10 REAL writing advice without sugar-coating

Hayka 2022-12-27 07:01:32 UTC #21

hmmm...I guess...well they're too...ummm...pessimitic and toxic in a way to be called ADVICE. I had a tough time writing, just thought I should share experience. If you were looking for "do your best and write what you like" then sorry to disappoint. That was NOT my experience

Hayka 2022-12-27 07:07:05 UTC #23

yeah I know. I was just saying "write LGBT well" since it has more audience and thus...more respnsibility and stronger representation

Hayka 2022-12-27 07:10:22 UTC #24

yeah I know about the risks, but I'll still do it.
I want my LGBT ships to progress with a good pace without people looking for it. It's fun making a ship that someone who wasn't expecting it finds it cute and wholesome, and I don't write LGBT focused novels, they're usually thriller and fantasy and psychological with LGBT ships. So I don't want people to look for smth that's not the focus, and be surprised (or mad) when it happens.

Hayka 2022-12-27 07:24:36 UTC #25

reminds me of that Kaguya meme :3
oh yeah vocab isnt the only way, thats why I said don't take it seriously. It's just one of the ways to improve it, and its definitely important, but vocab and grammar being everything is just smth in the past for classic novels. webnovels don't need to have that and people read stories they enjoy. so yeah don't really take that statement seriously.

indeed indeed. I actually had more reasons, but that kinda got me tired. It was a heavy mystery series and it got #140 in wattpad mystery section so it was pretty popular a couple of years ago, and most of the comments were just people looking for cute lgbt moments, which was not what I intended. So I removed it for a rewrite later on a platform where the majority care about the story and don't lose focus. I do like it when people comment on cute GL moments but not when that's ALL they comment on. Imagine dropping a HUGE plot twist that would change everything in the flow of your story, and then someone goes "uwu cute girls being cute" I was literally frozen in front of pc, staring blankly at the comment, thinking "wait that's all?" it kinda made me lose heart because whenever I was hyped posting layered dialogue or some good mystery, they never commented on it, like how a little dialogue back in chapter 3 played a big part in chapter 14. But yeah. That was quite unprofessional...maybe I'll start it again sometime.

Hayka 2022-12-27 07:40:05 UTC #26

it is, I said so. "Art is objective" that IS true. I just said "don't use it as an excuse to not improve"

Ahhh no you got me wrong it wasn't really a romance. The story was about a mysterious murder and a ghost writing a journal to a girl about her adventures in the afterlife and how those two stories link and connect with each other as the girl tries to run away from a murderer looking for her looking for clues in the journal that spirit left behind. There's a lot of stuff happening other than romance. But yeah I do agree, The ship was good, and I'm not complaining because people commented about it. I'm complaining because no one commented about other things. I wrote GL because I wanted to do some representation and have a cute yuri ship in it, and it went well with the twists of the story, but imagnie you make a huge plot twist and are excited to see people react to it by connecting the dots from previous chapters and say "woah" and then what you get is EVEN MORE comments on the GL part :3 its kinda not cool if you think about it.

oh I don't write LGBT focused. I just add some ships wherever I see two characters will make a cute couple and makes the story better. I usually write fantasy/psychological/thriller/mystery. Also, I know all of that. Ya don't need to tell me it's wrong because people look for what they want but still. Wouldn't you seriously be pissed when people disregard your attempts to write a good story and just talk about how cute the girls are?

that's a good line. I like it. Yeah I have a negative view on the topic, which is mostly related to my personality and the experiences I've had with writing.

yeah I know I don't mind. I was actually prepared for some beating

Hayka 2022-12-27 07:42:59 UTC #27

ahhh I'm usually not that snarky, but I decided to share my REAL experience (even if they are crappy), and some stuff I think people are too worked up about, like that whole thing with being a "ripoff"

Hayka 2022-12-27 08:01:35 UTC #28

yeah that's my first book as Hayka. I've written under my own name and the name Alice Quill for a while on wattpad. I'm not gonna mention my real name but I did make a rather popular series on wattpad. And no I never called what author says "BS" I said "inspirational BS" I have read great advice from great writers and I do love Gaiman. He makes a lot of witty dialogue, which I really love. wait did I even mention writing guides from popular authors in that point? oh naaah. of course art is objective, but I just said don't use that as an excuse to stop improving my work. If I believed that I would've been stuck with my "good and bad" series which was honestly just badly-written. But I kept calling it "crap" instead of "art is objective" and improved it and turned it into a huge series.

If you're talking about this, well yeah I still do believe this. You see, the writing advice an author gives is something applicable to THEM. That was how THEY got the recognition. So yeah they are unhelpful, although I've read some amazing ones "kickass writer" is an example of a REALLY GOOD writing book in which even the author explicitly states that most of it will be unhelpful jibber jabber because thats the way THE AUTHOR does it, and it shouldn't be YOUR method. So I respect that book. If you wanna read only one writing book, it should be that one. Recommended
Well anyway, I just recently started pro-writing and left the ones I did for fun. I'll rewrite them once I'm finished with my first series, or I might just do them while writing my main series little by little. So to answer your question, no I havent accomplished much if we ignore the GL series I did in wattpad which got pretty popular back in 2019. But yeah, I still won't take back anything I said because it was my honest opinion and I was ready for people not liking it.

