10 REAL writing advice without sugar-coating

Freemints30 2022-12-27 16:40:33 UTC #42

Then I wouldn't call that harsh or decent writing advise. Like at all. I would call it more crippling yourself in an attempt at. ... Something. Reddit upvotes maybe?

Maybe.. the huge plot twist that changed everything in your most popular series you deleted... Wasnt that good and the cute girls part was the better written part. If that's literally all what the commenters was talking about. Food for thought.

Honestly its more immature especially dropping an entire work cus people """didnt focus on what you like""". Thats all series, fans like to focus on cute stuff. Straight ships, friendships, characters that they can see themselves in POCs, LGBTQ, disabled ect. Thats every series if you cant handle that then... you may not be cut out as a creator or a bigger creator

Honestly this less a writing advise thread and more "here's my takes" i dont recommend people following half of these if they are serious about writing.

Forced diversity isnt a thing...

abigaillmartin 2022-12-27 17:06:35 UTC #43

Why do people assume it’s just forced diversity when they see LGBTQ, people of color and such?

BoomerZ 2022-12-27 17:40:18 UTC #44

Forced diversity is diversity that doesn't fit the situation.

bloodstained.skies 2022-12-27 18:39:05 UTC #45

FINALLY! FINALLY someone posted something that makes sense. You said everything I was saying for years. 100% agree. I suppose this will p*ss off many people but people just hate hearing the truth

aqua03 2022-12-27 19:02:42 UTC #46

At the risk of sounding like "That guy" i think when most (sane) people mention "Forced Diversity" they mean when say it's inserted in a way that doesn't service the themes or story the writer is trying get at if that makes sense.

Like say for example if I did something like Peanuts and had the white kids just hanging with other kids of different ethnicities like it's no big deal. That's not forced diversity, that's just how things be. Now if say every time said characters showed up, I grind the plot to a halt to sit the audience down for a lecture about how "racism's bad, mmkay?" even if the rest of the story wasn't about racism or the like. Then that would be considered "forced".

Now if say I was writing a story about how bigotry and racism hurt people, then it would be more okay to have lectures like that if that makes sense (though in a way that's natural to the story and not like I'm just sitting the audience down for a class lecture on the themes of the story)

Anyways, that's my thoughts on the subject anyways.

abigaillmartin 2022-12-27 19:08:59 UTC #47

Of course! Like it’s forced if it doesn’t have to do anything with the story or the characters, that’s what I believe.

HGohwell 2022-12-27 19:35:21 UTC #48

And this is the problem with your entire post; you undermined your points by giving them a sensationalist, edgy header, then make an entirely different point. "All inspirational advice is bs" is not in anyway the same as "don't use personal taste as an excuse to not improve". Especially when the "inspirational bs" is correct. The same way your forced diversity part isn't about forced diversity, it's about bad romance, which is not the same at all.

And (this is going to sound nasty but there's no nice way to put it) no one should take advice from someone who says art is objective. Art is entirely subjective. Now, there are aspects of art or writing that can be said to be objective, such as anatomy and spelling, but you can have perfect spelling all you want, if I don't like the piece, I don't like the piece, because taste is subjective. Just there are many terribly acted films that we love, or even non-anatomically correct animations or comics. Because art or writing are a culmination of their parts then presented to someone to like or dislike based on their personal tastes. The amount of times I've disagreed with judges and industry experts on things like portrait art awards, for example.

No, because it's happened. I've written really awesome (to me) complex plots and had people comment on them and then similar stories people ignore them for the ship. I revealed half the cast has been dead for chapters and got comments on the relationship not getting together yet or how unfair it was he was flirting with another man because he's got a boyfriend (who while endgame, they hadn't got together at this stage of the story) so I get that it's frustrating. But rather than whine about it, I go and look at what worked for one and what didn't work in the other. If the readers aren't taking away what you want them to, it's on you, not them. You're coming across exactly the same as those writers who yell at fans for shipping the hero and his rival who have an entire series full of chemistry and bonding, rather than the card board cut out love interest they shoved into a relationship at the last minute and didn't bother giving the hero any chemistry with, and think that's the fans fault rather than maybe thinking they should write a better love interest.

