I think it'd be nice to have a thread where we talk about the craft of writing.
Do you write every day? What are your writing habits like? I've seen people who write 1,000 words a day no matter what; anyone here do something like that?
What's been the biggest source of improvement in your writing skills? Do you read books on writing, or just learn through practice?
Anyone here participate in writing groups or workshops?
There's a workshop of sorts on /lit, in the form of the critique thread. People regularly share their writing and receive feedback of dubious quality. Still, I find it more productive than threads like this one, which usually just attract armchair writers and editors who like to talk about their work but rarely put their words where their ideas are.
Not to bash your intentions or anything, but I've seen a lot of threads like these that don't really go anywhere.
I try to write everyday, even if I only have shit to write about.
Reading a lot is essential, of course.
I want to live in a house with other writers. I want to drink with them all and turn the building into a temple
I try to write down my dreams whenever I can remember them, and I also like to write down little scenes and sometimes do cut-ups of donates books and magazines people donate at my job. Then I like to combine them and cut them up and if I can put them through a translator (especially Google Translate, since it translates so literally) a couple of times and then cull ideas from that. Not that it helps me, because besides the fact that I probably will never use any of these new scenes and metaphors and whatever else that I stumble upon doing this, I am also just a shitty writer in general and am too afraid and insecure to show my pretentious, meandering, aimless shit to anyone. But anyways, that's what I do.
at my peak i was writing 1½ hrs/day, 6 days/week but i'm nowhere near that now. i try to write for at least an hour at a time. i don't count words.
i have an english degree with a writing emphasis. i concentrated on short story and poetry writing. i read books on writing. donald maass has some enlightening books on fiction.
i've been in a few writing groups, not currently because my output is too slow. critiquing is a skill that grows with practice so it's easy to find a bad group with beginner writers giving beginner critiques. like the critique threads for instance.
critique threads get more replies because they're full of people with no craft.
I'm 20 and I'm starting university in September and I haven't really had to write essays since I finished school when I was 16. What tips do you guys have on brushing up my essay writing skills and making them better?
I'm trying to finish the manuscript to my first novel before i go off to college on the 18th.
This would be the 9th draft, and i'm doing a good job of pushing out 4000 words a day. It takes me about 9 hours and i drink a LOT of coffee
I hope i can keep that pace up tomorrow when i go back to work. May have to stay up late, get up early. I might quit my job a few week early to finish it out.
This is just going to be for the next month or so. Usually i write about 1500-3000 words a day, depending on how into the story i am. I average about 4 hours of writing, 2 before work, 2 after or until dinner.
I gave my 8th draft to an author in my hometown. He pretty much ripped it apart. So that was helpful. I've also improved quite a bit just through critiquing my own writing. I've never read a book an writing, but reading Breece DJ Pancake really improve my prose. I like to think it did, anyway.
I write journal entries erryday. Also, uni notes and assignments
Good stuff dude, just be careful not to burn out.
Have a clear, provable thesis - a no-fail route is "Although XXX, YYY." Timed humanities essays almost inevitably ask you to discuss one thing's relationship or effect with another. "Although the Indian opium trade had positive effects on India's economy during the Opium Wars, it also solidified India's status as a source of raw materials rather than finished goods." [proceed to illustrate this using primary and secondary sources].
Budget your time well if it's limited. Always, always write to the prompt.
I write at least 560 words per day M-F. Sometimes more but always at least 560. Once I start editing I just make sure I edit for at least 3 hours a day.
I write every day usually 500-1000 words. When I'm not in the middle of a story, I write a mix of journals, vignettes, and attempts at starting things.
I'm really bad at editing though and all my stuff is pretty messy/stream of consciousness.
I think wordcount is a pretty shitty metric so I go by time. I aim for two hours a day of writing, which is about the limit of my concentration. Really, most of those two hours is just thinking, and I'll only get 200-400 words down unless the scene is easy. Now that I finished my first short story, the goal is to edit it for two hours in the morning and work on a new short story for two hours in the evening.
It's really not that good considering I'm a NEET right now, but it's a start.
When I'm on fire, I easily write 10k words a day
Normally it goes up to 2-4k, 6k at most.
>Stream of conciousness
>means: can't write well, and dismisses it with tehcnical relativism
C'mon, m8. You couldn't emulate true conciousness even if you studied only Joyce and dropped DMT weekly.
Write ~500 words every day.
Working on my 3rd novel since graduating college back in 2014.
I write in a notebook then type to force myself to actively edit and engage with the text more than once.
I doubt that OP's picture is OC, but if it was, I would have to commend the use of g2 pens. They are god tier.
Yea i like hoing by hour too, but I at least get out 1,000-2,000 words in that time depending on the stroy
How the fuck can you read that?
We should start a corporation of novelists. Have them work in a cubicle and clock in and out at nine and five. English degree required, exceptions made for philosophy grads.
I work on my story every day but writing is reserved for the times where it flows out of me; if I wanted to fulfil a daily quota, I'd become a freelance journalist, or a programmer/web dev. In the moments of productivity I easy get 2-5k words a day when taking it slow.
Stream of consciousness is just a term for the style; nobody expects nor should bother to emulate true consciousness.
