JNC Writing Support Group
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@LeeroyCGNA I have done my best not to look at the work I submitted, because I am sure I would find errors that would get me upset. But then a friend got sick and she asked me to read it to her—which I was happy to do. Of course I immediately found an error that mangled a sentence and now i worry that I may have accidentally sent an older draft of story. So yeah, that’s how I am feeling right now. (I have made a little progress on my second volume, though—it’s slow, but progress).
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I’m a bit similar. Kind of resigned to missing out this time but with a much understanding of what I want to do for next time.
I haven’t gone back to re-read except to do some reference checks for another book set in the same world which would make up a submission for next time.
Oh - and I’ve been playing around with an idea for an Isekai because market forces rule and I actually think there’s a good(ish) tweak in there.
Luckily work has been insane the past couple months f weeks so I have managed to not obsess entirely about the results.
Whatever happens, I’m still glad I subbed and fully intend to sub again.
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Don't discount yourselves just yet, I'm damn sure that there's probably not many "finished" products that were submitted in the competition.
Fingers crossed that everyone here makes it through the first round at least. Best of luck all!
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Thanks. And best of luck to you too.
And everyone else on here.
It is funny. While I desperately want to get into the second round, I won’t be disappointed if I don’t. I’m just happy to be writing again.
The completed work was an interesting one. My second novel was 83,000 words because of the need to give it a clean ending.
Normally I would have split it in two but that left too many up in the air to be resolved in the sequel. It does have an “ending” point at the halfway mark but there’s more to come.
I almost did the part one and part two thing in the novel to show the break but changed my mind and let it flow as a single work.
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@Angelus said in JNC Writing Support Group:
@LeeroyCGNA pretty much resigned to not getting through to the second round because I'm getting less and less confident that what I wrote could really be described as a light novel.
I'm still confident it's a good story, though, even more so after one of my beta readers told the members of a book group she belongs to about it and they want to read it too (I've told them no while it's still in contention here), but is it the sort of thing JNC is looking for?
Anyway, as you say, it's only a few weeks now.
Pretty much identical here. I still think that what I wrote was the best it could be at the time, and I think the first half is really strong, but the more I think about the second half the more annoyed I get. I know I could have done better and I keep thinking of/coming up with subplots, foreshadowing, and mini character arcs that I want to go back and include.
I'm still confident I should get through the first round, but I'm less confident about the second than I was right after submission. I would definitely want to heavily edit/revise the manuscript to be as good as I know it should be before any sharing or publishing.
20 days to go.
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@Alfaerin I hope you are doing well, both in writing and in health!
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@jazzyjeoff said in JNC Writing Support Group:
@Alfaerin I hope you are doing well, both in writing and in health!
Seconding the best wishes for your health and fingers crossed we all make it through round one.
Now all I have to do is work out which March 31st it is before I start panicking (due to time zones - not temporal displacement).
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Although I've got some good ideas for an isekai story (well, I think they're good), I've instead gone ahead and made a solid start on the second volume of my competition entry. I've run into an issue about inclusivity, though.
I'm not worried too much about race because the abuse of the other sentient races of my world by humans is one of the major plot elements, it's more about gender and sexuality. The protag is a straight male and there is also a strong female character with whom he now has a relationship (whether he likes it or not) and of course he has associates who play minor roles, but the other major human characters who drive the plot will inevitably be various villains that he will encounter. This means that if I want to have more diverse characters, they will likely be bad people. So that leaves me with a dilemma - either I don't have diverse characters, or only the villains are diverse. Any thoughts, anyone?
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@Angelus said in JNC Writing Support Group:
Although I've got some good ideas for an isekai story (well, I think they're good), I've instead gone ahead and made a solid start on the second volume of my competition entry. I've run into an issue about inclusivity, though.
I'm not worried too much about race because the abuse of the other sentient races of my world by humans is one of the major plot elements, it's more about gender and sexuality. The protag is a straight male and there is also a strong female character with whom he now has a relationship (whether he likes it or not) and of course he has associates who play minor roles, but the other major human characters who drive the plot will inevitably be various villains that he will encounter. This means that if I want to have more diverse characters, they will likely be bad people. So that leaves me with a dilemma - either I don't have diverse characters, or only the villains are diverse. Any thoughts, anyone?
Ignorance. Other characters don't have to be villains if they have been raised on stereotypes or to see traits in certain ways. What sets villains apart, at least in something like racism or sexuality, is how wilful the intent behind it is or how strong it is. That is not necessarily true in reality but it can be played on in fiction.
Alternatively, you could have the villains be deceptively friendly or understanding so they seem like allies. Then when their true colours are revealed the betrayal hits all the harder.
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@Angelus It isn't always easy—but, personally, as long as the characters don't lean into negative stereotypes, I think it’s okay. I mean a totally badass villain can be cool and not demeaning. Conversely there are totally straight heroes that are totally cringe.
I know that everyone doesn't think that way—there are some folks that just want to be offended—not much you can do about those. And there are folks that will feel that your story somehow means you are sweeping with a broad brush and saying every situation is the same.
There is also the issue of tokinism—I mean do folks really need to know the sexuality of all your characters? If it really isn't intrinsic to the character, then don't shoehorn it in, but if adds to the character’s depth, then go for it!(Of course, this is coming from someone who hasn't written that much. But I did have a same-sex couple in my favorite Tearmoon fan-fic—I think it worked—it was mostly subtle and sweet —and helped define the characters as well as her parents—didn’t stop me from getting a couple mild gags out of it—but I their relationship matched in tone with the straight characters. The characters started as antagonists but ended up on the side of the angels in the end).
