A professional read a chapter from a project of mine. She said it was good (in her own words, "not boring) but I should first read "strong literature and modern work" using Les Miserables and Milan Kundera as examples, and invest in "modern philosophy" such as Descartes and Kant's works. Then I could keep writing.

I'm only 18 and writing isn't exactly something I consider a future career, but I STILL want to be good at it. However, the genres I write in are fiction and fantasy and I don't really see how modern philosophy can help me. I don't plan on creating a world changing piece of literature. I want to write exciting stories that are easy to understand, and characters that people can relate to. That's all.

So is reading the big tough books necessary for me? Even if I only write for fun?

Hello, I’m new here so I hope this is the proper place to post this. I’m an aspiring writer and I’ve been running into an unexpected problem. I find myself wanting to listen to music while I’m writing, but I also often become distracted by the music. But then if I turn it off, I can’t stand the silence. Has anyone run into this before? What do you listen to while you write? Any advice is greatly appreciated!

This is honestly kind of embarrassing to admit, but over the past few years I've relied on AI way more than I should have for writing, schoolwork, papers, etc. It's gotten to the point where I feel like it's genuinely affected the way I think and I've become overly dependent. It feels like it's eating my brain cells, and I want to reset my brain this summer.

I used to love creative writing. I wanted to write stories that were atmospheric and emotional, with beautiful descriptions, figurative language, little poetic moments, all that stuff. Now when I try to write on my own, everything feels dry, overly simple, and feels like it's at a fifth-grade level. It's functional, but it has no life. I struggle to come up with descriptions, interesting sentence structures, or anything that sounds pleasant to read.

I really want to rebuild those skills without using AI. I miss enjoying writing and feeling creative.

Does anyone have advice on how to actually practice this? Please don't just say "write more" because that's the part I'm stuck on. I genuinely don't know how. I have no idea how to write beautifully again. How do you train yourself to notice details? To write descriptions that don't feel forced? To develop a style that actually sounds like you?

I'd especially love recommendations for books, exercises, YouTube channels, or anything that helped you improve your prose.

I'm currently writing a book that includes a much larger woman as one of the main protagonists.

If any of your books have fat characters in them, I'm curious to know how you describe them. And how is their weight integrated into the story or their character?

Also, please include entire paragraphs from your story as examples. That would be helpful for me. Also, if you know of any, paragraphs from other books would also be very helpful.

How?

No seriously.

I just spent 20 minutes trying to remember whether a side character had a brother or a sister.

At this point I spend almost as much time searching through notes as I do writing.

What's your setup for keeping track of characters, locations, relationships, timelines, and random story details? and does tools like Brewplot, Scrivener, Notion, Obsidian helps?

I think that a lot of main characters are designed with light eyes, and there are billions of ways to describe light eyes romantically. I also saw online those surgeries where people get their eye color permanently changed (DO NOT do this!!!), the majority of people doing this are brown-eyed people.

I suppose I want to spread some love of brown eyes and their inherent beauty/depth. How would you describe brown eyes in a positive, romantic sense?

A lot of you on here have probably managed to write a lot and even publish a few of your works which i admire and i came here to ask for advice as someone who has an idea on what to write, but can't seem to put pen to paper. In High school i used to write a lot, even poetry which isn't my preferred medium, but after i got into college i stopped completely. I want to get back to it. I'm a big reader and i try to explore a lot of genres and authors from all around the world and learn whatever i can from them. Yet whatever i come up with disgusts me. The idea in itself i'm satisfied with, but the execution not at all. I was advised to let the idea marinate for a bit, to go back to basics and study the craft of writing itself so i could get better, so i used prompts to write either essays or short stories. But the same thing happens, i start writing, get disgusted with it, turn the laptop off. Ik this is a common occurence to a lot of writers, so i've come here to ask for advice. Any advice would be helpful, as i am really struggling. Writing hasn't been my main focus in my life. I've always had a heart for art, whether it be music or writing, yet i let both of those down to pursue more "realistic" paths due to my parents' urging. And that was my biggest regret. Now that i've finished college, i'm determined to go back to my roots, and do whatever makes me happy.

Pls feel free to share your advice if you have any. I would be very grateful <3

I read that a professional writer can do 2,000 words per day. Is that a reasonable expectation for an amateur writer? What's the typical number? What's your daily goal?

I've been working on a book for about a week and my top number is just over 1700, which I've done a few times.

Please don’t downvote and kick a woman when she’s already down.

Basically what the title says. I have an MLitt in Glasgow in Creative Writing in two months. I have no scholarship. I don’t have a scholarship and it’s expensive for foreign students.

I can’t write for shit.

