Видео

Thanks for this video!

I LOVE your '3 things that define writing success'. I agree with them 100%! Subscribed by the way. Like your inspiring short videos!

I'm only half a writer since I write with my spouse. 😉 We regularly listen to our own audiobooks to keep track of our worldbuilding and history, but mainly because we enjoy them. It's great sharing this love for storytelling. It has made us stronger as a couple and as a writing team.

We fully endorse this piece of advice! That is why, after the first part of the Witch Hunter trilogy was published, we started creating these shorter prequels to the story. Our latest WIP is now finished and turned into a dramatized audiobook. After this we plan one more of these prequels before we wrap the story up and finish the main trilogy. In the meantime, our audience can get to know the main character a bit better and discover our setting.

I just watched this vid and it hit me like a sack of bricks. A part of me feels this is sound advice, however there's a personal problem. The work I've been writing for the past 3 years sounds a lot like "that book" as described here. It's really the only thing I want to write these days. Im afraid of shelving it because theres nothing Id want to write in the meantime. I have full confidence Ill finish it eventually and I'll even like the product I make, but I fear there may be a point in reorienting myself. Advice, questions or comments would be appreciated but until then I'll continue working on my project.

I learned this lesson the hard way. I had an idea for an epic book when I was ten and I worked off and on it for nine years without any real progress. Then when I was nineteen I had an idea for a short horror story and suddenly I was able to finish something. Getting back on track with that epic has taken a long time, but please heed those words of wisdom. Start small, then build yourself up.

Shrug. It may sound snobby to say, but I am writing that book, I will finish the first one next year and I havent gotten discouraged on it for more than a week at a time (not because of the book anyways, we all know life tends to happen). Im not planning on blowing anyone away with it, I'm writing characters I care about and set a reasonable scope for what features in the narrative. I know the KISS principle exists for a reason, but with a bit of education/experience on project management and media production, it's not impossible to start with a full on fantasy novel. Its good advice, but personally I didnt feel like limiting myself in my hobby when I started turning my shoddy character building excercises into a novel. I dont regtet anything.

Yep, I've reached that conclusion after starting and abandoning a dozen 'books'. A simple, cliche story is difficult enough haha

PS: this is not just about books and writing. I'm a more entrepreneurial fella and my "space opera" is a specific type of business that I'd love to create one day, with an engaged community, some complex software, and a bunch more things that I'd have to figure out. For a while I was completely stuck and incapable of moving forward in life. Eventually, I got unstuck by just deciding to aim lower and take smaller steps. After 7 years, now I'm finally drastically closer to that dream and I may only be a couple years away from finally being able to start "that business". We all have our dreams and magnum opuses we want to create one day. But more often than not, our first few projects are not going to be a "facebook" that turns into an extremely successful thing. Almost always, our first projects will be pretty bad... and that's okay. The fool is the precursor to the saviour. As long as you don't quit, you can't lose :) And then, eventually, you'll get to write "that book".

Basically from what i learned from this video in video game perspective is to do the side quests and fight the beginner monsters first to gain more "experience" and to gain more level before trying to fight in the boss battle. If we dont do this and we instead go to the boss instantly without gaining the recommended xp, resources, and level, then we are expected to get crushed and fail. The only solution to this is to either gain more xp and resources first (recommended option) Or we continue to fight the boss without any preperation.. (second option) If we do the second option, then we will have a harder time to beat it rather than the alternative option. Its gonna be more time consuming and more stressful with more failed attempts falling ontop of each other until its uncountable. And once we finally beat the boss, we may have a sense of happiness at first, but we may feel sadness and nothingness later due to many "factors" coming into play later after beating the boss. tldr: The long way is the best shortcut. (Dont use the philosophy of this quote too much in every situation as some situations may be more complex and hard to solve than others.)

Nah this only applies to fantasy or sci fiction.

This advice is brilliant and should be considered in other creative outlets as well. Filmmaking, woodworking, drawing/character design, etc. could all use this advise to help grow in that area before you step into your big dream project

Plz talk about screenwriting

it's December now - I wonder if my newfound resolve to try this will last till next November :) thank you for the tips (& thank you Luke!)

“Write a book you can finish in the next 12 months.” This really hit hard for me, along with the advice of putting away the space opera for later. I’ve been stuck in a loop of several story ideas, and I keep reworking and changing them to be “that book.” In the back of my mind I keep thinking “it’s okay, books take years to write.” But that’s honestly slowing me down. I know all books take time to create, indeed years for most, but those few words of honing in on a smaller idea rather than a larger one really resonated with me. I’m definitely going to take this advice. Thank you so much for making such helpful videos. You’ve just got yourself another subscriber :)

That's a great advice, but how do you forbide your mind from making your simple story idea a whole new universe with made up languages and its own history of the past 200 centuries ? I was trying to write "that book" and had an other, more chill and simple, idea, but I think I thought about it too much and now my first idea is actually more simple than the second one 😭

That is a very good advice. Thanks for sharing. I have the struggle of having stored wayyy to many story ideas over the years, some I will never write/finish cause I don't relate to the anymore and can't stand behind the story. I still keep them tho, in case I want to incoporate some of those in other stories. But I don't know where to start, any advice on that xD...

This works for researchers, too!

If a book has everything, it'll be generic. Fiction at its best has limitations and satisfying ways of going around them.

Well this sounds like me with my solarpunk transhumanist future story... Guess I should start with the more familiar fantasy story first lol

I did start with that book and it somehow became a novel bigger than I anticipated. I'm 40k words in asking myself how I'm going to finish it within one single book.

