Two days after 2 of neck strain. Even if I wanted to do setting, that situation would kill my concentration. I can casually read like this but nothing heavier.
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The fireman-arsonist-girl triangle one. I have the most for it from all my sketches now, and it’s taking shape. Another couple of chapters, and i would have all my major chars on the scene, except for Arsonist who comes in a bit later. I probably will write as far as that before swinging back to tweak things. Unless Nick reviews chapter 1 again and sets fire under my butt
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Can you listen to stuff or watch TV/youTube for research?
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Me not having a schedule helps a lot.
3 kids. All noisy. It gets bad enough to drive me out the room sometimes. Lol
Wait until they are teens. You wouldn’t want to come home at all 
My kid had turned out an absolute menace.
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I’m not looking forward to 2 in-sync cycles and demolition man.
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As someone who started watching Arcane, let me just say that it’s amazing. I’ve never played the League of Legends games so I know next to nothing about them. From what I hear, the game itself doesn’t have much story. A lot of the lore is in things like item descriptions/character descriptions etc. Elden Ring is the same where they leave it up to the player to piece it all together.
As for how to write something “cool”, putting all the complex background while still focusing on your characters, I’m in the same boat. It can get tricky. I’m wrapping up my story now, and realizing that while I have some “cool” scenes, I felt like I spelled out a lot of the “lore” that probably dragged the reader down. I figure there are more subtle ways to “tell” the reader what the lore is, so I’d like to work on that when I start editing. I think we fall into this trap where we expect that we have to tell the reader/gamer/viewer absolutely everything about the world at the very beginning. But that’s hard to do. It’s easier to slip in those things little by little, and trust that by leaving the bread crumbs necessary in the environment, the character conversations, how characters behave etc. that the person absorbing the story will be able to “see” our worlds like we intended.
I also want to say that it is very hard to be “original” 100% these days. Most things these days are recycled, but that doesn’t always make them less than whoever had the idea first. Think of where sci-fi would be today without stuff like Star Wars, Star Trek, Aliens etc. It’s okay to draw inspiration from things, and not pressure yourself to make every single detail something that someone else “hasn’t thought of” before. Three people can be given an outline to “write the same story,” but I guarantee that the stories will each be written very differently from one another. An idea can be similar to something out there, but only you can write it your own way.
And as a bad influence, I vote watch Arcane. 
It’s so gooood.
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Eww, is there a block feature on WP? I’d block them. What a mean person. 
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I’m a bad influence. I have ADHD and I am the QUEEN of starting a million things, and not finishing them. The only reason why I’m about to finish my first original story ever is because I had at least two hiatuses that lasted several months, and I had to force myself to write at least 250 words as often as I could (daily if possible, but of course, life), and here I am. I understand though. Following wherever the dopamine rush is! 
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Today I wrote down some notes on how to re-write my last few chapters to finally end my current story. Do notes count? Trying to warm myself up after not writing any fiction for pretty much an entire month. Baby steps. 
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I feel ya on that. I get that way as well.
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My problem is that that’s exactly what I do. I don’t want to overwhelm the reader so I say only the bare minimum but then I lose the cool factor.
I recently sent my first chapter for a critique (I have an awesome group, we meet on Discord every week) and the two big takeaways were:
- Give us more info about the magic
- Explain what it’s like to have a tail.
And that supports what I feared - I’m holding back too much info. I need to trust that my readers can handle more info.
I almost did yesterday. But then I caved in and rewatched Heartstopper again. That show is just the cutest. I need more episodes!!!
It’s giving me serious Wattpad vibes, but in all the ways that WP stories suck, this doesn’t. It’s what WP stories wish they were.
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Meh. They came back to me today saying that my ‘Peace for Ukraine. Freedom for Russia’ banner I have with Russian antiwar movement flag means that I support the war, because I have to pick a side, otherwise, it’s like I support both sides, so I am pro-war.
Told them, that nope, I absolutely can support a peaceful sovereign Ukraine and free demilitarized Russia at the same time… and I absolutely can have this banner on my book. 
While they absolutely can not like it.
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I am always wary of this specific type of feedback when people only read one chapter. I would want them to make a distinction between being unable to follow along and being curious to learn more. The second one is… like, why? The character who has a tail has no reason to turn to the audience and explain. No more so than for me to go to my boss’s office right now and tell her, “I have a thumb. It’s really useful for when I type on keyboard. But it looks weird next to my other fingers.”
Now, if the character just sprouted a tail and they had never had it before…
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I didn’t really have time to do any more writing or editing after work yesterday, but I have a day off tomorrow, so I hope to make progress on both fronts.
I also want to try yet again to send the story to Harlequin (because submission process is so easy anyway), which means I will need to target 70K and Suspense category. I don’t think they would accept it because the POV is male only, but I want to keep putting my writing before agents’/editors’ eyes.
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Not exactly that but he does have amnesia so it is a moment of discovery. “I have a tail. Alright.”
But yeah, I’m not sure how to dive deeper into the tail description. I already gave a brief description of what it looks like. I’ll revisit the idea later to see if there’s opportunity for more.
True. This isn’t perfectly new for them though. They’ve read a bunch of chapters of my first draft, oh my, likely at least a year ago. So if they’re still having questions, there’s probably a valid reason.
Besides, I’m not loving that chapter. It feels too choppy to me. So I’m glad they pointed out a couple of moments that could use an expansion. Maybe I can get rid of the choppiness by adding a sentence or two.
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That sounds exciting!
I also write from a male pov.
I’ve seen requests out there for more male pov stories so it might be an advantage. You never know.
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I dunno if it’s super-exciting, but hey, worth a shot if it turns out well, plus their guidelines and book length subtly hint on what people like to read. I am not sure my hero and heroine are 100% great fit, but we shall see. I would even try Raised by Mafia but it doesn’t fit into categories and I don’t want to break it.
However, I am not going to move away from my usual process. Work through the book, get feedback on WP in open way… It will actually be great, because one of my workshop partners is getting close to the end of Lone Werewolf, so I could switch up and take one more partnership, plus make it an option vs. Werewolf in Rush and Exchange chapters of the clubs. But first I need to write it, of course.
Overall, though, yes, I need to finish Lone Werewolf and move on.
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Imagine if there was a version of Gone Girl written in the style of “Dick and Jane”.
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