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I love bigger videos, specially if they are this theorical

Omg I am so excited for this and your other videos coming up!! I love The Raven Cycle so, so much!

This thumbnail is so cool! Cant wait to watch later :)

Hi Mik, I really enjoyed this video. I'm an aspiring writer myself but I had never realised all these things... I feel a bit put off now, as if my writing or my story will never be as good as the one you've analysed. Do you ever feel that way? Do you think all books should be at that level? I feel like my story is so simple and messed up. Anyway, I really enjoy your contents and I'm learning a lot following you 😊

i hope you understand how helpful and inspiring it is that you were so open about your fears in the beginning!! it's lit my spark and has pushed me towards the decision of also documenting my process of writing a book for the first time and being raw about it. i wanna hold myself accountable and push myself and see what happens :) thankyou for posting, it's really a gift. i'm excited to be watching along!! xo

Soooo useful, can‘t wait to read it ❤

Love the video! But next time you’re gonna blur out the table, make sure you blur out the bar next to the italic Fx symbol above it 😅😅 It shows the text of a highlighted cell

Thank you so much for taking us through the process of where you started with your premise and all the way through to crafting it into an outline as a reformed person that writes by the seat of their pants into an outliner. It’s great to see how other people are navigating creating fictional worlds.

Thank you so much for sharing your process! It honestly helped me so much, I have a giant Pinterest board with only vibes for my story but I wasn't able to put it down until today, so thank you so so much! Also, I really love how you use symbols or like meanings/imaginary to represent concepts, like Medusa and the "eyes all over the city", I hope to see your book published one day! Btw, I think this might be creepy, but what if the statues are actual people that Medusa (the cult leader) has converted to stone and it's a reminder for the cult followers to kind of not betray her or to remind them of the actual power she has?? Also, I think it might be interesting the concept of the spider teapot for the mafia family, like how they control everything or how people fall to their spiderweb of power/control. I just wanted to share those ideas I got from the video hahaha thank you again!

RELATEABLE

thank you for being so honest with us about how you feel! i have big dreams as well but also struggle with perfectionism and self-doubt. it’s tough but we got this!

this video is so helpful wow. i will definitely be going back and doing this same process with the book i’m writing now!

Don’t worry about it. Progress is progress.

Thank you so much for such an insightful video! This has helped immensely! Would it be alright with you to share the app/program you are using to flesh out the characters and outline? Because it seems fantastic :)

This is genius, I do this too, lol but the way that you write down what you see and then piece together everything- that’s genius. Thank you.

coming back in 2ish years when this is a published novel

Yeah I totally rewrote my outline like three times and now I'm rewriting my Chapter 1. So ya. I feel ya! Keep that positive mindset! We got this!

oh my goodness… the story about writing in composition notebooks during class and pretending you were writing notes??? that was me. truly surprised i made decent grades + LOVE MONK!! my husband and i are rewatching the series right now

I’d say, despite the failure, those are still words. Words you can work with and keep going from-so that’s progress. Might not be what you wanted or hoped, but it is something other than the daunting empty page, so I’d count it as a win! 🎉

Amazing! Loved this ❤️ And you articulated the examples from Six of Crows 😍 (waiting for part 2 😋) Honestly, this is so helpful in breaking down things while I'm reading, and being more observant of why the characters feel distinct with unique personalities in some books, while they feel much the same in others with their dialogues, looks and thoughts. The matrix on character arcs is a great reference point. 👌🏻

I literally have a Google docs where I paste pictures from Pinterest that have the whole vibe of my book or current w.i.p

I had an idea about the tattoo! what if to prove their loyalty they must get a tattoo of a snake somewhere its visible (especially on forearm, hand, wrist, ect)

When I first started writing, I was stuck in the mindset (as a hardcore perfectionist) that I should be putting out the best possible content from the very start, and I would get hung up on literal words and sentences for minutes at a time and I would never get anything written. It did wonders for my writing once I realized that the best way to write a first/zero draft is to just write words on the page and not go back or edit anything until later drafts and now I feel more creative that ever. And this has helped me in the boring or slow parts too; if you don't want to write a slower section, just write a short summary of it and then continue, and I find that once I've written the words before and after that part, it makes it much easier to write the connection section in between because now you have full clarity from the surrounding context.

