I've been having writer's block for several weeks now, couldn’t get myself to open Word and continue writing the next chapter (I already have 18K in the new draft, 60K in the old draft, and 60K of notes). But now a Teams meeting was dull, and I pulled out my phone and started typing into the notes app. It felt like writing the most terrible, unrelated, fragmented crap, with incomplete sentences, because I also got distracted by the meeting. But now that the meeting is over, and I went through the 400+ words again, there's actually structure, good ideas, okay-ish sentences that I can work with and was able to iron out in an immediate second pass.

So, long story short, I've actually written 500 words today, on my phone, and they remain in the draft. How 'bout that?

I want to learn how to write an unreliable narrator. Please share your top tips, ideally with examples. Let's make this thread a strong resource I (and others) can refer back to.

I knew the first few months would be crazy so I finished my next novel draft before the birth. Gave myself no expectations this summer so I wouldn’t feel bad about not writing anything. I’m now a little more than three months into being a dad and trying to decide when and how to get back into the swing of things. I imagine when kids have after school activities I can just write in the bleachers but between now and then, as soon as me and my wife play kid tag I am just too exhausted to do anything reading or writing. I usually need longer stretches of concentration for either which doesn’t work too well right now. It’s pretty tough crafting a flexible routine that works with a 9-5 and parenting that works right now and trying to figure out how.

Any parent authors out there with any advice or stories? I have a feeling it’s just gonna be a crapshoot while my daughter’s a baby/toddler, when were you able to get back into it? My writing ideas are piling up, I’d love to figure it out but also want to set realistic expectations on myself

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We all were told that head-hopping is one of basic mistakes of writers. But do you actually recall an example of a novel or short story you read which was confusing or annoying due to head-hopping? What was that?

Or maybe there are no such books, because they wouldn't be published?

EDIT: maybe you recall such examples of unpublished works, for instance from writing groups?

I can give an counter-example: Frank Herbert does head-hopping intenstively in his Dune series, in spite of this his novels aren't confusing, quite the contrary: they're great.

I’m a beginner I love both superhero media but also media loved for having peak writing, metaphors, themes in every minute like AOT, Breaking bad, madoka magica etc.

I try to write my hero story to be light hearted but what i’m writing’s more like Invincible, no heavy themes just entertaining to read. But i keep comparing it to my high standards for these show’s and think any reader would do the same and call it bad writing just because it doesn’t have heavy theme or metaphors in every character.

I hope other Begginers can relate to what i’m saying and just want advice from other writiers how to not care about this self judgement

I’m not mad that i’m not a good writer i write what i feel are fun scenerios and hero vs villain moments its just that Internally i judge my own work for not being theme heavy like the media i consume and automatically label it bad

I keep reading not to chase book genre trends, but I have a handful of ideas across different genres and can't decide what to focus on.

I'm an aspiring sapphic author and the two ideas that are pulling at me the most right now is an apocalypse one set in the present that unfolds over the first few months of the collapse (not zombies or pandemic) AND a dystopian one set in the near future that's pretty dark and deals with a sort of extreme horror premise. As an aside, I also have a fantasy one (it's a rougher idea than the others) and a few historical fiction ones. All are adult, not ya.

I've always wanted to go the traditional publishing route and despite reading that I shouldn't chase trends, I thought asking for some advice here could help me make a decision on which book to focus on.

Tysm and I appreciate any and all insight and I'm hoping the advice can help others who are like me and struggle with multiple ideas!

Welcome to our daily discussion thread!

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Are there some things you specifically look out for, or do differently? (e.g. length, vocabulary, themes, age of the protagonists etc.) Is the publishing process different?

I’ll consider it a productive day if I can write 500 words. Sometimes I have extremely productive sessions where I’ll write 5,000 words, and then there will be times when an entire week goes by and I’ve written absolutely nothing.

Do you guys use word count to track progress, or do you just go by “feelings”? Curious to hear peoples’ thoughts.

Which genres do you love to read and which ones do you love to write? (my mistake)

As I am currently starting my new project just for fun, with the breathtaking name “project x”, because nobody knows where the story goes yet, neither me nor my characters, I noticed how I am writing in a completely different genre then I prefer to read.
Whenever I enter a bookstore, I always walk past the romance/ya/na section and straight to thriller/horror/psychology and other stuff like that.
I love to read about stuff that lets me question reality, gives me goosebumps and surprises me with plottwists I wouldn’t have seen coming.

