JNC Writing Support Group
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@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 machines—they 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 chunks—I was sort of intimidated at the 50K word minimum threshold that I almost quit. When they lowered it to 35K it felt doable—and 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 strengths—though 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 haven’t been here for a few days. I’m 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 :)
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@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.
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@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 “Top 1/6 Author - and some from the next 1/6 group as well - support group”?
Even if we don’t get through in this round, it doesn’t mean we were terrible. Well, in your case anyway - mine probably were - but it could also be that we just didn’t fit what they wanted.
Seriously, I’m 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.
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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?
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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.
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@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.
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@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?
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@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)
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@QuixoticHorizon
I haven’t 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 it’s sort of self contained.
The thing I did for the contest is more dramatic, and not a fanfic, so it’s more complicated. I am sort of working linearly from the beginning now—but I have a handful of chapters “in storage” from before I decreased the scope of the first volume. -
I am thinking about interweaving my villain’s (‘Kid’) backstory into my current volume —taking 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.
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@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?
I’m 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.
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@jazzyjeoff said in JNC Writing Support Group:
I am thinking about interweaving my villain’s (‘Kid’) backstory into my current volume —taking 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 you’ll 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).
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@jazzyjeoff said in JNC Writing Support Group:
I am thinking about interweaving my villain’s (‘Kid’) backstory into my current volume —taking 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. -
@GhostMechanic
Well, maybe there are a few people that like Game of Thrones, so I will just have to settle for that audience. :)I have already written a very rough draft of my villain’s backstory up until the beginning of the their point of no return. I am planning on at least completing their story as a rough draft, and then later see if I can interlace their story at times when it fits in well with the main story. Even if I end up dumping the backstory, it will be a good exercise, I suppose.
(A personal problem of mine is that my characters feel real to me, so I hate having bad things happen to characters I like—I sort of feel guilty about it—and my early villain is quite likable—but I think that the best villains are the ones that are a simple twist of fate from being the hero.)
BTW, is anyone watching Frieren anime? It does a great job of interlacing backstory with the main story. I was hoping to find a LN version to see how they do it—but I was surprised to find out it only existed as a manga before—maybe that is why it works so well as an anime—a manga must be great for story boarding an anime—so nothing gets lost in translation. -
@jazzyjeoff said in JNC Writing Support Group:
@GhostMechanic
Well, maybe there are a few people that like Game of Thrones, so I will just have to settle for that audience. :)I have already written a very rough draft of my villain’s backstory up until the beginning of the their point of no return. I am planning on at least completing their story as a rough draft, and then later see if I can interlace their story at times when it fits in well with the main story. Even if I end up dumping the backstory, it will be a good exercise, I suppose.
(A personal problem of mine is that my characters feel real to me, so I hate having bad things happen to characters I like—I sort of feel guilty about it—and my early villain is quite likable—but I think that the best villains are the ones that are a simple twist of fate from being the hero.)
BTW, is anyone watching Frieren anime? It does a great job of interlacing backstory with the main story. I was hoping to find a LN version to see how they do it—but I was surprised to find out it only existed as a manga before—maybe that is why it works so well as an anime—a manga must be great for story boarding an anime—so nothing gets lost in translation.I think the key message here is write the story you feel you need to write the way you to write it. Especially in the draft phase. You can fix almost anything in editing.
And I also like likeable villains or at least villains who aren’t just evil but who actually think they are doing the right thing. Or who acknowledge they are villains and own it.
I agree that Frieren is amazing but it work because the flashbacks are part of the inherent DNA of the show. The idea of retracing the journey builds the past into the narrative nicely rather than being a distraction.
On a side note, did we ever decide a way to share stories amongst each other? Sometimes a second pair of eyes is useful and a description in a forum loses the flavour of what you are doing.
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@Damon-Cavalchini
How much do you want to share? Passages? Chapters? Or entire works? How private do you want it to be?I am sure there is an app for that but I don’t know which one. Two things that come to mind are:
- google docs: If folks were really serious we could set up new anonymized google accounts just for this purpose and share on docs. We could maintain an invite list on a separate thread. Folks could invite and uninvite as they see fit. Folks could share as much or as little as they want.
- Wattpad—it is easy to publish and unpublish chapters and providing links is easy and it is as anonymous as you want it to be—but there is no keeping strangers out—but if you title your work with uninteresting names and no tags not many folks will look at it anyways.
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@jazzyjeoff said in JNC Writing Support Group:
@Damon-Cavalchini
How much do you want to share? Passages? Chapters? Or entire works? How private do you want it to be?I am sure there is an app for that but I don’t know which one. Two things that come to mind are:
- google docs: If folks were really serious we could set up new anonymized google accounts just for this purpose and share on docs. We could maintain an invite list on a separate thread. Folks could invite and uninvite as they see fit. Folks could share as much or as little as they want.
- Wattpad—it is easy to publish and unpublish chapters and providing links is easy and it is as anonymous as you want it to be—but there is no keeping strangers out—but if you title your work with uninteresting names and no tags not many folks will look at it anyways.
Hi there,
It wasn’t that I had something specific to share but that I thought the functionality could be really useful if someone is looking for feedback on an idea like the villain backstory example we were discussing.
However I can see it becoming useful after the first round of responses is released and when/if the competition opens again.
Especially for those people who don’t get feedback from the competition, it could be useful to be able to share work in a safe environment to get feedback from your peers.
I’d lean towards Google Docs as it slightly more private and can be locked to members of the group to avoid any questions around publishing or polluting the market.
I thought it might be better to set it up now rather than wait until the end of March so we can work out any kinks and also help people become familiar with it without having to possibly deal with external disappointments as well.
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@Damon-Cavalchini
There may be a better way—but here is the idea in more detail (of course, if folks have a better idea, please chime in).
Well, all folks would have to do is set up a google account, separate from their normal google account. A manager could start a thread with the contact list of folks that are up for providing input as the first post as a sort of sticky. They would be responsible for maintaining the list. Folks that want to be added as a reviewer/ participant would just add their google contact to the thread and the person maintaining the thread could add it to the top. (I strongly suggest not giving out your main google account contact). Folks could just send invites to look at their work, or a portion of it directly to whoever they want from the thread.
That said, folks interests, writing ability and writing styles may vary so much that it may not work. (for example, I am very much a beginner writer, I am prone to careless mistakes, and have no interest in reading things that I find depressing—that might drive some folks crazy!) But it might be fun to try—and really even if you could match up with one decent reviewer, it would be worth it.
