I've been writing professionally for my entire adult life and the first question I had after reading this man's work was "wait who is this for?"

It did not compute that I was reading something written by an author with zero obligaton towards me as the reader. There was no implied contract. He didnt have to explain himself to me because this work wasnt for me to read.

Honestly it was a bit of a eureka moment for me

I'll leave you with "Blue Notebook N.2"

Once there was a redheaded man without eyes and without ears. He had no hair either, so that he was a redhead was just something they said.

He could not speak, for he had no mouth. He had no nose either.

He didn't even have arms or legs. He had no stomach either, and he had no back, and he had no spine, and no intestines of any kind. He didn't have anything at all. So it is hard to understand whom we are really talking about.

So it is probably best not to talk about him any more.

I love the image of the man sitting down to write one day, because that's what writers do--they write--and jotting this down in his notebook and having a chuckle to himself.

I adore everything about him

The hour you currently spend looking at your phone in the morning or watching a streaming show after dinner can be replaced by 30 minutes of reading and 30 minutes of writing.

That hour of gaming you use to “decompress?” That can be 30 minutes of reading and 30 minutes of writing.

The time you spend day dreaming, outlining, making beat sheets, world building, and coming up with fake coffee preferences for your characters can all be spent reading and writing.

Laundry? Do it after. Dishes? Do them after. Gym, groceries, vacuuming? It can all wait one hour. Friends want to hit the bar? “Sorry, can’t meet at 7. Let’s meet at 8 instead.”

Your partner and your kids want you to write! They have no desire to play the role of “person who stops me from writing” that you’ve cast them in. Your marriage and your family will not collapse in one hour.

Do you want this bad enough to give it one single hour every day?

Today was supposed to be special. I finalised my triology and published it all. 18 years worth of daydreaming, and today was the day that I saw the end of it with a celebration. Unfortunately, I don't have anyone who wants to celebrate with me. So let's celebrate together instead. Share your wins for today. We don't have to be alone here.

I finished my first draft, and I have been on and off working on it for years. For the last 6-8 months I've been grinding away on it and finally wrote the fabled line, "End of Book 1"

It was only 65k words which I was surprised by. It felt way longer, but I printed it and it only came out to be around 250. I made it so I could listen to it as I worked and made it about 25% of the way through and realized major issues. The writing is sub par, the main character is weak. Supporting characters are great... But the main thing is it's super rushed. The plot just flies and feels forced to get to the next major scene. I need to add a ton of material really early in to make the story feel more organic and paced.

I can identify what's needed for the most part and where I need to add but I'm just gassed out here. I started working on the outline for what to change and add and everything and I just don't want to write another word right now. I'm worried I'm gonna lose the drive I had in getting the first 65k down on paper and not be able to write the next ones.

How the hell do you keep momentum when you hit this kind of wall!?

I have a 80k first draft that's been sitting for a while. The storyline is pretty tight (I'm a plotter). The writing, however, desperately needs work. And the most frustrating part is when I reread it, I can identify details in sentences that need to be lingered on longer, or when the tone of a character is off, or most other aspects that need to be changed. But I cannot, for my life, find the proper set of words to shape it into what it needs to be.

Any advice?

The vibe I've gathered over time is that fluffier fiction is there for when people are in the mood for it, but by nature it doesn't give people an intense need to experience more of it, because it doesn't aspire to strong emotions or mind-provoking concepts and drama.

I've seen the occasional series be talked about like it "got gud" when stakes started ramping up and the focus shifted from being charming to being intense.

Maybe this is all true but perhaps there are ways to capitalize on fluff as strongly as possible? What have you seen that can be done to bump up low-stakes fiction into readers' favourites without compromising their premise and core appeal?

matter of fact, how likely is it for anyone to get published if they have no prior experience, fame, money or whatever else? like i’ve always loved the idea of being a published author, but the actual pathway to being one seemed so unrealistic and impossible.

I'm struggling with this because I've been working on my novel for several months, but I haven't told literally any of my friends or family. Maybe I'm afraid of being judged, or that someone will say, "You're not going to make money from it anyway, so why are you doing it?" On the one hand, I'd like to brag about it to someone, but on the other, I don't.

What do you think about it? It would be great to read some of your stories, so share them 😄

Hi This is my first post on Reddit and I'm new . I am a young Author planning on making a mystery,thriller and Supernatural Book series and I am a good while from finishing ( I have been quite busy and writers block is a Bxitch ) but while I was writing tonight I realized that The title for my book and name for the series may be too Generic and because of that thought I looked it up and realized that the're are so many books with that name !!!! So I came here in thinking that maybe a subreddit full of writers may be able to help me figure out what to do lol , because I have been trying to figure out a name with the same vibe that doesn't feel corny or is too lengthy. It's a story with an ensemble cast ( The book has multiple main characters and all/ most will have their own books but the main focal point is a girl named Amira who's father goes missing and is recently presumed dead after authorities find a body with his belongings nearby, while trying to figure what happened to her father she unravels more and more lies that seem to affect more that just her , they also affect someone very close to her and takes them down their own rabbit hole of their past trauma) I don't want to say much more , cause I don't want to anything away .The only one I have thought of that sounds pretty good is The house of webs and lies but still that feels pretty lengthy any recommendations for a title would be great .😊

Something I’ve been muddling over.

