unfortunately yes! a surprising amount... i stalk fb writing groups and the amount of people who say they dont read cuz they dont want to spoil their own ideas is astonishing
personally, i gained my love of reading and writing when i was a very young child but have lost the time to do both reading and writing alongside all my other adult responsibilities and whatnot. so, unfortunately, yea i dont really read anymore. it doesnt always grab me, plus im very picky about media i consume in any way and i have problems with individuality. while it may be shooting myself in the foot to not know where certain tropes may be recycled from (like not knowing that the things i *am* inspired by happened to be inspired by media i didnt watch so i have no idea that im lifting a concept that was already culturally secondhand lol), it helps me not be quite so hung up on whether or not an idea *was* original or not. i'll always just assume it was, and be able to move on from there instead of beating myself up over not being the sole person with unique ideas lol
@@theplotteryDONT WANT TO SPOIL THEIR OWN IDEAS? Do they think they are the new Nostradamus? Dude there’s really only different executions of the same ideas nowadays, and that’s ok!!!
@@colorblockpoprocks6973I can completely relate to this. In my younger days I would devour books, but now, between work and having kids I just don’t have the same volume of free time to sit and read. Audiobooks have helped a lot, so I still get through some books every year. I think I’d just rather use what time I have to actually write, or just even think about it.
This is an issue I have unfortunately. I love writing and write stories everyday, though I don’t have the confidence to post them. I do want to publish a book someday. I haven’t read a whole book other than when im forced to in school because I find it boring. Still I love writing. I try to read because I wanna learn but I just cant get into it 😅 anyone have any ideas to help?
I have researched a whole bunch of indie and trad publishing process and I came to a conclusion that I don’t want to do either of them. Or at least both options aren’t really good for me for different reasons. Instead my goal has become to learn book binding and eventually bind my own book. It just sounds very cool.
When I was a teen I came to the realization that I needed a better grasp of psychology to write my characters better, which was very intimidating, and kind of paralyzing at first, but I kept writing, and have since developed a natural interest in the subject, so I'm always learning more about psychology, even when it doesn't relate to something I'm writing. I've spoken to my therapist about some of the research I've put into the psychology of my characters, and we both got very excited talking about it haha Sometimes I've found that researching a subject ends with me realizing that I dont have to be so stressed about accuracy. One example being when I was researching military rankings and structures throughout history, which led to me coming to the conclusion that I didn't need to strive to hard for accurate military ranks in my fantasy novel, because there have been many different systems of varying complexity throughout history, and this story isn't set in "basically just medieval europe" either (I wouldn't equate it to anything specific really, the magic system has changed a lot about human advancement, and I dislike the idea that another world would follow all of the same cultural trends and technological advancements as on Earth, especially with magic being a factor).
hahah thats awesome! i talk to my therapist about this too and he actually helped me crack the last piece of depth i needed for my protagonist in my first novel xD can be so useful just to dig into the mental stuff with your characters!
I think head hopping is okay. Frank Herbert does it effectively without giving everything away. Instead we get a sense of paranoia and understand where each character is coming from.
Haven't read the book so I can't comment on this with full confidence, but omniscient narrators can definitely be pulled off without it feeling like disjointed head-hopping, perhaps Dune is an example of that :)
I forget the author, but one of the first fantasy books I ever read I would say used a semi-omniscient narrator. It never confused me, even when I stumbled onto fanfictions that used the same thing, probably because I was already familiar with it. Given that background I was far more confused and put off when the entire literary world suddenly developed a phobia of telling me roughly what all characters within a scene were thinking.
I've always restarted my project many times because I hadn't had a specfic ending, all the sets of time and place were flat and unfitting, and my MC hadn't had a prober reason to go on the journey. So of course I had my reason to restart this project all over again, and throughout restarting, I learned new important things. Now I have everything prepared: many researches, proper names and proper timeline, useful characters, and as well as a known ending in order to achieve by decisions and causes by my main characters. And hopefully I will write until the very end without looking back before editing.
I love your definition of head-hopping! I often use omniscient narrator in my works, but I at least wait to hop into someone else's perspective by starting a new paragraph and doing it where it feels natural, y'know? At least people who write in first POV don't often have this problem, lol.
Plotter: Don't neglect research. Also Plotter: This is the definition I had in mind. I don't know the official defintion, like the Google. Me: Ah, yes. Truly a writer.
