JNC Writing Support Group
-
@admin Well, have fun crushing the hopes and dreams of 5 out of 6 folks on this forum! đ
-
@jazzyjeoff, the way not to have your hopes and dreams crushed is not to have any hopes and dreams in the first place. Now that might sound depressing, but it's like the old thing about how pessimists ought to be among the happiest people in the world because life usually turns out better than they thought it would.
After reading something captivating, book lovers simply need to talk about it with someone.
âTearmoon Empire -
@Angelus said in JNC Writing Support Group:
@jazzyjeoff, the way not to have your hopes and dreams crushed is not to have any hopes and dreams in the first place. Now that might sound depressing, but it's like the old thing about how pessimists ought to be among the happiest people in the world because life usually turns out better than they thought it would.
Well, for now I am going to pretend that the 5 out of 6 bad entries are chatbot generated entries that have been spammed to the site. So, that means everyone on this forum made it past the first round. So congratulations everyone!
See, my coping mechanism is much more cheerful!(admitally, mine has a much shorter shelf-life than yours, but 40 days of relative happiness isn't so bad)
-
@jazzyjeoff said in JNC Writing Support Group:
Well, for now I am going to pretend that the 5 out of 6 bad entries are chatbot generated entries that have been spammed to the site.
Seeing that Nvidia AI I was posting about wasn't sure my entry even qualified as a LN, maybe I ought to ask it if it thinks it could write a better one! Regardless, I'm pressing ahead with volume 2 of my entry now because that seems a lot easier than the weird sci-fi/isekai story I've mentioned before.
After reading something captivating, book lovers simply need to talk about it with someone.
âTearmoon Empire -
@Angelus I just finished crushing my hopes and dreams, so I can confirm that this method works. I'll consider it a win if I get back some feedback.
Next year, though, I'll be sweeping the contest. I've only started greasing the pan, but I can tell I'm gonna cook.
-
@Angelus said in JNC Writing Support Group:
@jazzyjeoff said in JNC Writing Support Group:
Well, for now I am going to pretend that the 5 out of 6 bad entries are chatbot generated entries that have been spammed to the site.
Seeing that Nvidia AI I was posting about wasn't sure my entry even qualified as a LN, maybe I ought to ask it if it thinks it could write a better one! Regardless, I'm pressing ahead with volume 2 of my entry now because that seems a lot easier than the weird sci-fi/isekai story I've mentioned before.
Well, the AI was just trying to intimidate you into quitting because it wanted one of its 400 entries to win. Don't trust the machinesâthey are all filthy cheaters!
I am working on my volume 2 also. One of the many things I have learned from this contest is for me to keep things in manageable chunksâI was sort of intimidated at the 50K word minimum threshold that I almost quit. When they lowered it to 35K it felt doableâand I just about hit 50K anyway. I think light novels lend themselves well to that sort of approach, since many of them tend to be very episodic.
Another funny thing about the contest was just how quickly that I came up with the general plot. I knew I would be pressed for time, so I just quickly made a decision that fit in with what I perceive to be my relative strengthsâthough I sort of regret not writing a comedy. I can be really indecisive sometimes, so having the structure of a contest was pretty helpful in getting me going. -
@Angelus @jazzyjeoff The place has been quiet so I got caught with work and havenât been here for a few days. Iâm always happy to chat about writing (even though it may take a while to reply).
I am also wondering if my entries were light novel enough so I am working on a sequel that feels much more light novelly. And in doing so come up with the plot for an isekai with an incredibly long title which might be much more the judges cup of tea.
That said, by the simple value of being in this group you are more likely to be in the 1 out of 5 group :)
-
@admin said in JNC Writing Support Group:
@jazzyjeoff I'm buried in original light novel competition entries. For every good one there are 5 bad ones....
At least there have been a couple pretty damn good ones, so I'm hopeful the winners are gonna be good.
Petition to change the group name to "Top 1/6 Author support group" so we can all delude ourselves into thinking our entries were one of the good ones.
-
@LeeroyCGNA said in JNC Writing Support Group:
@admin said in JNC Writing Support Group:
@jazzyjeoff I'm buried in original light novel competition entries. For every good one there are 5 bad ones....
At least there have been a couple pretty damn good ones, so I'm hopeful the winners are gonna be good.
