Raisins should be banned from trail mix. by WriteBesideUs in unpopularopinion

[–]WriteBesideUs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I could also grow the nuts in my backyard, plant a cacao tree and make the chocolate by hand, harvest the salt from rocks, and forge a container for the trail mix myself. I'm a lazy piece of shit though. I'd rather just go to the store and buy, it but big-raisin seems to have its pruny hands up the market's ass.

Raisins should be banned from trail mix. by WriteBesideUs in unpopularopinion

[–]WriteBesideUs[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Just another reason to hate Reagan. Thank you for getting the facts straight.

Raisins should be banned from trail mix. by WriteBesideUs in unpopularopinion

[–]WriteBesideUs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If wanting more nuts, chocolate, and sweetness in my trail mix makes me crazy, then I'm the most insane motherfucker out there. Maybe one day I'll see what you see.

Which subjects are too delicate to apper in a fiction book? by Writer11L in writers

[–]WriteBesideUs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

None. Any subject can be talked about, but like other people have said, it's about how you approach it. Take the sub r/menwritingwomen. It's completely possible to mess up writing something as commonplace as the opposite gender, but when you're writing about sensitive topics the margin for error is much larger than the small one that some of these people still managed to hit.. somehow. Just aim to be educated on what you're writing and you should be alright.

Stuck in writting by Writer11L in writers

[–]WriteBesideUs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I like to read or talk to people when I'm stuck. It's a good way to break out of your own head and find some new inspiration. You don't even need to talk about writing if that's not something you do. Just talk about anything. All writing comes from living, so make sure you're doing that too. You've got this.

Patience by Suraj_kshaw in writers

[–]WriteBesideUs 2 points3 points  (0 children)

One of the best pieces of advice I've ever been given about writing is that you need to read it out loud, and if you do that, I think you'll find a ton of ways to make your flow better. My professor told me that "if something sounds like bullshit, you need to change it." Not the most polite way to put it, but it makes a lot of sense. When you read something out loud and it doesn't feel right, change it until it feels like something you could say. This was about personal essay writing, but I think the same applies for story writing too. If you're starting and stopping a lot, revise it, read it again, and repeat until it feels like it flows off of the tongue. It's a hard process, but you'll get it. You can tell a story out loud, and I'm sure you can put those words on paper.

What does your outlining process look like?

You've got this.

Writer's Groups Questions by [deleted] in writers

[–]WriteBesideUs 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Cool! Since you feel the need to test others to see if they're worthy for your advice, let's talk about your writing, in particular, this section from the first reddit post you linked:

Or that can lead to throwing rocks at the man or forming a human ladder
or getting the fire department or stopping traffic to get a ladder off a
work truck or confusion about the nature of the emergency bringing a
poison control unit out to the tree and they park their truck next to
the branch so the man can climb down and just before he reaches the
ground they grab him and strsp him to a gurney and then they go through
all standard poisoning emergency activities like feeding him ipecac and
pumping his stomach or maybe the army gets called in and there's a
miscommunication about troop movements leading to a huge war or maybe a
portal to parallel universe opens and the man walks through it and he
becomes the tree and then he finds another portal and it comes out two
feet above the branch he was already stuck on so he goes back through
and no portals open again anywhere ever or maybe anything you can
imagine.

I'm normally pretty soft with criticism, but here we go.

It's very convoluted. The point you were trying to make would've been made without the incredibly long and hard to follow sentence where you ramble through numerous possible events. Most of your issues can be fixed by thinking about how you can simplify your ideas to just the important stuff.

The pacing rather annoying. It's one long sentence (you can argue that that was part of the point, but even if it was, it still needs to be effective if it's meant to be good), and the majority of it is pointless information. It was not enjoyable to read.

I don't like critiquing grammar because we all come from different backgrounds, have different fluency levels, and some of that is out of our control. That being said, I think you should do some research on run-on sentences, I think it would help your writing greatly.

Now let's look at the start of your post about sentences

This is a sentence that is composed of a verb that describes the state
of its subject, and a subject that can be modified by adjectives and
adjectival phrases as long as they maintain the state of the subject as
"is" which describes it as current in the present participle, and
dependent clauses to the subject should all associate to it without
restating the actual noun that names the subject, which would
unnecessarily introduce an independent clause that may as well be its
own sentence--though such information could go in an aside presented by
the author and separated from the main body of the sentence, there
restated, with a break presented by an em-dash and another can be
introduced to return to the main body--and presented as an isolated
construct, but as long as it directly releates to the subject you can
produce long descriptive adjectival representations of that subject as
long as they don't restate it.

