the960writers

[the960writers]

And then the dragon and the knight become good friends. The king keeps sending more knights to slay the dragon, who also ends up befriending the dragon. And finally all the knights and the dragon go and kick the king's ass (right off the throne).

Aka: A knight is sent to slay a dragon. It does not go as expected.

(or: this seemed like a better idea in my head, please bear with me)

#love it!

[the960writers]

In this bonus mini-episode, Rachael talks about how to actually break free from your outline and get down to the good stuff: actually fast-drafting. How do you start? What does skeletoning your work look like? When do you know you’re ready? 

Listening to this podcast has been a revelation. Highly recommended.

#this is such a good episode #drafting #fast drafting #writing your first draft

[the960writers]

Announcing the theme for Terry Pratchett Day 2024: START IN THE WRONG PLACE.

You'll hear people say time and time again that you can start anywhere with Terry Pratchett's work, but don't start in the right place*, so let's truly embrace the joy and chaos to be found in the many routes through Discworld and beyond.

We will be making Sunday 28th April, Sir Terry Pratchett's birthday, one brimming with bookish delight, celebrating the many ways we love and travel through his work, and we're inviting you to join us.

Follow along with The Terry Pratchett Estate to stay up to date. We will be sharing more ahead of the weekend on how to get involved.

*A lot of people say the right place is anything but the right place, which in turn, may make it an equally wrong place...

#GNU Terry Pratchett

[the960writers]

Hey! Are there blacksmiths in your story? I'm a hobbyist blacksmith and I'm here to help!

Blacksmithing is one of those things that a lot of people get wrong because they don't realize it stuck around past the advent of the assembly line. Here's a list of some common misconceptions I see and what to do instead!

Not all blacksmiths are gigantic terrifying muscly guys with beards and deep voices. I am 5'8, skinny as a twig, have the muscle mass of wet bread, and exist on Tumblr. Anybody who is strong enough to pick up a hammer and understands fire safety can be a blacksmith.

You can make more than just swords with blacksmithing. Though swords are undeniably practical, they're not the only things that can be made. I've made candle holders, wall hooks, kebab skewers, fire pokers, and more. Look up things other people have made, it's really amazing what can be done.

"Red-hot" is actually not that hot by blacksmith terms. when heated up, the metal goes from black, to red, to orange, to yellow, to white. (for temperature reference, I got a second degree burn from picking up a piece of metal on black heat) The ideal color to work with the metal is yellow. White is not ideal at all, because the metal starts sparking and gets all weird and lumpy when it cools. (At no point in this process does the metal get even close to melting. It gets soft enough to work with, but I have never once seen metal become a liquid.)

Blacksmithing takes fucking forever. Not even taking into account starting the forge, selecting and preparing metal, etc. etc. it takes me around an hour to make one (1) fancy skewer. The metals blacksmiths work with heat up and cool down incredibly fast. When the forge is going good, it only takes like 20 seconds to get your metal hot enough to work with, but it takes about the same time for it to cool down, sometimes even less.

As long as you are careful, it is actually stupidly easy to not get hurt while blacksmithing. When I picked up this hobby I was like "okay, cool! I'm gonna make stuff, and I'm gonna end up in the hospital at some point!" Thus far, the latter has yet to occur. I've been doing this for nearly a year. I have earned myself a new scar from the aforementioned second degree burn, and one singe mark on my jeans. I don't even wear gloves half the time. Literally just eye protection, common sense, and fast reflexes and you'll probably be fine. (Accidents still happen of course, but I have found adequate safety weirdly easy to achieve with this hobby)

A forge is not a fire. The forge is the thing blacksmiths put their metal in to heat it up. It starts as a small fire, usually with newspaper or something else that's relatively small and burns easily, which we then put in the forge itself, which is sort of a fireplace-esque thing (there's a lot of different types of forge, look into it and try to figure out what sort of forge would make the most sense for the context you're writing about) and we cover it with coal, which then catches fire and heats up. The forge gets really hot, and sometimes really bright. Sometimes when I stare at the forge for too long it's like staring into the sun. The forge is also not a waterfall of lava, Steven Universe. It doesn't work like that, Steven Universe.

Welding and blacksmithing are not the same thing. They often go hand-in-hand, but you cannot connected two pieces of metal with traditional blacksmithing alone. There is something called forge welding, where you heat your metal, sprinkle borax (or the in-universe equivalent) on it to prevent the metal from oxidizing/being non-weldable, and hammer the pieces together very quickly. Forge welding also sends sparks flying everywhere, and if you're working in a small space with other blacksmiths, you usually want to announce that you're welding before you do, so that everyone in a five-foot radius can get out of that five-foot radius. You also cannot just stuck some random pebbles into the forge and get a decent piece of metal that you can actually make something with, Steven Universe. It doesn't work like that, Steven Universe.

Anvils are really fucking heavy. Nothing else to add here.