I have a problem with watching writing or drawing or whatever advice videos, and just nOT retaining any of the information, so I'm gonna hold myself to that now by commenting lol. It's very hard for me to find motivation to write, but my goal for right now is to hopefully get prepared enough to attempt NaNoWriMo this year! So I've been loving your videos, also ur eyes are so so pretty!

I came, intrigued to know how much you were going to share, and that was a really interesting video to watch! I like the word-association type of idea-building you did :D I've long been thinking about how to share my process with people because mine is more like chaos and pantsing, so there's not too much of a process XD But your video gave me an idea of some idea-building things I could possibly share, so thanks for that! I also use Pinterest, but not until after I pantsed the story to my heart's content for a bit. I also make aesthetic boards and then imagine my characters' personalities, likes, and dislikes while I do it. And then I go back and pants some more :D

Hey Mik! I just love your energy and confidence, it's very inspiring, food for the soul on a sunday morning. I've only been to the US twice, once to Cleveland, Ohio! It was a very long time ago and I just remember endless green landscapes and quaint farm houses, camp fires, fields, it was very beautiful. My grandma also used to read a ton, she's passed now and it was quite something to go through all her books, like holding a part of her. Btw I gasped when you said you lost your manuscripts, I'm so sorry that happened to you. So awesome that youre getting back on the horse now! And that board game sounds so exciting, too! I'd love to hear more about that and kind of want to make one as well now. My favorite genres are mystery and thriller so it would probably be some kind of murder mystery game. I really relate with wanting to go and edit once I've written, most of my inspiration comes when I write, not when I plot. What really helped me was a video by Ellen Brock about writing types, if you havnt seen it I definitely recommend it. I figured out I'm the methodological pantser who basically plots, writes and edits at the same time. Learning that and how to best naviagte my type was super helpful. Hope youre well, Mik, thank you so much for making and sharing these videos 💛 ps: I really wanted to send a Thanks, didn't know they only accept credit card which I don't have 😑

Mik, thank you so much for the honest report. Writing after a long time away is hard. Writing when you're exhausted is hard. The fact that you still made any progress at all after such a busy few weeks is really impressive. You got this! 29:42 💪 You asked what we're working on: I'm currently outlining a novel that's been bouncing around in my head and in various documents for a few years. Your outlining video, plus a novel I recently read with really great chapter structure (Sabriel by Garth Nix), inspired me to do a chapter by chapter outline for the first time since my teens!

Hey girl! I LOVE your writing videos so far! I really appreciate all the honest updates on your progress and all the information about your story that you’re sharing so far is super interesting :) I’m 25 and originally from Cincinnati so your Ohio comments really resonated with me lol We’re like the Florida of the Midwest 😅 Can’t wait to see more content :)

omg i went to cleveland last year i actually thought it was cute!!

Okay, first of all, I'm almost 49. 29 is not old and 30 is not old. Stop it right now, kids! Also, I'm still developing my characters and I have a new issue: I love my best friend character more than my main character...do I make her the main character and change POV...and therefore the whole mood of the story?? You know, the story that's only an idea that I'm trying to develop into an outline in Camp NANOWRIMO this month??!!! This is my grumpy old woman way of saying you're doing great. Keep going.😊

How dare you be human! 😂 Hey you were researching for future projects & character interactions or living, as it is also known 😂 Deadlines & guidelines are to help you, so don’t punish yourself (unless that motivates you 😂) ❤

Enjoyed this so much 💖

Thank you so much for this!!! It helped me understand my book better :)