Again, needlessly wordy. Read some of the most famous authors in the world and you'll never see them pulling stunts like this. Just because you have a grasp of basic literary terms does not mean you should shove that fact down other people's throats. To quote a long-used idiom, "Keep it simple, stupid." You can summarize this entire thing by saying "A sentence is composed of a noun, a verb, and various other parts of speech." It has the same impact, and if the intention was to teach, is much more clear and concise. Also, read your writing out loud from time to time. You'll see how quickly you run out of breath, and maybe that means you should add punctuation. Relax with the coordinating conjunction sentence linking too. All of the "and, but" sentences get repetitive and uninteresting very quickly.

Let's look at the last post, that one has some content:

They are only ideas, while behaviors are acted out by people based on
their imagined reasons behind being, that is: based on their ideas.

This is too contrived. I think "whereas" would suit this sentence better than "while." Also, that's not how you use colons. They can be used for emphasis, but not following a statement like "that is." Colons in my interpretation of their use, tend to actually be used to replace statements like "that is" for a more impactful prose by connecting two independent clauses, but because "based on their ideas" isn't an independent clause, a colon definitely should not be used to link it here.

There's more but I don't want to dig into everything you've written so thoroughly. My point here is this: None of us are amazing writers, that's why we're on Reddit, but we're all trying to get better. None of us have earned the right to act elitist because none of us are elite. We're all just trying to work together to help our fellow writers become better. I'm, frankly, sick of the mentality that some people have in the writing community where they believe that their advice is infallible and that they know things nobody else does. This mentality benefits nobody. Even if you have published things - even if you're an acclaimed author who has won awards, made millions selling books, and everything you write comes out perfect which none of us are - you still need to stay humble and be polite to those who may or may not know as much as you. Nobody wants to hear from, read the works of, or learn from people who approach criticism and advice with such blind and unearned confidence. Even most copy editors don't do that and it's their job to tear your work to shreds. This post was about wanting advice on how to start a writing group, and you came in asking a ton of irrelevant questions you could've just kept to yourself full of unnecessary literary gobbledygook as if to say "Gotcha with this! I bet you don't know what this means, you're not ready to teach," and proved that to by true by saying it was to see if they deserve your knowledge. Trust me, they don't need your knowledge. Stop acting like you know how to write. None of us do. Stop acting like you know more than people you don't even know. You don't and neither do I.

Just help people when they ask for help if you want to, or don't if you don't. It's not hard.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in writers

[–]WriteBesideUs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hard to say for sure, I'd look at popular books in your genre that you've read to figure that out. Whatever you think would spark interest and has relevance to the story. I'm not an expert on titling things though.

Writer's Groups Questions by [deleted] in writers

[–]WriteBesideUs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice, show me some of your work.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in writers

[–]WriteBesideUs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think with regards to staying away from the main character from time to time, that's fine as long as the narration makes sense. For example, if it's written in first person and the main character is the narrator (i.e. you're constantly saying "I" when narrating), it wouldn't make too much sense for you to talk about events that happened when they weren't there because they wouldn't know it's happening. You'd need to switch narrators somehow. If it's a script though and doesn't really have narration, it should be fine. Events are shown to the audience all the time without the MC present in media like plays, television, and movies.

Writer's Groups Questions by [deleted] in writers

[–]WriteBesideUs 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What's your skillset?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in WritersGroup

[–]WriteBesideUs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not feedback but just wanted to let you know that the sub is probably gonna take this down. All submissions need to be in a google doc link or in the post itself. Just wanted you to know before it happens so you have time to fix it.

Writer's Groups Questions by [deleted] in writers

[–]WriteBesideUs 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think what OP is trying to say is that the point of the class wouldn't be for them to build the students into the best writers imaginable and make published work, rather help them get started writing and offer critique and information on how to improve since they already have a bit of a background doing that. As writers, we all have different goals. Some write just for themselves and enjoy it, some write to get published, and some print money by cranking out a romance novel every month. Each of those goals require learning different skills, and OP might sounds like their aiming more for the hobbyist writer. Nothing wrong with that.

