Welcome to The Edge where I explore writing, world building, and how to use AI to enhance your creativity. If that sounds like your thing, you're in the right place.
There are a lot of tutorials out there. If you're new to this, maybe try a structured story out line like 'Save the Cat' or 'The Snowflake Method' or 'The Story Circle', any of these will help give a structure you can build your story around. And of course: write consistently -- that's the only way to get better.
Oh, one more thing I noticed: you mention AI in your opening sentences, yet you haven't touched the topic in the rest of the video, which is a pity cause AI can be extremely helpful in every step of the process and I'm sure other authors would like to learn more about it.
Some of the other videos are more AI focused and I will be posting more as we go along. I very much agree, I use some manner of AI daily and find it quite helpful.
Great breakdown, I needed to hear that, thank you. BTW, let me reciprocate a bit: it seems your material is very good, you deserve many more subs, maybe your exposition falls a bit flat, your tone is too constant and maybe you could spice up the videos with some stock content to illustrate what you're saying. Cheers and thx again
I'm trying something I'm going to call a skeleton draft. It's about half a page to per chapter to work out the important plot points before starting the first draft.
ALSO: As in the bends (deep sea diving) divers have to go through a decompression process. *Similar when the miners return from mining they go through a decompression or purification process that restores their molecular, cellular or DNA to human/humanoid status.
Edge, I mean Mark ,' ) Your mining world is fascinating. An image went through my mind. Caves, mines, crystals, stalactites, stalagmites. Brilliant shining crystal stalactites and stalagmites. A vast cathedral of shimmering minerals being mined for fuel, health, building materials, shielding, or what have you. One thing corporate learned is when they started this operation, miners could only be exposed to these crystals or elements for a certain periods of duration or time. They found the human or humanoid body absorbed these crystals or elements binding creating new creatures or beings. One story reflects upon a group of unfortunate miners / employees working for corporate in the operations beginning stages became trapped. Upon their rescue they found the the trapped workers bodies had absorbed the newly discovered crystal or elements bonding with their bodies on a molecular or cellular level. The inexperienced new workers to a newly developed operation serve as a reminder in deploying better safety measures for employees/miners. This newly discovered medical condition can have its own original diagnosis and name. From time to time, miners stumble upon these newly formed life forms. Some who have adapted to the mines and their new form act as guides for exploration, hidden quests, rescue or adventure. The crystallized people or humanoids have a name for their species and in time underworld communities or even cities have been formed. Your more than welcome to incorporate this idea into your already fascinating mining world. Thank You Mark for the help and writing advice! Robert. 👍💥
That's awesome, I like it. A whole ecosystem and set of complications to go along with it. I bet you could get a couple stories out of that concept. And what an interesting life for the miners. Would it be more exciting and wonderous for them, or terrifying? That might depend on why they are there, and how much of what they do is their own choice vs. something they are coerced into.
OK, look at it this way. Consider the miners in the place of deep sea divers. Same principle applies different environmet, different world, just the principle is similar. Before deep sea divers and medical scientists knew about nitrogen in the blood due to rising to the top to fast deep sea divers would get the bends due to nitrogen in the blood from rising to the top to quick. Decompression = Miners Decrystalizing? Now, take that similar principle and apply it to a dnd mining world. Miners (deep sea divers) mine in a newly discovered deep cathedral like rich shimmering mine. With crystal/mineral filled seemingly endless resources of product. (whatever product, energy source, health, weapons etc.) The only problem is like the deep sea divers if the miners are exposed too long to the crystal/minerals they absorb the crystals/minerals replacing human DNA cells with crystals/elements. (molecular or cellular) If their exposed to the mining to long periods of time. Similar to deep sea divers & the bends similar principle. Some miners embrace their new crystallized state serving as guides in their new world. While others press on helping medical scientists find a cure. Crystallized people creating a new character race/species.* Other ideas could be toyed with coercion, enslavement, rebellion, freedom, war, peace. ✌️
Edge, I'm new to writing & I caught on to a lot from your video. In fact, I'm going to go back, take it apart. (a lot to take in). However, you clicked a light bulb. Spiderman, MJ, Aunt & Uncle, the Boss, Best friend. Everything was/is present. Most of the scenes are present tense. Hardly any exposition or flashbacks. MJ & Peter Parker's see saw relationship. The Uncles sage advice, the Aunts encouraging opinions of Peter Parker-Spiderman. Getting bit by a spider, His dealings with his Boss, friend Harry & Harry's Pop. Mostly all present tense. Question: Those things are fine in the present. But how did they get that way without flashbacks, daydreams, exposition or educational scholastic historical world building info dumps. How do you write back story. Thank You Edge. Awesome video, really explained a lot! Robert. 👍💥
Glad you got something out of it. Good question on flashbacks. If I’m showing the scene, I’ll usually establish that it is in the past, but tell it in present tense from the perspective of whoever is there. But if a character is telling another character a story I’ll use past tense since it is the past from their point of view.
