#but if you're aiming for traditional publishing

[fahye]

@lieutenantkim replied to your post “hi freya! your work with the TLB series is...”:

I'm a little confused, what do you mean by "start as late as possible in the story" and then "have the main inciting incident take place within the first scene"? Did you mean the other way around or?

​nope, I mean exactly that!

the TLB books are slightly unusual in that the real inciting incidents for all three involve the murder (even if obliquely, in book 3) of a third party, so they all begin with a kind of BBC-crime-drama pre-credits-scene chapter in which the murder occurs.

but the first chapter from a protagonist's perspective begins as close to the thing that Starts Their Story as possible. even after it. I could have showed you robin's daily home life, his parents' death, and then his receiving the notification of his new job at the home office. instead I started it RIGHT where he is introduced to the existence of magic, and then only introduced his home life & maud once he was already embroiled with worrying about magic and the curse.

I could have started ART with maud and mrs navenby getting on the ship, or even with maud on her initial voyage out to america. I started the moment AFTER her discovering the dead body: the plot is off! immediately! at once!

there is a tendency for first drafts to start with a character on their way to the plot: waking up on the day in question, or on a train to somewhere new, so the author can get comfy and wriggle around with some narration telling you who they are at the start of the story.

nope. start when they get off the train. or later. by the end of the very first scene, something new should have happened to them which gives the reader the story's first (or even central) unanswered question or point of conflict. you can fill in their backstory and personality and pre-story-status-quo in the narration as you go.

finding the right starting point is often a second-draft thing. and that's fine! but it gets easier with practice.

[thebibliosphere]

So what would you recommend for publishing a book for the first time? Anyone you'd recommend as publishers etc?

My experience with traditional publishers is limited to having worked for one of them over a decade ago as an editor for several years (and it was, honest to god, an underpaid, overworked nightmare) and then the limited exposure I had querying Hunger Pangs, which made me decide to go the route of self-pub instead. (I didn't like what they wanted to do to my disabled character(s).)

And if you're aiming for trad-pub, it's not like you get to pick. You just aim for whatever one(s) are in your genre wheelhouse and hope for the best. You will need an agent for trad-pub, though. Most of them don't accept unsolicited manuscripts without agent rep unless they run an open call for submissions.

Indie-pub is a bit more lenient, but an agent still isn't a bad idea to ensure you get a fair deal and your contract isn't screwing you over.

So, if you're not doing self-pub, step one is Finish Your Manuscript and step two is Start Querying for Agents.

If you are doing self-pub, I recommend you read Let's Get Digital by David Gaughran. He updates it periodically as online publishing changes; you can find it free on his website. It's basically the playbook for breaking down how digital publishing.

It primarily focuses on Amazon because that's the giant, but the advice is applicable to other distributors like draft2digital.

If you've got more specific questions, I can try to answer them, but my wheel is primarily self-pub these days.

[curubethion]

Decided on a whim to switch my shower podcast to @partyofonepod and honestly I already feel so validated after just 15 or so minutes. Gets straight to the point and builds to a really interesting game setup that has me going "oh I would totally watch a series of this".

Most importantly, it really speaks to the way I like to play RPGs, where you have a lot of explicit dialogue before and during the action of the session, and where you're aiming to do some kind of full narrative arc in a single session--a big contrast versus slower-paced, more traditional play that spends several hours on a segment of story.

And I think that's super important! In order to support the number of creators that are currently active in the RPG scene, we need a norm of playing games that's sustainable. If every game required weeks upon weeks of sessions of investment, it would be completely unsustainable to expect so many creators to get by in the hobby, and it would only be able to sustain a small number of games, probably games published by big companies. The model of having a complete, satisfying arc in a single session of a few hours brings RPGs closer to the social footprint of the movie-watching hobby, or binging TV shows, or playing boardgames. Those are all industries with tons of creators and media. RPGs can be that too.

[fixyourwritinghabits]

So I want to write a novel, and I outline my story and write out everything that happens in the outline and I get to the end and it's... Between 20,000 and 40,000 words, usually. Like I can tell a complete story but I have a hard time getting it to the length of a publishable novel, and it keeps happening with different stories I write. Do you have any advice for making a story longer without making it feel like I'm just adding stuff to make it longer?

While I think you have a workable length for a first draft, I can see where your problems lay. Let's tackle what your intended goal is first.

Industry standard (set by traditional publishing) for novels is the following:

Adult novels - 80,000 to 100,000 word count. Many will fall between that range. Sci-Fi and Fantasy novels tend to run higher, but you'll notice Romance, Mystery, and Crime tend to run tighter, closer to 80k. Literary novels (Contemporary and Historical Fiction) can swing up and down that word length. Door-stopper books of 200k can be found, of course, but that's the opposite of what we're dealing with.

YA Novels - Contemporary tends to stick to a tight 80k, but publishing tends to seek longer fantasy novels, sticking to the adult standard of 10k.

Middle Grade (8-11ish year old readers) - 30,000 to 60,000. Most publishers want something in the middle, as MG readers are constantly stretching their reading capabilities.

These are generalizations that are subject to change, of course, but they're good guides to follow when editing. Let's say you want to aim for an adult novel, which means you want to at least double your 40k length. While looking over your work, consider the following:

Does your main character have enough problems?

If your story can be resolved within the 40k mark, you may need to add more complications to their journey. Does their external problem (the outside issues they're dealing with, like losing a job or battling a sentient typhoon) adequately line up with resolving their internal problem (dealing with unresolved guilt, confronting a fatal flaw about themselves, apologizing to that sentient typhoon for leaving them at the altar, etc).

Save The Cat also talks about the Shard of Glass or Unresolved Wound, a deeply internal problem the protagonist has to confront about themselves in order to solve the main problem of the novel. Deepening your character's issues can buff up the need for more words to resolve them. (Not every story has the character 'fix' this issue - many novels are about characters failing to do just that, that unresolved flaw finally dooming them in the end.)

