(Part 2) Best products from r/writing

I answered this same question a while ago, I'll copy/paste that response here, but just really quick, the reason you see MFAs springing up in published authors' bios is because it's still the traditional, old school route. If you get your MFA in Creative Writing, you're more likely to pursue traditional publication than a more contemporary route (ebooks, audiobooks, self-pub, etc.).

But anways, onto the main content:

---

A degree is only as useful as you make it after you've attained it.

I could have gotten an MFA (I was offered a free spot in my grad school's program—long story) but chose not to because, frankly, I didn't feel that I needed it.

Don't get me wrong: an MFA can be invaluable. But imo (I can't stress that enough, this is all through my own lens), it's mostly the experience and the ease-of-access to useful tools that makes it worthwhile; not necessarily the degree itself. In other words, the journey to the degree is what gives it value (which I suppose could be said of any degree you earn, but I digress).

When you go for an MFA, you get (most obviously) incredible amounts of workshopping and feedback on your pieces; this is pretty essential to a growing writer. Just look at the weekly critique thread here, workshops/critiques are what people crave and you'll have consistent access to quality critiques. You really can't find that anywhere else.

In an MFA, you will absorb a lot of information regarding craft and nuance—all things that you could surely find on your own, but are consolidated and streamlined nicely for you in a program geared towards creative writing.

By extension, you also get immediate, intimate, and prolonged access to successful and published writers (instructors, guest writers, temp/visiting writers, etc.), whose brains you can pick quite freely.

And lastly (probably the "most" important thing for aspiring writers), you're given a 'better' platform from which to get published. You'll have all these connections that you can work, and they'll do what they can to help you get in (all the while improving your writing in a sustainable environment).

So, just to sum up quickly, what are some important things an MFA gives you?

• Workshops: Feedback given and received (both are very useful; do not underestimate the utility of being a good and articulate reader first and writer second; I can elaborate on this philosophy if you'd like, just ask :D).
  
• Networking: Like-minded peers to collaborate with, and instructors who are invested in your success (befriend as many people as you can; you never know if a peer is gonna be a breakout writer).
  
• Knowledge: Easy access to a ton of information ranging from style to craft.
  
• Guidance: You have a schedule. This seems like a no-brainer, but everything is laid out for you, and there is a logical progression to the things you will learn. You don't have to create your own lesson plans, you're walked through it by seasoned and skilled writers who are proven craftsmen and craftswomen. Also, you'll get advice from these same people who've been in your position before.
  
  Now here's the thing: all four of these things are attainable without an MFA. It'll take more effort on your part, but it's doable.
  
  You can workshop—either on your own, or as part of a community (like this sub). This also opens the door to networking, both with the people who critique your work and with those whose work you critique (see, beta readers).
  
  You can make your own schedule—a little harder for those who tend to procrastinate or find it difficult to self-motivate, but it can be done. Buy some books on creative writing (for example, the Portable MFA; or GWW on Fiction, etc.; I'm assuming you're interested in fiction rather than nonfiction/memoir or poetry), set a schedule for yourself (maybe M/W/F or something). Make your own lesson plan, do the exercises. It is imperative that you honor this schedule—no cheat days, no skipping (we'll talk about this in a bit).
  
  If possible, try to find a friend or two to do it with you (even if they're not great writers or really interested in it,
  but rather just want to support you)—it's always better with other people, and there's more motivation for yourself to do the exercises. Write on the days in between and the time before and after the lessons.
  
  Sure, you might not have such easy access to people in the industry without going to an MFA program, but at the end of the day, it's more often than not the quality of your writing and the execution of your ideas that will get you places. There are lots of self-published authors on this sub alone. How many of them have MFAs? I couldn't guess, but I can guarantee not all of them have one; they were just determined and diligent. They put in the time and work, maybe got an agent.
  
  Pursuing an MFA is great because it gives you constant (almost incessant) exposure to creative writing in what is usually a conducive environment: you cannot afford to put things off or to have writer's block; even if you're at a loss, you have to write.
  
  The problem with doing this solo (i.e. not in an MFA), especially if you have motivation issues, is that creative writing can be an endless time-sink. If you have writer's block and you just think, "Ah, I have no idea where to go with this, I'll just come back later," you can just go off and do something else: play video games, watch TV, see a movie, see friends... or maybe you're just a bad procrastinator. It just becomes an infinite loop of minimal-to-zero productivity.
  
  If you don't get much writing done in an MFA, you will get your ass handed to you. And you might be one of those people who can get by on procrastination, but in a CW program, it's very easy to see who is procrastinating... so your work will likely be sub-par and your ass will get handed to you anyways. Your instructors won't mince words, they will tell you straight up if your work is bad. One of my instructors gave me an anecdote of his first workshop at the famed Iowa Writer's Workshop where the instructor had the whole class workshop one of the student's works—he remained silent the whole time and let them guide the discussion. They went on for over 45 mins talking about the good and bad parts of the story, craft, etc., and after they had all finished, the instructor simply held the manuscript up and tore it in half. He told them they were all wrong and had wasted their time, because the manuscript was trash.
  
  Granted, this is an extreme case in probably the most prestigious MFA program there is, but my point stands: at an MFA, you must produce. At home, doing this alone, you can have days where you only write one page, days where you write 10, and nothing bad will come of it. Don't worry too much about quality—it will come with volume. The more you write, the better you'll get at it; likewise, the more you critique other stories, the better you'll get (which is why workshopping is so important). I'd argue that critiquing others is more important than writing yourself but that's linking back to the philosophy I mentioned above and I don't want to delve into that since it's not really relevant.
  