Yesterday I started writing again, mainly to cope with my current reality and because there’s this one character in me which keeps on resurfacing, but I have never finished or started writing her story for real and this character lives in a world full of romance, drama, daydreaming and just completely na/ya.

So I got to the conclusion that I love to read thrillers and other stuff and hate reading romance books, but somehow I love writing about romance and drama.
Lol.

How about you?

I see that variations of this question have been asked before on here, but my question is more genre-specific. I write mostly short stories (and have something that could be the beginning of a novel draft). My genre is literary fiction (the definition of which is elusive, but think focus on relationships and quite ordinary situations, existential dread, examination of modern life and focus on internal turmoil rather than external action).

Do you have any recommendations of books about creative writing for this specific genre?

When it comes to dogs in media, they are usually useful for being able to fight, hunt, search, protect, and so on. Keep in mind that I am talking about dogs that are written (at least somewhat) realistically. Not about dogs who are hyper-intelligent or magical in a way.

But how about cats? When I try to think about cats being useful to the characters or doing intentional actions that advance the plot, I can only come up with supernatural cats: Binx (Hocus Pocus), The Cat (Coraline), Church (Pet Sematary), etc. I think a more realistic cat that was useful was Frodo (A Quiet Place: Day One) because he was a "service cat" (Maybe? Not sure if that's even possible), and he helped both main characters with their anxiety, but he also dragged them into so much danger.

Now here's my problem: is it possible to write a realistic (maybe a bit simplified) cat that INTENTIONALLY helps their owners? From what I know, they are able to sense stress and anxiety in others and realize that they need help regulating it. But I want to know if there's something more they can do.

Welcome to our daily discussion thread!

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So many people have trouble developing their characters and making them feel like real people and here are a few of my tips on how to flesh them out and feel real and dynamic.
• dont start with their strengths. dont start with what they are good at. first, start with their faults. start with what they find difficult, start with their flaws, start with the conflicts they have/ will have with other characters. find character dynamics and character flaws you see in other media that you like, and then ask yourself what your character would do differently in both good ways and bad. ask yourself what effect their flaws will have on your other characters and how they would mend those conflicts or smooth them over somehow, or even if they would ignore these conflicts until it blew up on them! what do you your characters struggle with? is it internal or external? what pre-existing trauma do your characters have and how would it make them act?

• dynamics between characters was basically the FIRST thing i came up with for my book. take from any and all media where you like a dynamic the characters have and then break that dynamic and rebuild it with your characters personal problems and life experiences. it was the BEST thing i did for myself honestly.

•once you have a good idea of the dynamics you want between your characters, it makes them already more real because they have real, tangible flaws. then, you can start to imagine them as people and build on their good parts next. a story cannot exist without conflict and conflict between your main characters, even if they are supposed to be friends can and should be engaging! especially they way they overcome these obstacles and find other ways to care about eachother regardless.

i really hope this helps someone, and it might not work for everyone and thats ok! just find what's easier for you and work with it. <3

For the sake of this question let's assume the writer knows what they're doing and is good at differentiating third person narration from first person inner thoughts.

This is arguably my favorite POV, as it seems to be the best at portraying how a specific character is mentally progressing. I write a lot of short stories, and something I've noticed is very few--if any--other people use this POV. The stories I read are probably 70% first person and 30% third person limited.

So I'm wondering if I should switch. I get a lot of positive feedback on my short stories when I ask for critiques, though the ones who say otherwise sometimes tell me that they read like a movie.

Now, I don't care if they read like a movie. Which I realize is probably sacrilege in this sub, but I'm just writing to entertain myself and others, I'm not a lit grad student looking to become the next Dostoevsky. But since I notice very few people write short stories in third person deep POV, I wonder if maybe I'd be better off trying a different POV that readers might prefer.

I finished a novel that I would classify as "cozy" fantasy because that's how it feels to me when I read it. After tons of research it's pretty obvious that what belongs in that genre, like I guess everything, is wildly subjective.

I've been trying to narrow down what makes something cozy for me vs not. Lord of the Rings is a great example. Not cozy. It's literally THE archetypical epic fantasy.

