Do you think your story measures up?

Worthy39

The protagonist's third cousin, twice removed
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We've all seen at least one piece of fiction, be it anime, Manga, novels, or even movies, and thought: "I could write something better than that." Even if it's something... not great. What's one piece of fiction you think your story might be better than, even if just in one category?
 

ThisAdamGuy

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I have that thought every time I see a Sarah J Maas book. If she can get rich writing that crap, then there should be no reason I can't do the same. Then again, the fact that she has gotten rich off of writing that crap (and Stephanie Meyer and EL James) says a lot about the state of the market, so maybe being a good writer means less than it should when it comes being a successful author.
 

VenerableOne

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I have that thought every time I see a Sarah J Maas book. If she can get rich writing that crap, then there should be no reason I can't do the same. Then again, the fact that she has gotten rich off of writing that crap (and Stephanie Meyer and EL James) says a lot about the state of the market, so maybe being a good writer means less than it should when it comes being a successful author.
People, place, and timing often matter more than quality. A story my book is better than? One of my old stories :)
 

Worthy39

The protagonist's third cousin, twice removed
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People, place, and timing often matter more than quality. A story my book is better than? One of my old stories :)
This is... the most wholesome, boring answer I could've gotten... I fully expected someone to just say "Your story". And I honestly would've laughed at that.
 

MajorKerina

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Every single gender bending narrative ever produced by Hollywood. Because I actually give a crap about my characters and they're human beings rather than Hollywood clichés. Gender has complexity and nuance and there's a depth to human experience and identity which is so rarely touched at more than a surface level. I've written gender identity explorations that absolutely annihilate almost anything done in media.

Probably the absolute worst example is the Futurama episode with gender identity.
 
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MasterY001

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Every single gender bending narrative ever produced by Hollywoid. Because I actually give a crap about my characters and they're human beings rather than Hollywood clichés. Gender has complexity and nuance and there's a depth to human experience and identity which is so rarely touched at more than a surface level. I've written gender identity explorations that absolutely annihilate almost anything done in media.

Probably the absolute worst example is the Futurama episode with gender identity.
Hear, hear!!

Hate, kindness, strength, and love shouldn't be limited by gender, especially in fiction. Let a soft man have pride in his masculinity. Let tough girls have a girly side. It's the 21st century, for crying out loud!
 

Golden_Hyde

break all tropes
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Political fictions and warfare. It's not about writing better works in it, it's about writing what's quite possible in comparison to what we have here in real-life.

But when it comes to fantasy, I have a better system for magic, society and everything else. Subjectively.
 

sandianchong

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My work is my dreams that I can't fulfill in reality, and I will do my best to create it, after all, if you ask for the best, you will get the middle, and if you ask for the middle, you will get the worst, so why not set a high goal?
 

CharlesEBrown

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Listening to the stuff on PocketFM, I thought "I can do at least that well."
And yeah, I am just about on that same level, for good or ill.
 

Eldoria

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My novel has a similar vibe to Akame ga Kill. Akame and Marry El Rose aka Blood Rose Princess are both executioners of justice who don't hesitate to shed the blood of tyrannical criminals for the sake of justice. They both are calm, cool but have many wounds.

However, my novel takes a different path: what if Akame, at the end of the story, doesn't go into seclusion alone, bearing all the burden of the world's wounds, but instead cares for a child and lives in a remote village, living as a young mother longing for the warmth of family, redeeming herself through nurturing her little daughter with love?!

That's what I did with the female protagonist with blood; I wanted to give the story a warm ending instead of a lonely one. Because as people who sacrificed for the world, they deserve happiness.
 
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CoeurDeVrai

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I have that thought every time I see a Sarah J Maas book. If she can get rich writing that crap, then there should be no reason I can't do the same. Then again, the fact that she has gotten rich off of writing that crap (and Stephanie Meyer and EL James) says a lot about the state of the market, so maybe being a good writer means less than it should when it comes being a successful author.

Ditto.... All of this. There are a few others, like Lila Shaw.
 

goldenphonix

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being in the writing space for a while now has made me realize that you can't be your own judge lmao. you can be your #1 hype man sure and stroke your own delusion/ego but in the end, someone else can take one look at your book and think it's trash. fair enough, another someone will read it and think it's peak. it's all about objective perspective.

so do i think my story measures up? i mean, i want to think so? but i don't expect everyone to agree with that.
 

Macha

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I could write something better sounds like I could fix him.

Let's make them worse
 

ACertainPassingUser

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Shit webnovel, shit manhua, and shit mangas.

Many of them have very horible cliche story, but they suceeed because they're shit in very specific type of way.

Theyre shit stories that offer fan-service to the shit readers.

It's very easy to improve them into seemingly decent level for our Scribblehub - Royalroad standard, but it's still extremely difficult to bring them into the competition of "decent good stories", especially not the "top rated stories" nor the "rising star".
 
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Max02

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I certainly could write something better than Twilight or 50 Shades of Grey with both eyes closed.
Seriously, look up to the masters. If you want to write horror, have Poe, Lovecraft and King as your models. If you want to create fantasy, Tolkien is the biggest reference. For romance you have Jane Austen. For historical novels, Walter Scott. For dramatic psychological novels, you have Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann and many others.

And for cheap airport thriller you have Dan Brown.
 
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Wednesdayschild

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I'm new here, so I can't really say. I only know that my wife says I write better than 90% of what comes out of Hollywood. But she would :s_wink:

What confuses me here is that the genres don't seem to be very strict, and I find young fiction in all of them. As an older writer, my style is perhaps a little more conventional, and as a Brit, my language is perhaps more conservative.

Can someone point me to the kind of entries that might be similar to what I produce?
 
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