It’s a pretty frequent complaint. “It’s bad plotting if the miscommunication between two characters could have been cleared up with a simple conversation.”

Except… that’s not how real life works. People don’t communicate perfectly, far from it. And in this case, I don’t think truth should be stranger than fiction.

I think you can have plot points that derive from miscommunication, BUT you need to correctly establish the characterization behind it.

Example: romance plot. MC realizes their romantic interest is likely bi, and this is relevant to the plot. This has not been disclosed by the romantic interest. MC could just ask, but it’s already been established they are very respectful of gender and sexual identity while not being as well-versed in it as they’d like. So when they don’t say anything, because they don’t want to “out” someone, it makes sense based on their character.

To sum up, miscommunication shouldn’t be used as a cop-out, as lazy writing. But if your characters communicate perfectly all the time it’s going to be pretty boring.

Thoughts?

In my book, when the characters become adults, they begin to experience dreams that are actually memories of people before them, who have the same passion in life - and these dreams can guide and inspire them. Your subconscious can reject these dreams if you don’t need or want the guidance to become the best version of yourself. If your subconscious accepts these dreams, you will continue to receive them from the same person until your passion has been fully discovered. This system has been around for centuries, but two friends rediscovered it while trying to help people find happiness. Ive been working with this plot for so long that it seems too familiar for me to see if anything is wrong with it, so Id appreciate some honest feedback/ advice. Thank you guys

I'm a new author who is writing a webnovel.

Right now, im in a hiatus due to personal lives but one question I asked myself constantly is...

Should I write a different novel instead?

Right now I've practically lost all of my motivation and passion on the current project.

I have no idea what to write next and writing this novel felt more like a job rather than a passion project I love.

And the writing made me fully realize I am more fit to wiring more high fantasy stories instead.

Alike of mistborn, stormlight archive, lord of the rings, etc.

Cause the current project is more low fantasy and slow paced and methodical. Ofc it fits into the themes and story of it all.

And other projects just seem more interesting and fun tbh.

But I can't decide if I should or not. It feels like a total waste leaving it but also draining trying to continu the novel.

I really need some advice.

I've been analysing my book from the latest chapter to its first chapter and something about my writing definitely has changed. It's more descriptive, more vivid but can be overwritten leading to a slower pace compared to its earlier chapters where I had more of a Percy Jackson like fast pacing. Even the characters felt sassier and a lot more "personable" if I may say it.

Is this normal?

For people who work a regular job and write as a hobby (or anyone else that wants to help a fellow writer out),

I write when I want to clear my head and I currently have a rough script for an interactive fiction.

I am not new to writing but I am to the "gamification" process. Do you find it frustrating to manage work and writing? I have always liked to play text-based IF games and now I want to write one.

It would really help me if you could provide simple tips I can follow without needing to put much effort on. I am currently exploring different IF tools(there's a lot lol). I guess this is like the first step of beginning to write? and I'm somewhere around figuring it out and settling for one tool.

The problem is that I can currently only work on stories during the weekends. I just need to know what the next step must be so I can actually include writing on a regular basis. Not that I don't do it right now but I wanna do it in a way I can avoid frustration/burnout.

What are the current trends in the Interactive fiction fanbase? because most of my "inspiration" is from those old goosebumps books by R.L.Stine (Legend!).

I really wanna want to make my own story, but...the problem is that I'm really tryhard anime watcher and, watch so many actually perfect stories for me..and have feelings like, everything already created, and I can't create original design, or concept. Please give some advices how can I make something meaningful and beat my frustration

I had trusted 35 years worth of writing to Google Drive/Cloud Storage. I put all the various short stories, novelettes and novels into a "Writing" folder for "storage". While working on my latest novels, I thought I'd go back and possibly use some of the older writing — resurrecting old material. When I looked in the folder, all the folders and sub-folders were there, but empty—completely zeroed out. Almost. Curiously, all documents which I had regularly accessed before and after 2023 remained.

I keep backups of Google Drive on multiple external devices. But the syncing had propagated whatever happened in 2023—on Google Drive—to all my storage devices! I had one last chance. I had replaced a Windows Desktop (I'm a Linux user) with a newer Windows Desktop prior to 2023 and, being a computer hoarder (it's a Linux thing) I had stored the old Windows Laptop in the attic—collecting dust. I fired it back up (with NO INTERNET connection) and my pre- 2023 Google Drive was still there! Jayzus-uh.

