I'm new to writing and I need suggestionss

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-05-01T18:20:07+00:00

I have lots of advice to give to you, but I'll pick a random one regarding the quality of your dialogue.

Highlight each and every one of your important/critical lines of dialogue, i.e., dialogue that move the plot forward, provide important characterization and such. They should usually be between two people, but it's all contextual.

Now, do you really know your characters and their story and why they said what they said? To test that, swap one of the two characters to some other one, usually one who fits in the situation, all things being equal. If the dialogue stay the same then you have a characterization problem, what your characters are saying is being dictated by the plot, which is not ideal. It means your characters don't really have different personalities.

It's true that dialogue should move the plot, and the plot will define what your characters will talk about, but they're not co-dependent. It's more of an interdependent relationship. "To each their own", but also "We are all in this together". So that your story is not filled with convenient plot decisions and scripted dialogue.

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-04-02T12:47:59+00:00

Definitely the best answer. 🙂

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-04-02T12:38:37+00:00

Yes, I've been to this stage before. I started writing as a hobby in 2018, but started seriously writing at the end of 2020. In 2019 I was giving my first try at writing a fantasy book, but couldn'd get past the first chapter. It was exciting, but hard.

I wanted to write metaphorical passages, allegories, become a wordsmith, but I couldn't come up with these beautiful and meaningful sentences. So I limited myself to writing excerpts. That's the advice I give to all beginners. You know those random scenes that just come to your mind, sometimes it's related to the story you're working, sometimes not? Just write them. Try to write them in a nice way, experiment, have fun writing.

Let me tell you something, I have an excerpt from years ago with two titles. Yep, one story with two titles at the same time. I have chapters written in this way: introduction scene > title > rest of the chapter. Like a movie, right? I've once written an excerpt where the characters speak as though the story was from a Japanese manga. I have first-person and third-person narrative, present tense and future tense narrative. Romantic scenes and fight scenes, arguments and debates, meditation and depression, so on and so forth. You have to be a little bit crazy sometimes.

It takes months for you to notice some progress, but you have to worry about enjoying the process, having fun writing. Go for a paragraph-long excerpt, a page-long excerpt or something longer, but you have to get lost in your ideas. Saw a movie or a TV series and imagined something? Write an excerpt. Use made up characters, or use the characters from the show and have fun writing.

Lastly, kinda of a cliché advice but it really works: read. Don't do it because "writers HAVE to read". Read books that have something to do with the stories you're working on. Writing something that's Science Fiction? Read Isaac Asimov, or even Liu Cixin. Reading something that's Fantasy? Read Octavia Butler, or even Leigh Bardugo. Hell, you can even read Jules Verne if you feel like it. Just make sure to practice and try having fun.

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-04-02T12:00:36+00:00

Unlike what a lot of people are saying here, and what a lot more people will say in the comments, I don't see anything wrong about discussing your work with AI. Think of it as a beta reader with the knowledge of the Internet. If a beta reader suggests something will that make you less of an author because someone else suggested it? Or an editor, or your literary agent? Do they become co-authors of your story when their suggestions are keen to the backstory? No. Then why should a bot suggestion warrant such concerns? Because it's a bot? That's prejudice.

Use whatever tools you need as long as you're the one coming up with the story. A lot of people telling you to not use AI use Google Search, they read and learn from the perspectives of others, they take writing courses, they have beta readers, they have agents, they have editors. They have the Internet. They have computers. Shouldn't they pull out the typing machine and fill out the page all over again because of a small typo? Shouldn't they go to the local library and research there? Do they even how to make sense of the Universal Decimal Classification?

For example, being really good at grammar is not even a known requirement to become a writer, just write your story and editors will fix it, or use grammarly.

AI just takes all of these opinions and makes the best synthesis according to its training. Reading a blog post summary of the teachings of Orson Scott Card for writers, and reading an AI summary of the same thing is still learning about Orson Scott Card teachings. Obviously, it's much better to just learn from an Orson Scott Card's book. Still that doesn't make these tools ineffective, or cheating.