I never needed to research psychology for my novel because I already have an interest in it and I've been watching videos about psychology since I was 10
Themes are very important to me when I start writing a book. And even themes characters embody help me not only with their personalities, but also their character arc. My story's main theme is grief and healing and my two MC's theme is just that. It's about what grief can do to a person, how it broke them and are they willing to heal that wound. It's more of a fun exercise on how different people react to grief. It's something I wanted to explore so that's a driving force. Even the trilogy is separated into core themes: book 1 is about showing how grief can damage someone when not approached in a healthy way Book 2 is about healing, trying to find peace ect And book 3 is more about how it's not a linear process. The five stages of grief don't happen in the order we know and regression can happen. Idk if any of that made sense😅, but knowing the themes I'm going for solidifies lots of things for me and just helps the process to run more smoothly.
10:54 I like to describe clothing if the characters style changes over time or if the clothing is important to them like if it was sewn by a family member or affects their corse of action.
#6 overloading description is a big peeve of mine. Some authors feel the need to describe every damn thing, from the sounds of cars to the number of stripes on someone's shoes to the type of insect crawling on a telephone pole. It feels like I am having something shoved down my throat, because the author doesn't trust me to fill in with my own imagination. You need to trust your readers.
I was definitely doing the over show instead of inner monologuing😂. It’s just a thing that everyone gets overwhelmed by when new to writing😅. I think it’s over used and feared is all.
totally, cuz so many accounts & tips online will tell you to do this and that's how you 'show' instead of tell, but there is only so many actions you can put in a single scene xD i always recommend having your characters use props or be doing something while talking, cuz you can do much more with that to also show their emotions
Welcome back to youtube! although I'm new here, I already like your content in Instagram! I'm so looking forwards to what you're going to post next. Good luck! and Keep going!
I’ve never been so happy to be a psych major, because you’re SO right about the psychology of characters!!! You can tell so quickly when someone just plastered an archetype husk of a person rather than an actual human.
I have a series on my newsletter Mastering Drama about the Dramatic Problem. Your notion of Story Purpose feels vaguely like something akin to this. I'm trying to dive deep into each concept over a comprehensive series of posts, so I'm wondering if these two concepts are part of the same thing, or are actually distinct.
By the way, surprisingly good tips, I agree with all of them, and I feel like I'm listening to myself because a lot of this is stuff I've said over and over to writers.
@@DanLyndon That sounds like it’s the same notion! I also refer to it as the thematic argument or story question. It’s basically the WHY of the story. The one clear point an author is trying to make or explore.
@@theplotteryAh I see, if it's synonymous with Thematic Argument then no, it wouldn't be the same notion. Dramatic Problems are the root of internal or external character conflict throughout a narrative, which theme is the story's answer to. Obviously I go into more detail in the Substack. The reason I thought it was the same is that you advise authors to begin with Story Purpose, and I advise them to begin with the Dramatic Problem. The issue is, you can't get to a Thematic Question before establishing a Dramatic Problem implicitly or explicitly.
For the research and characters I have a solution for the character psychology. I love MBTI and researching it (if you dont know it’s a personality type indicator). I always give my characters an MBTI since it explains nearly everything about their personality. If I’m unsure if an action is something they’d do I refer to their MBTI.
I'd LOVE to read more, but too many books in my enjoyment-genres are Mary Sue/Gary Stu self inserts, which takes away from the storytelling _a lot._ I just can't read with my brain switched off. I'll go "Nope, a character like that wouldn't suddenly ..." or "Why are they at each other's throat now, nothing happened to justify that." (because for my writing, I read _a lot_ about psychology) It's like they turn media they enjoyed into something they can experience themselves through writing. But only the "good" parts. Everything else feels rushed and didn't receive much thought. So it feels shallow, badly copied, and like I've read it before. In some books, I can even tell if it's from a TV show (American or Korean) or a comic (Manga, Manhua or Manhwa) or from another book. Or a game (currently the Witcher, or Baldur's Gate 3). Surprisingly, I don't mind head-hopping if it's done well enough. It can add to the (emotional) depth of a story (if there's no over-explaining) or a scene. Though I don't know if the change has to happen in the same sentence. Guess that'd be confusing even for me. Constructive criticism: I liked your video a lot! Thank you for making it! I think it would help if you had a clear, written out example for every "How Not to write it" and "How it reads fixed". I'd like that a lot. Off topic: your glasses look beautiful on you!
