Writer's Corner (Formerly GWWBAA)

Writing tips, helps and exercises, as well as everyday life from an aspiring author.

[slightlycrookedletters]

your unpleasant reminder that reading only fanfiction will absolutely ruin you as a writer. Garbage in garbage out

[greater-than-the-sword]

I feel like this is an extremely important addition because reading fanfiction won't teach you how to write original fiction for the primary reason that the building blocks of a good fanfiction are fundamentally different from the building blocks of a good original fiction.

Fanfic won't teach you how to worldbuild, because that is pre-packaged. It won't teach you how to establish character, because that has already been done in canon. The canon is a built-in assumption, and so no typical introduction is needed, so the plot structure that usually involves a setup and introduction phase is not used.

This is also why the best fanfics come from people who don't usually write fanfic. The most insightful character analyses come from people who haven't written 12+ fics on the same character, too. We all know how the characterization of a fave morphs in the hands of someone who thinks about literally nothing else. You zero in too much on one object, that character loses their original flavor outside of their original context and stops being who they were and being the same character that you liked to begin with.

Original fiction by people who read mostly fanfiction tends to be predictable, with flat characters that are little more than names/archetypes, worldbuilding that is unoriginal and takes place in a stock fantasy land, focused on indulgent use of a single trope, free of nuance.

I don't think it's bad to scratch an itch occasionally by reading fanfic, but it will not teach you how to write!

[howtofightwrite]

Sorry if something along the lines of this has been asked before, but would it be possible to have an orphaned 12yo character who (fighting-wise) is able to fend for themself and fight decently? Physically, I'd imagine there would be a lot of restrictions, but I'd want the character to have a level of street-smarts... so could a tween potentially leverage an advantage over a typical foe too?

No.

So, there's a bunch of problems here.

The first is their age. A 12 year old cannot survive a serious fight, at least not against an adult. It's not even something that can be accounted for with skill or knowledge, if your character gets into combat, they will be seriously injured or killed.

Without a support network, being seriously injured is almost as good as being killed. They won't have any place where they can safely retreat and recover. In most cases they wouldn't have access to necessary medical treatment, so their injuries will effectively become a death sentence.

This is significantly worse in your case, because your character is living on the street, they're almost certainly malnourished. (They simply won't have access to sufficient food.) This has a ton of implications, but the four most important ones are that it will slow wound recovery, permanently impair physical development (meaning any growth since they ended up on the street will be significantly slowed, and this doesn't come back, even as an adult, they will be smaller and weaker than someone who did not end up on the street), cognitive impairment, and impaired motor function.

Street-smarts is useful, but it's not going to help them fight. It may help them avoid combat, either by knowing where they can escape from pursuers, or how to safely navigate their environment, but knowing the exact territory of a street gang, or the trash pickup schedule is not going to help them hit someone harder. Also, because they're malnourished, thinking is going to be more difficult for them. This is a is a double hit, because as a tween, they're already at a cognitive disadvantage against an adult, but that disadvantage is further widened by their chronic malnourishment. When you combine this with their impaired reflexes, you have a situation where they (almost literally) cannon win a fight.

This is an extremely bleak situation, and most kids who do end up on the street like this do not survive. Their best hope is to find some kind of support system as fast as possible, the longer they stay on the street the worse their odds are.

Finally, there's no such thing as an effective self-taught fighter. Trying to teach yourself to fight is an excellent way to ingrain a lot of bad habits. You really need someone to instruct you, in order to be effective. However, in this case, you have a character who can't even learn to fight, in their current situation. Remember the impaired healing factor from malnourishment? That includes recovering from wear and tear sustained during training. It further applies to wear and tear from any combat. So, even if your character had a combat martial arts background from before they ended up on the street (this is unlikely, as most sane martial arts schools won't train kids for combat), they would be in a situation where winning a fight would still leave them with lingering injuries, (and, as I mentioned earlier, it is nearly impossible for them to win.)

-Starke

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[armoredsuperheavy]

I bind fanfic and other underground writing into real books.  I am a Guerilla publisher.

