Search results

I've looked into Wonderdraft and it looks great, but I have no artistic skill, so I'm still dreading figuring out how to turn my hand-drawn map of a single continent into one tiny portion of a Wonderdraft world map. It seems like Wonderdraft provides tools to make it (relatively) easy to create...

A good cover is certainly more likely to draw someone's attention than a bad one or no cover at all. And often (but not always), it may show that an author is more serious about their work. That isn't a hard and fast rule--some authors just haven't had a chance to get a cover yet, or haven't...

The chapters I post here are the fourth draft of my story. I then continue cleaning it up, and the seventh draft gets released as an ebook and paperback. So far, the first book has been released, and I'm working on revising the second book (while I write the third book). The link goes to the US...

It depends on how inspiring the idea is. I make a list of a ton of scenes that need to happen in the future, but sometimes I get inspired by one and decide to write it out. Depending on how far in the future it is, it might have to be revised to fit the current state of the story once I get...

Whatever you do, don't start off with an exposition dump about the world, its history, or its magic system. If those things can't be explained gradually through the story, then you need to change them until they can be. The first chapter doesn't have to be a big event, but it should do...

I think I can say fairly confidently that you're not going to get ten entrants for a contest where authors are expected to write at least 10k words on a topic not of their own choosing *and* they have to pay an entry fee on top of that. Not unless the pot is huge. Plus, once you start creating...

You've only got five chapters on one and three chapters on the other, and they just launched a couple of days ago. You're only likely to get noticed when you post new chapters, so it'll take time. Plus, you just posted this thread about not getting any views ... and you didn't include links to...

I suspect you'll find it difficult to get people to pay for participating in a writing contest.

That would explain why I was never able to figure out what the exact interval was.

The overall statistics take a long time to update. Several hours, at least. (Well, more accurately, I guess I should say that they update at intervals of several hours. If you get a view right before the update, it'll be included, but if you get a view right after an update, it'll be hours...

I do four drafts before posting to Patreon or here. I've got a pretty good understanding of English grammar, so that's enough to catch most things. Draft 2 is where I fix awkward wording, and remove things that seemed important to point out while I was writing, but don't end up adding anything...

For my story, the omen or prophecy was subverted and broken in the prologue, bringing an end to centuries of planning before the result could occur. The gods are still maneuvering for power against each other, trying to salvage what they can for their own reasons (which are gradually being made...

I'm self-publishing my series as ebooks (and as paperbacks, through Amazon's print-on-demand service). I'm in the middle of revising and prepping Book 1 right now, even as I continue to release new chapters for Book 2. I've paid for a professionally designed cover, and I'd pay for a professional...

With the possible exception of hard sci-fi, I can't really imagine a situation where you need a large amount of exposition that can't be grown gradually and organically through normal scenes. Consider the following options: 1. Are the details truly important? A lot of times, you'll find that...

The needs of the story drive the world, until a detail has been established. Once a detail exists, I stick to it, even if that makes later parts of the story less convenient. I create the overall pieces of the world in my mind as needed for the major story beats, but I don't map out the details...

In some real-life medieval societies, clothing was legally restricted by societal class. There were laws mandating what types of clothing and what colors could be worn by, say, peasants, knights, and nobility.

One thing to consider is that real dialogue from real people is just as bad in written form as overly formal dialogue is. When people actually speak, they might use "umm" or "you know" three times in a single sentence, or never pronounce the "g" in "ing", or half their conversation is something...

Chapters in novels are often about 3000 to 5000 words, so that's what I aim for, but they might end up higher or lower depending on the needs of the chapter. Some people recommend not going over 1000 or so on web novels, supposedly to make them easier to read on mobile devices (Inkitt now...

In addition to avoiding a Mary Sue who's good at everything, I'd suggest also avoiding the anime stereotype of the loner/neet/emo male character who doesn't like anything or anybody, but for some reason the story has all the other characters just falling over him (especially the female...

When an author's language gets too flowery and pretentious, I skip over it. If the language doesn't contribute to the story, it doesn't belong there. You need a good enough vocabulary to make sure everything flows correctly and that you're not too repetitive, and you should keep a thesaurus and...