JNC Writing Support Group
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@Damon-Cavalchini Thanks for the kind words! Since I have hit a lull in my writing it is a pick/me-up. I have a lot more writing to do—If they have a contest at the same time as lat year, I will aim for that. The two sites I like best are Royal Road and Archive of Our Own. RR has the best exposure—but the commenting on AO3 has been a little more pleasing. I would rather have 10 people share comments than have 10,000 views (though, I see folks here get 1,000,000 on RR). BTW, the second round rejects have posted their links on discord—there is one about an embryonic hero posted that seems really fun! I think it broke a million views on RR).
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I have been meaning to have a look at that one. As an aside neither of mine mad either through the last gate but I'm waiting on the official feedback before deciding what to do with them.
I may have accidentally started writing an isekai to take my mind off things :)
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@Damon-Cavalchini said in JNC Writing Support Group:
I have been meaning to have a look at that one. As an aside neither of mine mad either through the last gate but I'm waiting on the official feedback before deciding what to do with them.
I may have accidentally started writing an isekai to take my mind off things :)
Sorry yours didn't make it through—let us know where it winds up!
accidentally wrote an isekai? I can't even finish my original work on purpose! -
@jazzyjeoff said in JNC Writing Support Group:
accidentally wrote an isekai? I can't even finish my original work on purpose!
I accidentally started trying to write something completely different and about 1,500 words in realised it was an isekai :)
I think there may something wrong with me...
I was going to write a real world tragedy with mafia and petty criminals but they warped into an adventurers' guild in need of some heroic reformation.
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@Damon-Cavalchini Nothing makes me happier than a good redemption story—well, except for a great redemption story—so get to work!
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@jazzyjeoff Hi, Is there an app i can use to read my downloaded novel from J Novel?
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Hi there.
I'm not @jazzyjeoff but there are plenty of apps you can use. Depending on how you normally read books, anything that allows you to load epubs would work - including Kindle, Kobo, iBooks, and many more.
JNC try to make their books as flexible as possible. It is probably a better discussion for the Support threads rather than here though.
Good luck. Hope you enjoy what you bought.
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@Damon-Cavalchini Yes, I use the apple books app on my phone. But I am guessing most anything should work.
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It’s funny. I just went back to writing my story in wattpad on my phone, instead of a proper word processing program—and I am probably a hundred times more productive. And it’s such a crappy interface, even copy-paste is hit-or-miss! But I am making some progress again—so thank heaven for crappy little editing programs!
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Another update! I'm not too sure who is still checking out this thread since it's been a while since anyone posted, but here it goes.
My book has continued to blow up on Webnovel, reaching top #10 status. I've recently left my job and am now writing full time, this was truly my big break and I feel utterly blessed.
There's talks of an audiobook and possible comic adaptation coming in the future!
Thank you to J-Novel who started the competition and ultimately didn't pass my book, it allowed me to find success elsewhere.
I hope everyone in here is still writing and pursuing your dreams!
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So, is this too sweet for a villain’s tragic backstory?
"Hey, Konios—last one to the apple tree owes the winner a treat!" The little red-haired girl was already sprinting ahead, her challenge more of a formality than a fair start.
"Sophia! That's cheating!" the blond-haired boy with an angelic face shouted indignantly. But the unfairness of the race didn't stop him—he could never say no to Sophia. He dashed down the hill from the palace gardens to the glen below, only to find Sophia already leaning against the tree, her ruby eyes glistening in the shadows.
She laughed as Konios hunched over, catching his breath. "You lost!"
"You... cheated! You... always cheat," Konios panted.
"We always race to the same tree—and you always lose. Now, my prize." Sophia pointed up to the top of the tree. "Apple!"
"It's too high!"
"Don't be scared."
Konios wrapped his small hands around the first branch and pulled himself up, scraping his legs and chest. He repeated this climb for what felt like ages until he almost reached the crown. But when he looked for the golden apple they had spotted earlier, the branch was bare.
CRUNCH.
Konios heard the sound above him. He looked up to see Sophia floating, munching on the apple.
"Catch!" she called, tossing another apple down. He reached out, but it slipped through his fingers, bouncing off the branches until it hit the ground far below.
"You can fly! Your aether—it came in. When?"
"Just a few days ago. I borrowed one of Father's focus stones."
"You stole it!"
