I tested out Rachel Aaron's "2k to 10k" method | writing vlog
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ต.ค. 2022
- In this writing vlog, I decided to test out the techniques in 2k to 10k by Rachel Aaron to find out if they could help me write faster? And if so, how much faster??
This writing vlog centers around the planning required to write fast, techniques for writing faster when drafting, and testing the actual techniques to see if they help.
It was a wild ride and interesting to test for sure!
What did you think of this writing vlog? Have you ever read 2k to 10k by Rachel Aaron? Did you find it as helpful as I did? Let me know in the comments below and I'll get back to you 🙂
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📚 Books read/used in this video 📚
2k to 10k by Rachel Aaron: amzn.to/3V1apfu (affiliate link*)
💻 Plotting software I use 💻
Plottr: plottr.com?ref=323 (affiliate link*)
* Long story short, by purchasing a product from one of my paid links you are helping support this channel and my journey to become an author 🙂 I will never recommend any products I don't actually use and don't think are worth the price. Or as Amazon would like me to say, as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
I'm trying out some new stuff with this video, so I'd be really grateful for your feedback. Do you like this shorter style of video? Do you like a more cohesive story like this? Or the longer weekly vlog style videos? Do you have any other feedback about this video?
Thanks for watching and thanks for your feedback :)
I don't know if it registered in my head as being shorter, but I did enjoy the more cohesive story. I personally enjoy you explaining and then seeing how various pieces of writing advice work for you.
I'm very excited about your dictation video, by the time you see this, the week is almost over. So a two points that helped me.
First, a regular audiobook is ~9,000 words per hour. I don't know of anyone who dictates at that speed. The fastest I'm certain of is around 5,000 words per hour. (Also the name of a great book by Chris Fox). A slow conversation is about 6,000 words per hour. What that meant for me is I had to remember it's ok to stop and think about the next sentence before you start it.
Second, was that because I've mostly written in written roleplay, I have an intense need for everything to be perfect the first time. (That and wanting things to be perfect the first time I do them is just my personality.) This meant that if I was looking at the words while I was speaking them I would want to go back and edit and this messed with dictation being as useful as it could be. What helped me with this is transcription. I use Dragon, but Descript is almost as good and a lot cheaper in the short run. (You can get 3 hours of Descript Transcription for free if you want to try it.) I'd just sit down in a comfy chair somewhere and just talk. Being able to dictate from a comfortable position is very useful.
As usual, I have some recommendations, some of which I think I've mentioned before. First is "On Being a Dictator" by Kevin J. Anderson and Martin L. Shoemaker. Both of them have been using dictation for a very long time and have a lot of good practical tips. "How to Dictate a Book" by M.L. Ronn is a book I haven't actually read yet (It is in my shopping cart now, guess what I'm reading next week, lol) but I've read a lot of his advice and he tends to be pretty good.
I'm continuing my experimentation with scene writing, and it's definitely enjoyable. However, an issue I'm running into is that I can handle doing more than one joint post, but it's a lot harder for me to handle writing a solo scene and a joint post at the same time. Anyway, very much enjoyed this video!
@Alonzo Muncy Haha, to be honest its not that short, just shorter than usual! And thanks for the feedback. I'll keep that in mind when editing :)
Yes, in fact I've already finished filming the dictation video, but I may continue with it for the next week too, so the suggestions are still appreciated!
I'm curious about tools like Dragon. Do you use the 600$ high-end one or the monthly one? How is the accuracy for you? I may get it if I can cut down on editing time. But I'm not sure about how good it is yet, so hearing from a real person would be nice.
Nice on the scene writing, are you practicing anything in particular with it? Snowflake method for scenes? Or is it just pure experimentation?
@John Writing I have Dragon Professional, it's 500$ if you buy from the Nuance site. There is no doubt in my mind it's the BEST option out there. They have been in the game making quality products for a long time and were doing it before anyone else. Dragon learns and so gets better as you use it more. Unless I'm saying a weird name, and in that case I can add it and it will recognize it as a word, after having and using it for a year or so it effectively never messes up for me. That said, you do have to train it by correcting it if it messes something up. If you had a accent that less expensive options kept messing up with, then Dragon is 100% for you because of this.
The problem with Dragon is the marginal benefit of using it. For most people, something like speechnotes which is free is going to work just fine. You loose out of customizability, controls, and a lot of really useful stuff. But it's mostly stuff that the vast majority of people don't need.
In many ways, it's like other tools that are very nice and expensive. They offer a lot of things that lesser tools don't. You have to figure out if the marginal benifits you get will be worth it. For me, it absolutely is. I enjoy having really good tools so that if something messes up, it's my fault not the tool's and I can fix me. However, other people might weight that diffrently.
If you are satisfied with whatever dictation methood you are using now, I wouldn't change. If your not and want something you can have more control of, then Dragon is going to give you that nuance and control. (No pun intended.)
I'm kinda just experimenting with whatever. I want to have 25 stories that are 2k or longer by the end of the month.
Thanks so much for taking the time to type all that up!! I am still a little bit frustrated with the amount of edits I have to do, but I may check out speechnotes and see if it's any better than what I'm currently doing. Thanks for the recommendations :)
Also I feel like you intended that pun ;)
Back injuries are terrible. Out of pure selfishness, please don’t burn out! Great content. Love both the short and long videos. And I feel super validated in my author journey every time you post about a good writing reference book that I’ve read and liked. I’m so excited for your progress… I find it very motivating and inspirational. Take care.