NellieVP318 2022-12-27 19:52:01 UTC #49

I always saw the term "Forced Diversity" whenever mainstream media just put whatever character who is X in and don't even bother with developing the character and just do it for "brownie points" for being diverse so the audience can praise them. Not saying that all mainstream media and creators do this, but it is trend that some of them do this which is a trend that should stop.

HGohwell 2022-12-27 19:57:25 UTC #50

This just reminds me of all Disney's "first gay character ever" characters, who they make a big deal of in marketing only for them to have all of a second on screen, no speaking lines and then never be seen again. Or characters who's ever line is "hey btw, did you know I'm gay" and no other character traits. Which, yeah, is cynical and forced, but not at all what the OP was talking about, (which is my frustration with their post in general).

Hayka 2022-12-27 20:16:09 UTC #51

yes. But not entirely that's the whole point. As you said some aspects of it are...you're having a big misunderstanding here. I seperated the "storytelling" and "the writing"
what I meant by "improve writing" is "improve the technique" such as the spelling and your style. I wasn't talking about the "storytelling" part. It was the "writing". The storytelling is subjective but the writing, at least I don't go with that, and try to make it good as much as I can. The story is completely subjective.

what you said about the headers are true. Will keep that in mind. They were dumb, I agree.

And no, there were more reasons for me to delete the novel, people being people just kinda disheartened me a bit. And no I haven't DROPPED it. One of the reasons I deleted it was because of the rewrite. And no, it didn't have as much GL as you think it did, and the mystery WAS well-written, at least to me and my nerdy beta readers. I do get what you say. I like cute stuff too, but when I write something I value for something else entirely, I'll get disappointed when others don't see that value.
And about the other issues others keep pushing, "forced diversity" and "badly written LGBT" are both issues that exist.
a badly written LGBT is an LGBT story that is not well written.
Forced Diversity is "there HAS to be LGBT character even if it doesnt make sense" in recent movies and TV shows. Did you see the Death Note live action? They made L dark-skinned, The entire movie is basically giving a middle finger to the original author, saying "screw u we want representation"

imo LGBT and diversity should feel natural. I told you an example above. A bisexual or gay relationship should start and develop and be something beautiful, and have good character that have layers and care about each other. That's a great representation. just adding a black character doesnt solve things. That just feels forced, at least to me, idk about you. But yeah. "forced diversity" is indeed a thing that should be addressed. This is not coming from a homophobe. This is literally coming from someone who IS in the community as a pan.

Freemints30 2022-12-27 20:29:08 UTC #52

Okay that's not forced diversity and the author mention loved the adaption. Although I dislike it for being badly written. """forced diversity wasnt the problem. Ironically what was the issue? all the actors were white instead of japnases, and those were not an issue? L being black was what stand out the most? The adpation change the setting to American (which you can argue whether or not its good or bad all day, but the point is it was less forced and more just a change in ins setting)

Ironically L's casting was the best part due to getting an actor I felt fit L. L being black was not a problem, in writing nor as story telling.

Hayka 2022-12-27 20:39:22 UTC #53

ahhh fine u do u ig
I hated it, and I do think it had forced diversity. It still exists, ya'll just turn a blind when you see it. The actor did do a good job tho, don't get me wrong, but still felt forced to me.
no point stretching this.when our views are this different. I said my takes and all the points I made meant perfect sense to me, and those were the experiences I had, sure I was snarky explaining my points but I'm not backing off. If you don't like it I don't mind really. All I did was give some heartfelt advice, or bs, or whatever you wanna call it. It's not like I have to perfect at it. That's what all writing guides do. None of them actually help, they're just the author's experience doing the writy thingy. Take them if you want. leave them if you want. Why waste your time arguing with me, really?