  When I was getting my MA in English, I had a friend who was in the MFA program (while I was still deciding if I wanted to enroll in it after I got my masters) and whenever I asked him how his MFA was coming along, he always seemed to be stressing about his deadlines and workload. He'd have to have a brand new short done by the next week; or 50+ new pages for his novel-in-progress by the week after; the entire novel draft by midterm break; the draft revised by the end of semester; all of this while writing other shorts, workshopping other people's stuff, teaching at the local high school, etc.
  
  In the military, there's a term during basic training/boot camp called "getting smoked." This is when the instructors make recruits run or do insane amounts of push-ups/pull-ups.
  
  In an MFA, your ass is going to get smoked. You're going to have to write a lot. When there's a deadline to meet and something on the line (your reputation, your grade, etc.), you'll find your motivation fast, even if you have to make it up; this isn't necessarily the case when you're your own boss.
  
  Like I said earlier, I was offered a guaranteed spot in my school's MFA program. I eventually declined, because, essentially, I'm very confident in my prose. The head of the CW department was really pushing for me to join, and I knew that if he thought my writing was that good, I didn't actually need the MFA (although I'd be lying if I said I didn't want one).
  
  Worst-case scenario, if you get your MFA (and even while pursuing it) and everything else falls through, you can get some teaching opportunities at local high schools and temp jobs at colleges. When you get your MFA (since it's a terminal degree), you can actually teach full-time at the college/university level which does have its perks. But teaching isn't for everyone (:
  
  So, TL;DR: if you're a very motivated person, you don't really need an MFA. If you need a kick in the ass, an MFA may be very helpful (and you'll get some very helpful things along the way).
  
  Also: money. It sucks, but it's a factor.
  
  If you have any other questions, I'm all ears. Good luck!
  
  ~b

D4Darious

An awesome and charismatic dude who focuses mainly on directing/screenwriting, but still has good videos on what makes a good story ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCzcoyDp2fY ) and story structure ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYUE2n91Cok ) in particular.

K.M. Wieland

Check out her books since they're some of the best on story structure (as well as this one: https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Story-Becoming-Master-Storyteller/dp/0865479933/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1522099181&sr=8-1 ) but she also has a youtube channel with 3-4 minute shorts revolving around the info in her books. She is a novelist (and focuses more on writing rather than visual storytelling, which is a little rarer on this list only because Youtube is a visual medium and is perfect for analyzing movies) but her videos aren't all that bad.

LFTS, LFTS, LFTS

I can't say how much I love this guy; I could watch his videos for hours (I do, actually). He breaks down movies, their scenes, etc. and how those movies/screenwriters/story elements effectively create a good story. This is my personal favorite of his: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvtOY0YrF-g and this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKSDctC2o-s and this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUgYoT_xEFY

The Closer Look

Awesome British dude with great videos on things ranging from theme, to genre, to endings. Some of my favorites of his are: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM1tUwpy-yQ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjCedbTGWzk

Now You See It

A guy who reminds me a lot of LFTS and analyzes what certain things mean in storytelling and common techniques/tropes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR8PDn6YvyQ

Charisma on Command

This one is a little out there (it's actually not about storytelling; it's a youtube channel focusing on relationships and being charismatic/confident) but if you look in between the lines of what he's saying, you can learn a lot for writing. His dissections of GOT characters gave me plenty of ideas and insights into people and how they work. Without this I wouldn't know how super intelligent characters manipulate people (and how more naive characters don't see it coming) This is the specific video I'm referencing: (oh, spoiler warnings in most of these videos btw) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccrQObMjg1U

Just Write

Love this guy too! He is known for his "What writers should learn from " series and analyzes popularly bad movies and explain why they're so bad in the first place (The Hobbit, Avatar the Last Airbender, etc). I'd recommend this one as well as any of his other videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cih9kj6ZPdg for learning about what to do/avoid when writing

This was a list of some of the people I've found and follow, and I hope they help you too.
The last bit of advice I can give to you is to choose one of your favorite movies, books, tv shows, stories and search something along the lines of "Why do people love __?" or "What makes good?" or "Why is [enter director/author here] so good/popular/successful?". You'll find a lot of analysis on youtube you can turn your brain off with (or take pages of notes, whatever your style) to begin understanding why people enjoy what they do. You can use this to your advantage when writing your own stories and avoid walking in blind on a project. Research genre and story structure and characters and plenty of other things until you understand all the arguments, perspectives, and techniques. Good luck!!!

I think this kind of material is awesome! I'm more of a fantasy reader myself, but the type of immersion content I like to see is stuff like...

• maps!
  
• artwork - like photos of places; drawings of stuff from the novel (swords/whatever); diagrams. I'm not personally into character drawings/photos, but I think a lot of people probably do like that.
  
• unpublished artwork and scenes - like original cover concepts, as well as scenes that had to be cut or side-stories about characters who don't get enough time in the main work
  
• "making of" content, like early drafts, planning pages, crappy doodles, whatever
  
• games/puzzles related to the story
  
• recipes! This is kind of a weird one, but a lot of people love descriptions of food and a lot of books (esp scifi and fantasy) have weird food that I think might be fun to try to make yourself
  
• other (non-written) media, like songs/music from the book
  
• other genre/format material, like comics about the same characters,
  
  I'm largely unpublished at the moment, but I do a lot of side-projects and I also enjoy developing a story from multiple angles :D I think that's a great way not only to entertain existing fans, but to draw people to your book/product. Despite the fact that my novel is unpublished, I got quite a lot of attention to a "which character are you?" quiz that I made for my blog.
  
