r/Quibble

Sorry in advance, because I'm about to piss some of you off. But it needs saying.

I've been writing fiction for over 20 years. Here's how it used to work: you imagine something, that something lives inside you and won't shut up, so you write it down. That's it. The whole process runs from the inside out. A story catches fire in you and burns hot enough that putting it into words isn't optional, it's the only way to stop it from burning a hole where your heart used to be. You don't choose to write the story. The story chooses you, and you're just the delivery system.

Now I see people asking things like: "I don't know what to do," "I can't plot," "What happens next to my character?", "I wrote myself into a corner," "How do I stay motivated?", "I can worldbuild but I have no idea how to make a story out of it."

Brother. That's because you don't have a story.

Here's what writing looks like today, and why so many people quit halfway through: you consume something cool, you decide you want to be cool too, you decide that means writing a story, and then you're stuck. You're not in love with a story. You're in love with the idea of being a writer. There's nothing burning in you, nothing driving this from the inside. You've romanticized a story that never existed in the first place. So when you sit down to actually write it, you're lost, confused, staring at a blank page. Of course you are. You can't pour out something that was never in the container to begin with.

So do everyone a favor. Get bored. Put the phone down, the one you're staring at six hours a day. Sit with nothing to do and let your brain wander somewhere. Go find your story. That sequence of events inside you, the one that actually means something, that you've wanted to tell since before you knew how. Live inside it for a while. Let yourself enjoy the strange loop of creating something and feeling it at the same time, which is honestly one of the only genuinely magic things about having a human brain. You're the universe, looking at itself.

Go find your teenage elf crossing the valley to track down her long-lost goblin friend. Find your washed-up, middle-aged swashbuckler scraping together a spot on that treasure-hunting airship, chasing the floating island he's dreamed about since he was a kid. Find your sickly, pale girl signing up for the war effort to defend the space station she calls home. Find out exactly what Jason would do for one more minute with Jenna.

Then, and only then, write.

Half the year is already behind us.

Looking back, what's the best book you've read so far this year?

What made it stand out?

Here is today's book discussions! Simple(or not) questions about books, posted weekly, mostly made by me!

Today's one is: What is a trope, a "rare" trope(as in, you don't see it oftenly in the books you read), that you wish were more commun? And for what reason? Do tell!

This question came to mind while I was reading *Hyperion* by Dan Simmons.

In it, he describes a small people called the Bikureans.
There are only a few dozen of them. And only when one of them dies can a new member be born.

What if we took this description and applied it to the problems of today’s world—overpopulation, pollution, poverty, etc.?

Plot: A digitized world where everyone is networked, tagged, and counted. Nations agree that each country may have as many children as the number of people who die.

Perhaps I could also infuse the book’s content and message with a touch of the myth of Old London: “Lord guide us” (Latin: Domine, guide us).

Perhaps we could weave humanity’s excessive dependence on technology into the narrative. We could begin with warnings about potential future hardships that are yet to come. In light of the fact that technology is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy with each passing day.

Where you rarely get anything for free.

A line from the movie *The Matrix* comes to mind: “It’s easier to undermine reality than to dismiss a dream.”

Something along the lines of the story’s heroes being unable to escape reality, in the manner of ancient Greek myths.

Could such a future narrative become a headline in the present?

Some books are only right for certain readers.

Others seem to connect with almost everyone.

What's one book you've recommended again and again, and why does it never disappoint?

A fictional story interspersed here and there with real events and the key figures shaping the present day (politicians, businesspeople, athletes, cultural figures, philosophers, generals, etc.)

Is this a recipe for a bestseller?

I can’t claim to be right or wrong about this, because I know very little about it. But where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Following that path, a writer will craft a situational simulation—a work of fiction into which they can weave the actions of a certain president or a certain government. For example.

Many paths can develop in this direction.
What if we highlight stupidity, which, like intelligence, is an elusive concept? It’s hard to define or even simply observe.

What if we weave in algorithms that are increasingly dominating the digital space of commerce and politics? So that the writer, within the fiction, gradually recognizes their purpose. At first a tool, but then increasingly a structure that will shape the very foundations of our consciousness.

What if technology gets involved? It offers us ever more power (depending on who you ask), knowledge, and security.
And it does so in a way that causes us to unconsciously lose our autonomy, our freedom, and our voice.

Well, if I were a writer, God only knows what kind of fiction I’d write. I’d weave a story in which the government doesn’t rule through prohibitions and commands, but subtly, through illusory algorithms.

But what can I do—I’m just a humble writer who realizes that the idea is a big deal, but the execution is even bigger.
Ah, if only it were all possible! It’s as if it all ties back to the eternal question: “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”

For my brain, books are the absolute cure.
The Holy gral of pharmacy for the little grave cells.

They give us the opportunity to reflect on interpretations and grapple with questions that transcend the times in which we live.

Somehow, through this experience, the topic of discussion hidden in the article’s tittle came to mind.

Well, I have also a few examples on my sleeve in case anyone is interested in a concrete solution !

What, for you, makes a good book? The way it's written? The motives of the author? The plot? Or, perhaps, something else? Do tell!

The central physical and metaphysical force that drives the story.

This question occurred to me while reading K.S. Robinson’s book *The Ministry for the Future*. The main setting is India, with Switzerland as a parallel setting. The author describes in detail the terrible heat that is killing people. It’s as if it were the executioner in the movie *When the Lambs Are Silent*. The characters in the story seem to be blurred by the heat.