In a nutshell, the reasons why:

A demonstrative statement on the validity of “fic” in general (and fanfic within that specifically) as a newborn genre of literature that has really only come into its own in the last 15-20 years.

Disrupting preconceptions about what is valuable and worthy of being in print, much less published in a fine edition.

An act of anti-capitalist resistance. Participation in the traditional gift economy of fandom. Most of my projects are volunteer and gifts.

Preservation of fandom history and works for future generations. These books cannot blip out of existence by puritanical updates to a socmed terms of service. These books are acid-free, archive ready, made to survive for another century.

Demonstration against censorship of fiction. Most of the books contain subject matter some people may find objectionable on various grounds.

In summary, it’s a big Fuck You to power structures that silence people. Also it makes my friends so happy that they cry, so that’s nice too.

My book design is deliberately conservative because I am challenging ideas of what should be inside the book. The more a book looks like something a “real” publishing house would put out, the stronger and more subversive the statement it makes.

I am also doing a lot of research working on replicating the style of books from centuries past, and publishing historical fic set in whatever period, in an embodiment that matches. Colors, typography, even form factor as much as possible. I have done Victorian, Edwardian, Renaissance eras. 

Here are some various process pics. Books pictured:

WAR, CHILDREN by Nonymos (Captain America: Stucky)

AND THEN THERE WERE TWO by NymeriaKing (Star Wars / Kylux)

BLUTRUNST by IncurableNecromantic (Over the Garden Wall)

CHOSEN MAN by Sineala (Eagle of the Ninth)

[superheroesincolor]

Writing Native American Characters: How Not To Do A Rowling | On Demand Master Class

J. K. Rowling drew negative attention from Native people for what she did in her work Magic in North America. The mistakes she made were common–very common–and also easily avoidable. In this seminar, Native scholar and activist Debbie Reese talks about the missteps Rowling and many other authors have made, why they are a problem, and offers writers strategies for avoiding them and doing better.

Topics Include:

Native Nationhood and Sovereignty

History

Representation and Impact

Cultural Appropriation

Language and Naming

Spiritual Traditions

Stereotypes and Tropes to Avoid

Researching Native Americans for Fiction

Worldbuilding for Speculative Fiction

Price: $50 

Download now 

The class includes both the video recording of the live seminar plus supplemental resources and reading recommendations. All class materials are online, and a download link will be emailed to you after you complete your purchase.

Accessibility: The class video is closed captioned and a transcript of the video is available to everyone who purchases the seminar.

[SuperheroesInColor faceb / instag / twitter / tumblr / pinterest / support ]

[prismatic-bell]

@writingwithcolor I don’t know if you’ve already seen this, but it seems like a great resource!!

[slightlycrookedletters]

St. Sebastian Parish

Please subscribe to my sibling’s church’s youtube channel so that they have enough subscribers to livestream my sibling’s wedding! 

[cogesque-deactivated20210410]

Working on pacing is literally the worst thing.

It’s so hard to find the will to fix something that has all the right content and all the right words, but somehow still reads wrong. 

[cogesque-deactivated20210410]

For anyone else who might struggle with pacing in some parts of their story, the solution that’s worked for me without fail is:

Print out the section and read through it with the kind of open mind you’d have if you’re opening up a book from your favorite author.

Make note of the places that feel awkward (usually, these places are far fewer and far between than you might think!).

Rewrite the whole thing, giving special attention to those places.

Usually, one round of this does it for me, but if you give it another as-if-it’s-written-by-your-favorite-author read-through and it still falls flat, rinse and repeat!

[heywriters]

Alternate technique if the above doesn’t work for you is to paste the section into a text reader. The emotionless reading of my work has really helped me weed out weird wording and needless sentences, as well as point out places where conjunctions are required.

Most importantly, it responds to punctuation better than the average person reading it out loud would. If a sentence is missing/misusing punctuation, I now know to fix it. Punctuation has a huge influence on pacing.

[cair--paravel]

Word on the Water, London, a 1920s barge that has been made into a bookshop. It used to travel along Regent’s Canal, but is now permanently moored by Granary Square in King’s Cross.