  This is a big unrelated, but you might also like checking out the Raw Shark Texts (allegedly there are real-world places you can travel to to "discover" more things about the book content) and/or The Ship of Theseus (/"Book of S"), which is sold with a bunch of "extraneous" material like newspaper clippings, and the whole book is filled with notes written back and forth from "previous readers"; it's a pretty interesting experience.

I plot out the major arcs of both the story and the characters. I make sure to nail down the essentials of what is happening when, as well as developing a good understanding of my character motivations.

For me, a lot of planning involves just taking the time to mull over the themes I want to work with, or explore questions I want to raise. This involves asking a lot of questions to everyone I know, everyone I meet. It makes for great party conversations!

It takes a few months, during which time I'll also explore what's already been written/said about what I'm hoping to do. I look at similar movies and books, anything at all that's already been produced that has themes or topics similar to what I'm developing.

I watch a lot of movies and read a lot of books.

As a concrete example, my most recent novel is about what would happen if everyone in the world stopped sleeping.

I spent months asking everyone I knew what the longest was that they stayed awake. I also read pretty much the only comparable thing on the topic, a fictional novel called "Sleepless" by Charlie Huston. I also read articles on sleep and neuroscience, as well as watched TED talks and other related videos.

Then I conducted a sleep-deprivation experiment on myself. I wanted to know what it would be like to not sleep. (I am a wuss and didn't make it that long- I need sleep more than the average bear apparently!)

This novel is in the style of World War Z (early title: World War ZZZ, huehuehue) and so it involved a lot of characters. Too many to keep track of in my brain, unaided.

I had index cards for each one, as well as drafts notes (using Scrivener- hurrah!). I got really comfortable with character creation. I read Stephen King's On Writing and O.S. Card's Characters and Viewpoint.

I was able to craft an overarching narrative by determining which characters would inject the story with which elements, and placing them where they needed to be. They got moved around a bit as I went on, but throughout I was very aware of the overall flow of the work.

Through careful planning, the actual writing (80,000 words) only took about seven weeks. I am a machine when it comes to word output, if I've done my (months and months of) homework. A second draft saw a lot of that cut, and more added in to bring it up to 86,000 words in three weeks of the hardest work of my life.

For me, planning is super important. If I don't plan well enough, I waste days. Days where my story goes off the rails, or my characters do things which don't make sense.

It's wonderful to see some things happen more fluidly, and I've had lovely surprises this way, but I always stop and think about if that is really what I want to be doing before I proceed.

I hope this long winded reply answers your question. I do enjoy sharing this sort of thing, and I hope it helps other writers do what they love to do.

I think I disagree, but guess I haven't read a ton of books about writing. In my experience, they can be helpful, especially to people who are just starting out. Maybe not as helpful as reading the types of books that you want to write (and reading the stuff you don't want to write—it's important to read widely), but I don't know if I'd call them a waste of time. King's book is great (but that might be because I got the impression that I'd like him as a person while I was reading that), Strunk and White Elements of Style and Zissner's On Writing Well are helpful for tightening beginners' prose, Writing Fiction: a guide to narrative craft has great exercises at the end of every chapter, and I'm reading Benjamin Percy's essay collection Thrill Me right now, and it's great. I feel like a large part of /r/writing would really connect with the first and titular essay in that collection, actually. He talks about reading a lot of so-called trash genre fiction before being exposed to literary fiction and how he kind of overcorrected and became a super-fierce advocate for that-and-only-that before he realized that you can take the good parts of both to create amazing stories. I've also never read any other respected literary person mention reading R. A. Salvatore, which was cool to see since I forgot I was a big Drizzt fan when I was younger.

I know it's not explicitly geared for short stories but The Nighttime Novelist is my go-to text for how to think about structuring a larger work. Though I have yet to publish my first novel.

Short story writing is very different. Janet Burroway's Writing Fiction and Stephen King's On Writing are both wonderful craft books that shed some of the practicalities of the Nighttime Novelist and look a good writing in its simplest form.

Much more important than nonfiction books, though, is finding short story markets you'd like to read. Figure out what kind of place might accept the most perfect form of the fiction you'd like to write, and then read those magazines religiously. While you're reading, do what you can to consider what these stories are doing well and how they are pulling off what they are pulling off. Use the vocabulary learned from craft books to better articulate (to yourself, mostly) what these stories are really doing, and begin to generate a sense of what good writing looks like. Then practice, practice, practice, write, revise, and write some more until you've got something worth sending out.

At this point in your writing development, the name of the game is simply learning to write well--keep that in mind, and try to make decisions based on what will help you become a better writer. And finally remember, there is such a thing as "practicing well."

Others have covered this well, but I wanted to throw in some thoughts. You absolutely MUST read if you plan on writing a novel. Just... required.

But don't force yourself to read things you don't like. Have you tried graphic novels? They are chock full of story but are more dynamic than your typical novel. Harry Potter may not have clicked for you because you saw the movies, but have you tried other young adult novels that don't have movie tie-ins? A lot of YA is imminently readable because they're usually in first person, fast-paced and very hook driven. There are some fun sci-fi/timey-wimey YA books out there you could try.

On the adult side, have you tried to read Thursday Next by Jasper Fforde? It's surrealist fantasy with a very fun time travel element, though they are very heavily rooted in bibliophilia--it's all tongue-in-cheek love of books stuff (the main character can jump into fiction). But he's my favorite writer on the planet and a great example of having fun with language/writing.

