Questions from a nooby, hobbyist "writer."

[Kumquatqueen]

Some of us not only do all our reading on a phone, but also write on a phone! At 10 words to a line, it does make short paragraphs preferable.

You can put a link to your stories in your forum signature, though people on phones can't see signatures since a recent upgrade.

 

[tenyari]

1. Is it better to write the story more completely before separating the story into chapters and uploading it in installments, even waiting until it's almost finished? Or should it matter at all?

The last thing you want is to have a 20 year story sitting on your page with 3 chapters posted and some comments from a decade ago asking where the next part is.

... Not that I have ANY idea who might be in a situation like that ...

As others have noted - the risk of posting while you work is of writing yourself into a corner where you'd want to go back x-chapters and start over to fix it. The other risk is when you realize the entire story no longer fits what you wish to express, but has fans who want more of it. When both of these happen together...

I'm working a new 'story series' now and I'm purposefully writing each part that would have been a chapter years ago, as it's own stand alone story - and even still I don't want to post it until I have at least 3 of them done. I'm about 1 3/4ths through. My mind is already finishing story 2 and writing 3, but at least now I have the luxury of fixing story 1 as 2 and 3 demand changes to the concept.

 

[Jmanchu]

Get your stories out there, then refer to them in posts such as these!

We all do it in one way or another, there's no shame in spruiking yourself, and it gets new readers.

Will do.

In the meantime I'll be looking into the resources on this site for beta readers and editorial stuff and how it works.

When I have written more, and done even more editing or rewriting(I have to stop this OCD habit of constantly editing but I can't stop myself), I'll see what to do from there.

So:

1. Write Story.
2. Finish Story.
3. Shameless self-promotion.
4. ???
5.Profit.

Some of us not only do all our reading on a phone, but also write on a phone! At 10 words to a line, it does make short paragraphs preferable.

You can put a link to your stories in your forum signature, though people on phones can't see signatures since a recent upgrade.

Ah, gotcha.

I'm going to definitely keep that in mind when I post on forums from now on.

I did try to to clean up the format for all my previous posts but I don't know if it's still bad for phone users.

And I'll definitely take advantage of that when I do officially post a couple of stories or series.

 

[Jmanchu]

The last thing you want is to have a 20 year story sitting on your page with 3 chapters posted and some comments from a decade ago asking where the next part is.

... Not that I have ANY idea who might be in a situation like that ...

As others have noted - the risk of posting while you work is of writing yourself into a corner where you'd want to go back x-chapters and start over to fix it. The other risk is when you realize the entire story no longer fits what you wish to express, but has fans who want more of it. When both of these happen together...

I'm working a new 'story series' now and I'm purposefully writing each part that would have been a chapter years ago, as it's own stand alone story - and even still I don't want to post it until I have at least 3 of them done. I'm about 1 3/4ths through. My mind is already finishing story 2 and writing 3, but at least now I have the luxury of fixing story 1 as 2 and 3 demand changes to the concept.

I have about a dozen stories that I've started but never finished over these last 14 years. They all are still in my head living free real estate, even after I haven't worked on them for a long time. :|

That's what I'm afraid of, writing myself into a creative corner after posting a chapter and setting that part of the story in stone.

Although, my current story has almost all the lore set and fleshed out(there's too much lore and setting now for something that started as a cookie cutter Sword-and-Sorcery stroker).

And that sucks... I know how rabid fanbases and online communities can get, regardless of where you go on the internet. And how stressful and annoying that can get.

And I've decided on what to do with fans that want to add their input.

I'll go by if I like the suggestion AND I can see how to use it in the story that sticks with what I'm going for, then I'll consider it. And I'll accept constructive criticism, even if it might sting. As long as it can improve on my craft in the long run.

Otherwise, "My story." > : D

I'm assuming if I ever get fans, it's because they stay for what I like to write. But I will definitely prefer staying free in my pursuit of writing rather than just specializing in one genre, or keeping to the feel of the story if I see it's going to take a different route and I want to explore that.

Even if that one genre or writing style is what most people who might like some of my stuff will want from me. Not everyone has to like everything I plan on putting out here.

My attitude is if I wanna write it, I'll write it. Even if it is drastically different to something that I may typically put online( whatever I'm known for when I do eventually make a portfolio of sorts here and other sites.).

I'll post what I want online, then I can worry about figuring out who's gonna like it later.

I'm not afraid of a little controversy and not compromising my vision.

 

[ElectricBlue]

So:

1. Write Story.
2. Finish Story.
3. Shameless self-promotion.
4. ???
5.Profit.

Probably best to delete #5, unless you plan doing this full time. There are some folk here making money, but not many.

 

[Jmanchu]

Probably best to delete #5, unless you plan doing this full time. There are some folk here making money, but not many.

Yeah... I'm a hobbyist writer, so I'm not thinking money here(who knows what could happen in the future.

The "Profit" comment was a badly done South Park meme reference attempt.

