Best products from r/shutupandwrite

My First Impressions

Okay, I can’t stop thinking about your expressed desire to write for a living. From what I’ve read and heard, get ready for a shock of harsh reality. Writing is not so lucrative, and it is difficult work as well. So that said, I empathize with your heartfelt desire. Let’s see what I might add.

Also, I don’t want to forget to acknowledge the passion and depth portrayed in a story unlike anything you would ever want to write. Nice work!

The Scope

With everything I say, take it for what it’s worth. I’m no expert. I only want to keep my skills sharp by helping others. Feedback on my feedback is always welcome--I want to learn also.
I don’t put much stock in the whole telling verse showing concept. Faulkner told some great literature. And besides, why must everyone write in a stock format anyway. Do what you feel is right and what fits your creative mode.

Mere Suggestions

If you want to be a writer by profession, I would suggest taking the long way home and not hitting the drive thru. I know what I’m saying is cryptic, but there is a metaphoric point behind it.

Many times we want to pull up, order, and hit the road before our food is cold in the bag. When it comes to writing, we find the drive-thru convenient and flashy, but when we get home our food is often stale and dry. Quick courses are beneficial in many respects, but I’ve found that a hard study will open new avenues of depth and precision that were once beyond our present conception.

My advice, if you want write, I mean really write and be successful in writing: step back and study. Take a grammar class or get a grammar book. Understand the components of language we know but hang around us with and unfamiliar plume of foggy understanding. Nail them down and use them.

Then, take a course in creative writing or get some books relating to the creative craft.

I’m not a salesman, but I’ve been one in the past, so beware. Here is a regimen of books I’ve found very helpful in my quest to achieve your expressed desire.

This is a great textbook that approaches English grammar from a linguistic framework. Forget about the old Latin-based grammar rules, this book will teach you the practical aspects of grammar as they relate to writing.

Next, I’ve read all of these and they provide a broad understanding. Each book brings a unique voice to the creative approach. I encourage you to take hold of them all.

Imaginative Writing: The Elements of the Craft

The Making of a Story: A Norton Guide to Creative Writing

The Practice of Creative Writing: A Guide for Students

Take them for what they are worth. I apologize for not addressing any specifics in the piece you posted, but I thought this the best place to start.

Humble apologies and encouragements . . . dwrightjones

Overall, I'm quite impressed with this.

I agree that you could use a bit of help with conveying emotion, but so could most writers, to be perfectly honest (I include myself in that camp). A good tip is to evoke emotion by describing the outward (physical) and inward (mental) expressions of it. For example, instead of saying "Robert seemed more relaxed and focused than before," describe what makes Robert seem more relaxed and focused: "Robert's restless fidgeting had subsided, and he was leaning back in his chair."

Everyone expresses emotions differently, so it's good to decide ahead of time how each character expresses anxiety, happiness, anger, or whatever feelings you expect them to have over the course of your story.

I quite like The Emotion Thesaurus as a reference for this type of thing, but be careful not to rely on another writer's ideas of expression too heavily. As long as you can use a reference like this as a starting point, rather than a crutch, you're in good shape.

My other general comment: don't be afraid of adding a bit more colourful description. You're somewhat like me, in that dialogue is clearly your strength, but you're a bit intimidated by descriptive text. You don't have to describe every feature in the room, or every single movement a character makes. The trick is to add a little bit here and there to break up the dialogue; right now I feel a bit like I'm reading a courtroom transcript instead of a work of creative fiction. The good news is that you're already good at bits of description (case in point: the line about the steam and smell of the tea is perfect). You just need to employ it a teeny bit more.

It's been a while, and I'm ashamed to admit that I fell off the grid for a bit there.


Let's see, where are things now...

A LATENT DARK 2 is currently in it last rounds of edits and I am expecting a cover soon.

I finished a workable first-ish draft for another project about a month ago (actually more like revision 7, but this one is the first draft that seems like something I can actually do something from). It's about ready to come out of its drawer and get some fresh eyes.

In the meantime I am working on a second book in the Patcher novella series. The first book is here.

I wrapped up a horror bundle with StoryBundle a month ago. That was fun and got to work with a lot of talented authors who are are far better at this business than I am.

I will now submerge myself in work again and rise for air in about a month.

No problem! It certainly is ambitious for a first-time attempt, but for what it's worth I think you're doing great so far!

