Fic Talk > General Discussion
The Writing Thread: Orlando Passaggio (aka The Writing Thread 3)
nicksgal:
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on April 22, 2021, 10:17:19 PM ---I always think I'm going to feel that way after finishing a particularly intense medical drama, but I inevitably end up coming back for more. I feel that way more about writing than reading, though. I've never gotten burnt out on reading well-written medical drama by other authors - like I said earlier, I wish there was more of it out there.
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I don't think I've ever gotten tired of reading fantasy. It's nice to be able to just get lost in someone else's world for a little while.
It probably had less to do with fantasy epics and more to do with where I was as a person during that time. Finishing PBox was pretty emotionally draining afterward, but in a "I did it" kind of way. But also, "I did it, but I still have to keep doing this whole college thing," lol.
nicksgal:
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on April 22, 2021, 09:31:25 PM ---Today's Writing Challenge:
If you're feeling stuck, jot down a list of a few of the tropes, characters, or situations that usually show up in the genre you're currently writing. Which ones do you love, and which ones do you find annoying? Use these as a jumping off point to write a scene featuring one of those things!
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--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on April 22, 2021, 10:04:37 PM ---We've talked a lot about tropes, but I had to laugh at this because I was watching this week's episode of The Resident earlier and rolled my eyes at the use of the Incurable Cough of Death/Blood from the Mouth trope.
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I thought of a YA trope I hate: love triangles. Why can't characters find a person and go "I like this one." Oh no, there are two boys that are into me and they're only slightly different from each other, how will I choose?!? Dating two people at the same time is exhausting! Not only do you have to deal with one dude's drama, you have to deal with two dudes' drama all while you've got your own things going on! It is not worth it.
mare:
Ugh! I know what you mean about The Resident. I mean, I get why they did that for plot purposes but even still. In real life, she’d go back to the hospital and the doctor would be like “Well.. are tests showed she was fine so it must be something she ate.”
RokofAges75:
--- Quote from: nicksgal on April 22, 2021, 10:40:45 PM ---I think that's what PBox is demographic-wise since I don't know that I'd call it a "coming of age" novel necessarily, but it's definitely in there fairly prevalently -- especially with Nick and Minako sharing a lot of the POV role and being utterly clueless about their place in the world (at least they have each other). Awkwardly enough, it's a bit of a continuity snarl since it was very much written to be a Never Gone-era fanfic, but reading back over it, I've always felt like Nick read 18 more than 25, lol. And now as I keep going on the story, I'm just leaning into that? Definitely in the OF version (deciding between 16 and 17 at this point), but even in PNecklace. In the edit, I made the timeline in the fantasy part to be a lot more vague intentionally to reflect that feeling. Really all of the Boys except for maybe Kevin read more early twenties than late twenties/early thirties. I don't know if that was due to my age at the time or what. (See, I told you that this aside got long).
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It's probably good to keep it intentionally vague about the time period; that gives the story a more timeless feel. That's interesting that the guys all read younger than they were meant to be. It could be because you were also younger when you originally wrote them. I used to worry about that when I was a teenager writing about them in their twenties. I would wonder if their way of thinking seemed too immature. There's a big difference between a sixteen-year-old and a twenty-six-year-old. Now that we're adults too, the age difference doesn't seem to matter as much. I don't feel like I'm that different at thirty-six than I was at twenty-six, not compared to sixteen.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on April 22, 2021, 10:40:45 PM ---Anyway... so I was looking over a list of newly published YA Books and was like, alright fairies, vampires, werewolves, yup, ooh a couple with demons. But then one of them had a main character named Nick and I went "oh no!" I googled into it and the premises are really different and the character seems really different, but I had a heart attack for a long time as I googled. It also made me think on my novel's DEI with a cast full of mostly white pretty boys since they were all based on actual boy bands originally.
