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What's On Your Mind About Your Writing?

Simpson17866

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I often write in the first person POV, as I find it fun to deal with a characters take on situations with as few filters as possible. That said, it does force me to write narrator characters that a reader wants to read. That said, I'm writing something right now where I've got a main character/narrator who is a serial murderer turned demon fighter with not remorse and an active bloodlust. As an antagonist I feel like he would be easy to write, but as a protagonist, particularly in the first person narrator role, I have to deal with a character who is thinking about his mission to save a kidnapped senator's daughter and actively fantasizing about slitting the throat of the woman sitting next to him on the metro.
Cool! I write a lot of villain protagonists too :evil

I think I can make him interesting, I don't know if I can make him likable or even relatable.

It's a challenge.
Maybe just write him the way you would write him as an antagonist. The same principles apply: an interesting character doesn't need to be likeable or relatable, they just need to be interesting ;)
 

edutton

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I often write in the first person POV, as I find it fun to deal with a characters take on situations with as few filters as possible. That said, it does force me to write narrator characters that a reader wants to read. That said, I'm writing something right now where I've got a main character/narrator who is a serial murderer turned demon fighter with not remorse and an active bloodlust. As an antagonist I feel like he would be easy to write, but as a protagonist, particularly in the first person narrator role, I have to deal with a character who is thinking about his mission to save a kidnapped senator's daughter and actively fantasizing about slitting the throat of the woman sitting next to him on the metro.

I think I can make him interesting, I don't know if I can make him likable or even relatable.

It's a challenge.
Have you read Dan Wells' "John Cleaver" books? (I Am Not a Serial Killer, et. seq.) They're first person and sound like they might be up the dark alley you want to walk down :D
 
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Cindyt

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I now have a proof reader. She was an editor for 30 years. I went to school with her, but she moved, and I lost track of her. Well, she's been posting on the town FB group and ran across my Our Town link. She was under the impression I was writing a book, and it being about our hometown, she offered to proof it for free. When I told her it wasn't ready to be read, but that I had written a historical, she asked me to send an excerpt. She told me straight up that if I couldn't deal with honest critiques not to send it. So I sent it last night. Now, as one of my characters would put it "I'm ascared." Lol.
 

Taylor Harbin

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Mercilessly gutting an unfinished 6200 word draft, deleting everything that isn't necessary to plot advancement. Ready to tack on an ending. This story probably suffers in characterization but I just want the darned thing finished! It's distracted me for long enough.
 

Cernex

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Finished editing two whole chapters with the help of some very awesome and talented people. Sent one to my beta reader, now to continue writing while I wait for both the crits to come back and a cover to get delivered.

All and all, lots of stuff happening, which is nice.
 

Testome

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I've decided the perfect logline for my WIP is Pokemon meets Watchmen.
 

Marumae

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Had to pull away and do some major outlining and change to my Ghost Girl story, apparently I've been approaching it the wrong way with regards to one of the major characters. So back to the spiral bound three sectioned notebook that is my grimmoire with regards to that series.

In the meantime, I've been approaching another story of mine and giving it the fleshed out attention it deserves. It's my first foray into straight science fiction and of course I turn it into a damn political commentary on the divide between classes, I'm pretty sure that's a side effect of reading through The Romanov Sisters and learning more about Tsar Nicolas and Alexandra, who are fascinating to me. As is the political state of just before Pre-Revolution Russia. In designing this future Earth I gave humanity a path straight to World War III, and a nice salad of different political factions all fighting for different reasons against each other. This war will be a bit like World War I really, this is all far more epic then I intended.

This is not where I had intended to go, I will try to keep my political commentary to a minimum and focus on my favorite part-the characters! Originally I had started this ages ago and the first chapter I created I realized would work better as a short story prequel to the book rather than the first chapters. Also the characters introduced within work better as secondary rather than the main characters, one of them I know I have to kill. I'm sorry Morgan but, you gonna die. :tongue
 

sideshowdarb

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A short story I just finished is threatening to become a novel. I've always wanted to write a slim, sort of pulpy paperback detective novel, so maybe.
 

HaHs

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Working on turning my slap-dash 35k draft ('Draft 0.5') into a proper draft of a manuscript (Draft 1.0). Only on the first chapter and so far it's taken me two and a half hours (admittedly semi-distracted by social media) to write 765 words. This pace isn't exactly the brilliant start I was hoping for but thankfully the writing is much better than how this scene looked in Draft 0.5, so I'll forgive myself. Every cloud has a silver lining, folks.
 

underpope

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Looks like my kaiju short story, "Anamet", is going in a much darker direction than I had originally intended. It was supposed to be a fun story about killing a giant monster and overcoming depression, but now it looks like the depression is going to win.

Also, for a class I'm taking, I'm to rewrite the summary of a novel I'm working on to make the main character a devout member of a non-Christian religion. Since I rarely, if ever, make much of my characters' religious beliefs, this will be quite a challenge.
 
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Undercover

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I was hoping to revise another one of my books, but nope, motivation levels are just too low to do it. SO? I am doing a ton of reading but I don't know. I need to write again. I want a new shiny to come my way. I'm walking and praying my brains out that one will come, soon. plz. help. Haha

I have this HUGE fear like that's it. That's all there is to have, yer done. lol


I'm going to keep hoping though. I've been in the "I don't know" zone before, I can beat it eventually. yeah right, sure.
 

Thief

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Will this story be approachable to people who don't play MMOs? Or will it come off as too confusing? I know I shouldn't even be thinking about "how would an agent view this" at this stage, but I can't shake the doubts. I suppose the beta readers can tell me how it comes off once I'm ready for other people to read it, but... There's always a "but"...
 