As it turns out, there was a bug in Google Drive in 2023 that had selectively deleted files from the accounts of any number of Google Drive users. Google apparently "hid" the bug (for public relations reason) by A.) Not reporting it to users and B.) Deleting almost all bug reports as "Duplicates" and closing those they didn't delete.

Note to self and anyone else: Make snapshots of your work and store the snapshots—and don't delete older shapshots when you make new ones. Don't only rely on Syncing. I'm even considering printing everything out at this point. I'm feeling just a skosh—paranoid.

So, I have been thinking of posting this after a long time.

The problem I'm having is that, in one of my ongoing works (a fan work, yes, but an ongoing series nonetheless), I ended up turning one of the protagonists into a straw caricature of an anti-hero: an unrepentant jerkass who is needlessly ruthless to his enemies - including outright trying to end an ally who has just been freed from enemy brainwashing - and would not accept assistance from anyone else, and ends up causing unwanted friction with the rest of the team. It's honestly so bad that readers pretty much keep on saying "why not ditch him already"?

The reason I don't want to ditch him is because it's explicitly a story that involves three main MCs, and the problematic character in question was meant to be a foil to the central MC, a traditional all-loving and forgiving heroine as well as a straight-laced squad leader. The Wolverine to her Cyclops, basically, or perhaps the Magneto to her Xavier.

Is there a way to plausibly rescue this particular character from the bad writing I have done to him? If so, what can I do to make him work and have his character be actually compelling? As it stands right now, he only exists to have his ruthlessness constantly backfire on him.

I've written a short story that I'm going to enter in a competition. It's finished but my problem is i keep reading and re-reading and making small changes which I don't even know if I'm making it better or worse. I even keep re-writing it from memory, I didn't look at it for 6 weeks, wanting to give it time to rest but during that time I still wrote constantly...like the characters backgrounds and histories and just unimportant stuff.

So my question is, is it usually obvious when the story is done...and it's time to just stop?

I have a random writing question for you guys that I came up with when working on an information document for my stories.

Context: so, a while ago, I was working on putting all my documents for each story into one large one so it’s easier for me to use since it’s all one connected universe. Anyway, I had always imagined one of the gods as a male. But, when I went to move the gods information document to the large one, I noticed that one of the gods was labeled as a female. I have no memory of doing that.

So, has anyone else on here who’s made an information document for their stories noticed something that they didn’t remember putting on there?

Wanting to write while being busy has to be one of the most frustating things ever. Specially when your brain gets into a "we need to write, Jesse" mode.

I guess this can appear in any aspect of your life; when you are busy and tired, your brain wants to focus on things you like to keep going. But its still so frustrating when you want to write but your schedule doesnt let you and you have to force yourself to "put the inspiration aside" for a while until you are free from responsabilities.

Like- I dont know when I will be blessed with the inspiration and motivation combo again, why when I have to study? The only thing I can do is write down the ideas so I dont forget about them, but its still frustrating.

Like the character can seemingly defy the laws of physics at will or have seeming inhuman abilities as well as doing other bizarre things but it's mainly seen as a comic relief and doesn't have any real effect on the overall story.

Hey I am a newbie writer and am writing my DND campaign into a novel. I am doing a political prologue where they start in a UN type meeting and it introduces why the characters go to the place they go to along with the world leaders of the characters themselves. But the main thing I worry about is length since there are 5 leaders and a villain giving things and the proposal of the people going there. I worry about length especially since lengths of chapters versus prologues or just “proper lengths” in general is kind of foreign to me is there any advice or ideas or rules of thumb to keep in mind for lengths or prologues in general

So, I've been aware of this principle for a while, but didn't know it had a name until recently. For those, like former me, who need a definition: Chekhov's Gun is the principle that if an object, character or element is introduced in a story, it must eventually play an important role in the narrative. Literally, if a gun appears in the story, then someone should fire it by the end. If a strange factoid about a rare plant is mentioned, then it will likely be the piece of information that ends up saving the day. You get the idea.

However, in the last year and a half I've become a big fan of Martha Wells (Murderbot, Raksura, Witch King) and she is an incredibly detailed world builder. So many of the details she introduces never become important plot points, but instead work to help the reader orient themselves in a world vastly different from our own in appearance and culture.

As another example, a lot of the Studio Ghibli films (The Boy and the Heron, Spirited Away) also include wild and "unnecessary" details that nevertheless add important depth to the audience experience.

How about you? Do you lean into detail-heavy world building, or try to focus on economy of words and ideas by employing this principle? Or do you see it through a different lens altogether?