(Note. This is a ramble and not intended to be pointing fingers. I almost deleted it after I wrote it)
Personally, I don't believe in a magnum opus. Cause it usually entails working for decades on a singular story. It's like the reason we don't do interstellar travel. Cause by the time we get to the destination, a later generation would have beat you too it. In writing terms, by the time you reach the end of the novel, 20 years later, your original ideas have evolved and the story is lacking. The ideas I worked on 20 years ago aren't as good as the ones I have now. Even the story I figured was my magnum opus, needs to be overhalled. I wrote a trillogy in it. My idea is lackluster and boring and done a million times before in exactly the same way. Plus, I haven't touched on story theory, prose, and such.
I refer back to David Eddings and Brandon Sanderson. Eddings said to write a million words, then burn them. Sanderson was to write, minor edit and trunk 10 novels. Writing is a craft and we all need to go through an Apprenticeship. I'm going through it.
My world of Beyond Terra Continuum is set up for me to write a multitude of stories. I have a half dozen or so short stories published, plus novel and novella series (these are still unpublished) with more planned.
My suggestion, and this is just a suggestion, is to write short stories in your universe. Submit them to open calls. Get them written, edited and published. Learn your trade craft.
Hey! Sorry just saw this somehow. No, this is actually very validating. I have been writing shorts since last summer with a big ramp up starting January this year. I haven't been posting them to Substack since most submissions won't take content that's self-hosted elsewhere. Thanks to your suggestions, I have two more submissions to draft.
I feel like I'm decent on plot development, painting a beat, showing character growth, but ab-so-lute-ly ratf###ed on grammatical tools. Also, I struggle with brevity and pacing.
I don't know your full background - but if you ever have any Q's about astronomy, spacecraft, orbital mechanics, etc, shoot me a DM. I'd love to see more about "Terra Continuum," that's a much different set of cosmic conditions than I'm toying with. I'll probably keep fleshing out parts of the world-building through blogs like this. I hope you do the same!
(Note. This is a ramble and not intended to be pointing fingers. I almost deleted it after I wrote it)
Personally, I don't believe in a magnum opus. Cause it usually entails working for decades on a singular story. It's like the reason we don't do interstellar travel. Cause by the time we get to the destination, a later generation would have beat you too it. In writing terms, by the time you reach the end of the novel, 20 years later, your original ideas have evolved and the story is lacking. The ideas I worked on 20 years ago aren't as good as the ones I have now. Even the story I figured was my magnum opus, needs to be overhalled. I wrote a trillogy in it. My idea is lackluster and boring and done a million times before in exactly the same way. Plus, I haven't touched on story theory, prose, and such.
I refer back to David Eddings and Brandon Sanderson. Eddings said to write a million words, then burn them. Sanderson was to write, minor edit and trunk 10 novels. Writing is a craft and we all need to go through an Apprenticeship. I'm going through it.
My world of Beyond Terra Continuum is set up for me to write a multitude of stories. I have a half dozen or so short stories published, plus novel and novella series (these are still unpublished) with more planned.
My suggestion, and this is just a suggestion, is to write short stories in your universe. Submit them to open calls. Get them written, edited and published. Learn your trade craft.
Your story isn't going anywhere.
Hey! Sorry just saw this somehow. No, this is actually very validating. I have been writing shorts since last summer with a big ramp up starting January this year. I haven't been posting them to Substack since most submissions won't take content that's self-hosted elsewhere. Thanks to your suggestions, I have two more submissions to draft.
I feel like I'm decent on plot development, painting a beat, showing character growth, but ab-so-lute-ly ratf###ed on grammatical tools. Also, I struggle with brevity and pacing.
I don't know your full background - but if you ever have any Q's about astronomy, spacecraft, orbital mechanics, etc, shoot me a DM. I'd love to see more about "Terra Continuum," that's a much different set of cosmic conditions than I'm toying with. I'll probably keep fleshing out parts of the world-building through blogs like this. I hope you do the same!
Cheers