The heat wave in India is terrifying. Rivers and lakes are hot. Some 10 million Indians die in a short time.

Based on the Paris Climate Agreement, a Ministry of the Future is hastily established in Zurich.

The description of the heat is like a force hovering between fantasy and reality, or between history and myth. It seems to me that the author describes the heat in detail as a hazy figure with an insurmountable personality.

Opposite it stands a character with fluid intelligence and the ability to adapt to new situations—a character with the power to see the light at the end of a tunnel that doesn’exsist.

Perhaps there is some truth to the idea that you cannot write a good novel without describing the relationship between good and evil, without the pros and cons.

Or has the current relevance of the heat already gone to my head?
And I ask the unthinkable.

This is a topic that, for some reason, keeps coming up again and again in this subreddit. I've seen it three times in the past day alone, so I figure it's time for the no doubt weekly reminder that yes, you do actually need to read if you want to be a good writer.

There is not a single great writer that does not or did not read a shit ton of books. In fact, the Western canon (a real term and not a misunderstood Tumblr term as I also saw someone say on here) is dominated by people who had the sorts of upbringings where all they did was study earlier classics in detail. You don't wake up one day and invent writing from scratch, you build on the work of countless people before you who, in turn, built on the work of the people before them. The novel form itself is the evolution of thousands of years of storytelling and it did not happen because one day a guy who never read anything wrote a novel.

But what if you don't like reading? Then you'll never be a good writer. That's fine, you don't have to be! This is all assuming that you want to be a good, or even popular, writer, but if you just want to write for yourself and don't expect anyone else to ever read it, go for it! If you do want to be a good writer, though, you better learn to love reading or otherwise have steel-like discipline and force yourself to do it. If you don't like reading, though, I question why you want to write.

Over at Query Shark, a blog run by a literary agent, she recommends not trying to get traditionally published if you haven't read at least a hundred books in a similar enough category/genre to your novel. If this number is intimidating to you, then you definitely need to read more. Does that mean you shouldn't write in the meantime? No, it's just another way to say that what you're writing will probably suck, but that's also OK while you're practicing! In fact, the point of "read more" is not that you shouldn't even try to write until you hit some magical number, but that you should be doing both. Writing is how you practice, but reading is how you study.

All of this post is extremely obvious and basic, but given we have a lot of presumably young writers on here I hope at least one of them will actually see this and make reading more of an active goal instead of posting questions like "Is it okay to write a book about a mad captain chasing a whale? I don't know if this has ever been done before."

Caveats/frequent retorts

• If you're trying to write screenplays then maybe you need to watch stuff, too.
• "But I heard so -and-so never reads and they're a published author!" No you didn't. Every time this is brought up people fail to find evidence for it, and the closest I've seen is authors saying they try to read outside their genre to bring in new ideas to it.
• "But I don't want to write like everyone else and reading will just make me copy them!" Get over yourself, you're not some 500 IQ creative genius. What's important in writing is not having some idea no one's ever heard of before (which is impossible anyway), but how well you can execute it. Execution benefits immensely from examples to guide yourself by,

Some characters stay with us long after the story ends.

Which fictional character felt so real that you still think about them today?

Welcome to Question of the Day! Whether you want to keep it simple or totally geek out over the specifics, we're here to read your answers

Hello fellow writers! So I published my first book. Im excited because it was literally therapy for me. Its about mental health, bullying, military, toxic leadership, resiliency, hope, childhood trauma. Its a memoir in a sense. But my goal for writing this book was to let others know that they aren't alone in this thing called Life.

Any recommendations for a guy who isnt big on social media but has a story to share?

If you had to choose a book, to bring its laws of physics and/or magic into reality, which book would you choose? And for what reason? Maybe because it'd be interesting? Funny? Do tell!

In your opinion, who is an author that has such bad books, that they'd be better off as fire starting material? And why? Do tell!

Welcome to Question of the Day! Whether you want to keep it simple or totally geek out over the specifics, we're here to read your answers

Will the reader then become part of the writer’s inner world?

Well, the writer’s “currency” is probably the value that captures the reader’s attention.

Writers and readers are just people. Through the r/Quibble platform, we can grow every day, more and more, in every way. Digitally, we stay up to date with the thoughts of others. We can express our disagreement with what’s written, give a like, get tired of it, or change the topic. Digitally, we stay up to date with the thoughts of others.

Even discomfort and anger spur us on in our creative search for new approaches to writing and new horizons for reading.

Perhaps that is why a writer’s dedication—in the sense of empathizing with one of the story’s characters—is the tool that will capture the reader’s attention.

I believe the winning combination for a good book is the writer’s intellectual sharpness and the reader’s confidence.

Am I wrong?

Am I misinterpreting something?

On Quibble, I see books whose authors, it seems to me, are younger people. Between the lines, I see powerful ideas and inventiveness in the narrative.
There are also new ideas that challenge the fundamental premise upon which our civilization is based: “Thought.”

Behind every text I read on Quibble stands someone who wrote it. The text is not only the materialization of the writer’s thoughts but also their expression.
Through it, they create deceptions, traps, misperceptions, approval, enthusiasm, and contemplation.

But perhaps all of this must be experienced firsthand. That is why this article has such a title.

Can we draw any lessons from this?

I think an underrated aspect is the quiet time you get from it. I love alone time, and theres nothing like spending time with yourself through writing.