👍💥 Yeah! That's what I did! Well? A guy's girlfriend said something to this guy about a vampire. But he didn't fully understand it at the time. (What's that mean?) After having a similar vampire life changing experience, showing character growth. The character has a similar experience. After, sitting in a diner having breakfast and coffee, waking up, he has a daydream. The recollection is played in his head in present tense. Of his girlfriends unrelatable experience/ conversation. Having an ephany/revelation, he adds things up, going forward in character development. Oh? That's what you mean! Now, I can relate to your experience having experienced it going through it myself. Where as before, he was oblivious to his girlfriends hardship. Thank You. Basically he had to go through the problem in order to relate and grow as a character. Through a daydreams, deductions he evaluates his girlfriend's experience comparing it to his own moving character development and the story forward. Thank You! Edge! 👍💥
I have finished my first draft and I like the top of reading your first draft All the way through first. I am often tempted to tinker with the text but I suppose that I must resist that temptation.
High Edge, congratulations on your new writing channel. My name is Robert. I'm older and something I always wanted to do was write a novel. I'm a big D&D fan. Being older last year I lost my job due to my disability, hip erosion. I grinned down my hips till, I couldn't walk. Instead of laying around in bed feeling sorry for myself. I decided to write a novel. & boy Edge, was I surprised. One doesn't just write. There are rules, a way of writing a novel, starting with show don't tell at the top of the list. So, I decided to take our D&D adventures and put them into a novel. I'm-we are 3/4th's through the 1st. draft. Thanks for the advice! 👍💥
That’s great to hear. A D&D campaign is a great place to start and it sounds like you’re making great progress. I agree, there’s a lot to learn, but it’s worth it.
Hey,I just want you to know I have subscribed. I really appreciate your point of view. I’m half way through my first draft and you telling me it’s going to be a huge mess has lifted a massive weight off my shoulders 😂 I’ll continue finishing before I worry about it too much thanks again
Thanks, this was very encouraging to watch! I'm in the middle of my first draft right now and I'm overwhelmed keeping all of the balls I'm juggling in the air. It's good to know that I can drop a few and then make up for it in the 2nd draft.
Thank you for another great video. I didn’t plan my novel so by the end I had a zero draft - a big pile of horse poop! 💩 I didn’t write it in order and went backwards and forwards like a crazy person. I ended up having to go in and reverse outline just so the plot made sense! I tried to outline, but it took the joy out of writing. I need to write in order to discover the story and learn who the characters are. It took a long time to reach the end. Like you I have a family including a disabled husband and child so time is limited. Your second draft process makes a lot of sense. Next I might try it. Pants the terrible zero draft then follow these steps. It could make the process of editing easier for me, so thanks.
Glad it’s helpful. I also write out of order, usually focusing on whichever part I’m seeing most clearly. And though I start with a basic outline, by the end I usually deviate. Struggling currently with an ending that didn’t clearly resolve a few character arcs, so I’m spending extra time exploring alternatives before actually writing the second draft. Sounds like you have a lot on your plate. Congratulations for sticking with it, it’s hard sometimes.
