Lessons learned: writing really long fiction
antipope.org
Lessons learned: writing really long fiction
1–10 of 72 posts
Re: Lessons learned: writing really long fiction
#2In the light of OGH's administrative comment, I agree, except that I don't mind the plot reawakening or taking a new direction. What I dislike is books that don't have an adequate closure, because I find them aesthetically unsatisfactory and dislike being manipulated - at least so blatantly. That doesn't apply to single stories published in multiple volumes (like the Lord of the Rings), of course. But I accept that writing the whole of such things before any publication is a huge investment of a writer's time, with an uncertain return, so this is not a condemnation - merely a statement of MY choice in what I will buy.
One thing that I alluded to before the thread got diverted is that I don't know how many people are like you and me, and how many are quite happy with the lack of closure. That obviously affects an author's commercial reality!
Re: Lessons learned: writing really long fiction
#3I'm writing German science fiction novels as a hobby that are around 700-800 norm pages each and learned the hard way that at least in the German publishing market there are virtually no program places for science fiction, very few agencies accept manuscripts in that genre at all, and publishers rarely accept novels larger than 400 norm pages from a first-time writer.
I'm currently sitting on 8 manuscripts - two of them are actually 1400 norm pages each. I'm writing on my ninth novel now and will one day give away all of them for free. The problem is that correcting and finalizing them into book form (e.g. typsetting in LaTeX) takes too much of my spare time.
I'm just writing this as a friendly advise. At least for smaller markets like the German one, do not ever expect to be able to make any substantial amounts of money from your writing hobby. The trend is against it, and it's much cheaper and less risky for publishers to get a successful US writer translated than to accept a new local one. People are also reading way more English originals than they used to. Besides, agencies are looking for urban fiction, "novels for young women", gift books, etc. (Before you ask, agencies have attested me that the quality of my writing is fine, but what they say and what they think are two things and this may also play a major role.)
Of course, it's still my favourite hobby. Once you start you cannot stop. I don't think that any particular lessons can be learned, because everybody writes in a different way and under different circumstances. The bottomline is that it's not hard to write a lot. ;)
Re: Lessons learned: writing really long fiction
#4I'm writing German science fiction novels as a hobby that are around 700-800 norm pages each and learned the hard way that at least in the German publishing market there are virtually no program places for science fiction, very few agencies accept manuscripts in that genre at all, and publishers rarely accept novels larger than 400 norm pages from a first-time writer. I'm currently sitting on 8 manuscripts - two of t…
As a german, I think the biggest market in fiction by far is the fantasy market. And there are also a lot of German authors included in that market that don't get translated but are rather picked from local. But I agree with the rest of your post, if you want to live by writing fiction, good luck, because it's going to be the steepest of mountains to climb.
Re: Lessons learned: writing really long fiction
#5I'm writing German science fiction novels as a hobby that are around 700-800 norm pages each and learned the hard way that at least in the German publishing market there are virtually no program places for science fiction, very few agencies accept manuscripts in that genre at all, and publishers rarely accept novels larger than 400 norm pages from a first-time writer. I'm currently sitting on 8 manuscripts - two of t…
Also, have you ever thought about writing your stuff in Markdown? I've made pretty good experiences with it regarding converting to epub, mobi and pdf. I'm not sure of norm page formatting though, so that might be a good reason to use LaTex instead.
Re: Lessons learned: writing really long fiction
#6I'm writing German science fiction novels as a hobby that are around 700-800 norm pages each and learned the hard way that at least in the German publishing market there are virtually no program places for science fiction, very few agencies accept manuscripts in that genre at all, and publishers rarely accept novels larger than 400 norm pages from a first-time writer. I'm currently sitting on 8 manuscripts - two of t…
Why are you typesetting them if it’s a hobby? Why not just write?
I commend you for your dedication to your craft but I presume some readers would please you so have you considered self-publishing, writing short stories or serial publishing, like Scott Alexander did for Unsong with http://unsongbook.com/ or Wildbow did with Worm? https://parahumans.wordpress.com
Re: Lessons learned: writing really long fiction
#7I'm writing German science fiction novels as a hobby that are around 700-800 norm pages each and learned the hard way that at least in the German publishing market there are virtually no program places for science fiction, very few agencies accept manuscripts in that genre at all, and publishers rarely accept novels larger than 400 norm pages from a first-time writer. I'm currently sitting on 8 manuscripts - two of t…
Hi! I moved to Germany a year ago and have been consuming a lot of media to learn the language.
Have you considered publishing the works yourself/making them available (as ebooks) online?
Re: Lessons learned: writing really long fiction
#8I'm writing German science fiction novels as a hobby that are around 700-800 norm pages each and learned the hard way that at least in the German publishing market there are virtually no program places for science fiction, very few agencies accept manuscripts in that genre at all, and publishers rarely accept novels larger than 400 norm pages from a first-time writer. I'm currently sitting on 8 manuscripts - two of t…
As a german, I think the biggest market in fiction by far is the fantasy market. And there are also a lot of German authors included in that market that don't get translated but are rather picked from local. But I agree with the rest of your post, if you want to live by writing fiction, good luck, because it's going to be the steepest of mountains to climb.
I'd say crime, thrillers and such. There are many German writing authors.
Re: Lessons learned: writing really long fiction
#9Oddly enough, I believe there are a number of lessons that crossover between tech and writing.
Having written a novel, and built companies, they both require similar skills in terms of planning, patience, MVP (first draft), rushing to market, incremental improvement, shipping regularly etc.
Re: Lessons learned: writing really long fiction
#10Oddly enough, I believe there are a number of lessons that crossover between tech and writing. Having written a novel, and built companies, they both require similar skills in terms of planning, patience, MVP (first draft), rushing to market, incremental improvement, shipping regularly etc.
And let's not forget the burnout. In this description it feels like you could almost replace 'novel' with 'large solo software project' and have a pretty accurate accounting of that process as well.