So, I'm an aspiring author and have been working on the same project since 2017 (I also work full-time and was doing my masters on the side so it has taken me embarrassingly long). I have drafted and re-drafted the manuscript 6 times because the first few versions were god awful. Well, now I'm finally at a point where I can say it's in a decent shape and my voice is good. Of course, there is still room for improvement and I want to make small changes to plot, deepen characters etc.

I was wondering what everyone’s revision process is like. I've heard people say do revise in passes, and the concept seems very foreign to me, but then doing everything all at once feels overwhelming too (I'm writing a YA dystopian fantasy). Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!

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I finished the first draft of my novel. I took a month off, and then I read/edited the first draft. I went in with the goal of only paying attention to the high-level (the structure, if some scenes seem too long or are missing, etc).

When I was writing most scenes in my first draft, I was just trying to get the ideas down, and not trying to make the writing itself as amazing as possible.

Despite all that... I still ​freaked out when reading it.

I know it needs work, and I enjoy the work, but part of me is still like, "What if I fix all the problems and make the writing flow AND IT'S STILL BAD AND I WASTED ALL MY TIME AND I SHOULD'VE BEEN WRITING SOMETHING ELSE INSTEAD?!?!?!?!?!"

I'm just not used to taking on such a long-term project. I've written shorter things (essays, articles) that turned out well, but it's easier to "trust the process," when the process is over in a couple of weeks. I'd like to stop freaking out about it. 🙂

For example, here's how I might format text:

Nancy stormed through the building, scanning its inhabitants. Ogres, trolls, goblins met her gaze, mugs tilted lower, mouths were frozen in shock. Then, a shock of gray hair shifted towards the bathrooms. "Gerald!" Nancy screamed, jabbing a finger.

But here's how I've seen others format it:

Nancy stormed through the building, scanning its inhabitants. Ogres, trolls, goblins met her gaze, mugs tilted lower, mouths were frozen in shock. Then, a shock of gray hair shifted towards the bathrooms.

"Gerald!" Nancy screamed, jabbing a finger.

I literally just like the presentation of the dialogue on a new line less, 99/100 times - unless the paragraph has gotten quite lengthy to my sensibilities. But I don't know if I'm literally just messing up some rule of dialogue/action/paragraphing in work.

Furthering my confusion, sometimes I see authors doing either or, or a mix of both, so I don't know what rules are being engaged with to decide when to drop to a new line (if there is any).

Any help here?

I find it so incredibly frustrating that I will get the urge to write while I’m working and need to be doing other things but when I get home that urge is completely gone and then I have to make myself feel like writing. Why does this happen? Is it an ADHD thing? Boredom? Just poor timing? Are there ways people have found to trick their brain into getting this urge at a time that is more reasonable for them?

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Have you had a situation where your main character was bland and side characters seemed more interesting than him/her?

What to do then? Abandon the story? Switch the main character? Try to develop him? Something else?

EDIT: to give more context, I think that my MCs come out as bland because I tend to give them my own character traits and decisions. And as I'm rather a quiet nice guy they wound up being nice and pretty boring xD

Unfortunately more interesting are characters full of flaws: authoritative, rude, egoist, cynical, psychopathic etc. etc.

So my work has some internal turmoil. First person POV. I have the character argue within herself. I use italics to show thoughts, and sometimes I do italics and then normal to show that internal dialogue taking place.

If I want to emphasize a word within the italics, it seems boldface would work but I don't know if I've actually seen that done that I can think of.

Thoughts?

I used to love letting my imagination loose on paper. Though perfectionism would be my mortal enemy. Had to take a break from the pen. I am trying to get back into it, however hitting mental blocks in my process. Are smaller workloads better to build habit?

Currently experiencing this with my first novel I'm working on. What started out as a small thought has now grown into a raging fire inside of me, almost dying to be written. I'd always intended on writing it out, but it's now all I can think about. I don't even have the outline done yet, but there are scenes I keep thinking about that constantly replay inside of my head. Scenes that I KNOW I need to write out.

I fully intend on publishing the book myself too. I don't care if it doesn't do well. I just need to write this shit and then make it known lol.

But this is going to be my first actual novel and I'm trying to do it right. That said, I know I'm going to fuck some shit up just because it's my first novel. I've written and published short stories and novellas before, but those are so much easier than an actual series of books.

Anyways, anyone else feel like this?

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I'm not quite sure if it has one, but is there a name for the way a novel is written? Not it's prose or plot structure, but its actual form? Like an epistolary novel, or any other form in which a novel exists. I can't find a name for this idea, or many examples of it. I apologize if this is a moronic question and I'm missing something obvious here, but I'm rather confused.

