[CONTEST OVER] JNC Original Light Novel Contest
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Just submitted my second entry. :) Unlike the first, it's one I started writing after the competition started, which may not matter according to the rules, but still makes me feel better.
Once again, I ended up butting against the word limit. 99998 this time. At one point in my final editing pass, about 5k words before the end, I was on 100000 exactly. Shame I ended up deleting a couple.
Speaking of editing, I can't recommend enough that you play back your text through a good text-to-speech program. Some mistakes that the likes of Grammarly or ProWritingAid would never spot, and even human readers who aren't skilled editors wouldn't notice, are really obvious when converted to speech.
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@cathfach said in [SUBMISSIONS NOW OPEN!] JNC Original Light Novel Contest:
Speaking of editing, I can't recommend enough that you play back your text through a good text-to-speech program.
Funny you should say that, a friend of mine who is writing a novel herself has been staying over these past few days and actually recommended the very same thing to me.
As for my own story, I'm just deeply stuck. I was able to make great progress during the last anime season when I wasn't watching hardly anything, but with watching 15 series this season I'm really struggling to make any progress beyond a little editing here and there.
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OMG 100k in that short amount of time is insane, congrats!
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@petitmelon My stats on Royal Road say I've done about 1.5M words in the past 3 years. It's not completely accurate; I have stuff I've written that isn't on Royal Road, and I started writing before joining there, but an average of 10k a week is a pretty good approximation.
Of course, it varies a lot. I've gone a month without writing anything (thanks to Steam's latest sale, I can probably wave goodbye to December... >.>) but when I've got an idea stuck in my head, I can do 20k a week fairly easily.
I only write for a hobby, though, and my stats pale compared to the people who write webnovels for a living. It just seems to be faster in general than traditional publishing. The one that usually gets tossed out as a not-completely-sane example is The Wandering Inn, which Pirateaba has been writing at about 50k words a week for the past 7 years.
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I’m so confused, my story is longer than the 100,000 word count, so does that mean I have to scrap the rest of it or can I send just the first part of it?
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@xxjyoxx You need to submit something not over 100000 words, and it needs to be readable standalone. If you're not too far over the limit, you could edit it down. If you're far over, find a decent stopping point, some sort of climatic event you can use as a volume climax and ending, split it there, and send in the first part.
Edit: I think I misread what you were asking. It's not saying that you need to scrap the rest of it, just that the rest of it won't form part of your competition entry.
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@cathfach Those numbers make my fingers ache just hearing them. One day, after I give up video games, maybe my hands won't be so tired.
@xxjyoxx said in [SUBMISSIONS NOW OPEN!] JNC Original Light Novel Contest:
my story is longer than the 100,000 word count
I think you may need to edit it then. I'm no expert, though
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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.
