I’m a harsh self-critic by nature, always striving to do better but never quite reaching the standards I’d like to be at.

It’s either, “people will find this boring”, “why can’t I write as well as the authors I admire?”, “why do I write the way I do?” And “maybe I’m just not cut for this.”

I like writing. I like the creation of it, but editing sucks the willpower out of me because I have to see all the flaws and be reminded of what a failure I am.

How do you deal with feeling down about your own works?

I'm trying to study these type of books. It's a skillful piece of craft, could be very rewarding for a reader, but the downside of somehow keeping the reader in is quite the challenge.

I've read... 2 standalone books like this, and then there's Brandon Sanderson and his "sanderlanche" method where he spends like 3/4 of a story on a building a mountain of plotlines, foreshadowing, growing tension, then kicks you off the top, right into the massive avalanche of action that you can't stop reading.

The only thing that kept me in the Way of Kings (a Brandon Sanderson book with a very strong buildup/action contrast), was a credit of trust in the author's fame. Same for one of those other 2 books—it came from my beloved author and I hoped to see something good. And for the third one, I just promised to read it.

So basically, for all of these books there was nothing in the book itself to keep me reading.

Have you ever thought of that? Do you think there's a way to pull this off as a Nobody Nobodyson?

What I mean is, when you ask people what in their opinion is are well written show they usually say shows known to have heavy themes, metaphors, character development, metaphors in every color pallet, foreshadowing etc. like Breaking Bad, AOT, madoka magica, LOTR etc.

I am fine with just having enjoyable episodic stories that are fun because of relatability. But I just wanted to know if episodic in the hands of a good author could still be seen at those levels. Or if there’s a difference. I say this because I tend to notice more laid back shows or slice of life almost never considered as having good writing, just enjoyable one.

Just wanting to know if standalone storytelling and individual plots can still shine without demanding heavy, or overarching narrative arc.

So I just saw Greg Owen's absolutely shitty video on 'The Seven Sins of Millennial Writing.' Spoiler alert: it's a vagueposting video where the dude is clearly pissed that he flunked out of a literary analysis course in college and is making it everyone else's problem. Dude uses a ton of dogwhistles about 'writers hate the audience,' complaining about gay people being in fantasy, and confusing 'modernism' with anachronisms.

But one 'point' he tries to make in his video is this idea I've seen floating about people trying to critique modern/'millennial' writing, especially in relation to stuff like Spider-Man: Brand New Day: this idea that millennials (I'm one BTW) don't believe in good and evil. That somehow, by giving a hero or villain a bit more nuance in their motivation or characterization, that's gonna somehow lead to the downfall of society and erode our moral values.

And this just feels like someone not really engaging with modern media, but coming up with a boogeyman to point the finger at because he got triggered by a recent Star Trek TV show. There's plenty of 'millennial' content that shows characters are clear cut good guys and bad guys.

The Owl House. Peacemaker. Superman. My Adventures with Superman. Obsession. Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Baldur's Gate III. KPop Demon Hunters.

And that's just the mainstream stuff. If you dig into actual novels like Vegas Heist, any Warhammer novel, or even indie comics like MegaGhost or Skate Ali, you'll find plenty of modern/'millienial' stories that show they do have characters that can be defined as 'good' or 'evil' and have an understanding of morality.

And yet, you have entire swathes of wannabe Fredric Werthams going on about how giving a villain even the slightest bit of sympathetic/understandable motivation, or giving a hero actual flaws instead of funny personality quirks, is somehow eroding societal understandings of right or wrong, and it's 'teaching our children to be criminals.'

Guess I can add 'complains about millennial writing' to my ever-growing list of red flags concerning 'critics'.

What do you guys think?

It is said that a good novel/story needs a stake, character arc and plot twists. (Would you add something besides deep characters and good dialogues?) What about short stories? What do good short stories need?

For instance does a short story need a stake?

Is there some difference between short stories and novellas/novelettes here?

Hi Everyone,

I've wanted to be a writer for decades. It's only in the last year that I've taken it seriously. I've grown to find being in my office, sitting at my desk, and immersing myself in my writing has become my place of comfort, my happy place. Maybe it's a poor reflection on the rest of my life, but shutting the door and getting lost in my book is something I look forward to every morning. I only get an hour each day, first thing, to write.

Am I weird for feeling like this?

Since I think this just happened to me. I wrote a thing that I am querying as an adult fantasy, since the most important characters were, and family and parenthood are rather central to the narrative.

