Hey, all. As stated in the title, I got my master's. I owe a lot to this site's community to keep me going and safe from being gaslit.

If it would help people, I would love to share my knowledge and experience about graduate school, writing spaces, or anything that might interest you. Here are some details that might invite questions (that won't doxx me):

  • My focus was Prose/Fiction

  • To complete the master's I had to turn in a novel as my thesis.

  • I volunteered in the anti-racist program in my Creative Writing Department and handled some cases of in-class discrimination issues.

  • Some of my peers are boomers and/or libs and I workshopped with them.

  • I took courses on teaching Creative Writing, if you want some general advice.

  • I was only made aware of the CIA's history of influencing writing programs during my final semester.

If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them or go into more detail.

  • Budwig_v_1337hoven [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    What's your take on the monomyth? I know Harmon uses it a lot, as a sort of infinitely adaptable blueprint for narratives.
    Also, how does one write characters? Do I just write real people I've met and give them different names, or..?
    Are there any good books on writing?

    Oh, and: Congrats on the Master's!

    • Lucas [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Honestly, I hate the hero's journey as a guideline. It's helpful starting out, but it feels so limiting when you really want to tell stories outside of that framework. I think it requires extra work to keep it from being a power fantasy where the other characters only serve the protagonist/plot itself. I think part of it for me is personal in that I found a lot of spec fic/fantasy to be incredibly individualistic, where I wanted to know how the main character's actions affected others. What I write tends to still have a main viewpoint character, but I wanted to make sure the other characters had lives that existed outside of plot/protagonist's problems.

      Going into the character writing, I would say your end product will be very different, regardless of who you start with, unless you're deliberately keeping the character similar to the person/inspiration. For me, sometimes I would start with "This character from _____, but not racist." or "This character, but more assertive and honest." I would work at it and then bigger divergences would happen. Other times, I look at a story or topic I want to explore and try to find someone who would have an interesting perspective on the events.

      If you're writing a story about a team of explorers in space finding an artifact, you can have three characters with three different opinions on the artifact. Because they disagree, they stand out, and you can even start a conflict there. Maybe A thinks it's valuable to sell, B thinks it's something that should be studied, and C wants to leave it alone and go back on the ship.

      Then you can explore the why. You don't have to limit yourself by having your character planned out from the beginning. You can go back and line things up when you're revising! Maybe A wants to sell it because he never wants to be a victim of space-capitalism again, or he wants to sell it to fund the revolution, while B wants to put the artifact in a museum to get academic clout. Once you find little tidbits you like, you can go on and add more characters and traits that fit.

      Honestly, I haven't found too many good books on writing that I still refer to, and I've had few books like that assigned to me in any of my classes. There was one that had published authors answering questions, but I'll have to find it. When I do, I'll add it into the edit.

      I hope my answer was helpful and not too wordy

      And thank you for the congratulations :)

      • Budwig_v_1337hoven [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        I hope my answer was helpful and not too wordy

        It was very helpful, thanks. Maybe, as a related follow-up question: How do you get to actually putting out pages? I often find myself stuck conceiving of world-building details or mostly disconnected scenes instead of, y'know just writing something down, coherently. I just end up collecting notes, little scraps of ideas or half thought-out moods/scenes; never revisiting them or fleshing them out to something readable.

        It can't just be a lack of personal drive, right? right?

        • Lucas [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          One thing I'm still trying to overcome is perfectionism. It's still there and it nags me constantly, but one strategy I've developed is to allow the criticism on the page in parentheses and moving on from it.

          For example: "The soft curves (feels cliche) of the river reminded him of a calligrapher's pen stroke (One word? Two?)."

          Then I can go back by doing ctrl+f on the '(' parenthesis to see if I still hate something or know how to improve it. And this is incredibly helpful if you're trying to do worldbuilding. Can't think of a specific place or spell name yet? Put (spell name) or (fantasy creature), (whatever) and come back to it when you've developed your world more. I know it's tempting to have everything together before you start, but you're going to have to go back and fix things anyway. First drafts are almost always terrible.

          If you're writing chapter-by-chapter, another thing I've seen as helpful is to write down what you want to happen next - either later in the chapter, or in the next one. This helped me to cooldown from 'actual writing' and it gave me a starting point when I got back to it. It's a nightmare to stare at the next chapter only to have a blank page and a vague recollection of where you left off.

          And the notes you have are really useful too. When I was working on my novel, I had the current chapter I was working on in one window and my worldbuilidng rules/guidelines open in another. Then when I had questions or realized I had details that would help or questions that came up (one example was how high does a light source have to be for it to be visible from 100 miles away), I can refer to that page.

          Another thing is that some people do better with outlines while others can freely write as they go. Neither way is better, and sometimes people do both. It's finding what works for you. If I'm being honest, I had a vague idea of parts 1, 2, 3, and 6 when I broke it down. I followed my outlines until the end of the first half and struggled to reach the end in the way I described above.

          And give yourself some credit - if you're working on worldbuilding and things like that, it's still writing. You're putting together consistency and paving over plotholes. It's just a matter of finding the best strategy for you.

          • Budwig_v_1337hoven [he/him]
            ·
            4 years ago

            Thank you for your words, it's genuinely helpful. From the bottom of my heart: all the best with your novel, hopefully I can read it someday.