Writing Advice

For me, I rigidly plot it all out before hand, something between 20-80 pages of just breaking all the beats, and will include dialogue if it hits me during. I also do character bibles breaking down their history, personality, and where I want them to go (especially if a series). Then I'll take my plot document and just start at the beginning to flesh things out until I get to the end, then start over on the second draft. Then I'll give it to someone I trust to read and try not to think about it until they're done, then work on their notes as well as try to read it myself with new eyes. If I can, I'll get a second person to do that for me again, then send it to my editor for her pass. I'll do another draft from her notes, then go write something else and come back to read the first one fresh and do another draft.

But I guess for me, having my notes on the plot and the characters is important so I have something to refer to. And if I ever get lost or stuck, that stuff can help me refocus.
 
docsilence said:
Oh man I have a whole TED Talk I could give ya.
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I've actually been wanting to PM you for screenwriting advice, but I can't bring myself to take up more of your time.
docsilence said:
He says "to check for inconsistencies and offer advice"
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That's not a thing it can do.
altcunningham said:
We prob need a new thread, but I want to write a book this year.

What process tips do y'all have?
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Brandon Sanderson's writing advice lectures are really good.
 
TheSameIdiot said:
I've actually been wanting to PM you for screenwriting advice, but I can't bring myself to take up more of your time.

That's not a thing it can do.

Brandon Sanderson's writing advice lectures are really good.
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Maybe we need a writing advice thread. I'm a bit out of the loop on screenwriting since one the books started to sell I never had time to go back but I was on film sets every week basically from 25-35.

My only caveat to Sanderson's writing advice it to always remember the STAGGERING privilege in which he creates. Basically his every need is taken care of be female family members, has structured his day around writing and leisure, and had a cushy academic gig for security even before he became the it man of fantasy. He knows his craft but it's almost impossible to find someone with fewer barriers to success than Sanderson.
 
It's be
Ru1977 said:
For me, I rigidly plot it all out before hand, something between 20-80 pages of just breaking all the beats, and will include dialogue if it hits me during. I also do character bibles breaking down their history, personality, and where I want them to go (especially if a series). Then I'll take my plot document and just start at the beginning to flesh things out until I get to the end, then start over on the second draft. Then I'll give it to someone I trust to read and try not to think about it until they're done, then work on their notes as well as try to read it myself with new eyes. If I can, I'll get a second person to do that for me again, then send it to my editor for her pass. I'll do another draft from her notes, then go write something else and come back to read the first one fresh and do another draft.

But I guess for me, having my notes on the plot and the characters is important so I have something to refer to. And if I ever get lost or stuck, that stuff can help me refocus.
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With art, these days I treat it like the gym.

Sometimes it's just not coming. Sometimes I'm not doing what I want. But it doesn't matter. I know that if I just say I'll take a break, it's going to come back and then I'll feel mad that I lost my momentum or wasted the time I was graced with. So I sit down and I just do something. I just need to get something out. Even if it's not good it doesn't matter. A rep is a rep, to take it back to the gym.

Would you say that kind of consistency and habit works for you as far as the work momentum goes.
 
I'd also recommend Stephen King's On Writing.

One of the things he says in there is once you've finished something, wait 24 hours before you come back to it. Editing something you just finished is close to useless.
 
@altcunningham That is so exactly how I work yes, and the gym/momentum is the same way I put it to my wife to explain why I get to down on myself on the days I don't write at all. But yeah, this month I consciously decided to not write at all ( it that I had much choice, but giving myself permission helped some), though I'm plotting away every day anyway. But nornally, I write every weekday. Even if it's shit, I got it out. And whether it's great or not, I'm still gonna take a few passes at it later to make it better in later drafts so I'd rather get not-great-pages over nothing at all.
 
