Naash
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jan 23, 2022
- Messages
- 45
- Points
- 58
Hello people, readers, authors and lurkers. After a few years of lurking around as a reader, I finally summoned enough courage to start writing an idea I've been having for a while.
That makes me a pretty new author (if I can be called as such).
I've started a series not too long ago, and I often find myself unsatisfied by some (many) points of my novel.
That's all folks, thanks for listening to the despair of a new writer and thanks in advance to those who will see and reply to my questions.
You can find my story over here : Black Horde
(contains GB, which is not to everyone's liking, even though it has plot relevance)
(PS: sorry for any grammatical error or typo.)
That makes me a pretty new author (if I can be called as such).
I've started a series not too long ago, and I often find myself unsatisfied by some (many) points of my novel.
- Synopsis.
The synopsis, along with the cover and the tags, are the first elements that can catch a potential reader's eye. The synopsis must be short, but it should contain most of the information needed to have a general idea to expect from the novel. I understood as much.
However, actually making a good synopsis is something I seem to be unable to do. I've tried to shorten it multiple times, I've tried to convey as much of the general plot as I could. But I still think it's shit...
Previous synopsis:Current synopsis:In the era of sciences, no-one expected a thousand people to suddenly vanish because of a game interface-like message.
A year later, the "Returnees" were slowly getting back to their home-world, bringing tales, creations and knowledge to help Humanity fight against a new threat that rose to threaten Earth: the Portals.
But with catastrophe, came Hope, The Stars. Godly entities who had made contracts with the Returnees and gave powers to the "Hunters".
Together, Stars of similar power and goals, formed the Constellations and in turn, the mortals formed the Houses, in the name of the Constellations.
Together, the Constellations formed the Galaxy. The Myriad of the Universe.
After five years, Earth was normal again. Portal outbreaks were the norm. Wealth brought by the Portals strengthened the economy and the power of many. All was even better than before.
But only two questions remained.
What happened to Nidhogg ? The one even the strongest Awakeners envied? Why hadn't he returned with the others ?
And... what was this Black Horde the Stars were so worried about ?The era of science was over. It had been replaced by magic, otherworldly Portals and creatures thought to be mere fantasy.
Beliefs shifted in favor of the Stars, cosmic entities who could bestow their powers upon mortals.
These blessed mortals became Awakeners and sometimes Hunters, the ones who could challenge this new threat the Portals were.
Five years ago, a thousand people had been kidnapped from Earth.
Five years later, the "Returnees" were back, with myths, stories, knowledge and powers to help Earth.
Five years later, only few questions remained in the minds.
What happened to Nidhogg ? The one even the strongest of the Returnees envied ? Why hadn't he returned with the others ? Why was this subject such a taboo ?
And... what were the Stars attempting to protect Earth from ?
For some reason, both of these synopsis look as shitty as the other one in my eyes. I guess that the current one is better and less of a slog to read but I don't feel like it can catch the people's attention for some reason.
Tell me what I could improve to make this more eye-catching.
- Structuring.
While I already have some basis on literature, English is not my main language and so, structuring my text is oftentimes one of my first challenges (something I'm trying to overcome by... reading books.)
I always feel like my dialogues are poor, with characters only speaking to each other with no reactions in between. It feels like they don't convey any feelings or emotions when interacting.
In the same fashion, I find many of my descriptions too long but not enough at the same time, which kinda leads to point 3.
- At what point long becomes too long ?
I've been lurking through forums for the past few days and on other websites to get some tips about storytelling and overall chapter length. After a few trials and errors, and some editing, I've found out that 3000 words is most likely my sweet spot for a chapter. Some websites I've found said that 2000 words was already plenty, when others said that anything below 7000 was only considered draft...
What I've found was pretty upsetting, considering that even though 3000 words is my sweet spot, I don't feel like much happens in the eight chapters I've released so far. Lowering this to 2/3 of my chapter length would be even worse in terms of pacing, but more than doubling my chapter content would make me bloat my chapters with useless junk.
So, to the more experienced writers out there, what are you thoughts about this ?
- Update frequency and quality.
If I know one thing about online up-loadable content, it's the inner workings of the platforms' algorithms. Constant, almost daily updates is best to endlessly feed the website (not too much, else SH considers your uploads as spam, I know that much too) but unless I plan lots of chapters beforehand and create an automatic schedule, I will never reach such pacing. One chapter per day is impossible. Two or three per week might be feasible for me. Plus I want to take my time to release quality writing.
Here lies the problem. During the years I've lurked around here, I've found some of the weirdest, unedited, un-proofread novels reaching heights I could never imagine because the author flooded SH with many updates in a very short time.
While I want to create something proper, I also want the people who are even remotely interested in my story to not feel bored waiting for the next update. So I'll ask.
Did some of you purposefully chapter content and fastened your release schedules for such reason ?
That's all folks, thanks for listening to the despair of a new writer and thanks in advance to those who will see and reply to my questions.
You can find my story over here : Black Horde
(contains GB, which is not to everyone's liking, even though it has plot relevance)
(PS: sorry for any grammatical error or typo.)