Petition to change the group name to "Top 1/6 Author support group" so we can all delude ourselves into thinking our entries were one of the good ones.
Can we pretend to be a light novel and make it âTop 1/6 Author - and some from the next 1/6 group as well - support groupâ?
Even if we donât get through in this round, it doesnât mean we were terrible. Well, in your case anyway - mine probably were - but it could also be that we just didnât fit what they wanted.
Seriously, Iâm just looking forward to seeing what the end result is. It has been a great process and hopefully J Novel Club see great results from it.
-
There's something I was curious about with everyone. Until this contest it had been over a decade since I last wrote. Back then I would always write it linearly, from beginning to end. But with this contest I found that if I got stuck on something or lost momentum on one section, I could jump ahead and write something further down the line. I think at one point I was jumping between three or four different points in the story by doing this. So I'm just wondering, how does everyone else write? Do you just do it from beginning to end? Or do you skip ahead (or back) to write other parts when you feel like it?
-
I prefer to write linearly as joining disparate parts together can be annoying, but I think it is correct to jump ahead if you find yourself stuck because you can continue to be productive.
It's probably also more efficient to jump ahead and target parts you feel are tricky to write first, but again, I just prefer to write linearly. I just don't have any faith in my estimating skills with regards to how long a given scene will end up so it is safer for me to proceed one step at a time.
-
@Hylebos said in JNC Writing Support Group:
I prefer to write linearly as joining disparate parts together can be annoying, but I think it is correct to jump ahead if you find yourself stuck because you can continue to be productive.
It's probably also more efficient to jump ahead and target parts you feel are tricky to write first, but again, I just prefer to write linearly. I just don't have any faith in my estimating skills with regards to how long a given scene will end up so it is safer for me to proceed one step at a time.
You know, until this contest I would have totally agreed with you. Before I would always just write whatever came to mind at the time with a vague idea of where I was headed. But this time because I knew all the major bits I wanted to hit, I actually didn't have any trouble at all joining the sections up. It was an eye-opener for me.
-
@QuixoticHorizon said in JNC Writing Support Group:
@Hylebos said in JNC Writing Support Group:
I prefer to write linearly as joining disparate parts together can be annoying, but I think it is correct to jump ahead if you find yourself stuck because you can continue to be productive.
It's probably also more efficient to jump ahead and target parts you feel are tricky to write first, but again, I just prefer to write linearly. I just don't have any faith in my estimating skills with regards to how long a given scene will end up so it is safer for me to proceed one step at a time.
You know, until this contest I would have totally agreed with you. Before I would always just write whatever came to mind at the time with a vague idea of where I was headed. But this time because I knew all the major bits I wanted to hit, I actually didn't have any trouble at all joining the sections up. It was an eye-opener for me.
I had an ending in mind which actually made the word restriction a bit of a challenge. I managed to condense everything into 100k in the end so it all worked out.
Do you guys usually know how your works are going to end when you write?
-
@QuixoticHorizon said in JNC Writing Support Group:
How does everyone else write? Do you just do it from beginning to end? Or do you skip ahead (or back) to write other parts when you feel like it?
I write pretty much like you. I start off by writing the beginning and the end, and then when I get stuck I'll start off at a different point. The only problem with this method is that you have to make all the parts join up rather than just the start and the finish.
@LeeroyCGNA, I certainly know how it will end when I start writing, but from what I can gather, the great majority of "real novelists" say that they don't.
As for the question about whether a story is a light novel or not, I'm not at all sure about mine. There are certainly fantasy elements, like fairies and mermaids and there's something that could be viewed as a form of magic, plus the basic premise is to do with body-swapping, but I guess that's where it stops. Well, maybe apart from the MC acquiring a brocon sister. But after that, it's more a traditional adventure-type thing. But with ecchi bits. And there are darker elements too that give it what might be viewed as a "bad end". Those will all be resolved by the end of volume 4 (if I ever get that far), but just looking at it as a single volume, the ending might not sit well with some people.