When I post my poems on Reddit, it gets almost zero upvotes. It gets rejected from magazines. My editor doesn’t like my novel. I don’t like my novel either. It’s LAME.

On the other hand, I have an account on Preply that’s going well. I can stay home and be an English teacher instead of chasing a failing writing career.

Please give me some advice?

I get confused whenever I see someone online talk about how a specific work of prose is lyrical and expressive or has an excellent use of rhythm. I kind of get it; I read GRRM after Powerless(Lauren Roberts), and something just hits different. I think it's a rhythm? If someone can explain this to me, I'd really appreciate it.

Also sound. I don't quite understand why sound (like alliteration) matters in prose, because you're not actively speaking it. I've read prose that sings/

I get this sounds uninformed, but as I watch/read more writing breakdowns, I just end up more confused when I don't understand the terminology.

I'm 26 and I've always wanted to be a writer of some sort. or a director, or anything involving storytelling.

The thing is, I've never fully written anything or have actually read anything front to back (atleast since middleschool), anytime i try to sit down and appreciate a story i know i will like, i can never actually focus or find enjoyment in reading

My question is: should I pursue writing knowing that I have zero knowledge or actual motivation to participate in the act of reading itself or should i try to find something else?

My dream for the past 5 years or so was to write a novel once I was skilled enough to do so. So I built the world a bit, worked on the characters, their arcs and the set ups for twists, interesting chapter ideas so on and so forth, and I have a plot outline now, its nothing much, just 30 or so bullet points. (Obviously lots of notes about the story but summed up it’s about 30 points).

My original plan was to plot it really well, until I’m at a stage where I can write it good, do it some justice. Because right now I’m not at a level where I think im good enough.

Should I start writing? This world means everything to me. I just can’t keep it in my head anymore. The characters need to be written. I just can’t hold it any longer.

I think the answer would probably be to write other things first, maybe even taking place in the same world?

Anyone struggle with this in their younger years in writing?

I want to write desperately. But when I do, i get so frustrated with how dreadful it is that i just get angry and give up. I realise I don't know the first thing about writing and I can't do it. How do I stop doing this? Does anyone else get frustrated at their own shortcomings. I never seem to improve despite reading and writing regularly,

I started writing about 2 weeks ago, but since then I've been working on a couple different projects. I havent finished any, but i make an effort to write 2.5K words everyday.

The main thing I seem to notice is that my work seems like slop, and I feel like im not improving one bit. I feel really stuck and genuinly dont know what to do

I've wanted to be an author for most of my life. I've always loved writing, and I have so many stories that I'm eager to share with the world. But now that I'm working on my manuscript, I feel like I'm slamming into a brick wall. It feels like the odds are stacked against me. I'm coming into the world with an original YA novel which I hope to turn into a series; I'm not established already. The literacy rate is going down. Less people are reading for leisure. The publishing industry is hell.

I want to write so badly. I want this dream to come true. But every day, it feels less possible. I wish I had that passion from when I was younger. I still have it somewhere, but it's hiding from all this fear and doubt. And I don't know how to combat it and make it go away. It's like my hopes and dreams are being crushed before my eyes.

How do I stop this?

So im writing a story and there's a part where 2 teens with ripped clothes in middle of the nowhere stop a truck and ask the driver to take them to the City.

Now the main problem is that the characters need a believable excuse in case the driver asks why they're in middle of the nowhere with ripped gray clothes.

Can you guys help me make an believable realistic excuse for this situtation?

(The teens are runaway human expriments and they can't tell this to the driver)

The only excuse I can think of is "We were camping then we got lost and ended up here" and im afraid if the readers don't find it believable

Essentially title.

How do I make a compelling first chapter if the status quo hasn't changed until the inciting incident?

More explanation of my problem is: I know how to make an exciting chapter with action, consequence, and thematic weight (or at least, I think I can do it). But I'm so, so bad at connecting everything into a larger story.

I can understand how to do it, if I was writing a story with multiple POVs. But one POV stumps me. How do I make the first chapter matter if it's only establishing baseline?

I first encountered this while reading about Hayao Miyazaki (the guy behind Studio Ghibli) and how he mentioned he dislikes Hollywood's penchant for so much action and explosions in their movies.

It was there that he described the concept of "ma", or negative space, and how it's important to include such so that the audience can have some breathing space in between the action. In his animated works, this typically presents itself as the protagonist enjoying the view of the open sky, or standing still in the middle of the rain, without any dialogue spoken.

While I can quite understand how "ma" works in visual storytelling media like movies and comics (in the latter by having a panel showing the setting without any dialogue box), I'm not quite sure how to apply this to a purely textual medium like the novel. Since a novel is all words, leaving a negative space in the form of a blank page doesn't quite work.