Subplots, Sidequests, and McGuffins

Subplots are their to enrich your novel with elements that contribute to the overall journey. Besides the main problem your protagonist is facing, what else is going on in their life? Do they need to confess a crush to a friend? Is their struggle to control their magical powers tied to a traumatic childhood? Does learning the truth about their family history force them to reflect on their own behavior? A subplot should weave back into strengthening the main story while adding more elements to make it more interesting. It's not as hard as it sounds - the more you think about your character's internal problem, the more you realize they'll need to confess their feelings, confront their mother, or more to resolve that final issue.

By sidequests, I'm leaning into the fantasy element of storytelling, but you'll find this pops up in a lot of stories. A chance encounter in a mystery can provide an essential clue, or stopping to aid someone could lead to a character-revealing moment. Remember, this isn't filler - you're expanding the overall plot by leaning into your world-building to establish essential knowledge about your world, introducing minor characters that can act as aids or obstacles to a problem, or starting an action scene that changes the trajectory of the novel.

A MacGiffin is an object, device, or event necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but typically unimportant or irrelevant in itself. Usually, the MacGuffin is revealed early on, and becomes less important once the storyline is set in motion. You'll see a lot of despairing comments about them, because they often can be used poorly. But MacGiffins are often essential parts of storytelling, a quest that leads your characters astray from what they should actually be doing (and in turn learning about themselves and the problem they need to face instead).

Your character spends half the novel trying to find the missing crown, only to discover it's been fake the whole time. That whole first half of the novel was a waste of time... or was it? By having your characters fixate on the wrong solution, you're exploring what Save the Cat calls "Doing Things The Wrong Way" where the real answer is in digging deep down, confronting that internal problem, and setting down the right path at last. This is where the mid-novel twist of the king being the villain all along, the dragon they're meant to slay for killing the villagers turns out to be a card-carrying vegan. The easy answer isn't the solution, and it's taking the hard path that gets things done.

For Example...

In Jedediah Berry's genre-bending mystery novel The Manual of Detection, the main character is pulled into finding the missing detective he used to write the case files for. As with any good mystery, there's a lot of good side quests - going to a bar only to run into villains that need confronting later, a one-sided rivalry with another detective ends up solving a problem later, etc. A subplot starting the novel where the protagonist goes out of his way to encounter someone at a coffee shop turns out to be an essential character connection later, and the MacGiffin - the Manual of Detection itself - turns out to be more important because of what it lacks.

In Jeff Smith's graphic novel series Bone, in the beginning, the main characters remain blissfully unaware of the true danger hunting them or the secrets of those around them. But the villains too are unknowingly pursuing a MacGuffin, leading to a series of events that will bring about a massive clash - and a confrontation of truths that will lead to the final solution.

And Finally, Maybe It's Not a Novel

I do want to say this might all not be what you need, because your true calling could be to write novellas - a length that varies between 20k to 40k. A shorter story is just as good as a lengthier one. There's a steady market for novellas of multiple genres, so it could be a good thing to look into if this feels like where your writing should be.

[writingquestionsanswered]

How many words is too many? I have written over 80,000 words already and don't have a computer to edit properly. I've already decided to split the story among multiple books. But how many should each be? I am aiming for a basic novel to a little bit longer, but as a first-time author, I don't want to write something too long and not get anyone to read it.

Finding Your Story's Target Word Count

"How many words is too many" depends on what you're writing. Every type of story and every genre has a different word count range, and the specific ranges vary depending on who you ask. Here are some general ranges you can target...

Story Type:

Short Stories - 1,000 - 5,000 words Novellas - 20,000 to 50,000 words Novels - 50,000 - 110,000 words Epic Novel - 110,000 words and up (though these are rare)

Age Category:

Middle Grade novels - 25,000 - 40,000 words Young Adult novels - 45,000 - 80,000 words New Adult novels - 60,000 - 85,000 words Adult novels - 65,000 - 110,000

Genre:

Literary novels - 80,000 to 110,000 words Romance novels - 50,000 to 80,000 words Fantasy novels - 90,000 to 110,000 words Mystery novels - 70,000 to 90,000 words

It's important to remember that a book series isn't one long novel chopped up into smaller books. Each book in a series needs to have its own story arc. In other words, a beginning/inciting incident, middle/rising action, and end/climax and denouement. That said, you will need to look at the completed story and identify the natural story arcs that exist within it to figure out where each book should end and the next book should begin.

Something else to consider is your publishing goal. If you plan on pursuing traditional publishing, you might look into writing an in-depth summary of the entire story and working with a developmental editor or book coach to figure out how to best divvy up the story between books. That way, you'll ensure that book one is as strong as it can be, which will increase the likelihood of getting a book deal. After that, if your book sells well enough to warrant the publishing of the next book, you will have some guidance on where to go from there.

If you're planning to self-publish, you can still look into working with an editor or book coach, or even a critique partner, or you can just make the best decision you're able to about how to divide each book. Again, what matters is that each part of the story centers on its own individual story arc.

Something else to consider: if you have a really long story that you want to chop up into pieces rather than individual books, you might look into posting it as a serial on a site like Wattpad, Kindle Vella, Ream, or similar services. Serialization allows you to take a long story and chop it up into sizeable pieces, such as "episodes," and then you don't have to worry so much about dividing it up into books with their own individual story arcs.

One final consideration: Not having the ability to edit properly is not an excuse to publish an unedited work of fiction. No one wants to read an unedited story, even if it's chopped up into pieces. If you want to publish this story, whether online, traditionally, or self-published, you need to find a way to edit it properly and make sure you're putting a tight and polished version of the story out into the world.

