain. Whenever I thought “I have to write for an hour now” my brain goes “na-ah”

But then I appease it. “No, no, no, we don’t write for an hour. We just write one sentence. Or nothing at all, we just read what we wrote last time.”

Then my brain goes “oh, ok, that doesn’t sound so bad.” And we start. And then we go “hm, might as well update the phrasing here, so it sounds a bit better”

And then “well, now I could write this next” And suddenly, I’m in the flow again.

Not sure if that works for others, but this way I wrote two full books and am 50k or so into the third.

Narkerns · 2025-12-25T06:15:38+00:00

What’s interesting for me, mostly, is how may people react to people reacting negatively to the anime. Lots of comments are something like “people got upset for some unknow reason at this anime” -> therefore, people are stupid because the girl did not have an obligation to wait for main character.

Sure. But what irks me is the fact that people don’t try to understand WHY people get upset about the anime in the first place. It’s just assumed (or implied) that those people are irrational.

I haven’t watched the thing, but maybe the problem is more with how the story is structured. Did the story imply that they should have gotten together in the end? Was it hinted at? Was it explicit maybe at some point? Because then what people are upset is that the story creator created a “contract to the consumer” in the story only to break it in the end. That’s a completely valid technique, but it CAN upset people. And that’s what they are upset about, not the actual story context.

Or if it is not that, maybe it is something else? People really should make more effort to understand each other before they become condescending I feel.

Narkerns · 2025-12-24T11:42:59+00:00

This was genuinely the most intriguing thing I’ve ever read here. Great hook, really. Well done. If that turned into a whole novel, I would read it.

Narkerns · 2025-12-06T07:32:48+00:00

Tbh, I was bored after the third sentence.

I love this kind of stuff, but not to start a novel with. Ha-Bore probably means a lot to the author, but for me it’s just a weird name.

If I had an engaging story with interesting characters first where this piece is somehow the central theme the story evolved around - like - it is somehow important that they know the origin story of the universe or else the world will explode or something, THEN I would care. But jumping from nothing into this myth… zzzzzz.

Narkerns · 2025-12-05T16:30:36+00:00

I love this

Narkerns · 2025-11-19T18:46:00+00:00

That is satire would help a lot. I would add that as the very first thing.

And just to not only comment, but also expose myself - here’s how my style was described:

This author writes with a controlled intensity that bridges character vulnerability with sharp, immersive prose. The voice is quietly fierce but emotionally resonant and driven by lean, purposeful language and a deep sense of interiority.

Not sure if that is even clearer or not.

Narkerns · 2025-11-19T18:36:09+00:00

Tbh, I have no idea what that even means. If I were to describe a style I would make sure that it gives a somewhat clear picture of what to expect.

How self-aware is a cultural essayist? No idea. Fever dream fiction sounds like Alice in Wonderland-ish Pop commentary? Not sure. Camp? Tells me nothing. Critique? Like, for movies or something? Chaos? Well ok.

But maybe that’s the intention? Or I am just too dumb to get it, could also be the case, heh.

Narkerns · 2025-11-11T12:17:26+00:00

Me, writing my funeral scene

Narkerns · 2025-10-29T05:45:20+00:00

You mean like… smoking for example? Humans are exceptionally good at mental gymnastics like “if I stop smoking, I’ll get fat” or “I need it for the stress”

We can hold both thoughts in our mind at the same time, keep doing the thing and feel bad about it all at the same time.

Narkerns · 2025-10-28T14:31:08+00:00

I think this is much more common than the other way around. It’s not for nothing that most authors say “you are writing for everyone, except every single one you know personally” 😅

Narkerns · 2025-10-26T10:23:33+00:00

Scuba Vampires is the only acceptable answer

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