16:06 the audio hits a major SNAFU, you (well, a separate recording of you from this same video) start talking over yourself in current time! Edit: it ends at 16:23
Such a rich topic! Most of them seem to do the opposite, spewing inconsistent and contradictory statements to maximize the cognitive dissonance of the conspiracy theorist. Which, unfortunately, is why conspiracy theorists are immune to facts, data, AND logic.
Well, given the fact that every single Big Five publisher requires you to attest in your contract that AI played no role in the creation of your book, I would say ZERO USEFUL.
That’s an interesting perspective, thanks for sharing. I’m trying not to read too much into your comment, but it sounds like you make creative decisions based on fear and misinformation rather than what is best for you and your readers.
@@The3dge No, I base this decision on fact. I have an acquaintance I see regularly at an annual writer conference who is the contract specialist for a large literary agency. Signing a contract that says you used no AI when you did is as reckless as plagiarizing your book. Maybe you won't get caught, but if you do, your career is over.
@@familycorvetteCan’t you just not tell them? Like they would notice if you promped ChatGPT “write me a fantasy novel 500 pages” cuz it would be garbage. But if you said “give me three magic system ideas” or “here’s a description of my setting, give me a main character” How could that possibly be discovered
@@anthraxcrab3238 If you life plan is to lie your way to success, good luck to you. You must crave having people think you're a writer more than you crave being a writer.
@familycorvette -- I get where you're coming from. I'm just not afraid of a publisher questioning my choice of tools, so I use AI where it helps my process. My work gets judged on its own merits, not which brand of typewriter I used to make it. All the information I've seen indicates publishers are flocking to AI for art, layouts and marketing while trying to protect the IP of their properties by preventing it from being used to train AI models, and if they have concerns about plagiarism it makes sense for them to do extra vetting. But again, fear of a "what if" or "what about" isn't going to change how I write.
It depends. Here the minimum promotion is $50, but you can decide how much to spend and how long to promote the video. Promotions seem to get less watch time than you see with organic views, but get a reasonable subscription rate and for this channel at least, a fair number of the promotion subs are coming back for the unpromoted videos.
@@The3dge ok, I've documented myself since and it seems that most people's experience is that subscribers got like this don't stay around a lot, so it's better as a tool for "you have enough watch time, but not subscribers".
I don’t know how you come up with this stuff! I use Microsoft copilot and if I give it some prompts it churns out some ridiculously , melodramatic, generic crap. Then when I tweak it and give it something more specific it goes way off track! I don’t know what I’m doing wrong 😂
AI can be tricky like that. It can make things easy, or it an give you a lot of extra work. I don’t know CoPilot, but with ChatGPT you can preload it with information about who you are, what you’re trying to do, and how you want it to respond. I once told it to address me as “My Lord” and to only respond in Iambic pentameter-and it did. It was one of the funniest conversations I’ve ever had.
Yes I agree. I started watching the expanse but got distracted with another series. I might go back to it and take another look though. It’s one of those series where you have to pay close attention. I could read the books but I’ve got quite a short attention span and something needs to grab me from the start. This is probably why I like to write ya fiction 😂
Like you say, it’s the story that counts and in the end, most soft science fiction fans don’t want to be smashed over the head with hard facts. Unless you enjoy Andy Weir, who I haven’t read but respect 100% 😁
Yep. I enjoyed The Martian, but haven't ready any of Andy's other books yet. The Expanse is another great hard SF series (for about the first 4 books, then it gets weird IMO). For something taking place near Earth this might be inspiring. But a good story and memorable characters stick with me longer than getting some obscure scientific or engineering detail correct.
Thanks for another great video. I love that you developed and expanded on a map you drew as a kid. The novel I am currently working on is set in Earth orbit so it’s pretty easy to visualise. But, if I ever decide to write book 2, I will need land maps and star maps. The land map is easy to visualise, but the star map is complicated. How do you visualise a 3d area with no surface area or boundary? 😂
My monkey brain puts it all in 2D, but there are some great star maps that let you move through it in 3D, pivoting, rotating, zooming in and out. It’s wild to see. Is your novel hard SF, or do you play fast and loose with the science and technology?
