As authors, what do you look for...

[Representing_Tromba]

in a modern writing resource? What information about writing, serializing, editing, publishing, promoting, and/or readers do you want to know about to best help your story and writing capabilities grow? What desired information is the most difficult for you to research or find information about and what is the easiest to come across to the point that it is annoying? What do you love to hear about writing and what annoys or bothers you to hear about writing? Is there anything that you have never heard discussed and want to be brought up? I'm a little curious.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Probably nothing. If I have troubles I prefer to talk with friends; you, blob, envy, Hans, etc.

 

[Nolff]

Probably nothing. If I have troubles I prefer to talk with friends; you, blob, envy, Hans, etc.

Me?

 

[Deleted member 84247]

I'm same as Sailus. And when I need the best advice, I ask myself, "what would Envy do?"

In all seriousness, most writing stuff will be too broad for me. Things I hate: "show don't tell. Never say 'said.' Only use 'said.'" Basically any advice that is general and doesn't give a reasoning. Honestly, I'd prefer if I was given a wrong advice if they at least gave a reason. Then it's easier to deduce why they thought that.

I love hearing opinions that are different or help further my understanding. The thing I've probably looked for the most is dialogue. The thing I've looked for the least is worldbuilding related stuff.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

I'm same as Sailus. And when I need the best advice, I ask myself, "what would Envy do?"

In all seriousness, most writing stuff will be too broad for me. Things I hate: "show don't tell. Never say 'said.' Only use 'said.'" Basically any advice that is general and doesn't give a reasoning. Honestly, I'd prefer if I was given a wrong advice if they at least gave a reason. Then it's easier to deduce why they thought that.

I love hearing opinions that are different or help further my understanding. The thing I've probably looked for the most is dialogue. The thing I've looked for the least is worldbuilding related stuff.

Based.

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

The technicalities? I already know most of it. The trends? I find challenge in paths rarely taken.

What I want to know is how to promote my work, without having to appear like some desperate dude. Honestly, even with all my posts, antics and behavior, in reality, I'm a shy guy who hides his nervousness by being chaotic and 'wacky'.

What annoys me in writing are those writers who tell rules, yet don't follow it themselves, knowing that these 'rules' are actually just guides. Also, someone giving unsolicited advise, like, please shut your mouth when no one is asking. It's something I don't need to hear right now (for various reasons). And of course, the under-appreciation of the things I did. I mean, I'm just being real here, but yeah, tis really discouraging to put all your best work forward only to be dissed for all the wrong reasons.

But yeah, though it may sound ironic, I rarely brought these things up, unless it's really too much to bear. After all, in the end, I'm still a nobody. ??

 

[greyblob]

you can find most thing about writing if you have access to google and especially if you use a decent ai like gpt. ive been using it a lot for worldbuilding by asking it about animals, animal behaviour, fauna, history, etc. It will not always be correct but it will put you on the right track. I've also recently been using it to bounce ideas off of it and brainstorm some stuff. very useful.

when writing the little introspection thead i tried to categorize a lot of areas of writing and formulaize them. I didn't finish this idea. one of the things that bothered me was the process of weaving an idea into narrative, the underlaying message behind the scene, reading between the lines, subtext, etc. I kinda wish there was a simple method for doing it but I have yet to find one. (I will not use it to spread propaganda)

lastly, there was a fundamental idea in smut lady's tutorial that stuck with me and i only realized the impact of following it recently. splitting character actions into seperate paragraphs does more than organize the text. it forces you to adapt to a certain writing pattern that i found to be quite nice. it also makes you rethink the sentence and think of multiple variations for it. it is difficult at first but with practice it becomes easier and results in more creative and varying writing style.

 

[RepresentingDesire]

I just try to piece the Knowledge I have into useful stuff, a lack of results will only show me my errors, than I can correct because the amount of writing advice that can be found is overwhelming, then back to the start again.

When it comes to worldbuilding I'm good at top down worldbuilding and somewhat okay at creating synergies, I'm currently still failing at basic spatial and temporal worldbuilding, currently I have to start to write, not counting a to other people super confusing story that I wrote.

 

[QuercusMalus]

Does it list 'Story Marc' as the author/creator? That, I have found, is usually a pretty good sign that it will be useful.

But in all honesty, if I have a question about a certain aspect, I look at multiple sources and try to get multiple ideas on different approaches. Even if the end result is 'that is idiotic'.
Same when looking at tropes, I look at multiple examples to see how other people have done it, and well I try to avoid copying, I have been 'inspired by' more than a few.

 

[Kalliel]

I never learn anything technical about writing, just figuring things out as I go. This is probably a huge mistake, but I honestly don't have the time to search and learn those.

 

[RepresentingCaution]

Can it do the laundry and dishes and make my husband's lunch all while keeping the kid off my hands?

