[CONTEST OVER] JNC Original Light Novel Contest
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@cathfach oh ok, so could I like do just a few story arcs and send those?
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@xxjyoxx said in [SUBMISSIONS NOW OPEN!] JNC Original Light Novel Contest:
@cathfach oh ok, so could I like do just a few story arcs and send those?
Just look at how other light novels with satisfying volume endings do it and find a cutoff point in your own story that feels good while imparting your reader with the desire to read more.
It could be an important job interview with a merchant, an impactful fight scene with bandits who kidnapped a younger sister, or an intriguing mission to cure a young woman's injuries with a secretive method while being pursued by international spies who want to learn that secret method.
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Oh can the submissions be of any genre or do you have a certain preferred one?
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@xxjyoxx the previous answer was it can be any genre
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@igounfazed well if you can't find the kind of story you're looking for you could always write it for J-novel Club's light novel writing contest 😉
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@Lily-Garden said in I Shall Survive Using Potions (Light Novel) Vol 9 licensing:
@igounfazed well ... you could always write it for J-novel Club's light novel writing contest 😉
hmmm... No... I am nowhere good enough for something like that. I don't mind embarrassing myself, see below url, but competitions are just not me. And there is a lot that goes into writing that I just don't have. If it were a legal document, or even a formal document, I would put it up there with complete confidence. But a story? I don't have what it takes to provide the "filler" a story needs.
For instance, this is one idea that crossed my mind because truck-kun tends to delete people that don't want to be deleted, Isekai Before Death, (google docs). If you read that, you can quickly see that I lack a lot of story building. I have the concept, guy that wants to die, world that summoned him as he was trying to kill himself, god that misunderstands his requests, and the world of hurt he brings to the kingdom that summoned him. It stops with ideas for future writing, but just reading those couple of pages you can see that I lack the ability to 'fill in' what I did write.
Also, there is something about reading a good story you don't know its writing. It tugs at your creativity/imagination in a way that my own writing can't. My $0.02 of course.
{edit: it says second draft, but it was some grammar and syntax correcting. The story itself was left as it was first written ~about 5 hours.} -
@igounfazed said in I Shall Survive Using Potions (Light Novel) Vol 9 licensing:
@Lily-Garden said in I Shall Survive Using Potions (Light Novel) Vol 9 licensing:
@igounfazed well ... you could always write it for J-novel Club's light novel writing contest 😉
hmmm... No... I am nowhere good enough for something like that. I don't mind embarrassing myself, see below url, but competitions are just not me. And there is a lot that goes into writing that I just don't have. If it were a legal document, or even a formal document, I would put it up there with complete confidence. But a story? I don't have what it takes to provide the "filler" a story needs.
Could you write like a legal document? Like an isekai court drama told entirely in formal documents? I would be curious if that would be possible...I've read stories told entirely through letters before, so it might be worth a shot...
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heyyy do you guys read all the content in the submissions and form your answer or just part?
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@Lily-Garden said in I Shall Survive Using Potions (Light Novel) Vol 9 licensing:
@igounfazed said in I Shall Survive Using Potions (Light Novel) Vol 9 licensing:
@Lily-Garden said in I Shall Survive Using Potions (Light Novel) Vol 9 licensing:
@igounfazed well ... you could always write it for J-novel Club's light novel writing contest 😉
hmmm... No... I am nowhere good enough for something like that. I don't mind embarrassing myself, see below url, but competitions are just not me. And there is a lot that goes into writing that I just don't have. If it were a legal document, or even a formal document, I would put it up there with complete confidence. But a story? I don't have what it takes to provide the "filler" a story needs.
Could you write like a legal document? Like an isekai court drama told entirely in formal documents? I would be curious if that would be possible...I've read stories told entirely through letters before, so it might be worth a shot...
hmmm.... if you read the linked story and still think it's was good enough to suggest something else, I thank you for the vote of confidence.
I think I initially misunderstood your suggestion. If I understand what you are suggesting correctly, I think you mean: A legal story told through a court transcript? As if I were reading a stenographer's recording of a court appearance or trial?
District Attorney (DA): Your honor, my intent... What I would like to make clear to the jury while questioning the victim, is where the defendant, Mr. Smith, was in relationship to the victim's location. I unders....
Attorney for Defendant, Mr. Stoks: (interrupting the DA) Your honor, this line of questioning was... has already been done. Three times I might add, and each time my client's location hasn't change, nothing new has been added, and it's all been asked of and with the same witness! All this is doing is lengthening my client's stay behind bars, away from his family; who have come here each day and are here now, while the DA does what? Get the same answer? To show the same thing?
