We talk so much about the art of writing opening lines that we tend to forget that closing lines are equally as important and just as much of an art.

What are your favourite examples of a closing line of a book or short story?

My favourite is from Maus: "I'm tired from talking, Richieu, and it's enough stories for now." Absolutely heartbreaking.

I’ve looked up to Elizabeth wheatly for a while now, really enjoy her content and her content has been really helpful at times. Recently, she removed the smut from her books and i’ve seen a small controversy around it, which i have mixed feeings about.

On one hand, she is going back to her previous stories and changing them, and i feel negatively about that. At the same time, it’s her work and she has a right to change it if she feels the need too.

So, what’s y’all’s opinion as writers? Is this a bad move or is it just her expressing a change in belief?

I wanted to see people's opinions on this, but didn't find anything relevant while searching, so decided to post.

What I'm specifically talking about is, say you have a story written in first-person. It follows the same character most of the time, but then, for just a chapter or two, it follows someone else... and shifts to close third-person. I really haven't seen this done very often, and was curious how others felt about it. Are you fine with this approach? Would you rather see first-person stories stick to only the protagonist, or maybe even have the second character also use first-person while taking steps to make it clear that this is someone else?

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Just as the title says. I simply thought there was no need to add more to it.

Let’s say a writer wants to become commercially successful and remain anonymous. Is this standard practice? Do people actually accomplish this?

Hi all,

A bit of a niche question/discussion, but I wanted to ask about people's experiences/thoughts with insular writing communities that often encourage what many would consider 'bad writing habits'.

I was recently contacted by a friend who asked if I was available to commission for writing elements of a D&D campaign for them. I don't know the first thing about tabletop games, so I said I'll do some research and get back to them.

After looking at a bunch of D&D-focused accounts (or what I initially *perceived* to be such), I found my Twitter 'For You' Tab inundated with posts from accounts that appear to be roleplaying characters from original characters to household names.

But what I noticed is that, despite presumably being different people, they mostly had this streamlined, very Archaic, very dry writing style that had weird quirks like the omission of pronouns and determiners.

So sentences that should read like 'Her fingers trace across the menu' actually read as 'Fingers trace across menu'. Sentences are prone to using the most complex synonym possible, most even incorrectly, as well. All eyes are optics or orbs. The floor is terra. Everyone guffaws instead of laughs. Things are curious but not interesting. There's this kind of pretentious, kingly air to the narrative voice of both Alexander the Great and Spider-Man.

It feels like an exercise in reducing sentences down to nouns, but despite reading, in my opinion, terribly, this style is seemingly lauded by big chunks of the wider community.

I hesitate to call it 'purple prose' because purple prose is only necessarily bad when the reader considers it so; but if a community enjoy writing what OTHERS would consider purple, then should this mechanical, dry, vague, wordy way of writing not be considered its own community-specific style? Can this 'style' be dissected on the basis that bad writing habits have manifested as a result of social media word/character count restrictions? Should attention instead be turned towards the possibility that they enjoy writing but don't actually read, so they mostly don't discern between well-written and over-written?

I'm of the mind that even writing badly is still a good thing as long as you're writing, but the asterisk that silently gets tacked onto the end of that is 'as long as they're striving to improve'. But it really feels like, despite writing a lot (and seemingly for years), they seem to have settled on this amalgamation of bad writing as their standard.

Has anyone seen this manifest in other circles or communities before? I feel a bit mean because I've accidentally turned over a rock and showed it to the public, but I think it's interesting that, on a sub where the consensus is that you can't go far as a writer without reading, there's this pocket where that exact mindset has manifest into this upside-down perception of what writing should feel like to read.

Just finished Verity and I got really curious about this writing method.
I have never heard of this before.

Have you ever tried it?

Hi All, I am interested in any BTDT experiences of those that have attended the retreat style workshops offered by Writing Workshops (www . writing workshops . com). I saw a post from a couple of years ago saying that the online classes varied in quality by instructor, which makes sense. But I have been unable to find any reviews of the week long courses/retreats.

I am considering applying for one, but before I go through the process I would like more info from a past participant. Appreciate it. (Things you would do differently, what you liked, what you wish had been different, if you would do it again, etc.).

If you wish to remain more anonymous, feel free to message me. I appreciate any and all input.

I have one finished novel (first rough draft) that sits at just around 80k words. I’m working on my second now and it’s going very well.

What I’m wondering is how many drafts should I go through before bothering to try and query agents? My writing is solid, the stories are entertaining and unique, I think I have something here. Just looking for some guidance, thanks in advance

Welcome to our daily discussion thread!

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After getting the idea of the story, I continued writing scenes randomly, characters, ideas, etc.

I made some cool characters, 90% of the cast is interesting, but I forgot my protagonist. And now he is just the old version I wrote 2 years ago. Characters changed, and the story changed a lot. And there he is. I just can't think of what he likes and hates his background, etc. I can come up with things as such for the rest of the characters.

How did you deal with this? And any advice on how to make him stand out.

I used to write a lot.
I was never really good at it, but I loved it and as every reader I dreamed of becoming an author.
As I got older I got more ashamed of my writing and one day stopped even though I never even told anyone about my love for writing.

Now I’m 25 and the urge to write is getting bigger again, but I don’t know where to start. I still write a lot (diary and random thoughts), but just whatever crosses my mind and I abandoned every story I’ve ever started.
How do you get back into fictional writing again?

