ITT: Writing advice

[Anonymous No.6371954]

I've gotten myself into the bad habit of doing tons of world building, and then never actually writing the thing. Even when I do start writing, it turns into a complicated explanation of the world I'm working on instead of plot.

Any tips that are more helpful than "Just write the damn thing already?"

[Anonymous No.6371958]

>>6371954
don't write shit that involves 'world building'. literature isn't dungeons and dragons

[Anonymous No.6371978]

Have you consider that you might find an audience that enjoys that? Or is it really cringy explanations that read like elementary school homework?
Try reading Conan or just some Howard in general and see if you connect with that. Early 1900's british writers liked to just let go describing a fantasy world as if it were a travel diary.

[Anonymous No.6371979]

>>6371958
Fantasy novels need setup so that your book's magic isn't just "AND NOW I DO THIS THING AND THE PROBLEM IS SOLVED"

[Anonymous No.6371999]

>>6371978
I do tend towards that audience anyway, but it's more a problem of stopping writing the book to fill out a page of notes, even if it just kind of transitions in and out of the story.

Imagine if Tolkien dropped a full page of explanation for everything instead of a paragraph, and you see my problem.

[Anonymous No.6372094]

>>6371999
As long as you're making progress with writing, you're good. I personally don't spend much time since I make changes to the world anyways.

>#1 advice: stop wasting time on a Philippino phrenology board.

[Anonymous No.6372104]

Write as if it's real life even if it isn't. Don't blatantly explain anything. Just write as if everything you're describing is historic detail and the reader will piece it together easier than you might think.

[Anonymous No.6372113]

>>6371954

>Even when I do start writing, it turns into a complicated explanation of the world I'm working on instead of plot

God, I know that feeling.

Sometimes I wish it was acceptable for a fictional work to have footnotes...

[Anonymous No.6372118]

Word count goal. 300 words a day is easy, once you're hitting that regularly up it to 600 or 900-1000. Sometimes you will produce 300 words that you know are shit that'll get cut on your second draft. Sometimes you'll put down 300 words of world-building that you'll later realize are unnecessary. Eventually you'll hit 300 that are purely plot and necessary. In any case, you'll feel accomplished.

The point is to realize that a first draft is not a final draft, and even writing useless garbage that you'll later remove is good if it gets you into a habit of writing daily.

[Anonymous No.6372132]

>>6371999
You should try to avoid getting out of your work. If you have idea for the setting add them at that moment or leave them for later. Otherwise you're creating bad habits.

[Anonymous No.6372136]

>>6372118
anything under 2000 daily words is just bad practice, it shouldn't take more than an hour to reach that goal if you're not editing as you write.

[Anonymous No.6372159]

>>6371954
show, don't tell.

With fantasy novels it's a bit tricky, but just do what Tolkien did. Build the world in your notes, and when you're writing the story only give background when needed. And even then, keep it to a paragraph; no more than four or five lines.

[Anonymous No.6372172]

>>6372094
Heh, phrenology. Now there's a psudoscience I haven't read through in a long time.

>>6372104
So skip the explanations unless it'd be a natural part of the conversation? I mean, easier said than done.

>>6372113
Gaiman and Pratchett both did a fair amount of footnoting, usually for additional snark.

>>6372118
Thank you, that was precisely what I needed to hear :)

[Anonymous No.6372181]

>>6371979
>Fantasy.
Gross.
Redwall was the only good Fantasy. Prove me wrong.

[Anonymous No.6372255]

>>6372181
Game of Thrones, Narnia, Redwall was amazing, Tolkien is a given, I guess so is Pratchett.

High fantasy sucks ass outside of one or two enjoyable reads, but mid and low fantasy can be extremely enjoyable.

[Anonymous No.6372275]

>>6371954
I have the same problem. I keep getting distracted by my worldbuilding while I write, like I'll be plotting out the story of this little girl traveling to another town when suddenly I'm stuck wondering what the capital of this country across the sea is. I keep feeling like I need more of the world written down before I can focus on the story.

[Anonymous No.6372279]

>>6372275
Eeyup, that's it in a nutshell. And going "I don't feel like writing now" every time you sit down to write.

[Anonymous No.6372344]

>>6372104
This really is the best idea for a first draft. Maybe write in first person so that the world is entirely normalized and without need for explanation. Then go back and read it or have someone else read it and figure out what essential parts of the world are uncommunicated. Avoid big exposition dumps or, worse, reader surrogates who ask many questions as an excuse to tell readers what's happening. Just write it like it's literature. If Heart of Darkness were on a moon of Saturn how much exposition dump would be needed to explain that it's on a moon of Saturn as a result of a nuclear war that rendered much of West Asia and Northern Africa uninhabitable and left a small Swedish refugee mission to space the last hope for humanity in 2278 aside from an Antarctic research outpost and that Argentine Emperor Lionel Nguyen's colonial company near Saturn just had a rogue xylozerenium trader kill a tribal leader named Oxwihpldredz and other things? Not much.

[Anonymous No.6372409]

>>6371958
What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Amherst English department, and I’ve been involved in numerous ghost writing projects, and I have over 300 confirmed novels. I am trained in grammar and I’m the top stylist in the entire western cannon. You are nothing to me but just another failed novelist. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of Philosophy professors across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You’re fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can critique you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just with my iPhone. Not only am I extensively trained in language arts, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the New York Times and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little “clever” comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You’re fucking dead, kiddo.

[Anonymous No.6372426]

>>6372409

[Anonymous No.6373732]

>>6372113
>Sometimes I wish it was acceptable for a fictional work to have footnotes...

[Anonymous No.6373740]

>>6372344
Did you just pull that out of your ass?

[Anonymous No.6373749]

>>6372113
Read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. It did use footnotes in the story. They provided historical information and random short stories that complimented the worldbuilding. I suppose the subgenre of historical gives it an unfair advantage by making the footnotes somewhat more thematically appropriate though.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why that book was so good, but it was. On paper it sounds boring as hell.

Anyway, yeah footnotes do actually work in the right context.

[Anonymous No.6373814]

>>6372136
depends what you're writing. with serious literature, 2k words a day would have you outstripping most writers' oeuvres within a year. while on the other end of the spectrum, some spec fic writers, back in the days of pulp, published like 150k words a month.

[Anonymous No.6375458]

>>6372344

I'm currently writing on a chapter in my story now, and whenever i come across a new element in the world that is interesting or at least needs to be explained, I write it as the character recollecting hearing about it or learning of it at some other point.