Here are some additional links:

Self-Editing Tips Editing Tips Ten Ways to Cut Your Word Count

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[olderthannetfic]

Maybe I'm just dumb and uneducated, but the publishing world just sounds a bit like a scam. Not in the traditional sense, but more in the sense that everyone for some reason thinks they'll make the break through so you should aim to get a publishing deal because you might end up being the next big star! You'll be the one who's books will lead to having a movie made*, you'll get the merch, the comics, the games, you'll be lauded and remembered for your writing and how YOU changed the publishing world. You just need to be a human machine who managed to write exactly what the publishing chefs at the top want. Please keep individuality to a minimum. In reality you might get a boost in money maybe if your book ever gets deigned to be bought up, how much is the average? 10-20K? Everything after that is just dead air. You will probably never be able to survive on the royalties, your book is most likely gonna end up side by side with books with the exact same premise as yours, because publishing prefers just copy pasting the same things over and over. Maybe you'll be the rare "token" #NotLikeOtherBooks that's there to test the waters for the next big trend, but most likely not, because those spots are for nepotism publications or big social media names. Oh but maybe you'll be the super big social media star who managed to get a huge social media following, so maybe you'll get a publishing deal that way, not because you're a good writer, but because you already got an audience. Oh the writing of this famous person is subpar? Oh who cares, just buy their book, we can sell with their name! While you're at it, do all the advertisement yourself, we don't really want to bother anymore. What do you expect us to do? Actually promote your book? Pfff, do that yourself. Oh you don't have social media? Welp, goodbye!

*from what I've seen studios might buy movie deals but that just means they'll keep the right to making a movie, not that there ever will be a movie, and you obviously lose the tiny nugget of chance that another studio does it.

--

I think you're being unduly pessimistic, not because this stuff isn't true of publishing but because this is how most sexy jobs work.

You become an accountant because the pay is steady. You might also enjoy it, but it's not one of those sexy jobs with a zillion people flinging themselves at the opportunity to be perpetually underpaid. Most arts jobs and a fair number of other over-mythologized ones, however, are in this same category where people have romantic ideas that they'll be the lone success... and they won't be.

Sure, it's sad that the dream of buying a mansion from your book royalties is out of reach, but... lots of life is like this? I don't think it's a big deal.

--

Now, as for the movie deal thing, you've misunderstood that one totally. What studios buy is options. That means they're tying up your movie rights for a few years so nobody else can have them.

The key feature here is that options run out.

If you keep being successful for a long time, you can sell an option on the same work over and over and over. It's a great deal for the author!

The chance that your thing will actually be made and that, if it is made, the adaptation won't be an absolute abomination is low. It's not worth worrying about. (If you want to make movies, go pursue that, not book writing.) But that sweet, sweet option money is great if you can get it.

--

A lot of people like to get huffy about how "good" books don't sell and "bad" books do, but this is short-sighted nonsense.

Like other commercial art, a good marketing campaign can sell an inferior product, but a lot of what makes the difference is a book being appealing or not. Yes, yes, the plebes have bad taste, boo hoo. More people want to buy a romance novel than a very depressing and dense literary one in general. News at 11.

But for every genuinely shitty book with a lot of buzz, there are a number of solid genre fiction works that are obviously fun for the audience for that genre.

Celebrity memoir sells, sure, but the majority of novels aren't by famous people. There are some gimmick books on the market, including, yes, novels by social media stars, but a lot of "bad" books sell because people just actually do want a Wattpad-sounding crap romance with an alphahole dude and a girl who's pretty when she takes her glasses off—or whatever other cliche you can name.

--

Like other products, books benefit from a strong brand. An author who's been writing for years is more of a sure thing. As a reader, one has limited time and energy to vet newbies.

This is sad for us as authors, but think about it as a reader! How much of your free time do you want to spend magnanimously giving a chance to people who are probably wasting your time vs. picking up something you know you'll enjoy?

And also from a reader's perspective, I don't want surprises. Sure, I don't want a book that's so predictable it's boring, but when I pick up a romance novel, I want a happy ending. When I pick up a mystery novel, I want the mystery to get solved. When I'm reading on AO3, I expect your ship tags to be accurate.

It's a great mistake to focus on how ~nobody likes originality~. This is just pretentious art student puffery that ignores how normal human tastes and emotions work. People with this attitude are ill-suited for creative professions.

--

I think that, in general, most publishing pros, whether authors or not, are fairly up front that it's hard to live on royalties and that most authors have day jobs. This isn't new. It's something people have been trying to educate prospective authors on for decades.

I'd blame starry-eyed outsiders for these kinds of misconceptions more than I'd blame the industry.

I do support trying to inform hopefuls about the realities of choosing this as a career though. They need to know they're not going to be making rent money in most markets on writing alone.

--

All of that said, the two big changes that I do see are a couple of things related to publishing companies getting ever more beholden to corporate overlords. The profit margin has always been slim, and this can be an issue when the bean counters are too involved.

First, editorial standards have slipped a lot. 1990s trash fiction did often get at least a little bit of developmental editing from the publisher. 2020s trash fiction might get that from an agent, but often, it's expected that an author shows up with a publication-ready manuscript.

I think the idea that the publisher wanted to sit around with their thumb up their ass workshopping your baby forever was unrealistic even back in the day, but there has been a change and most people acknowledge it. I've also seen way worse basic proofreading in recent books that I don't see in used books from years ago. It's still rare to see many errors because publishers do provide this type of editing, they're good at it, and correctness is far more objective than for developmental editing, but I used to see basically zero typos and malapropisms in big publishers' books, and that is no longer true.

I'm no insider, but from what I hear, the basic issue is that publishers are being squeezed and they just don't have time or budget to do more than cursory editing now compared to some times in the past. (Of course, plenty of greats did come out of the world of pulp fiction, and I'm sure that was edited in ten seconds too, so...)