Thanks so much for the kind words!! And don't worry, I'm learning how not to burn out (slowly but surely 😂).
I'm so happy to hear you find inspiration and validation in my videos. That's exactly what I want them to do for people :)
Agree! As a long sufferer of back pain, try stretching your hip flexors (look into pigeon pose and lizard pose). Also, try sitting in sphinx pose or updog (these are PT techniques but easier to just Google the yoga names 😂). Hope you feel better!
@Katie Newton Thanks for the suggestion, I'll take a look! And thanks for watching :)
I found your channel recently and i really hope you're okay and that you haven't given up on this channel. You have so much great advice and feedback. I've been working on a story for years and your channel has been something I've been looking for for just as long!
I know I'm late to the party on this one, and that you're constantly adapting and changing your methods, but I figured I might as well drop this in here in case it proves useful, or at the very least amusing lol
So I have pretty severe ADHD, which comes with a whole host of often comedic challenges in relation to writing, which is largely why I started doing that "minimum of 100 words a day" self imposed challenge, because while I can't retain a linear thought process to save my life, I'm also extremely competitive. Especially with myself...
Now, I'm no master at writing fiction. Small time published, yeah sure, but that also came down to luck and I'm well aware of it. But finishing a project to even get published in the first place is my own personal Everest, and it took me forever and 9 years to figure out why I kept getting stuck. As it so happens, when my very rare linear train of thought got detailed by literally anything, that was it, I was done. I'd sooner stare at a blank wall for hours than write another word, which was just so depressing.
So how do I get anything done now? Turns out the trick, for me, is to almost literally hurdle over obstacles like some sort of Olympic track athlete.
Can't think of a place name? Doesn't matter, it's [MAGIC CITY] now, I start writing. Character name? Doesn't matter, they're [BADASS MC] now, I start writing. I can't figure out how the beginning of a scene connects to the end of a scene? I divide them with a dash and keep going, that's a future me problem now. Don't know how two scenes fit together? Divide them with a line break and sew them together later. I only want to write the exciting or funny middle bit of a scene and the idea of spending 5 minutes on the lead up is killing me and preventing me from doing it? Well, not anymore, I will write an entire scene backwards more often than I care to admit, bottom to top, because that let's me start at the exciting bit which gets me motivated to keep going. I have to plot the hell out of everything, but I absolutely cannot execute it in order, it just has to be seen together later like a granny square blanket.
Honestly it's an absolute mess, and it absolutely matches ADHD brain in the sense that I'm sure every other author on the planet would look at my google drive account and cry... But it works. I found order in chaos, and ironically that was to allow the chaos to thrive.
Haha that's actually a really interesting tactic to get yourself excited to write!! I may actually use that when I'm struggling with feeling like I don't want to write for the day!
Have you ever listened to the Andrew Huberman podcast about ADHD? It's 2 hours, which the ADHD people in the comments say is too much, but if you're driving it may be the perfect background track 🙂
p.s. I'm also very competitive 😂
@@john_writing_ I just noticed now how long that first comment was and I'm so sorry 😂
I haven't heard the podcast but I will add it to the Playlist Of Things because that seems relevant to my interests. I'm sure I can power through two hours one way or another lol
As for the writing tactics, my god, like I said before it's absolute chaos and some days are way worse than others where I don't even have punctuation or quotation marks or anything, because if I lose the idea or the motivation there is a 90% chance it's not coming back, so I Gotta Go Fast! (TM).
My favourite writing quote is from Finding Forrester, which roughly remembered is, "No thinking, that comes later. You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is to write, not to think!"
I just happened to take that advice with a little spicy twist to it lol
Haha your comment was entertaining at least, no trouble to read :)
As far as writing, I'm of the mind that writers do whatever works for them and it sounds like you've experimented a bit to find a process that works (plus added spice 🌶)
I really love this comment and your response! This sounds like something I want to try for sure!❤❤
Ooh I'll have to check this one out! Thanks for sharing your experience!
I'm happy you enjoyed it!! Let me know what you think if you read it :)
I need to order this book...
I recommend it! I was a huge skeptic coming into the book, but it actually changed my mind after reading it!! If you pick it up, let me know what you think :)
@@john_writing_ I just remembered, I'm still on a stupid book buying ban... my life sucks. If I fail NaNo, it will be because of that ban.
You know someone loves reading when they have to institute a book buying ban in their life!! Good luck and maybe check out the library for now :)
It looks like you’re using storyboarding software to outline your scenes, characters, etc. What is it you’re using? I just use Word, then plot each scene, before I start writing. It seems a lot less sophisticated than what you’re using.
Here I'm using a program called Plottr. It's a pretty popular outlining tool that can manage character, scenes, settings, series, etc. Unless you need something with tons of worldbuilding capabilities, it's a solid option.
If you want to check it out, any purchase made through this link (plottr.com?ref=323) will actually support the channel :)
@john_writing_ if you haven't made a video about it yet, I'd love an in-depth how you use Plottr tutorial! It looks like something I would be interested in using someday!