Sophia laughed, but her expression quickly changed. Her skin turned pale as she flailed at the air, suddenly dropping below. Konios heard her scream and the crack of branches as she tumbled.
"Konios, help!"
She was still in the tree, but from his branch, he could only see her red hair fluttering below. Without thinking, Konios scrambled down, dropping from branch to branch until he reached her.
Sophia was clinging desperately to a branch, one arm hanging precariously. Konios crawled on his stomach towards her, but the branch between them groaned under the strain.
He stopped, just an arm's length away. "Sophia, I can't get any closer. The branch will break. Take my hand."
"I can't! I'll fall!"
"Sophia, I won't let you fall."
The branch creaked ominously. Sophia gazed into his eyes, her fear palpable, then flung her hand outward, releasing her grip on the branch. Konios caught her just as the wood gave way beneath her, crashing through the branches below.
They scrambled to the safety of the trunk. Too tired to climb down, they sat side by side on the thick branch. For almost a minute, Konios's blue eyes locked with Sophia's scarlet ones, until they finally erupted into nervous laughter.
"You flew!" Konios said.
"I fell."
"Yeah."
"You saved me."
Konios placed his hand over hers. "I told you I would. I always—"
If you read a story with a horrible, irredeemable villain, would it bother you to find this sweet part of his tragic backstory 2/3 of the way in? (the story is largely a redemption story- but this guy is evil to the end)
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@jazzyjeoff said in JNC Writing Support Group:
If you read a story with a horrible, irredeemable villain, would it bother you to find this sweet part of his tragic backstory 2/3 of the way in?
People aren't born evil, even the worst criminal was once Mama's sweet little baby, although I guess that's a rose-tinted Western humanist view and other cultures and belief systems may well disagree. In fiction, though, we can do anything we can imagine with a villain's origin story, but I think we do need to imagine it because without one, a villain is just a plot device. So can a truly evil villain have a sweet backstory? Why ever not? And 2/3 of the way in? Seems fine to me.
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@Angelus Thanks for the input! Makes me feel better about where I am going.
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Personally, I like nuanced characters - even villains - so I think a sweet back story works. Especially if it can be use to counterpoint their villainous aspects. It is like a murderous psychopath who picks up litter off the street.
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Does anyone know of writing site that allows for a wide variety of font styles? Royal Road has a handful of boring fonts. I haven't seen any on Archive of Our Own, and I feel privileged when Wattpad allows me to us itallics!
(I know it is sort of gimmicky, but I am using different font styles to indicate different souls operating in the same body—I am also open to a more elegant solution) -
Hi there. I used the boring combination of italics/non-italics to represent something similar in my submission for the last round.
Normal was non-italics but soul was italics.
They had slightly different written ‘voices’ as well.
Fonts always struck me as risky outside of printed materials or locked formats like PDFs.
But I could just be an old codger.
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@Damon-Cavalchini said in JNC Writing Support Group:
Fonts always struck me as risky outside of printed materials or locked formats like PDFs.
But I could just be an old codger.You can't even rely on PDFs unless you embed the fonts, and that can be a legal minefield (if you're worried about such things).
But yes, fonts and more generally text appearance shouldn't be relied on in anything purely browser-based because the fonts live on the device that's viewing the document and it may not have the same fonts that the document author had, so the browser will try to substitute what it thinks is a similar one. If you try using, say four different fonts, maybe the browser will allocate two (or three or all) of those to the same actual font on the device.
Or at least that's how things used to be until HTML5, CSS3 and EOT fonts came along. Now it's possible for a website to embed fonts in webpages or use fonts that live on a cloud server, so perhaps that's how Royal Road and the rest handle it.
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The original contest allowed for a variety of fonts—and that is what I wrote the story for—and now that I have written it that way, I have grown attached to it—and nothing else seems to work as well.
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It can be hard to change it up and - at the end of the day - it comes down to what you feel comfortable with.
I always hesitate when it comes to online but play with fonts and so when I know it will be printed. For me, it is the only way to control the outcome.
But if people can read and follow your intent then go for it.
If you are happy, result achieved.
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Just in case people haven't seen it, the Light Novel competition is back again and open for submissions.
The rules and T&Cs can be found here.
https://j-novel.club/jncolncontest-application
Just a quick plug given the original competition is where this group sprung from.