[maggie-stiefvater-deactivated20]

I’ve decided to tell you guys a story about piracy.

I didn’t think I had much to add to the piracy commentary I made yesterday, but after seeing some of the replies to it, I decided it’s time for this story.

Here are a few things we should get clear before I go on:

1) This is a U.S. centered discussion. Not because I value my non U.S. readers any less, but because I am published with a U.S. publisher first, who then sells my rights elsewhere. This means that the fate of my books, good or bad, is largely decided on U.S. turf, through U.S. sales to readers and libraries.

2) This is not a conversation about whether or not artists deserve to get money for art, or whether or not you think I in particular, as a flawed human, deserve money. It is only about how piracy affects a book’s fate at the publishing house. 

3) It is also not a conversation about book prices, or publishing costs, or what is a fair price for art, though it is worthwhile to remember that every copy of a blockbuster sold means that the publishing house can publish new and niche voices. Publishing can’t afford to publish the new and midlist voices without the James Pattersons selling well. 

It is only about two statements that I saw go by: 

1) piracy doesn’t hurt publishing. 

2) someone who pirates the book was never going to buy it anyway, so it’s not a lost sale.

Now, with those statements in mind, here’s the story.

It’s the story of a novel called The Raven King, the fourth installment in a planned four book series. All three of its predecessors hit the bestseller list. Book three, however, faltered in strange ways. The print copies sold just as well as before, landing it on the list, but the e-copies dropped precipitously. 

Now, series are a strange and dangerous thing in publishing. They’re usually games of diminishing returns, for logical reasons: folks buy the first book, like it, maybe buy the second, lose interest. The number of folks who try the first will always be more than the number of folks who make it to the third or fourth. Sometimes this change in numbers is so extreme that publishers cancel the rest of the series, which you may have experienced as a reader — beginning a series only to have the release date of the next book get pushed off and pushed off again before it merely dies quietly in a corner somewhere by the flies.

So I expected to see a sales drop in book three, Blue Lily, Lily Blue, but as my readers are historically evenly split across the formats, I expected it to see the cut balanced across both formats. This was absolutely not true. Where were all the e-readers going? Articles online had headlines like PEOPLE NO LONGER ENJOY READING EBOOKS IT SEEMS.

Really?

There was another new phenomenon with Blue Lily, Lily Blue, too — one that started before it was published. Like many novels, it was available to early reviewers and booksellers in advanced form (ARCs: advanced reader copies). Traditionally these have been cheaply printed paperback versions of the book. Recently, e-ARCs have become common, available on locked sites from publishers. 

BLLB’s e-arc escaped the site, made it to the internet, and began circulating busily among fans long before the book had even hit shelves. Piracy is a thing authors have been told to live with, it’s not hurting you, it’s like the mites in your pillow, and so I didn’t think too hard about it until I got that royalty statement with BLLB’s e-sales cut in half. 

Strange, I thought. Particularly as it seemed on the internet and at my booming real-life book tours that interest in the Raven Cycle in general was growing, not shrinking. Meanwhile, floating about in the forums and on Tumblr as a creator, it was not difficult to see fans sharing the pdfs of the books back and forth. For awhile, I paid for a service that went through piracy sites and took down illegal pdfs, but it was pointless. There were too many. And as long as even one was left up, that was all that was needed for sharing. 

I asked my publisher to make sure there were no e-ARCs available of book four, the Raven King, explaining that I felt piracy was a real issue with this series in a way it hadn’t been for any of my others. They replied with the old adage that piracy didn’t really do anything, but yes, they’d make sure there was no e-ARCs if that made me happy. 

Then they told me that they were cutting the print run of The Raven King to less than half of the print run for Blue Lily, Lily Blue. No hard feelings, understand, they told me, it’s just that the sales for Blue Lily didn’t justify printing any more copies. The series was in decline, they were so proud of me, it had 19 starred reviews from pro journals and was the most starred YA series ever written, but that just didn’t equal sales. They still loved me.

This, my friends, is a real world consequence.

This is also where people usually step in and say, but that’s not piracy’s fault. You just said series naturally declined, and you just were a victim of bad marketing or bad covers or readers just actually don’t like you that much.

