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I'd like to become a professional writer in the next decade.

7 (29.2%)

Less than videogames.

6 (25%)

I am a professional writer.

3 (12.5%)

More than my health.

2 (8.3%)

I'm not sure.

5 (20.8%)

More than videogames.

0 (0%)

Not at all.

1 (4.2%)

Total Members Voted: 24

Voting closed: April 23, 2012, 11:42:36 pm

[Willfor]

Today I had to explain to my sister why it is not acceptable for her to describe windows as "mysterious" for no reason other than to add more descriptive words to the short story she was writing for homework. I fear for her generation

Also I can't decide how to intro a story I keep trying to write in my spare time. My latest attempt involved the main character narrating from first person (I prefer writing in first person) as they fight a werewolf in an alley. I can't decide if them interrupting this fight mid-narrative to break into a short lecture on how magic works is a good thing or not. It is in keeping with their character, but I can't tell if it flows well, flows poorly or flows poorly but in a well kind of way.

The first person lets you cheat a bit in this area, but I think a handy rule of thumb would be to leave the explanation out of your first draft. If people have a hard time following it without the explanation then you can use their feedback to tell you where your explanation should be. Just remember that you can scatter information about a magic system through a very large area so that you're not dumping it all in one spot.

Conveying this sort of information in the proper way is the #1 problem that faces both Fantasy and Sci Fi writers, and if you make yourself skilled in doing it in a way that draws the majority of readers in without boring them -- well, that's something professional writers have a hard time with. Consider it a resume skill that will mark you as an excellent writer if you can master it. Bearing in mind that it tends to take years for people to learn to do it consistently.

[Ignus]

*snip*

Just some things I noticed:
Always, always, always show, don't tell. It's the first and most important rule any writer needs to commit to. Also, adverbs, look at each one very carefully and decide if it is absolutely essential. If not, kill it. At best they are flowery and add little when overused, at worse they reduce reader engagement as they skim over them. Does a castle need to be a foreboding castle? Much better, again, to show rather than tell.

Magic, for those who don't know, is all about energy...

Fighting werewolves is not a recommended hobby...

Passive language, especially in a scene that is intended to be quite punchy, needs to be fixed. Just by removing "for those who don't know" you would instantly make the sentence far more striking and sound less insecure.

So yea, stuff and things. Stick to it

[Fishbreath]

Speaking from the position of having not yet read the piece, and also from the position of guilt in expositing too often in the middle of scenes, I would suggest this as an almost ironclad rule: the middle of a fight scene is the wrong place for exposition, especially if it's at the beginning of the story. Write the fight scene and let the exposition come later.

[MorleyDev]

Hmm, yeah the whole "My name is John Darius..." blargh onwards could easily be moved out of the fight scene. I dislike writing fight scenes, heck most of the time I only read them so I know how characters got from point A to point B. Got to get over that...

[Supermikhail]

Uh, I'm gonna ask something... which I've just asked on ScriptFrenzy forums... in fact, why don't I just copy that post here...

Where could I learn more about current historic knowledge on the dark-ages village life?

Admittedly, I'm writing a fantasy screenplay, but I've come to the conclusion that my inability to progress is due to not being an expert on the subject - the topics that stumble me the most are the ritual of exorcism, and the architecture and furnishing of the church and the priest's house... Anyway, I'd appreciate any resources that would help me get closer to my ideal.

Also, to be honest, I'm writing a Diablo fanfic. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong epoch?

Welp, I've come out.

There's no other reason to asking this question... s here other than statistics. Oh, and also, there used to be some fantasy folks here... Yeah, and Dwarf Fortress is quite dark-agey.

So, there's quite a few reasons.

I guess I could also ask on that forum devoted to the Middle Ages, except I don't like registering on new sites I don't plan to frequent.
Edit: Can't find that forum, although I swear there used to be one, and quite prominent.

[Fishbreath]

Like many questions of history, that's a topic probably best asked of ink and dead trees glued together into pages-- I've had to do a fair bit of historical research for my latest worldbuilding project, and by far the best resources I've found are printed ones.

