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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   15631 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022

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Unfortunately I have a huge distaste for reading anything that isn't already completed. The vast majority of prog fantasy/litrpg stuff has a long way to go before being finished, if ever. I've been burned too many times in the past to commit to that type of story.

I thought that might be the case. The link on royalroad I posted only shows Completed fictions. There are also quite a few request threads on progressionFantasy and litrpg subreddits for completed fictions. Mother of Learning is complete, and I'd highly recommend it. Post Human is also complete, and you might enjoy it if you want a different take on AI, empires, and space battles.

I have a personal policy of not really criticizing other authors works. People have lots of different tastes, and sometimes in an effort to appeal to one set of tastes you will have to make it unappealing to another set of tastes.

This is a good policy - I could have stood to be less critical, especially since I didn't even read half the book.

I started the policy when I began writing my own story on royalroad (and yes, I left it unfinished after ~300 pages). I quickly realized how hard it was to please everyone with the story, and I couldn't even please all of my own tastes with the story I was writing. I generally think "more is better" when it comes to fiction and story telling. I want more authors, I want those authors telling more stories, and I want them getting better by just doing tons of writing. I will offer editing help and suggestions if the author asks me, but otherwise I just say what I like to try and encourage more people to write things I like. I'd extend that to you, if you feel there isn't enough "male centric, systematized, shape-rotator style writing" one of the best solutions might be to write your own stories. You have a base level of writing talent that puts you at a better level than many authors on royalroad (you can put together an argument and enough words to make a top level post on themotte). If you have interesting ideas write them. If you don't, just write "fanfiction" and change around some of the things you didn't like in your favorite books.

I've thought about and started trying to write many times. I just don't have the mental energy to do it while juggling a full time job at a startup, partner, clean house, puppy, etc.

In order to do it I stopped moderating at themotte and slatestarcodex, and generally anytime I thought about posting on or reading reddit I spent that time writing instead. Felt good while I was doing it, but yeah I hear you on the mental energy. Its why I haven't been able to do it again.

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