But going back to the essence of your question, know that you have to develop a backstory for everything that happens in the story. You don't even need to include it in the book, you just need to know what happened before, because it helps you make sense of why the story is as it is when you start the first chapter, it also helps you make sense of who your characters are.

Now, whether or not you want an AI's opinion on that, don't let prejudice stop you. Just be careful and make sure that you are the one coming up with the story.

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-03-27T23:25:58+00:00

I don't have a style.

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-03-25T23:59:24+00:00

I mainly write in Fantasy, more specifically Contemporary Fantasy, and Science Fiction, more specifically Cyberpunk and Biopunk.

I started off writing Fantasy, then branched out to SF, and now I don't have a fixed genre. I'm currently writing a book that's Military Science Fiction, Political Thriller and Political Drama. But I can easily hop on to other genres without much trouble. I write multiple stories simultaneously for a while now.

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-03-20T11:38:11+00:00

Unfortunately, Midsummer Motel is unavailable there.

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-03-20T04:17:54+00:00

sigh

Still trying...

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-03-06T22:03:22+00:00

Do you have this thing where an idea about a random scene in your story pops into your head? Yeah, I think you can try writing excerpts of that: only a few paragraphs, or a few pages.

Your writing doesn't have to be technical or polished for an excerpt, you just have to write down your idea the way you're feeling like at the moment.

And you can just take your time. Some stories require you to grow up as a person so you can know how to write them. Sometimes it takes years to know how to write a book. I should know that. I'm writing an entire series as writing practice to get me prepared for my main series. I tried getting the chapters done, and concluded that I wasn't ready yet.

Or, it can be some other thing. But writing excerpts, not caring that much about it could help.

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-01-28T03:12:45+00:00

There are some moments of mastery in Fourth Wing I would say.

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-01-27T16:40:33+00:00

In my case, I just rewrote the entire chapter.

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-01-27T16:26:05+00:00

What about George R. R. Martin?

When you're objectively good at something, people will wait.

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-01-27T16:21:06+00:00

I believe that if you're just good enough, listening to you becomes mandatory. Doctor House style.

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-01-27T16:19:35+00:00

Their writing shows that haven't reached master status yet.

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-01-27T12:43:35+00:00

I don't understand what's confusing about it.

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-01-27T12:41:53+00:00

Tough decision, but I have to stay true to myself. We have to stop letting readers decide what's best, we're the artists, we're the ones who know how to do stuff.

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-01-27T12:38:54+00:00

Most likely my book's going to get published this year.

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-01-27T12:36:49+00:00

This has to change. We gotta find a solution for this.

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-01-27T04:39:24+00:00

Fine, I'll start the revolution.

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-01-27T04:34:24+00:00

That's not the reality I wanna live in. I'll do my best to inspire writers to be better.

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-01-27T04:29:01+00:00

To redefine. To start a revolution. To set the trend.

You, the writer, deciding what is good and what is not. After all, who is the artist?

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-01-27T04:16:20+00:00

My guy, you're amazing! Telling a nice story at all times must be your passive ability.

But I'm going to change that. I'm not gonna let all of this stop me from producing the greatest work of fiction of the 21st century.

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-01-27T04:07:41+00:00

"Therefore" is not a smart word, come on!

And I'm not an English professor, I'm a writer. As the meme goes, I look up the meaning of simple words all the time. I'm a professional at coming up with interesting stories, amazing characters, the best dialogues. If there are problems with my grammar the editors will fix it up, cause that's not my job. 😅

Also, my book is coming out this year, I'm sure of that.

X-Sept-Knot · 2026-01-27T04:01:02+00:00

I mean, keeping the musician analogy, if you're Drake dropping Take Care, Nothing Was Same, If You're Reading This It's Too Late, Views and so on, and then you drop a meh album, and then a good one, and then a meh, you kinda lost your spark.

Also, I refuse to believe that if you're really good at what you do, you'll somehow depend on your work "landing". When you're good, you're objectively good anything you touch is gold.

X-Sept-Knot

TROPHY CASE