This thread is for anyone working on personal projects to share their progress, and hold themselves somewhat accountable to a group of peers.
Post your project, your progress from last week, and what you hope to accomplish this week.
If you want to be pinged with a reminder asking about your project, let me know, and I'll harass you each week until you cancel the service.
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Notes -
Anyone here have any advise for writing a fantasy novel?
I've been inspired for some reason in ways I've never before been inspired to write. Originally as a "Fixing" of a novel I read with an interesting premise, but it's slowly been mutating as I branch more and more away from the original other than the beginning framework and aesthetic veneer (that I want to make deeper). I've written about 15k words so far over 6 chapters, sort of haphazardly strewn over the book. I have a general plot outline and a deeper epic fantasy authorial cannon + magic system that I've conceptualized. I even have a nice complex romance subplot sketched out with some "Sapphic yearning".
But I seem to suck at coming up with names, or fictional idioms. And apparently I suck even more at making engaging descriptive dialogue. I've been having my alpha-reader-slave (ie my GF) read my chapters and then quizzing her on them. The general pattern is that I'm actually ok when things are happening, but my dialogue is bland or non descriptive. Several male characters read through my voice instead of their own. Things like theming or subtle clues seem to alternate between too subtle and a bag of bricks.
I've never written fantasy, but
Don't do this. There is nothing to be gained and plenty to be lost by showing someone else your work in progress: it will only break your creative flow and cause you to second-guess yourself even more than you're already doing.
Get the entire story down on the page as quickly as possible, don't look at your first draft for six weeks, complete a second draft, then you can show it to someone else.
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