Tips dump:

  • I prefer King's On Writing to Sanderson's. King really has a tradesman's look at writing. (My favorite quote of is though was when GRRM asks how he writes so fast and King just says "you sit down and write the fucking book, George.")
  • Which really, honestly is the first and best advice I got. "Done is good." If you can finish a book or story you are a thousand leagues ahead of the competition because most people won't. Don't let perfection be the enemy of done. Write, learn from it, write more, get better, only way it happens.
  • Jealously guard your writing time. Life will ALWAYS steal your writing time. Protect it. It's work. It's necessary. Don't be afraid to tell other people that your writing time is a priority.
  • You're your first audience. If you're bored, your readers will be be bored. And nobody is so unique that what you find fun, NO ONE else will - you just need to find that audience. If you don't like a scene, it probably doesn't need to be there.
  • If you DO need a scene and you can't get past it, change the camera angle. I write third person with multiple perspective characters - I find if I'm truly stuck, I change perspective characters for a scene and it usually turns out I was just looking at that moment from the wrong set of eyes.
  • Don't write to market. The market will change before you finish your manuscript, and readers can sniff out inauthentic writing. You can'f fake, say, monster romance just because it's the hot thing - write what feels right to you.
  • Read your stuff out loud. You'll find mistakes that way, but you'll also find how words feel right or wrong. Some folks like to have a voice to text app read their stuff back to them - I'm a lunatic and read it in different voices but a non-AI app is fine. Any old voice option for visually impaired folks is great.
  • Writing is like boxing, you only win if you don't stop getting back up even when you ABSOLUTELY should just stay on the floor. It's really just a game of not taking no for an answer.
  • Other writers are, for the most part, your allies. Nobody has helped me more as a writer than other writers. Just be open and kind and they'll almost inevitably respond in kind. If a big name author ignores you, nine out of ten times they're just swamped and didn't see it or alternately have been burned by too many aspiring writers and are shy about chatting.
  • THE WRITING IS THE FUN PART. Don't let it weigh you down. The hard part comes later. Editing, revising, fucking MARKETING, selling, agent-chasing. Literally every other part of writing sucks compared to sitting at the computer awash in your own imagination. Revel in it. Enjoy it. That's the part that feels the most alive. Everything after just kinda sucks.
  • The industry is a fucking meatgrinder. Grow a thick skin early and be ready. Publishing will break your heart every goddamned day.
  • Amazon is a horrible company but compred to Ingram, B&N, Bowker, and even most local bookstores, they treat small authors or authors with a large backlist better than anyone else. Independent bookstores and smaller authors are not natural enemies, but they are two different animals on the Serengeti sharing a watering hole - they have different priorities and different survival requirements and that's OKAY. Don't let anyone shit on you for where your books sell because every book sale is hauling a ship over a mountain.
 
docsilence said:
The industry is a fucking meatgrinder. Grow a thick skin early and be ready. Publishing will break your heart every goddamned day.
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Though I have not done novel writing, the addendum to this I know applies from comics is: the industry is not a meritocracy. It is possible to do nothing "wrong" and still lose. Measures of success should be as detached from external sources (praise, money, awards, etc) as possible. It's the only way to keep yourself from becoming either a neurotic mess or a monster.
 
JakeEkiss said:
Though I have not done novel writing, the addendum to this I know applies from comics is: the industry is not a meritocracy. It is possible to do nothing "wrong" and still lose. Measures of success should be as detached from external sources (praise, money, awards, etc) as possible. It's the only way to keep yourself from becoming either a neurotic mess or a monster.
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Not sure how comics are, but publishing is worse than not being a meritocracy. It INVENTS ways to harm authors, whether it's finding ways to cut royalties, shaming authors for unwinnable decisions (see: being judged for where your books are sold), having your work regularly stolen and being told you should be thankful for it, new scams every day to take advantage of your dreams... there's a reason a lot of times you'll be like "hey that guy wrote a couple of great books, where'd he go?"

