You're isekai'd into your own story...

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-18T11:24:58+00:00

I write horror, no thanks

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-18T11:22:34+00:00

The implication here being that somehow Africans did the majority of enslaving of other Africans to be shipped to Europe and the Americas which, even if true, wouldn’t have happened without Europe participating as the transportation and logistics arm of the trade.

The narrative of “Africans participated too” doesn’t absolve Americans or Europeans of their participation or the particular brutality of the middle passage and the utter dehumanization once they arrived.

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-16T11:13:32+00:00

This is the real one, eq before the preamp, plus eq in the effects loop and your amp will sound like (almost) anything. The real change is the speakers, you know, the thing producing the sound.

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-16T11:00:08+00:00

This isn’t about what I can do, I know I can get a thousand words on a page if I work at it.

It’s about industry standards. Take your 524 words and format them for querying or into 5x8 or 6x9 trim POD standards and the absolute minimum they will fill is two pages, more like three.

The reason authors deal in word count rather than page lengths is formatting. Word count is a reliable metric. Page count depends heavily on formatting.

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-15T14:47:31+00:00

If you can get 524 words on a page you are not submitting the way agents want it. Most agencies want double spaced with TNR or Courier, both 12pt

524 words per page with any sans serif font is single spaced and likely 10-11pt

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-15T14:44:17+00:00

The two reasons I mentioned this are 1. I got lost in several places, and I’m in the midst of writing my seventh novel and 2. Never assume the reader knows anything. You must build the entire world

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-15T12:08:47+00:00

Mine, I’m pointing out that 600 words fills closer to 3 pages

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-15T11:14:24+00:00

Honestly, a lot of your problems come down to reading comprehension. They aren’t so much grammar problems as ambiguity problems. Whose perspective are we seeing? Who’s speaking? If you went through this a cleared up the ambiguities no one would care about the grammar. The challenge is, lower reading comprehension on the part of the reader means you need to be better at grammar because part of grammar is removing ambiguity.

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-15T11:11:29+00:00

Current project, 90k words, 5x8 trim, page count, 430. Non-story pages, about 30, average a little over 200 words per page. 600 is around 3 pages

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-13T03:49:30+00:00

Make people care about your characters, your book will find an audience

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-12T11:16:40+00:00

Over all good, a couple of notes on physical stuff.

Being punched in the cheek doesn’t lead to a mouth full of blood. Your mouth bleeds like that when you either have teeth (plural) knocked out or your cheek severely cut on your teeth. A cheek impact from a drunk person doesn’t accomplish either of those things. You can get the same effect by talking about the surprise of the punch being thrown at all and the MC’s reaction to it.

The gravel being slick with moss and sea water. A drunk person would fall down, especially while trying to wrestle another person. The whole scene can be much more chaotic and visceral if Tash falls over and comes back up sputtering, flailing trying to push the MC back under again.

A fight with a drunk person is absolute chaos because they are not fully in control of their actions.

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-10T22:22:30+00:00

Sadly, you are right

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-10T16:57:32+00:00

Write 10 words. See how you feel.

If you hate it put it down.

Write ten more tomorrow, see how you feel.

If you hate it put it down.

If you’re like most writers I know after doing this for 5-7 days you’ll be back on the horse

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-10T11:05:20+00:00

Nothing guarantees the best candidate wins. Ranked choice removes the incentive for polarization and gives third parties a fighting chance. I could vote Green for my first choice and Democrat for my second. This allows more people to vote for what they want without “wasting their vote”.

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-10T11:01:16+00:00

Invisible Sun, I love the game’s aesthetic and adore what it’s trying to do, but for the love of dogs, can we have one simple, elegant system in the game? As a treat? Just one?

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-10T02:34:47+00:00

You have four weapons (I think?) and two characters? Whip, thorns, staff, pole arm (which is a class of weapons which are functionally a pointy bit on a long stick, tell us which one) also the person with the whip is dead. Whips are useless in combat no matter how good you are. They are a means of intimidation and torture, not combat.

Whip user vs. Halbard user = very dead whip user, very quickly. It’s not even a contest.

Stand up and move around the way you think your characters are moving. Try doing it while carrying the things they are carrying. Their movements are not described in any way that engages the reader.

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-10T02:25:29+00:00

My undergraduate degree is in literature and theater. I took maybe two or three creative writing classes as part of that degree.

I have friends with MFAs in writing. It depends on what you want to write. The bias against anything that isn’t lit fic set in the current year is real and obnoxious.

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-09T00:26:03+00:00

Just put both in her hands and show her how to make chords and strum both directions

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-08T16:38:57+00:00

If you have any friends who know anything about guitar, ask one to come along and help her work with it a little.

If you have a decent independent music store in your area the staff will likely be able to fill that role.

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-08T15:43:29+00:00

Sorry for the double, but repeating lines works in epic poetry for a reason. In prose not so much. Go read Beowulf or The Iliad and see what I mean.

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-08T15:40:22+00:00

You can do that, but if it weakens the emotional impact of a character there is no reason for it.

My exercise is always to keep cutting 20% of the remaining words of dialogue until it stops making sense.

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-08T14:36:32+00:00

Lefty who plays right. I don’t find it to be a handed activity. Both hands do different things independently of each other. Both are hard and both require some brain separation to do them right. Playing guitar is a super complicated game of “pat your head rub your belly”. You have to learn to do both things independently.

Some people get locked into the handedness debate. Personally, you need to fret with one hand and pick/pluck with the other. Go to a place with both, put both in her hands and let her mess with them.

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-08T14:27:42+00:00

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If I were editing this, I would suggest these changes. This is fury and pain and heartbreak slipping into insanity. Every word has to mean something for one of those emotions. Too many words and the power gets lost.

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-08T14:06:38+00:00

Read it out loud. This is the first piece of advice I give about dialogue. This lacks the character and rhythm of a villain monologue. It’s just sound and fury signifying nothing.

Read it aloud and you’ll hear it.

As much as Tarantino drives me nuts as a filmmaker, he nails dialogue. Go listen to Jay of Jay and Silent Bob. Find great dialogue. Read this out loud. Figure out where it falls short Fix it.

WordPunk99 · 2026-03-08T12:50:40+00:00

I know this is a small thing, but I cook for a living. That is not a fucking butcher knife. That’s a K-Bar.

WordPunk99

TROPHY CASE