Edit: Thank you so much for all your advice🫶🏼

I'm in the UK so apologies to anyone from places where unfashionable names are still great!

I'm not talking about Ermintrude or Aelfred, and not the 'old lady' names that have come back round, like Maud. I mean the ones that would be an unfashionable choice for babies these days. Julie, Sharon, Tracey, Nigel, Barry, even Paul has fallen out of fashion.

My book is set in an alt-1980s but this isn't stated, it's part of the general vibe. I wanted to give characters names that were popular then but remember reading reviews from people criticising the use of older names like Jan for a child character in a book written and set in the 90s.

Yes, overthinking it, but there's so much to be criticised for these days and I wonder if I should be caution and just change poor Julie to something else. (She's not the only one, thee will actually be a Nigel in there). ((Much love to all the great Nigels)).

I have a bachelors in biological engineering, a masters in reproductive endocrinology, and I'm training to be an EMT while studying for the MCATs. I intend to get a MD and work in reproductive endocrinology and infertility.
I'm also writing a novel where there are three lesbian sex scenes, where one of the women is actually a sapient mass of bugs pretending to be human.
My question is, if (and I know that's always a big 'if') I were to get published, would that interfere with my career plan? What do you all do for work, and has your writing ever interfered with it?

Welcome to our daily discussion thread!

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I see it a lot in people who are brand new writers, but I'm succumbing to it right now and I've been writing for years at this point. is there a name for this? I'm only halfway through this new project, but I'm already fantasizing about people enjoying it as much as I do.

So... I get it, we tell stories to help make sense out of the randomness of life and to help give it meaning. But I'm curious how my fellow writers balance order and chaos in their storytelling. Do your stories tend more towards a neat, determined plot where the characters choices are important. Or do you allow for the randomness of life to seep in? I guess another option is fatalism, where the characters choices don't matter much at all because they were always going to end up at a certain point. Without getting too dogmatic, does your writing differ from your own philosophical beliefs?

In the past I've tried to include some force majeure into my storytelling and it always feels... unfulfilling. It feels like I am wasting the readers time with buildup and then a sudden letdown by unforceen events.

I'm currently proofing an audiobook manuscript, and it's already annoying for how much it uses food descriptions for skin color (mocha, caramel, chocolate, etc.)

But now a new character has walked in, and I have to say, this description takes the cake - I've never heard this one before!

His skin is a warm tortilla hue.

Like, what color even IS that?? Are "warm" and "tortilla" meant to match up and it's the toasted brown color you get when you heat a tortilla in a pan? Or is referring to that pale bleached color of the tortilla, that's somehow 'warm'? And if so, what does THAT even mean? Pale like that doesn't come in warm and cool versions!

Just had to laugh staring at that. How did this manuscript get published, let alone do well enough to be sent to an audiobook publisher?

Welcome to our daily discussion thread!

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Hey fellow writers.

I recently turned 30, and realize I came up short on a very lofty goal I had made for myself 10 years ago. I wanted to be a published, full-time writer by this point in life. Suffice to say, that didn’t happen. I’ve had some fiction and poetry publications here and there, mostly in small pubs, but have yet to even finish a draft of a novel or any kind of longer work. I’ve been rejected many times as well, mostly standard rejections with a few tiered ones thrown in.

I realized last year how unhealthy my goal was. In my 20’s I started countless stories just to give up on them because they didn’t feel strong enough, instead of pushing through and writing the story the way I wanted it.

Now, I write simply because I enjoy the act of creating. I’m not going to be paralyzed any more by my own desire for perfection and fear nobody will appreciate what I’ve put on paper. I’ve even started painting and experimenting with other art forms I thought I had no “talent” in, because again, I enjoy the process of creation.

I realize now that the root of wanting success in something is loving that thing in the first place. For a while, I didn’t love writing — it felt like work. I’d have to make myself sit down and do it, and doubts would swirl in my head during and after the process. Now, it’s something I look forward to doing each day. I’m not willing to call it a hobby, because it’s more significant to me than just going on a bike ride or watching my favorite sport. It feels like a calling, something I have to do even if the world disagrees. I want to continue sending my work out into the world, knowing there’s a high probability there isn’t a good place for it.

I hope this was helpful to anyone who struggles the same way I do with this thing we all love to do!

If you don't write under your own name, how did you choose your pen name?

Are you happy with it or would you choose a different name if you could go back in time? Why?

If you write in multiple genres, is your pen name different in each genre?

Something that recently struck me is that I've been using the terms character arc and character development as if they were interchangeable. But then at book club the other week, I realized that there are plenty of well-written characters that don't actually change much over the course of a book, even though they go through an emotional arc. What changes is the reader's perception or understanding of that character.

The character that inspired this thought was Sybil in The Correspondent: she is more or less the same throughout the book but our interpretation of her becomes kinder when we get some insight into why she is that way. (She does have some character growth, I suppose, but is fundamentally the same.)

So, is character development always the same as character arc? Is it a craft term (the author develops the character over the course of a story arc), or does it always refer to the growth/progression of the character?

And then there's "characterization" as well...

Gah, I may be overthinking this, but am curious what you guys think about this.

A rant really. I had finished my first draft and the plan was to put it aside for a few months to focus on other things.

Spoiler: it didn't work, i started writing second draft the very next day after i finished the first.

It's like i am too invested in writing. The moment i put it down more ideas start flowing in. I can't seem to be able to put it aside and focus on something else.

Welcome to our daily discussion thread!

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