The closest comp I can come up with is back in my band days. Yeah, it's not a meritocracy, but does it also have to be so cruel?
 
docsilence said:
Not sure how comics are, but publishing is worse than not being a meritocracy. It INVENTS ways to harm authors, whether it's finding ways to cut royalties, shaming authors for unwinnable decisions (see: being judged for where your books are sold), having your work regularly stolen and being told you should be thankful for it, new scams every day to take advantage of your dreams... there's a reason a lot of times you'll be like "hey that guy wrote a couple of great books, where'd he go?"

The closest comp I can come up with is back in my band days. Yeah, it's not a meritocracy, but does it also have to be so cruel?
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Oh yeah, we got our own versions of all that stuff. At this point my experience has told me there are no good publishers in comics, it's just a matter of where the publisher prefers to stab you, the heart or the balls. Friend of mine was working with a 3rd party publisher who kept changing how many issues long they wanted his project to be AFTER the first issue had already been solicited. And they did not do this one time, but several. They then moved ship dates around so it was never landing in stores when it was supposed to. It was bananas.

Also because it's generally a bit more collaborative than novels (which is to say, most of us can't actually churn out art and writing at monthly release speeds) you're just as likely to lose time or money to collaborators. Sometimes because they suck at their jobs, sometimes because they are doing shit to cut your hamstrings intentionally (more than a few of those stories as well, lot of sabotage int he industry). edit: not to say everybody is like that, and the good collaborators outnumber the bad ones, it's just a pitfall everyone stumbles into eventually.

The running joke, and it may exist in novels as well, is breaking into comics is like breaking out of prison. Anytime someone does it they change the security so you can't do it that way again. A HUGE cross section of regularly working comic pros are only able to do so because they have a spouse with a 'real' job that provides the steady paychecks and healthcare. It's not everyone... but it's way more than anyone wants to admit.
 
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JakeEkiss said:
Oh yeah, we got our own versions of all that stuff. At this point my experience has told me there are no good publishers in comics, it's just a matter of where the publisher prefers to stab you, the heart or the balls. Friend of mine was working with a 3rd party publisher who kept changing how many issues long they wanted his project to be AFTER the first issue had already been solicited. And they did not do this one time, but several. They then moved ship dates around so it was never landing in stores when it was supposed to. It was bananas.

Also because it's generally a bit more collaborative than novels (which is to say, most of us can't actually churn out art and writing at monthly release speeds) you're just as likely to lose time or money to collaborators. Sometimes because they suck at their jobs, sometimes because they are doing shit to cut your hamstrings intentionally (more than a few of those stories as well, lot of sabotage int he industry).

The running joke, and it may exist in novels as well, is breaking into comics is like breaking out of prison. Anytime someone does it they change the security so you can't do it that way again. A HUGE cross section of regularly working comic pros are only able to do so because they have a spouse with a 'real' job that provides the steady paychecks and healthcare. It's not everyone... but it's way more than anyone wants to admit.
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Publishing loves to pretend there are rules and best practices but it's different every time. Never listen to someone who has already broken in, not because they're lying but because whatever happened to get them there was probably 90% luck unless they had connections in which case it's 100% connections. (To this day my own publisher has no idea why we moved so many units of my first book, fucking faeries in the air or something, we just cashed the check and were glad for it.)

And I know I sound bitter AF and I kind of am, but I also wouldn't trade the way those books changed my life for anything. I stressed myself into a case of shingles when I directed my first feature film and I wouldn't take back those months either. All my good memories are from storytelling. It's just too bad that to get those memories you pay in blood.
 
docsilence said:
My only caveat to Sanderson's writing advice it to always remember the STAGGERING privilege in which he creates. Basically his every need is taken care of be female family members, has structured his day around writing and leisure, and had a cushy academic gig for security even before he became the it man of fantasy. He knows his craft but it's almost impossible to find someone with fewer barriers to success than Sanderson.
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I could never take writing advice from him seriously because of how tremendously fucking boring and stupid I found his books to be when I was finally swayed to look at them. So I guess my writing advice from a non-published type of writer is to look for advice from people whose work you respect and whose advice seems real world actionable rather than 'well, if you are already rich and don't need to have a full time job or do any work other than write... here's my advice.'
 
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