So I haven't actually read it but one of my BFFs loved this book to pieces: S by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst. http://www.amazon.com/S-J-Abrams/dp/0316201642. It's apparently a very bizarre "book" that is not quite a book and is supposed to be an experience unto itself. Sounds a bit like what you maybe have in mind.

I'm surprised people haven't said much about the actual writing itself. Tone is an issue, but the actual structure of your writing needs work. I'll pull a few examples that way you can see what I mean.

"Unless you’re a member of an isolated ancient tribe living under one of the six remaining trees in what used to be the Amazon rainforest, you have almost certainly heard the term “Machine Learning” floating past within the last few years."

Your first sentence is almost a paragraph. This is a problem. Writing should be succinct and to the point. Clarity and strength of word usage will make what you say much more meaningful.

"In fact, personally, I’m convinced that if humanity doesn’t eradicate itself prematurely, there won’t be anything left humans can do that can’t be done much better, faster and cheaper by a suitably designed and programmed computer (or a network of them)."

This is a sentence in your third paragraph, which is again almost an entire paragraph by itself. You also severely diminish the strength of your sentence when you use things like 'In fact', 'personally', 'I'm convinced'. Your readers know that you are convinced because you are the one writing it. You need to convince them.

"Even though a computer can do just about anything, making it do what you want it to do can be very hard indeed."

Adverbs are not your friend. - Stephen King

Strength of sentence structure is impacted when you use adverbs like 'very'. And throwing on an 'indeed' doesn't do you any favors either. Make a point to think about what you are adding to your sentences with these words. Is the answer "I am adding nothing with these words."? Then those words should not be there.


I'm going to leave you a list of books where you can learn from writers that will help you with these things. Try not to get discouraged. We all have a lot to learn, so just think of it as part of the process. I would HIGHLY suggest you at least look into Elements of Style.

Sol Stein's On Writing

Stephen King's On Writing

Elements of Style

Your Writing;

Some good writing in your details and solid word images. You have a good sense of humor, I would have enjoyed more of your dry timing. The story and characters, that was very difficult for me to follow. The paragraphs seemed to dance, move to one thing or another, almost like it didn't need to connect. They did connect but It felt to me I had to work hard to get it.

I stopped when Owen got to Lake Tahoe.

I found it hard to understand when it's the Mc thinking, or a dream, or something else. It didn't feel very real to me. I didn't get a any sense of a 'when', no sense of time passing, nor a viewpoint that let me understand what I was reading.

I thought Owen was a type of kid I wouldn't much like to hang out with. The red haired girl, not sure. Good world building, a firm start.

Other ways to get better feedback;

If you want to avoid bad habits before starting, be clear about how much help you can get here. Ask specific questions about areas you think don't work. Post a small intro, maybe just a scene or two from a chapter. Start a bit smaller. Build up from there.

The best help I see comes from very specific questions about your work.

More detailed critiques can be found at the link shown below. There they will read all of it and give very detailed responses, however there is a catch. You have to do a 1:1 ratio of other works in order to receive the same. So you'd have to complete a high level critique of a 2,500 plus story, then you would get the same.

If you don’t follow this rule, your post will be marked as a leech post. And if your leech post has been up for 24 hours without any new critiques from you, it will be removed.

[Destructive Readers](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/ "The goal: to improve writing and maintain the highest standard of critique excellence anywhere on Reddit. DestructiveReaders isn't about writers being nice to writers; it's about readers being honest with writers. We deconstruct writing to construct better writers." )

Sharing the writing process;

A lot of us here are working and struggling with becoming better writers. So you are not alone in this painful process.

I myself find the task of becoming a good writer very daunting. I only keep going because I create a belief in myself. After that I go through the slow hard swim in the deep dark oceans of the unknown. I have no directions, no compass, only fear which if allowed becomes an anchor.

It would be good to know something about your skill level, things you've already read to improve crafting stories, classes you've taken, daily exercises or how much you write each day.

Myself; I do a daily poem, then write from 5/6 am to 9 am, that will be either my current novel or on a short I plan to submit to a magazine. I listen to Podcasts and do exercises from Writing Excuses

Books I use as my reference on writing;

• Song Writing Without Boundaries by Pat Pattison
  
  
• Characters & Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card
  
  
• On Writing by Steven King
  
  
• The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr and E.B. White
  
  end
  
  
  
  
  

Thank you so much for all your comments. I really enjoyed your thoughts and feedback.

You're right about the Genesis joke. Because he knows so little about games, Mervyn is getting his mascots muddled up. He says 'blue Nintendo hedgehog' instead of 'blue Sega hedgehog'.

Yeah, the 'about the interview' doesn't read well. Thanks for that!

With Mervyn pretending to be racist, it was fascinating seeing your reaction unfold as you went. I know I'm treading a really fine line here and don't want the protagonist to become unlikable.

I think you're right about the shriek. I did that for comic effect but it's perhaps too much like something from a sitcom. Will tone it down. Maybe 'shudder' or 'wince' would be better.

You're spot on about Dennis thinking it was just a joke. Their relationship is far from over and Mervyn does, in fact, end up becoming a games tester.

I'm delighted to hear you liked both characters. That's one of the most important things to me. Even Dennis, in his prejudiced and loathsome way, is intended to be an interesting guy.

The book is actually finished and for sale at Amazon here:

https://www.amazon.com/Mervyn-vs-Dennis-Niels-Saunders-ebook/dp/B01I1TAID0/

Would be happy to send you some more chapters, though. I'll definitely be incorporating your feedback in the next revision. Will check out your blog shortly. Thanks again!

