The Writer's thread (Authors, Screenwriters, playwrights, etc.)) - Part 1

[Hellion]

I found that hiring a professional editor made my story much better. I would say concentrate on writing and then find someone you trust to handle the editing. I noticed that you indicated that you were doing both at the same time and I found that bogged me down. For your consideration.

I appreciate the insight, but at the moment, it isn't in the budget.

 

[Hellion]

Would anybody like to critique what I'd like to be my long and short descriptions?

SHORT

Spoiler

A red thread connects us to the ones we are destined to be with…

In (name of story), two months after the deaths of his father and older brother, a severed thread from Chen Meadow's past reconnects himself and threatens Chen and the threads he's tried to strengthen with his younger brothers.

LONG

Spoiler

A red thread connects us to the ones we are destined to be with…

In (name of story), five brothers strengthen the threads that connect themselves with each other two months after the death of their father.

A severed thread from Chen Meadow's superhero past in the form of a devious villain reconnects itself to Chen and threatens to sever the threads he’s been attempting to strengthen with his younger brothers. To protect himself and his brothers from this threat, Chen unearths some long-buried superpowered family secrets that change his brother’s lives and their thoughts on their family forever.

As he tries to protect his brothers, Chen might end up severing the very threads he’s been trying to strengthen.

And after a month (June) of revisions/editing, I'm going to sit on it for another month and focus on the descriptions and book cover design, etc., followed by hopefully one more round of editing for August and a hopeful September release.

ETA: I think, especially for the long description, I get a little too... or beat the reader over their head with the thread idea...

 

[BeastBoy]

So the question is: Since the guy was guilty of multiple murders, felt no remorse about it and was potentially going to get off without punishment, was Mike in the right to help someone take revenge on him? I'm not asking in the legal sense since I'm pretty sure there's several felonies just in Mike getting in to talk to the guy.

I would say: yes and no.

Yes, in the sense that nobody can really tell you if certain things are right or wrong. At a certain point you simply have to decide those things for yourself. Most people have different ideas about how a rational society should handle a murderer. So, in a case like this, everyone will have their opinions, but it isn't really their place to tell you definitively if you were acting immorally.

No, he is not in the right, in the sense that he is about to be complicit in what is most likely going to be a brutal murder. How can he justify to himself that this guy deserves what he is getting because he is a murderer, when he is using another murderer to exact that justice?

This is a death penalty case no question about it. The issue of morality is solved by how you feel about the death penalty. Now, if the guy taking his revenge doesn't actually kill the guy, then maybe there is a different discussion to be had here.

 

[Lobo]

I am currently working with an artist on a short comic about a wrongly convicted inmate who after a decade in prison, is granted a year of freedom to track down the Duplicate (a being who can mimic anything they see for 48 hours) who framed him. It should be ready by the end of August.

It will be about 8 or 9 pages, basically a cliffnotes version of a detective story with some Dragon Ball style action.

 

[Jh7058622]

I've been pondering a loose adaptation for Beauty and the Beast, however, this would be a modern retelling with scifi twist added in that would show the actual pains of being in a psychological and physically abusive relationship.

I've got a working title called "Beautiful Beast":

The main protagonist is a woman who is not unconventionally attractive (think Brigite Jones) computer hacker, "Bev" short for Beverly, and internet enthusiast who falls for a man she meets online. She never meets him in person until she hacks into his computer after 3 years of online dating. She finds out he's an equally brilliant, wealthy and very conventionally handsome cybernetics tycoon Damon Walt. She reveals she knows of his true identity and wants to break up with him due to her problems with the ethics of his research (wanting to make full synthetic copies of humans in cybernetic avatars) things she made perfectly clear of throughout their courtship.

He desperately asks her to reconsider but she cuts ties with him for months. That is until her father turns up missing who lives with her. He has recently been diagnosed with degenerative Alzheimer's disease, which has greatly effected Bev and what made her seek out the romance with Damon in the first place, her father a once talented hacker in his own right seems to have just vanished.

After filing a police report that goes nowhere (it wasn't uncommon for her father to wonder out for extended periods nor have the police looking for him) she gets an invitation from Damon to come to his mansion in upstate New York. She rejects his offer at first but then reconsiders when she gets a trojan horse hacked into her computer that has a very distinct signature she knows all too well. It was her father's one only he would know how to cultivate. She traces the trojan attack back to the address of her ex Damon on on of his computers. Thankful her father is alive and unsure what he was doing there Bev ventures to Damon's home...



And that's all I got right now I know the broad strokes just not the details of how I want to tell the story. Anyone want to give me some advice?

 

[Schlosser85]

It's really frustrating and discouraging to be so stuck on this chapter that I don't know where to go with.


The idea is it starts with the protagonist as a young adult on the cusp of becoming a fighter pilot and then flashes back through his Spartan-esque schooling and how he came to this point.


I had this desert race I kicked off with that feels like a good actiony intro for him, but then it feels like it gets bogged down afterward with too much expositional stuff, but stuff I do like from a worldbuilding/character development perspective.

 

[Hellion]

I'm using an editing app recommended by a friend. Apparently, I'm plagiarizing... myself.

I like the app so far... except for correcting dialogue as it flags characters speaking in social media/text lingo, or Spanish as errors... so I worry when I see 20, 30, 40 recommended things to correct, but sigh in relief when it's the dialogue.

So far, so good though, and right on track with editing both books.

 

[ComicChick]

which app?

 

[Hellion]

Grammarly

ETA:
My first book, I'm reusing the book cover I designed for that one. Again, I'm just cleaning it up--the book content. It was the final project for my self-publishing course from a few years back. It is a short story collection. This is the book the app said I was plagiarizing.

