Advice for a First Time Author

Did I miss some kind of memo that it's now acceptable to insult any author who doesn't write exactly the way we do?

 

Is reality a joke to you ?
I am deadly serious.
What I observe backs up my beliefs.

 

You guys! You made me unignore him in order to see what you were all getting worked up about.

And now that I've seen... I'm going back to ignore. He's a troll, trying to stir the shit. Ignore him.

 

Your reality is a joke to me, yes, because you're so god damn wrong and ignorant that I can't help but laugh about it.

 

Whatever. It is not my job to convince you of anything. It is my job to speak the truth even when others prefer alternative facts.

I can guarantee to a John McLaughlin metaphysical certitude that my education and experience are far in excess of yours and that my IQ is definitely higher.
I will also guarantee that I am neither wrong no ignorant as well as being unbothered by such insults and arrogance as you are using.

If you want to be a pantser I don't care. When I write I have to make deadline and word count and am often constrained in other ways too. The only way to succeed is to plan.
Now if you are a WM with no deadline, no word count, no other constraints and you don't care what genre or what quality you end up with then pants away my friend. I don't care!!

 

LOL!

Okay. You're a pretty good troll. Thanks for playing, guy. I'm going to go ahead and use my good judgement (low IQ) and throw you on ignore.

 

I've ignored the troll too and now it looks like Homer was incredibly riled by Cave Troll's tomato quote, and Spencer has joined some kind of Tyler Durden Fight Club except he uses words instead of fists.

A+ would ignore again.

 

The first rule of Write Club: You do not talk about Write Club.

The second rule of Write Club: You do not! Talk! About Write Club!

 

Can we wear shirts and shoes?

 

Yes, but if it's your first time, you have to write (a critique in the workshop)

 

Guys, calm down! I like this thread, don't make me close it.

 

Roger that. I have a tendency to defend myself when attacked by others, which I think is fair.
I never attack others unless provoked.

 

"Stop procrastinating and just write the dammed thing!"

Shogun.

 

Read every sentence you've written and purposefully try to get rid of as many words as possible while still making sense. You can cut 15% of your entire novel and it reads better while having all the same scenes as before.

 

Sorry to respond to this a little late, the thread moved quickly, but there's something here worth answering. I think your examples mostly demonstrate how clunky "it was" constructions are. I can see ways to make them clearer, as well as smoother and more impactful, by eliminating the extra "was"s and "would"s.

For example:

becomes:

If you like ending on the wide eyes and the grave face, another way would be:

I think the "it was" just made the sentence a bit clogged, if anything.

EDIT: Just to be clear, this is why I agree that chucking out "it was" constructions is pretty good advice towards eliminating word cruft in general.

 

"Take every advice with a grain of salt."

 

I like to refer to the analogy of building a picnic table (or any piece of furniture that needs assembly) - one has to leave all the nuts and bolts loose for adjustment until the very end of the process, when everything gets firmly tightened. Same with outlining. One can outline (although I didn't with my current WIP, for which I just finished the first draft), but the fact is that new ideas about both plot and character form as the writing progresses, and room has to be left for those new ideas.

I've also plowed through enough "planner v pantser" arguments on this site to know that it's largely a matter of individual preference. I, personally, found the advice to plan the introduction at specific page counts incredibly stifling. I couldn't possibly write that way. In writing the historical novel I'm now pitching, I tried budgeting word counts for sections. Threw them out before the first draft was completed.

 

I basically agree for something like that.
You do need tightening at the end.
That is what the final edit and polish do.

To build a table or shed you need nothing but an idea.
To build a house you really need a blueprint or else risk expensive rework.
To build something larger you need an architect to lay it out first.

We do better when we architect our books first instead of trying to grow the shed into a mansion.

 

You and I do. Other people don't

 

"Thine plot shall make no demands and shall not pulleth the deus ex machina card, becauseth that is lameth."

 

Only because they dont architect and design first. They have to rip out the first floor because they forgot the basement.
Or their dream of a mansion becomes a one floor double wide. And they had to redo that to get the appliances in when the hallway was too narrow.

 

Okay, I'm breaking my Ignore stance to say...

Obviously pantsing only works if the writer isn't fucking stupid.

Possibly that's the part that's getting in the way of your understanding? Anyone who disagrees with you is clearly stupid, pantsers disagree with you, so pantsers are clearly stupid... so obviously they can't be expected to do the equivalent of building a house without forgetting the basement.

All of this, of course, is premised on the idea that anyone who disagrees with you is clearly stupid.

Once we get rid of that nonsense, maybe you'll be better able to understand that different processes work best for different writers and different projects.

 

I'm not seeing any problems yet I'm a planner, and yet my plan is rarely consistent from one month to the next.

 

@joe sixpak I like what you have to say about planning, as I'm a planner, but...everyone has a different style. I'm not a pantser, but that doesn't make that method wrong, or less efficient. It obviously works for a lot of people, other wise they wouldn't use it. I only asked for the best advice you've gotten regarding writing, not your opinion on The One True Path to Great Writing (And Everyone Else's Way Is Stupid). If you don't agree with the pants method, that's fine, but don't ruin this thread (which I'm really enjoying, btw) by bashing other's writing styles.

 

@joe sixpak

If you go back to page 1, you will find my piece of advice, which was given to me by my first writing teacher. Read that piece of advice every day for the next 30 days.