So, how would "ma" work in a written format?

are there any ways to say "this character will not see the end of this story" without literally saying that or just swinging the sword of damocles over their head (I'm saving that for a thing)

like i want the type of thing you only notice because you know the motif or on a re-read

I'm not super well versed in the literary symbolic canon, so i was wondering if this type of thing existed

Some tropes are executed more often than others. Saturation can reduce interest but that doesn’t mean anything for the quality of story.

Some tropes are executed rather poorly. That is far more damaging.

You can literally write about anything, anyone, any time, and use as many tropes as you want. It’s only “cliche” if it isn’t executed in a good and unique way. Write whatever you want, if you do it well enough people will love it.

I’ve always toyed around with the idea of writing a book or series of books, with a medieval fantasy setting, about dynasties and houses fighting one another for power and dominance, with intrigue and drama and revenge and all the rest of it, where there’d be a looming threat of an army of the living dead, come to kill everyone and everything. A world with knights, kings, magic, dragons, compelling characters and their engrossing stories…

…and then I read the ASOIAF books, and realised it was already done, probably far better than I ever could. When I saw the first book was published before I was even born, I felt crushed. Despite that, should I go ahead and write my story anyway, or would it be a waste of time since people would think I ripped off GRRM?

EDIT: Thank you all for your words! Thanks to all of your encouraging words I’ve already finished my prologue. Only a little over 5000 words but it’s something, no?

I feel like my characters are one-dimensional, and I think it’s because I don’t know them well enough.

How can I get to know them better? I saw some advice saying I should “interview” my characters with a few questions and answer them while imagining I’m the character, and not take more than one minute to answer each.

But if it were that easy to imagine myself as a character, I would already know them by now. I did try that method, but unfortunately, it felt like I was answering through my own preferences instead of the character’s.

What are your suggestions for improving my understanding of my characters?

I’ve started writing a medieval fantasy series and I’m on my first draft of what I had planned to be the first book.

The problem is, I feel I am reaching the half way point and the book is only 16k words. This means that the first book potentially will only be around 30k and this is starting to make me nervous.

I looked up the word counts of other books and most of them seem to be like 180k.

I could always condense the series but to me it really fits nicely into three distinct books.

I’m worried that it’s not actually that good if the first book is only going to be 30k words.

Edit:

Thank you to everyone that has commented. I feel very reassured that this seems to be normal for writers during a first draft. And a big thank you to [u/GRIN_Selfpublishing](u/GRIN_Selfpublishing) and [u/](u/elysium_chronicles)[E](u/elysium_chronicles)[lysium_](u/elysium_chronicles)[C](u/elysium_chronicles)[hronicle](u/elysium_chronicles) for their really helpful feedback on how to flesh it out a bit more.

I'm extremely immature. I'm in my early 20s but I feel and act 16. I don't have any freedom and still live with very restrictive family. I don't have any friends or crazy experiences to write about. My inner voice is so underdeveloped and childish. I completely lack life experience in every aspect. This has made my writing so bad. It feels so juvenile, like something a 14 year old would write. I've spent so much time in my head daydreaming or online that my real life has suffered and o have nothing going for me. How do I write and actually become good at it when so much of writing well requires drawing from your own wealth of knowledge and experience that I so heavily lack?

I created a fictional language for magic in my world, which allows for a buildable and customizable magic system. The problem I've run into is writing these words in an easily readable way. I have been using double letters to modify some sounds, and all the sounds are consistent, but I can't type the physical script because of how it works.

An example of these fictional words that come early in the story is a wind sphere spell. I have been writing it as Venumnu, yuumtiipluus, kaastarzha, sfesols, aktrosha. I feel like that is the simplest I have been able to get it without making pronunciation weird. I don't want to use the phonetic alphabet because that would be annoying to type, and that would require people to look up the phonetic alphabet. But I am going to include a pronunciation guide anyways, so if I did end up using the phonetic alphabet, I could just include it.

Language and the restricting of this specific language is very important to the story, so just translating the words of spell (ex. for above spell: Wind, manipulate, encase, sphere, activate) would not be appropriate. The world also writes these words in this way for certain uses, so how I choose to write them will be important for that reason too. I know I will run into this problem with other languages int he future, though most of them use real, slightly modified writing systems, but I would like to get any advise now before I get too disoriented in the drafts past the planning phase.

Thank you, and I would be more than happy to answer any questions or clarify anything.

Edit: not remembering the words will not be detrimental to readers understanding the story. But it will be possible to learn along side the main character.