Відео

That’s great! I love epic fantasy. Glad to have you along.

You’re welcome, thanks for watching. Let me know if there any topics you’d like to see.

It’s always difficult hearing feedback, and on-line critique groups come across harsher and can be more critical than face to face groups. But feedback is good. If you see the problems too, you can fix them and learn a lot in the process. Knowing when to press on and when to give up is one of the most difficult skills to learn, and we’re not always right🤷‍♂️. If you’re still loving it and see real potential, it’s worth continuing. If another idea is captivating you, you could start another project, see where it goes, and could come back to this one later. The Dip is a great book about making these kind of decisions. And it’s short. Worth a read if you aren’t sure what to do with your WIP.

⁠Thanks for the advice, you would make a great mentor for fellow writers. To answer your question, even after 3 years this novel of mine still gives me butterflies. So maybe I should stick with it and see where it takes me. I have a contemporary middle grade fantasy in mind, but I find the first draft a real slog and I’ve already come so far with the ya sci fi. It feels like I can’t turn back now

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.

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.

Thank you for your comment. This made me not click off the video. Using AI for writing is awful. 💀

@@SaoirseS. Ooook, well, I have to strongly disagree. I was thinking exactly the same, but when you see it as a tool that can help you get to your vision faster AND better, it's just silly to not tap into its power. Just forget the idea that AI will write for you, that's not how it works. Think of it as a swiss army knife tool that can brainstorm, critic, comment, create, bounce and develop ideas ad infinitum, who is knowledgeable on ANYTHING (story structure? character voice styles? enneagram? any location? physics? chemistry? PTSD symptoms? police procedures? and on and on...), and all this happened during YOUR lifetime. When the press was invented, would you have remained stuck with quill and goatskin? writing machines? Word? The tide of history is already here, and your competitors are already taking advantage of AI, not even puttin your nose in it to get the gist of what it can offer you is a sure path to be submerged by the tide, and the water is already above the ankles.. Cheers

Thank you for the feedback, I'm always trying to make the channel better so this is very helpful. And glad you liked the video.

That's great. Tell us how it goes!

That sounds like a good way to work out the details make the 1st draft easier.

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. ✌️

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! 👍💥

My pleasure!

Finishing that first draft is a big milestone. Congratulations. Good luck with your 2nd draft!

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.

@The3dge Thanks! For the education, we'll be watching & learning! 👍💥

Glad it helped. Most writers feel that way during the first draft so go easy on yourself.

That’s great. It always feels like that for me, but eventually you’ll get it done, just keep going!

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.

@billyalarie929 - thanks. So embarrassing, trying to fix a mistake and I made a worse one. Guess the video needed 3 editing passes.

Glad you found your process. Bet that helps with consistent characterization and voices.

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.

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.

You should!

There’s a “Promote Video” option. For a few bucks, it puts the video in more feeds.

@@The3dge how much exactly?

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".

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.

That happens to me often. My hack is audiobooks, so I can listen during time I can’t have a book in my hands.

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.

Sounds fun. I'm in that camp as well. My current project is grand and dramatic but not grounded in hard science.

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?

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.

That’s an awesome idea. I’ve never tried it, but I’m going to!

That’s awesome. Line editing is tricky, it makes my eyes hurt after a couple hours.

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.

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 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.

That’s great. What do you write?

@@The3dge Poetry and stories, although I have much work to do. As you said, it's not easy. I just love words!

@@rya7642 loving the language is a great place to start.

That’s mostly what I write, and I can certainly make some SF focused videos. Any area in particular you struggle with or want to know more about?

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 👍

@@sarahalbert6833 that sounds really interesting. I like the set up and the dynamics between them, gives you a lot to play with. How far along is it?

True. I guess that’s a good point to make: you’ll get there faster if you have a guide.

Glad you liked it. Fiction can feel futile, but it’s worth it if you’re enjoying it.

Glad it was helpful!. Wait till a character loves music you hate😝

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.

True 😆