r/writers

Do you agree with this?

As writers, we often want readers to like our characters, and want readers to invest their time in our characters like rooting for them, supporting them, connecting with them, or feeling sympathy or empathy for them.

However, I strongly agree that if all the stories do the same, it will become boring and not every protagonist of every story has to be likable for the reader to continue reading the story.

When it comes to main characters, specifically the protagonist, do you try to make them likable, or do you simply write them as they are, whether they’re likable or unlikable(They may be rude, blunt, selfish, reckless or cold)?

You can also leave good examples of main characters or protagonists who are unlikable but are written really well!

For me, it's alliteration. If I can pick a perfect progression of even partially-passable appropriate words, I prefer to do so. Sometimes it ends up being a bit of a tic, taking too much time to track down terrific alternatives to facilitate my foolish fixation.

What's yours? What do you love doing in your writing, to the point that maybe you do it too much, but you just don't care?

How many hours of straight writing have you pushed through?

The hum of a high electrical current buzzing low through the razor wire could be heard as the two men stood opposed to each other. The fence was between them, one man wearing fatigues and carrying a dirty assault rifle, and the other in striped prison garb.
“I need the snips” one man said.
“I understand. Things take time and we’re searched before every shift”.
“Well, be quicker!”
The man with the rifle shifted his stance. “It’s not that I’m not trying to help. I can’t be caught, you understand? If they knew that I was helping you I would be shot on the spot”.
The man in the stripes sighed. “I know, I know. I’m sorry. I’m desperate. I’ve been in this camp for 14 years. Either it’ll be my patience that wears out or my will to live”. He looked down at the mud below him.
The man with the rifle chuckled. “Well if you go batshit just don’t take it out on me.”
The man in the stripes looked back up, the faint glimmer of a forced smile upon his dirty face.
“Fuck off Tonto. You’ll be the first.”
“I need to get back up to the tower. Give me a week and I’ll get those snips. I promise.”
“We’ll see wont we?”
“I promise Marv.”
The man with the rifle turned around and marched off in the direction of a distant guard tower, just a painted black smear in the gloom of the night. Mosquitos buzzed around as birds called from their perches in unseeable treetops.
Marv turned around headed back to his shack when gunfire erupted, drowning out the wildlife and projecting bursts of light on the ground below him.
“What the f—“ He started, but was cut off by the sound of heavy feet coming his way. Tonto burst through the brush, one hand holding a small round object and the other, a smoking gun.
“MOVE MARV! WE NEED TO GET OUT”.
Marv jumped back as Tonto threw the round object in his hand at the fence. Two seconds after he did there was an explosion and Marv, still standing too close, got hit with the grenade’s shockwave and fell back, stunned.
“THEY FUCKIN SAW ME MARV! THEY SAW ME TALKING TO YOU!”
Tonto rushed over and picked up the still downed and dazed Marv.
“LET’S GO, LET’S GO!”
The two men shot out of the mangled hole in the fance and ran toward the bush. Bullets whizzed over their shoulders hitting leaves and cracking limbs as men yelled obscured obscenities and orders in the distance.
“FUCKIN GO MARV! WERE NOT GONNA MAK—“
A bullet slammed into the back of Tonto’s head splattering Marv in the face with blood and brain matter.
Marv stopped and looked at his friend’s corpse as it fell in slow motion to the ground, his limbs twisted, the place where his head had been now a mindless meat volcano spraying hot red liquid.
Tears welled in Marv’s eyes. He wanted to stay, as if he could help his friend, but the sound of gunfire even closer snapped him back to reality.
Marv ran and ran. After what seemed like an eternity the gushing of a waterfall could be heard before him as the human sounds behind him faded out and eventually died.
He burst through the trees to the welcoming sight of a large river with a small town of wooden houses built on stilts near the bank. He didn’t know where to go but the town seemed as good of a place as any. Better than what awaited him from where he had come. He thought of his friend and how he was now free because of him and cried, large droplets splashed tiny craters on the ground below.
He had to get out, he had to honor his friend; his death would not be for nothing.
He would live.