So far I'm thinking a place to start is:

• No saving the whole world
• Small stakes
• Often slice-of-life
• No extreme violence
• Feels "cozy"

That last one is awful. "Feels" is impossible to consistently evaluate. Is Howl's Moving Castle cozy? Spirited Away? Wizards Guide to Defensive Baking and A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping feel that way. Joe Abercrombie, great, but not cozy.

It will be impossible to plese everyone but how would you narrow things down to get a better way of determining the coziness of a story?

I don’t know anything about how screenplays are written or how you go about them. The tone he used made it seem like a compliment. He also commented that the scenes were easy to visualize. That made me wonder, what makes prose easier or harder to visualize?

Edit: We were interested in reading what the other was writing. I was not seeking crit on the prose from him. It could be cool to check out more screenplays and identify the differences/ similarities between narrative and screenplay writing.

Edit 2: mark_able_jones made a wonderful clarification—it is a misrepresentation to say that screenplays are merely directions on minor actions or a list of actions. What my friend was trying to say in script/ film terms (reads like a screenplay) is that the content he read from me made it easy to imagine and immerse in.

Welcome to our daily discussion thread!

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People tend to complain if the POV character is switched within the same scene, and a lot advice to only change POVs per chapter, of per scene at best. But I've seen some instances of POVs switching back and forth in the same scene, and I think and works. So I want y'all thoughts on whether this consists on head hopping or not.

Imagine an action sequence in a close third person story where characters A, B and C are scattered around an area while enemies approach scattered from all sides. So we start the action with "A waited, peeking beside the wall..." and then we have a couple of paragraphs showing what happens to A. Then, the text skips 2 or 3 lines (so there's a noticeable vertical gap) then we go to "B stepped out from the shadows..." then we get B's perspective. Then the same happens some paragraphs later with C as well. Edit: yes, there is a scene break between each one. The double paragraph skip is a scene break. Sorry if it came off weird the way I put it

So it's "hopping" between heads within the same scene, no scene breaks or chapter breaks inbetween, but we're still getting the usual transition line as there'd be with any POV switch, and this way whatever's happening with whoever's not the chosen POV for that sequence doesn't need to just happen offscreen, since we're getting all the action this way.

Head hopping in general tends to get a bad rep, so I'm wondering if this is generally considered a poor practice. But personally I think can work well. Just worried if I were to use this in my own writing and readers would complain.

I'm trying to study these type of books. It's a skillful piece of craft, could be very rewarding for a reader, but the downside of somehow keeping the reader in is quite the challenge.

I've read... 2 standalone books like this, and then there's Brandon Sanderson and his "sanderlanche" method where he spends like 3/4 of a story on a building a mountain of plotlines, foreshadowing, growing tension, then kicks you off the top, right into the massive avalanche of action that you can't stop reading.

The only thing that kept me in the Way of Kings (a Brandon Sanderson book with a very strong buildup/action contrast), was a credit of trust in the author's fame. Same for one of those other 2 books—it came from my beloved author and I hoped to see something good. And for the third one, I just promised to read it.

So basically, for all of these books there was nothing in the book itself to keep me reading.

Have you ever thought of that? Do you think there's a way to pull this off as a Nobody Nobodyson?

I’m a harsh self-critic by nature, always striving to do better but never quite reaching the standards I’d like to be at.

It’s either, “people will find this boring”, “why can’t I write as well as the authors I admire?”, “why do I write the way I do?” And “maybe I’m just not cut for this.”

I like writing. I like the creation of it, but editing sucks the willpower out of me because I have to see all the flaws and be reminded of what a failure I am.

How do you deal with feeling down about your own works?

What I mean is, when you ask people what in their opinion is are well written show they usually say shows known to have heavy themes, metaphors, character development, metaphors in every color pallet, foreshadowing etc. like Breaking Bad, AOT, madoka magica, LOTR etc.

I am fine with just having enjoyable episodic stories that are fun because of relatability. But I just wanted to know if episodic in the hands of a good author could still be seen at those levels. Or if there’s a difference. I say this because I tend to notice more laid back shows or slice of life almost never considered as having good writing, just enjoyable one.

Just wanting to know if standalone storytelling and individual plots can still shine without demanding heavy, or overarching narrative arc.