Hayka 2022-12-27 08:13:19 UTC #29

can relate. SAID is tough. And my current novel is 70% important dialogue so its really tough.

oh I did say to not take it seriously, this is a thing from the past and for traditional pubbing; nowadays people are looking for a good story; and yeah I do read dictionaries and use thesaurus. But not for "all words" I mean, I do have to improve my writing style. Even if simplicity does work best, It doesnt mean I should stick to it. If you read my current novel, you realize how weird the writing style is, which is just for that series because the whole series is weird. If I wanted to write a normal one, I would've used simple words.

happened to me. Didnt like it

oh that's what it was. The GL was not a major focus

Hayka 2022-12-27 08:14:13 UTC #30

yeaaaah sorry for sounding cocky. I'm really not

Hayka 2022-12-27 08:16:03 UTC #31

yeah...again...sorry about that.

Hayka 2022-12-27 08:19:24 UTC #32

yes. I do agree. Still doesnt justify not improving, in any way. I never said "only use sophisticated" I said improve vocab and writing style as you go. its more relevant to point 7

Hayka 2022-12-27 08:22:47 UTC #33

hmmmm....I like that
but all jokes aside, I had more reasons than just fans noticing unimportant stuff, but that kinda made me lose heart and just let go for a while. I'll rewrite the series some time.

Hayka 2022-12-27 08:27:44 UTC #34

-_- dayum...sounds like some terrible advice I got. I'll make sure to do another part :3 lets see how it goes.

yes yes thats exactly why I said "don't take it seriously." it's an old belief that I have, and that's it

CarltonIsaac 2022-12-27 08:28:28 UTC #35

I'd advise you alter your Topic header so it won't be as misleading. Cheers.

Hayka 2022-12-27 08:33:40 UTC #36

oh wow so many feisty comments...you guys sure are energetic today. Did something good happen?
so what was your experiences with writing? I'm mostly curious about my third point.
if you want to do smth and someone called it a ripoff, what would be your reaction?

Hayka 2022-12-27 08:39:55 UTC #37

hmmm? no
that was actual honest advice. If you don't like it doesnt mean I should adapt what I say to your taste. Sorry if my advice is trash. Its MY advice. Just like how any other authers advice won't work on other people because its a personal thing THEY did, mine is also mine. if you don't like smth then simply do not do it ://
what exactly will "me changing header" do here?

DasIstWunderblyat 2022-12-27 08:51:27 UTC #38

Yes try to rewrite and do a different approach, ot might give you a new perspective and even develop into something different.

I think if we were somehow able to transfer what pictured in our minds faithfully into readers', many will still cherrypick parts they like the most or getting the things wrong. That is a bold choice if someone want to police what readers should think or do, but it may not go well.

NellieVP318 2022-12-27 13:17:55 UTC #39

While I agree with some of the advice like 1 and 2, I do think the rest of the advice can be subjective according to each person. This is more of a each to it's own advice guideline.

The whole representation thing is mixed bag. I get there is a lot of bad writing surrounding representation. But if I learn one thing is that you can't really control what readers ship. That's why I got into the mindset that any readers can ship your characters whether you like it or not. I don't care much if people ship my characters for whatever reason, but that's just me. It's apart of the whole sharing your story and putting it out there with the whole culture around fandoms and fanfiction in all.

Don't get me wrong, it does get annoying when people focus on around shipping whether it is LGBTQ or not. I would take it to allow the whole shipping thing to happen just as long your readers don't demand for your story to focus around that. While I have some LGBTQ characters, I have yet to make a novel focused around them since in the current story. They don't have a huge focus enough for me to justify tagging the story.

Hayka 2022-12-27 13:35:28 UTC #40

that's exactly me. It wasn't an LGBT novel. it was a mystery novel with 2 girls that end up together.

hmmm...what about point 3? have you experienced it before?

NellieVP318 2022-12-27 13:46:31 UTC #41

Point 3? I can see the point about the ripoff thing. I used to write a story about magical girls because when I was younger, I was into the magical girls genre. That genre has have a lot of 'ripoff' but each magical girl story was different on its own way. But I know people get bored of rip offs a lot.

Therefore, I totally get people complaints about things being unoriginal as I used to be into that mindset with another long time writer friend of mine. We used to get frustrated about any of our stories or characters having the same ideas as other creators. We really wanted our creations to be special so when you have someone that almost the same idea or concept as you. It does get frustrating because you really want to stand out from the crowd. Nowadays, I'm mostly over that because it's literally impossible to have a complete original story or character these days.

So my whole point is writers should just focus on the execution of the story rather than trying to be "original". But I know the aim of trying to original is a mindset that it's hard for any creative to get out of. There is no shame for at least trying to stand out from the works a bit so I don't blame these creators for trying to be original.