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Like if you got here because your teacher made you. 👇

The struggle from switching to editing to writing again is real. It's like you spent so much time being objective and overthinking that you can't just let things flow anymore. It's an unlearning every time.

This is so invaluable. I don’t write fantasy, but the way you connect threads and ideas to societal structure to how they will be presented in the novel via character pov is so universal. This gave me so much to think about. Thank you!

coming back to this video to say i think retrospective pov can work really well if your pov character wants to tell something to the audience that they weren't personally there for but could have reasonably been told about for example, in a story i want to write, the pov character talks about how another character came to join the group in a way that might read as a 3rd person narrator because it can be assumed that they told the pov character about that event, which also adds to the unreliability. without a retrospective device it would seem very weird for the character to know about this and with present tense it would be impossible, but the retrospective pov might allow this

my biggest challenge is the internal conflict stuff and natural plot flow. i was a beginner pleb at writing; now that im more experienced and using vital resources, i think i can actually rewrite my novel now. thanks.

Snakes don't snarl....

A smiling face.. amongst the storm of attempting to write a novel. Tah S.x❤🙏

Sorry to ask but at 1.35 did you say "wizzle words"? My hearing is not great. This video is ever so helpful but I got a bit lost there.

I enjoy being in control of a world of my own making. Directing the lives of characters I created, introducing conflict and having them problem solve. But I write the stories I would want to read.

World building has never even an issue for me

Hi! I love this video! You are definitely giving me some ideas as far as how to create underlying tension between my characters. I have a very shallow question lolol how do you format a character’s thoughts? For example, I don’t want to write “thinks Anna” after every one of Anna’s thoughts in my book so I’ve just been italicizing the character’s thoughts with no quotes. The problem is that I’m concerned that’s not super clear to the reader. Help!

I’m building a website called Peerfecter to ask for feedback. Any ideas on how to make it a nurturing place and not like Reddit?

What about: when can you switch tense within a story? Could you make a video on that? I'm not sure I've almost ever seen it talked about. I've seen published short stories shift from past to present tense for the ending, and of course with flashbacks this can and should be done, but there might be other reasons and it would be really interesting to hear your take on it.

Exactly what I'm going through now with my first ya SFF novel. I've had to get rid of paragraphs, rewrite, add more and though it was a rough three months in revisions, I'm thankful because it's helped shape my story so much better. Now I'm waiting for another set of revisions. Hopefully it will only take three rounds of revisions.

I want to read all of these

Very helpful. Thank you

I feel like I accidentally built the structure of a story where each aspect of it is absolutely wonderful, cohesive, and it carries and explores its main themes, as well as many other, relevant ones. Now I’m absolutely TERRIFIED to start writing it and wasting the best concept of a story I could ever wish to come up with

Out of all the authortube authors i follow, you are the most genuine, helpful, and nuanced. ❤

I think Geto from Jujutsu Kaisen is a good example of morally ambiguous here.

I don’t think you’re supposed to cut “ing” verbs when a “was” isn’t in front of it. Ing verbs are awesome. For example, this: “He ran up the hill, panicking.” Sounds way better than: “He panicked. He ran up the hill.

I can think of three things that are symbols in my WIP: The moon, symbolizing my MMC’s path toward redemption; the color red, representing his bitterness towards his youth; and my FMC’s rag doll rabbit, representing her youthful fears.

Wich site did you use to make the web?

I find it funny how I have ABSOLUTELY no problem with this now, but everything I do in life I slowly loose interest at, so I'm sort of watching this video as a precaution. Like, what do I do to keep this passion burning? How do I protect it?

At 2 min 28 secs - 'there are a lot fewer words' NOT 'a lot less words'. Better still - 'there are fewer words.'

This is impressive.

Writing novels in script form first helps your pacing

Kyllä kirvelee😊

I’ve been writing for 4 years now and I have been sketching and forgetting many of them because I always think they are not good enough. But one person changed the way I write forever, it was my principal. He said “Writing isn’t about what they want, it’s about what you want. Your story is about what you want it to be” Tbh that’s best advice I’ve ever gotten.