 

[gunhilltrain]

So, I shouldn't worry about too many typos, unless I type like a drunk with the grammar skills of a 12 year old. Aight

I think he meant typos that show up after the story is published. I think you can catch almost all of them first if you take your time. Try to give yourself a few days between proofreading sessions. I mean, it's difficult to read the same thing over and over again every day. There's no need to rush; there are no deadlines to meet.

The free version of Grammarly helps a lot, but there are times when you have to make a judgment call. It's software, not a human mind. The example I like to use is that it will change "brown stone" (rock of that color) to "brownstone," a row house probably made of said rock. It will do that kind of thing quite frequently.

 

[gunhilltrain]

That double posting thing is an annoying glitch that showed up fairly recently on this site.

 

[Jmanchu]

I think he meant typos that show up after the story is published. I think you can catch almost all of them first if you take your time. Try to give yourself a few days between proofreading sessions. I mean, it's difficult to read the same thing over and over again every day. There's no need to rush; there are no deadlines to meet.

The free version of Grammarly helps a lot, but there are times when you have to make a judgment call. It's software, not a human mind. The example I like to use is that it will change "brown stone" (rock of that color) to "brownstone," a row house probably made of said rock. It will do that kind of thing quite frequently.

Yikes. Thanks for letting me know about that. Will keep an eye for that when I publish anything.

I do use Grammarly occasionally, which I mainly use to catch run-on sentences(A bad habit I used to have when writing and still do sometimes. And still bad when I post online in forums). I have actually noticed that with Grammarly sometimes what you pointed out.

It's happened enough that when it suggests a word change that I'm unsure of I reference Google to see if that word isn't a thing, or if if I'm crazy when I'm thinking I'm using a word correctly

 

[Bramblethorn]

Adverbs: How bad? Should a writer, even a hobbyist, be a strict writing "vegetarian" or is it alright to leave some adverbs in the diet? Long as I don't partake too much in adverb "cheat meals," would that be a problem?

Stephen King uses adverbs. Sparingly, compared to some other writers, but I doubt one could find a single page of King's prose that's truly adverb-free.

For instance, here's a paragraph from his recent book "The Institute". (Context: plane is one seat short, passengers are being offered money to surrender a seat.) I've bolded some of the adverbs and adverbial phrases:

Tim Jamieson suddenly decided he wanted to get the fuck off this plane and hitchhike north. Although such an idea had never | so much as crossed his mind before this moment, he found he could imagine himself doing it, and with absolute clarity. There he was, standing on Highway 301 somewhere in the middle of Hernando County with his thumb out. It was hot, the lovebugs were swarming, there was a billboard advertising some slip-and-fall attorney, "Take It On the Run" by REO Speedwagon was blaring from a boombox sitting on the concrete-block step of a nearby trailer where a shirtless man was washing his car, and eventually some Farmer John would come along and give him a ride in a pickup truck with stake sides, melons in the back, and a magnetic Jesus on the dashboard. The best part wouldn't | even be the cash money in his pocket. The best part would be standing out there by himself, miles from this sardine can with its warring smells of perfume, sweat, and hair spray.

There might be others ("out there" ,"by himself", "and with absolute clarity" perhaps?) but I'll leave it to the folk with more formal English training to resolve that. Point is, in just one paragraph King has at least eight adverbs.

Some are crucial to the meaning: if I drop the "not" out of "wouldn't", or the "never so much as", I reverse the meaning of the sentence. The rest, at the least, aren't doing any harm. Maybe the most expendable are "suddenly" and "eventually" but even those, I'd argue, add useful nuance.

It's not adverbs that are the problem, just overuse of them in cases where a different technique might work better.

One area where I find adverbs often are overused is in describing speech and emotion:

John said angrily, "I went home and you weren't there."

Humans aren't telepathic. When somebody says something like that to me, I don't get a neon sign above their head saying "Angry!" I have to figure it out from context, from how John looks and talks and from what's come before.

If I can convey his anger to readers through those same cues, I can probably do a better job at bringing them into the story.

By now, John's face was beet-red. His finger stabbed the air as he spoke: "I went home! And you weren't there!"

Or:

John spoke very quietly, and his eyes never left my face. "I went home and you. Weren't. There."

Both of those describe anger, but two very different kinds of anger. By unpacking "angrily" we've made that passage more descriptive and given the reader a better understanding of John's mental state. The second example still has an adverb, but to my mind it's a better adverb.

(All this assumes that it's an important scene to the story. If it's not, the terseness of "angrily" might outweigh the value of more descriptive writing.)

It can be worth thinking about how different media convey things. If you were telling the story as a film or a comic, how would you convey "angrily"? That can be a helpful mental exercise in finding alternatives to bad adverbs.

 

[8letters]

So:

1. Write Story.
2. Finish Story.
3. Shameless self-promotion.
4. ???
5.Profit.

1. Write Story
2. Finish Story
3. Write Next Story
4. Finish Next Story
:
40. Finish 20th Story

The way to build an audience is to put out content.

