Recent content by SillyIslandBum

I like the way webnovel.com does this actually. Where leaving a rating means leaving a review, but I understand very few people want to write reviews. I can understand someone giving a 5 to motivate an author to keep writing, after all, most webnovels are dropped. But I don’t understand the...

You seem to believe I am against systems, and I am not, nor do I think they are necessarily a lazy way to show a characters progress. Also, I talked about a system that the character struggles against in my second post, but the first post did not say his character was going against a system...

There's no real reason for a system otherwise. Most systems I have ever seen an author use is a way to gauge how powerful the MC is compared to their opponents. The system does not need to be a gaming type system either. Cultivation is a system as well, just one that doesn't normally come with...

What is the point of giving your MC a system? If you’re giving the MC a system then you are attempting to create an OP character. If you give someone a system and make them a wimp for 20-50 chapters I don’t see how you’re going to keep people interested in the story. You can make a character...

Is sex a big part of the story? I think it’s only important if the MC is going to be having multiple relationships throughout the story, which is more likely in a contemporary novel or harem. If the MC can be straight or bisexual without changing anything in the story, then what’s the point in...

Almost exactly 1 year ago the company I worked for was purchased and the new owners laid off 30 people, me included. To earn some money until I found something new, I posted an ad on Craigslist offering to help with moving etc. that night a woman contacted me and gave me directions to a condo in...

Right now I use MS Word for my entire story, which is only ~80,000 words. Originally I made a new file for each chapter, but it became annoying when I went back to check something. I haven’t really seen any lag or problems so far with one file. As for backups, I use google docs, and external...

I think I write what I want to read. It just started out as a series of scenes I thought would be funny or interesting, so I just wrote some of them down. Then one day I decided to connect the scenes and turn it into a story. I’m not sure how well I’m doing as I work a lot and have little time...

I’m sure most people only add it as a genre instead of a tag because it’s easy to just click the checkbox, or they’re hoping to attract more readers. Normally when I look at the genres if I see fantasy, sci-fi, horror, or mystery, I view the others as tags.

Aren’t you still using 2 tenses in your sentence? “I run out the door”, “and see a fallen tree”. In both of your sentences, the character is describing what is currently happening as well as what happened. Generally, when writing in past tense everything is past tense unless the character...

Honestly, present tense is hard for me to read. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but it just sounds awkward. 1) “I hear a loud noise, so I run out the door and see a tree fell on my shed.” 2) “I heard a loud noise, so I ran out the door and saw a tree fell on my shed.” Maybe it’s just me, but #2 is...

I try to view each chapter as a single scene. Occasionally, if the scene is short, say 700-800 words, I’ll stitch two scenes together. As a reader, if a chapter is over 2500 words with little action, engaging dialogue, or interesting introspection, I end up skimming quite a bit. Most people are...

I think this changes as your novel progresses. In your first chapters you are laying a base, maybe introducing characters, building personalities and so on. However, as you continue forward you now have to worry about consistency in your characters and storyline. It’s more to keep track of and...