My current book I've been editing for ages. Two covers designed for two online publishers--same image but one focuses on one character in the sketch and one focuses on two characters featured in the sketch. I drew characters when I was brainstorming the ideas for the story, and I like that look of it was an idea, brainstorming session sketch.

I've had to push back releasing the book a lot because of my health, but so far, things are looking like next month, like I've planned.

 

[Robert Rise]

I can write everywere and about everything....all depends on my inspiration

 

[Hellion]

So, I already have my followup story and the entire "saga" for the characters planned out. I'm not sure how, but from my film education years ago, television scriptwriting was what stuck, and part of that was also putting together a bible. The bible was a 200-page document of "Four seasons" of twenty+ episodes, so I'll be mining that for all the future stories. Of course, it will need to be revised, as the document is of the original versions of the characters, stories, and ideas.

We'll see how that goes moving forward.

 

[ComicChick]

sounds very cool Hellion

 

[dhreiss]

Hey, folks. I'm new here, and I just thought that I'd introduce myself. I've been writing sci-fi and fantasy short stories for most of my life, but only just recently decided to really push to finish and publish longer works.

I've released two novels now (both superheroic prose. Or perhaps 'supervillain noir' might be a more accurate description) and am working on a third. I'm kinda jazzed at the moment because the first novel is currently a semi-finalist for the 2018 BookLife Prize (sponsored by Publishers Weekly magazine).

Anyway, I just wanted to say that this looks like a friendly community and I'm happy to be here! If anyone has any questions about self-publishing, editing, writing, skydiving, marketing, whatever...I'm always willing to share my own experience.

 

[ComicChick]

welcome!

 

[Canadian Rider]

Hey, folks. I'm new here, and I just thought that I'd introduce myself. I've been writing sci-fi and fantasy short stories for most of my life, but only just recently decided to really push to finish and publish longer works.

I've released two novels now (both superheroic prose. Or perhaps 'supervillain noir' might be a more accurate description) and am working on a third. I'm kinda jazzed at the moment because the first novel is currently a semi-finalist for the 2018 BookLife Prize (sponsored by Publishers Weekly magazine).

Anyway, I just wanted to say that this looks like a friendly community and I'm happy to be here! If anyone has any questions about self-publishing, editing, writing, skydiving, marketing, whatever...I'm always willing to share my own experience.

Awesome!

 

[Mandon Knight]

Back writing - thank god.

 

[Iceman]

Hey, folks. I'm new here, and I just thought that I'd introduce myself. I've been writing sci-fi and fantasy short stories for most of my life, but only just recently decided to really push to finish and publish longer works.

I've released two novels now (both superheroic prose. Or perhaps 'supervillain noir' might be a more accurate description) and am working on a third. I'm kinda jazzed at the moment because the first novel is currently a semi-finalist for the 2018 BookLife Prize (sponsored by Publishers Weekly magazine).

Anyway, I just wanted to say that this looks like a friendly community and I'm happy to be here! If anyone has any questions about self-publishing, editing, writing, skydiving, marketing, whatever...I'm always willing to share my own experience.

Great stuff! Good luck with that. And I'll be sure to ask for some tips when I get a bit further along the process.

 

[Chuppy]

So a friend and I have been co-writing a sci-fi novel for nearly two years now (more information for those interested in the link in my sig). It's been a long road with many, many, delays, pauses and even periods of complete nothingness. However, we are finally approaching release!

We're currently in the tedious editing process. My morale definitely took a hit when we got some feedback from beta-readers back and realised we needed to change up a few large chunks in our early chapters. However, we're pushing through and hoping to have it out early next year.

We already have a cover designed and an editor picked out. Social media is slowly getting off the ground (painful when you naturally don't like posting/talking yourself up). Next up, finish the damn book!

 

[ComicChick]

how is everyone doing in their writing endeavors?

 

[Manasrepublic]

I am so proud and also envy all of you who are so into the writing process and have even completed many stories and are so far a long in your creative endeavors. To be honest, I have two (what i think) fantastic ideas in my head and have the general beginning and ends in mind for both; the major problems I have are developing the bulk of the middle/majority of the stories for both, as in how to join the beginning and ends. I have been struggling with this for several years and despite my laziness and extremely crazy work schedule, i have made no progress on how to come up with good story beats for the middle of each idea. I fee like i hve been in a decade’s long writer’s block. I truly envy and am happy for those of you who have clearly fleshed out your stories. I would love to discuss my two ideas if anyone is interested and could really use some advice and guidance on how you folks got out of this rather frustrating state of not being able to come up with ideas and plot points

 

[ComicChick]

that's what this thread is for! share away

 

[Hellion]

So... from January to April I finished that followup story I mentioned months ago... wow, the last post was Nov. 24... been a while.

I'm taking a break this month to rewire from story creator to editor and proofreader. And following that, the way I was going to move along was to have three books, the original book, this new one of the followup, and then a third of the two books edited together.

I just kinda wanted to know, where's a good place to find editing services? I've done my own perusing around and found two. For me, it's always a case of, they'll steal my work.

 

[Lobo]

First four pages of a comic I am working on; Glimpse.

Hope you guys enjoy it, more coming soon, and hopefully we can reenergize this thread.

 

[joombo]

Awesome. Working on my critical essay right now. That's too bad that I'm a bad writer. Luckily I found writing service on papersowl.com that can help me to write the unique final paragraph.

 

[Da-Scribe]

I'm one month in on my website and I really didn't anticipate how heavy of a lift it would be just to get 2-3 articles written every day. Curating content for the site alone results in some early mornings and some very late nights. It's a tough balancing act with my day job, but I'm enjoying the grind quite a bit. It's really starting to come together and feels like it can help fill a gap, so I'm incredibly proud of it.