JNC Writing Support Group
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Since the contest is ending, I decided to make a thread here so we can continue to discuss writing. Here we can ask for advice, encourage each other, plus proofread and offer feedback on stories. Everyone is welcome to contribute, regardless of whether you're currently writing or have a story you want to share. The only rule is to be polite when you're offering feedback on a story, especially constructive criticism.
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Referenced by A Alfaerin
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@Alfaerin Hi there. Thanks and welcome to everyone who joins.
Great rules. Not everyone loves the same things and it always easy to break feedback down into different categories.
I’m hoping to post the sequels to the works I submitted to get some feedback to make the submissions to the next competition better (until I’m rejected from the competition and then I would be happy to post about the submissions themselves).
If my grand scheme works, these should be sufficiently standalone that you don’t need to have read the original.
I’m also happy to offer what feedback I can but I’m not an editor (as this competition has shown) :)
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So I sort of went into the competition blind and not having read many Japanese light novels. My reading experience is mainly Chinese Cultivation and Webnovels, with the only Japanese LN's I've read being Overlord and Reincarnated as a Slime.
However, as far as Japanese media goes I have watched countless anime over the years so I'm hoping my knowledge was put to good use in my book.
I wrote a baseball novel called "Major League System." with inspiration from my favourite anime of all time "Major."
Think game system meets organized sports, along with family dynamics and typical teenager stuff.
Here is my synopsis (apologies for word dump.):
*Follow the captivating journey of Ken Takagi, a high school baseball prodigy whose dreams were shattered by a devastating shoulder injury during a crucial match. After being forced to quit baseball and become a regular office worker, his life turns sour upon seeing his teammates compete on the professional level while he wallows in pain and self-pity.
However, fate has other plans for Ken when he's granted a second chance, thrust back into his middle schooler self with a powerful ally—the Major League System.
With a newfound opportunity to rewrite his destiny, Ken embarks on a quest to reclaim the glory he once lost. Armed with the Major League System, he navigates the challenges of adolescence, friendship, and the pursuit of greatness. As Ken strives to overcome the mistakes of his past and shape a future he can be proud of, readers are taken on an exhilarating ride through the world of baseball, where dreams are made and broken.
Will Ken be able to rise above the setbacks, hone his skills, and fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a professional baseballer? With the Major League System at his disposal, the journey is fraught with excitement, setbacks, and unexpected twists. This is a tale of resilience, redemption, and the pursuit of excellence—a story that will keep you eagerly turning the pages, yearning to see if Ken can hit a home run in rewriting his own destiny. Get ready for a thrilling exploration of passion, determination, and the unwavering spirit of a young athlete chasing greatness.*
Does this sound like something interesting, particularly asking those who are accustomed to Japanese media?
Thanks.
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Will not share the work I submitted here since J-Novel was really adamant about copyright and distributions regarding the work. But if I drop out I will upload it online anyway, so I will share it here by then.
@LeeroyCGNA
Is that a time travel combined with sports? Sports never had really been something for me, but it is indeed an interesting idea. I would give it a read!And uh...
The blurb for my story "Immor:Tale" would be:"Please let me reincarnate into a world of magic and fantasy."
After making this pathetic prayer and chickening out from jumping of a building a weird creature appears and I blank out. The next moment I find myself in the back of a truck that is being chased and shot at. Worst of all, the people I am with just robbed a bank and the previous owner of my new body had been helping them!
And to top it of monsters are almost extinct now and magic might have never existed here! Where is the guidance of this "god" that brought me here?
Where is my heroine? And why do I find myself facing the same problems that I had been trying to run away from in my old world?Yeah, I know. There is nothing about anything immortal in that text, but I promise the title makes sense
Edit: god I hate writing summaries, blurbs and synopses.
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@AkayaKaito Is your book written in first person? I've only ever written in 3rd person so it's a little hard for me to read/write.
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@LeeroyCGNA
Yes. I have problems with writing 3rd person, so I stuck to what I had practiced before.
But I am trying to get more comfortable with other ways, since I do have two other stories planned that I literally cannot write in first person. -
Sounds great.
Curiously, I wrote one of each. A User’s Guide to Death (in first) and Stairway to Heathen (in third).
I’ll grab my synopsis files when I get a chance (time zone differences here in the southern hemisphere) but I did tweak them slightly when adding to the submission form.
I prefer first but sometimes the more distant perspective of third suits the story better.
The sequel to one of stories has a baseball link but more as a background/thematic motif that allow me to make a terrible pun in the title.
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Everyone who's posted their story's premise in this topic and the official contest topic have some really great stories! I would definitely pay money to read them ^^ I really struggled writing the synopsis for my light novel, because I didn't want to spoil any of the twists... I think I may have undersold the story as a result, ahaha.