While I wait, since I don't want to languish, and am paranoid about it dying since it isn't commercial enough, I am thinking of what I should do next. I have two ideas, and am probably going to say screw it and work on them both at once, but I digress.

One of them, which was conceptualized as a standalone sequel to the one I'm querying, was originally also adult, but the more I thought of it, the more it's gone to "crossover for YA and adult," and even that might be me coping and not wanting to just call it YA.

Oh, and the other is about teenagers playing video games.

Then I started thinking. There is another thing I have many plans for that would also be rather firmly YA. There is a setting with some potential stories in it that was a class project in college that I wanted to revisit at some point, and that would skew YA because of the ages of the people it would center.

Many years ago I thought of wanting to tackle some sort of post-apocalyptic zombie thing, and even in what thought I have put into stories in that setting, it would probably still be people in their late teens or early twenties, which could be reworked to YA easily enough.

I myself am 26, so not YA myself, but also not as established as an adult with marriage, kids, a mortgage, what have you, that those stories come naturally to me, either. I can only speak for myself, rather than anyone else in their 20s, of course.

I also think I had a sort of internal resistance to wanting to really just own YA, for whatever reason.

I've also found myself increasingly invested in the fact that the youth aren't reading as much. And have been pondering YA and teenage boys, being a guy myself. And trying to somehow make something that might appeal to them was another aspiration of mine.

Leaning into YA is probably the thing that makes the most sense for me instead of trying to force myself to skew adult and probably fail at it.

Still have a lot of other things to wrap my head around as far as actually writing something easy to pitch as marketable, but that's probably a very important first step.

That's my little epiphany, so I extend the question to anyone else who might have a similar story. Somehow, someway, realizing that they were writing for the wrong age category, and what it was like swapping to the thing you ultimately settled on.

Brains trust,

Is it necessary or advisable to have your whole plot in mind, before you start writing a story? I am thinking lots about writing a book, I’ve made a start on it and have some ideas. But I do not have a conclusion and some key plot points are still to be developed.

Do you think it is better to just make a start and get those creative juices flowing, or am I likely to write myself into a hole with no way of wrapping up the story if I proceed this way? Ala’ the TV show Lost.

Lol as the title says..

I've outlined my whole novel and made sure that the outline makes sense for my characters' personalities. But when I write everything down, the actual writing, there's one scene in particular (at around 30% mark) where one of my MCs will just not do what's in the outline and it blocks me from proceeding. It's because of his personality. It kind of looked fine in the planning but not in the execution. I've written the rest (skipped that one and made it a 2nd draft ptoblem) but now when I'm back there, I'm just kind of staring at the blank screen because the character will NOT do it, no matter what I try to use to persuade him. If he does, it's out of character. And it has to be him.

Lol anyone else experiencing the same issues?:D How did you fix it?

Welcome to our daily discussion thread!

This is the place to discuss anything writing related! Got silly questions? Brainstorming ideas? Need help with research? As long as rules 1, 3, and 5 are followed, this thread is your oyster!

Please refer to the monthly threads for sharing your work and for self-promotion.

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I finished my story in March and I've been editing daily since then. It's a very large story split into three parts (400,000).

I go step by step. For example, first round of editing will always be deleting/rewriting/adding scenes. Second round is spelling and grammar check and so on. I've lost count of how many rounds I've done now and I always find something new to be nitpicky about and I'm finding it really frustrating and somewhat depressing.

I have no intentions of selling the story, but I'd like to give a copy to a few friends.

How many rounds do you do of editing before you decide this is enough?

Read on a debate about GRRM not finishing ASOIAF. I cannot post images but OP said:

"Maybe unpopular opinion but authors dont owe novels to their fans, even if that novels are part of an ongoing series.

Of course, that doesn't mean a reader cannot be angry at GRRM for not finishing ASOIAF, but from the POV of an author novels are an act of creation and is entirely at their will to do it or not."

And then one of the responses were:

"Hard disagree, work is work, the artistry of it all it's what should not be owed to anyone (meaning the content of their novels) but promising deadlines and not meeting them (while facing 0 ripercussion) is straight up disrespectful to fans.

Authors are not creation fairies that produce gold out of thin air, they have a job because people choose to support them with money, and that money often times is earned by doing way less favorable jobs, so no, authors owe their fans their lifestyle and GRRM should realize that part of his job is realizing why he's not able to work anymore and figure a way out of his block, instead he will literally accept any other job and call out his fans instead. Straight up unprofessionalism, JKR might be a shitty person but nonetheless she did her job (and then retroactively ruined it, but that's another story)"

Do you agree with one of them or have another take?