I enjoyed your use of trail progression footage to match your climbing a mountain approach. Nice work! Keep it up. ~~Fellow SciFi writer working through first major edits of my very first manuscript
Thank you, I will. Great to hear you’re working on a manuscript! Keep pushing, it’s an exhilarating feeling when you get it done and out to your beta readers.
I like to describe characters from the POV of somebody who looks at them disgusted or amused, with little respect. It can tell the reader something about both parties.
Wow your world building is comprehensive to say the least! Brilliant 🤩 I didn’t think of using chat GPT to help with world building. I generally use it as a thesaurus or to help rephrase a sentence I’ve written which makes no sense. I may experiment with image generation too as sometimes it helps me to visualise something I’m struggling with. Thanks again for another great video
Glad you liked it. ChatGPT can do amazing stuff. I was fiddling with some character concepts yesterday and ended up having it build a story connecting them all which led to a book outline. The outline still needs work, but it’s more developed than what I could have done by myself in an hour.
That made me chuckle. Great advice thanks and yeah, I tend to go to far into an explainathon. Sometimes I forget the readers don't care how something works as long as the story is engaging and the plot keeps moving forward. I'll look forward to that video 😊
I do that too, though I think I’m getting better at it. Posted a science fiction focused world building video. It’s a bit more general, but does include an example of designing a ship and crew (in this case for a role playing game, but it’s the same idea).
I struggle with world-building on the futuristic technology side of things. I have no problems conjuring up crazy-looking alien creatures and weird and wacky planets but I seem to have this mental block when it comes to the practicalities of spaceships and all the stuff that's supposed to go inside them! I also struggle with the research in regard to how things work. I've done lots of research but sometimes it's difficult to know how far to take it. I want it to be feasible and have a basic knowledge of physics but I tend to get carried away and end up making my head spin when trying to figure something out. Readers are smart and sometimes I feel like I have to be some sort of magician! I couldn't reply to your comment above for some reason so giving a separate one
I understand how that goes. Hopefully the PhD astrophysicist who volunteers at SETI on the weekend isn’t your main audience. Most readers won’t be experts either so a little hand-wavium can go a long way. The best two tools I’ve found are to be consistent: once you decide a thing works a certain way, or a certain technology is possible, stick to it. The other is to avoid detailed explanations of things you don’t really understand. If the ship goes faster than light, give it some rules and imagine how FTL affects society, but don’t try to write a dissertation on HOW it it works. It works, and most readers will just go along with it. What’s the famous saying…a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. At some point the details just don’t matter anymore. But this gives me an idea for a sci-fi episode. I’ll put that together and see what people think.
I'm your newest subscriber! I love your videos because you're a natural and give great advice. I'm 50 years old and only 3 years into own writing journey. Now on the final draft of my first ya science fiction novel. Thank you and don’t give up 😁
That’s awesome! What’s it about? My WIP started as an SF romance, slipped more toward a thriller and I’m now redoing several scenes to make the romance more organic.
@@The3dgeThe story is about Human like aliens who rescue 30 thousand kids from a dying Earth, and takie them to a new planet thousands of light years away where they begin new lives. It's a thriller with a few twists and turns. Writing authentic romance is hard. Mine has a romantic sub plot. I found it best to make the characters very different. They are attracted to each other but bring out the worst in each other, and don't like each other much. Their past gets in the way. She doesn't like other people much and he’s been raised to loathe humans. Adds lots of tension. Keep chipping away at it and you'll get there 👍
That’s awesome. My favorite world started as an rpg setting, and I’ve written stories that started as scenes it situation that came up in games. For villains, just remember: everyone is the hero of their own story, so if your villain thinks they’re in the right (no matter how twisted their logic) readers and players will believe their motives.
Nice wrinkles, boomer. You get that forehead at the leather shop? 😂 Just messing with you. You’ve got me thinking about it. But I’m wondering how long it takes.