HGohwell 2022-12-27 20:40:19 UTC #54

Clearly, you are not getting things across as well as you think you are, if so many people seem to be misunderstanding you're points. So I'm going to speed round this, because you seem to just be digging your heels in defensively rather than actually wanting to engage critically with people's views on your advice that seems more like a bad experience you want to rant about than actual advice. Reminds me of those people who always used to turn up here complaining that to get ahead on Tapas, don't write proper stories, write trashy cliches because that's all the top stories are.

You separated technique and story telling, but most of those "everyone has different tastes" are about story telling, not technique, because very few of these writing advice book/podcast/articles ever cover technique like SPaG. Your point was badly presented at best, disingenuous at worst.
This was also another case of your presenting it badly then, because from the responses, basically everyone took it as you saying you had dropped it because people didn't focus on what you wanted them too. You bringing up GL constantly makes it look like a romance, because GL is romance. You're giving out that impression, if you'd just called it a mystery, or a mystery with background romance, people would have understood more. You put GL Mystery, giving the GL as much, if not more weight than the mystery. You say you don't want to put too much focus on the ship, but your presentation is doing so.
Again, what you described in the main post was no necessarily forced, and has been attributed just as often to straight romances, and just rookie romances in general. That you focused on romance over any other representation made that seem more the case. Nothing you pointed out was exclusive to representation, LGBTQ+ or otherwise. So another case of you needing to present your points better.
Was there a reason for him not to be dark-skinned? Please, tell me the reason why he shouldn't be dark-skinned. Or why any anime/manga character shouldn't be dark-skinned. Especially since the moved it to America, where there's a high population of darker skinned people than Japan so why not reflect that in your casting? (it makes as much sense a secret detective orphanages do) and tried to pass that other kid off as Light? If anything, dark-skinned L was the least of the issues with characters in that film, at least he'd clearly seen Death Note and was trying to bring L to his character. Are you really telling me making him white or Asian would have saved that at all? Death Note was a pretty badly done movie, made worse by trying to say they were the same characters but writing them completely differently. Bad writing all round. Pick a different movie and try to make the point again rather than picking a not great movie with bad writing and saying it was casting the person of colour that made it bad. (Also, by all reports, the original creator liked the Netflix Death Note, which having seen his latest work, I believe, so don't bring him into it to make a cheap point).
You make a point about the difference between forced and badly written but use badly written as an example of forced.
Again, being unnatural doesn't mean it's "forced" by some exec. Sometimes, it's just badly written by a newbie writer who wants to write it but has no idea how. Sometimes, straight romance is just as unnatural and forced. Putting it all on representation and ignoring the same problem in default straight white characters/romances is cheap.

TL:DR you seem to have an issue with getting across what you want to say and people apparently focusing on the wrong thing.

Hayka 2022-12-27 22:06:06 UTC #55

no I love writing stories, no rants here. That's actually what I follow. If you don't, then okay. This is advice from a certain someone. you don't HAVE to do anything. People who share the same ideas get something out of it. People who don't, don't.

Are you really still on this? I just said storytelling (the art) might be subjective but don't use that as an excuse to not improve your writing (technique); despite storytelling, writing is objective thats literally the whole thing. What else is there?

there were other reasons, I just didn't wanna go there. Also I was a newbie back then. It's from 2018-2019.

probably.

hmmmm...not quite. An unnatural relationship or an unnatural character or an unnatural representation can sometimes be an advantage to a story, because it gives room for development. A forced representation is when you add LGBT just to represent and have people say "woaah" and all that. It's forced when it does not contribute to the story at all

look I'm not saying representation is bad or anything like that. Its like how you see a ship in a series that makes you "ight this is a pointless ship thats just there for the lgbt" and I dont like that. I prefer get into a novel and get introduced to a really well-developed LGBT ship that I wasn't expecting instead of seeing 12 LGBT tags on a novel. This happens more frequently on Wattpad where people have more freedom with tags. They just keep adding LGBT tags and most of them are not done well, and it just feels like they're there to fill in the blanks and appeal to people who are into LGBT stories. I've seen so many good stories do so much more with just one tag, and without forcing things, letting the characters flow and the romance build up little by little, it feels honest and pleasing when I read it, I can't really explain it. When I see the character, its like they belong to that story, and that they have something to add. Now compare this to a story with 12 different LGBT tags with bad (or no) development. Personally, when I read that, I feel like its fake. I don't like it when a book tries to add everything to appeal to the majority, I don't mean all books do that, obviously.
I don't know if you get how I feel. You probably don't.