Hold that thought. 

I was intent on proving that piracy had affected the Raven Cycle, and so I began to work with one of my brothers on a plan. It was impossible to take down every illegal pdf; I’d already seen that. So we were going to do the opposite. We created a pdf of the Raven King. It was the same length as the real book, but it was just the first four chapters over and over again. At the end, my brother wrote a small note about the ways piracy hurt your favorite books. I knew we wouldn’t be able to hold the fort for long — real versions would slowly get passed around by hand through forum messaging — but I told my brother: I want to hold the fort for one week. Enough to prove that a point. Enough to show everyone that this is no longer 2004. This is the smart phone generation, and a pirated book sometimes is a lost sale.

Then, on midnight of my book release, my brother put it up everywhere on every pirate site. He uploaded dozens and dozens and dozens of these pdfs of The Raven King. You couldn’t throw a rock without hitting one of his pdfs. We sailed those epub seas with our own flag shredding the sky.

The effects were instant. The forums and sites exploded with bewildered activity. Fans asked if anyone had managed to find a link to a legit pdf. Dozens of posts appeared saying that since they hadn’t been able to find a pdf, they’d been forced to hit up Amazon and buy the book.

And we sold out of the first printing in two days.

Two days.

I was on tour for it, and the bookstores I went to didn’t have enough copies to sell to people coming, because online orders had emptied the warehouse. My publisher scrambled to print more, and then print more again. Print sales and e-sales became once more evenly matched.

Then the pdfs hit the forums and e-sales sagged and it was business as usual, but it didn’t matter: I’d proven the point. Piracy has consequences.

That’s the end of the story, but there’s an epilogue. I’m now writing three more books set in that world, books that I’m absolutely delighted to be able to write. They’re an absolute blast. My publisher bought this trilogy because the numbers on the previous series supported them buying more books in that world. But the numbers almost didn’t. Because even as I knew I had more readers than ever, on paper, the Raven Cycle was petering out. 

The Ronan trilogy nearly didn’t exist because of piracy. And already I can see in the tags how Tumblr users are talking about how they intend to pirate book one of the new trilogy for any number of reasons, because I am terrible or because they would ‘rather die than pay for a book’. As an author, I can’t stop that. But pirating book one means that publishing cancels book two. This ain’t 2004 anymore. A pirated copy isn’t ‘good advertising’ or ‘great word of mouth’ or ‘not really a lost sale.’

That’s my long piracy story. 

[maggie-stiefvater-deactivated20]

note: for those asking why there will be no ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies) of CALL DOWN THE HAWK this year.

[themerrywriter-deactivated20200]

Unpopular Opinion; If you pirate books, you’re stealing food directly from an authors mouth and you’re a shitty person. 

Second Unpopular Opinion; You are not entitled to the fruits of someone’s labour for free. Visit a fucking library. 

[sassysousa]

Yes, check you local library! AND, check out overdrive and/or libby and also hoopla! Those are portals into digital labraries and sometimes, depending on where you have a library card, you will also have bonus access to a co-op of sorts, a digital library that pools many libraries’ resources. For example, I have access to my local library AND the Digital Library of Illinois, where I have been able to find lots of niche or simply less-popular books, both e-book AND audio!!

And then, if you still cant find the books you were hoping for, consider a membership at a really big library, like NYC or LA or somewhere. Those may cost anywhere from $50-$150 a year for people outside the library’s taxing district, but they may have the resources to purchase more books and the cost of membership could easily be outweighed by the value of all the books you end up reading all year.

And lastly, if whatever library you’re searching for books in doesnt have a book, you can request it! Put in a request for your library to purchase the book. It might not be fulfilled, but it shows interest in the book to the library and maybe just maybe they will decide to purchase it.

[pens-swords-stuff]

The speed at which you write has no bearing on your skill as a writer.

Can you hammer out 100k in a few weeks? That's awesome!

Did you take 10 years to finish your first draft? Great job!

Writing is not a race. It doesn't matter how quickly or slowly you make progress; making the progress itself is what is important.

