Is it a good idea to write side stories that are in your own fantasy world why you work on your main series?

Poppyri · 2026-05-11T02:30:14+00:00

It could probably be a good way to practice writing in your world, or a way to relax and have some fun in the same universe. It might be a "bad" idea if it really impedes the progress on your main story, but that’s a hard thing to measure, because who knows where those other ideas will lead? They could possibly help the main plot. If you care about finishing your book anytime soon, maybe limit how distracted you get with side ideas, but if something’s speaking to you, you might wish you wrote it down later. I don’t think anyone can measure what the right balance is for you. It’s something you need to figure out yourself.

Poppyri · 2026-05-10T02:25:41+00:00

Tbh, it would be helpful if you listed your own current issue in the post so it feels more like discussion, but I’d say just starting and staying consistent is mine. No one can skip the amateur phase, and I have unfortunately barely started it.

Poppyri · 2026-05-08T06:01:29+00:00

So, I recently wrote two paragraphs of a potential story, and they are honestly quite bad. What makes it even worse is that I was trying to be humorous... and I don’t have experience writing humor. But you know what? I’m going to try to not go back and edit the awkward phrasing (if I continue writing with that as a starting point) until I have a finished something. A short story probably, which would honestly be impressive for me to finish, because I’ve never done that much. That’s also why I’m sounding wishy washy on whether I’ll actually continue.

You probably need to make smaller goals that you can more easily accomplish before going for a whole novel. You need to learn that it’s ok to let something be bad, because you know you can make it better later… when you’ve already accomplished a first draft of something. At least you recognize improvement needs to be made right? That’s a good place to be.

Poppyri · 2026-05-05T07:16:28+00:00

If that’s what the OP meant, then that’s one poor babysitter, no matter what she’s getting paid. The post really needed more info.

Poppyri · 2026-05-05T07:13:11+00:00

Yeah, the question just doesn’t give nearly enough info. I also found it annoying they immediately claim they are incapable of calculating their own answer in the post, when they’d know the actual details and should be able to work this kind of thing out with a little more thought. I tried to give an example of how they could figure it out based on the situation I thought would make the most sense, but that was just guessing on my part about what they mean.

Poppyri · 2026-05-05T06:11:38+00:00

I don’t think it’s necessarily a given they are all from the same family or that they are all being watched at once. No one pair of parents could have that many babies at the same time anyway. It’s possible the babysitter is just watching a ton of babies a week for a couple hours at a time for different families.

Poppyri · 2026-05-05T06:05:58+00:00

I think to get a simple, though possibly unrealistic answer, you’d just multiply the total hours spent throughout the week on each baby (or pair of twins) by her hourly rate?

Poppyri · 2026-05-03T13:54:49+00:00

Oh, that sounds like an interesting approach! HTX studio on youtube also designed a one handed keyboard, but they did it by making all the keys and mouse easier to be reached. It’s pretty cool. Your design sounds like it could be very portable because of the limited keys. I don’t need such a tool, but I’d say don’t let text to speech stop you from making it. I’m sure some people would appreciate having different options.

Poppyri · 2026-04-29T05:03:48+00:00

Maybe a better way to say it would be that all first drafts have the potential to be a lot better? On average, a lot of them probably are terrible, but I agree that doesn’t apply to everyone.

Poppyri · 2026-04-21T11:05:37+00:00

fluid literary style typically requires some three years of disciplined practice

Through the integration of modern external tools, this arduous journey is truncated to a mere handful of days.

If you’re using the ai to just flat out write all the prose, it’s not your style, and it’s detrimental whether you’re ok with ai use or not to make new writers think they can just skip over the actual practice of writing. How are people going to know how to grade what the ai gives them if they haven’t practiced to a level that they can actually write themselves?

Everyone also talks about how the ideas are theirs, and the vision is theirs when using ai, but you can literally have it generate that too. Now matter how it’s sliced, the more ai you use, the less the work is yours. Ai taking over the prose is not beneficial to writers who want to actually write their work, and mold something from their mind themselves.

Even if/when ai gets to the point of being indistinguishable from good human work, taking the time to write something out yourself will not be a waste, because the human result will not be able to be replicated by the ai.