Second, yes, publishers offer very little in the way of marketing help, book tours, etc. now and expect a lot from authors. Again, I gather they're being squeezed.

It's that latter issue that made me just not bother to pursue traditional publishing. I don't trust them to understand BL-y type aesthetics in most cases. I don't want to write books within the word count that is most profitable in traditional print. And I really, really don't want to be asked to do marketing within specific parameters while not being given access to timely sales data like a normal marketer who works for the publisher or a selfpub author would have.

--

But all in all, people who work in publishing are not the enemy. They like books. If they have to make some commercial decisions over artistic ones or bow to popular tastes you don't like... well, that's life.

[andiatas]

Prince Carl Philip & Princess Sofia launch game in Minecraft

After two years of hard work, the Prince Couple launches their own world in the computer game Minecraft. The game aims to encourage children to read and write, mainly children with dyslexia, but everyone can benefit from it.

- This gives me goosebumps, I think it's so cool, says Prince Carl Philip.

Photo: Ida Åkesson/SPA

With several big bangs and lots of confetti in the air, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia launched a whole new world in Minecraft Education at the gaming company Mojang's headquarters. Dexi Ville is a game that will increase children's and young people's curiosity about words, letters and reading.

- I had somehow hoped this game had existed when I was your age. I needed something that had awakened my desire to read and my curiosity about words, says Prince Carl Philip from the stage and turns to a school class in the audience.

- Because it is not easy, and I think you know that too, to feel the desire to read when the letters jump around or that it takes a very long time to find the willingness and peace to start reading, says the prince.

Faced many prejudices about dyslexia

The prince says that he has encountered and had to deal with many of the misconceptions and prejudices that people have about dyslexia and what it means for individuals who have dyslexia.

The idea for the game was raised during a meeting at the Royal Palace. Dexi Ville is a development of the prince couple's foundation's method game, "The Big Adventure," which they worked on extensively a few years ago.

- We put so much energy and effort into that game, and it turned out to be a great initiative, but nobody found it. So it was obvious that we had to find someone we could ally with, someone who already has the children and the target group, says Kim Waller, secretary general at the Prince Couple's Foundation.

Photo: Ida Åkesson/SPA

Got to play with the kids

The latest PISA report shows that Swedish children's reading skills are declining sharply. Kim Waller emphasizes the importance of supplementing traditional teaching with more methods.

A while later, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia get to test Dexi Ville together with some children. A block is broken, and Prince Carl Philip quickly builds a new wall. He sits concentrated in front of a computer screen and plays Minecraft.

- This is super fun, and you're super good at this, he says to a young guy who plays with him.

This is Dexi Ville

Name: Dexi Ville – the Wordcraft Adventure Target group: all children between the ages of 8 and 10. The game is currently available in Swedish and English. Developer: Prinsparets Stiftelse, together with Minecraft Education and Shapescape. Microsoft and Nordea are enabling partners. The purpose of the game: to promote increased reading habit, expanded vocabulary and reading fluency, increased curiosity and reading comprehension. Where to find the game: It is available to all Minecraft Education license holders.

Translation and editing for clarity done by me of an article by Jenny Alexandersson, Royal Reporter at Aftonbladet. The article was published on May 30, 2024.

[lauraroselam]

I was supposed to be able to ignore social media all this month, but I keep having stuff to announce. Anyway: 1. Dragonfall got longlisted for the British Fantasy Society Award, which was unexpected but delightful. If you're a member you can vote for the shortlist until Feb 20th. Not really expecting the shortlist since the list is stacked, but still happy to be longlisted. I'm aiming to bring a different approach to gender in epic fantasy with this book, in a genre that is usually fairly traditional in its depiction of gender roles in the name of 'historical accuracy.' Side note, but I've found it...interesting when one of the early, pre-pub reviews I saw (before I stopped looking) complained that the book 'ranted about my gender agenda' when the book has two very short scenes explicitly about gender. Maybe 3 pages in total in a 400+ page book? The first is the last male dragon who has been raised among only women getting a quick primer on how gender works in Loc after he's fallen to the human world and is trying to pretend to be a human himself (he's not very good at it), and the second is the nonbinary character sharing their own experiences of gender. The rest of the time it's just embedded since it's a queernorm world.

I've felt a bit hurt by that, to be quite honest--as a femme presenting AFAB nonbinary person, it reminds me of the occasions where I try to remind people that yes, I am nonbinary, and they'd rather still pretend I'm a woman because I look like one and it's easier for them to not have to think about it. Also no group is a monolith, so even some other NB readers might bounce off the way I want to talk about gender, which is fine. On the flip side, I've received really, really lovely notes from nonbinary and gender non-conforming readers who have felt it's one of the very rare times they've seen themselves represented in fantasy. and that's been really lovely. It's basically why I published the book, even though it was quite personal, and, as the years go on, I find myself increasingly bruised by trying to release art that means something to me in late-stage capitalism. I spent a lot of time last year seriously wondering if I was going to quit publishing once I finished my contracts, I found it so exposing this time around. I cherish every note from a reader that helps me remember my words connected with someone. 2. I thought Dragonfall was only going to be 99p for one day on Amazon UK, but it's still cheap. Grab it if you're in that geographical location if you like. 3. If you're in the US, Barnes & Noble is doing a pre-order sale so you can use PREORDER25 to get 25% off the paperback of Dragonfall, out in June, or you can go to the B&N Emberclaw page and maybe see the cover for it even though it's not yet been officially announced. You didn't hear this from me and when it's officially revealed you have to promise to still act surprised, okay? https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dragonfall-l-r-lam/1141941880?ean=9780756418922

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/emberclaw-l-r-lam/1143890903?ean=9780756418441

Thank you for reading. Ask me about my gay dragon gender agenda.

