✍️ Writing
A community for writers, like poems, fiction, non-fiction, short stories, long books, all those sorts of things, to discuss writing approaches and what's new in the writing world, and to help each other with writing.
Rules for now:
1. Try to be constructive and nice. When discussing approaches or giving feedback to excerpts, please try to be constructive and to maintain a positive vibe. For example, don't just vaguely say something is bad but try to list and explain downsides, and if you can, also find some upsides. However, this is not to say that you need to pretend you liked something or that you need to hide or embellish what you disliked.
2. Mention own work for purpose and not mainly for promo: Feel free to post asking for feedback on excerpts or worldbuilding advice, but please don't make posts purely for self promo like a released book. If you offer professional services like editing, this is not the community to openly advertise them either. (Mentioning your occupation on the side is okay.) Don't link your excerpts via your website when asking for advice, but e.g. Google Docs or similar is okay. Don't post entire manuscripts, focus on more manageable excerpts for people to give feedback on.
3. What happens in feedback or critique requests posts stays in these posts: Basically, if you encounter someone you gave feedback to on their work in their post, try not to quote and argue against them based on their concrete writing elsewhere in other discussions unless invited. (As an example, if they discuss why they generally enjoy outlining novels, don't quote their excerpts to them to try to prove why their outlining is bad for them as a singled out person.) This is so that people aren't afraid to post things for critique.
4. All writing approaches are valid. If someone prefers outlining over pantsing for example, it's okay to discuss up- and downsides but don't tell someone that their approach is somehow objectively worse. All approaches are on some level subjective anyway.
5. Solarpunk rules still apply. The general rules of solarpunk of course still apply.
Click here to visit our solarpunk writing resource wiki!
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I think like 99% of writing advice, it's a brain chemistry thing. I generally like "just write". But e.g. when I know I'm not 100% settled on the outcome of some specific arc yet or I don't fully know yet what overall direction I'll go in next, I may stop mid draft and work on other related art for a few days just to give myself time to ponder it before I get back to drafting. The common worry is killing momentum like that is a risk factor for completing the draft at all, but I have written for almost 10 years now so I know that I'll be fine doing this. But you might not be fine if you try it, so it really depends on the person.
Some writing advice I ignore myself entirely, even though I think it's a good idea for most, due to brain chemistry:
Most writing advice says never edit before you finish the draft. I almost always edit what I wrote the previous day before I continue with new work on the current day. However, I hear other people say they will get stuck on worries and bad feelings regarding their previous mistakes if doing this, and therefore this may seriously impede their ability to get going.
Most writing advice says follow common three act or four act structures. I typically mostly ignore that since I like to just find whatever's interesting next as I go, and during revision I don't change the plot in retrospect to fit these blueprints either. However, I think for most writers this would be too stressful of a way to find a compelling plot and the act structure would work better for them.
Most writing advice says don't edit right after you wrap up the draft, let it sit first. Almost always I immediately edit it back to front. I still let it sit, but I do that after, and then I come back for a second revision later. However, I think most writers hate revisions while I enjoy them, so they should probably let it sit first to conserve their energy.
Most writing advice says your first novel will come out all wrong, and you should be prepared that the inevitable outcome is that you'll never publish it, and that you'll need 2-3 drafted novels until you get good enough to write your "true" first novel. I think this might work the best for some writers, but I think if you enjoy or at least don't mind relatively extreme and cruel revisions like me, you can totally pick up how to write novels by heavily revising your first draft over and over instead of just starting over multiple times. I think it's mostly a question of whether you work better iteratively or by starting over once you realize how to do it, which again seems like a brain chemistry thing.
Some writing advice says practice with short stories first before you try novels. I don't know how to write a short story, I always run out of pages before I get to anything interesting, and I don't find them compelling to write anyway. I'm more of a character-driven writer than somebody sitting down to have a specific message, the latter of which feels more appropriate for short stories, and rather than finding the length of a novel hard to fill I tend to overshoot and end up making sequels. However, I think for people that find trying to draft a full novel immediately too intimidating or they might get frustrated if they end up with an entire novel's length of an inevitably bad first draft, short stories are a good starting point for practice.
Some writing advice says that if what two characters bring to the story could be done via just one character, you should merge them. I don't do that, since I like a messier cast. However, I could see many writers feel like they get lost this way and that they struggle to make a cast that feels unique and "alive", so I'm not sure I'd recommend a messy approach to others. It can also be more challenging during the edit.
Some writing advice says every chapter should have a specific conflict and a resolution to it, so that a chapter has a specific purpose. I don't even write using chapters, I somewhat arbitrarly split up the book into chapters after the fact. Therefore, I don't follow this rule either although in practice often there vaguely ends up being one sort of conflict or topic per chapter, but not always. I think a chapter can totally be "only vibes" and still have a purpose. However, I think most other writers will find writing without any chapters or any chapter-level planning whatsoever way too confusing, or may struggle to make chapters not feel like filler.
Some writing advice says only write if you have a message. I find it easier to sit down at the mid point and to figure out what sort of message might fit this book best, since inevitably my personal views already informed the story anyway and now I just have to figure out which one to make the focus of the finale to wrap it all up nicely. However, to people that don't naturally inject their views into their writing as much, perhaps it would help them to sit down and ponder a message, before they write an outline and the opening scene. And what I do may work best for character-driven writers, but less so for plot-driven writers.
And of course the typical recommendation is to outline on some level since almost nobody works best with no outline. But there seems to be more of an understanding nowadays that some people really do write most comfortably via pure discovery, which is how I usually write.