Dwayne’s Comments (group member since Apr 01, 2017)

Dwayne’s comments from the Support for Indie Authors group.

Magnus wrote: "Waits all day long? I'm there"

I cannot believe it took me so many years to finally appreciate the man. Now I can't get enough.

Lynn wrote: "We're talkin' music? "Settles in with a cup of coffee""

Sure! What do you like?

Well, ultimately it is up to you.

Writing for fun is fine, but if you are putting out a product and expecting people to buy it, you have to refine it. You can't be lazy with it. Rewriting is essential, as is editing, editing, editing to the point where you hate your book and think you're going to go nuts if you have to read one more page. It isn't fair to expect people to pay money for something you didn't want to put any real effort into.

So. I hate to tell people to give up on writing. It is my wish that you fall in love with the art and craft of writing, which really comes about in the rewrites. This part of the process can be more fun than the rough draft. Personally, I enjoy taking my pile of crap rough drafts and really sinking my fingers into them, molding them into something worth reading. I don't know how to make that happen for you. If I could, I would.

bill wrote: "I hope that some day that you will review that policy.In my humble opinion it would make for a much more productive group. Do you really think an author promoting their works is so terrible?"

No one said it's terrible for an author to promote themselves, bill. Many, many do it all the time. This is meant to be a support group, a place to discuss our work, marketing strategies, etc. It is not a place to be shoving our books at each other in every conversation. We even have another group for that. So, no, the policy remains.

Anyone who feels that there needs to be one more place for authors to promote themselves can go set up their own group, just as Ann set this one up. In other words, instead of expecting others to change to suit your wants, be your own change.

I pointed you toward the other group less than a month ago, bill. You said you were already in it. There's no real reason to change this group when we already have the other group for self-promoting.

As far as productivity, this is a very active group already and is productive in the way we want it to be.

It's pretty busy. There's a lot going on and it's hard to get focused. I would lose that... whatever it is. It looks like a phone, but either it is huge or that woman, dragon, everything else is tiny. The bats look like cutout Halloween decorations, as do the crosses. They seem to lack any real dimension and look out of place. I can't tell what the woman is doing / holding. A scimitar? The woman and dragon look good. Unfortunately, the rest of the stuff distracts from them.

Robin,

No, we don't allow linking to anything here. If you want to start a thread in the Writers Workshop folder with some tips you've learned about screenwriting and open a discussion about it, that would be fine.

I don't see anything wrong with it. If this is how you want your story to go, go for it. I suppose steer clear of marketing it as something it is not, but as far as story goes, I always strongly encourage people to go with their gut. Some readers might not like your direction. That's fine. Some will likely love it.

Damn you Cher! You started all this! (Although I did see her live and she was fantastic -- though very, very tiny -- or maybe I just had really bad seats).

Alex wrote: "so long as it isn't modern pop..."

Not a big fan of the Auto-Tune?

Jazz? Fine. I'll shut off the Miles Davis.

Tom Waits. ALL DAY LONG!

Dallas, I'm glad you finally got past it. If you get another scathing review, please don't let it stall you for another five years. Life is too short.

The problem is, and I see this in a lot of authors, you let this review have one hundred percent power over you. The reality is, reviews have no power over us, until we let them. Get yourself into a better frame of mind this time. Realize that there really is no such thing as a "bad review" or a "good reviews". They're all the same - someone's opinion.

Sam (Rescue Dog Mom, Writer, Hugger) wrote: "Question, and I do not mean this sarcastically, but do you believe good work has the potential to earn more than a tank or half a tank of gas per month?"

All work has the potential of earning more than a tank of gas a month. Good is subjective, but what most would call "good" has a better chance. Will it? Maybe. This remains a fickle industry and no magic formula for success has been found, yet.

*shrug* I'm just saying what works for me.

Write books. Write more books. Put them on Amazon exclusively and make sure they are enrolled in KDP Select. Write some more books. Do the same. The more books you get out there, the more likely they'll get read.

Oh, and if you make sure they're quality books, you'll increase the chances someone will pick up more.

Taking another crack at this...

A rural-dystopian novel that explores post-apocalyptic Amish country, a society shaped by fear, and private choices that remake the world. Other than "post-apocalytptic Amish", this is still fairly bland. We know it's a novel already. We hope it will explore whatever world its set in. That's part of what novels do. I'd like to see a real attention grabber at the start.

In 2161, the first chimera arose. A year later, twelve billion people were dead. The few who survived called it the Reckoning. Is there a reason you don't open with this? This is much stronger. It says so much without saying much, if that makes sense. We get that it's set in the future, that there are monsters, people are being killed in high numbers... this really sets a great tone.

Generations later, their descendants still struggle with the legacy of the Reckoning. Behind the walls of small, rustic villages, they cower from chimeras. They eke out lives of caution and conformity. They do as they’re told. They’re wary of anything different. Not as strong. The first half of the paragraph is good, but then it kinda fizzles out into phrases that are meaningless to anyone who hasn't read the book. Conforming to whom? They do as who tells them? What do you mean by "different". I don't know enough about their world to know what is considered normal.

Root couldn’t be more different. Than what?

Curious and stubborn, she disquiets her village. Blind since birth, she stands apart. Frustrated with a wall-bound life, she grudgingly accepts it—until she hears the voice that no one else can hear. This bothered me some in the original and more this time: Why is it disquieting to have someone curious or stubborn? Surely she's not the first to have those qualities. Is blindness that rare? Maybe more focus on why she's frustrated with the walls and less on why she's disquieting to the villagers. Her attitude about the walls seems more in line with the central plot than what the villagers think of her (unless I'm missing something). Maybe a little more of a hint about this voice would be good, too.

The secret she discovers will upend her peoples’ understanding of what they should truly fear. And how she uses that knowledge will determine whether humankind’s last ember flickers out. I had this feeling the first time through, now its stronger. This all feels a lot like the movie The Village, only set in the future. That can work for you or against you, depending on the reader that reads your blurb. It wouldn't hurt to find something to focus on that is different from The Village.

Bruno wrote: "This. There are virtually no absolutely new ideas out there. Almost everything that is written will have had something similar written in the past."

Way back in the nineties when I was taking creative writing courses at Iowa State, one of my fellow students said something that has always stuck with me (I even used it in a story, since I seem to write about writers a lot). He said, "The only original stories ever written were Cinderella and Jack and the Beanstalk. Everything else is derivative."

I don't think it's literally true, as there were stories long before those fairy tales, but I think it's true in the sense that there's not much you can do anymore that's completely original. So, like most are saying here, all you can do is try to find ways to make it feel fresh and new.

Thanks, Tomas. Locking this.

Only three? I have at least eighteen things. I don't sweat it. I go with whatever I'm in the mood to work on at the moment. Why force yourself to work on one thing when you feel more passionate about another?

We've had a lot of discussions lately about reviews and I've been allowing it, but it's time to start cutting these short. Our rules state "reviews happen. We're not here to discuss them".

There's already another thread going right now about increasing reviews. There's no need for two. Thanks.

Morgan wrote: "However, you didn't wait hours for me to edit my post. "

As I said, that's what generally happens when we try the "nice" approach and ask people to fix their posts. If you need to continue talking about this, feel free to PM me or Ann.