Harlequin

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Short for mmorpg. Mass multiplayer online roleplaying game.

World of Warcraft is a famous example.

So many people play MMOs or are familiar with gaming in general that I think a book centering around an mmo will be reasonably accessible.
 
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Testome

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Will this story be approachable to people who don't play MMOs? Or will it come off as too confusing? I know I shouldn't even be thinking about "how would an agent view this" at this stage, but I can't shake the doubts. I suppose the beta readers can tell me how it comes off once I'm ready for other people to read it, but... There's always a "but"...

I don't think an MMO would turn anyone away really. Though I know the faerie part may either seal the or deal or break it for people more the MMO part. Like take SAO, I wasn't a fan of the series after they escaped the world, so faeries wouldn't be my favorite thing unless it goes really dark. The immature type of faeries aren't my thing, but that's personal preference. But the trapped in an MMO(very solid idea). SAO sort of had a bad execution. I haven't read the light novel, though, so that might have been different than anime. But the faerie thing will come down to personal preference(if you were referring to the project mentioned in your sig?) Or the recent chinese anime king's avatar was solid. They weren't trapped in an MMO (they were this standard type on keyboard mmo but was shown on screen)and the MC was the most OP character in the world, though there was far more justification than Kirito. I would probably accept(expect maybe?) an MMO type story to have an OP MC. So I definitely think there is an audience for MMO stories, though probably more popular internationally than in the United States I think. I'm American and watch a lot of anime, but I'm not sure that's really a thing. Like is pro e-sports all that popular in the United States? Just random thoughts.
 
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Harlequin

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Anime and esports are increasingly popular in the west. I'm partial to both, though I prefer dota clones over star craft. Weeabos are a thing (westerners who idolise and enjoy east asian culture). I would know, I married one ;-)

But even if those things are not that well known, there's nothing wrong with niche stories.
 
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Thief

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So many people play MMOs or are familiar with gaming in general that I think a book centering around an mmo will be reasonably accessible.

Heh, that's reassuring to hear, thank you. I'm mostly surrounded by people who already play them, so I wasn't sure how "general" they were. Especially to a Western audience (as I know how popular some MMO-based stories have been in the East).

I don't think an MMO would turn anyone away really. Though I know the faerie part may either seal the or deal or break it for people more the MMO part. Like take SAO, I wasn't a fan of the series after they escaped the world, so faeries wouldn't be my favorite thing unless it goes really dark. The immature type of faeries aren't my thing, but that's personal preference. But the trapped in an MMO(very solid idea). SAO sort of had a bad execution. I haven't read the light novel, though, so that might have been different than anime. But the faerie thing will come down to personal preference(if you were referring to the project mentioned in your sig?) Or the recent chinese anime king's avatar was solid. They weren't trapped in an MMO (they were this standard type on keyboard mmo but was shown on screen)and the MC was the most OP character in the world, though there was far more justification than Kirito. I would probably accept(expect maybe?) an MMO type story to have an OP MC. So I definitely think there is an audience for MMO stories, though probably more popular internationally than in the United States I think. I'm American and watch a lot of anime, but I'm not sure that's really a thing. Like is pro e-sports all that popular in the United States? Just random thoughts.

Ah, yeah, the story I'm talking about is the one mentioned in my sig. It's not about anyone being trapped in the game/transported to the game/etc, but rather about the lives of the players both inside and outside the game itself. Becoming friends, taking on challenges, interpersonal drama, how they interact with both the real world and the virtual world (and where does that distinction even lie?), stuff like that.

The fairy bit is just because I like fairies, games, and games that let the players fly around, so a game about fairies that lets you fly around is exactly the sort of thing I'd enjoy, haha. While I have...mixed feelings about SAO, I liked many aspects of the game Alfheim Online. Too bad that part of the show was the worst arc of them all :'D

I like King's Avatar, although I wish the stakes felt higher. It doesn't feel, to me, as though the MC gets challenged enough. And a lot of the things they do ingame test my suspension of disbelief as being possible with a keyboard and mouse, lol. I see the ingame aspects as more of a symbolic representation of what would actually be happening with these people playing the game. And towards the end of the season, I didn't like how much they leaned on APM as the be-all-end-all in a fight. Overall I enjoyed the show, though.

However, my story will be nothing like it, lol. My MC isn't OP by any stretch--her introduction to the game involves her choosing not to display tutorial tips (Pff, who needs tutorials?), and then having no idea how to put a quest item into her inventory. So that tells you something about her character, haha.

There is actually a genre called "LitRPG"—novels set in MMOs..

I have no clue about the conventions of the genre or its popularity in the west, though.

Hm, I'll have to look into that, thank you for letting me know.
 

Punk28

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Decided that, while I'm taking a break from editing my WIP, I'd start work on its second part, which revolves around the central character's wives and children. Naturally, with this character having 5 wives, and them wives having somewhere between 2 and 5 children by him, a lot happens so I'll have to choose what to write and what to either make minor mention of or not include in the chapter. So far, I'm just trying to get past the naming of the man's daughters (most have already been named, but there's four that are going through name changes). The first wife's original surname needs to be changed too.

I've already got plans to go back and edit two other, prior projects and, with my going back to get specific information on this character from them, I see where more than just structural work will be done on them. On one project alone, I loathe almost every name put in it (whether it's a character's name or the name of a location, none sound right; all are pretty stale or bland, which isn't good). Seeing as these same names show up in another, prior work, I'll have three projects to edit here in the coming year to two years (yay for editing!).
 

CalRazor

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I have a hunch that if I write something Lovecraftian, I'll get published. Do I really want to go down that road, though?