The key to writing strong first-perspective stories is a protagonist whose inner thoughts and observations add to the story. It gives you a great opportunity to write colorful narration that would be difficult or impossible writing in third person. You also have the option of making them an unreliable narrator, whether for humorous or dramatic effect. Generally though, first person perspective is easier to write, since you only need to cover what the narrator can observe.
When it comes to third person perspective, there are two different kinds: an omniscient third person view, and a third person perspective that's restricted to the narrator. I find third person omniscient to be the hardest to write, so I mostly stick to third person/narrator's POV. For those struggling to write in third person, I would suggest writing a passage in first person, then change the pronouns and such to make it third person. From there, you can slowly add details and such to flesh out the narration better. If you're still having trouble, try reading other works in third perspective and take note of how they're written. And of course, you can always post here for feedback and help :)
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Third person limited perspective is goated. First person is a close second. Third person omniscient is kinda weird, and second person makes my brain break, so I don't read it, but that's just my opinion.
Honestly, I feel like third person limited actually emphasizes the main character's perspective more than first person. You get to use the MC's pronouns and describe them as their own character. I feel like when I wrote first person, all my main characters turned into amorphous blobs that didn't get enough personality or description. Only when I switched to another characters perspective did the MC ever get any description or thought to how they fit into the situations. I still have that problem with third person limited, but it's much less pronounced.
This is all to say, I love third person limited... a lot...
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@Parity said in JNC Writing Support Group:
I feel like when I wrote first person, all my main characters turned into amorphous blobs that didn't get enough personality or description.
Yeah, that's one of the risks of first person POV, especially when you write multiple people in first person. If readers can't tell within a few sentences who's narrating, your story is probably better served by being written in third person. First person mainly shines when the narrator brings a unique perspective to the story. I wrote my light novel in first person because my protagonist has a lot of good inner commentary, and will narrate lines like "Mom's eyebrows shot up so high they looked ready to blast off into space."
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@Alfaerin
I solved that problem with mainly staying with my MC or, like you said, making the first three sentences or the situations recognizable enough to know who is right now in charge.
And beside that I tried to simplify the thinking process of certain characters:The protagonist is quirky and a coward scared of blood
One guy is purely focused on his plans
The leader of the government thinks of the use and gain/loss in an efficient way
Another girl that appears somewhere in the mid of the story is always remindet of her memories and treasures themMy personal opinion for "Isekai" stories is that it is more fun to "experience" them in first person, one of the reasons I went ahead with this story.
But that other perspectives are also quite fun, just like many already existing stories are proving.
Also I always had been a sucker for ego shooters and this perspective, so it is right in my comfort zone to stay in it. I only broke it one or two times. -
Three days out, and I already miss talking about contest goings-ons (and it’s not like I really stopped-ha!). I did start the second book in my series, if only barely. It is much harder than I thought. I’ve rewritten the introductory chapter four times, and it still reads a little ugly. I've stopped trying to clean it up and begun to move on (I think). I hope to have made some real progress before they announce the first round results—it might take a little of the sting out of not moving up if I feel like I am making progress on something new.
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I'm hesitant to post my title or synopsis since the contest entry and email after the contest closed mentioned not sharing it if it wasn't already publicly available (probably just me taking it too far), but I will say that my story has a mix of third-person (most of the story) and first-person (one specific character on two occasions).
I don't think I've ever seen second-person done (or at least done well) outside of Choose Your Own Adventure books.
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@jazzyjeoff said in JNC Writing Support Group:
Three days out, and I already miss talking about contest goings-ons (and it’s not like I really stoped-ha!). I did start the second book in my series, if only barely. It is much harder than I thought. I’ve rewritten the introductory chapter four times, and it still reads a little ugly. I've stopped trying to clean it up and begun to move on (I think). I hope to have made some real progress before they announce the first round results—it might take a little of the sting out of not moving up if I feel like I am making progress on something new.
Whenever you get stuck while writing, it's better to just move on and work on the next scene. Your story is still in its rough draft phase, so there's no reason to keep fussing over it for now. Just make a note for yourself about what you want to add/change and keep going. You'll get a lot more done if you focus on what you CAN write instead of getting hung up on a scene that's giving you trouble :)
@QuixoticHorizon said in JNC Writing Support Group:
I'm hesitant to post my title or synopsis since the contest entry and email after the contest closed mentioned not sharing it if it wasn't already publicly available (probably just me taking it too far), but I will say that my story has a mix of third-person (most of the story) and first-person (one specific character on two occasions).
I'm pretty sure it's just the story itself we're not allowed to share. Several people have already posted their titles and synopses, and no one has stepped in to tell us we shouldn't. My story is entirely first perspective, but I've since written two short stories in third person I'm hoping to include if my story makes the cut. It's called The Adopted Princess Is Actually a Wayfarer of Worlds, and is one part world-hopping, one part political intrigue, and one part romance. I didn't want to spoil any of the twists, so the synopsis I wrote is pretty barebones:
"Fifteen year-old Elise leads a double life with many secrets. She is the daughter of a true saintess, but she and her mother are forced to hide their holy powers to avoid running afoul of the powerful, corrupt Philian church. After her parents disappeared under mysterious circumstances five years ago, Elise was adopted by her aunt and uncle, who jointly ascended the throne at the end of a long and brutal civil war. At the same time she must navigate social and political challenges as a princess, she journeys across other worlds and fights to protect her homeland from demons known as the Maleficara.
