The "I'm writing a book" thread

Talk about things that are not making games here. But you should also make games!

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Pepsi Ranger
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

I enjoyed that very much! I am looking forward to more. It paints a vivid picture of both the setting and of Howie's mental state.
Thanks. The first chapter is always the easiest. Then the complications come. Then I forget the theme. Then I have to go back and try to remember why I'm even writing it. Typical first draft problems. :p

I've got 46,000 words so far. Nearing the midpoint.
I also like the bike kid. He's weird.
Yeah, he's all right. [spoiler]He may or may not also be instrumental in bringing down the government and the law that drives the conflict in this story, but we'll see.[/spoiler] He just needs a friend.
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BennyJackdaw
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Post by BennyJackdaw »

I feel like my target audience would be teenagers and furries. Getting the opinions of furries won't be too hard, but getting the opinions of teenagers might be a little difficult.
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BennyJackdaw
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Post by BennyJackdaw »

By the way, how much would it benefit me to have pictures in my book? Considering my Target demographic, it might benefit me to have pictures, and they could help give you a better idea of what the characters look like. It's true that I'm not going to get every character in one picture, but should I still give a brief description of the character if I show a picture of them?
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Bob the Hamster
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

I think that unless it is a graphic novel that is MOSTLY pictures, you should treat any illustrations as optional, and assume that somebody might read without seeing them

So yes, still include a description, even if you have an illustration
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Pepsi Ranger
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

I agree with James. The writing should ALWAYS do the job, whether you use pictures or not. Harry Potter does this exceptionally well. It has illustrations, but you don't need them (or the movies) to know what they look like. They help, sure, but they're not required.
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Post by kylekrack »

Mercedes Lackey tends to include an illustration of one or more characters at the start of each chapter. In some books, there's a caption saying who it is. In other books, it's just the picture, and I have literally no idea who's being depicted. I support including captions with your illustrations.
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BennyJackdaw
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Post by BennyJackdaw »

Most of the books I've read have pretty small illustrations. I've seen some books that have illustrations on a full page, but is there any preference?
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Post by kylekrack »

Preference? I think that's entirely up to you and your audience. It sounds like your audience isn't in this thread, so I don't think you'll get an accurate answer with regards to the latter here. The thing to keep in mind is that each individual drawing will increase the budget of your work. If it's not a graphic novel, you'll likely be best off if you act rather conservatively with how illustrations pair with your story. Lest you bite off more than you can chew with something unessential to the existence of the writing itself. Art is supplementary, so don't let it prevent you from finishing the product.
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Pepsi Ranger
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

I know we talk about marketing from time to time. It's something we all need to get better at if we want to increase our visibility. But we also need to consider ways to make our marketing efforts interesting.

Sometimes it just takes a simple image.

During the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, I went shopping for design templates at Design Cuts. I bought a few collections and some standalone graphic templates, including a ton of mock-up images compatible with Affinity Photo (even though they say PhotoShop--Affinity Photo can use smart images, too), and some color filters.

Then I added my Powerstick Man adaptation to the mock-up and filtered it.

This is what I ended up with.

Image

And here it is on my new (temporary) landing page for my email list.

What do you guys think? Catchy?

We can do things cheaply without doing them in mediocrity. There are plenty of resources out there to raise our presentation bar even a little.
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Pepsi Ranger
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

Here's the cover for my NaNoWriMo 2020 story. It's a little over 65,000 words right now.

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Bob the Hamster
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

That is great cover design, nice work! :D
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Pepsi Ranger
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

Thank you. I bought stock photo options on Black Friday, and I thought today was a good day to cash in on a few of them. I'm not sure if I should add a grunge filter to it or not. I think I could probably touch it up a bit more, but I'd also worry about tipping it too far in the other direction and making it gaudy. Well, only one way to find out...
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Post by BennyJackdaw »

Sometimes I wish that I didn't have video games or Internet so I could actually focus on writing my book. I keep getting distracted. I try to find time at night to work on my book, but I feel like that's not enough.
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Post by Bird »

I highly recommend using a Windows 98 machine for creating books. Most of the websites, that keep you distracted, simply don't work anymore! And the software for it is mostly available and nobody cares for the copyright either!

A finished project: "Old gramps, old times", a short biography of my grandfather. He wanted "the truth" to be written down (only 20 % of that is political). My task was to weave his stories, which were recorded with a microphone, well together. Making an OHR game, writing dialogues and designing a story definetly gave some experience. And my sister was also involved as the engineer of words, very picky about every letter, trying to make every sentence perfect. In my opinion however, the soul, the uniqueness of the text, gets lost if it's optimised too much.

Interestingly, I wasn't able to write until it got dark! Am I broken? Like I had to stare at the monitor for four hours to get myself going at least. Hey, fellow Jackdaw *KRAAA*, maybe you could start to write in the evening times? Maybe the morning times are there for something else?
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Bob the Hamster
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

That's a cool project!

And it definitely is important to find the best time to write that works for you and focus your energies into that time.

I also find it easier to write at night.

Hmmm... Maybe today I'll try writing with a blanket over my head, and see if that has the same effect? :D
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