I am a Wattpad writer, and one of my books is kind of the trope my best friend‘s brother, but instead of the brother being the love and trust, it’s the best friend cousin who is love interest and the main plot of that book is that the main character Lily she becomes a famous actress and Felix becomes the famous baseball star. Haven’t had really contact since she left Oregon where they grew up together romance if I am not mistaken, there is no prologue is a little flashback. OK to start it off because everything happens like the comfort really starts on Lily‘s surprise 16th birthday party because that’s where they that’s why she sleeps with him And she end up getting pregnant her single mom with her daughter and and two years later they meet up at a gala dinner obviously with somebody else and she was just a fling to him, but Lily still has a soft spot for him so but then she realizes that she he’s dating his head coach daughter Who has a bad record and so her father basically is putting up the guys for for illegal like drugs like they ever take these drugs basically and it makes him into more robotic arms and so basically she date to get close to the coach and to save the one man she’s ever loved and to make up with her best friend who she betrayed by sleeping with his face by sleeping with her cousin is that a good plot and development?
Okay...I feel like I may be doing a few of these in my writing currently.... But, I also want to hear what beta readers say so I know more specifically what I need to change. And truthfully, I don't know what genre I'm writing in. I think I want it to be middle grade (the character is nine but I think in each book she'll have had a birthday and get a year older..?) but it's confusing. It's about pollution, mermaids, and has a magical necklace... So, fantasy? I truly don't know. I only ever read children's books and ghost stories (ghost stories are my main genre).
Definitely fantasy :) And yes, it sounds like middle-grade is the right audience! It's a good idea to get beta readers for feedback either way, so that's a good plan.
I do have a question on the "Neglecting Research" section: I get that psychology very, very much plays a big part in characters, but in this case, how would you recommend researching for the psychology of non-human races? Especially ones that have little to no folklore connected to them. I do have a second book in mind that is going to deal a lot with non-human races of all kind but they have almost entirely been out of contact with humans for centuries. (I'm not working on that book yet as I'm not even close to done with my first book, but am still curious as to suggestions on this front.)
Well, psychology only exists as a science based on the human mind, so there would be no research for non-existent species, but you can liken the folklore creatures to humans and what we know about ourselves, or think about how a certain situation would affect us (in your case, you might research xenophobia). A lot of character work comes down to self-reflection, experience, maturity and active psychoanalysis of yourself and your own experiences as those are themes you'll be able to write about best.
Hi, Char! I've written a young adult fantasy trilogy over the past 12 years, and I finally finished all three books (as well as a 4th book that is a historical journal/diary written by the main side character). I'm happy with the result. I want to publish the story. My question is: Do literary agents still personally read emails and query letters, or do they have assistants and bots replying? I've sent only seven emails so far, and all seven literally have the same rejection message, almost like an A.I. response. I know rejection is incredibly common while seeking agents, but I did not expect such robotic responses. Anyways, do literary agents still personally read query letters and respond? Thanks.
I think most of them still do, but they usually have a boilerplate non-personalized response to queries they know they're not interested in which they just copy and paste (might be mismatch in genre, too big of a word count, or typically something in your query that gives them an easy way to say no)
Okay, I have to ask: what is a chapter treatment? Because I definitely have the issue of restarting projects with new ideas and would love to learn how to not do that.
its a seperate document where you keep summaries of each chapter (i personally break it down into scenes and bullet points within each scene), as well as notes of new ideas. means you can change things there to keep track of them, instead of in your manuscript
when i was watching the start of the video i zoned out and started thinking about my book and its characters (which has an enemies to lovers trope, i promise it's not cliche) and i just randomly shouted "ALL OF THEM ARE GAY" bc they really are all gay
Doesn't alternating first-person character viewpoint from chapter to chapter qualify as head-hopping? This technique is popular in several genres. My question is whether readers appreciate this - or tolerate it.
Nope, that's not head-hopping because you specify when you're switching POVs. Head-hopping would be if for example, you're writing from Anne's POV, and suddenly Anne tells us what Paul is thinking about. So long as there's a clear distinction in narrators, that's not head-hopping. Head-hopping most commonly occurs in 3rd person where it's easier to lose grasp of narrative voice.
