Forum: Author Hangout

When you write out the full first-draft of a story, you'll know where the story is going, and will (hopefully) recognize when the story spins off into a side tangent that never really goes anywhere.

And, alternatively, you may find a later development isn't supported by earlier details, which you need to go back and add in earlier chapters.

Those two types of situations are the primary reasons I am firmly a finish-before-posting writer. Until I learn by writing what the story is about, I can't tell which needed details/events/characters build up that story and which unneeded ones don't or even get in the way.

And, alternatively, you may find a later development isn't supported by earlier details, which you need to go back and add in earlier chapters.

I have had that a few times, but not often. And normally I make changes when after finishing I go back and edit it yet again.

I also tend to throw in a lot of hooks ("breadcumbs" I call them), to let me flesh things out more at a later date. And in my feedback early on, I got a chuckle when people would wonder at them, then get surprised when I brought it back up many chapters later. Some have even gotten good at spotting them and trying to predict where the story was going.

But I also admit, many I dropped, then just never touched again for various reasons. And others, I actually then wrote a sequel story to expand on that at a later date.

Finally, while editors are vital, you need to find a few favorite authors and start conversing among yourselves, as editors specially address specific issues, rather than focusing on the art of storytelling or even writing (rather than spelling and grammar). So, find a couple authors who write the types of stories that you do, seek out their advice, and most importantly, start by offering your own: as offering advice often gels what works in your own stories better than listening to someone lecture you about what you should do!

This is a good piece of advice. I work with 2 small writing groups that not only help each other stay focused and get writing done, but we bounce questions and ideas off each other, talk about things like structure and the more technical aspects of writing. Its invaluable for me.

Thank you! Would you be so kind as to review my latest story at SOL, "Ladies Day Out" and see if I accomplished your suggestion here please?

Thanks, Bob

Thank you! Would you be so kind as to review my latest story at SOL, "Ladies Day Out" and see if I accomplished your suggestion here please?

Thanks, Bob

I'll second the kudos - along with just writing and publishing.

King's books are very good. I haven't read Morell's.

Like everything, take advice with a grain of salt. Sometimes telling is better than showing, depending on what it is. It's better to avoid passive voice, but you can go overboard easily. People speak in the passive voice fairly often, and in a first-person story, the narrator is 'speaking' to the reader.

And so on, and so forth. A lot of improving is reading. Reading a lot. Getting a feel for what 'feels' right in others' writing can help you see what will feels right in your writing. Don't just try to copy someone's style, but see what they do.

You'll still make mistakes. I make quite a few, including some silly ones that have an obvious rule. Then my editors smack me and I make fewer of one or another (but often not zero). Sometimes a sentence shifts in my head as I'm writing it and my fingers go on with the word/punctuation/plurality/etc that went with the old version.

Tools like ProWritingAid (my preferred one) or Grammarly can help. Set them to fiction, look at the reports, see what you think looks better. And ignore them when they don't look better! They can and will make mistakes, sometimes plenty of them.

Grammarly can help

I forgot to mention how important grammar is. It makes the story more readable and understandable. You can break grammar rules for effect or style, but you should know what they are before breaking them.

As to "telling vs showing," I agree. "Show don't tell" does not mean never tell. "Don't use adverbs" does not mean never use adverbs. And so on. But you need to know what they are and when and when not to use them.

My feeling is (and I could be very wrong!) that, if you read stories with good grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc - and pay attention(!) - you tend to develop a feel for what 'sounds' right and 'sounds' wrong.

You'll still make mistakes (for me, even though I know the rule quite well, I'll still mess up 'I' vs 'me' a statistically high number of times, for instance), but fewer, and they won't grate on most readers as much.

Knowing the rules helps you know how to break them, especially since many ("don't use passive voice!", "don't use adverbs!") aren't 'rules' but 'guidelines' and should be read with an implied "excessively".

Some rules are also subtle. I had several complaints about 'a' vs 'an' in a sentence of the form 'He brought along a ukulele', on the grounds that 'ukelele' starts with a 'u' and it should be 'an'. Nope - the rule is that 'a' precedes letters that sound like consonants, 'an' letters that sound like vowels. 'Ukelele' starts with the sound of the letter 'u', which is 'you', which starts with a 'y' sound.

'a ukulele' sounds right to me. 'an ukulele' sounds awful and grating. But if you just read it and apply the rule to the letter, instead of the sound of the letter, you can go wrong.