That being said, SF&F has one of the smaller audiences here. I'd suggest writing the SF&F story you've always wanted to write, and then try your hand at a category with a larger audience.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Yikes. Thanks for letting me know about that. Will keep an eye for that when I publish anything.

I do use Grammarly occasionally, which I mainly use to catch run-on sentences(A bad habit I used to have when writing and still do sometimes. And still bad when I post online in forums). I have actually noticed that with Grammarly sometimes what you pointed out.

It's happened enough that when it suggests a word change that I'm unsure of I reference Google to see if that word isn't a thing, or if if I'm crazy when I'm thinking I'm using a word correctly

Despite its inevitable limitations, I use Grammarly for everything I publish. (Usually not emails and such.) Some moderator on another site told me to get it because, well, they proofread (really!) everything over there and I was becoming too much work for them perhaps.

After running it through Grammarly, I copy and save the file from their site as, say, Romeo and Juliet, Ch. 02, Grammarly. (I keep the previous version too for some reason.) That way I can be sure I actually did it - it's easy to lose track of things if there is a lot going on.

Also, just before I submit it, I copy the file out of the preview screen and save that as Romeo and Juliet, Ch. 02 Submitted. (That's in a separate folder, called Submitted obviously.) That way, if I do need to make a change after publication, I have the previous final version to correct and I give to Lit for the new version. I'm sure I'm not making new errors (I hope) by not knowing what the hell I'm giving to Lit that time around.

I try to avoid that in any case because it takes them a long time to approve the changed version - like two weeks maybe. I only do that for something major, not one or two typos. Many people have stopped reading it after it's been up for a couple of weeks anyway. It depends on much of a perfectionist you are, perhaps.

 

[LilyWaters]

Sorry for the incoming wall of text. I've been on this site amongst other writing sites for a while, mainly as a lurker, and occasional reader. I've always enjoyed the hobby of writing stories(that I've never published, or finished :| ) and reading.

The last couple of years have been some busy years so I stopped having the time to write. Now, with some free time in between my personal life I've gotten back into writing.

There's one story I'm working on(Grimdark-ish, Sword and Sorcery Fantasy setting) where I've written enough, so far, to be able to break down into 2 or more full length chapters( about 96,000 characters, or over 18,000 words so far, and counting), and by the this story is going, it'll probably be the length of a full fantasy novel set, even post edit.

You don't have to answer every single question if you feel up to replying to only some, if you just want to answer only one, totally cool with me, but here are my questions:

1. Is it better to write the story more completely before separating the story into chapters and uploading it in installments, even waiting until it's almost finished? Or should it matter at all?

I have enough of my story written down to be able to separate it into 2 or 3 full installments.

Depending on how much free time and how well I get into the zone when writing, and if I can stay out of the self-editing circle of Writer's Limbo.

sometimes I can get a lot done in a week. Sometimes, I barely get any progress.

I don't know how consistently I'd be able to keep up with finishing a new chapter, especially weekly, or bi-monthly, or even monthly. Is that something someone who posts online should be worried about? Or even think about?

2. As a general "rule," is important to focus on writing "well" and being as "professional" in your prose as possible to write a "good story?" Or is it fine to focus on writing on "your story" your way first, and only really use the rules and tips of good writing and avoiding "bad writing" as a guideline?

Even if it means it might not come out as professional or cleanly written?

Of course that doesn't mean that if I get editorial help here or if if readers offer tips I will just ignore constructive criticism, especially if the constructive criticism helps to either make my story more concise and readable.

Nor do I have such a big head that I won't humbly accept a suggestion or tip that either improves what I'm trying to go for, or even a rewriting suggestion that is superior to how I write a part of the story, as I know my writing skills are amateur at best.

But I want to stay in the category of writing "my story" more than a "good story," though I really want to hear thoughts on this.

3. Which comes to the topic of my second question: Expositions... how bad are they, really? And is going by "I like/don't like what I'm reading" a reliable indicator of if your story is passable reading material or not?

The ugly side of fantasy fiction and technically bad writing.

I know there will be readers that will skip a story if there's exposition, but I don't mind(I'm writing "my stories") but how do you know if there's too much exposition? I'd like to hear all opinions on the general matter.

Anyways, my initial approach was thinking somewhere along the lines of if I have trouble reading and re-reading story after taking a week's plus break, then, that's a sign to edit out or shorten the parts that make me lose attention(the ADHD kid in me makes for a decent editor, sometimes).

I also edit out exposition that I feel becomes unnecessary, either because the story later shows it(and I am sometimes still doing as I'm writing the story), I see a way to show not tell, or it just doesn't serve well even as foreshadowing or explaining some lore efficiently.

I'm still left with a lot of exposition sometimes despite me actually enjoying what I'm reading so far (which I'm sure there still are parts in there too boring or unnecessary to read). I fear there could be strong bias when I feel like I'm enjoying what I have so far, even though I know it's far from perfect.

The final question in regards to exposition. Dialogue exposition... always a sin of writing? Or a permissible form of expository use? I don't use on purpose or try to sneak in exposition through dialogue, but sometimes what the characters say to each other in the story could count as "exposition" technically sometimes, even though I don't feel like comes out unnaturally(ie. unnaturally as in two characters awkwardly having the infamous "As you know, Bob..." convo).