So take a deep breath, and don't compare yourself to others. You're doing a fantastic job, and I'm so proud of you!

[mdintraining]

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who has trouble remembering developmental milestones. I put these together, but can’t take credit for any of the photography. Hope someone finds them helpful!

[thelastpilot]

This is very useful to me i have absolutely no gauge for how old children are and what they can typically do at what ages

[pensaynoire]

I remember my really good friend asking me if my 2 year old walked and ate solid food yet. I hollered. He was dead serious…but I still made him the kid’s godfather. Lol!

[prolifeproliberty]

Also y’all, these are generalizations. Some kids develop faster or slower. However, if a kid is way behind or you as a parent have concerns, it’s always worth seeing a pediatrician or a behavior analyst to get an evaluation for a developmental disability.

My brother was 2 years old and hadn’t spoken at all. That plus some other signs led to him being identified as autistic. Early intervention after that point helped him gain verbal and social skills without losing what makes him unique.

[darkhairedgirlfromgallifrey-dea]

And some kids know how to talk at an earlier age or even at the normal age but they’re just not talkative or chatty.

[that-catholic-shinobi]

I was a VERY early speaker and had highly developed fine motor skills but I was very behind developmentally with gross motor and social skills. Turns out ADHD and Turners Syndrome will do that. Luckily I wasn’t ever held back or had to do therapy.

Kids develop different but generally should be reaching milestones. Early intervention can help so much!

until a year ago I was clueless about babies.

[write-on-world]

[castletownranger]

HEY

For all you WONDERFUL FIC WRITERS who made the mistake of following me

LOOK AT THIS

[slightlycrookedletters]

I talk about Infant Loss primarily based on my experience of losing my stillborn son. Also my sewing and knitting hobby.

[heywriters]

There truly is a difference between "whispered" and "said quietly."

You can even write "said softly" or "in a low tone" and each evokes something slightly different when read. Do not take the No Adverbs advice so hard. So much of dialogue is tonal, so when you need a different word use it. Don't sacrifice meaning and character in important scenes for the sake of a "rule."

[writingforward]

Writing Tip: Use descriptive words that engage readers’ senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.

[write-it-motherfuckers]

Person A: “This is generally the part where people apologise.”

Person B: “I know.”

Person A: “Then why haven’t you said anything?”

Person B: “Because I’m not sorry.”

[fiftydaysatiliam]

“Catholics readers are constantly being offended and scandalized by novels that they don’t have the fundamental equipment to read in the first place, and often these are works permeated by a Christian spirit. It is when the individual’s faith is weak, not when it is strong, that he will be afraid of an honest fictional representation of life, and when there is a tendency to compartmentalize the spiritual and make it resident in a certain type of life only, the sense of the supernatural is apt generally to be lost.”

— Flannery O’Connor (”The Church and the Fiction Writer”)

[niseamstories]

I took some historical sword-fighting lessons to make the fights in my novel more realistic - here’s what I learned.

To make the fighting scenes in my low fantasy novel more realistic, I went to see a trainer for historical sword-fighting last week, both to barrage her with questions and to develop realistic choreographies for the fight scenes in the novel. Since I figured some of what she told me might be useful for you too, I put together a small list for you. Big thanks to Gladiatores Munich and Jeanne for making time! (Here are some more pictures if you’re interested.)

Caveat: I’m by no means a sword-fighting expert myself, so take these nuggets with a grain of salt – I might have misremembered or misinterpreted some of the things Jeanne told me. If I did, feel free to tell me.

1.) Weapon choices need to make sense

Let’s start with a truism: always ensure your character’s weapons make sense for a.) their profession, b.) their cultural background and c.) the environment they’re going to fight in. A farmer probably couldn’t afford a sword and might use a knife or threshing flail instead, and someone who doesn’t want to be noticed probably wouldn’t be milling about sporting a glaive or another large weapon. Also, soldiers native to a country with wide open plains would be more likely to carry long-range melee weapons such as spears or large swords, than those from a country consisting of mostly jungle or dense forests. The same applies to situations: if your character is going to be fighting in close quarters (even just a normal house), he’d get little value out of a spear or even a longsword, as there’d be no space to swing it effectively.