I spent my undergrad studying creative writing, so I spent a decent amount of time on craft. Part of it was teacher instruction / mentoring, which was invaluable, but there was also a lot of studying of pieces of writing and breaking them apart not in the way you'd do in a lit class, but as writers - meaning, looking at how they're written, why they're written in the way that they are, and what effects that creates, how the story would change if one scene was changed, etc.

The best book that we used for fiction, in my opinion, was John Gardner's The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers - Gardner goes into a lot of discussion about the pieces of a story, gives lots of writing exercises to help you think about different aspects of a story, and also dashes in some life advice about living a creative life while he's at it.

If you're into poetry (or you want to improve your phrasing and pacing of sentences in your prose, as well as work on unique and strong images), I love Kim Addonizio's book Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within - discussion on some different ideas, from getting started to how to mix poems up to different poetic techniques. Lots of examples. Lots of writing exercises / prompts.

And, of course, close reading is what has been my teacher in the years since undergrad. If I run into a piece of writing that really blows me away, I go back and will read it at least once more, maybe more, trying to pick out all the little pieces that make it work.

>Written anything this week?

Currently working on Season 2 of Chronicles of the Otherworld & a bigger project that I'm very excited about!

>Reading something special?

Not really! I'm thinking of picking up a Murakami novel or reading The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck!


>What have you learned about writing recently?

You don't need to justify yourself. Just let the work speak on its own.

>How's the editing going? / Sending Out those queries?

Not there yet!

>What was it like when you ate 2.5 steaks and 8 eggs in one day?

Fabulous!

Next morning however...

---

My first audiobook was released recently! Recorded by the very talented Mr. Erik Johnson!

Chronicles of the Otherworld: Season 1

I still have a few codes available if anyone wants to audiobook for free! Just hit me up with a comment or send me a message if you're interested and let me know if you're in the US or Europe/Asia!

I'd love to hear people's thoughts on the project as we're very happy with it!

Blurb:

The world is for those who were born to conquer it. They were just born elsewhere.

A chosen few found themselves in another world where magic is real. Deemed the Otherworlders by the inhabitants of this foreign realm, the Otherworlders were granted powers that transcended them beyond even what this dark world of beasts and sorcery would consider normal.

With no explanation or purpose for why they were given such gifts, some Otherworlders decided to treat the world as their playground....

Some searched for their place.... While others let their ambitions pave their paths.

Neither this world’s salvation or doom, nor protectors or foes, nevertheless their presence will irreversibly rewrite the fate of the Otherworld.

The first season of Chronicles of the Otherworld follows the tales of Tay, Camilla, and Robert.

---

Here's the ebook/book of the said audiobook:

Chronicles of the Otherworld: Season 1

And my other book which is a Contemporary Fantasy

Black Halo: The Witch & The Guardian

Blurb

With the Light, came Magic, and the Witch. As mysterious as she was fearsome, and as powerful as she was merciless, the Witch almost succeeded in ending the world until she was vanquished by a hero and his comrades.

This is the legend of the Witch and the Guardian.

Centuries after the nigh calamity, this legend is as much as almost anyone knows of what truly happened back then and as much of an explanation anyone has of what ended an era in human civilization.

Though the people may never learn the whole story, you as the reader will follow the days that led up to how a young girl named Lily became immortalized as the Witch though her name, dreams and life became forgotten.

This week has been fantastic. :)

My CYOA text game, Me Smart Orc released without a hitch and already has a 5 star review! It's short, fun, and free, so feel free to try it.

'Rhythm' is set up for a HUGE launch next friday, the 7th of September. We're in every one of the big 5 E-book stores, plus the biggest regional stores overseas. Advertising is all in place. Ihy is calling you!

Finally, I'm 20K words into the brand new Panos book, well on track for a holiday release. I thought it was going to be rough, but although it's quite emotional dealing with the next generation of characters, the writing itself has flowed.

If you know any reviewers with a following who are interested in YA urban fantasy, this week is when I start handing out the pre-release review copies. Have them PM me here and let me know who they are, and I'll happily hook them up. :)

The Elements of Eloquence is neat. It basically a compendium of rhetorical tools you can use to make better sentences.

You might also be interested in free verse poetry, which, if we're being honest, is nothing but very carefully written prose. I'm currently going through this book and enjoying it.

I also want to second Francine Prose's Reading like a Writer, which someone else already mentioned. It's fantastic.

I agree with /u/dmealing: conflict is the core. The brain understands narratives, and the core of a narrative is conflict. I suggest you look at Writing for Story by Jon Franklin. He was a long-form journalist, but he developed his method by studying short stories and so forth. There's a little more about it here.

You can't have a good, much less great story without character, description and the other elements, but without a conflict to overcome the story will be unsatisfying for most people. To me, it's like that kind of free-form jazz where the musicians seem to be guys doing their own thing in the proximity of a microphone as opposed to a band playing a song. You can enjoy the virtuosity, the inventiveness, etc., but it's not the kind of thing people dance to or sing in the shower.

On the other hand, there's no shortage of famous authors who sell a ton of books and get accused of having wooden characters, or mediocre description, but obviously put out good stories.

Every comment in here is amazing advice to start, but I'd also like to add in the Gotham Writers' Workshop book. It runs you roughly $5-15 on Amazon, but offers you a good way to hone and practice your narrative skills by offering you a diverse story selection with exercises that are geared towards making you think, imagine, and create.