I love watching birds, but that's been my thing since I was 18 and got my first digicam. I took loads of photos / videos of birds in the yard & ducks and geese at the park. But I also took much more photos / videos of my dogs. <3 6:19 - 6:39 I feel attacked! jk XD tbf, my story really needed to be rewritten 3x. (hopefully no more major changes needed after this rewrite!) but yeah, i caught the pacing & other problems early on with each draft... it's my 1st project... and a 12-episode miniseries (kdrama). i've learned over the past 4 years that i'm a blend of pantser & plotter when writing a longer project (estimated to be around 720 pages in my teleplay). i used to be so hung up on what my 'type' is, but i think i'm just a blend of intuitive plotter & methodological pantser. ^__^;; I want to be able to type 10+ pages daily, but my hands hurt so much, my doctors told me to rest them as much as possible. And stretch them. Even though I have a split keyboard with linear alignment & silver switches (very light & sensitive) on it, my fingers can get sore. However, I am determined to get this draft done by the beginning of September at the latest! God willing! But yeah, we got this! :D

I’m a seasonal worker who’s family is from Cleveland and I have to fight TOOTH AND NAIL to defend Ohio everywhere I go. it’s nearly a full time job but us warriors have to do it

I love learning from you

The way my jaw dropped when you talked about your past projects getting lost 😨

you're my hero <3

I started zero drafting in February and just reached the 4k this week. Honey you are doing fantastic don’t force too much it still needs to be fun that’s why we do it

[insert Cleveland slander] This video came in so perfectly, I was going to follow your progress but just gave up earlier today. It's important to share failures as much as wins and find wins within failures. I needed to hear that, and really appreciate it. I relate to you too much. Thank you!

I also failed my Camp NaNoWriMo goals. I wrote 4K words in the first two days and then ...nothing. I plotted for two months, but didn't have nearly enough figured out before I started. I've decided to allow myself more time to plot and figure things out because I'm writing a cozy mystery and then I'll start my zero draft in August. I think I may shift away from word count goals to time spent writing daily goals, so that it's more process oriented instead of product oriented. I'm loving your series and it helps motivate me to keep going!

Well done for not changing the beginning just yet 🎉. You were so right in your last video when you said that it will be scrappy and a book is actually created in the edits. 😊. You may not have hit your target but at least you’re 4k words further along than you were last week, well done 😊. Have a good week, Adele xx

AAhhh I relate so so much with you! It took me 2 full weeks to recover from vacation/honeymoon mode and I felt so so guilty for not hitting my weekly word goal. Just celebrated my 30th birthday a few days ago and finally broke through 35k words!! Hard writing is challenging but it's so fulfilling!

This was super interesting! I really like how you include specific examples from different texts and break them down. You have a real talent for not only organizing information into easily processable sections, but pacing it in such a way that keeps it engaging the whole time. Also, I love a little task, so the exercises you suggested were a great bonus! I think there’s an interesting supplementary conversation to be had within part 1-and I would love to hear anyone else’s thoughts on this-regarding how you can establish details about a character through their perspective on another character (or, in a more distant POV, the narrator’s narration of their perspective). To use the “handsome” example (though not necessarily how it's employed in the short story you worked through), not only does the word “handsome” carry individual implications for the reader, but now anything that the reader learns about the character’s physical description tells them what the character from whose perspective we learned they were handsome thinks is handsome. In short, descriptive words can also inform the character doing the describing! If character A describes character B as "tall", this might say something about character A’s own height in relation to character B’s. Meanwhile, if character A says character B is about 5’11”, this might mean character A is the kind of person to notice/care about that level of precision. This can definitely be used more complexly than my examples here, but it’s fun (imo) to think about how any instance of description can be telling you about two characters at once-double duty! And to mimic your structure, I think a fun exercise would be to take one of your characters and describe them from the POV of each of your other characters. What would each of them notice?

Hi. It's me. The person who changed their beginning at least three times before I finished writing the rest of the story...lol. I'm also the ripe age of 29 and I am SO excited to start my 30's. Losing a full manuscript sounds like the most horrifying experience. That would end in a spiral for SURE!