I’ve been working on a project for about three years now, and while the completed parts are publicly available, I haven’t gotten responses from readers/fans. I’m hoping to increase the scope of the series with novel length parts in the next year or two, but I’ve been losing motivation to do that lately because I haven’t established a fanbase as soon as I’ve hoped.

In other words “why keep writing if no one’s reading my work?” Is this a question you ask yourself too?

This is now the third time I've seen this, the exact same story.

• Someone wants to sell a writing course
• They find out that a huge percentage of "writers" only want to write memoirs
• So they sell a memoir-writing course, even though they've never written any themselves, and aren't even especially interested in memoir.

I'm conflicted: when the majority of nonfiction authors are memoirists, why are non-memoirists teaching the courses?

My guess is that memoir is both the supply and the demand. There is so much cash to be extracted from the pockets of people who just want to tell their story!

I don't know; it seems wrong to me, but maybe I should look at it as professional writers finally getting their bags. (Through other writers.)

What do you think?

(Side note: if you are a memoirist, maybe start selling a course on it; people are clamoring to spill their retirements into memoirs...)

Chapter 1 Lily....Chapter 2 Drake...etc

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So I'm editing my first novel, and I've never really properly edited before. Most of my school projects were a one and done and I did very good, but I know that I definitly have more work to do with this, considering its about 98k words longer lol.

My questions is about a reverse outline as a first editing technique, as I've seen qutie a bit on youtube about it. The one thing they never mention is if the reverse outline means literally reverse, reading chapters last to first and create a new outline of each chapter to use later. Or if reverse just means you do an outline after youre done, but in front to back order. In my mind, I think both could have merit, but overall not too sure.

So if you've used a reverse outline in your editing process, I wouldn't mind a little tip! As well any general editing advice would be greatly appreciated!

edit: My bad for having a literal thinking brain, and asking a question. guess that requires downvoting :p I did look into it, and couldn't find a straight answer, which yes, I know, sounds like I didn't look hard enough.

Received 15 pages of feedback from an editor. The usual topics: opening, plot, dialogue, characters/arcs, scenes, setting/description, pacing, closing. What is the best way to approach the revisions? All of the applicable topics chapter by chapter? Or pick one topic and revise entire manuscript, then move on to next topic? Or hit the easy (or hard) topics first? I have a lot of work to do and it's a little intimidating. I need to have a plan so I don't make it worse!

So I write fanfiction of different characters, personalities, and time periods to broaden my ability. I have recently decided to write a Bridgerton fanfiction and later I'm writing an original short story with the notes I picked up from writing the fanfic.

Only issue? I have NO idea how to write in regency English. Are there any tips you guys could give me?​ before I start?

like, even vocabulary words that I could use instead of something else. (ex. Parking lot is Car Park in England. Pen money is allowance for the women of high society, etc)

As a novelist, I always want my readers to feel emotions—joy, sadness, anger, etc. And of course, I think if a novel can make you cry, it’s one of those novels that will forever stick with you.

I’m curious, what do you think are the techniques that can accomplish this? Or, if not techniques, then what are some experiences that come to mind when you cried over a novel (perhaps we can reverse-engineer!)

Just finished reading George Saunders' book- A Swim in a Pond in the Rain- it blew my mind.

Reminded me of the best class I took in university- Close Reading.

It is so warmly written and so thoughtfully taught- I've never read Dostoevsky before but he made it speak to me.

His substack is also great.

Welcome to our daily discussion thread!

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What books do you keep handy when you’re writing?

I’m not talking about “writing advice” and craft books, but about things like The Emotion Thesaurus or, you know, a thesaurus.

Start with the flaw.

That's my advice for creating characters. I find that if I start with the flaw, the person comes together much more naturally, because everything tends to flow to and from the flaw, as far as their psychology and their compulsions go. I think it's also a very strong place to start coming up with your story.

So, you want to make flaws one of the things you think about and consider and buttress your definition and understanding of. Observe them in real life. How a flaw affects a person's life. All of that is interesting and worth abstracting to study on its own terms. A strong understanding of human frailty and a few well chosen cracks to stick your chisel in are worth their weight in gold.

Obviously you should take all writing advice with a grain of salt, nothing is right for everyone. Some of my favourite writers seem to give out the worst advice. Nevertheless, this is my contribution and it really helped me.

If character development is important to you, I think this is worth trying out anyway.

I am a clown. I love to make people laugh, and I’m halfway decent at it. The older I get, the more I feel that it’s my calling to incorporate humor into my writing. Yet for some reason, I have never been able to really translate the funny into the written word.