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@QuixoticHorizon said in JNC Writing Support Group:
Alternatively, you could have the villains be deceptively friendly or understanding so they seem like allies. Then when their true colours are revealed the betrayal hits all the harder.
I used that ploy in volume 1 so I thought I'd have some plain ol' antagonists this time around. And I think I get what you mean, that a person can act morally in terms of their own beliefs and still do bad things without actually being a "villain" as such.
@jazzyjeoff said in JNC Writing Support Group:
There is also the issue of tokinism—I mean do folks really need to know the sexuality of all your characters? If it really isn't intrinsic to the character, then don't shoehorn it in, but if adds to the character’s depth, then go for it!
Aye, there's the rub, as they say. I create a world in which I make it clear that relationships of any kind are permitted, but then if I put in a "bad" queer character it's reinforcing outdated stereotypes, if I put in a "good" queer character it's tokenism, and if I don't put one in at all it's heteronormative. To continue the Shakespearean theme, I'm hoist with my own petard!
I need to think about this a lot more, at least I have several other chapters to write before I need to introduce the first new antagonist.
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This is just how I would approach it which doesn’t mean it is the best way. I think this one comes down a bit to show - not tell. You can say it is a world that accepts all relationships but in this case it would be good to show it (without the need for characters to be good or evil).
Have some side characters leave a bar together or have one your main characters pass a couple in the in hallway of an inn or something. Just a few little drops like that.
That way the relationships of main characters are about how they interact rather than the relationship they are in.
Little drops normalising the relations/action of people in your world means it is not just the relationships between the main characters that readers see.
Hopefully this makes sense. It can be a sensitive issue but you know your characters and what is right from them.
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How are y’all doing. Just finished watching the most recent episode of Apothecary Diaries (wonderful!), which leaves me counting down to the next episode of Frieren—I am going to feel a little lost when their seasons’ end (open to replacement suggestions!).
Watching them has me convinced that most great stories have their fair share of plotholes—but if the reader (viewer) becomes sufficiently invested, a lot can be overlooked—even for a story that is pretty smart. -
Hello fellow writers! I was curious about something and figured I'd ask here: on average how long does it take you to finish writing a novel? I was amazed when reading the competition thread that some people started when the contest was announced and managed to write 80-100k words!
The story I submitted for the contest was written on paper, in script form, over the course of ~4 years. Converting it to book form took maybe 6 months (66k words). I was less into completing my work at the time I started this despite having so many ideas I want to convey.
The second story I wrote, the first half took me 8 months (9 chapters, 30k words) and I'm still working on the second half, but am at the 2 month mark. For the first half at least, I already had the ending in mind and wrote around that.
I have a different story that would suit this kind of contest better, but even if I start now I'm confident it won't be done by the deadline. I'll get to it after the other one.
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@mononyan It will always depend on how much time you dedicated to writing. I have been cooking my book in my head for years, I wanted to put on paper but always neglected. In the end with the competition it took me around four months to write it (70k+ words). Right now I am stuck on the second volume, almost two months and 28k words, and I am dedicating time to learn more about blacksmithing to better represent it in the book.
From most light novels I have seen it, it will be around four months to a year between releases, which includes editing and revising, but it also good to notice that some of them were already webnovels before being published.
I would say take your time and enjoy it, otherwise if you push too hard it will become a hassle. -
@mononyan I started when I found out about the contest, and hit just less than 50k words.
I went in knowing that it would be difficult and decided that I didn’t have the luxury of planning, so I picked a genre I liked and and sort of used a story that I read years ago and hated as inspiration for my starting point. Then I decided I would essentially “fix” the story—making the characters likable and giving them depth. I also gave it unique “hook” that coincidentally helped hide some of the deficiencies in my writing skill. The characters ended up driving the story’s plot completely and I was lucky that the pieces fell into place and I stumbled onto an ending that I liked. It ended up nothing like the story that I hated. I did have one person proofread (once), which was helpful since I am very error-prone. I was happy with the result, but have avoided rereading it since the submission, because I am afraid of the errors I will inevitably find.The only other full length-novel I ever wrote was a fanfic and it probably took a year to write and it took another year to remove a lot of the errors and polish (I posted it with a ton of errors, some are still there). There were world building things I had to do for the contest story that I didn’t have to do for the fanfic—and the fanfic had a lot more humor—so some chapters were built around gags, which is easier for me to do well than drama.
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@GhostMechanic It seems the competition was the perfect motivation you needed to start writing. Something similar happened with me. I entered a different competition in 2021 with the simple goals of wanting to try and also get reader opinions, which is when I converted the script into a book. It was riddled with errors and I didn't win, but still finished in time and felt satisfied.
@jazzyjeoff That's an interesting way to come up with a 'quick' idea! Also, I find a new error every time I read through my story so I can't blame you for avoiding rereading. I should have done the same with my submission.
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Recently, when I REALLY get in the writing mood, I get called into work. A few weeks ago I almost completed an entire chapter within a few hours before I got the call. It's frustrating, but at least I sometimes have enough downtime at work to write notes, dialogue, etc.
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@mononyan I started 21st December and managed to finish 99k words by 31st January. But I burnt myself out in the process, so would not recommend.
Everyone writes differently, but I would be happy with 500-1000 words per day.
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Hi there. For the answer it depends on the deadline :) I have a horrible habit of playing around with stories when they don’t have a reason to be written quickly.
No - there is a long, long “mulling” time and often a short writing period followed by a significant editing phase.
My best is 80,000 words in a week (because I had to take time off work to finish) but there were at least three more edits after the rough words were down on a page. On a good day I can do between 3-5,000 words. But it is all the days in between that catch me.
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@Damon-Cavalchini
80,000 words in a week? That’s just insane!
