Struggling Writers’ Daily Den: rant, share, complain, ask, daily progress thing (Part 2)

I got seriously triggered.
My coworkers are either sabotaging me on purpose or they’re idiots. Neither is good for my sanity.

I keep repeating to myself that I want this job. But do I? Do I really? It would be a great job if I didn’t have to rely on other people to know what they’re doing.

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How does a person write a character(s) who are practically illiterate in speech, thought, aren’t educated, can’t read, write, and are pretty much unable to comprehend things?

I have one character named Kven who is like the other character who do not receive schooling. They are slaves and they are not educated. Kven is the only one who decided to educate himself by reading outdated books and speaking and writing things down.

All the other slave children don’t even know how to speak properly or understand things unless they are beaten and/or given food.

Kven can’t converse with his siblings (the slave children) since they have very poor comprehension skills, terrible understanding of thing, and are not educated in the manner he is or better.

Unfortunately, Kven doesn’t teach his siblings how to read, write, and comprehend things only himself. That might change with two siblings real soon.

Thoughts?

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hm, well, i guess it would depend on how i wanted the pacing and focus to go. And also maybe my interpretation of “scene break” because I might be thinking of line breaks…

but in your example i honestly might just leave the cafe scene as it’s own chapter. but again that depends on how i wanted the pacing to go.

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This idea seems to draw parallels between literacy/formal education and intelligence. It’s kind of a bad idea, particularly if your setting is mostly illiterate (which is normal for most of the humanity’s history). The shunning of, say, children who don’t do well in school or can’t read as stupid is a phenomenon of the society with universal literacy. Also, slaves don’t have leisure to spend necessary amount of time to learn to read on their own. He needs leisure and access. Or he needs to be one of the privileged slaves who was picked for his talents to, say, learn with master’s children. In this case, his siblings unwilling to talk to him and vs versa would make sense since there are documented cases that educated slaves, drawn for their talents as actors, singers, painters etc were not loved by those who did hard work etc. Hope this helps, because I am not sure what you are asking about.

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To add to Domi’s comment, I think it’s very important to point out that illiteracy doesn’t equal incomprehension. You need to be very careful here to not accidentally step into hurtful stereotypes.

One can be smart without ever getting education. That type of person is usually smarter in subjects that educated people aren’t. It could be emotional intelligence, cunningness, street smarts, or skilled trade. Your educated character might underestimate them but you, the writer, shouldn’t.

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@Kamiccola and @DomiSotto:

Quick question: Does it make sense to try too hard when I have zero plans in letting someone read this novel in the future? I only ask that, because I wanted to make sense to me alone. Yet since there won’t ever be a time when someone will read my work, is there any point stressing a little?

I apologize for wasting time.

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If you’re writing it for your own enjoyment, go for it. You can just dump whatever words you want, treat it like a rant where you just need to get it off your chest.

In that case, I’m not sure why you’re asking for advice.

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I guess I was curious and wanted to know if it made sense which is stupid because I am not showing anyone this story ever.

However, the advice that was given, does indeed make sense because I can use the comment you and @DomiSotto stated for future knowledge. And that is only IF I want to publish the story online someday, but at that point and time the story will be much different.

Either way thanks a bunch.

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I am done with part 5 of chapter 1, FINALLY!!!
I am going to start part 1 of chapter 2 tomorrow, because your girl is exhausted right now.

Right now, I am going to do something else that isn’t writing related tonight.

I am really happy. I need to focus on Civiria again. What’s she doing now? LOL!

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Just finished rewriting and going over the first chapter of my other story with Word’s Immersive Reader and honestly? I’m extremely proud of what I’ve accomplished with it. This chapter had been through the wringer over the years. I can’t wait to reshare it with the world.

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Worst of all, I can see lots of immature teenagers doing this because they are terrified of rejection.

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For me, personally, it doesn’t matter if I show the story or it remains in my drafts. I always try the hardest to make it as best as it could be. That’s the way I derive satisfaction from writing, because I can’t write for mass appeal.

You don’t need to frame your musings as questions to be heard.

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I don’t know. I won’t talk about it because of the mental health situation with my daughter.

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I hope your daughter feels better soon then.

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So, me asking that question serves a purpose?
Also, because you mentioned that, I might have to redo that part entirely…for myself.

I am going to work on that and The Breaker novel in a bit.
Or I can tell Kven’s story a bit later but still change things for him.

Same. I always see it that I’m the perfect audience for my writing. If I’m not enjoying it, then it’s not worth the trouble. I’m also a pretty tough critic so if writing passes my standards, I consider it good enough to share. Naturally, my standards increase as my craft gets better so I might not feel the same way about my early writing as I did back then.

Flashback to when I was reading a book I had written a while ago and encountered a joke I’ve forgotten. I laughed out loud and thought, I vibe with this author’s sense of humor. :joy:

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Like I said recently, I enjoyed editing my older story and I am looking forward to editing another one later this year.

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I’ve decided to put my other projects aside and focus on my passion project this semester: my book Glance and the Blue Prophecy, which I was having the hardest time continuing for a couple years. But it’s finally flowing again, and I’m nearing 60k words. So far I’ve been writing a lot of long dialogues between the characters as I try to figure out what their emotions are right now and what their next actions will be - a lot of stuff that probably won’t make the draft - but it’s been good to conceptualize and it’s been good for me, too. A lot of my characters’ struggles are my own, so it’s nice to have that dialogue, even if it’s fictional!

If I ending up participating in ONC, I might follow the backstory of two side characters from Glance. A prequel-sort of thing. Glance is becoming really complex character-relationship wise, so I think this will be good to try and flesh out at least one set of backstories before I write the next arc when it will become important. Kind of taking inspiration here from Domi’s advice posted in the ONC thread, because tbh I never thought about using ONC to flesh out my current projects! So thank you Domi :star2:

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Chapter Two has been successfully rewritten. Another improvement if I do say so myself.

Now, on to some video games for a few hours.

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Grats! And lucky you!

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