I'm fairly new too, less than a year on the site, and took a break from posting stories for a few months.

So I'm not particularly qualified to answer all of your questions, but I have a few thoughts.

First: spelling and grammar really do matter. Errors take you out of a story, and if you have them, your commenters will tell you! BUT... and this is a big BUT... once you know the rules of grammar, which you clearly do, break them if you need to! Do what is write to embody the voice of your characters, to capture a heated moment, a sensation, a pitch. It's an art, not a science, so the flow and rhythm of the words is more important than syntactical rules.

Make your writing feel true, above all else.

My second piece of advice is to publish something and see how it goes. That first hurdle is big (or it was for me, anyway), but the responses really helped me to improve. You're working on a big piece right now, so why not throw out something little, maybe a little vignette with those characters, or something completely new? The responses you get from readers might help you find the answers to your questions.

I'm sure you'll get lots of other great advice here - there are people with a ton of experience and posted work here.

 

[Jmanchu]

Stephen King uses adverbs. Sparingly, compared to some other writers, but I doubt one could find a single page of King's prose that's truly adverb-free.

For instance, here's a paragraph from his recent book "The Institute". (Context: plane is one seat short, passengers are being offered money to surrender a seat.) I've bolded some of the adverbs and adverbial phrases:



There might be others ("out there" ,"by himself", "and with absolute clarity" perhaps?) but I'll leave it to the folk with more formal English training to resolve that. Point is, in just one paragraph King has at least eight adverbs.

Some are crucial to the meaning: if I drop the "not" out of "wouldn't", or the "never so much as", I reverse the meaning of the sentence. The rest, at the least, aren't doing any harm. Maybe the most expendable are "suddenly" and "eventually" but even those, I'd argue, add useful nuance.

It's not adverbs that are the problem, just overuse of them in cases where a different technique might work better.

One area where I find adverbs often are overused is in describing speech and emotion:

John said angrily, "I went home and you weren't there."

Humans aren't telepathic. When somebody says something like that to me, I don't get a neon sign above their head saying "Angry!" I have to figure it out from context, from how John looks and talks and from what's come before.

If I can convey his anger to readers through those same cues, I can probably do a better job at bringing them into the story.

By now, John's face was beet-red. His finger stabbed the air as he spoke: "I went home! And you weren't there!"

Or:

John spoke very quietly, and his eyes never left my face. "I went home and you. Weren't. There."

Both of those describe anger, but two very different kinds of anger. By unpacking "angrily" we've made that passage more descriptive and given the reader a better understanding of John's mental state. The second example still has an adverb, but to my mind it's a better adverb.

(All this assumes that it's an important scene to the story. If it's not, the terseness of "angrily" might outweigh the value of more descriptive writing.)

It can be worth thinking about how different media convey things. If you were telling the story as a film or a comic, how would you convey "angrily"? That can be a helpful mental exercise in finding alternatives to bad adverbs.

You are right...! So, even the great Steven King uses adverbs a lot more than I realized...

I freakin' picked up one of his stories I have after the snippet you posted of his use of adverbs to see for myself how much adverbs there really are, and he does definitely use adverbs a little freely despite his apparent distaste for them! This juicy bit of information feels almost scandalous! :O

How did I never notice that!?

Well, that really makes me feel a lot better about my kind of free use of adverbs.

Your points on the whole "emotions" being described and them being overused for adverbs are really interesting.

I've always personally felt that if there's one thing that should follow a "show AND tell" or, better yet, a "show, don't tell" rule it should be the emotional state of a character.

It's always irked me in some way whenever I've read someone outright state the emotion a character was feeling without them showing some sort of physical action, audible, visual cue, or any other kind of thing that's more than just "she emotionally did this action" or "he felt emotion because of that" for the character to show it.

Especially with an adverb being the only thing describing the emotion.

It's been one of the things I've been OCD about when working on my prose to not ever to do. Like, if I have one writing rule I personally follow like a religious commandment, then it's that one. I rarely ever have seen myself do anything even close to that and if I were to catch it in my writing, it would drive me crazy. Never really thought about why, but it always did.

And usage of that in adverbs has always been like to me, for the prose I've worked to develop is that when I write a scene, then the context of what's going on throughout the scene and the character cues, including even what they have said in earlier dialogue, should make it obvious what the character is feeling without outright needing to say what the emotion is.

That an emotive adverb feels automatically redundant to use at that point. My example of "angrily charged" was my demonstration of what I always think is bad adverb usage was in that context. Should have been more specific there but I didn't really think about it until you gave that really good explanation. It made me think about it in ways that I never really thought about.

Also, your explanation actually made me come to a epiphany regarding my other question on concision in prose.