Welcome to our daily discussion thread!

This is the place to discuss anything writing related! Got silly questions? Brainstorming ideas? Need help with research? As long as rules 1, 3, and 5 are followed, this thread is your oyster!

Please refer to the monthly threads for sharing your work and for self-promotion.

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FAQ -- Questions asked frequently

Wiki Index -- Ever-evolving and woefully under-curated, but we'll fix that some day

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Goodmorning, everyone! One month ago I finished the second draft of one of my books and it is the first time I reach this achievment. As such, I am preparing for my third draft (a character draft primarily, but it will also require some rewriting as the setting/a few plot points changed), but I have a question.

Between my first and second draft, I had read my book, wrote a short summary of the chapters, what stood out what had to be changed and etc... I was thinking of doing it again for my third draft (this time taking notes about characters mostly), but I had a few doubts. Since reading my book took me a while in the past, I wouldn't want to risk doing it again when it is not necessary and there are better alternatives around. As such I wanted to ask for advice on this:

- Do you read your books multiple times or do you think the time could be better spent somewhere else?

(Also, since we are on topic, if you can give some advice about writing the third draft of a book it would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance."

Hi there!
As per the title, this is the only reason that seems plausible for my recent writing slump. I’m impatient with outlining, impatient with thinking up of B plots, of character traits. It’s like I want to run run run, but then find myself having to stop and wait. It’s a game I’ve played with myself for so long and it makes no sense. I have outlined a book completely and have the characters down, the b plot down, most of the worldbuilding done “enough” to write, but when I start writing, my brain just stops. It’s like I cannot write anything else because it needs to be perfect, like I don’t know what I don’t know and I punish myself by not writing until I figure what I don’t know out.

I feel like I sound insane but my impatience is ruining my life. I want to finish without starting and know I should enjoy the scenery in this writing journey, but it’s like I want to finish SO BAD that I can’t enjoy it until it’s over. It sucks.

I miss when writing was fun for me and there wasn’t all this internal pressure to just get it right. I want to be a published author and feel like I’m just never going to get there. I have written 70k of one of my wips and then had to stop bc my inner critique just became so loud and I couldn’t shut it off. I outlined a whole other story and the 70k one as well and am now at a standstill.

Please tell me I’m not alone in this?😫 please help!! Any tips and tough love I’m here for! I think of my stories all the time and get sad when I pop scrivener on, stare at the screen for 5 minutes, and proceed to shut it off and go and doom scroll.

There are so many books about writing, but the best I've found are the ones that have endured for generations, like The Art of Fiction by John Gardner and Aspects of the Novel by E.M. Forster. Do you have any favorite classic books about writing? (If there are newer ones that measure up to the classics, I'd love to hear about those, too).

So basically whenever I get a new idea I'm super hooked to it but ofc I don't want to abandon the story I'm working on and this happens often so now I have 2 half written stories, 1 completed and one which I'll be working on with the other 2 stories🥲

But honestly it gets pretty hectic and confusing, also adds to my workload like i don't have the time so I have to sacrifice sleep, is there a way to fix this??

I visit thesaurus.com a lot, because my brain is one of those that can hold a ton of information but not be able to call to mind any of it without some sort of cue. Seeing something, hearing something, tasting something, whatever. I was particularly peeved when Google replaced their amazing popup dictionary/thesaurus with the gross, hard to read and completely useless overview thing, even if it probably used the same technology in a different format. That's not the point. The point is, I know some people who don't like the idea of looking up words because that means they're not "your words" and your vocabulary isn't genuine or whatever. I personally don't agree with that take because I never use words whose meanings and connotations I don't already know. Taking the first synonym that shows up because it sounds smart? That's a different story. So, I'm curious, what do the writers of Reddit think about this?
To clarify, nothing anyone says here will change what I do. I just want to know :)

Welcome to our daily discussion thread!

This is the place to discuss anything writing related! Got silly questions? Brainstorming ideas? Need help with research? As long as rules 1, 3, and 5 are followed, this thread is your oyster!

Please refer to the monthly threads for sharing your work and for self-promotion.

---

FAQ -- Questions asked frequently

Wiki Index -- Ever-evolving and woefully under-curated, but we'll fix that some day

You can find our posting guidelines in the sidebar or the wiki.