I joined this subreddit a long time ago, when I was looking for more encouragement to write. I hoped that being part of a writing community would inspire me to keep going. It did, to some degree.

I’m no genius writer. I’m not a published novelist. I love writing, when I can get a few words in, but most of the time it’s just a hobby that I hope will reach an audience someday. I’ve done it for a long time now, and even when I first joined, I found myself unwittingly rolling my eyes once in a while.

There are many people here who dream of winning prizes while writing fan fiction (not to say there isn’t great fan fiction, but the overlap of Harry Potter smut and Nobel prize winners is rather slim). There are also young people just starting out with grand ambitions of absolutely rolling in dough. While shortsighted, I also notice the critics who spend more time writing hate posts instead of actually writing. People who, hiding behind a body of work about as significant as toilet paper, proclaim to know the Great Rules of Literature. I thought I wasn’t one of those condescending jerks. But well, here I am writing this post.

I was scrolling and had an unfortunate knee jerk reaction to a post about someone’s Transcendent Writing Experience. I rolled my eyes again sighed, caught myself, and then put myself in their shoes (and then, my foot in my own damn mouth).

I was fourteen once, discovering that I could articulate my experiences for the first time. Didn’t that feel amazing? That rush of creating something on your own. That very first moment when you read something you wrote and think “wait, this doesn’t suck that bad actually!” When was the last time I sat down, wrote something, and dreamed of someday making an impact and doing something great?

I’m writing this here in case you, like me, might be an r/writers asshole. This subreddit is filled with new writers, and you may be jaded and cynical, and some of these new writers may also sometimes lean on the naive side. But isn’t it nice to be a little naive? They are falling in love with something. They are learning and growing so fast. They feel the power of their words and want to make an impact. They believe they have something to offer the world. I’d rather believe in them than roll my eyes.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t share your thoughts — we’re all here to listen and share together, and it’s much better to give advice than not say anything at all. But I invite you to give them more grace and kindness, instead of putting them down (even in private). Be inspired, and maybe work to find the same enthusiasm in your own voice as they do.

What would you say to yourself at the instant in time you decided to take writing seriously?

For me, "Heads up, four novels in with a fifth one on the way and no acceptances yet, but keep the weird bullshit coming because weird bullshit won't stop making you happy."

I know the aim for most of us is to get published. Hell I have a bunch of people reading my finished novel right now to see if it’s worth it.

But I have to say after having written nothing for years getting back into it has been rewarding in its own way. That sense of achievement of actually finishing something was great. It also kick started my imagination again and I’ve started something new.

But my biggest realisation is that I never really stopped creating. I had a daughter and spent years making up stories for her at bedtime every night. So it wasn’t that I didn’t use the muscle it was just used purely for fun.

So from now on I just write for fun. I’d like to be published but it doesn’t matter if I never do get there.

Anyone else feel similarly?

In the act that my fanfiction that I’m currently making is in the real possibility of danger of being taken down by this greedy ass app, I need an alternative to post my fanfiction somewhere else just in case as I’m waiting for my invite that’s going to come in September for AO3

Edit: someone gave me an invite thanks guys 🫶

i use [] as a "this has to be change"

Myself a malayalam speaking loser, with no achievements of any sort in life. Not talented enough to tell a story using words from my mouth without boring the person opposite.

Always been a bad reader, bought a lot of books for the titles but too many words to read. Watched so many movies and has been developing a story in my mind since the last 4 years. Now it's a two part story just sitting in my mind and because I am not a good reader of books I'm nowhere near ready to become a writer too.

I've been experimenting with c h a t g p t to help create the structure and claude to develop it to proper detailed chapters, but it all ends up more then than me.

What I need is a writing partner who would understand the story and give it the form it deserves. I think it deserves to be out there in the world.