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: Is one book long enough to make my character fall in love? I am new to writing and this is my first story. I want to make my story believable and was wondering if one book is long enough
I am new to writing and this is my first story. I want to make my story believable and was wondering if one book is long enough to make my character fall head-over-heels for someone. She has known the love interest for quite some time but didn't think much of him because she was in a relationship with someone else. She breaks up with the previous guy because she is dealing with trauma, and then falls in love with the current love interest.
I don't plan on her realizing her feeling for him until the last book. Will one book be enough for her to go from liking him to being head-over-heels in love with him?
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: Re: How can I make the story less predictable? I'm working on my first novel. As I was going through the initial chapters, I felt that the story is quite simple and predictable (in the initial
Make it non-linear
Classical predictable revenge story goes usually around this timeline:
Villain cause Tragedy to Victim (Hero)
Hero cannot defeat Villain just now, so he need to
survive
get gear
get training
get friends
get weapons
get informations
Hero try get his Revenge (and maybe fail, so back to previous point)
Hero wins
Each single point can be repeated as many times as needed, in no particular order, creating its own sub-quest. When all subquests and main quest are finished, the story ends.
So to make it less predicable, you can just change the order of Chapters.
Start with the Hero somehow equipped and trained and put on classical heroic story (barbar Conan cames to mind) where the Hero arrives to some Place, solves some Quest, win some Treasure, loose big part of it and departs to other Place.
Repeat few times, while you introduce Hero and the World as side-effect.
The Hero did not forgot the Tragedy, but does not talk about it to strangers, when not needed. So we can see him arriving, shopping etc. then he just "talks to the right (shady) people and get interesting hint about <this subquest entry point> so the next day he goes there" (and we do not need to hear all the talks, so we - as well as those shady people - suppose, that the Hint was just for getting Treasure. Hero is good known to readers now as for some "marks" like some scars, big sword etc.
Next Chapter could be simmilar, (just the Hint is something else, maybe local Beauty kidnaped by bandits) and you insert some "real hint" like when describing the Beauty you say, that she looked like Marianne, so she catched Hero's eye (and do not explain Marianne now) and Hero goes to save her. Award may be bigger sword or more scars.
Next Chapter can be about a Boy (without scars and sword) trying to survive in winter and get off hungry wolves.
Next Chapter introduce Hero with more scars and bigger sword and awards him some special/characteristic fighting skill.
Next Chapter is about Girl overcomming some problems. On the end somebody calls her Marianne.
Then Chapter about the Boy in summer, with some small equipment in hills, where he fight with Orcs and get scar (oh, so it was our hero after all)
Next Hero gets some company (and more scars).
Next some Other Person fights some problem and get Position.
Next Hero gets some Contacts as result of <this Chapter subquest>.
Next Chapter the Other Person (younger version) does something terrible to some Villagers.
Next Chapter Hero finally confronts The Villain (which may look like just next Sub-Quest). Hero wins and tells to the dying Villain, that Marianne was Heroes sister and one of those Villagers, that Other Person decimated 20 years ago.
And so it is all clear now and the book may end.
Adult Hero known and described by other name (Lonely Lion) than the Boy (Johny) and their connection and the nickname is explained relatively late.
Villain causes Tragedy also near the end of book and it is not clear, that it is The Tragedy, as Hero does not talk about it too much (it still hurts).
Chapters are not dated, so the years are not obvious and could be decided only in retrospection. (But there should be some hints to connect them in right order later - like characteristic scars, some friend calling Lone Lion as Johny and so - usually introduced much later, than the <Chapters Main Character> is introduced)
The book starts like other genre and Revenge motive sneaks inside much later (or even at the end).
I described it as Fantasy (which is easy), but it can be in any setting and it would just use other "marks" say car, clothes, typical way of speach or words, ...
I would also introduce more side-characters, with their Chapters of history and let them go to other Chapters as friends/enemies/changing sites/double-crossing/villains bodyguards/etc/etc and connect them fully only in few last Chapters to make the World much richer and complicated. And the Revenge should sneak inside by small steps, which are more clear in retrospective (like Heros dislike for some types of characters/situations, occasional curse, little strange/unexpected behavior ...)
My point is, that even totally predicable timeline may be simply obscured and presented as much wider story, than it looks to its autor.
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: Re: Not sure how to continue my story I'm writing a story (I think a bit long to post here, but I could if someone would like), which is a metaphor for depression. In the story (from a 3rd
You've sort of written yourself into a bit of a trap - having them stay in the room shut away is a great metaphorical expression for the isolation of depression but as you're discovering it doesn't provide you with much happening to actually write about.
Time-skipping past as you would normally a period of inactivity in a story's timeframe would defeat the purpose of having it there in the first place of course.
The logical place to turn is inward if the point is to have the character alone with their depressive thought processes then use those same thoughts to provide you with events to write about - have them ruminate on relevant past events and you can effectively play those events out and have them respond to them. Rumination is frequently associated with depressive episodes so it plays in to your premise rather than detracting from it while still giving you a way to keep the reader engaged, you can also use these to show a progression in their arc towards the climax of your story.