That while concision is a good partner to a great prose it's not necessarily the most important guideline and that a descriptive flow in prose can take more agency than following a guideline of conciseness simply to be less wordiness to ensure the writing comes out enjoyable. That I should use as little or as many words as I need to make sure my story has the right feel it needs... Even if someone prefers writing in an otherwise concise, straight to the point prose, there's nothing wrong with adding a little extra word count for an artful descriptive flair.

Thank you.

 

[Jmanchu]

1. Write Story
2. Finish Story
3. Write Next Story
4. Finish Next Story
:
40. Finish 20th Story

The way to build an audience is to put out content.

That being said, SF&F has one of the smaller audiences here. I'd suggest writing the SF&F story you've always wanted to write, and then try your hand at a category with a larger audience.

So just get to writing, then. Good to know.

I do actually have a couple of non SF&F smut stories that I do want to work on and finish sometime. But I don't know what category it would be. If I ever finish it, I'll worry about it later.

 

[Jmanchu]

I'm fairly new too, less than a year on the site, and took a break from posting stories for a few months.

So I'm not particularly qualified to answer all of your questions, but I have a few thoughts.

First: spelling and grammar really do matter. Errors take you out of a story, and if you have them, your commenters will tell you! BUT... and this is a big BUT... once you know the rules of grammar, which you clearly do, break them if you need to! Do what is write to embody the voice of your characters, to capture a heated moment, a sensation, a pitch. It's an art, not a science, so the flow and rhythm of the words is more important than syntactical rules.

Make your writing feel true, above all else.

My second piece of advice is to publish something and see how it goes. That first hurdle is big (or it was for me, anyway), but the responses really helped me to improve. You're working on a big piece right now, so why not throw out something little, maybe a little vignette with those characters, or something completely new? The responses you get from readers might help you find the answers to your questions.

I'm sure you'll get lots of other great advice here - there are people with a ton of experience and posted work here.

If you share the passion for writing, you are more than qualified to answer.

I always do work on my grammar, and it's always the first thing I check when I do editing. And breaking the rules a bit to let things feel more natural is not a bad thing, you're saying? Good for me then, because the rebel without a cause in me does like breaking the rules sometimes. > : D


Maybe I might post something. Like try to make a random short story(As long as I don't let that goal get derailed... and I accidently start turning it into a full novel. I really have to watch out for that. :| )

Make your writing feel true, above all else.

^^^^^^^^^^^
I like this one, a lot.
And on the part of embodying the voice of my characters, maybe it's not such a bad thing if the narrative flow and feel changes based on the character the part of the scene is following.

 

[Bramblethorn]

You are right...! So, even the great Steven King uses adverbs a lot more than I realized...

I freakin' picked up one of his stories I have after the snippet you posted of his use of adverbs to see for myself how much adverbs there really are, and he does definitely use adverbs a little freely despite his apparent distaste for them! This juicy bit of information feels almost scandalous! :O

Yeah, IMHO King's advice on adverbs is best applied as "challenge your adverbs and make sure they're earning their keep" rather than "banish every adverb from your work". Certainly that's more consistent with how he actually writes!

That while concision can be a good partner to a great prose it's not necessarily the most important guideline and that a descriptive prose can sometimes be more important sticking to prose with less wordiness to ensure the writing comes out enjoyable. Whether overall or occasionally. Even if someone prefers writing in an otherwise concise, straight to the point prose.

Here's a passage from Cat Valente's "Space Opera", in a scene where the protagonist has just acquired a new outfit:

He wore blue.

And red. And green. And purple. And black. And electric tangerine-turquoise paisley.

He was dressed as a punch-drunk, postapocalyptic go-go-dancing Mr. Darcy. As Oscar Wilde finally stripped clean of even the thinnest vestige of English propriety, restraint, or subtlety. As Madame de Pompadour on her way to interview for a CEO position she already had in the bag. ... Decibel seemed to be wearing Bowie's exact metallic mango-pistachio-coconut-striped trousers from the 1975 Ziggy Stardust shoot, buckled below the knee over chartreuse stockings printed with all his worst reviews in tiny block letters. A loose, vaguely piratical, late-night neon-light shirt peeked out fetchingly beneath a savage under-bust corset made of something not unlike xenomorph skin as hunted, cut, and drenched in black glitter by Versace and a cravat braided and stitched and hemmed from all the laciest underthings thrown at all the rowdiest stages he'd known. A square-cut patchwork Regency coat squeezed it all in, its tails exploding into a shower of every one of Nani's gorgeous silk scarves, trailing all the way to the floor. His lanky, dark hair was bejeweled and beribboned like a Lost Boy who'd recently discovered Neverland's underground club scene; he wore that lilac lipstick of his long-ago lounge room show and eyeliner fit for a raccoon in heat. He carried, to his surprised delight, a dandy's cane that looked suspiciously like a hacked-off mic stand. Lastly, because Dess had always said Coco Chanel was full of insipidly scented shit and, before he left the house every day, looked in the mirror and put one more thing on, a huge, plush, glowing cartoon coyote-skin draped over his shoulders, its cel-animated outline wriggling and jumping and popping like an old recording played too many times.