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LOL I remember having a similar moment when I was wanting to rewrite Broken as an OF YA novel. Lurlene McDaniel published a new novel about a male high school swimming star who loses his leg to bone cancer, which sounded so similar to my plot of Nick as a high school basketball player. I was like, "Are you serious??" Her books never featured male protagonists before, so I thought at least the fact that my main character was a boy made it somewhat unique in that genre. I bought the book and read it; it wasn't really that similar to Broken or very good. (I realized I had grown out of her books by then.) I guess the lesson there is there's always going to be something similar out there, even in the world of fantasy, but don't let it derail you because no one else writes like you. As long as you're not outright copying someone else, you're fine. I get the point you made earlier about being a sponge, too, and worrying you're going to inadvertently copy if you read too many books in the same genre. That's another reason I'm liking memoirs lately, because drawing on real life experiences isn't the same as copying someone else's made-up ideas.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on April 22, 2021, 10:40:45 PM ---I wonder why "crying and dying" is more YA. Is it too real of an adult fear for adult fiction? Just like we say in our fanfic circles, if it's not out there then that's all the more reason to put it out there.
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Yeah, maybe. Although reading them as a kid is what created that fear LOL. At least as an adult, I can talk myself down from hypochondriac thoughts better than I could as a kid, when I would read a book about a girl who got leukemia and then cry myself to sleep, convinced that I also had leukemia. Now I'm just like, "Eh, I haven't died yet, so it's probably no big deal."
--- Quote from: nicksgal on April 22, 2021, 10:40:45 PM ---I tried to think of universally hated books and my mind went to A Million Little Pieces, lol. Is that it? I think it's good to balance fiction and non-fiction as much as you can for inspiration. It's different angles on the same subject. Are you reading thick memoirs or are they more excerpts?
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No.
Absolutely. Memoirs are super helpful because you can never really know what something is like unless you've gone through it yourself. Reading the experience of someone who has gone through it in their own words is a good way to understand that perspective. Both of the memoirs I've read or am reading are fairly short, I think, probably under 300 pages, although I have the Kindle versions so it's hard to tell.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on April 22, 2021, 10:40:45 PM ---My next aside, pitching seems like a difficult thing to do for a verbose person who sucks at summaries, lol. The only real intel I've gathered is that "standalone with series potential" may be my bread and butter in this department.
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Yes, I think writing a pitch sounds like an intimidating part of the publishing process. You have to summarize and pitch your book just right so that it sounds like something that will sell, but also something different enough from what's already out there on the shelves.
RokofAges75:
--- Quote from: nicksgal on April 22, 2021, 10:47:20 PM ---I have convinced myself to take advantage of the available little spurts instead of avoiding them. I'm embracing the self-cliff hanger, lol. I'm making progress somewhere. I'll get to the end of this one and go, well, since this next one is fairly written, I may as well just finish it, lol. NaNo says at my current pace, I will finish PNecklace in May, so 3/4 of a year is not bad for finishing a novel. At least according to my track record on finishing novels, lol. I think I'll feel better once I get these last two chapters finished before the divergent bit. I always get a little nervous as I get down to only ten chapters ahead of my updates.
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That's not bad at all!! I think trying to write an entire novel in a month - even a first draft - is overly ambitious. Looking at you, NaNoWriMo. If I locked myself in a room for a month with nowhere else to be and nothing else to do, I could maybe churn out 50,000 words, which would be a short novel, but that is not realistic.
Ten chapters is still a lot when you're posting one a week; that's still a solid two months of updates you have hoarded. But I know what you mean. I start to feel that way when I haven't finished a chapter in a while.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on April 23, 2021, 06:16:22 PM ---I thought of a YA trope I hate: love triangles. Why can't characters find a person and go "I like this one." Oh no, there are two boys that are into me and they're only slightly different from each other, how will I choose?!? Dating two people at the same time is exhausting! Not only do you have to deal with one dude's drama, you have to deal with two dudes' drama all while you've got your own things going on! It is not worth it.
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Yes!! And why do they always involve two guys lusting after the same girl? It's usually not two girls and a guy. And the girls at the center are infuriating. Stop playing with these boys' emotions and just choose!
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