[devsgames]

i've been thinking about a thing for a while, how come i feel like game developers shape their games a lot based on player feedback and requests, whereas it isn't the case in other artistic mediums? like if you were to be doing a visual artwork, you wouldn't stop at the sketch and ask ppl to look at your lineart and say what shapes are good, what colours should go where, or how a background should look... right? while in game development i feel like it's more common to make a demo or a wip and actively ask people for feedback beyond just playtesting for bugs and unintended effects and whatnot... am i wrong about this observation, or is there some reasoning for it? ofc this would depend on things like whether ur game is a commission piece or if you're aiming for commercial success...

I see where you're coming from; On one hand games aren't exclusively art but rather a blend of consumer software and art, and the software aspect works against the art aspect in that sense. On the other hand I'd argue that games aren't unique with respect to actively seeking feedback.

Games sit at an intersection of art and software both in their production and representation, and software is typically viewed as tool where changes are expected to be made in order to improve it (e.g. fixing bugs, improving features, streamlining processes). If a traditional artist wants to change something about a traditional painting they'd have to like...re-do that part of the painting and call everyone who previously saw it back to the art gallery or something, whereas software pipelines have empowered changes through just uploading a new build for users to see. I think games are viewed a bit more like software so they're just obviously just implicitly easier to update than traditional art forms, but also that they're going to be revisited again and again by the end user, as opposed to something like a painting which is usually only viewed occasionally at a gallery. I think in that respect games are just sort of a more 'flexible' medium than some other ones.

Games also take like...way longer to make on average than a painting or piece of art on average, and typically with any art the more time you spend on it the more you want to validate your assumptions lest you find out it actually sucks. I'm sure if a painting took 4 years to complete the artist would be checking with other people to ensure that their vision isn't way off-base, because that's a lot of time to spend on one painting only to mess it all up. Because of long and resource-intensive production times, things like crowdfunding and Early Access exist in order to preemptively secure capital to ensure the rest of the game can be made (because games are EXPENSIVE). This - for better and worse - also means that devs have to include consumers as part of the production process, lest they have invested in something that doesn't meet their standard.

However I generally think 'video game exceptionalism' is pretty ridiculous in almost any conversation, and I'm against the idea that games do almost anything exclusively that other mediums don't or can't. I don't often believe that is the case.

For example, there's people who commission artists and are given WIPs of the piece as it comes along, and are within their right to ask and tell the artist to change things, re-do shapes, and so on. Art commissions and patrons have existed on this relationship basically since art has existed. I've done mural work and the process is similar, sending owners the WIP of the piece and asking for corrections or feedback, and WIPs or plans of works are often shared with the local community to ensure the mural meets the standards of people living in the area who aren't even paying or it. In the case of commissions they're usually the exclusive financial contributor to the piece, which isn't dissimilar to an investor or publisher telling a dev to change an element of the game either, and could equally apply to early access or crowdfunding contributors. There's also movies which do preview screenings of films about to come out and adjust them based on the feedback of the viewers, which isn't dissimilar to how demos or betas work on a conceptual level and I understand this is a fairly common practice in film. I think any medium that's intended to be sold usually has some element of review within the process, because everyone wants their product to both be good and sell well.

This being said I think one thing games culture has done is uniquely distorted players into thinking that that's some sort of...consumer 'right' that they have to demand change, despite the fact they are not personally and exclusively paying the artist for the development of the work and ultimately are buying a product that is already completed. I won't elaborate on that here because this reply is already long, but I have often found that the loudest and angriest voices are the ones who are actually the least invested in the final product.

[midwestbramble]

Black Dog Folklore Book Review

I'm a sucker for spirits. I'm also a sucker for dogs. And you're telling me there's a book about dog spirits?! Absolutely I'm reading that.

⛧─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───⛧

Contents:

Synopsis

What I Liked

What I Didn't Like

Overall Thoughts

Conclusion

⛧─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───⛧

Published 2016

"A comprehensive study of the image of the Black Dog in folklore, with an extensive gazetteer of UK sightings and traditions.

The study of folklore is very often the examination of symbolism and symbolic interpretation changes over time. Many ghosts appear or behave in a way that seems less naturalistic than symbolic and this is certainly true of the image of the Black Dog.

It is telling that apparitions of ghostly Black Dogs have been sighted, felt, heard and experienced in an unnatural way by people for nearly a millennium now and yet people stumble across information about them by chance when attempting to provide themselves with an explanation for what has occurred. Many people's knowledge of the subject stretches no further than The Hound of the Baskervilles and where they are more familiar, people often think that the Black Dog is evil or portentous in the manner of the Shuck.

Black Dog Folklore aims to redress this balance. It is the first full-length study of the phenomenon by a single author, containing a gazetteer of over 750 key UK eyewitness accounts and traditions drawn from the author's archive."

-from the back of the book

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What I Liked

The book does a wonderful job of using sources such as newspapers (and others) and talking with people about their experiences. Each chapter focuses on a specific type of black dog spirit, from the protective to the shuck and how they've been experienced in certain areas. Along with pictures of specific sites named after the black dogs, you'll find detailed descriptions of how they came by those names. Even the history of people's belief in the first corpse buried in a churchyard becoming it's protector as well as the idea of the first soul to cross a new bridge going to the devil are discussed and it's relations to the black dog ghosts seen there.

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What I Didn't Like

While the book isn't perfect, I can't find anything in it that stands out that I didn't like. I thought it was well written, and didn't see any obvious grammatical or spelling errors. The sources were adequately cited and the reasoning was sound. The book is specifically about UK sightings and folklore, and there are a couple short references to the US where a sighting was had which could be taken as off topic geographically, but I didn't think it was much of nuisance. Just if we are being nitpicky.