For a quick-and-dirty guide you can check out this quick meter explanation. If you've got a little bit of spending money, I highly reccomend The Ode Less Travelled by the disgustingly talented Stephen Fry. Again, poetry isn't really my forte, but hopefully these will give you enough information to know what to google!

She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth by Helen Castor. A really interesting book; the author tells the stories intelligently and with good pacing.

The Dog Fighter by Marc Bojanowski

Its about a drifter who ran away from home to settle down in Baja Mexico at a time when development of the area is about to begin. The drifter makes money by fighting dogs that have had their teeth filed down.

What I like about it are the action scenes. The man fights dogs in cage matches before a drunken mexican crowd. The author wades in the grizzly details and uses imagery in a way that makes you want to wipe the blood from the fights off your face. A fun and different read.

What I don't like about it: Author is trying very hard to get me interested in the drifter's love life and romantic relationship with the villain's girl. I just can't see the protagonist being romantic after he was just snapping the legs of dogs in fights.

I just bought and read This book. Short, concise, and really practical advice. It also includes a checklist you can flip to (and a link to a printable version) for each step the book goes over.

The book doesn't claim to be 12 years of English classes. It claims to allow you to deliver a manuscript that has been ironed out a bit more. Waging a step by step war on a lot of the common, mechanical issues. It has helped me right away and I pull my printed checklist out before I allow the editor in the room. While it's just a basic coat of polish, I was surprised to see how many things can be cut and how stories become a little more lean and powerful in a few minutes. At 4.99 not a huge investment but I needed to improve on every little thing the book covered. I have been edited before and this system allows me to produce changes similar to those I've gotten back from editors, but were never really explained to me all that well.

I am currently reading/read:

• 6am train into work, read The Times cover to cover on ipad.
  
• Toilet book: In Praise of Nepotism - Adam Bellow
  
• Current garbage book for relaxing: The Fear Index - Robert Harris
  
• Current living room book: A rather nice leather bound copy of One of Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
  
• Current work book: Poor Numbers by Morten Jerven
  
• Work book two: The Age of Ageing
  
• Work book three: Lords of Poverty
  
• Current PA book for my idea of novel: The Death of Grass
  
• Current book I should be reading but I'm not and has been sitting in my to read pile for months - Symposium
  
  And a million and one others, just the ones I've come into contact with in the past few days.

http://www.amazon.com/1-000-Awesome-Writing-Prompts-ebook/dp/B00JOVSYC2/keywords=writing+prompts

Here you go :)

I'm surprised more people aren't reading current indie fiction (eat your own dog food?)

I'm currently reading Nyx, by /u/zombie_wonderland

Ebook is free on amazon today: Gaiman-esque tale of a nasty fairy stuck in hell.

Well, I'm reading The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King for the Shut Up and Read reading club. Simply put it's a story about a girl who gets lost in the woods. It's a great piece of suspense work.

> Synopsis from Amazon page: As darkness begins to fall and Trisha struggles for survival and a way out, she realises that she is not alone. There’s something else in the woods – watching. Waiting…

I recently also got my hands on HP Lovecraft The Complete Collection which is basically a 764-page long reminder of the limitations of my vocabulary. Underneath all the flowery language, though, and the archaic story structures, there's a lot of interesting and inspiring ideas.

It's filled with descriptions like this:

> Of the name and abode of this man but little is written, for they were of the waking world only; yet it is said that both were obscure. It is enough to know that he dwelt in a city of high walls where sterile twilight reigned, and that he toiled all day among shadow and turmoil, coming home at evening to a room whose one window opened not on the fields and groves but on a dim court where other windows stared in dull despair.

Damn son.

To make you feel a little better, though, what little dialogue the stories have (always know to be Lovecraft's weak spot) goes like this:

> "Have you no brain whereby you may recognize the will which has through six long centuries fulfilled the dreadful curse upon your house? Have I not told you of the great elixir of eternal life? Know you not how the secret of Alchemy was solved? I tell you, it is I! I! I! that have lived for six hundred years to maintain my revenge, FOR I AM CHARLES LE SORCIER!"

Okay, Charles... sheesh...

And finally, to balance off the melodrama, I'm reading Easy Bake Coven by Liz Schulte, a story about a "casual" witch to whom some shit happens. It's quite the light read.

I try to read a bunch of different genres. My most interesting ideas come from a mixture of things I've read/seen in one genre clicking together and transforming to fit into the modern comedy fantasy state my head constantly lives in.