I’m seeing it more and more on critique subs when a reader what see the tiniest bit of exposition and label the next as bad because of it.

One critic said they avoid it all together! How is that possible? Exposition is necessary to provide information to your reader that enables them to piece together your story.

I feel like somewhere along the warning against bad exposition has been lost in translation and now a bunch of people see any exposition and consider a no no, even when it’s done properly.

Yes, dropping pages of pages or lore drop is a tough read that even top authors can do but that doesn’t exposition can’t be carefully woven into the story through dialogue and observation.

I feel this fits a general trend in writing circles where people warn against doing certain things (like show don’t tell) and then that gets warped to the extreme where all telling is bad and if you do it even once no one will ever ever read your story.

It becomes difficult to source genuinely good critique because nobody follows any of the rules to fault yet it seems critical readers expect that of you.

As I said, there is definitely such a thing a bad exposition. But that doesn’t mean all exposition is wrong

I am well read, but writing only for a couple of years. I think fiction books often contains a lot of introspection/inner thoughts of hero in point of view.

However I am not sure if it's mandatory for fiction book to have introspection and if it is, then why?

Part of me thinks that you need introspection in order to have emotional connection with a protagonist. Another part thinks that probably you can get away with dialogue characterization and actions.

What do you think? If you have any articles or videos on topic would be great.

Edit: Thanks for all the answers. It got clearer to me. Don't understand downvotes though, so if someone explain to me would be nice for next time.

The most consistent feedback I have gotten from the few times my writing has been reviewed is that I do a lot of showing as opposed to telling, and that it doesn't seem like I trust my audience to get what I write.

And on one hand, yes, that is an issue that I'm not confident in getting across what I'm trying to, but on the other hand the short phrase "show don't tell" never really clicked in my brain because at the end of the day I literally am telling you a story.

I know the obvious of don't say "mark was scared" say "mark held his breath, quivering in his bed." And maybe it's just my mind not doing the right stuff, but the work around to show still feels like telling, so I don't know where the line is and what should or shouldn't be included in my writing.

Am I crazy? Does this make sense? Does other people have the same issue?

As someone that rarely watches TV, and usually only do if the show is popular enough where I decide to check it out myself, I sometimes find myself watching YouTube videos of people reacting to terrible shows/movies only to realize that sometimes the reason the show was bad, outside of bad acting or the budget being too low, is because the main idea of the show was a very good idea, but is hindered by the fact that there is a factor in the plot that totally sabotages it, or it was executed absolutely horribly. I've gotten some good ideas from this method, but I rarely work on them because something just feels...wrong about stealing another persons creative work, even if the idea was completely ruined by a factor that really didn't have to be there

It’s basically the title, but I’ve been trying to join a writers group to not be working in a vacuum that makes it ultimately unclear if my writing is actually readable or not.

I found a group near me online, and even exchanged a few words with one of the people there when I first joined. Three days ago was the third meeting I’ve cancelled/ not gone to because I got cold feet and it’s been eating away at me a bit.

The thing is the group has a small discord server, and lurking over the history I saw some people celebrating publications, and achievements and whatnot and I get terrified because I’ve only been writing for a bit over a year and I still generally suck. Publication isn’t even within my reach right now at all.

Another factor is it seems that I’m many years younger than most of the people there (not sure how many are around my age because, again, I never attended) and it’s like: ok I don’t feel confident in giving my opinions on the pieces they write because I’m an amateur, I’m terrified of actually sharing my work, and I likely can’t even strike up a good casual conversation because I presume we wouldn’t have much in common. Aaaand cut to terror of joining, sounding like an idiot and cold feet so I cancel.

They have another meeting in two weeks and I’m reluctant to even say I’ll be attending again, especially when one lady asked if I’m joining the last one and I said I would but didn’t (I attempted to force myself by saying this but alas I failed) and I don’t want to disappoint.

Anyway. I’m usually not that socially anxious and I fuck around to find out a lot, but this got to me man :( Any advice from someone who went through something similar would help!

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All in the title. You've all seen the back-and-forth intercutting suspense scenes in movies (eg. Silence of The Lambs movie, FBI's raid intercut with Clarice's investigation), how would one recreate the suspense in novels?

I've read Silence of The Lambs book. The author does 1 scene on FBI, then 1 scene with Clarice. This isn't as suspenseful as the movie. I understand they are two different media - but has anyone done it effectively in prose writing?

Thanks.

Maybe I'm just in too deep into weird fandom spaces again, but one thing I've noticed when it comes to certain critiques of characters in modern fiction is that there seems to be some kind of desire to have characters that start completely from zero.