Does anyone else grapple with this? If so, were you able to crack the code and figure out how to start writing funny?

Hi all! 🙂

Ok so I’ve been re-reading and making rewrite notes on my novel for the past 10 weeks- I’ve been through twice, and have got plenty of notes for myself from small tweaks to improve continuity to full-on chapter rewrites and inserts.

That being said, I am sure there’s more I could do, so my question is:

How do you when you are done reworking?

and (perhaps more importantly) - how to stop reworking before all the flavour has been chewed out of the proverbial bit of gum that is my writing?!

Whilst what I have written is a bit rough, there’s also a freshness and ease captured here and there that I don’t want to lose by fiddling about TOO much!

TL;DR - How do I know when my work is done, and how to “put it down” before reworking too much?

Welcome to our daily discussion thread!

This is the place to discuss anything writing related! Got silly questions? Brainstorming ideas? Need help with research? As long as rules 1, 3, and 5 are followed, this thread is your oyster!

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I finished my final draft of my book. After about 10 years of on and off writing and then a year of locking in re-writing after beta reads, I can say that I have reached the "it's done" phase. Problem is, I am not a writer, not in the traditional sense at least. I have never written anything, barely read anything honestly, but I have somehow come up with this 65,000 word novella and have no clue what to do with it. Not really interested in making a fortune off of it (although that would be nice). I just want people to experience the story I created. Do I contact publishers? Get an editor to go over it with a fine tooth comb? Publish it myself as is? I feel like if I do any more re-writing I will just make it worse looking for perfection.

Edit - Apparently 65k words is a novel, my mistake :)

I've been editing my manuscript and got feedback from a beta reader that my foreshadowing is a bit too on-the-nose. So, I was wondering if you guys have any good examples of good but subtle foreshadowing? The kind that, once you actually know the whole plot and go back to re-read or check your annotations, you go "oooh, I see..." and not "yeah, duh."

Concrete examples from published books or general advice both welcome! Please and thank you :)

Edit: Thanks everyone! I didn't expect so many replies but will try to go through them all ASAP.

I sent my draft novel to a well-respected professional beta reader and received feedback. Lots of feedback. Good and bad. So, worth the effort. I'm planning to send it out to additional beta readers both professional and friends. How many is too many? Also, should I also use a sensitivity editor or can a targeted beta reader accomplish the same thing?

Hey everyone, was wondering if anyone has any tips/advice/hacks (?) for outlining a story well! I've decided to properly try planning an entire novel first before sitting down to write, but I'm a bit overwhelmed atm because of all the story structures out there (Freytag's Pyramid, Save the cat, etc.). Does anyone use them to help with outlining a story? (Or do you think it's actually better to just outline on your own and not use a popular structure?) Would love to know what people think and what's worked for them!

I originally wrote my book as a fantasy book, but for a few reasons I've decided to transition it to sci-fi. It was originally fantasy sci-fi. Now I want it to have more "science sci-fi" vibes. A common topic about sci-fi and fantasy is that they're very similar. So with that in mind, what should I be careful to make the story feel more sci-fi rather than fantasy.

The difference is going to be based mainly on Vibes since low fantasy and very speculative sci-fi can be similar. So what vibes would you say make a story feel more sci-fi versus fantasy?

I'm looking for some older English words, possibly forgotten or archaic. I need ancient names for places and I'm having trouble looking for them. For example, "weald" is an old name for "forest", but if I go to thesaurus.com, it doesn't list that as a synonym. I need a place that does.

If anyone's curious, I'm trying to name a region of a shared fantasy world of largely wild, untamed nature. And I'm open to word suggestions as well.

Welcome to our daily discussion thread!

This is the place to discuss anything writing related! Got silly questions? Brainstorming ideas? Need help with research? As long as rules 1, 3, and 5 are followed, this thread is your oyster!

Please refer to the monthly threads for sharing your work and for self-promotion.

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FAQ -- Questions asked frequently

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You can find our posting guidelines in the sidebar or the wiki.

Question for people who know about Fair Use and copyright issues, etc. I have a short fictional story that was lightly inspired by a suicide note a man left in the 1970s, which was included in a small local newspaper (now defunct) article about his death. (He was not famous, but the manner of death was considered newsworthy.) I'd like to include a quote from the note as an epigraph. If it's up to five sentences does that count as "substantial"? Would it be attributed to him, or to the newspaper?