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: Re: Authenticity and writing under a pen name My question is about marketing and using a pen name. Ofc I want to connect to readers, but I wonder if it's possible to be authentic if you're not
Names are only one aspect of "identity" - much like writing is only one aspect of your life, and writing under a pen name is nothing more than giving "NJM-as-author" a convenient label, so long as you aren't actually pretending to be someone else to cash in on their fame or ride their proverbial coattails it's completely authentic. Authors use pen-names for all sorts of reasons, marketing, because they think it sounds cool, because they want to separate the different styles and genres of their works.
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: Re: What is the most environmentally safe medium of modern storytelling? As an aspiring storyteller, I have a lot of stories that I wish to tell. I say storyteller because I am still not sure
Paper is a renewable resource. Trees are usually harvested from farms now that are constantly being replanted and cut at the best age. There are obviously some exceptions, but you aren't ever reading a book from the trees cut from the blood of the Amazon Rainforest. The greenest you can get is paper, or some variant of it (papyrus, cotton, canvas). You can utilize biological waste and do something unique with it. Other than that, your best bet is drawing in sand, or carving stone tablets with a chisel - electronic mediums are not environmentally friendly.
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: In a book manuscript, what are the spacing guidelines? What is the spacing distance between the chapter title and the first paragraph? If I am using double spacing between sentences, is it
What is the spacing distance between the chapter title and the first paragraph?
If I am using double spacing between sentences, is it the same for between a title and a paragraph?
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: Re: Correctly ending a sentence with "?" or "!" spacing? Specifically, should there be a space after a sentence last letter or directly after the written last letter ? I personally prefer a space
The '!' or '?' are the sentence-terminating characters that are replacing the fullstop '.' so you do the same spacing for all three, i.e. none.
Assuming you're writing in English that is, the usage is different in different languages (French for example has a space before '!' and '?').
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: Re: Is my book to similar to Harry Potter? My MC is Ryan Konrale. My book includes a magic school which is more like the gurukul system of India. It is called Wanthlers! The school is a castle
While it's difficult to say from the description alone whether you'd have any outright legal issues with the similarities I think there's another problem here - whether the book is too similar to stand on it's own merits. There's very little new under the sun - many of the elements and themes of the Harry Potter series are drawn from preceding works and that's not really a problem. But there's a difference between drawing inspiration and merely imitating. And from the description it feels like that's what you're doing - honestly it feels like a off-brand Harry Potter.
Some readers might pick it up on that basis - an attempt at scratching the itch for more Potter where none exists but I think it would be relatively few, and for them and everyone else it would likely never escape the shadow of it.
To a certain extent this is going to be par for the course for some time for any books dealing with school-based magic shenanigans, in the same way that any space saga is going to face comparisons to Star Wars or Star Trek. Heck, works written substantially before it still get compared to it and accused of riding on it's coat tails.
So does that mean you shouldn't bother? Not at all. But you aren't going to escape the comparisons so if you want the book(s) to be successful you need make them your books, not JK Rowling's with different colour curtains.
Let's look at some specifics:
who look similar to
Stop it. Stop it now. A sizeable chunk of humanity are highly visual creatures - if a picture is worth a thousand words then making a good amount of your cast look like characters you're trying to tell us they aren't is like writing a thousand words telling us that they are exactly those characters before you even start. And then you aren't just shooting yourself in the foot, you're opening up on it with a minigun and freaking rocket launcher! Giving your characters their own appearance not only helps the reader see them as characters in their own right it helps you differentiate them. If you keep picturing Ron or Hermione or Draco when you are writing these characters you're going to unconsciously write them as those characters.
Ryan has parents and 5 siblings among which his oldest and favourite sister died when Ryan was 5.
So you've got a real difference here - or at least potentially one. Having a tragic backstory is a common trope but you're playing it differently here, rather than the orphan with the terrible home life. Don't make it that your main character has a family be just because Harry didn't, make that affect how they see the world and how they act. Harry's orphan status significantly drives his relationships with other characters, your Ryan Konrale isn't in the same situation and they are going to forge different relationships as a result - or they should. If you find yourself developing surrogate fathers for him (Dumbledore, Sirius, Lupin), Mother (Molly), or surrogate family (Weasleys) then the chances are you're doing it because Harry had those relationships, not because Ryan would.
I have planned a different sorting system which includes a hat which asks a riddle; Based on the answer the hat sorts the student as I didn't like the idea of a hat which can look in the head.
Having students' house determined by a riddle-test is actually quite a nifty little idea, a slightly other-worldly aptitude test. Unfortunately all that novelty is completely lost - because it's administered by a sorting hat, one of the iconic Harry Potter artifacts. And from the sounds of the last part I quote it sounds as though you started with the idea of a sorting hat and then made it "different". This is what I mean by making the books be your own and not just changing the curtains - if you start with a specific element from Potter and try to make it different it's always going to be derivative and it's going to suffer for it. (NB: How about having students take the riddle in written form using your Quill instead?)
To get to the school, you need to get metro tickets and the metro runes in the air, invisible to non-wizards.