@@theplottery There is also the option of describing the same scene from two different perspectives in chapters with different POV. Can be nice if not overused and it really adds something to understanding what's going on.
Yep. Over descripting things just ruins a story for me. No matter how much the author loves their characters and worlds, I will always see something different than they do and trying to craft a very precise image just turns into white noise when I'm reading.
precisely! i read some books that give way too much detail, architecture, layout, positioning, etc. and that just confuses me a lot more trying to piece it together than if they'd left space for the image to form in my head however it would
Hi! I'm sorry, but how is the omniscient narrator something rare that we're not used to read? In my experience that has been the most common type of narrator for centuries. Maybe my experience is skewed from reading many books written in my native language, but like the omniscient narrator has been around since Homer. Hugo and Dumas used it too, more recently I can think of Dune and Shogun, two novels that are now trending due to their adaptations, both with an omniscient narrator. Ofc, you do need to have a strong voice, but that is arguably true for any type of narrator choice, if you wanna be good at what you're doing. I'm sorry if I sounded a bit abrasive, didn't mean to. I'm just puzzled by that statement.
hey! sorry, i should have clarified that i meant this in modern literature where it's often not done skillfully or with a strong voice. classics are great examples to study for this narrator
Hard disagree on the omniscient narrator point. Bad writing is bad writing regardless of perspective. There are plenty of novels, especially ones with ensemble casts, that use an omniscient narrator with head-hopping. Off the top of my head, both IT and The Haunting of Hill House use an omniscient narrator and head-hop within the same page. It works and is coherent. The places where it's kind of redundant to use an omniscient narrator are stories smaller-casts, where a third person limited or first person perspective is more than enough.
omniscient narrator itself is definitely not a mistake and there are books who do it well, but it takes a really strong narrative voice and skillful writing to pull it off, so that's why i mention it here as a mistake, since most writers don't understand how much work goes into that narrative perspective
It is interesting to see how you criticize (without telling it) the principal character of one of the biggest best-sellers and then the biggest blockbusters of modern cinema (yes, Bella Swan). There are other examples of cliché, flat and boring characters in successful novels. The question then is, write well or write successfully? Maybe success is a matter of writing flat characters that don't evolve? I'm not saying I don't agree with you, but sometimes the reality of the average best-seller reader is overwhelming.
it is unfortunate for sure, but it's very common for 'mid-quality' books to be the ones that blow up, probably just for their simplicity and the power of the right marketing to the right audience at the right time. thats still happening today with the tiktok book trend - a lot of the books that get popular on there are average at best (of course not all of them!) but they contain stuff readers like, like certain tropes, smut scenes etc. i think perhaps it has to do with self-insertion, but i haven't done enough research on this subject to say it with confidence. i imagine its similar to how some pop music is at the top of the charts, simply cuz it has a catchy melody but no depth to it.
I’ve never heard anyone pronounce “omniscient” that way. I had to stop the video after half a dozen times of saying it that way, as it grew more than annoying.
Why does it appear so often in this video that your hands arent attached to your body? Kept getting distracted and couldn't follow because i was constantly wondering just who exactly was crouched off screen and doing the hand motions. Very odd.
@@theplottery I quite liked your advice.. it was insightful and well articulated. I more or less agreed with it, as long as I was only listening. As soon as I stated watching it however it entered a weird uncanny valley. There is something unusual about the visuals. Some inadvertent optical illusion? Something about how your hands and forearms move but your upper arms do not, making it appear as if they are detached, or perhaps like your arms protrude from the table. Are you maybe leaning on your elbows? I k kw you think I'm weird, or on something, but I assure you I'm not. It's odd, and vaguely uncomfortable. Maybe try moving the camera back a little ways so you can see your elbows? ,Maybe try emoting with your shoulders and upper arms, and not just your lower arms? Whatever it is, it's strange and very noticeable, and I'm sure I can't be the only one who sees it.
Sometimes I do stuff. And I call it head-hopping bc it’s not so super omniscient. It’s more like close third. But you know. Everyone. There’s a focus on one per chapter. But can expose others??? Like. Head-hopping. With reason and like, it makes sense?? Like it’s not actually head-hopping bc oh boy, it’s not confusing like some of the things I read…
