VelocityWriting - The Writing Life
VelocityWriting - The Writing Life
VelocityWriting is to help you "Write your vision at the speed of life." You'll learn about tools and gain skills in all aspects of the writing life including writing, editing publishing, book marketing, and more. Book Author Track and Blogger Tracks. There's valuable information here, and it's also a gateway to other resources. There is a FREE online course waiting for you at velocitywriting.com/vip-writers-club/.
D.L. Hughes has been a writer, editor, and publisher for over three decades. Learn more about his interesting writing career here: velocitywriting.com/meet-dl-hughes/
He also offers consulting, mentoring, substantive editing, copy editing, and book craft services here: velocitywriting.com/value-author-services/
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Hi..four years ago I watched these videos...completed a Novel Writing Diploma..and started serious writing. my dream was to..one day..read my OWN BOOKS. Currently completing 2nd and 3rd books.. Thankyou so much!!
I'm glad I have helped encourage you, even if only in small ways. Keep at it!
Hello, VelocityWriting! How you doing? I was doing a research about how many words/pages you need per different genre. For example, Epic Fantasy is another "beast" and I've read that you can have between 180 000 and 250 000 words, which is a lot. I am writing my own book series regarding the same genre and I was wondering if you could give me an advise about that topic? Is it true or false information? Can you actually write more words and is that acceptable? Or you need to write way less than that? Thank you! Great video and I wish you both many professional and personal successes!
Some authors get a big kick out of writing epic-sized novels. Such books are passing out of fashion, however, both because of reader tastes and the economics of publishing. Reader's like 60,000-80,000 words today because of their time constrains. If you have a 180,000 word book, edit it into a three books series. Readers love series and will buy each one once they are hooked. Economically speaking, 180,000 words is not feasible except for outlier books, and they are exceedingly rare. In print, they are deadly because of the production costs and the market price for such book. Narrow margins make print impractical these days for almost all high word count books. If you only publish ebook editions, you can still get a decent financial return if you can find buyers. My best tip: Get the best professional editing you can afford. You know where to find me. Must big books, as you envision, are a big mess, but authors are blind to it. All the best.
Most of the latest writing rules have been contrived merely to meet the publishers' marketing requirements.Which urges serious writers to reconsider their cherished principles and "stoop" to those requirements, making their utmost to sacrifice as few principles as possible.
I'm sorry you are so angry about "rules." Many successful authors are asked about the reasons for their success, thus we see these lists. I particularly like Leonard's rules because they are so humorous. If you didn't think #10 "Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip" was hilarious, then perhaps you are over-medicated. Personally, I like these lists. I have read scores of them, and even adopted 2-3 rules from the hundreds offered. No one is required to adopt them all.
Can somebody tell me why the face on the nobel medal is distorted?
Thanks for asking, but I have answered this question several times. Scroll down and you'll see it.
Thank you very much for this video
Its "For Whom The Bell Tolls"
Sharp ear! But, sadly, you don't have a sharp eye. :-) At the location where you wrote your comment, there is a pinned notice where I beg forgiveness for my slip of the lip. My "Mea culpa" has been there for many years now.
This was the best speech on writing I've ever heard. Subscribed, liked, and now addicted. Thank you.
I wish I had subscribed to your channel a couple of years ago when I found it but I’ll get rid of the negative self talk and tell myself how grateful I am to have decided to learn from your presentations.
I have viewed and taken notes on many of your videos. You have been an immense help to my writing work. Thank you!
How many of those 100s of aspiring writers you’ve worked with have made a living from their writing?
That is a fair question. The answer is there is no way I can know. Most come to me for help with one book, gain skills, and then move on. Yet, I have done substantive and copy editing for a sizeable group of the same authors for a over decade or more. They are successful enough that they continue to write books, it seems. My insight about writing, along with my desire to encourage talent I see, is why they keep coming back for more. Yet, I am only one factor on the path to the type of writing success you mention, and many other relevant factors are out of my purview. Many people believe they will have instant writing success. That is extremely rare. It takes time to grow into being an above-average writer and for writers to learn how to market themselves. I am a writer, but I am also an editor and writing educator. I have made a well above-average living from these combined skills for almost my entire adult life. It requires focus and hard work.
1600... Ideally, of anything
thanks for the information i am making a story report
I saw a picture of a grid chart that Rowling made with all the separate plot lines that tracked their independent progress along the course of the book, apparently Joseph Heller did something similar for Catch-22. It seems like an interesting way to develop a story.
Good tips.
I like the tip to read dialogue aloud, although I think sometimes, you can't have dialogue that is too authentic, sometimes if dialogue is directly transcribed I find it can be highly disjointed with a lot of weird pauses and odd repetitions that our mind parse out, This authenticity comes across as really annoying to read, I think part of the art of writing is to somewhat enhance what is natural to be an emblematic representation of reality, otherwise it's not an art, it's just documentation.