Link to book: Writing Fiction: The Practical Guide from New York's Acclaimed Creative Writing School https://www.amazon.com/dp/1582343306/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_.MruzbS4CWM04

On Writing Well by William Zissner and Elements of Style by Strunk and White will help you write with clarity and succinctness. King's On Writing and Lamott's Bird by Bird will give you good general advice (and the reading list at the end of King's is great), but yeah, they don't get into the nitty gritty details too often (which is why some people like them and why some people don't).

Thrill Me by Benjamin Percy is a great collection of essays on fiction. It's somewhere between On Writing's and Bird by Bird's generalness and the specificity of On Writing Well and Elements of Style. You might even disagree with some of Percy's essays but he tackles topics that are important to think about regardless.

And I can't recommend Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Barroway and Elizabeth and Ned Stuckey-French enough. It's a little pricey—look for it at your local library before you buy—but it's basically a undergraduate class on writing, complete with readings and exercises.

Hi u/Calicox,


Brandon Sanderson has a series of lectures he did at Brigham Young University when teaching a creative writing class there. Here's his lecture on character, but the others I've seen are also worth your time.

You may find the following books helpful:

This
This
This
This
This
This
This


Best,

DR-M

Read the whole series. Then this. And this. I used to be the same way. I got a little better using Freytag's triangle, but it wasn't specific enough. These resources helped turn me around. I still love great prose and toil over every word. Words are all we have. But beneath them, the story has to be there.

Title: Delicate

​

Genre: Young Adult, Coming of age, Women's fiction

​

Delicate the second edition has been completely revised and edited now with 5 brand new chapters!

​

Type of Feedback: Do you like the story? Do you like the writing style? Do you like the improvements? The characters? The plot? Anything!

​

All feedback is welcome and you can leave reviews on Amazon.

Ebook $2.99

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DZ86WP7/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

Paperback $6.99

https://www.amazon.com/DELICATE-Rachel-Zachary/dp/198325794X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Doesn't seem like you're as interested in getting help with writing as you are in getting help with illustration.

Still, regarding writing, I strongly recommend reading Scott McCloud's two seminal books on comic books: Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics.

I learned as much about comics from reading those two books as I learned about film from reading Story, by Robert McKee.

I.e., my appreciation and understanding of both media forms increased exponentially.

In the words of Chuck Wendig, "Finish your shit." Just completing the manuscript will teach you a lot, and it's great experience for you as a writer. If this is your first novel-length work, it will likely be painful to get everything out there, but do it anyway.

Perhaps don't think of it as a trilogy right now, though. Write a complete story, take it where you intend to take it, and just write the best manuscript you can. A novel is stressful enough, so you don't need to add on the idea of writing Book 2 and Book 3 to yourself during this process.

There are good resources out there for showing emotions, etc. You can show it with creative tags, or by the characters' actions. Many writing guides will tell you to at least try to stay away from adverbs. If you feel yourself using too many of those, try to cut most of them out and replace them with something else. Instead of "he eyed him contemptuously" try to show that contempt on his face through a few words of description (jaw tightening, clenched, eyes narrowing, top lips curling up, etc). Here's a decent resource for helping you to describe emotions (a handy tool that might help you out of a few tough spots here and there).

With respect to motivation, I leave you with the quote attributed to R.A. Salvatore: "If you can quit, then quit. If you can't, then you're a writer."

I've got a novel that's free on Amazon through 5/17. If you decide to pick up a copy, please consider leaving a review.

Title: Psalms of the Apocalypse

Genre: Science Fiction (though according to Amazon, Psychological Thriller)

Word Count: ~64k

Feedback Desired: Download and enjoy

Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BJM2ZDH

• As for how, this is the best guide I've found
  
  
• Agents are invaluable. The best 15% I've ever spent. Mine have made me more money, saved me money, and saved me lots of complications that I would have never foreseen.
  
  
• I'll be honest, the process can be heartbreaking. As with getting a book published the traditional route, landing a literary agent is daunting (around a 96-98% rejection rate), but it's not impossible. It takes persistence and a great query letter.
  

On Amazon, I once found an Emotional Thesaurus That's not exactly what you're looking for, but I liked being able to pick an emotion (such as wistful) and look at the different words and actions related to it.

Hope that helps!

I read Writing for Story which I really enjoyed, and he had an interesting take on "outlining" vs "pantsing." He said the world of writers is really better segmented as "outline early" or "outline late." And not that outlining late is bad, but he says "every satisfying story is outlined sometime." Perhaps you "discover your story" by free writing, but then when you're done, you still have to organize what you came up with, and set-up subplots earlier, etc.

You may not want to read an entire book to answer this question, but on the off-chance that you do, I'd recommend Francine Prose's "Reading Like a Writer." Sometimes it's easy to get so caught up in the magic of the story--savoring the beauty of a sentence, flipping frantically to find out what happens next--that you forget to look for where the rabbit is hidden! But this book helps you figure out what to look for, if that makes sense.

You might look at S. by Doug Dorst. It's not exactly a journal, but it is exactly the book equivalent of found footage.

At any rate, epistolary novels above been around for a long, long time.

What separates them from found footage, though, is the notion of pulling the reader in. With found footage, you're watching the movie as if you have discovered this footage and are now watching it. A journal-as-novel accomplishes something similar, but discovering a clever way to spin the book the reader has as something they've found—well, that's something special.

I highly recommend this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Story-Becoming-Master-Storyteller/dp/0865479933/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331027378&sr=8-1

But don't stop there. There are many good books out there to help you get started writing.

I want to point out that one book i have read says that reading about writing is part of becoming a good writer.

K. M. Weiland's book Structuring Your Novel is awesome. She also has other books about outlining and character arcs that were super helpful for me.

