I came across this today and unfortunately, it’s not at all uncommon for amateur writers, especially young, immature amateur writers, but I thought it would make a good cautionary tale that people can learn from.
There was someone who popped up on Reddit with a rather silly idea for a major mechanic in a book and even when everyone pointed out just how unrealistic, unworkable and downright ridiculous it was, he kept demanding that he wanted to do it, no matter how badly it would all turn out.
These people need to grow up.
I ran into someone who was trying to decide if they should do NaNoWriMo in November and asked my opinion. Personally, I don’t because the only thing that it’s worthwhile for is getting yourself writing consistently. I already do that, so what’s the point? But sure, let’s talk about it.
I’m in the midst of writing another book. I started last Monday and I expect to be finished in 4 weeks. That’s nothing new. However, there is something that I’ve noticed as I’m writing, that there will be a point, hopefully toward the beginning of the book, where everything will just click and from that point on, the whole story just comes together. Today was that day. Here’s what happened.
Now most people know that, if you’re going to be selling books, no matter where you’re going to sell them, series do a lot better than single books. It’s because, every time you release a new book, new people will see it and go back and buy up your back catalog. It’s why I very rarely ever do single books, not because I’m just out for money but because I tend to write much larger, sweeping tales.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, but I have a friend that I’ve known for close to 40 years now and he’s an author. Sort of. By that I mean he publishes a lot of books on Amazon. Sort of. But if there’s a way to do it wrong, I think he’s found it. And now, I just can’t say silent about it any more.
First, I wanted to apologize for not posting here much lately but I’m 7 writing days and 40k+ into the last book in a trilogy and I just haven’t had the time.
It you talk to a lot of authors, you’ll know that the biggest problem most have is right at the end of the book. More specifically, at least in my experience, is just before the end of the second act. It’s where a lot of people get into trouble.