Google Books has a pretty long list of stuff on 'middle ages village life'. You might be able to get what you need out of previews.

[Ignus]

Where could I learn more about current historic knowledge on the dark-ages village life?

Last year I had to do quite a bit of research on day-to-day medieval life and three books stood out way above the rest for general quality of research and accessibility:

Joseph and Frances Gies' Life in a Medieval City and Life in a Medieval Village give a full feel of medieval life, down to eating habits, clothes, hair, marriage etc.
while Norman F. Cantor's The Civilization of the Middle Ages is the most comprehensive layman's history of the medieval period you'll ever find or need.

[Caz]

Is anyone in Bay12 writing a book? I wonder if we have any published (novel) writers here.

A few days ago I went into a bookstore.
 having all those books around.....
the smell of books
 of pages
 the scent of words
.. so beautiful.

 I saw a book at WHSmith called 'Dwarves' or something yesterday. About a dwarf living in human society who has to save his mountainhome. Was so tempted to get it but then I remembered I needed to buy food this week.

[Ignus]

Lots of us are writing novels, I imagine. I know I am.

On a related note, what are people's writing schedules like? Do you do a set amount per day whether you like it or not? Do you measure by the word or by time? How fast do you write?

I for instance write 250 words (that I'm keeping, no "notes" or "planning" excuses) or for 2 hours per day, whichever is longer. In practise this breaks a novel down into a rough 6 month production time for a first draft and keeps the wheels moving no matter how much you're struggling. Interested to know how others do it.

[fqllve]

When I'm actually writing I shoot for a scene a day, which usually translates into ~750 words handwritten or an hour and a half. I have, however, been known to go up to 3000 word scenes on a bad day, so I generally split those into two or three sessions. That doesn't include research though, which I do extensively, and works out to about half the total amount of time I spend on the work.

[Ehndras]

I used to write 2,000-5,000 words a day, but I have trouble maintaining a proper schedule. Come to think of it, I'm erratic all-around. I went into a literary slump around November; since then I've barely written at all.

What sort of writing projects are you folks working on?

[MrWiggles]

A comic.
A Mush inspired from Dresden Files.
An RPG called Irph. Western Sword and sorcery, that avoids being steam punk.
An RPG based on Project Freelancer from Roosterteeth.com. Sorta 3 games in one for that one.

[Fishbreath]

Oh, man. Where to start...

Beyond the zeppelins-skypirates-and-Nazis pulp piece I've got planned, I have a novelette near its end (We Sail Off To War, the one I'm running at Many Words right now). I'd like to get that done, so I can go over it again for editing and e-book it up. I admit that self-publishing via e-book is almost more of a cop-out than self-publishing via print-on-demand, but on the other hand, I don't have the discipline to write novel-sized chunks, and I doubt there are many people that would value my writing at more than 99 cents for a chunk of it anyway.

Beyond that, it goes from science fiction detective stories to the high-fantasy-with-Viking-names world I've got, to another fantasy world I need to flesh out, to space opera-style sci-fi for the homebrew RPG rule system I wrote a while back. There aren't enough hours in the day.

[Ignus]

I maintain 2 projects at a go, usually a long one and a short one. The idea is that when I get bored of one I can do the other rather than spending writing time on something new.

My current long one is my pulp redux project, supplemented by short stories just to flex my muscles without the stress of having to carry an idea on for a hundred more pages.

[Caz]

On a related note, what are people's writing schedules like? Do you do a set amount per day whether you like it or not? Do you measure by the word or by time? How fast do you write?

I used to try and shoot for 2k words a day but at that pace I burn out pretty fast. A good thing is to keep a notebook with you wherever you go and just write when things come to mind. I got a lot of writing done sitting outside among the trees or in the pub over a pint (probably the reason there's about 20 scenes I've written that are about characters drinking in bars... oops) I found that once I got into the habit of writing every day it gets easier, until you hit a block where you just can't write at all. Which is awful.

As for writing speed I'd average about 500 in an hour, but it depends. Most I've ever written in a day was 6k I think, during NaNoWriMo.

What sort of writing projects are you folks working on?

Working on a low-fantasy novel, inspirations from both RPGs and DF of course