Andres’s Comments (group member since Jul 29, 2020)

Andres’s comments from the Gathering Of Dedicated Scribblers group.

Okay. Chapter 1 is written. I went a little over at 4100 words and I wanted the next chapter to be the party however, I'm going to cut almost 900 words out and move them over to chapter 2.

This will place chapter 1 at 3200 and give me 900 words towards completing chapter two already. So then my idea for the party will be moved over to chapter 3 and chapter two will be extended since I really enjoyed those last 900 words. I'll have it lead up to the starting of the party.

Now I'm going to shoot for a chapter per week. That's seven days to think about what the chapter is going to say and I only need to write around 500 words per day. Of course, somedays I might catch a fire and write out an entire chapter while other days I might find myself struggling to complete a paragraph.

What's important is that you allow yourself at least 15 minutes to sit down and try to write. We spend more time than that playing on our phones relaxing on the toilet. Don't set a deadline to complete the book, just set aside some time every day to work on it.

Now once the book is completed, I'll read it over aloud to catch spelling errors before attempting to pass it on to a beta reader. I'm not looking for grammar coaches but rather someone to judge my story and provide feedback on making it stronger. So, till then I'm done. I've completed a chapter for the week. I can start thinking about what's going to happen at the party and where I'm going after that.

Chapter 1.

I want to showcase what life is like as a warrior. To do this I'm going to have my character wake up and begin his day at home to show how the family play fights/practices constantly. From the moment the MC wakes to when he goes to bed, how does this family maintain readiness, preparation, and discipline.

I also wish to show the mistreatment of the indentured servants in the home so that the MC has a change of heart later on that is noticeable when he treats them with kindness.

My next chapter is going to be a coming out/sweet 16/ Quinceanera type party in the warrior society. So I want the ending of this chapter to reflect preparation for that one. I'll have the MC a little amped to be going at the end.

I know there are hundreds of courses or supplements for how to write a book. This may or may not help someone however, I'm going to use this topic as a blog/post for writing my next novel. I don't have an outline or story board or anything like that. I don't know how to write that way.

Basically, in my mind I know only how I want the ending of the book to happen. In this case, one of my main characters is going to be banned from the group because of his actions. I'm hoping to publish this book by the end of the year.

Because I write fantasy, I like for my chapters to be longer so I'm going to keep my chapters between 3k and 3500 words. This will keep them consistent so that my reader is debating on reading another chapter they have an idea of how long that will take.

This is basically an Isekai novel. I'll keep my font at 11 Garamond. Paragraph settings Justified / Body text. No indentation, spacing is 0 and line spacing is 1.5.

You're very welcome. Don't get stuck in that loop, the redundancy and frustration from trying to achieve perfection at the first chapter can be a book breaker.

When I wrote my first book it was awful. However, it was at that point where I could visually see the completed process. From there, understanding the story myself, i was able to go back and work on the project as a whole knowing the plot twists and ending.

Happy New Year to you. I wish you well on your journey to become an author.

That's great to hear. I read your first chapter and left you some advice. If you have any questions just let me know. Keep going, regardless of what you read or feedback you get. Finish the book and from there you can strengthen it but it's best/easiest to work with a completed project.

Hi Kiana. How's the course going so far? What chapter are you on?

Thomas,
that's awesome. I've never sent any of my work out so good on you for trying. Brandon Sanderson said he had completed 8 novels by the time they finally accepted his first published work.

I figure I'll just plop them up on Amazon until I get around 8 books done, then I'll muster the courage to do what you are doing.

I've always been interested in DnD but I've never known anyone to play either so... I just read and write.

Good luck on your masters Rachel. After my whole ITT fiasco I've decided school just isn't for me. I can only put myself into severe debt once in my life.

Nice. Well, it might just be the 4 of us here for the long haul.

Hi Thomas!

It's nice to hear from you again. Two out of five is actually really good for us new authors. Congrats on getting 2 feedbacks. I wouldn't mind reading your book but I'm currently reading the other Tomas' (the paladin) book at the moment and I'm committed to giving my attention to one person at a time.

As for the rest of the group, i've started retracting my time on here attempting to help authors because I feel like I'm pushing them more then they are walking themselves. However, I keep checking in just in chase someone like yourself actually makes it to the end and wants to continue on together as GODS. So I'm not gone, I did lost a lot of my motivation and hurrah to spend all my free time commenting and correcting individual chapters.

For a while I figured it would just be me and Tomas but i'm glad to have been wrong. I'll let you know when I'm done with Tomas' book and if you still need a reader at that time... we will go from there. Yes, we are all in the same boat. Just some are rowing more than others.

There is a $500 reward for being a first time author contest on instructables. Got an idea on how to do something cool and trying to be an author at the same time? Try out this contest!

https://www.instructables.com/contest...

That's amazing to think how much time has passed. I believe I released my first novel in 2017 so I'm right behind you at 5 years maybe 6. We have had a good journey so far my friend.

Welcome Hannah. Nah, no one minds, this is after all our space for our writing community. Use it as you would your own professional note taking, feedback gaining website.

I'm a little busy right now but when I get a chance I'll be happy to read through your work.

So always amazing to think where some of you guys get your inspiration from. Thanks for sharing.

Wow, you're gathering quite the education! Maybe after you've completed the courses you could give them a rating? Let us know which ones you really enjoyed and those that you did not.

Are you using your main story to complete these courses? If so, have you felt like any techniques or suggestions have helped improve your story in any way?

What are you having problems with?

Hi Robert,

Welcome to the GODS. We all agree it's pretty frustrating trying to establish connection with hundreds of other people stating how excited they are to be writing their first novel only to find that the majority of them give up.

That's fantastic! Glad you were able to finally get settled.

I haven't experienced anything like that but i've only taken the one course. I'm wondering if we shouldn't try to build our own step by step format here on GODS on how to write a book. There are several sources we could reference to and see if it helps anyone complete their book.

It would take a lot of work but I think some of the coursera writers journey here looking for "better" information than what is offered and find a group that has been simply around for a long while. Most of our active members pair up and forget about the group while others just seem to fizzle out of activity altogether.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. I'm just getting back to work, going to try to catch up this week so I can resume writing.

You can simply put him in a convoy. Say a part for a vehicle needed replacing so they sent him in a convoy to the nearest air force base to retrieve it.

This way it didn't have to be anything relating to direct conflict. They could have been driving down a main road way and a simple truck was driving in front of them. As they pulled into the passing lane to get ahead of the vehicle the truck detonated.