Making jewelry is not a blacksmithing thing unless you want jewelry made of steel. And it will be very ugly if you try. Blacksmithing wasn't invented to make small things.

If there's anything here I didn't mention, just ask and I'll do my best to answer.

#smithing #blacksmith

[the960writers]

Traditional Norwegian home

© M.Kuhr

#nature

[the960writers]

“The most important thing in life is to stop saying ‘I wish’ and start saying ‘I will.’ Consider nothing impossible, then treat possibilities as probabilities.”

— Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (via wordsnquotes)

[the960writers]

The Dragoness of Stars for Honestrasz✨

#inspiration #dragon

[the960writers]

Hello, I saw your article entitled "WHY DEFEND FREEDOM OF ICKY SPEECH?" And I'd like to ask... Are you normalizing lolicon now? It's not just a made-up story where there's inappropriate content with children, where it's portrayed as something terrible. It's portrayed as something normal and sexy😦

This article?

As I point out in the article, I'd not actually read any lolicon, and 16 years later, I still haven't. As I say in it:

Still, you seem to want lolicon banned, and people prosecuted for owning it, and I don't. You ask, What makes it worth defending? and the only answer I can give is this: Freedom to write, freedom to read, freedom to own material that you believe is worth defending means you're going to have to stand up for stuff you don't believe is worth defending, even stuff you find actively distasteful, because laws are big blunt instruments that do not differentiate between what you like and what you don't, because prosecutors are humans and bear grudges and fight for re-election, because one person's obscenity is another person's art.

Because if you don't stand up for the stuff you don't like, when they come for the stuff you do like, you've already lost.

#freedom of expression #censorship #fiction is not reality #thought crimes are not a thing

[the960writers]

I've been writing for a while so I thought I'd share some writing tips I've learned along the way.

1. Never sacrifice the flow for a quirky line.

That bit of dialogue or flowery paragraph you really like but it kinda disrupts the flow? Scrap it. I know it hurts, but you need to. If you really want to keep it, find somewhere else to put it where it actually fits in.

2. Dialogue is a dance.

Dialogue should go at the pace of an actual conversation, back and forth with little breaks and pauses. Add as little dialogue tags as possible while still making it clear who is speaking. You can also describe what is happening during a pause in the conversation rather than saying they paused, unless the pause is important.

3. Show don't tell is a guideline, not a rule.

Show don't tell is a very useful guideline, but if you're ALWAYS showing it can get exhausting to read. Skip the boring bits and just tell us what happened, then we can get to the good stuff.

4. If it's boring to write, it's probably boring to read.

If you can cut out a whole scene with little consequence to the story, you probably should. As I said before, you don't always have to show us, you can always tell us.

5. Everything needs to have a purpose.

I know there are probably lots of interesting or cute scenes where your characters are just fucking around, but if it doesn't develop character, relations, conflict, or plot, why should we care? Definitely still write them if they make you happy, but if you're gonna add it to your final draft, make sure it matters.

6. You don't need to explain everything all at once.

I know it feels tempting to put all the lore, and all the character's intentions, and reasonings into the first few chapters, but please refrain, you can reserve that for your character and worldbuilding sheets. Instead, take the time to let us get to know the characters, and the world, in the same way we'd get to know a real person. Make your exposition as seamless and natural as possible. It will take practice to know when to reveal information and when to let us wonder, but you'll get there.

7. Write in a way that comes naturally.

I know you probably have an author you wanna write just like, but that is unlikely to happen. Embrace your natural writing style and perfect it, rather than trying to be something you're not. Writing is an art, you need to find your own style and polish it as best you can.

8. Try to make us feel connected by cutting out certain words like "felt".

"Chad felt like a glass of water." Can be replaced with, "Chad was thirsty, so he reached for a glass of water." Both sentences tell us Chad wants a glass of water, but one makes us feel more connected to Chad than the other. Though both sentences have their time and place, you want to make your audience feel as close to their protagonist as possible. Make them feel like they're there, rather than just an onlooker.

9. We don't need to know every physical detail of your character.

I know you probably spent ages creating the perfect characters and you want to give us the perfect image of what they look like, but it can get monotonous and boring, why do we care that your character has brown eyes unless the colour has some sort of significance? Try to list off only the most notable features of your character and put focus only on the relevant details. Sometimes you can even not describe them at all and throw in little bits of information about their appearance for the audience to put together. We read to imagine, not to have a perfect image painted for us when we could be getting to the plot.

10. You're allowed to be vague.

Allow your audience to assume things, with some things you can just be lazy and let your audience's imagination do the work for you. Of course, don't do this with important things, but you can save so much time you might've spent researching an irrelevant topic when you can just be vague about it. You don't have to know everything you're writing about, so long as you know the bits that matter.