Justice Globerman: Ok.... That's enough. DA, either you move on, or I will move this case on without you. I'm going to bring the jury back in, and you either move on with your questioning, call another witness, or end your case. One of those will be done.
DA: Yes, your honor.
(((in my mind, I envision the DA saying no further questions of this current witness, and bringing in the defendants sister as a witness against him, who saw everything. Meaning the actual story would start from here, in a Q&A fashion.)))
Is that what you meant? It still feels empty to me.
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@igounfazed You say you "don't have what it takes," but how do you think people acquire writing skills they lack? No one is born a great writer; it's something they become by writing. A LOT. If every writer gave up because they weren't as good as they wanted to be, no one would ever write anything. You don't have to submit the story to the contest if you don't feel comfortable, but I would strongly encourage you to continue working on it anyway. I'd be glad to help if you want, too. There may be better writers than you out there, but none of them can tell YOUR story. Only you can do that. As a writer, you can fill the story full of things you love, and create something that suits your tastes perfectly. If you write something you enjoy, I guarantee there will be others out there who will enjoy it, too.
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@igounfazed lmao. You nailed the court room talk with all those pauses and rephrasing mid sentence. Reminds me of when Leonard French reads court transcripts. I read it all in his voice.
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I finally finished my first version of the story. Total of 93k words, over 12 weeks. Average of 7.75k words per week. I am exhausted, but I made it.
I have a month left to edit it before the final submission deadline. Time to
murderremove half the character cast who bloated the story.I felt this quote for this story quite profoundly. "expect 80% of the ideas to happen after you start writing, and 50% of those you start with to be wrong" (source)
I really had no idea what kind of story I was writing until the final chapter.
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Running out of time.
Arg!
I am still trying to make my shortened story readable. On the plus side—I have finally decided on an ending that I like. -
@jazzyjeoff good luck!
I don't think I have enough time to finish my story by the deadline this time. Hopefully I'll have it finished by the next time they do the contest 😉
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Aaah! Wow, I just discovered this forum! I was searching around on the web for any news other than the official site on this contest but couldn't find any except for Justus R Stone's vid. I'm at about 91k words but have had my story done for over a year. The announcement for this contest literally came out the day before my birthday as I was wondering what to do with this story. I have been editing and rewriting endlessly for the last 6 months and i'm almost done. I think I have found all of the plot holes but I'm running out of time for grammar and revision! I'm giving it all that I've got now that exams are over but I don't think I'm going to have enough time for someone else to read through it. However I think that I do have a good text to speech app! Wishing everyone good luck as I pull multiple all nighters to try and get everything wrapped up! The title of my work is called Soul Shifters I'd like to think of it as a YA fantasy/ shonen but with a poc female protag.
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Non-serious question: Can our stories be disqualified for being to sad? I'm struggling to edit through the tears.
I wanted to write a comedy... Why did it end up like this... 😭
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@Parity comedy & tragedy are two sides of the same coin
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With the holiday, I finished
murderingediting out like half the characters. There are now officially, no more bad guys. And the ending is that much sadder for it.I discarded over 20k words, and wrote an extra 5-10k to round things out. This is my first longer story, but I think the ruthless editing really helped. I'm happy where the story is now. Well- I'm as happy as I can be when I'm tearing up at the ending. If half my own attachment to the characters is communicated, this should be a half-decent story.
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Doing some of my own writing made me realize why there are so many isekai stories that only barely make use of the protagonist's otherworldly origins. Even if it's not necessary to the plot, it makes it a lot easier to justify explaining how the new world differs from our own. Like, if everyone rapidly regenerates from injury using an unconscious form of magic like hitpoints from an RPG, an isekai character could point that out to the reader easily as they explore the magic system themselves. A native from the world is less likely to comment on it since it's just a natural part of life for them.
So be it. That world wasn't an isekai 25 years ago, and I'm not going to make it one now.
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@LeavesCat There's always the "token disabled background character used only as an excuse for exposition" gambit.
I waved to Jerry. As always, he was dressed like he was still at work. He worked in construction, despite his disability, and not only wore a hard hat even while not working, but these hand-crafted boots with toes reinforced with metal. Unlike normal people like me, poor Jerry was born unable to regenerate. People like him could heal from little cuts and bruises, but it took forever, and they couldn't even grow back something as trivial as a finger or toe. We all tried to be considerate of him, but it seemed like every week we had a new story to tell of how someone nearly maimed him.