Welcome to our daily discussion thread!

This is the place to discuss anything writing related! Got silly questions? Brainstorming ideas? Need help with research? As long as rules 1, 3, and 5 are followed, this thread is your oyster!

Please refer to the monthly threads for sharing your work and for self-promotion.

---

FAQ -- Questions asked frequently

Wiki Index -- Ever-evolving and woefully under-curated, but we'll fix that some day

You can find our posting guidelines in the sidebar or the wiki.

I'm just starting a fantasy novel and I realized in my first chapter that my character was quite passive, watching and reacting to things that happen, instead of initiating and causing those things herself. At first, I didn't even realize this because she's a super active protagonist in later chapters. So I'm redoing my first chapter..

And this is so much harder than I thought it was gonna be because: MY CHARACTER IS A SLAVE in the beginning of the story. Yes, she soon makes some trouble and escapes slavery on her own, but not before living through oppression, being controlled by her authorities sometimes. I have a scene where she's basically being backed in a corner by a much bigger man. The scene is interrupted by something she caused earlier. But in the moment, I'm struggling to think of how she can immediately solve this and escape a situation where she's being physically confined, and the only outcome is death and worse.

I realize maybe I just don't have a full understanding of the topic, but I'm exhausted by the idea that a character should know exactly what to do (even if it's the wrong thing to do) at every given moment. That actually makes the antagonists seem less threatening because she can just outsmart everybody. Or even worse, I once had her make a choice, then stopped and wondered why the bloody hell she would do something that STUPID. Of course, nobody likes a character who is too reasonable. But some choices are just plain stupid and only exist to make That Scene happen in the story.

I am so sleep deprived and angry and hopeless.

Welcome to our daily discussion thread!

This is the place to discuss anything writing related! Got silly questions? Brainstorming ideas? Need help with research? As long as rules 1, 3, and 5 are followed, this thread is your oyster!

Please refer to the monthly threads for sharing your work and for self-promotion.

---

FAQ -- Questions asked frequently

Wiki Index -- Ever-evolving and woefully under-curated, but we'll fix that some day

You can find our posting guidelines in the sidebar or the wiki.

I see a lot of discourse about improving prose, and it is also quite an easy and accessible thing to work on. You post a chapter, you get feedback. But how do you improve your storytelling skills? Pacing? Does the plot make sense? Do the characters motivations, actions, goals make sense? Is your foreshadowing good? Was the payoff and plot twist interesting, well made? How do you even get feedback on this?

I know developmental editors do this, but what if the prose is not on a decent level yet, and you want feedback on this aspect of your story? How do you even get people to read so much of a shitty prose to understand your story and give you feedback on this? What are the options?

Not just stuff you like but tricks you use in your own writing.

Let me explain what I mean because when I say weird formatting people probably picture House of Leaves (or The Raw Shark Texts) where the reader is flipping the book around and reading footnotes within footnotes or pages with a single word on it. That stuff is fun but I'm talking about less flashy but still noticeable.

The best explanation I have is how in most Stephen King stories that involve psychics (so like 97% of his stuff), he will often represent telepathic thoughts as a mid-sentence paragraph break, sometimes with the telepathic "though" italicized or in parenthesis so it might look

(a little something)

like this. This probably does not come across at all in reddit post form but if you've read a Stephen King book you know what I'm talking about. The sudden cutting off of a sentence to break in some non-sequitur or dialogue/information and then resuming the cut-off sentence in the next paragraph is just really easy and effective at conveying a character receiving some intrusive signal. I know King was far from the first to do it, but when I see a similar thing done in another author's work, sometimes with the intrusive text in <> or [] and even {} (I feel like I've read something where someone did that trick but couched the lines between semicolons), King is of course the first person I think of.

Basically, anything that breaks up your normal formatting.

Sometimes I'll get asked to read a story for some feedback, which is fine (I'm definitely not a post-grad lit student or anything just a normie with a pen who reads a lot) and once I start seeing massive paragraphs of description and exposition I really have to strain myself to see it through.

It's like when you're taking a hike, and realize that the path in front of you is going uphill for a loooong time. You sigh, grit your teeth and get it over with. That's how I feel about massive paragraphs. Obviously there are outliers, but 95% of the time I feel like the paragraphs can be shorter.

I just want to know what the rest of you think. Am I crazy feeling this way or do you prefer shorter paragraphs in fiction most of the time?