11. Writing is a skill that takes practice.

Don't be so hard on yourself if your writing is a bit cringe, we've all been there. The important part is that you research how to get better and keep writing those super cringe chapters. One day you'll reread something from a while ago and realize you're actually not as bad as you thought.

12. Leave your work to rest.

I know you wanna start editing right away, but once you've finished, leave it for at least a month. The longer you leave it the better, but that depends on your attention span. A month to six months is good if you're really impatient but want a good result. If you keep writing in that time your skills will continue to improve, then you'll be editing that draft with fresh eyes and fresh skills.

And if you're a fanfic author, I usually leave my chapters for a week before editing and posting.

Hope this helps anyone struggling, I thought this might be especially relevant now with nanowrimo.

I recently realized how much knowledge I've been accumulating over the years, I definitely have more but this is all I can think of for now.

I'm no writing guru, but if anyone has anything they're struggling with, I can do my best to help you out, so dont hesitate to ask questions.

#writing advice

[the960writers]

The Author Stack, Tutorials, Russell Nohelty Jul 14, 2021

How to design a signature series

[...] A book needs to sell roughly 10,000 copies to be considered a success, and almost no books get there on their own.

Most authors need multiple books to get traction, and a series is an effective way to do that efficiently.

So, how do we even start thinking about a series that could define our career?

[...]

First and foremost, there are many reasons to write a book, but the reason to write a signature series is to make money and define your career. There are plenty of smaller series and standalone books which you can write for fun, but a series is about pulling in the type of money that allows you to do this full-time.

It's an absolute mind-numbing amount of work and stress. There is no other reason to do a signature series than to define your career and create something that has long-term sales potential.

Here are the main questions you should ask before starting a signature series.

[...]

#publishing #indie publishing #self publishing #writing a series #signature series #writing career #writer's life #marketing #marketing for authors #author's life

[the960writers]

[ISBW] From Patent Memos to Nebula Nods with Wole Talabi

S20 Ep13: In Which Mur Attends Wole Talabi’s Creative Alchemy Transcript   “The primary driver of my sense of success is, ‘do I feel happy with what I’ve done?'” – Wole Talabi Mur chats with Wole Talabi, an engineer turned author (but still engineer). They discuss the Schrodinger’s Cat of publishing, the thrill of rewriting old stories for new audiences, and the joy of challenging the norms of…

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#oh this sounds like my kind of thing #podcast #writing podcast

[the960writers]

horse people are weird

#horses #horse knowledge

[the960writers]

Quotable – Chuck Wendig

#characters!!!

[the960writers]

when people talk about ao3 and are like ohh its the gay yaoi porn website for 30 year old white women it makes me cackle because the majority of works on the site fall under teen or general audiences 😭

there's a literal 2 million work difference between those two combined vs the 3 other ratings combined

#AO3 #archiveofourown #not the gay porn site

[the960writers]

(screams into pillow)

(find an ending, oh no...)

Yes. I know you're right! I know this! Thank you.

(more screaming into pillow)

I just realized that my problem with this short story is that it feels like it has no point. Because it's short.

Which is the point of a short story.

There can't be a massive arc in 3000 words, just a little one.

Maybe I'm just not made for short stories. It feels like I'm stopping just as it gets interesting.

#I know this! #how about listening to advice sometimes

[the960writers]

Just 1k, omg! The short story I wrote for the "60 days short story" project ended up at 10k. And that's fine! An unfamiliar setting, unfamiliar characters, I think it's the length is needs. There's even two climaxes and a happy end, 10k is a good length for that.

But this is a quieter story, and that's probably my problem. There is no room for an emotional climax because it's so quiet. 3k for a vibe.

"an aerosol can of emotion" I really like that expression. I can do this with fanfic, actually. My ficlets usually sit between 800 and 2000 words (she says, lying, it's more up to 4000 words) and they really do the condensed emotion thing. (It's always one specific thing and I keep writing it because I'm obsessed.)

I'm gonna have to throw this one at some beta readers and brace for critique, am I? (shrivels and hides)

I just realized that my problem with this short story is that it feels like it has no point. Because it's short.

Which is the point of a short story.

There can't be a massive arc in 3000 words, just a little one.

Maybe I'm just not made for short stories. It feels like I'm stopping just as it gets interesting.

#short stories #my nemesis

[the960writers]

(bad idea) Adding a horror element would probably make it more interesting...

This is a quiet little story and it's definitely suggesting more than explaining. But then it just ends.

Endings are my nemesis, even in long fiction.

It feels like, with the short format, it's like it makes my general writing problems stand out more, like it gets compacted and focused. See how you can never get to the point and never know how to end your shit, now in spotlight on billboard style.

I just realized that my problem with this short story is that it feels like it has no point. Because it's short.

Which is the point of a short story.

There can't be a massive arc in 3000 words, just a little one.

Maybe I'm just not made for short stories. It feels like I'm stopping just as it gets interesting.

#thank you! #man I'm so lost