Sounding things out (in your head or out loud) is a great way to view dialogue and a lot of other things, if your 'ear' is calibrated correctly. A number of people use text-to-speech tools and such to 'proofread' (prooflisten?) their work, because you'll hear things you'd often miss just looking at the words. Doubled words, for instance, or missing words.

I don't, but I've considered it - just not gotten around to it.

The rules for a/an have changed over time, and some dialects have different rules. Right now, all dialects of American English agree that it's "a ukulele." (I'm not positive, but I think it might be "an ukulele" in Indian English — I'll have to check with some native speakers on that.)

Oh, and exactly that about reading well-written stuff to train your writing ear.

Native Hawaiians pronounce it 'oo' rather than 'yew', in which case 'an' is etymologically sounder. But most English speakers pronounce it 'yew', so 'a' is correct.

But nobody has asked the ukulele for its preferred article. That's misukuleleism!

AJ

'a ukulele' sounds right to me.

It is.

But I wasn't talking about spelling, typos, grammar, etc. (other that learning grammar is important to make what you write understandable to the reader). I was addressing the guidelines for writing fiction (yeah, they aren't hard and fast rules).

Very much seconded. You can't write for everyone. Write for yourself, first. Tell yourself the story you would want to read. If it's a story many others want to read, great! If it's a story only a few others want to read, but some little tweaks that don't make you hate it would broaden it, do that. But, sooner or later, readers will want you to go in two completely different directions at the same time, and you have to stick with the story you're telling.

When I was just getting started publishing my first book, I got about 10 emails saying 'Why is this 'some sex'? There's no sex here!' and another 10 saying 'Why is this 'some sex'? There's nothing but sex here!'

Clearly someone is 'wrong', but it's all in the interpretation and what the reader is looking for and meaning. Trying to do more, or less, of it would've broken the story, most likely.

I would work on your plots and characters, the rest will fall into place.

I don't agree. The rest doesn't simply fall into place. It takes work and learning.

I thought I knew how to write until I was rejected by a publisher. The feedback was eye-opening. They liked the story, but didn't like the way it was written. Back then I didn't know what I didn't know so how could I have improved. I had no idea what the feedback meant. That's when I began learning the craft of writing fiction. Maybe some day I'll get to the end of that journey.

I thought I knew how to write until I was rejected by a publisher. The feedback was eye-opening. They liked the story, but didn't like the way it was written.

That was exactly why I wrote what I did. Just because one person didn't like it, does not mean that view is shared by everyone else. I've mentioned this before, but I cannot stand Tom Holt and his writing style, but I love the work of KJ Parker. Yet, they are the same person.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is a high degree of 'snobbery' in the literary profession. Take 50 shades for instance. Technically, it's a poorly written book riddled with beyond tired cliches, yet, it sold a lot of copies and made E. L. James a bob or two....

When I read a book, I don't bemoan the technical aspects, the use of adverbs, verbs or whatever, I just don't see the issue. I don't even understand ninety percent of technical issues discussed on these pages, and I'm sure that I am not alone in that regard. What I do see, are the characters and the scenarios. If I start reading a book and there are typo's, I can skip them quite easily as long as there isn't one every line, but if characters start behaving in nonsensical ways and situations the characters find themselves in, are beyond believable (for the genre the book is set in), I will discard that book faster than something which is red hot and covered in shit. Even if I am only a few pages in. In fact, I won't even keep the book, I will bin it.

However, we are all different and find pleasure in different ways/things.

In keeping with Sturgeon's Law, I believe that most of what the self-professed writing experts teach is not underpinned by science, but merely reflects their individual tastes. For every recommendation, there's almost always another expert who recommends the opposite.

However, I think it's worthwhile studying authors who write in the genre you've chosen and whose works you admire. Techniques they have in common present a strong case for your adoption.

AJ

Just because one person didn't like it, does not mean that view is shared by everyone else.

When that one person is a Submission Editor for a traditional publisher, they have the knowledge and experience to know what sells. What their readers like. As with "Harry Potter," they aren't always right. And it changes over time.

But as I said, their feedback was eye-opening — show don't tell and don't head-hop. The first source I went to to understand what she meant was my wife whose first masters is English Literature and Creative Writing (although poetry). She wasn't much help so I went to Google. A lot of what I read made sense. I see it in traditionally published novels I like. And I'm not the only one. My wife decided to re-read (I think it was) "Madam Bovary," a novel she read as an English Literature major. She found it stilted and quit reading it. What she (and others) liked back then is not how novels are written today.