sorry but I'm not reading this. Call me a bigoted idiot, but I'm really not, since it'll definitely go downhill after this. I'm not arguing with you on this topic anymore. I'm not racist, and I'm not sexist. I respect everyone regardless of their gender and race. Don't pull me into this rabbit hole. I wasn't even talking about this in the first place. I just want people to be people without needing to prove anything. I would love dark-skinned L if he was originally one. He'd be badass. But when you already have an established character, changing them when you change mediums just seems fake. It's like you're forcing it. The original point I mentioned wasn't even about this it was about the flow of the story, so don't even think about escalating this topic. If you have anything to say about other points, be my guest. I'm quite curious about point 3, and if you have similar experience. But we have different views on representation and it seems like we won't get along if we keep arguing it. Fighting over that will be a waste of time
I accept that I didn't communicate my points well, but I won't be dragged into this. I rest my points, if you don't agree, then don't. If you think forced representation doesnt exist then that's cool. But I think it does, and that's cool too. So can we leave it at that and stop dragging that point on? Because idk about you, but I'm getting really tired of talking about this.

Yuurena 2022-12-27 22:29:11 UTC #56

While I agree wholeheartedly with your 8th rule, the 6th just doesn't sit right with me, though of course this is only my opinion. I know you said not to take it too seriously, but I just feel a need to say this. > "A novel with smarty words and good vocabulary is automatically superior to the one with bad vocabulary" yes...this is the rule. A novelist should always be smarter than the majority of their readers. If we see storytelling as some sort of LIE, then to drown your readers in your lies, you need to be smart enough, and a way to showcase that, is by using good words."
Smarty words and good vocabulary can be a good asset to any writing, but they're not at all what "drowns your readers in your lies." It has more to do with style, imageries, metaphors, rather than vocabularies and dictionaries. You could find 10 synonyms for one word and still have your text read as somewhat shallow and lifeless. The secret for me is in the way you use these words. That's a more important technique I believe. Besides this point, though, your tips are very insightful and like I said I especially agree with the 8th one Although I used to read GL, I now avoid every new LGBTQ story because of this said phenomenon. Granted, not all stories force it and have it be the only personality trait of the characters, but most ones do, especially the new ones, from what I've seen. So yeah, I hope new writers who get into LGBTQ as a theme for their writings would do a bit more research on characterization and the way such a theme can be introduced smoothly within a plot.

Freemints30 2022-12-27 22:47:48 UTC #57

You have not answered the question. Why is L dark skin considered forced diversity and not Light being white? Why?

Once again this is less advise and more just cheap takes, very poorly made takes that does not reflect the currant market or consumer consumption or makes even finical or literary sense. You may say you are not racists or homophobic. No one has called you that, but it can come off as that due to how poorly its written it all is, (lol poor writing puns). Especially when most people critiquing you are queer or POC themselves so they know what they are talking about and have issues with. Most people here are just questioning and have either professional experience or researched and really that mentality of doubling down doesn't go too well. Makes people wonder your credentials. especially questioning things as you claim. (Im suspecting shenanigans)

"My black co-workers..." bruh....Say that out loud again, slowly

Being able to take critique is a good trait as a writer or creator. Doubling down in face of it is not and more a sign of creator who has alot of growing up to do. Sensitivity readers and a diverse set of Beta Readers (that are not your friends) are necessary for that reasons.

Once again creator with common sense would just call this thread "redditor give advise" or "poorly done takes" or "My black co-w-"

abigaillmartin 2022-12-27 22:49:55 UTC #58

I’ve heard the term brownie points. It’s kind of a stupid buzzword if you ask me. I love diversity and in my opinion it’s great no matter what! Though there are some instances where I feel like there is too much that it stops characters from developing which is super annoying. If I’m going to make a character who historically has been persecuted or marginalized or not represented I will give them a purpose in my story and really I don’t care if my characters are black, white purple orange, gay, straight nonbinary male female, a cat a dog I literally don’t care. They are characters that should represent humanity and creatures as we are, living breathing humans all in this together and on one rock.