Does any of that detail matter to the plot? Absolutely not. Valente could have left it as "he was exuberantly dressed" and we'd have known all we needed to know to follow what was going on.

But this is a story about an intergalactic song contest where putting on a show is what counts, and the motto is "life is beautiful and life is stupid". The plot of that book could fit in about 30 pages, but it has a novel's worth of sparkly acid-trip prose, and for that particular story it's a good stylistic choice. Conciseness in description is a good default, but for that story it would've been a grave mistake.

I apologise in advance for what I'm about to do here:

King is kind of the reverse. He's pretty good at pruning his work at the micro level, cutting out individual words. But he's much weaker on the macro level. Some of his stories suffer from bloat at the macro level, where he's unwilling to cut scenes or side arcs that aren't really essential to the story. So he really has to be frugal with stuff like adverbs because his macro-level editing isn't pulling its weight.

In fact, you could say he's "Pennywise, pound foolish."

(I said I was sorry.)

The other thing with conciseness is that sometimes it conflicts with timing. Music has pauses between notes, and those pauses are important to how it's received; stories sometimes need pauses for similar reasons.

In my first story here, Stringed Instrument, I have a chapter that does pretty much nothing to advance the plot. The two main characters go away for a weekend together, they talk a bit, nothing very much happens. That chapter wasn't originally in my plan for the story. But when I got to that stage, I realised that I had several chapters of heavy drama all together, and I needed to give my readers some breathing space between one drama and the next. Sometimes it really is a good thing to pad a story, if it helps get the beats falling in the right rhythm.

 

[Jmanchu]

Yeah, IMHO King's advice on adverbs is best applied as "challenge your adverbs and make sure they're earning their keep" rather than "banish every adverb from your work". Certainly that's more consistent with how he actually writes!



Here's a passage from Cat Valente's "Space Opera", in a scene where the protagonist has just acquired a new outfit:



Does any of that detail matter to the plot? Absolutely not. Valente could have left it as "he was exuberantly dressed" and we'd have known all we needed to know to follow what was going on.

But this is a story about an intergalactic song contest where putting on a show is what counts, and the motto is "life is beautiful and life is stupid". The plot of that book could fit in about 30 pages, but it has a novel's worth of sparkly acid-trip prose, and for that particular story it's a good stylistic choice. Conciseness in description is a good default, but for that story it would've been a grave mistake.

I apologise in advance for what I'm about to do here:

King is kind of the reverse. He's pretty good at pruning his work at the micro level, cutting out individual words. But he's much weaker on the macro level. Some of his stories suffer from bloat at the macro level, where he's unwilling to cut scenes or side arcs that aren't really essential to the story. So he really has to be frugal with stuff like adverbs because his macro-level editing isn't pulling its weight.

In fact, you could say he's "Pennywise, pound foolish."

(I said I was sorry.)

The other thing with conciseness is that sometimes it conflicts with timing. Music has pauses between notes, and those pauses are important to how it's received; stories sometimes need pauses for similar reasons.

In my first story here, Stringed Instrument, I have a chapter that does pretty much nothing to advance the plot. The two main characters go away for a weekend together, they talk a bit, nothing very much happens. That chapter wasn't originally in my plan for the story. But when I got to that stage, I realised that I had several chapters of heavy drama all together, and I needed to give my readers some breathing space between one drama and the next. Sometimes it really is a good thing to pad a story, if it helps get the beats falling in the right rhythm.

Huh. Now I am really thinking about everything. Based on what you've pointed out, and what other people here pointed out as well.

So, if I add scenes or descriptive paragraphs that don't necessarily push a plot forward as long as it adds to the feel, ambience, or a flavor to the story that I want to add, it can be fine and I don't have to feel bad if it gets wordy sometimes.

And the rules of good writing might really just be meant to be guidelines, even on the "professional level." And sometimes bending or even breaking the rules or guidelines is more professional than just following them. Like an art more than consistent rules like math or something(thinking of Lily's response here "It's an art, not a science,"). Especially with "conciseness."

And there's is no degrees of good/evil when it comes to writing "sins" like it's a morally dualistic religion or something, but more there's an appropriate way, and an inappropriate way to do anything in regards to prose and writing technique, and even in following or the breaking rules.

So, then, it's really as long as it works or is fun to read and write that matters most regardless of the guidelines or rules.

So, I guess, the best way to go about it is just keep experimenting, don't let myself fall to much into too many rules or be hardset in what's good or not writing(Except for the "show the emotion, not just point it out" personal rule).

Then take the differing tips of everyone here and their personal advices on what made their stuff work for them. Experiment some more with all the different advices, and see what I can learn from it and what works best for me. And keep doing what I'm doing, but stop overthinking so much. That's my plan now.

And about Steven King: Yeah, that's what I've noticed about his writing style. His prose which he's really good at cutting the fat from(which is what I really like to reference when thinking of a clean, concise prose) is what really makes his stories so readable, even when it gets kind of bloated overall plot-wise.