At the time I was studying how to write fiction, I was reading "The Da Vinci Code." The critics said Dan Brown can't write. But he engaged me in the story because of the techniques he used, the same ones I was studying. I loved "The Da Vinci Code" but hated "Lost Symbols" so much I said I'd never read another of his books. His technique was the same, but the story sucked. So I agree that the story (and characters) are paramount.

But I want to be immersed in a story. I want to live the story through the characters, not be told what they're doing. Not randomly jump from one character to another. I want vivid verbs (not weak verbs that require an adverb) and action to bring the story to life. How the story is told is important to my enjoyment of it.

(selecting something that doesn't sell), however, they get no feedback and face no consequences for type II errors (rejecting something that would have been successful).

I implemented the first credit scoring system at American Express. The New Accounts department used it to determine if they should give a person a card (based on their credit score. Not credit rating. It was all about statistics, like how long they lived at their current address. There were 6 questions that determined their score). What they fretted over was the applications they rejected because they didn't meet the credit score. That they were not giving cards to people who would pay their bills. I suggested they give cards to a few who didn't meet their credit score threshold and closely monitor them. They thought I was crazy.

Yes, the Submission Editors don't have a crystal ball. They accept some that don't sell, and they pass over others that do. But they know the types of books that sell and look for those. Of course if an author comes up with something new and it sells like crazy, then everyone copies it and maybe it becomes the new way to write.

Maybe today with self publishing, but before that there would have been no way for that to happen if no publisher would accept it.

Sure there was. Stream of consciousness writing was new. There are other stuff too.

Stream of consciousness writing was new.

I would expect stream of consciousness writing to be as old as writing.

The term seems to have been formalised in the mid 1800s. Conventional publishers published such works (eg James Joyce's 'Ulysses', 1922) long before e-books and self-publishing became commonplace.

AJ

and don't head-hop

Interesting. All the books I tend to read, head-hop a lot. Currently I am working my way through Neal Asher and I like him a lot. And if there is one thing that he does, is head-hop, and head-hop so much I'm surprised that it's not an Olympic sport...

It reminds me of the old adage, and one that remains true today in all professions, in all walks of life. "Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach it...." Which kinda sucks if you are a teacher...

I've had more than one editor at dead-tree houses tell me that the advice against head-hopping is aimed at beginning writers, and doesn't apply to writers who've enough experience to handle POV shifts well. It's a trickier skill to master than it initially seems.

(Of course, I've had more than one tell never do it period because having more than one POV is too confusing for children. Since no one here is writing for kids, feel free to entirely discount their advice.)

(Of course, I've had more than one tell never do it period because having more than one POV is too confusing for children. Since no one here is writing for kids, feel free to entirely discount their advice.)

That's strange. I would have thought head-hopping was particularly suitable for children, especially if read aloud in different voices.

AJ

Very young children's books have very little interior thoughts/reactions at all — it's usually tight single POV (or first person) and very objective. By older chapter books, there's more interiority but still limited POVs — the only one that age I can think of with multiple POVs are the Ivy + Bean series, and it's mostly Bean's POV. By middle grade, multiple POVs are more common, but almost always only switching at chapter/scene breaks. By YA, you can have as much flexibility as adult books, but head-hopping mid-scene is still rare.

And if there is one thing that he does, is head-hop,

Are you sure it's not omniscient? The omni narrator can get into any character's head.

What are the code that are not welcome at SOL. I've seen many of the codes used in other story but again I might be in a mind set.

Personally I wouldn't click on any story with scat and am unlikely to look at rape or NC stories.

I admit I am the same way.

I will admit that more than a few of my stories do involve a rape. But it is never graphically told, and always depicted as something horrible and generally comes into play as the character that is abused ultimately goes beyond it and becomes a stronger person.

I do use "Caution" as a tag in such stories, but never "Rape" because I see nothing sexy about such a vile act and have absolutely no interest in attracting those readers that are excited by such a story. And in one case I had the rapist in turn himself punished by having his penis severed.

And in one case I had the rapist in turn himself punished by having his penis severed.

Me too in one of my novels. Not only was his dick sliced off, it was stuffed in his mouth and then sealed with duct tape. And then his veins were cut so that he would bleed out.

am unlikely to look at rape or NC stories.

A mixture of curiosity and vested interest makes me wonder under what circumstances you would read them.

AJ

I don't think I will every reach the time where I have to resolve to stories that include one of those tags.

My current story-in-(slow)-progress is tagged 'NC'. I considered 'rape' but decided against it because of the lack of violence. Plus the victim had a good time.

You wouldn't read it anyway because it's pantsed and the probability of it getting finished is not confidence-inspiringly high ;-)

AJ

As usual, and most likely being annoyingly pedantic, I have a problem with the definition of the codes.

