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[the960writers]

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[the960writers]

“The most important thing in life is to stop saying ‘I wish’ and start saying ‘I will.’ Consider nothing impossible, then treat possibilities as probabilities.”

— Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (via wordsnquotes)

[the960writers]

The Dragoness of Stars for Honestrasz✨

[the960writers]

Hello, I saw your article entitled "WHY DEFEND FREEDOM OF ICKY SPEECH?" And I'd like to ask... Are you normalizing lolicon now? It's not just a made-up story where there's inappropriate content with children, where it's portrayed as something terrible. It's portrayed as something normal and sexy😦

This article?

As I point out in the article, I'd not actually read any lolicon, and 16 years later, I still haven't. As I say in it:

Still, you seem to want lolicon banned, and people prosecuted for owning it, and I don't. You ask, What makes it worth defending? and the only answer I can give is this: Freedom to write, freedom to read, freedom to own material that you believe is worth defending means you're going to have to stand up for stuff you don't believe is worth defending, even stuff you find actively distasteful, because laws are big blunt instruments that do not differentiate between what you like and what you don't, because prosecutors are humans and bear grudges and fight for re-election, because one person's obscenity is another person's art.

Because if you don't stand up for the stuff you don't like, when they come for the stuff you do like, you've already lost.

[the960writers]

I've been writing for a while so I thought I'd share some writing tips I've learned along the way.

1. Never sacrifice the flow for a quirky line.

That bit of dialogue or flowery paragraph you really like but it kinda disrupts the flow? Scrap it. I know it hurts, but you need to. If you really want to keep it, find somewhere else to put it where it actually fits in.

2. Dialogue is a dance.

Dialogue should go at the pace of an actual conversation, back and forth with little breaks and pauses. Add as little dialogue tags as possible while still making it clear who is speaking. You can also describe what is happening during a pause in the conversation rather than saying they paused, unless the pause is important.

3. Show don't tell is a guideline, not a rule.

Show don't tell is a very useful guideline, but if you're ALWAYS showing it can get exhausting to read. Skip the boring bits and just tell us what happened, then we can get to the good stuff.

4. If it's boring to write, it's probably boring to read.

If you can cut out a whole scene with little consequence to the story, you probably should. As I said before, you don't always have to show us, you can always tell us.

5. Everything needs to have a purpose.

I know there are probably lots of interesting or cute scenes where your characters are just fucking around, but if it doesn't develop character, relations, conflict, or plot, why should we care? Definitely still write them if they make you happy, but if you're gonna add it to your final draft, make sure it matters.

6. You don't need to explain everything all at once.

I know it feels tempting to put all the lore, and all the character's intentions, and reasonings into the first few chapters, but please refrain, you can reserve that for your character and worldbuilding sheets. Instead, take the time to let us get to know the characters, and the world, in the same way we'd get to know a real person. Make your exposition as seamless and natural as possible. It will take practice to know when to reveal information and when to let us wonder, but you'll get there.

7. Write in a way that comes naturally.

I know you probably have an author you wanna write just like, but that is unlikely to happen. Embrace your natural writing style and perfect it, rather than trying to be something you're not. Writing is an art, you need to find your own style and polish it as best you can.

8. Try to make us feel connected by cutting out certain words like "felt".

"Chad felt like a glass of water." Can be replaced with, "Chad was thirsty, so he reached for a glass of water." Both sentences tell us Chad wants a glass of water, but one makes us feel more connected to Chad than the other. Though both sentences have their time and place, you want to make your audience feel as close to their protagonist as possible. Make them feel like they're there, rather than just an onlooker.

9. We don't need to know every physical detail of your character.

I know you probably spent ages creating the perfect characters and you want to give us the perfect image of what they look like, but it can get monotonous and boring, why do we care that your character has brown eyes unless the colour has some sort of significance? Try to list off only the most notable features of your character and put focus only on the relevant details. Sometimes you can even not describe them at all and throw in little bits of information about their appearance for the audience to put together. We read to imagine, not to have a perfect image painted for us when we could be getting to the plot.

10. You're allowed to be vague.

Allow your audience to assume things, with some things you can just be lazy and let your audience's imagination do the work for you. Of course, don't do this with important things, but you can save so much time you might've spent researching an irrelevant topic when you can just be vague about it. You don't have to know everything you're writing about, so long as you know the bits that matter.

11. Writing is a skill that takes practice.

Don't be so hard on yourself if your writing is a bit cringe, we've all been there. The important part is that you research how to get better and keep writing those super cringe chapters. One day you'll reread something from a while ago and realize you're actually not as bad as you thought.

12. Leave your work to rest.

I know you wanna start editing right away, but once you've finished, leave it for at least a month. The longer you leave it the better, but that depends on your attention span. A month to six months is good if you're really impatient but want a good result. If you keep writing in that time your skills will continue to improve, then you'll be editing that draft with fresh eyes and fresh skills.

And if you're a fanfic author, I usually leave my chapters for a week before editing and posting.

Hope this helps anyone struggling, I thought this might be especially relevant now with nanowrimo.

I recently realized how much knowledge I've been accumulating over the years, I definitely have more but this is all I can think of for now.