😂 Don’t call me out on the gender concepts! You def know your audience

This motivates me: - watching/reading/playing something, so I want to do something similar, but better or with a twist - horny fantasies. I often lie down in bed and imagine a whole fantasy worlds around a simple kink - ideas from a dream - a rule system I came up with, which forbids me from writing a scene of the story I want until I've written a scene for a story, which I also want to have written, but aren't motivated right now. If I didn't forbid myself to write the story I want, I might would quickly lose interest, but when I had to do some work to be able to write what I want, I'm much more motivated when I actually start to write it. It's more lkie a reward to me then. - the same rule system, which only allows me to publish something I've already written when I wrote enough in advance. The more I've written in advance, the more I'm allowed to publish. And especially if I'm proud on something, I want to publish it as soon as possible.

I don't feel or think my writing is bad. I know it. Which is why looks up tips. Why else would I be here?

I love Hannibal Lector for this reason. He is inexcusable, and he doesn't excuse himself either. But he helps Clairice and stands up for her because she's helpless in a man's world. He teaches her to be a predator like him. Makes him so nuanced

Just wanted to let you know that I’ve learned SO MUCH through your videos and really appreciate all the time and energy you’ve spent on your videos!! 🥰 You’ve made me feel a lot more confident in my writing and just having fun with it. You’re a really positive, supportive voice in this (what feels like a) very elitist circle. Thank you ❤

Thank you so much for this!!

This was very helpful, thank you so much.

Boom! Like half of the problems with my novel solved!

Fun! This is how Story Grid recommends to write. Except they're big on outlines

Solid advice. Thank you. Subbed 💗

Sow down could apply to your talking, You talk faster than I can hear

For tips on short story writing ... listen to Stephen King ... who writes them.

Hi, I knwo you'll probably not see this but I'm kinda desperate so I'll try anyway. I was following the series you did with reedsy on how to develop a book and have gotten farther than I ever have before on my first boon but the videos have been taken down I believe yesterday and now I don't know what to do. I don't know to the reason for the take down but if you could repost the template you used for those videos somewhere I would be so grateful I'm at a loss I don't know how to continue developing without a guide like that one. Thank you

I have also stumbled upon an idea that seems too simple to be worth mentioning but it seems no-one's mentioned it. I don't believe that outliners and discovery writers are especially different. A pantser will write an outline in the form of a draft. The first draft will serve the role of an outline and a key part of the revisions of that draft will be tighten up the plot. The Pratchett quote "the first draft is just you telling yourself the story" and the Gaiman quote "The key to the second draft is to make it look as if you know what you were doing from the beginning" sum this up very neatly. Meanwhile a plotter writes the first draft in outline form, saving the actual prose and dialogue for a subsequent full draft, which the plotter will designate as the first draft, although it's not the first version of the story because the outline takes that title. Both types of writer basically do the same thing and since a novel goes through so many drafts before it even gets read by someone other than the author, never mind reaching the eyes of a publisher, a difference of one draft doesn't seem to be very significant.

I totally relate to the the rereading and past me loving the melodrama. 🤣 I just reread something from when I was 14/13 years old, and was screaming with laughter. It was…..a good start. 😂 I am rewriting it to put in a short story book. But man, I tell ya, it was delightfully cringy.

I always come back to this video when I am taking myself way too seriously and sucking the joy out of writing. It is so hard to just do something for the fuck of in these late stage capitalism years where every minute it feels like things are getting worse. Thank you for sharing your relentless encouragement with us. :)

Thank you so much for continuing to create despite the meanies, your videos really spark my thinking and motivate me. I love your channel thank you!!!! ❤❤❤❤❤❤ You are awesome.

Haha youre such a sweet girl

Great advice for anyone, thanks!

Haha youre such a sweet girl

I feel like outlining a book before even having a rough draft is ass backwards. Structurally, how do you know how to structure it before even knowing the story or what the characters are doing? Scenes, how do you connect the scenes? Characters, how do you write the characters without having their every motivation and action sounding contrived? While contrived characters and motivations work in most films, with books it's a little different; while contrived characters are barely noticeable in film, they stick out like a rotten piece of trash in a book. Even in books where the POV is distant from the characters. "Outlining as you go" - seems like it should be alright, I mean, I'm guessing writers usually have a bunch of ideas of what they're writing in their head for that day, and that would be a good way to settling for your work session. But I feel that if you go too far then you'll be too much on the contrived/on-rails story, rather than having something that feels authentic and emotionally satisfying. The problem with these outlined novels, and they're easy to tell, is that the characters don't feel real, they feel like robots or cogs in the plot, rather than actual human beings. And this is true no matter how well they're disguised. It's kind of why I don't enjoy a lot of modern fantasy, it reads so plasticky.

I will try to apply it to my writting