Writer's Workshop

There is so little that makes me want to read a book less than comps. It just sounds like you're reheating someone else's leftovers, I hate doing them because it makes ME sound like I'm ripping someone else off, even if the comps really were inspiration for the story. They aren't necessarily bad, but they give no context for anything. "Game of Thrones meets World War Z" Okay what parts of them? Does everything in the same genre as something popular have to be compared to that thing?

Just tell me what the story is about. Don't sell me a chicken sandwich by comparing it to a hamburger because they both have buns, you know?

So yoo!!

I was wondering... how did you all come up with your novel or story ideas?

I'll tell you how I got mine.

I was at the lowest point in my life. Everything had fallen apart. I had nothing left. I was basically a broken TV.

...Just kidding. 😂 I'm doing fine.

The actual reason? An anime meme.

Yep. My entire novel exists because of a stupid anime meme. Lol.

Now it's your turn.

What's the dumbest, most ridiculous idea, scene, or inspiration that somehow turned into your novel or story?

Let's make this a little Writer Challenge:

What's the stupidest idea you've ever turned into a story?

(⁠•⁠▽⁠•⁠;⁠) Go ahead. I genuinely want to hear them.

There''s an old saying that "the people who made the most money during the California Gold Rush weren't the miners. It was the people who sold whiskey and shovels to the miners. The same is true in the world of self-publishing. There are a lot more bogus editors, hack graphic artists and rip-off book preparation and publishing services than there are independent authors making a good living from self-publishing. When you see people on here giving you stock advice and telling you that self-publishing is easy you just need to pay for an editor, buy your amazon ads and build your network, there's a 99% chance they're involved in those industries that prey on the aspirations of others and they are actively misrepresenting themselves on here.

Also remember that garbage sells. Harold Innis, who was a key theorist in the realm of communication theory and the inspiration for the work of Marshall McLuhan only sold a few thousand copies of his academic works in his lifetime. Max Brand was a millionaire in the 1930s.

One the most common forms of advice I see from editors is that every chapter and paragraphs should be doing something that advances the plot.

If it’s not doing that then it doesn’t belong. With regard to flashbacks. These by nature don’t advance the plot. Is the case that flashback can reveal elements of the plot you wouldn’t otherwise see? Or am I fundamentally missing something here?

The idea intrigues me. Making the first couple chapters free, and the rest behind a monthly pay wall. Figure each chapter released per week.

Im working on this new novel idea of mine set in a cinema and I have a killer who must learn to kill people without spilling blood after he's come to an understanding with the cinema owner because cleaning blood from cinema seats is a no go.

So far I've locked down :

-Strangulation by hanging.

-Poison.

-Neck snapping.

-Drowning

Are there any other methods? Perhaps a bow and arrow but that will no doubt leave a little bit of blood

I won't give names, but I was contacted by a famous screenwriter and producer and we talked and moved the conversation on whatsapp.

It went well, until he/she started presenting me a crypto investment site and assured me I will win a lot of money.

He/she kept insisting I should join and won't stop praising it and presented me evidence(screenshots) of his/her huge earnings from that site. I just blocked that screenwriter. Was it a scam?

Idk, for some reason I'm struggling to remember good examples of this. They must exist, right? When you're writing in third person, it's easier to assume that descriptions of characters' looks are objective and just giving us a prompt to imagine them... But when you apply that same logic to first person, it doesn't quite hold because you sort of assume the narrator character's subjectivity as a reader. How would you go about ensuring that your narrator character isn't necessarily judging people's looks (which becomes an even bigger problem where race is involved), but instead simply giving us a glimpse into what they noticed in the scene? I say that because sometimes, ensuring representation is important; But I'm running into this pickle now that I chose first person. Help lol

How does it work? I’d love to hear from someone’s experience. Thanks in advance!

I’m finally getting ready to upload my book and I’m trying to figure out the difference between Amazon, Ingram, and apparently I have an account from a long time ago on something called Draft2Digital.

Someone else is telling me that I need to make sure that my book is available on bookshop.org.

I am most interested in people being able to easily buy the paperback, and ideally have it stocked in some stores and retail locations.

I’m also wondering about the procedure for making it available in both the UK and Australia? Would I need different ISBN numbers? Obviously the price would either be in pounds or Australian dollars, does Amazon handle that automatically or is there a different service I use for those countries?

Thanks in advance, this sub is great for helping me figure things out!

I normally like to land around 5k words but occasionally will get to 7 or 8k words if the narrative fits.

The current draft of the last chapter of my book is getting a bit longer than I expected though. Which brings me to the question:

How long is too long for a chapter? Even if the narrative is strong and driving

Hi all,

entering a 1 page horror contest and wanted to share what I have and get feedback on all aspects.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19_on_m8MKkUEr-IZZw0gBIVcu8Q95IIY/view?usp=drive_link

Thanks.

I'm currently thinking about remaking a book I wrote two years ago. I'm planning to change many things inside the plot, but the principal idea of the story stays the same:

a boy whose father is imprisoned, supposedly, without a reason. This teenager has to move from his quiet home town to the big London during the end of the 70s/beginning of 80s.

This book is LGTB-themed with queer representation and other topics/tropes such as:

- Mental health.

- Love (specifically friends to lovers).

- Group of friends (found family).