On one hand, I can kind of understand this logic. It can fun and engaging to see a main character progress and go from an underdog to an absolute hero. But on the other hand, I feel the mindset that goes into this kind of feeds into how some people only really view the character skills of fictional characters as stats in powerscaling debates or thinking a character's progression should be like a blank new save in an RPG (probably goes a bit to explaining why LitRPGs are now a genre).

I might also be biased because some of my favorite characters in recent books I've read were protagonists with experience and a lifetime of stuff that's molded them into interesting characters. Tango and Salsa from Van Plexico's Heist duology. Tahlia Vehdra from Lioness of the Parch. Tomas from Promise of Blood. Hell, I'm currently reading Will Wight's The Captain, and the protagonist of that book, Varic, literally has the memories and magic of five other dead versions of himself, and he's still an engaging character to read.

Plus, you got celebrated characters like Optimus Prime who are well-beloved icons, and we usually never see Optimus starting a narrative from regular bot to basically space Jesus. He's usually already a Prime. Transformers One's probably the only expection to that rule. And compare how people praise Optimus but complain about characters like Carol Danvers, a lot of Red Sensei from Super Sentai, or Pavi from Seven Havens.

(Then again, it could be an example of both Optimus being 'grandfathered in' and some of the usual obvious 'isms' at play with the other two examples. And the Red Sensei could just be people just hating hot-blooded heroes because they're not boring broodsters.)

In my own opinion, I like when a protagonist isn't some loser everyman to start the story as. It makes it feel like the MC actually lived a life before the narrative started and, in turn, makes the world feel more lived in because they usual have relationships and connections they've already built.

I just wonder if people who are into working also daydream more than average person. If you do, I’m curious about everything around it. What made you realise you do it more often than others? What do you daydream about apart from writing related stuff? Are you ok with it or have you tried reducing it?

I have an interest in the essay. I've gathered several collections of essays and have an interest in writing some myself. It feels like most of the posts here are for fiction or creative writing of sorts, do any of you do essay work? Most online resources and communities seem to to focus purely on "school essays" which are not appealing to me in the least. I'd like to know about how you learned to write better essays, personal or otherwise. Where do you publish? Do you find selecting an idea to be difficult? Do you craft one to perfection and move to the next or do you have 20 in revision while crafting another first draft? Offer me advice

I have just received my second rejection letter and I believe it sheds some light on the publishing industry at the moment. I am also blown away by the detailed response - though it could be automated.

Here it is with redactions -

"Dear LordDunn

I have now read your material, as promised.  I can see the imagination and intelligence at work here, but I can’t honestly say I loved it.  After fifteen years running SFF imprints in London publishing before setting up the agency, I'm all too aware how difficult it is to get a publisher interested in a new novelist, so I feel that I do have to love my clients' work 100% - personally and professionally - to do the best possible job.  If I don't feel that strongly, I'm the wrong agent.  Every author needs both an agent and an editor who do love their work.  It's hellishly difficult getting the bookselling chains to take a new novelist seriously, so that initial enthusiasm is vital. If an author’s prose doesn’t set me on fire, first and foremost, I say no, as do editors in this situation. 

Another agent may well feel differently. So often, it's about unquantifiable, individual gut reaction to each author’s indefinable voice and the pricking of your thumbs, rather than ‘I wanted more of THIS or less of THAT’, or ‘THIS aspect didn’t work for me’.

Most UK editors see around thirty books every week and only take on one or two debut novels over an entire year – an agent’s figures are similar.

It’s always been the case that the entry level for a new novelist is 'special', not 'good' – that was true when I ran xxx in London over 30 years ago.  However, it’s now also true that publishers’ sales and marketing directors have much more power than they did 15 and more years ago.  If they don't believe they will be able to sell a first novel into the bookselling trade in numbers, they'll block the editor from acquiring it in some companies.  A senior editor told me a few weeks ago that even if he loved an author's writing, he wouldn't make an offer until the book that was submitted to him was 100% right for the market – quite recently he acquired an author whose previous four novels he (and everyone else in London) had turned down despite liking them a great deal. So I have to believe the writers I take on and their novels are truly wonderful.  I wasn’t entirely drawn in – I wasn’t thinking WOW, which is what I look for.  

FYI, I've taken on about forty writers as clients and turned down well over 20,000, so far...I know it can be as difficult to get an agent as it is to be taken on by a publisher. You just have to keep plugging away - and there are many more agents dealing with SFF and related areas than there were when I started the agency.

It took the best author with whom I've ever worked - xxx, whose SF novels I published at xxx- six different novels written over more than a decade before he clinched his first publishing deal (he told me those years were when he learned both his art and his craft as a novelist), so it can be a long road. It's about getting that agent who chimes with your writing totally (and then finding an editor and publisher who feel the same).

All best wishes for the future

Yours

The Agent"

Dear Lord, what a brutal industry.