I'm no writing guru, but if anyone has anything they're struggling with, I can do my best to help you out, so dont hesitate to ask questions.

[the960writers]

The Author Stack, Tutorials, Russell Nohelty Jul 14, 2021

How to design a signature series

[...] A book needs to sell roughly 10,000 copies to be considered a success, and almost no books get there on their own.

Most authors need multiple books to get traction, and a series is an effective way to do that efficiently.

So, how do we even start thinking about a series that could define our career?

[...]

First and foremost, there are many reasons to write a book, but the reason to write a signature series is to make money and define your career. There are plenty of smaller series and standalone books which you can write for fun, but a series is about pulling in the type of money that allows you to do this full-time.

It's an absolute mind-numbing amount of work and stress. There is no other reason to do a signature series than to define your career and create something that has long-term sales potential.

Here are the main questions you should ask before starting a signature series.

[...]

[the960writers]

[ISBW] From Patent Memos to Nebula Nods with Wole Talabi

S20 Ep13: In Which Mur Attends Wole Talabi’s Creative Alchemy Transcript   “The primary driver of my sense of success is, ‘do I feel happy with what I’ve done?'” – Wole Talabi Mur chats with Wole Talabi, an engineer turned author (but still engineer). They discuss the Schrodinger’s Cat of publishing, the thrill of rewriting old stories for new audiences, and the joy of challenging the norms of…

[the960writers]

horse people are weird

[the960writers]

Quotable – Chuck Wendig

[the960writers]

when people talk about ao3 and are like ohh its the gay yaoi porn website for 30 year old white women it makes me cackle because the majority of works on the site fall under teen or general audiences 😭

there's a literal 2 million work difference between those two combined vs the 3 other ratings combined

[the960writers]

(screams into pillow)

(find an ending, oh no...)

Yes. I know you're right! I know this! Thank you.

(more screaming into pillow)

I just realized that my problem with this short story is that it feels like it has no point. Because it's short.

Which is the point of a short story.

There can't be a massive arc in 3000 words, just a little one.

Maybe I'm just not made for short stories. It feels like I'm stopping just as it gets interesting.

[the960writers]

Just 1k, omg! The short story I wrote for the "60 days short story" project ended up at 10k. And that's fine! An unfamiliar setting, unfamiliar characters, I think it's the length is needs. There's even two climaxes and a happy end, 10k is a good length for that.

But this is a quieter story, and that's probably my problem. There is no room for an emotional climax because it's so quiet. 3k for a vibe.

"an aerosol can of emotion" I really like that expression. I can do this with fanfic, actually. My ficlets usually sit between 800 and 2000 words (she says, lying, it's more up to 4000 words) and they really do the condensed emotion thing. (It's always one specific thing and I keep writing it because I'm obsessed.)

I'm gonna have to throw this one at some beta readers and brace for critique, am I? (shrivels and hides)

I just realized that my problem with this short story is that it feels like it has no point. Because it's short.

Which is the point of a short story.

There can't be a massive arc in 3000 words, just a little one.

Maybe I'm just not made for short stories. It feels like I'm stopping just as it gets interesting.

[the960writers]

(bad idea) Adding a horror element would probably make it more interesting...

This is a quiet little story and it's definitely suggesting more than explaining. But then it just ends.

Endings are my nemesis, even in long fiction.

It feels like, with the short format, it's like it makes my general writing problems stand out more, like it gets compacted and focused. See how you can never get to the point and never know how to end your shit, now in spotlight on billboard style.

I just realized that my problem with this short story is that it feels like it has no point. Because it's short.

Which is the point of a short story.

There can't be a massive arc in 3000 words, just a little one.

Maybe I'm just not made for short stories. It feels like I'm stopping just as it gets interesting.

[the960writers]

I just realized that my problem with this short story is that it feels like it has no point. Because it's short.

Which is the point of a short story.

There can't be a massive arc in 3000 words, just a little one.

Maybe I'm just not made for short stories. It feels like I'm stopping just as it gets interesting.

[the960writers]

Due to an influx of abusive spam comments on April 21, 2024, we temporarily disabled all guest comments across the site. We have now re-enabled the ability to leave guest comments, but if you comment while not logged into an account, you may encounter a verification page that checks that you are not a bot. We are also working on other ways to help reduce spam, including a small change to the default comment settings on the work posting form that will be rolled out soon.

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[the960writers]

I’m noticing an increase in new fic writers on AO3 who…uh…mayy not know how to format their fics correctly..so here is a quick and VERY important tip

Using a random fic of mine as example..

The left example: ✅✅✅

The right example: ❌❌❌

Idk how many times I’ve read a good fic summary and been so excited to read before clicking on it and being met with an ugly wall of text. When I see a huge text brick with zero full line breaks my eyes blur and I just siiiigh bc either I click out immediately or I grin and bear it…it’s insufferable!

If a new character speaks, you need a line break. If you notice a paragraph is becoming too large, go ahead and make a line break and/or maybe reconfigure the paragraph to flow better. I’m not a pro writer or even a huge fic writer but…please…ty…

[the960writers]

I don't know what tenth circle of hell my YouTube algorithm fell into, but I really wish it would stop showing me videos of 5 a.m. morning writing routines.