I'm a big fan of K.M. Weiland's books Structuring Your Novel and Outlining Your Novel. I frequently recommend the first one to my editing clients when they need help with plotting and pacing. Weiland's website is a great resource, too--here's a page with a visual representation of some of the principles she talks about in her books.

I'm starting too. Here's the list of resources I am planning on working my way through. No promises that you will know how to write after you are done, but it's a place to start. I haven't read/watched everything on this list yet (I'm just starting Brandon Sanderson's lectures, I have read On Writing, I have read some of Chuck Palahniuk's essays, and I went to a lecture on plotting that was largely based on Save the Cat), it's just the list of what I am planning on checking out.

Brandon Sanderson's Creative Writing Lectures

Chuck Palahniuk's Essay on Writing

On Writing by Stephen King

[Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott]
(https://www.amazon.com/Bird-Some-Instructions-Writing-Life/dp/0385480016/)

Story by Robert McKee

Save the Cat by Blake Snyder

This thread also has additional resources.

Oh, also, this is a funny resource, but I like reading Query Shark because one of the things that comes up over and over again is boiling a story down to three questions: who is your main character, what do they want, why can't they get it? I think when you are writing, you want to keep those questions at the core of your story and a lot of her comments on the blog are about cutting through all the extra stuff and getting to that core.

Edit: I missed that you said you already watched the Brandon Sanderson lectures. Sorry!

I'm not sure about what questions you could ask a coach, but any information i'd ever want to learn about writing can be found in the following books:

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1444723251

Stein on Writing
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0312254210

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into Print by Renni Browne
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0060545690

Maybe some questions you can answer for us? Why have you sought out a writing coach? What kind of writing do you do? How long have you been writing and at what level?

You may get some better responses after these questions. :)

I can give you three books that I recommend without reservation. The first is the easiest to read and a solid introduction to fiction editing. The second goes into more depth, with an excellent workflow for the revising process in the latter chapters. The third is the most dense, like a college class in fiction editing with a focus on how the 19th and 20th century masters actually revised their works, but it is also the most thorough.

Self-editing for Fiction Writers (written by two editors)

Stein on Writing (written by an accomplished editor)

Revising Fiction (written by an college professor, writer and editor)

I like to use tone to get across the protagonist's mood while carrying on with character interaction & build, plot, description, etc.
Yes, description combined with a sombre tone is very nice.

You can always use The Emotion Thesaurus. It has excellent reviews. Buy it if you struggle to convey emotion.

Yes, it is published. Thanks for asking!

Good luck!

There's a book called the Emotional Thesaurus that might help. I hear good things about it and I see articles reference it everywhere. It might be really good for you.

https://www.amazon.com/Emotion-Thesaurus-Writers-Character-Expression/dp/1475004958

It depends on the agent. Obviously I'm not an agent, but I have a soft spot for funny SciFi - like The Book of Ralph or, or course, The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy.

Think funny (laughing with the story) vs ridiculous (laughing at the story). Think "Ice to meet you".

Sol Stein is a masterful editor; below is a good book to read.

https://www.amazon.com/Stein-Writing-Successful-Techniques-Strategies/dp/0312254210

Watch your comma usage. Too many commas slow down and break up the flow of the sentence.

Am not trying to be hyper-critical, just calling it like I see it and want to help.

I just stumbled upon S. by Doug Durst and JJ Abrams which sort of falls into this category as well. There's a "people who viewed this also liked..." rabbit hole to venture on from there. I should've thought of that first!

Edit: Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker, from what limited preview is available, also seems to use a footnote format that could be appropriated.

Thank you for your help. You seem to always be dispensing quality advice in general for a single upvote.

Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them (P.S.) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060777052/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_b7szDbY7MJ13P

Anatomy of a story on amazon.

On that page is an interesting promo for a free trial of something called Amazon Storybuilder that might be relevant to OP's query.

Thank you, but I just translated what I learned elsewhere. I checked this out at the library for free and read it in about 2 days, changed so much for me:

https://www.amazon.com/Characters-Viewpoint-Elements-Fiction-Writing/dp/1599632128

How about Writing Fiction from the Gotham Writer's Workshop. It's got a good bit of useful advice about everything.

I'll second Zinsser.

Finally, maybe something literary criticism-ish and structural. How about Reading Novels by George Hughes?

I have to admit I don't care for either King or Strunk&White. Sorry.

Did you know Amazon will donate a portion of every purchase if you shop by going to smile.amazon.com instead? Over $50,000,000 has been raised for charity - all you need to do is change the URL!

Here are your smile-ified links:

On Writing Well

Elements of Style

Thrill Me

Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft

---

^^i'm ^^a ^^friendly bot

i highly recommend the book the anatomy of story. it is tailored towards writing a screenplay, but the advice inside transcends the medium of story.

in my opinion, you can learn both the mechanics of grammar and writing and the mechanics of writing a story, but the latter is where it's really at. everyone writes because they have a story to tell. this story can be fiction, non-fiction, something in between, biographical, etc., but there's a story in there, and as a writer, it's your job, and likely your inner calling, to bring that story out and present it to your audience. learn to tell a good story and the mechanics of writing will follow.

http://www.scribophile.com

Scrivener

Pinterest

Aside from this subreddit I find https://www.reddit.com/r/Writers_Block/ and their discord helpful.

Edit: I also found these two books very helpful for outlining and checking my novel structure. I got them both on Kindle and read them religiously.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978924622/ref=r_soa_w_d

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00EJX08QA/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Story - That it's focused on screenwriting is almost irrelevant. The information in this on story structure is astounding.
45 Master Characters - This is character development down to the nth degree.