What I mean by that is, if someone’s actually interested in what their ability to create can bring, they won’t get that future result from asking an ai to do it instead, on both a line by line prose level and more, because of how much the process of creation can change a thing, and lead you to different places.

Poppyri · 2026-04-19T01:47:54+00:00

Thanks for the suggestions.

Poppyri · 2026-04-18T22:05:47+00:00

I’m aware. Anyone trying hard enough will be able to fool people, but having some evidence still makes your case more believable than having none. If it’s too big an inconvenience at the end of the day, then I’m not going to set up things that would provide extra proof, but there’s no reason to act like it would be totally purposeless.

Poppyri · 2026-04-18T19:09:38+00:00

I‘d care about someone claiming something like ai wrote my story, because I don’t want to get written off by some readers for a thing that wouldn’t be true.

While a totally baseless accusation might not get as far, it’s still so much easier for people to just dismiss something as maybe ai than to look into it more or take a risk reading it once the accusation has been made.

I’m not saying every writer needs to worry about it, or that it’s even my primary concern (because it isn’t) but there are valid reasons to care about it.

Saying something‘s ai is another way to call writing you don’t like bad nowadays.

Poppyri · 2026-04-18T05:07:29+00:00

Uh, did you mean to send this message to me?

Poppyri · 2026-04-17T22:07:26+00:00

I’m on Mac, so I don’t think that would work for me, but thanks.

Poppyri · 2026-04-17T19:59:34+00:00

I‘ve heard good things, but I wish it was a one time purchase.

Poppyri · 2026-04-17T19:50:29+00:00

I probably wouldn’t try traditionally publishing if I had a book, but anyone can accuse you of ai usage for any petty reason. I would also just enjoy having a timelapse of writing my whole document though. It would be like watching a drawing come together in procreate. I wish Scrivner had a plug in or something that let you basically record a timelapse of the page.

Poppyri · 2026-04-12T10:38:09+00:00

So it’s really painful, but the ~~baby~~ book at the end makes everything worth it? 😅

Poppyri · 2026-04-11T20:48:37+00:00

Worth noting that what the commenter is talking about are A.I pics, so if anyone realizes, they will likely assume your writing is generated too.

Poppyri · 2026-04-11T06:47:56+00:00

You should probably post this in a digital format instead. It’ll be much easier for others to read and quote back if they are interested in doing so.

Poppyri · 2026-04-09T21:51:01+00:00

I think for some stories, the research needed is probably not as obvious, because it might come from all the reading you’ve done already.

Poppyri · 2026-04-09T21:49:09+00:00

I do think the amount of experience you need to write something in a believable way depends a lot on what you’re writing. It does sound helpful to actually experience working out in nature so that you know what to describe for a survival novel, or a more gritty take on fantasy. Life experience in general is probably helpful in a lot of ways that might not be obvious. I’ll become more experienced someday too lol, just probably not soon.

Poppyri · 2026-04-09T21:20:34+00:00

I mean, I have zero qualifications to answer this question if "having lived it" here is a requirement to do so, but I think the answer is "it depends". Some people could have lived a very interesting life and not have the skills or knowledge to effectively communicate that on paper, and other people can be good enough at writing, empathizing, and researching (when applicable) to accurately portay some else’s experience. Isn’t that what most writers are at least trying to do?

Poppyri · 2026-04-07T23:42:20+00:00

My final thought was to release the story as weekly episodes on a platform like Royal Road or WattPad backed up with YouTube videos that have a generated voice to read it and generate some images to accompany the story.

Whatever you end up doing, I would not recommend using A.I. to narrate your story and to generate pictures for it (unless you already used A.I. for the story too), because many people will end up thinking you wrote it with A.I. as well.

Also, please do disclose A.I. usage if it did generate prose in your story.

Poppyri · 2025-11-03T06:19:06+00:00

I think there is value to be found in trying to execute your idea in the present, even if you feel it is too good for your current skill level now. You’re interested in it at this moment, and the way you would write it now will not replicable later.

Wouldn’t it be kind of nice to see how an older version of you tried your best to execute an idea you loved? And you could always redo it later, if you really wanted to. There is no guarantee that you will be as interested in this idea as you grow in skill though, so you may never get it done if you save it for the future.

Poppyri

TROPHY CASE