NellieVP318 2022-12-27 23:03:33 UTC #59

I know the term "brownie points" is kinda silly, but from the way mainstream media going a bit too far with just putting characters without developing them is just annoying and come off as performative at times. Don't get me wrong, there are good diverse media out there from creators who do care.

I don't want to drag the thread too off topic as it is. But I do agree with you with having your characters reflect in humanity and creatures. It just makes sense like that.

HGohwell 2022-12-27 23:26:08 UTC #60

Yeah, I can tell, or you would have realised I called you none of the things you're bringing up and even agreed with some of the points you're making here. Especially that the biggest issue was trying to call them the same characters while totally missing the point of those characters or even their American social equivalents. But please, make yourself the victim of things I didn't say, by all means and claim that responding to points you made and discussing them and your responses is dragging you into something.

Doesn't this just say everything about how much you actually want to discuss things?

For the record, I have no issue having conversations about harsher or unpopular advice, I did my own thread on this a while back and it was an overall very positive experience. So here, let's try a little positivity and try to actually make sense of this advice, rather than you just getting defensive and talking about your own points, huh? Less edge, more advice.

Lower you're expectation and manage them. Solid advice. People coming in here thinking they're the next big thing are almost always disappoints.
Perseverance is important. Webcomic/novels is a long, hard slog that can and will take years to pay off. It's unlikely to happen immediately, but that doesn't mean it won't happen.
Originality and quality are not the same. Just because something is original doesn't mean it's good. Predictable does not mean bad. There is very little that's entirely original these days anyway. Don't let people comparing you to something else put you off, as long as you're not actually just changing the names or something.
Don't use personal taste as an excuse not to improve. If the readers aren't biting or you're lacking in engagement, rather than complaining that people only like trash or don't appreciate you're taste, look at your work and be introspective before blaming the others, maybe there are improvements to be made.
This is weirdly conflated with Point 4 and is really just an odd thing to make it's own thing when if you take out the stuff about (correct) inspirational advice, it's exactly the same. Improve your craft before blaming other people.
Use the right words in the right places. Said is not dead, but a well placed bellowed can have a lot of impact. At the same time, every time you use a dialogue tag that stands out, you diminish their effect. If every line is shouted, bellowed, yelled and screamed, it all becomes noise. The same with vocabulary. It's all well and good to use big, complicated smart words, but if I have to stop every other word and look it up, I'm putting the book down. Your narrative should be accessible, fit your character's voice and your target audience's vocabulary. Doing it all isn't easy, but that's why it's a skill. Knowing big words makes you smart, knowing when to use them makes you wise.
Internal consistency. The best way to avoid plot holes is internal consistency and simple rules and planning. Even if you're pantsing something, take notes as you go of any rules you set so you don't cross them later. But also, remember, as long as it's not distractingly bad, only the minority will care. So either plan like a master, or wing it like a master and go "yeah, I totally meant to do that".
Write what you want to write, not what you think will be popular. On the flip side, don't pick a genre because it's got less competition so you think you can dominate. Marketing is important. If you tag your genre wrong, you might get an influx of readers to start, but they'll soon realise it wasn't what was promised and either leave, complain or focus on the wrong things. And maybe you won't be perfect at it, but an honest attempt is always better than a cynical one, even if it's bad.
Your first project will more than likely suck. Use it as a learning experience, but don't take too long. While it's good to practice, if you wait for the time to be right and to be ready, you'll never get started. There's a medium between jumping in headlong and hesitating forever. You have to find it for yourself.
Research is important, but remember not to use it as an excuse not to actually write. You can research forever.

As I said, I made a post very similar a while back and we got some good discussion out of it, even hitting a lot of these points. It's definitely your presentation that has seen this spiral the way it has.

EncryptedWriting 2022-12-27 23:29:06 UTC #61

@moderators might want to take a look at this one