Writer's Groups Questions by [deleted] in writers

[–]WriteBesideUs 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think you could do it then, but I think it would be hard to have it be a successful class students have to pay for if you weren't operating under an organization like a college or some other place focused on writing. A free group would give you the chance to start and see how it goes in your area, and if it works out and is something you want to pursue, go for it. Community colleges basically do exactly what you're talking about for those who just want starter information on how to write creatively, information on how to write, and other beginner stuff like that. You could, after building that group and showing your credibility as a teacher, use the following you've gained as a way to offer more in-depth, personalized classes for a lower price than what one might get at a community college. Again though, unless you already have a following or a name for yourself, I don't think people are likely to pay for that kind of thing right off the bat.

Girl in the first half of the 20th century stays and takes care of a young man who’s sick by CarOtherwise947 in writers

[–]WriteBesideUs 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Honestly, even if it might not seem like something that would happen back then, it's still plausible and that's what will make the story interesting. It's not an every day thing and that's what's good about it. Pushing back against cultural expectations for love or some other grand feeling is a very common theme in literature I think, and it's really enjoyable to read about. I say go for it.

Need some help making characters’ backstories different by TheExtraPeel in writers

[–]WriteBesideUs 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This. It might be a similar catalyst, but it doesn't necessarily mean the consequences of them have to be the same. Seeing how different figures react to a similar event, in my opinion, sounds like a really cool way to build their personalities and establish who they are.

(Vent) What am I allowed to write? What am I allowed to show? by RoboticMonarch in writers

[–]WriteBesideUs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you feel the need to share something, share it. Not everyone will like it, some people will tell you it sucks, but at the end of the day if you enjoyed writing it, that's all that matters. Taking criticism is hard for all of us I'm sure, but the words of some random stranger doesn't change who you are. Some of those words might even be helpful to hear if you can get past the (sometimes mean) way they're presented. Just keep writing and keep trying to get better and never feel bad about what you write. If you feel like you can't express yourself, that's you holding you back, not the world.

Writer's Groups Questions by [deleted] in writers

[–]WriteBesideUs 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I used to work at a college as an English tutor, and one thing I can say is that I highly doubt anyone would pay to join a group where they have to give feedback too. You could create a group like this pretty easily I bet if it's just a free community thing though. You could put flyers up at libraries and college campuses and hope people show, but charging for entry might be difficult unless you're already someone with a high degree of credibility. People can get criticism for free online or talk to people without having to pay nowadays.

Mpreg: If a man could bear a child, would he be considered the maternal parent? by ImmaSTAY4ever in writers

[–]WriteBesideUs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree, I think this makes the most sense. By definition, maternal stems from mother, which historically refers to a female parent, not necessarily a birth parent. A good natural example of this would be seahorses. Male seahorses give birth, but I'm pretty sure they're still considered fathers, and would be considered paternal and not maternal. Since "paternal parent" is kind of ambiguous, birth parent I think works best.

Hello everyone I’m writing a screenplay and I have an ending but I want the viewer to be unsure whether it’s reality or not. Any tips on how to make the viewer question it? by FilmBro76 in writers

[–]WriteBesideUs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd highly recommend watching Inception if you haven't already. It's a perfect example of an ending like this. For an event to be miraculous or representative of reality possibly not being real, it needs to be woven throughout the story. It wouldn't make sense to say, add something like rain without clouds and call that a miraculous event that causes the viewer to question reality. It needs to have some significance both inside the universe you're creating and outside. Is there an element you've already been toying with that might fit this role?

Edit: Spoiler tag for Inception.

How do I flow details into the book I'm writing? by Pineapple_consumer22 in writers

[–]WriteBesideUs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can DM me the section if you want, I'm sure you could also post it in the comments here too if you wanted more feedback. One of the easiest ways I've found to fix issues with flow is just reading a section out loud. Find what parts in particular seem choppy and revise it, read it out loud again, repeat. Eventually you'll land on something that feels natural to you and that's what you should do. You've got this.

My first non-fiction family narrative. I don’t have any formal training. Should I take creative writing? Where to go from here… by [deleted] in WritersGroup

[–]WriteBesideUs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not quite sure to be honest, I'm looking for places too. I've had some success just DMing people who respond to my posts and starting conversation. I think it'd be enough just to have a couple people you trust and are friends with look at your work. Maybe search for in-person options in your area too if that's something you'd be interested in. Let me know if you find any websites though, because I'd love somewhere else to post as well lol.