If you're serious about this, the very best thing for you to do at this moment would be to read "Characters and Viewpoint" and it will answer the question you're asking, and the myriad of questions you aren't.

There's such a thing as being too loose, and there's such a thing as being too tight. Some people just start writing with page one and have to do 50 drafts because their story keeps shifting under their feet. You're having the opposite problem. You want to plot out a story mechanically and there's no organic growth.

I'm confident if you just started writing your ideas would evolve and grow. Adding detail and action will that do that on it's own. But maybe you should learn a bit about organic story development first. I recommend The Anatomy of Story by John Truby. It will help you work through all of your ideas in a process so that they can grow and develop.

I found that Orson Scott Card's book "Characters and Viewpoint" has helped me lay the foundation for great characters.

I just bought this for myself and I'm loving it.

Emotional Thesaurus

Yeah, the Pixar list and a similar work--Invisible Ink--helped train me to "see" meta-structure in storytelling in my work and others. This was important groundwork for when I eventually buckled down and read Robert McKee's Story, which itself is the groundwork for many of these digested lists. But they were all important for me in the overall learning process and learning to abstract and adapt them to my own work.

Sol Stein recommends the opposite as well: examine crap to identify what doesn't work. Since that sentiment is mirrored in our sister profession, I'd call that a good tip.

It doesn't deal with just one book, but Reading like a Writer tells how to analyze books yourself.

The two that always get mentioned are 'Writing Fiction: A guide to Narrative Craft' http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Fiction-Guide-Narrative-Craft/dp/B003IG7P1K/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1313794096&sr=8-2 and 'Reading Like a Writer' http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Like-Writer-Guide-People/dp/0060777052/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313794216&sr=1-1 .

From the Amazon page:

A message appears on the moon. It is legible from Earth, and almost no one knows how it was created. Markus West leads the government’s investigation to find the creator.

The message is simple and familiar. But those three words, written in blazing crimson letters on the lunar surface, will foster the strangest revolution humankind has ever endured and make Markus West wish he was never involved.

You mean like The Emotion Atlas? http://www.amazon.com/Emotion-Thesaurus-Writers-Character-Expression/dp/1475004958

Orson Scott Card wrote this book on creating believable characters. It was one of my bibles when I was writing fiction.

Well, writing in general with your own ideas is always the biggest plus. But if you're wanting to use a prompt book or something I suggest the 3am Epiphany or Gotham Writers Workshop: Writing Fiction

Someone in this forum recently recommended this series of books. They give lists of physical and behavioral signs of emotions and personality traits. I bought all three, and I've never looked back. They don't have every single emotion, but are still a boon. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1475004958/ref=cm_cr_ryp_prd_ttl_sol_23

Seconding Robert McKee's Story. Just reading a few pages makes me want to dash off and write the rest of the day.

Check out the emotional thesaurus. It's not online but used copies are cheap enough.

https://www.amazon.com/Emotion-Thesaurus-Writers-Character-Expression/dp/1475004958

Stein on writing, by Sol Stein?

[John Trulby's anatomy of Story] (https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Story-Becoming-Master-Storyteller/dp/0865479933) might give you a lot of ideas for scenes.

It's called The Emotion Thesaurus.

The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide To Character Expression

Not necessarily just for short stories, but I would suggest the Gotham Writers Workshop Writing Fiction Guide.
https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Fiction-Practical-Acclaimed-Creative/dp/1582343306

No, but this has actually been sort-of-done. Check out this. I'm not a big romance reader but holy shit, this book was amazing.

My answer has mixed opinions at this board, but the fact is a professional writer needs to have a strong grasp of business sense to keep from being torn apart by vultures, especially trad publishing vultures. The contracts are stuff of legend and getting worse. Read every last word of this blog to catch up on the situation.
This page is very helpful too.

So what that means is, the better your business and marketing chops, the more you'll have in your toolbox to deal with everything that comes with being a writer. We don't just sit back and collect checks. There's marketing, contract know-how, and strategic decisions to make whether indie or trad. You have to know how to make your own website, strike up your own social media, and make sure no one is stabbing you in the back.

English lit? A skeptic here. Read the classics. Read the books in the syllabus. But major on it? One of the biggest complaints I read on the tubes is how college classes skew prose into such a pretzel that the only thing they teach is how to be obscure. I mean, I guess it depends on who you want your audience to be. People who turn their noses up at even well-written, people-accessible genre books? Or people who want to become enveloped in a story that transcends their everyday life?

Do I think you should be well-read? Fuck. Yeah. Am I slamming the classics? Not on whole. Do I think it's a shame profs aren't teaching basic plot structure during the entire curriculum? Oh yes.

One of the three links I gave you directly above (Immediate Fiction) was written by a man who was FURIOUS after he graduated from college and realized he still knew jack-shit about writing a book.

I don't know if this will help you, but have the hero's(A) weakness be attacked by the Antagonist(B) while another opponent(C) attacks the antagonist, and another opponent(D) attacks the opponent attacking the antagonist. Lol. I hope you get what I mean. Basically you have a set of characters that are always in conflict like clashing waves. They're all attacking each other. Anyways, it's called the four-corner opposition. Very useful stuff from John Truby's The Anatomy of Story.

https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Story-Becoming-Master-Storyteller/dp/0865479933/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1541458878&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Anatomy+of+Story

Note: It's a huge dump of information and IS NOT for beginners. I already knew The Three Act Structure before I read this.