Anyway, I've been spending the past few days creating a proper cover image and putting some illustrations in it just for my own satisfaction - I may not have been impressed with AI chatbots, but StableDiffusion is indespensable for someone like me with little drawing talent but with an Nvidia graphics card! Here's the cover image, couldn't get it to work as an embedded image but it's pretty big anyway so here's a link:
(The strange 'o' character in the title is an insignia that appears in the story)
-
@QuixoticHorizon
I havenât written that much, but I think I like having a beginning done (maybe a few chapters that get me over 5K words) and then work on whatever I feel like doing. It is easier to skip around with something that has comedic elements because you can have a chapter or 3 centered around a gag or 3 and itâs sort of self contained.
The thing I did for the contest is more dramatic, and not a fanfic, so itâs more complicated. I am sort of working linearly from the beginning nowâbut I have a handful of chapters âin storageâ from before I decreased the scope of the first volume. -
I am thinking about interweaving my villainâs (âKidâ) backstory into my current volume âtaking him from sweet child to full villain in 7 or so distinct chapters that would appear throughout the volume. For example chapter 4 might be titled Kid: age 8, then I would have a few chapters of the main story, and then have chapter 7 being *Kid age 12, *and so on.
What do you guys think? Should it work? What things should I keep in mind when trying to do this? -
@LeeroyCGNA said in JNC Writing Support Group:
Do you guys usually know how your works are going to end when you write?
Yes. I once wrote a Pokemon fanfiction where I decided that Ash would die at the end of the story. That was the genesis of it and so everything I wrote was all about getting to the point where he would die. It actually surprisingly popular at the time, though it's completely forgotten about nowadays. Usually I have a beginning and ending roughly at the same time, and then the bulk of the story is working my way up to the end.
-
@QuixoticHorizon said in JNC Writing Support Group:
There's something I was curious about with everyone. Until this contest it had been over a decade since I last wrote. Back then I would always write it linearly, from beginning to end. But with this contest I found that if I got stuck on something or lost momentum on one section, I could jump ahead and write something further down the line. I think at one point I was jumping between three or four different points in the story by doing this. So I'm just wondering, how does everyone else write? Do you just do it from beginning to end? Or do you skip ahead (or back) to write other parts when you feel like it?
Iâm kind of in the middle. I tend to write linearly from beginning to the end and then go back and expand/fill out those bits in the middle that need more work.
I usually know where I am starting and where I want to get to in the end and kind of write it in straight line before having to work out to get around all the holes and bumps along the way.
My first draft often feels like a very, very long short story and it is in editing that it becomes a novel - if that makes sense.
-
@jazzyjeoff said in JNC Writing Support Group:
I am thinking about interweaving my villainâs (âKidâ) backstory into my current volume âtaking him from sweet child to full villain in 7 or so distinct chapters that would appear throughout the volume. For example chapter 4 might be titled Kid: age 8, then I would have a few chapters of the main story, and then have chapter 7 being *Kid age 12, *and so on.
What do you guys think? Should it work? What things should I keep in mind when trying to do this?Hi there,
It is a good idea but youâll have to be careful to determine whether these chapters are slice of life or narrative driven. I know it is common in isekai but I sometimes get annoyed with kids being adults for no reason other than the author needs them to be smarter/older than a kid in the situation. It can work if it is embedded into the DNA of the story (Tearmoon does it well for example by having Mia remember her future life).
-
@jazzyjeoff said in JNC Writing Support Group:
I am thinking about interweaving my villainâs (âKidâ) backstory into my current volume âtaking him from sweet child to full villain in 7 or so distinct chapters that would appear throughout the volume. For example chapter 4 might be titled Kid: age 8, then I would have a few chapters of the main story, and then have chapter 7 being *Kid age 12, *and so on.
What do you guys think? Should it work? What things should I keep in mind when trying to do this?Personally, I usually don't like when the rhythm of the story is broken to introduce an unrelated story. One of the reasons why I stopped reading Game of Thrones. But, of course it all depends if that story is interesting or not. Knowing why the villain came to be is always nice and might make us empathize with them and give us a better character than the simple I am a bad person. Also, I think this moments might need to be properly timed. You can always write it and look after how it turn out. Maybe you may come to realize that some of them are quite on point and some would make more sense as an extra story in the end.
You could also add this stories by using the protagonist discovering these as they are being told by someone or by the villain themselves, but this doesn't always work as sometimes we want to have the villains thoughts more clearly explicit depending on the point of view you use to write your story.