>who like to talk about their work but rarely put their words where their ideas are.
Let's change it then and add some discussion about the writing itself! Wonder if anybody got some ideas for my current "problem"...
Basically I have two viewpoint characters that feel too similar (voice, demeanour, motivations) and the usual solution of merging them into one doesn't work because they follow different sides of the same plotline and encounter very different problems on their way. My idea so far was making one the more passive actor and the other a more active one but it doesn't seem enough and/or expanding on their class differences, which might bloat up the story too much. Feels like I can't see the wood for the trees and there are couple of obvious solutions.
Very vague description of the dilemma so I am thankful for any kind of input.
It'd be decent under normal circumstances but as a NEET? Mate, come on, you have 10h a day for writing if we cut the time for long ass sleep, cooking, walking, working out, shitposting and of course jerking off.
I'm not a good writer. I write for myself only.
Regardless, "stream of consciousness" is a common term and does not imply "bad." It has been applied to loads of acclaimed works.
If they're on opposite sides that doesn't sound like a problem and in fact would just add to it.
having passive characters is generally frowned on. it sucks the energy out of the narrative. i think you're going to have to expand the story to have the second pov character be distinct. if you make his backstory/personality interesting, it won't bloat the story, it will add to it.
What I'm saying m8 is that writing the drivel you write and calling it "streams of consciousness" is a cop out. Unless you are Joyce or Wolf or Faulkner or maybe Morrison
I hate when the embittered anons are right, but I agree with you. My writing used to be aimless 'drivel' when I was doing stream of consciousness, i.e. sitting at my computer and just letting go of myself or what I imagined someone was thinking.
Furthermore, you can do a lot more by using stream of consciousness as a particle in your writing, putting bits of it here and there but largely showing the character's thoughts through actions, which is not to say 'show don't tell' bc that's one of those bullshit aphorisms you hear in a university fiction writers' workshop course. Sure, you should be able to show and not tell, but you should also be able to do the inverse. Like all things in writing, don't just use one element of style, instead weave them together in ways that are meaningful.
show don't tell isn't bullshit, i dont know why people even keep saying this.
All it means is that you must convince the reader of the emotions and characters you try to use. Set them up properly with suitable actions, don't just throw down hollow figures that we're suppose to believe by word of god.
I used to write up to 2,500 a day, but it was very sloppy and in need of heavy editing.
I found my comfort in smaller, slower and better crafted entries, which I can polish with minor editing later on.
I'm writing an approx 150 page SFF book that I want to self-publish. I plan to edit it myself - dangerous I know, but I'm taking my time with it.
This was probably my thinking behind their characterisation but after advancing further and considering the big picture it doesn't seem like a good enough justification to keep two so similar characters, who also have similar roles.
Played around with the idea to off one after all the crucial POV scenes but this seems like such a lazy way to get around it.
Well, the idea was to introduce the more passive parts as breath-takes but you're right.
>if you make his backstory/personality interesting, it won't bloat the story, it will add to
Thing is, both are secondary POV characters, and while I do find their completely different backstories interesting and would love to expand on them, this would probably distract too much from the main story and only minimally add to the "big" plot. Besides, there is a lot stuff happening already.
Thanks for responses guys.
I find it helps viewing it as a tool instead of a rule. Sticking to it all the time "because you have to" is silly and takes pace out of the writing but there are obviously moments where "show" enhances the story.
Find somebody to read it out loud for you for the latter edits (even if it's text to speech software) most flaws become painfully clear the instant your hear your story.
I'll start a competing corporation for those with degrees in other areas in Humanities.
I want to start writing but English is not my native language and I'm not confident in my skills although I do the English classics in original.
My native language is Hungarian which is beautiful and complex but irrelevant in the world.
I'm not sure if I should focus on either of them or try both. I know that being successful is a long shot anyway but I want to use the most straightforward path if possible.
Can't you write first in Hungarian, then translate it as best you can to English? That way if you get criticism for the English one you can just say 'English does not do my language justice' :^)
I have a very similar dilemma, although the language I am most proficient with is a lot more popular (German) but lacks the beauty of Hungarian, so I'd love to write in English ... but yeah.
How's the market in Hungary? If you have something commercially viable, your future agent should be able to get a deal with international publishers either way, and if your work did well in your home country, it's great for marketing too.
Being the idiot I am, I decided to write in German, translate to English afterwards and try to get a deal with international and national agents. It's tedious but definitely easier than writing purely it in English, and in worst case scenario it improves scenes original. Hell, more often than not, I translate the stuff I wrote in English into German ... and sometimes it goes back and forth.
Though given how both langs are close, it's a far cry from the work you'd have to do.
>You couldn't emulate true conciousness
So user is only pretending to be self-aware?
I have a journal I sometimes write in. My days are mostly the same though, so not really a lot to put in it and talk about.
May be getting a job soon, so I'll at least be able to put down "suffered through work today."
It sound stupid but in my dreams I often "write".
I hear the words forming and telling the story,re-wording it over and over again until I have a story.
Pretty entertaining stuff,I even remember some of it.
I feel like I should write these down,even if most of them are pretty nonsensical.
You can "show" in a five word line if you know what you're doing. Its all about the action, NOT rendering out a scene in painstaking detail.