Hello everyone, my name is Kester, and like many of you I am a writer. I mostly write fantasy, but I've dabbled in historical fiction, sci-fi, and fan fiction. To be frank, I'm here because I wanted to see what other people are writing, and to get some feedback on my own writing. See, while it seems many people get feedback from their friends and family, very few of my friends or family read fantasy. The only person I have to read my work at the moment is my little brother. Obviously, I appreciate his feedback, but you can only get so much from one person's perspective. Thus, I've come here to read a bit, post a bit, and hopefully get a little bit of advice on how I can sharpen my skills. Oh, and as for reading I'm currently reading through the Winternight trilogy (Katherine Arden) and listening to the Mistborn series (Brandon Sanderson). I read (and listen) at a slow pace, but I tend to finish everything I start, so I've got that going for me I guess.
Looking forward to seeing some of those finished sci-fi dabblings when the time comes. Do you mostly do short stories? Novels? Limericks?
Hi there KesterDraconis I'm one of the forum moderators, and I'd like to welcome you to the forum. I think you are here for all the right reasons. Sometimes you can feel fairly isolated when you're writing and nobody else around you seems to also be doing so. I am a great proponent of giving your work to a willing reader (like your brother—I have a sister like that myself!) but sometimes you need input from fellow writers as well. You've come to the right place. Fantasy is one of our most popular genres ...in fact I've just finished critiquing a Fantasy piece in the Novels section (I thought it was really interesting and well-written. It made me want to read more.) Sci Fi is also popular, as is fanfiction (not my specialty.) Historical fiction IS my favourite genre, but probably not as popular here as the other ones you mentioned. Anyway, please do browse the forum, join in threads wherever you find one that interests you. The more you post on threads, the more people will interact with you. Hopefully very soon you'll find friends and like-minded folk who will make you feel part of the community here. Here are a few links to some parts of the forum you should check out, before you do much more, however. Especially if you plan to post some of your work for feedback. There are requirements a new member must meet before doing this, and you'll find all about this here: New Member Quick Start I would also suggest you take a look at our Rules. Forum Rules These are the main underlying rules that govern the forum—mostly covering overall behaviour—but each section of the forum often has a few special rules that are detailed in 'sticky' threads that appear at the top of the screen when you open one of the sections. You will notice that in order to post your work for feedback, you must do critiques as well. These two links might give you an idea of what we expect, when we say 'critique,' and how the Workshop operates. https://www.writingforums.org/threads/constructive-critiques.20627/ https://www.writingforums.org/faq/writing-workshop.16/category And this one will prove very useful as you navigate the forum. These are all links that will lead you to where you want to go. https://www.writingforums.org/faq/ I hope you enjoy yourself here. I certainly do. If you encounter any problems, feel free to click on my owl avatar and 'start a conversation' with me, and I'll do my best to help. Cheers, Jan
In the sci-fi genre I mostly write short stories, exploring technological concepts that I like and how they fit in with the every day of human life. I'm a chemical engineering major (-ish, got well into my junior year before deciding to pause it and go on an adventure of sorts), and thus I'm pretty familiar with science and technology that usually goes under people's noses in their everyday lives. I think it is often interesting how we think of ourselves as a static species, with our nature unchanging despite our technological augmentation, but this simply isn't true. An excellent example is that our sleep is no longer bi-phasic in most of the world. Most of us don't rise and lay down with the sun anymore. Why? Technology! I like to challenge the boundary of that in short stories about humanity in future worlds. Despite how much I enjoy this however, it isn't the main focus of my writing work. The primary place I spend my time is in writing Fantasy novels. I've participated in Nanowrimo a few times and I've written quite a few novels, but if I'm being honest most of them are vomited words on pages. The majority of the writing is in one fantasy world that I've created, but I've branched out here and there into other projects (mostly to try and improve my world-building). Right now I'm looking to try and create a trilogy out of a couple novels that I have written, which will require me to rewrite them as well as write a third book, and hopefully the novels will come out better for having the continuity between them rather than being separate tales occurring in the same interval of time. Hey there! Historical fiction is actually one of my favorite genres to read, but I don't write it nearly as much. I was homeschooled in a very conservative household, and while I've come to depart a lot of the beliefs and ideas that were taught to me, I still remember the sheer volume of historical fiction I was given to devour. It was more often than not work colored by a certain perspective of the past, but that didn't make it any less exciting. If you've ever heard of G.A. Henty, his books were a large portion of my reading from about 7-12 years old. At the time I failed to realize how dry the books could be, and how steeped in imperialism they were, but I dived into the adventures of his heroes and heroines. They were characters who were caught up in the most epic events of history. I still highly recommend his books as historical reads, though I caution that they are very much told from the perspective of a monarchist, nationalist, Victorian era Brit (which in and of itself is a bit of a neat look into history and the views of the times, with one exception*). Also, they are formulaic, with a similar main character in each book, and thus fairly repetitive. Thanks for the heads up on the rules, I've read through them and I think I'll get to reading and critiquing as soon as possible. Not to trump myself up but I've been told that I'm not bad at providing constructive feedback in the past, and hopefully I can bring that talent to the forum (because I'm not sure if I'll be adding anything in terms of writing talent, haha). I'll also consider the supporter option, even though I'm in no rush. *The exception is that Henty's heroines sometimes make even modern "strong women" look like wilting flowers. They are usually the romantic interest of the main character, who is a man in most of the books, because Henty's main audience were boys (he begins the foreword of most his books with "Dear Lads"). Despite this relegated role however, his female characters are Gaulish warrior women that can out-swim the Carthaginian main character, Scottish ladies that lead the defense of their castles as well as raids upon the seige equipment attacking them, or are secretly dressed as boys while helping the main character to escape capture (indeed, a redundant theme in his books, to my memory, is that the main hero is almost always rescued by his love interest. Even as a child I remember thinking "oh here's when the girl is going to save his dumbass again" as I would read certain parts of the books).