- A looott of rock music.

- Angst/comfort with a happy ending.

EDIT: for those who downvoted, could you explain why you did it in order to improve my post? Thanks!!

I've walked away from writing for a bit now. Rejection, self-doubt, all of it took a toll on me. Having written five or six books, editing, all of that stuff, without so much as a partial request from an agent had me doubting I could even do it.

It has been months and months now and I find myself missing it. And as stupid as it sounds, it was a random tiktok with a generic quote saying, "What if the only thing standing between you and all you've ever wanted was trying one more time?" that had me thinking I should try one more time to write a book. Nothing to lose, after all. Not like I've done much else with my "free time" since giving it up.

Problem is I've all kinds of hang-ups. I've two stories I'd wanna give a crack at. But they are so vastly different. One is set in the 1950s and is a real dude book. And that has me thinking the industry would toss it aside immediately. Not because it's sexist or anything like that, mind. I'm not worried about that. But with women making up a majority of readers, I can't imagine a prospective agent going, "Oh shit, this random book from this random dude about this random guy being kickass is really gonna fly off the shelves!" All things being written well, of course, it's still a simple book with a simple goal, being fun. It's something I'd love to read, but I don't see published a lot. But maybe that's for a reason, no? I'm never gonna argue with taste. Not saying women couldn't find it fun. Dungeon Crawler Carl is flying off the shelves, after all. It is nevertheless a fear and worry I have in my mind.

My second book I think is a lot more "saleable," especially as an unpublished author. It's a dual-POV fantasy-romance about a Princess and a low-born Squire, with court intrigue similar to that of Game of Thrones, only not as long and hopefully not as complicated. It's a rather clean-cut drama, but it is nevertheless a thousand times more complicated to write as opposed to my simple Jack Reacher-esque 1950s book. But it is also a thousand times more pitchable I think, to an agent, as having broad-market appeal.

I wanna write both books, but having been out of the game for months and months and being wracked with anxiety, I've no clue which to pick. The fantasy-romance book has been with me the longest, always rummaging around in the back of my mind, but I've yet to figure fully it out. Might be the case that I gotta start writing it to do that. Meanwhile, the 1950s adventure book basically came to me fully formed due to how simple it is.

I know I'm jumping the gun by thinking about pitching it and selling it and all that. But that's a part of writing, no? I don't wanna write for an audience of one forever.

Apologies if this question is too simple. Whilst searching on Google, I've honestly been struggling a bit with getting a good answer regarding it as to me, there seems to be a number of different aspects that contribute to the classification of a book as either Young Adult or Adult fiction

For example, the age of the main character, the level of violence and sexual content, the overall word count (though I might be mistaken on if these actually matter, which is part of why I'm making this post).

I'm just wondering if I can get some advice on what classification my plan would fall into:

* The protagonist is a 13 year old boy and the deuteragonist is a 17 year old boy

* There is no sexual content at all (90% sure that won't change)

* However, there will be a decent level of violence including violence & injury towards the protagonist and another teen of the same age. Not graphic violence at all, but to a higher degree than I've normally seen in YA books I've read

* Many of the events of the book are set off by the murder of a 13 year old girl

* This probably doesn't matter because I've read YA books with this before, but the book does have a tragic ending. Nothing happy about it

I really appreciate any advice I can get!

Hey! I'm a student and I'm pretty busy with my school-work and studying. I'm currently in the process of writing a book and I wanted to ask if it's a waste of time. I mean, I really do want to write this because it's my passion, but I did some research and found that writing and publishing a book doesn't really have a lot of benefits unless it ends up becoming really famous. I don't want to prioritize this over my studies if it is "pointless". Does anyone have similar experiences? I would really appreciate your input..

Edit: A lot of people have been talking about the financial part. To clarify, my main concern is to do with finding a balance between obtaining good grades and writing, which I have been having a hard time doing. Any similar experiences?

For the record, I sometimes create first chapter drafts for different ideas and from that, I would decide if I should continue it or not. However, I decided, "Why not get some advice from a human that isn't me?" and bam, here I am. Please tell if I should continue this or not. Also, I do NOT have any lore ready for this. I am a "continue with the flow" type of writer lol.

Hi. The problem in my case is that I think I have a story. Because of depression, I fell into what doctors call anhedonia (I am unsure how it’s written). For those who don’t know, it’s the lack of any feeling. Like, in my case, I don’t know what I like or love (I know what I despise, though everything else is indifferent to me).

So I have been collecting these ideas for around a year now. And I think I have this story inside me I need to tell.

However, yesterday, I saw a post here yesterday that said something along the lines of: maybe you don’t have a story, so that’s why you don’t have plot. The thing that he argued is that you should fall in love with the story you write, and I just can’t do it because I frankly don’t feel anything.

I do writing because it’s ”the only thing that’s less annoying than all else”, and it gives me something to work with. But when I sit to write, it’s just…nothing. And at the same time, I feel limited. I write in a language that is not my native one, and I feel like it’s total trash when it deserves to be good. For reference, I’ve written two books, and I find it all so overwhelming. It’s the only thing I can do because I completely fell off due to the mental health issue and have nothing to do (I can’t see a psychologist anymore for personal reasons and am constantly tortured at where I am getting my education). Do you have any advice on what I can do?