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Overall Thoughts

If you're curious about any dog ghosts in the UK this would be a great book to get an overview of what you could encounter. The appendix in the back of the book also has the sightings by place name such as Guernsey or Kent or the Isle of Wight or Norfolk, for example. I enjoyed reading it and was able to do so in front of family that wouldn't approve of my cavorting with spirits without incurring any remarks.

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Conclusion

Everyone is always asking about animal spirits and this book is a good one for dog spirits specifically. You can find the book on Amazon, the publishers website Troy Books, Goodwill Books, RitualCravt, and more (I found this one at a local used book store).

*all images from the book*

[i-can-even-burn-salad]

Hey is getting something published/publishing something hard?

Hello, Anon o/

Traditionally? Yeah, I'd think so. You need to find an agent, you need to make it through a giant pile of other people also submitting, you need to hit something that has a chance to sell, and you need to (probably) jump through lots of hoops like proper form, query letters, synopsis, comp titles, etc. It's not something I personally aim for, so all I know is what I've seen on my dash, or seen my friends talk about.

I assume indie publishers would be a tiny bit easier - find a publisher that takes direct submissions and has works that match yours, for example focused on queer books etc.

In both cases, you definitely nede to be aware not to fall for a scam; you don't pay someone to traditionally publish you. You might not get much out of it at first, but you're not the one paying. I believe some of those are called vanity publishers - they claim to want to publish you, take your money for overpriced services and/or force you to buy like 100 books yourself. Not good!

Self-publish? Technically, not hard. With amazon, I am pretty sure you can just upload a word file and are done - but I wouldn't suggest it like that.

How possible it is to successfully (by which I mean, a good product, not even a popular one yet) depends on various skills or money. You'd need your own cover, layout (digitally and print), editor - stuff like that.

Editors can be very costly, editing software is cheaper but has its downsides. It won't be able to do much more than correct your spelling, tell you you used a word to often in one paragraph, and ask you if you really wanted to write X. It will never be able to understand stlyle or to comment on content.

You absolutely can learn a lot of things yourself, but quite frankly, that's plain work, and you'll probably never catch everything a fresh pair of eyes will catch. There are places to look for (free) beta readers instead, possibly as a beta swap, which might be a nice compromise, because frankly, everyone on reddit who insists you absolutely need to pay mid 4 digit sums for an editor or your work will never be good, when chances that you make even a 10th of that back are so low, can go pound sand.

Layouting software exists, too, like Scrivener. I'm not using any myself. They can export files as ebook and for print. As for covers, there are lots of free stock image sites out there (pexels, pixabay, unsplash for example) and lots of free graphic programs (krita, gimp, photopea), but there's a difference between "good enough to put it up" and "hitting the current market expectations for this genre". A good cover artist will be expensive.

Lastly, if you want your book to be seen, you'll have to advertise, too: ads, possibly a mailing list, website, social media presence. I heard *shivers* TikTok is very big for that right now.

From what I've heard - again, not interested myself - a traditional publisher won't take the marketing part off your shoulders. They sell to bookstores; you're the one who has to reach people.

They will, however, take care of covers and editing, so if you want to at least try that route, definitely don't bother spending money on that!

(Or if you mean the courage to post on Tumblr, I put it into my queue/schedule and then run away so it happens on its own :D)

[sam-glade]

Meet the Writer Tag

Tagged by @writernopal (post) and @elshells (post), thank you💜

I'm leaving this as an open tag for anyone who wasn't tagged yet!

Rules: Use this picrew to make yourself and answer the questions.

I admit to using this picrew instead, because I honestly couldn't get an image that was me from the first one.

Three fun facts about me:

I've been riding motorbikes since I was 17

I was obsessed with Tolkien as a teenager

I moved countries twice

Favourite season:

Winter

Continent where I live:

Europe

How I spend my time:

Other than the 8 hours a day I spend working as a software engineer?

Daydreaming

Writing (duh)

Cooking

Playing DnD or video games

Various hobbies that I dip in and out of every few months to a year

Am I published:

Not yet! Publishing a novel is a dream of mine, and I'm tentatively aiming at traditional publishing.

However, vaguely related, I'm listed in the acknowledgements on a few scientific articles, for copy-editing.

Introvert or extravert:

Introvert

Favourite meal:

Oh no, you're making me choose. Uh... Beef wellington.

Questions for copy-pasting:

Three fun facts about me:

Favorite season:

Continent where I live

How I spend my time

Are you published?

Introvert or extrovert?

Favorite meal:

[nekropsii]

How do you create such a cool fanadventure like yours, and how do you make character bibles?

Aw, thank you, that's very flattering!! I'll be sure to pass your compliments onto the rest of the team, too, lol!!

I don't know how much help my advice will be here, since we're still in the Active Development stages, but I'll give what I've learned anyways, both through the project and through other means. Here are some things that will be your best friend in the long run!! Feel free to ask for follow ups or clarification!!

Content Warning: Long, I Guess!

The first thing you need is an idea. I know, that's the most basic thing to start with, but when you have some kind of base concept you want to work with, everything else falls into place with it. Hopefully, anyways. As you develop the story, this foundational concept will also develop. You can have as many beautifully crafted characters as you want, but if you have no plot, or no unifying concept behind the story, they'll go completely to waste.

The second thing you need is something I don't see a lot of people spare themselves, and it ultimately leads to their downfall: TIME. Things like this take a lot of time, and that's not just referring to the active run of the comic. You'll want to give yourself plenty of time to develop the story and it's characters before you really make any publishing moves. Don't just make a basic concept and your main cast and post your first page on the spot- give yourself some time to develop things and get as much planned out as possible for the scope of your story. You'll save yourself a lot of stress.