2.) Boldness often beats skill

In real swordfights, recklessness was often more important than technique. The fighter less afraid of getting injured would often push harder, allowing them to overpower even opponents with better technique.

3.) Even a skilled fighter rarely stands a chance when outnumbered

While a skilled (or lucky) fighter might win a two-versus-one, it’d be extremely unlikely for even a single master swordsman to win against superior numbers, even just three and if they’re below his skill level. The only way to plausibly pull this off would be to split the opponents up, perhaps by luring them into a confined space where you could take them on one by one. The moment you’re surrounded, you’re probably done for – because, unlike in Hollywood, they wouldn’t take turns attacking but come at you all at once.

4.) Dual-wielding was a thing

… at least in some cultures. I often heard people say that people using a weapon in each hand is an invention of fiction. And while my instructor confirmed that she knew of no European schools doing this—if they did, it’s not well-documented—she said it was a thing in other cultures. Example of this include the dual wakizashi in Japan or tomahawk and knife in North America. However, one of the biggest problems with the depiction of dual wielding in novels/movies/games are the “windmill”-type attacks where the fighter swings their weapons independently, hitting in succession rather than simultaneously. Normally you’d always try hitting with both weapons at once, as you’d otherwise lose your advantage.

5.) Longswords were amazing

Longswords might seem boring in comparison to other weapons, but they were incredibly effective, especially in combat situations outside the battlefield. The crossguard allowed for effective blocking of almost any kind of attack (well, maybe not an overhead strike of a Mordaxt, but still), the pommel was also used as a powerful “blunt” weapon of its own that could crack skulls. Though they were somewhat less effective against armored opponents, the long, two-handed hilt allowed for precise thrusts at uncovered body parts that made up for it.

6.)  “Zweihänder” were only used for very specific combat situations

Zweihänder—massive two-handed swords—were only used for specific purposes and usually not in one-on-one combat as is often seen in movies or games. One of these purposes was using their reach to break up enemy formations. In fact, one type of two-handed sword even owed its name to that purpose: Gassenhauer (German, Gasse = alley, Hauer = striker)—the fighters literally used it to strike “alleys” into an enemy formation with wide, powerful swings.

7.) It’s all about distance

While I was subconsciously aware of this, it might be helpful to remember that distance was an incredibly important element in fights. The moment your opponent got past your weapons ideal range, it was common to either switch to a different weapon or just drop your weapon and resort to punching/choking. A good example of this are spears or polearms—very powerful as long as you maintain a certain range between you and your opponent, but the moment they get too close, your weapon is practically useless. That’s also why combatants almost always brought a second weapon into battle to fall back one.

8.) Real fights rarely lasted over a minute

Another truism, but still useful to remember: real fights didn’t last long. Usually, they were over within less than a minute, sometimes only seconds – the moment your opponent landed a hit (or your weapon broke or you were disarmed), you were done for. This is especially true for combatants wearing no or only light armor.

9.) Stop the pirouettes

Unfortunately, the spinning around and pirouetting that makes many fight scenes so enjoyable to watch (or read) is completely asinine. Unless it’s a showfight, fighters would never expose their backs to their opponent or even turn their weapon away from them.

10.)  It still looks amazing

If your concern is that making your fight scenes realistic will make them less aesthetic, don’t worry. Apart from the fact that the blocks, swings and thrusts still look impressive when executed correctly, I personally felt that my fights get a lot more gripping and visceral if I respect the rules. To a certain extent, unrealistic and flashy combat is plot armor. If your characters can spin and somersault to their heart’s content and no one ever shoves a spear into their backs as they would have in real life, who survives and who doesn’t noticeably becomes arbitrary. If, on the other hand, even one slip-up can result in a combatant’s death, the stakes become palpable.

That’s about it! I hope this post is as helpful to some of you as the lessons were to me. Again, if anything I wrote here is bollocks, it’s probably my fault and not Jeanne’s.  I’ll try to post more stuff like this in the future.

Cheers,

Nicolas