✍️ Writing
A community for writers, like poems, fiction, non-fiction, short stories, long books, all those sorts of things, to discuss writing approaches and what's new in the writing world, and to help each other with writing.
Rules for now:
1. Try to be constructive and nice. When discussing approaches or giving feedback to excerpts, please try to be constructive and to maintain a positive vibe. For example, don't just vaguely say something is bad but try to list and explain downsides, and if you can, also find some upsides. However, this is not to say that you need to pretend you liked something or that you need to hide or embellish what you disliked.
2. Mention own work for purpose and not mainly for promo: Feel free to post asking for feedback on excerpts or worldbuilding advice, but please don't make posts purely for self promo like a released book. If you offer professional services like editing, this is not the community to openly advertise them either. (Mentioning your occupation on the side is okay.) Don't link your excerpts via your website when asking for advice, but e.g. Google Docs or similar is okay. Don't post entire manuscripts, focus on more manageable excerpts for people to give feedback on.
3. What happens in feedback or critique requests posts stays in these posts: Basically, if you encounter someone you gave feedback to on their work in their post, try not to quote and argue against them based on their concrete writing elsewhere in other discussions unless invited. (As an example, if they discuss why they generally enjoy outlining novels, don't quote their excerpts to them to try to prove why their outlining is bad for them as a singled out person.) This is so that people aren't afraid to post things for critique.
4. All writing approaches are valid. If someone prefers outlining over pantsing for example, it's okay to discuss up- and downsides but don't tell someone that their approach is somehow objectively worse. All approaches are on some level subjective anyway.
5. Solarpunk rules still apply. The general rules of solarpunk of course still apply.
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I'm back after missing last month. I was pretty overwhelmed with work and gutting my laundry room after I found a old leak (so much mold, yuck).
I have still been writing. Mostly notes and reviews of books I've read. I did get inspired after reading stepford wives to do kind of a modern interpretation of it. One thing that stuck out to me is how bored all the men were with their robot wives & how much they had isolated themselves out of their inability to engage with their families on a human level. I think there's a deep sadness to the book that is often overlooked because of horror elements.
I wrote a short story about a future where most people are plugged into a sim & have robotic partners. The MC is a guy who wakes up one day to find he's bored with having a partner and life he completely controls. It then follows him as he tried and fails to have a romance with a real woman, but learns the value of human relationships and a world that we cannot control.
I'll see if I can get it typed up and edited to share, I think it's a fun little thought experiment. Though it does get pretty dark in the middle.
Happy spring to everyone, i look forward to seeing what people have done :)
That sounds really cool! Definitely a great hook. I imagine this is the modern interpretation inspired by The Stepford Wives you were just referring to? I would love to read that if you do share it. It sounds like an interesting angle to take on the experience of loneliness.
Yes! It is an interpritation/response to the stepford wives. Kind of extrapolated it to an extreme and definetly influenced by more modern concepts like virtual reality. Kind of asking what would happen if that tech/world continued to the present day.
I'll definetly keep working on it. Knowing there's someone who might give it a read definetly helps with the motivation/ inspiration :)
I'd also be interested in reading that!