Dedication!! So much dedication!! Commitment, commitment, commitment. Lots and lots of it. So, so, SO much dedication to the craft. You have to really be passionate what you're doing if you wish to carry through with it and have a good time whilst doing so.

The question here about Character Bibles is very interesting, and very important!! I don't see a lot of people talk about Character Bibles in their writing advice online, and I feel like that's a bit of a crime. To those uninitiated, a Character Bible is an outline document that tells you and whoever else is working on the project everything they need to know about a specific character. It harbors every character detail you could possibly think of- their basic introductory details, their personal history, personality, quirks, everything!! They're incredibly important when it comes to this kind of project- an absolutely necessary thing to have on hand for quick and easy reference!! The aim of the game with them is to not forget literally anything. It's all about consistency and cohesion.

Personally, for Sovereignstuck, we have several bibles per character using varying levels of detail on their specified subject matter. No clue if this is a common method or not, but it’s what works for us. There are some good outlines for what you could write in them online, but my personal advice is to start with charts of the most basic information you have on a character- name, age, orientation, gender, race, class, aspect, et cetera. After that, you can get into the more in-depth stuff. I recommend having a little “Stream of Consciousness” document where all you do is ramble about whatever comes to mind first with the character, write down any questions you have for yourself, figure out answers when you can, et cetera. Stream of Consciousness is a lot more approachable than just pumping out a well structured, well formatted chronological essay on the character off the bat, especially when you’re in early stages and aren’t too familiar with them yet.

If you’re working with large casts, which you most certainly will be if we’re talking traditional SBURB-type fanventures, then spreadsheets are your friend- they are fantastic methods of keeping track of a lot of basic information at once, all with ease of quick reference + comparison. I can maybe make a spreadsheet template for fanventure setups later, if anyone’s interested.

Also, you’ll probably need bibles to keep track of a lot of things in the story! A great example is your personal interpretation of Mythological Roles. It’s generally just a good idea to have some kind of reference page on what your magic system is. Doing all this writing seems overwhelming at first, but you really get the hang of it as you keep doing it.

Also, as general advice, be selfish. This is a project you’re working on for fun, so if you stop having fun, feel free to drop it- whether that’s temporarily or permanently. Put yourself first. Ideally, you will be having fun working on this, and that’s the most important aspect of it all. If you stop having fun, find out why and try to solve the issue! Feel free to hit the bricks literally whenever! Even Hussie did!

Hope this helps at all! Have a lovely day!

[passerkirbius]

Re: article timing. If the writer of the article was working on it for months it's actually very possible they were attempting to get it published at the start of the kickstarter in order to sabotage it, but it's been said that they tried to shop it around and it was rejected (sorry if I can't source that, but I've seen it in several tweets and also in your run down). But also, considering the lack of varifiable evidence, why publish it at all? Without hard backing from anyone who is willing to step forward and be named at BEST this is unprofessional behaviour on their part, and several of the current network shows have come forward to say it's not their experience.

Okay, so this is a good question to think about, and get into the nitty gritty of. So, we have two big questions:

If you can't show receipts, why make the accusation?

If no one's willing to be a public verifier, why publish their accusations?

Now, the first question I think we can talk about in relation to audience. As much as I love the team who wrote the piece, I'm not 100% sure that this piece was really aimed at podcast fans - I think the real audience for the piece was probably creators, instead. Yes, there was some messaging to the fans but it almost feels like an afterthought - I think the primary purpose of the piece was to warn potential collaborators of these issues. And if that's your goal, the lack of receipts aren't necessarily a problem - you're speaking to an audience that already knows you pretty well, and that probably already has an inkling that things aren't quite right. The standards of evidence here are quite a bit lower.

Regarding the second question, well, anonymous journalism is actually a pretty time-honoured tradition in the profession. Part of the creed of journalism to give voice to the voiceless, and if the NDA aspect of the accusations are true, that's a pretty good incentive to keep identities secret - It'd be a pretty shitty thing to throw your sources to the wolves by giving up their identity like that (and I don't just mean RQ themselves - fandom on the internet these days can be utterly bonkers). And I'm pretty sure that Newt has verified these statements as best they can - I don't think the article would have gone as far as it had if they didn't, considering the other collaborators on the team.

And I could be wrong here - It might be that Newt really did explicitly aim this at Rusty Quill's audience, but if that is the case, I'd agree with your assessment - I'd've done some hard work trying to at least redact contracts and get some actual exhibits to show firm examples of this behaviour, even if I couldn't actually name sources. If the goal is to invoke action from the public at large, I agree that you'd probably want something concrete. I mean, we still couldn't really verify something like that either, ya know? I can't exactly break into RQ's office, find their contract drawer and rifle through it to prove that the documents are genuine. But I think it could have helped, no lies detected there.

And just regarding the last statement in your ask? It's really not surprising that not everyone has had the same experience with a given company - I've been pretty clear in my statements that I don't think Rusty Quill is malicious here, and that the behaviour I'm seeing is mostly just really clear evidence that RQ just wasn't doing well scaling up. And so I'd honestly expect some pretty varied views from their collaborators, because if it was the case that RQ was screwing everyone around, this article probably wouldn't have been necessary - more people would have been willing to speak out on the record, because it would be clear that burning that particular bridge wouldn't be breaking opportunities further down the road.

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hi :) I've noticed one of my main issues in writing is I don't use enough words, I don't want to go into elaborate detail of things that don't matter or use unnecessarily long words but I do want a decent word count on my book. Do you have any advice on this? Thank you in advance.

Struggling to Reach Desired Word Count

If you're struggling to reach your desired word count but feel your amount of description is good, odds are you simply don't have a plot that merits the word count you're trying to reach.