NonConsensual At least one of the parties is not participating willfully
Rape Stories with violent rape

Where do I start?

will·ful·ly
1. with the intention of causing harm; deliberately.
2. with a stubborn and determined intention to do as one wants, regardless of the consequences.

So: at least one of the parties is NOT trying to cause harm and/or is NOT ignoring the consequences. The tag should be 'willingly'.

Then: rape, which defines itself in terms of itself. I hate that. But, ignoring that, it's only violent rape that 'counts'. While 'violence' is itself a potentially broad term, it seems to limit the act in a number of ways (for instance, having sex with someone incapacitated isn't 'rape', story-code-wise).

There are quite a few codes that need some fixing...

Technically, any non-consensual sex is by the current definition, rape.

And legally, consensual sex with an underaged person is rape.

I agree with your definition of rape as it pertains to SOL. Maybe "self-explanatory" should be replaced with some variation of "the 'Rape' tag for those violent non-consensual events where the victim is overpowered and most time bloodied and hurt physically."

I replaced 'willfully' with 'willingly'.

Thanks! I just spotted that one today, and it bugged me.

To me, non-consensual forced intercourse is rape. Period. It doesn't matter if it's violent or not. Date rape is rape, rape drugs are rape, being coerced by threats of violence is rape, etc. It's one thing.

I'm 'old crowd', too, timewise, but I remember having it pounded into our heads back in the mid-1980s that, if there wasn't consent - actual, real, honest consent - it was rape, pure and simple. But that's law, not story tagging. It's not really new, though. They also drummed into our heads that consent lasts until revoked and not a second longer. And those doing the drumming were, if anything, on the reactionary end of the spectrum, not in the least 'woke'.

For story tag purposes - I'm fine with it being limited to violent. I'm not sure it actually serves SOL's best interests to broaden rape to the 'actual' definition. People who are looking for 'rape' stories probably aren't looking for drugging or blackmail or the like, and we have categories for those.

All of them are 'nonconsensual', though. Tag proliferation isn't great, though, so I'm fine with tagging a story 'rape' or 'blackmail' and not actually using the 'nonconsensual' tag (because it's implied).

I do agree that people have gone nuts on what is considered lack of consent - in some cases. Fortunately, it's not all that common - the noteworthy stories are exceptions, not the rule. And I reject out of hand the crazies who believe that it's impossible to consent (and they're out there).

From a psychological standard - people are different. Some people would find fighting tooth and nail - and losing - less traumatic than being drugged or blackmailed or the like. I'm not comfortable trying to assign levels of trauma based on the type of non-consent.

Agreed - for story tags, that's a valid argument.

I still don't much like self-referential definitions. But from a tagging perspective, it's useful to limit the tags, because things appeal to different people.

No matter what tagging system is used, though, things are going to wind up in weird places with regard to the lines the tags create.

Also, and without comment - except that they're not a favorite, and I'd avoid them - consensual first-person-narrated 'snuff' stories are a thing. In my opinion, a very strange thing, and not my thing but, a thing.

And, related, 'snuff' only counts during sex, and the tag points to 'violent' for other murders. But ... if the killing is consensual, it's not necessarily murder, and killing doesn't have to be 'violent', so ... yeah. The tags need work.

Now I'm wondering just how transgressive a work one could create by carefully navigating the tags. Not going to do it, but it's an interesting thought exercise.

If I don't think that the rape is presented as an erotic element of the story. You can usually figure that out from the other codes and the description.

Thanks. In this case even I'm not sure and I'm the person writing it!

AJ

Here's an interesting one. I've read some of the 'Dragon Chronicle' / 'Sam' stories. More than one includes 'rape', in the sense that the rapist is completely convinced that they're committing a non-consensual violent rape. However, Sam herself is more than a bit less convinced of that - even in cases where she's actually helpless and not exactly willing and it could go very badly.

Rape? Not-rape? Sort-of-rape? It's certainly an erotic element of the story, but it's also erotic to the protagonist. One can define away the problem by asserting that it's not really rape, which works (more-or-less) in Sam's particular case, but opens the door to a wide range of stories where the victim decides 'it's all fine' in the end and therefore nothing bad happened.

If the stories Bob wants to write involve those codes, and are really well-written, a small audience should give high scores.

I agree. The main reason I mentioned the codes is I know my editors wouldn't help him because he's writing stories they wouldn't choose to read. That makes getting editorial and beta reader help harder due to codes they don't read.