 

[CharlesEBrown]

in a modern writing resource? What information about writing, serializing, editing, publishing, promoting, and/or readers do you want to know about to best help your story and writing capabilities grow? What desired information is the most difficult for you to research or find information about and what is the easiest to come across to the point that it is annoying? What do you love to hear about writing and what annoys or bothers you to hear about writing? Is there anything that you have never heard discussed and want to be brought up? I'm a little curious.

In interactive forum or active mail list.

 

[ConansWitchBaby]

Editing professionally seems to be the most difficult to find for me. I just get broad over-encompassing wiggling of fingers at random directions. You get it now? Too bad! Figure it out, I already explained vaguely. Type of posts.

The easiest is probably finding about what audience one is writing for. At least for me.

I guess the most needed help I need is finding resources on how to organically weave relationships between various characters. I tend to leave them as characterizations. Like this is a wife. She is the wife with probably blue hair or something. This is a knight. It is a knight with the other shiny armor in service to this other guy. Sure, I give them personalities and motives and reasonings for plot situations but, the glue to stick them to one another is... *wiggles fingers in vague direction*

 

[Fakeminsk]

in a modern writing resource? What information about writing, serializing, editing, publishing, promoting, and/or readers do you want to know about to best help your story and writing capabilities grow? What desired information is the most difficult for you to research or find information about and what is the easiest to come across to the point that it is annoying? What do you love to hear about writing and what annoys or bothers you to hear about writing? Is there anything that you have never heard discussed and want to be brought up? I'm a little curious.

I find the single best resource for writing is to read a wide range of authors, of varying quality and a range of genres. I think I got more from Sally Rooney's "Normal People" and Stephen King's "Billy Summers", both recent reads, than any "how to" writing guide. Though saying that, King's "On Writing" was fantastic. I'm currently reading Maas's Court of Thorn and Roses and finding it to be simply, painfully -terrible- but also very instructional. Is there anything better for a wannabe writer than attentive reading, and lots and lots of practice?

 

[Biggest-Kusa-Out-There]

in a modern writing resource? What information about writing, serializing, editing, publishing, promoting, and/or readers do you want to know about to best help your story and writing capabilities grow? What desired information is the most difficult for you to research or find information about and what is the easiest to come across to the point that it is annoying? What do you love to hear about writing and what annoys or bothers you to hear about writing? Is there anything that you have never heard discussed and want to be brought up? I'm a little curious.

Those guides on how to write action scenes are overpopulating everywhere, so are the "HOW TO PROPERLY WRITE X". The hardest one to find is a good monster manual or stuff like Classes for LitRPG for inspiration, which is almost impossible to find and I'd love if there was more of it.
Character traits, backstory, flaws, etc guides are everywhere and honestly we could use fewer of them imo. One thing I dislike about writing is the self-inserting reader that will try and superpose themselves on the protagonist, or will comment how they would have killed a character if they were the mc. Those need to get professional help asap. The reader I dislike the most by far though are the yuri ultrafans who hate anything male and never stop asking if the GL Futa mc will fuck dudes whenever a male character is introduced.

 

[melchi]

Anyone that can appreciate a good thigh is a credible resource in my book.

 

[theInmara]

Besides help finding good editors and sensitivity readers we can afford, our big wish is for something like Google Docs that has all the functionality of Google Docs but isn't owned by a corporation.

LibreOffice has all the tools we need, but it fails because it's not cloud based. We can't go from writing on our computer to writing on our phone without actively uploading and then downloading the file somewhere, and that's untenable.

All other cloud based doc editors out there each is lacking a key tool or feature that just destroys our work flow. We know, we've tried them all. We need it pretty much identical to Google Docs, but with a good dark mode.

When it comes to talking about the philosophy or discipline of writing, we're at a stage where we just prefer not to. We'd rather just read a bunch of other good books and soak 'em up. Maybe participate in some editing exchanges.

 

[Representing_Tromba]

Besides help finding good editors and sensitivity readers we can afford, our big wish is for something like Google Docs that has all the functionality of Google Docs but isn't owned by a corporation.

LibreOffice has all the tools we need, but it fails because it's not cloud based. We can't go from writing on our computer to writing on our phone without actively uploading and then downloading the file somewhere, and that's untenable.

All other cloud based doc editors out there each is lacking a key tool or feature that just destroys our work flow. We know, we've tried them all. We need it pretty much identical to Google Docs, but with a good dark mode.

When it comes to talking about the philosophy or discipline of writing, we're at a stage where we just prefer not to. We'd rather just read a bunch of other good books and soak 'em up. Maybe participate in some editing exchanges.

Atticus is pretty good and I use it. Sadly it is a one-time cost of $100.

 

[theInmara]

Atticus is pretty good and I use it. Sadly it is a one-time cost of $100.

Thank you. That’s one we hadn't heard of, and if it can do what we need, we can afford it.