Different types of stories and different fiction genres have typical word count ranges. The exact ranges vary according to trend and source, but current ranges are generally:

Short Stories - 1,000 - 10,000 words Novelette - 10,000 - 20,000 words Novellas - 20,000 to 50,000 words Novels - 50,000 - 130,000 words Epic Novels - 130,000 words and up

Middle Grade novels - 25,000 - 50,000 words Young Adult novels - 40,000 - 80,000 words New Adult: 60,000 - 85,000 words Adult: 80,000 - 110,000 words

Literary novels - 80,000 - 110,000 words Romance novels - 50,000 - 90,000 words Historical Fiction novels - 90,000 - 150,000 words Fantasy novels - 90,000 - 150,000 words Sci-Fi Novels - 90,000 - 150,000 words Mystery novels - 70,000 - 90,000 words Thriller - 70,000 - 90,000 words

So, the first step is to look and see where your story should be falling, and see how far away your story is from the bottom end of the range. Being slightly below the range isn't usually a huge deal. If you've written a romance novel that's 46,000 words, you're probably not going to be turned down for publishing because your story is 4k words under the lower end of the ballpark range. However, if your story is 28,000 words long, you would probably have difficulty finding a traditional publisher unless they specialized in novellas. Self-published books have some flexibility with range, though you still want to be mindful.

If the word count you're aiming for is logical and you're still falling short, and you feel your amount of description is fine, the next thing you need to look at is the story itself. Does your story have a conflict the protagonist or ensemble is trying to resolve? Do they have a solid goal they're trying to reach in order to resolve this conflict? Do they have an actionable plan and are you hitting all the relevant plot points? Do you have at least a couple interesting subplots that run parallel to the story but feed back into it again? If your story is fully or partially character-driven, do your main characters have satisfactory story arcs, and did you do the work to carry each character through their arc? For the important relationships that develop, did you do the work of showing how these relationships developed and how they function?

Beyond that, I would suggest looking at whether you're doing more telling than showing. In other words, do you find yourself writing things like, "Stella went outside after it rained and saw the moon shining," versus something like, "Stella crept outside and wandered down the lane, dodging puddles filled with water and moonlight." Showing, rather than telling, does tend to add words. Guide: Showing vs Telling

Finally, make sure you're exploring character thoughts and feelings, and using sensory details to bring the world around them, and the events they experience, into focus for the reader. Portraying Strong Emotions

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[thusatlas]

Okay, after spending what feels like 5 hours to try to send a longer message on tumblr – as the comments would only let me send a short paragraph and I didn't want to spam (to my shame I have to admit I’m not here very often and don't know how to tumblr) – I might finally be able to send this (or accidentally make a post or start a new cult instead, who knows, I'm talented like that). 🙈

First of, hello 😊

You have no idea how relieved I am to have found this information on The Fuckening. I just wanted to reread it (again 😅 because it's one of my go-tos for comfort reading) and was shocked to see it gone. I had feared that it would be lost forever, but knowing now that it will be back – no matter in which form – I’m glad. And you can bet that I will buy the hell out of your books when they arrive ❤

Do you have a rough estimate when I will be able to give you all my money in exchange for the best entertainment of my life? I will wait forever if I have to, of course, I’m just curious (and as you can guess eager to see how the story continues) 😅

And I don’t know if you want to give away any kind of information, but will Taliesin still be in it? I have kind of (read: completely) fallen in love with his character. And if I wouldn’t already ship him with Agent Jay like I (maybe too often) mentioned in the comments on the story (because I can’t help to be like that and obsess over minor characters and tiny side characters – just like with Theo and Blaise in the original books... and someone who almost no one understands, Zacharias Smith... but I'm repeating myself), I would want him for myself. 😅

I wish you the best of luck with your project and much inspiration 🍀❤

P.S.: Sorry for the many paranthesis 😅

Hello, my dearest! I have missed hearing from you! Kudos to you for figuring out the ask system - ngl, it all remains a mystery to me and I end up spamming people because I haven't the foggiest where to begin on fandangling the website to bend to my will. So well done! You're doing better than me! (But also, I will always endorse the creation of any cult, so I feel like you should do that anyway).

The only reticence I had about pulling the Fuckening was losing contact with the regulars who weren't necessarily in contact on Tumblr, so I am relieved to see you here. And I am really pleased you're still invested in the story despite it shifting universe - it's actually a huge relief. I hope you like where it ends up!

As for a rough estimate of when it'll be available? Not a clue. Not this year. I'll aim for an optimistic soft deadline of it being available in some form or another in 2024, but this is dependent on a million different variables that I don't really have control over. I'm going to try the traditional publishing route first, so this is going to eat into a lot of time, and then, in the miracle that I'm successful at securing the various buy-ins, the timeline will be dependent on a whole host of other things, so it may not even be in that year at all.

Failing all of that, I'll just self-publish, which shortens the timeline substantially. But even still, got to at least give the trad publishing route a go first before writing it off.

And this doesn't include the inevitable periods of writer's block and lack of will.

Either way, I'll keep you all updated with news, etc.

Alternatively, I've launched a (rough) author website and a Twitter where I'll be posting short stories and probably looking at newsletters, etc: Regan Atlas Website, Twitter

(I hate the whole marketing side of this business. My roommate is trying to convince me to start a Tiktok... I don't know if I can bring myself to that yet). For now, Tumblr will be my main source of coms because I am comfortable with hiding in this hellsite.

(( Also, spot the author name))

As for details, I love that you appreciate Tal and Agent Jay. I loved them very much too, so, of course, they will be appearing in the adaptation. The relationship between Tal and Hermione was something so tender that I think this new world is going to need to offset from the rest of the fuckery. And Jay and Kilmore are essential for the whole worldbuilding shenanigans so they'll def stay for the ride.

Thank you so much for your kindness, and I hope you know how much I have and continue to appreciate you. Stay in touch!! <3