doravg
133/4001 (finally counted the stories)
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2021
- Messages
- 2,267
- Points
- 153
5k words per day are too tiring. For the past couple of months, I wrote 5k, sometimes, 10k, words per day. Let me tell you something. They take a lot of time and give headaches, in the end. Especially if you type slowly like me (30-40 words per minute. Most often than not, 34.) I have written 14 stories since last October. 14, and it hasn't even been a year. In that time, I learned a lot.
Like, for example, that dialogues have to end in a comma, and not in a dot. Unless they need a question mark, exclamation mark, or, are the second piece of dialogue in a paragraph. Also, that more than two pieces of dialogue are bad style. (Or so the people on Royal Road seem to claim. I have read many stories that have more than two dialogues in a paragraph and didn't see the problem, but now this style, dialogue-clarification-dialogue, is ingrained in my writing. I find it is easy to keep to it, so, I don't think I will revert to my old habits.)
Another thing I learned is that 1k word chapters keep people coming back for more. (I am making an experiment with updating three times per week. So, once I get the results, I might share them.) Three line paragraphs look better than a wall of text. A chatty story is just as engaging as a psychological one. (They both have their pluses and minuses. Some people like to have an info dump, some don't. I write chatty stories, but that is only because I don't know how to write more showing ones. But, I am reading more stories with less dialogue, so, hopefully, I will learn.)
The most important thing I learned is that to leave the least among of mistakes in a chapter, you have to read it out loud. Or listen to a MP3 of it, and read it from the Word file at the same time. Because, if you use a Word to MP3 converter, it can show you your typos, but can't show you if you have missed a question mark, or if your sentence got too long.
Finally, I learned that writing is not a job, it is a game. A hobby. If I keep treating it as a job and spill out 5k-10k words every day, the quality of my chapters will suffer because I will be tired. So, my new writing quota is 3k words, (which is a book every month, when one thinks on it) which would take me two hours each day to write and edit. It used to take me four. I can read other people's stories in the new spare time and learn their techniques. Thus, becoming a better writer.
What did you all learn during your time as authors?
Like, for example, that dialogues have to end in a comma, and not in a dot. Unless they need a question mark, exclamation mark, or, are the second piece of dialogue in a paragraph. Also, that more than two pieces of dialogue are bad style. (Or so the people on Royal Road seem to claim. I have read many stories that have more than two dialogues in a paragraph and didn't see the problem, but now this style, dialogue-clarification-dialogue, is ingrained in my writing. I find it is easy to keep to it, so, I don't think I will revert to my old habits.)
Another thing I learned is that 1k word chapters keep people coming back for more. (I am making an experiment with updating three times per week. So, once I get the results, I might share them.) Three line paragraphs look better than a wall of text. A chatty story is just as engaging as a psychological one. (They both have their pluses and minuses. Some people like to have an info dump, some don't. I write chatty stories, but that is only because I don't know how to write more showing ones. But, I am reading more stories with less dialogue, so, hopefully, I will learn.)
The most important thing I learned is that to leave the least among of mistakes in a chapter, you have to read it out loud. Or listen to a MP3 of it, and read it from the Word file at the same time. Because, if you use a Word to MP3 converter, it can show you your typos, but can't show you if you have missed a question mark, or if your sentence got too long.
Finally, I learned that writing is not a job, it is a game. A hobby. If I keep treating it as a job and spill out 5k-10k words every day, the quality of my chapters will suffer because I will be tired. So, my new writing quota is 3k words, (which is a book every month, when one thinks on it) which would take me two hours each day to write and edit. It used to take me four. I can read other people's stories in the new spare time and learn their techniques. Thus, becoming a better writer.
What did you all learn during your time as authors?