I would like to see you a longer format video somehow on this channel

Legit. Just finished my first novel. Could not have done it without solid groundwork on short fiction before. You'll run into so many unknowns you must have the practice and know characters and dialogue. These are mostly everything bc the sad truth is this: the world building means nothing. Only when people want to be back and revisit, then it'll come into play. But to get them there you have to tell your readers a story first. From beginning to end. So, don't get it right but get it written. Much more often than once.

Thanks, this is really helpful. And the indie book sounds awesome! I'll have to check it out.

click-baity but i agree

Is there a part of your manuscript you know you need to fix?

i mean you can still start with something big. its just that you'll learn things the hard way about how being too ambitions is dangerous.

Honestly part of me cares more about this specific story, more than any particular career I may or may not have in the field. I would rather write this book a 100 times until it’s good, rather than a 100 books I don’t care about until I’m good.

that's what they said to salman rushdie about midnight's children. here's some writing advice for you. there's enough thou shalt notters on yt. you're oversaturated @sshole!

skrew you twice!

skrew you!

This works for any art form too! Drawing, filmmaking, game dev (I actually first heard it about game dev) Put off my game idea for 6+ years for this reason, had an idea for a comic but I put it off bc it had too many characters, so I thought of a smaller story Don't chase your dreams, walk towards them at a steady pace and enjoy the journey

Woah... this is actually the best possible advice anyone could give me! I'm going to start developing my other ideas instead of trying to fit it all into a 15-book story, lol! Thanks so much!!

But "That book" is all I care about and I am not interested in writing any other story as my first. That project literally consumes my mind.

I like it. Be Basic. The filmmaking version of this advice is very related to budget, so I'm glad you shared the deeper methodological reasons for it here.

You can write that book, but "dont try to publish it, yet". At least that's what I did. I wrote down the story, the world and everything. I mean, I wrote like 600 pages in less then thee months. It was a fun to write, but it is nowhere near the quality that I would be statisfied with. So it definietly needs a few more draft. What I would recommend you to do is to don't start the second draft, yet. You are finished with the first draft of your first novel, you are now aware of what skills you need to improve to be able to finish it. It's time to write a few short stories or novels. Personally, I went with "short" side-stories of the background characters in the same world. They are perfect for deepening your own understanding of your own world, it helps to see your work and your characters from an different perspective and such...

I have been given this advice a lot and I've genuinely struggled to come up with unrelated story ideas to my BIG idea. The closest compromise I've come up with is write later storylines that do not affect the start or write standalone inconsequential stories with the same characters.

I think I just want something out there that someone will like. I don't need NYT approval, or a Hugo award or anything, but if i don't get it out there i'll regret it. I don't think i want this as a job, just maybe something out there.

I just write the stories and they end up as long as they need to be. Some stories I’ve done has ideas I thought would be novellas or even just long story stories, but ended up being less than 2k words. Other ideas that I felt would be a 2k-3k story ended up being 10k. I try not to worry about the length, as long as the story is getting told how it needs to be told. If I try to push an idea to a certain length, I struggle more to write it down and get my head around it. Short stories don’t get enough love, I think. All the advice I see is how to write your first novel and how to write a book angled at brand new writers. But short stories are amazing and honestly teach you more about how to write than a book does. You’re allowed to make mistakes, allowed to make it bad, and even trash it if it’s not salvageable, and that’s easier to do with a short story. But you’re still learning about writing doing it. When you’re 30k, 50k, 100k deep into a novel, you feel the sunk cost fallacy in your BONES and it can end up making you see past the mistakes you should take care of. Short stories? Toss it and start a new one knowing how the last one sucked and keep going. For me, I try not to stress about length unless I’m working within a word count limit (mostly for school projects). Otherwise I just let the story be as long as it has to be.

Bro, I'm like 60000 words into my fantasy space epic already; why did I not see this video like four months ago.

wow. I've worked occasionally on other projects, but The Book has been my focus for 4 & 1/2 years. I've definitely improved everything about my writing while working on it, but I only have about 40k of usable material-and I'd be very surprised if I'd written less than 500k on this project in various documents. In the past month I've been working primarily on something else, which has come easier in some ways (though harder in others, as it's difficult to understand this new set of characters), and its ease has made me further question if I should give up on The Book. I would never have thought of, or seen the value in, this approach on my own. Thank you so much.

The best writing advice is "Don't write" As I have been trying to write a novel for like 4 years and have almost nothing to show for it, I think I've got the "don't write" down to a science. I can take an amazing epic idea or a mediocre lame idea... and not write either. I can out NOT write anyone on this site. COME AT ME BRO, you think you can write less than me, well let's do this, let's have a no write show down, my lack of writing will put your lack of writing to shame! Real Talk: I will try to write a simple novel in 2025. Hopefully in the first few months.

Wow, writing advice in less than three minutes that made me feel like "Yeah, I can do that!". Thank you :)

Practice and small steps 😡😪👎 Pushing forward without a clue to what you're doing 😎👌💪

I think the official nanowrimo recently applied rules that allow using AI. Any other contests or organizations out there? Besides taking it up on our own, of course.

But how do i know if they are bad or good stories?

Back in the day frustrated authors were lost trying to complete their versions of War and Peace or Remebrances of Things Past. Existential sagas that collapsed under their own weight. Now we got wizards and goblins.

It feels like you're talking to me, as I have this great idea for an epic space opera and I've been struggling for years to advance it; always rewriting and deleting without any true advancement. And just recently I thought of doing exactly this, to simply finish a book and get that experience done. Finding this video is like the universe is doubling down on that thought so I will.

Huh, interesting

I managed to write 'that book' for my first book. I am currently trying to get an agent. Took 5 years of learning and first draft, then 5 years going through the full editing process. It was a long journey - wish I'd seen this video back then 😅 Great advice. I do have to say I had a good time writing it though.