Yeah, some of his stories he really doesn't do the whole literary practice of "killing your darlings" at all... So, not only is he a dirty adverb user, but he's not this perfect saint of "professional writing" after all... I feel I've been lied to! Like my world is turned upside down!

That being said, he has the uncanny ability to write thrillers about anything, even premises that sound really stupid on paper but is somehow really entertaining to read(Dreamcatcher, and his short story about evil sentient trucks immediately come to mind).

 

[tenyari]

So, if I add scenes or descriptive paragraphs that don't necessarily push a plot forward as long as it adds to the feel, ambience, or a flavor to the story that I want to add, it can be fine and I don't have to feel bad if it gets wordy sometimes.

I often start stories with the whole "Star Wars exposition thing" scrolling by the first few pages, and as I go I cut pieces of it out when I get to "scene appropriate moments" to convey the same point in a descriptive paragraph that ties into the elements around it. Sometimes dialogue, sometimes the "way I describe an object", or whatever.

Descriptive paragraphs can be very useful for that.

There is however a risk that you end up just doing a 'cut-and-paste' of the exposition from one spot to another, and losing your reader in the new spot instead of in the old one.

So while a descriptive paragraph doesn't need to push plot, it should push SOMETHING that you feel the reader probably wants pushed at that moment.

For example... in a Sci-Fi story where I started out with an expository description of something about an Alien, I can instead move it to a descriptive paragraph in a sex scene about the alien's reaction to the moment (which I note just because I was just doing that a few hours ago in my current writing). My readers don't need to know that my alien had fangs, until she playfully nibbles on a guy with them during sex. They didn't need to know that she uses an AI to translate language until she tries to describe how a blowjob tastes to her and spits out a word that makes no sense to her partner (which let me cut a whole pile of paragraphs on alien translation systems down to a simple "oops, I guess my AI doesn't know that yet.").

 

[Bramblethorn]

Huh. Now I am really thinking about everything. Based on what you've pointed out, and what other people here pointed out as well.

So, if I add scenes or descriptive paragraphs that don't necessarily push a plot forward as long as it adds to the feel, ambience, or a flavor to the story that I want to add, it can be fine and I don't have to feel bad if it gets wordy sometimes.

And the rules of good writing might really just be meant to be guidelines, even on the "professional level." And sometimes bending or even breaking the rules or guidelines is more professional than just following them. Like an art more than consistent rules like math or something(thinking of Lily's response here "It's an art, not a science,"). Especially with "conciseness."

My rule of thumb for such things is: rather than blindly accepting or rejecting other people's rules about writing, try to understand the reasons underlying that rule, so you can decide whether those reasons are relevant to what you're doing.

Sometimes the reason turns out to be "some eighteenth-century guy with too much time on his hands liked making up arbitrary rules" or "posh people used this as a way to keep the lower classes out" and those can safely be broken, unless you're trying to sell a book to people who happen to like those rules.

Sometimes it's a more reasonable thing like "consistent punctuation makes it easier to understand one another", or "readers in this genre expect a certain kind of story and if you go outside those lines, they might be mad at you". Then you need to weigh that up against whatever you might expect to gain from breaking the rules.

 

[Jmanchu]

I often start stories with the whole "Star Wars exposition thing" scrolling by the first few pages, and as I go I cut pieces of it out when I get to "scene appropriate moments" to convey the same point in a descriptive paragraph that ties into the elements around it. Sometimes dialogue, sometimes the "way I describe an object", or whatever.

Descriptive paragraphs can be very useful for that.

There is however a risk that you end up just doing a 'cut-and-paste' of the exposition from one spot to another, and losing your reader in the new spot instead of in the old one.

So while a descriptive paragraph doesn't need to push plot, it should push SOMETHING that you feel the reader probably wants pushed at that moment.

Interesting.

My personal problem with exposition that I struggle with mainly is when I fall into the habit of introductory character exposition usage.

That's usually where I have to shorten or cut out stuff(many times edit out entirely), especially once I figure out a way to show(sometimes immediately, sometimes in a couple scenes later) and not tell about the dynamics of the relationship between a main character and the character being given the quick expository introduction.

In that first chapter I still have a kinda lengthy(one long paragraph or two short paragraph's worth) character expository introduction for one character, after a paragraph long description of him that also included things that he was doing at the moment noticed by the female main character.

but I'm waiting until he makes a proper debut where he actually is interacting with the female main character and see which of his character traits show through in dialogue and action,

Then I'll figure out what parts of the exposition I want to remove and which parts to keep as some sort of useful information to create some sort of foreshadowing or useful explanation about the life of the female main character.

He's one of the characters who pretty much has a huge influence of control over the female main character's life and many other characters around her. And even before he's introduced, the dynamics of how much influence, direct and indirect, he and her father has over her life and the people around her is sort of a near constant theme in most of her scenes.

Aside from that, when it comes to exposition about the history or lore, I usually have some sort of something being described or something happening, because otherwise my ADHD kicks in and I risk getting too bored to keep writing it. It's one of the few superpowers my ADHD offers me when it comes to my writing.