Writing is like most other things, you just get better by doing it.

A golf instructor once told me: "Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes repetition."

If you practice your faults, you'll keep making them.

A golf instructor once told me: "Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes repetition."

That might apply to something like golf that's not a real sport, but real sports stress the importance of muscle memory - practising something so much you can do it instinctively.

As for writing, who knows? Some writers actually get worse through tuition and practising - they suppress their natural voice and churn out cookie-cutter writing course fodder.

AJ

real sports stress the importance of muscle memory - practising something so much you can do it instinctively.

What are you asking your muscles to memorize? If not the right thing, you do the wrong thing instinctively. You train your muscle memory to do it wrong.

With writing, you don't know what you don't know. So how can you practice doing it "right" when you don't know what right is?

People can argue what "right" is forever and never agree. That's not the point. The point is there are things that make writing better to read. If you don't know what those things are you can't implement them. Reading good novels is more important than writing a lot. And some instinctively know what they like about those novels and apply it to their writing. Not me. I need to taught the basics. I think most people do.

If you don't know what those things are, how do you identify the "good" novels you should be reading?

I know what those things are FOR ME. I read novels that embrace those things.

If not the right thing, you do the wrong thing instinctively. You train your muscle memory to do it wrong.

If your tennis serve always goes out, you're doing it wrong.

If you always hit free-kicks or volleys over the cross bar, you're doing it wrong.

Sport is more result-orientated than writing ;-)

AJ

If your tennis serve always goes out, you're doing it wrong.

But why is it always going out?

How can you correct it if you don't know why?

Some writers actually get worse through tuition and practising - they suppress their natural voice and churn out cookie-cutter writing course fodder.

That however can also be a "style".

In the classic "pulp series", the very purpose to write in rather bland tones was because they would often use a dozen or more different authors to churn out book after book. And that way they would each sound the same, and not come across as in the style of others.

Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew are great examples of this. Written by dozens of different authors, they all wrote in a style that made one author indistinguishable from the other.

A golf instructor once told me: "Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes repetition."

Sorry, don't buy it.

I for one could tell how my writing evolved and improved over the decades. I even look back at many of my older stories somewhat in shame, as they were rather crude and clumsy in comparison to what I create now.

But it is true, you will not improve if you continue to do things exactly the same, and never try to improve your style. For me, one of the ways has been experimentation. Writing in different styles, different genre. Even creating stories in the past, some almost a century and trying to capture the look, feel, and slang of a past era and how it differed from our own. First person, second person, third person, trying new ways to tell a story so I can select one to fit the tale I want to tell.

Even purposefully making some characters not very likable. And I have friends who are professional authors, and they say the same thing. That over time their craft improved with each successive book or story.

And I have friends who are professional authors, and they say the same thing. That over time their craft improved with each successive book or story.

I assume, as professional authors, they learned the basics and experience made them better. My argument is you need to learn the basics.

I'm basing that on personal experience. Until I got that feedback, I never bothered to study the craft of writing fiction. There was so much I didn't know. Since I didn't know something, I couldn't use it and improve it with experience. I had to learn it first.

2) Avoid duplicate story codes. FaFa means lesbian; you don't need both.

If you're attempt to gain readers who look for lesbian stories, wouldn't it make sense to code both? Otherwise the reader who just searches for the code you omitted won't find your story.

FaFa means lesbian

A reader might search on "lesbian" in the Category Search, but not FaFa. If you don't include "lesbian" your story won't show up.

I looked up Breeding and Bred (as the past tense) on line and here is what is given:

People also ask
What is true bred?

The word 'breed' means 'to reproduce, procreate, or bring... See full answer below.
Reference
study.com/academy/answer/is-breeded-a-word.html

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What is the definition of bred?

The definition of bred means to have made an offspring. An example of bred is to have given birth to a baby. An example of bred is to have mated a race horse. YourDictionary definition and usage example. "bred.".

An example of bred is to have mated a race horse.

Doesn't have to be a race horse. I have a novel called "The Breeder." The title is a play on the plot. The MC captures wild horses, breaks them, and sells them to the Calvary. But the supply of wild horses is dwindling so one of his female companions convinces him to start a horse ranch and breed horses. The play on the title is his fiancee's lesbian friend wants a baby and doesn't want to adopt. She asks him to do the honors (breed her). And he ends up breeding another woman whose husband is infertile.

So in the end, he bred the lesbian friend to try to impregnate her.

Yes.

That's why the story is a Western. It takes place before artificial insemination so I chose the late 1880s in the Old West. That led to the horse ranching/breeding part of the story.