Great video. That first tip gets me, I always write at a cafe listening to music, but I want to practice writing at home in silence, I think this is how most great writers did it.
I think if you are in a good writer's group and by good I mean both skilled and honest, you'll evolve into a better writer
I have subscribed. Thanks for your kindness and encouragement
Thanks and welcome
Thank you so much
I greatly admire Hemingway but also Wilde and many other prose stylists who used long sentences, full of dependent clauses, which mimic both in form and content the variety of subtle and contradictory impulses of the human condition while at the same time induct the reader into the broad and majestic river of language that draws one forward into a mellifluous immersion in the music of language which differs only in kind, not in quality, to the mountain brook clarity of Earnest Hemingway.
That was such a beautiful paragraph
Well put. ;v)
I'm a visual artist writing a work statement at the moment. For me, Hemigway's style is akin to minimalist contemporary art. The key words here are -- "laconic" and "impact". Wilde is decorative arts, William Morris tapestry, Renaissance motifs. Both are hugely important for building good taste in all sorts of abstract thinking. But Hemingway is another level of modernity and relevance
so beautiful words
Thank you very much. Your comments are getting me out of my sluggish morning head and onto the paper. I like the ritual of writing and I splashed out on an expensive Mont Blanc pen to do it! No excuses!
Thank you for this series of how the great ones write.
I think this is a genre difference. Literary fiction is hard and it should be. Very very different to genre fiction.
I adore Tolkien’s writing styles…I have read the Hobbit several times and am now slowly reading the LOTR trilogy books…^______^❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
I wonder whether difference between pantsers and those who outline their novels given how they approach the writing process. Stephen King is a pantser and the fact that he knocks out 2000 words per day (down from the word count earlier in his career) is impressive.
Pantsers like to highlight the rare exceptions. But anyone who writes daily can easily write far more, with quality, with an outline. I write at the rate of about 1,000 words per hour (I'm a slow typist) for three hours each day. Sometimes I hit 5,000 words in that timeframe. An outline is nothing more than road map, and I'm able to maintain a high consistent word count, and do work that needs less revision, because I know my destination each day. Do I occasionally take creative side trips? Absolutely! But I can easily return to my planned route. The human brain works is a particular way, and it's best to work in harmony with it, and against it.
I know people may not be born with the gift of writing but I do believe some are born with the passion for it.
Honestly this was pretty good
I'm going to start writing this year. Short stories and poems for the next twelve months. My life experiences can influence your free will. This is your one and only warning 🙂
I love the Hemingway rules... (I've written for radio, and the short sentence is a must, with striking images/similes, etc...), they keep one on the straight and narrow ("be positive.... then he shot himself...) On the other hand, being beholden to a generation of cursory readers is bad for your own expression... The writer has a voice. If everyone sounds like Hemingway, you'll get the kind of standardization that pop music and Hollywood films suffer from.
The text was concise. The four rules were good advice.
Great video!
"Idea to page. BAM!" A great line.
The individual who is determined to write ONLY for self is welcome to fill a thousand diaries with material that fails to communicate with the world around him/her.
Guilty. But I have named three ways to improve my self-talk!
I love prologues. If done well, they create such anticipation and foreshadowing, pulling you straight into the narrative arc. But you have to relate to that way of thinking to enjoy them.
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! Obviously, I think this video is excellent because Mr Hughes agrees with me. hehehe Seriously, we can't let anyone drag us down (especially ourselves), and we need to continue developing as writers. Keep working at it, and sooner or later we will capture the magic and make our readers feel something.
☀️ Thank you for sharing this video ✨
He must have written very small to fit that on an envelope, unless it was a very large envelope! Thanks for this helpful video. Bless you.
I agree that recruiting family members could be a problem. However, one of these who is an avid reader (me not so much) said that not only was a recent example good but that it was of a similar style to a couple of her favorite authors. Thankfully, I have both feet firmly planted as I'm simply a humble hobbyist. Nevertheless, I was appreciative of the compliment.
Appreciate sir ! On monday myy paper is going to be excellent thanks to u sirr ❤️
'If you want to improve your writing, read Steinbeck.' Well said.
"Lack of focus is self-sabotage." I needed to hear this. I can drift around the house and find so many distractions. Getting another tea, cat quality time, KZread, Pinterest, other household or gardening duties, etc. Sometimes these distractions help my mind mull over ideas, and dialogue or scene ideas do pop up. Mostly, though, it's just distractions. Thank you.
Subscribing now.
Thank you po 🤗
it helped me very much in my exams! THANKS!
Thanks for the tips :D
Right t/here with you on all this! Well done and thank you.
I love LOTR
Still great info . . .nicko.
Eloquent ' insight's ' in tune with CS Lewis, who told Tolkien ' keep writing, he did, it has become, magnificence -eternally. Great channel, and insight. N NZ 2022