"Several days before her sixteenth birthday, Elise sets out to investigate another world, only to land in far more trouble than she bargained for. Returning to the palace after a traumatic event sees her embroiled in even more problems, as she abruptly finds herself tangled in a web of political machinations. Who is lying, and who can she trust? What happened to her parents five years ago, when they vanished on another world? Why did her mother suddenly reappear a year and a half later, without any memories from that time? Now that Elise is eligible for marriage, will she discover the meaning of true love?"
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@QuixoticHorizon said in JNC Writing Support Group:
I'm hesitant to post my title or synopsis since the contest entry and email after the contest closed mentioned not sharing it if it wasn't already publicly available (probably just me taking it too far), but I will say that my story has a mix of third-person (most of the story) and first-person (one specific character on two occasions).
I don't think I've ever seen second-person done (or at least done well) outside of Choose Your Own Adventure books.
Unless your story is the most unique thing ever, I can’t imagine the harm in posting the synopsis, if you really want to.
Personally, I am sort of ambivalent about posting my own synopsis, and I am not totally sure why. Maybe it’s because the most that a synopsis can really do, is put my story in a category (villainess second chance book) and then tell what the hook is—and that’s not really what I want folks to know about my story—or specifically the characters I have begun to fall in love with. It may sound sort of stupid, but that’s how I feel. It’s not like I am secretive, I would love for folks to read my whole story (or even 30%😜). -
@jazzyjeoff I know how you feel--I was hesitant to post my synopsis because it doesn't really capture the story the way I want, especially the characters. I feel like it's really underselling the story, but I'm not sure how to make it better without spoilers, which would ruin the story >.<
@admin Just to clarify, are we allowed to post our stories' titles and synopses? If we wanted to privately share the story with say, another member of the writing group here to get feedback, would that be okay since it's not being publicly posted?
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@Alfaerin Yeah, sharing the title and summary is fine, and privately sharing to other people or getting advice from others is also perfectly okay.
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@Alfaerin said in JNC Writing Support Group:
@jazzyjeoff I know how you feel--I was hesitant to post my synopsis because it doesn't really capture the story the way I want, especially the characters. I feel like it's really underselling the story, but I'm not sure how to make it better without spoilers, which would ruin the story >.<
For mine, I just went through the series pages on JNC and read enough blurbs until everything blurred together and then tried to recreate a similar tone. I had tremendous difficulty even then, until I wrote out all the pieces of information I wanted to convey through my synopsis until I mercilessly whittled it down to its barest essentials to communicate only the key interesting part of my plot, and then shot to keep it under 200 words since 180 words seemed to be roughly the average length of blurbs I saw from a small sample I ran through a word counter.
"I think it's cool that the Kingdom hunts these giant monsters called Primal Lords and—"
"TOO BAD!"I managed to find a good combo that worked, but if I got stuck in the future, I would even consider randomly choosing bullets to strike off and then write a new synopsis that only conveyed the chosen combination until I found something that worked.
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@admin said in JNC Writing Support Group:
@Alfaerin Yeah, sharing the title and summary is fine, and privately sharing to other people or getting advice from others is also perfectly okay.
Glad to hear that! I'd really wanted to share but assumed I shouldn't.
Mine is called Rudder with the subtitle I Will Follow. It is fantasy but not isekai.
"I will follow - that is the vow a young boy makes when his sister is kidnapped by slave traders. Taking on the name "Rudder" from how she called him, he sets out alone into the wilderness determined to track down and rescue her no matter how long it takes. The story of a young boy as he becomes a man, striving forward with boundless determination to meet his goal: saving his sister."
His sister calls him 'Rudder' because she can't say 'brother' properly.
I wanted to show an adventure story where the stakes are personal without being world-changing. There's no demon king, no magic, just an orphan who wants to find his sister no matter how long it takes him. A lot of isekai LNs treat slavery really casually and that has always irritated me, so I wanted to turn those tropes on their head too.
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@Alfaerin said in JNC Writing Support Group:
Whenever you get stuck while writing, it's better to just move on and work on the next scene. Your story is still in its rough draft phase, so there's no reason to keep fussing over it for now. Just make a note for yourself about what you want to add/change and keep going. You'll get a lot more done if you focus on what you CAN write instead of getting hung up on a scene that's giving you trouble :)
The most important advice I forget until an hour or two has already been spent staring at a sentence. Goes hand in hand with trying to be concise with my words because I've confused how long I've spent writing and editing and rewriting and... with how long it'll take to read the finished product.