It's also my kryptonite as well as my severe problems with procrastination

Like the introductory paragraphs where the female main character makes her debut describe the city capital of the empire with tidbits of things like pointing out that architectures and styles of the city were a mix of their cultural tastes "and the nations which they've conquered and cowed."

There's other little stuff like shades that hide in the darkness of the city at night, before getting into the description of the empire's palace that overlooks the city with details on what it's made of, and a few descriptions of the dark magic auras and stuff that emanates from it.

THEN quick introduction of a party going on in the palace in honor of the prince's successful war campaign before he is set to go back to lead his army to continue the empire taking over things basically. Then story starts. At first I considered it "exposition," but now I don't know. I might just keep it.

There's also a quick exposition scene in the beginning of the second part of that chapter that revolves around the female main character daydreaming out a balcony and showing glimpses of the inner turmoils she feels regarding her life in the empire.

I haven't had the heart to edit that out(though I've tried to shorten it and keep it more concise) even though I was convinced it's a two-paragraph exposition, but now that I'm reading it, I don't really know how much of it counts as actual exposition, what's necessary in it or not. I think the only way to find my answers in that is once I get beta reader or editor opinion.

There's a lot more but I think that's more than enough examples, lol.

For example... in a Sci-Fi story where I started out with an expository description of something about an Alien, I can instead move it to a descriptive paragraph in a sex scene about the alien's reaction to the moment (which I note just because I was just doing that a few hours ago in my current writing). My readers don't need to know that my alien had fangs, until she playfully nibbles on a guy with them during sex. They didn't need to know that she uses an AI to translate language until she tries to describe how a blowjob tastes to her and spits out a word that makes no sense to her partner (which let me cut a whole pile of paragraphs on alien translation systems down to a simple "oops, I guess my AI doesn't know that yet.").

I like that idea. lol. That's a really interesting premise.

 

[Jmanchu]

My rule of thumb for such things is: rather than blindly accepting or rejecting other people's rules about writing, try to understand the reasons underlying that rule, so you can decide whether those reasons are relevant to what you're doing.

Sometimes the reason turns out to be "some eighteenth-century guy with too much time on his hands liked making up arbitrary rules" or "posh people used this as a way to keep the lower classes out" and those can safely be broken, unless you're trying to sell a book to people who happen to like those rules.

Sometimes it's a more reasonable thing like "consistent punctuation makes it easier to understand one another", or "readers in this genre expect a certain kind of story and if you go outside those lines, they might be mad at you". Then you need to weigh that up against whatever you might expect to gain from breaking the rules.

Yeah, I think I'm definitely going to go by "The first rule of write club is that there are no rules" and see any rules as "guidelines" meant to give a good suggestion for building the prose, but not to let them define my writing style. Learn the pros and cons, and don't see "break rule means bad" but more "break rule and this interesting effect happens"

If I want to have said interesting effect for a part of the story or writing prose or whatever, I break. As long as I want to avoid interesting effect, I follow!

 

[ElectricBlue]

Yeah, I think I'm definitely going to go by "The first rule of write club is that there are no rules" and see any rules as "guidelines" meant to give a good suggestion for building the prose, but not to let them define my writing style. Learn the pros and cons, and don't see "break rule means bad" but more "break rule and this interesting effect happens"

If I want to have said interesting effect for a part of the story or writing prose or whatever, I break. As long as I want to avoid interesting effect, I follow!

Why are you still in this thread?

Start writing your story. That's Rule No.1.

Rule No.2 is, don't procrastinate .

 

[Jmanchu]

Why are you still in this thread?

Start writing your story. That's Rule No.1.

Rule No.2 is, don't procrastinate .

Uhh... Good point. I have been keeping up with this thread a lot more than I've written anything, lol.

I'll go get to that story and stop loitering around.

That rule 2 is a killer for me

 

[gunhilltrain]

Uhh... Good point. I have been keeping up with this thread a lot more than I've written anything, lol.

I'll go get to that story and stop loitering around.

That rule 2 is a killer for me

He's partially right. Keep up with the thread if you want but as you already said, in your first post, you have written 18,000 words so far. That's pretty ambitious, but don't overthink it. We can't tell you exactly how to do it all.

My own thought is that maybe you should try posting some of it in chapters. Yeah, that violates the rule of thumb that it should be complete before starting installments. I've violated that rule at times, and sometimes it worked and sometimes I regretted it.

Didn't you say you had some unfinished short stories? You can have a pretty good stand-alone story in 4,000 to maybe 7,000 words. You can get your feet wet that way.

Okay, I'll promote one of my own as an example. My entry in the "On The Job" story competition is just under 7,000 words and has two main characters. The central scene covers, maybe, an hour and a half? As for the exposition that concerns you, I didn't have to do any world-building. The setting is based on a real office I worked at in New Jersey. Pretty prosaic, but it worked.

Encountering Alexandria

The one science fiction story I did was partially based on an old Twilight Zone episode. Even though I added some details that Rod Serling didn't have (like the convict's life back on earth), I still got it done in about 6,300 words.

penitentiary planet