&
There are creatures like owl, eagle and cats to deliver letters and sports equipments like broomsticks.
Again these are simply derivative elements where you've taken JK Rowling's aspects of the world and tweaked them slightly in the name of making them different. A metro is just a variety of train and getting a ticket and riding on a train that's hidden in the air isn't functionally any different from getting a ticket to a train that's hidden on an invisible platform. As for the mail-delivery creatures, while I hate to presume to know Ms Rowling's thoughts it seems reasonable that she started from a conventional ye-olde-world method of mail delivery (carrier pigeons) and swapped them to owls as owls are a big more "wizardly", you've seemingly started from "they get mail delivered by owl" and changed the creature to be a variety of creatures that are commonly associated with wizards and witches. She started at "how can I create a wizardly way for them to get mail" and you started at "how can I change the Potter mail system", you started in the wrong place and therefore were doomed to fail.
Similarly for broomsticks - while they are pretty standard fare in folk tales of witches they are generally seen as a mode of transport. It was only really in the Harry Potter universe that they were seen as sports equipment, you haven't mentioned the nature of the totally-not-quidditch sport you have them play at school but if flying broomsticks are a central component, that's going to be hard to think of as anything but quidditch by another name.
I thought that they are the most common magic stuff.
I think this might be key to what's happening here - the sheer ubiquity of the Potter books, movies, games, toys and so on, and your own fandom of the series may have given you a skewed view of what is "common magic stuff" and things that only look that way because the majority of "magic stuff" that you've encountered is Harry Potter
There is no forbidden forest which includes dangerous creatures but a forest that comprises of less dangerous creatures as the school is sensible to not be a home for beasts.
See this is another reason why taking something and just changing it a bit falls down - you're making a change to something without understanding why it was that way in the first place. The forbidden forest in the Potter books isn't there because JK Rowling was too stupid to understand that putting a school next to a forest full of dangerous creatures isn't sensible, it's there both to provide an accessible source of moderate peril for the characters (and also arguably as a metaphor for the challenges of adult life when leaving the relative safety of school), so there's nothing wrong with you choosing to have your school set on the edge of a non-perilous forest but make sure you're still having something to drive the plot/imperil the characters.
There are both differences and similarities to Harry Potter. I doubt anyone will read my novel due to similarities with Harry Potter
Since there's no getting away from there being both of these the key is make sure that similarities are superficial and that the differences are substantial - do that and I think you can succeed. After all the books about the "other" orphan wizard named Harry have done just fine in spite of the similarities. After all those books tell the story of scarred wizard orphan named Harry whose
parents were murdered,
He was mistreated by his foster family, casts spells using faux-latin sounding phrases,
discovers blood family he didn't know he had as the series progresses,
frequently butts heads with the established magical authorities, frequently finds themselves having to step up and save their friends and or the world. There's potions, wands, ghosts, fairies, goblins, trolls, werewolves, dragons, unicorns,
dark wizards trying to come back to life after being "killed"
duels, a confrontation or two with monstrous spiders in a scary forest, I could go on! The point is that there's lots and lots of things that superficially are similar to the Harry Potter books, but no one's going to come away from reading a Dresden Files book and thinking it's a Potter rip off.
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: What name should I use? I am writing about my local airport which has had two other names which name should I use through out the writing about it? An example is JFK in New York was originally
I am writing about my local airport which has had two other names which name should I use through out the writing about it? An example is JFK in New York was originally called Idlewild Airport would most people writing use John F Kennedy (JFK) through out their story?
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: Re: Fiction Advice: Country's Children I had an idea for a setting. I don't know if it has been done before. What I thought of is that a government would collect children. I am not sure
Your short description makes me think of ways real world governments, that tried (and still try) to force people to assimilate into different cultures.
You should look into some sources detailing those events.
This might be a good start: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_boarding_schools
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: Is it ok to use First Name Initial and Full Last Name to refer to someone in a blog article? Would it be acceptable or correct to refer to someone (e.g. John Smith) as J. Smith in a blog
Would it be acceptable or correct to refer to someone (e.g. John Smith) as J. Smith in a blog post that belongs to a company?
For example, 'J. Smith provided us his view, which was that 'Xxxxxxxxxx'.'
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: Re: How would I go about censoring adult language in my book? I have to present my book(s) to a Christian publisher and I was wondering, how would I go about censoring adult language or should
I like the technique that TvTropes calls the "narrative profanity filter". The basic idea is that instead of including adult language in the dialog, you describe the language in the narration:
He speculated at length on the thief's parentage.
As a side benefit, by leaving things vague, you let the reader's imagination fill in the blanks, and you don't need to figure out what sequence of words would be involved in making a sailor blush.
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: Moving from PDF to EPUB for already published ebook I made the mistake to follow the advice of the kindle Create desktop app to use the PDF format for creating my cookbook. Now I realise
I made the mistake to follow the advice of the kindle Create desktop app to use the PDF format for creating my cookbook. Now I realise that older models of the kindle will not be able to display this and want to change it to an EPUB format.
When trying to reupload the document as EPUB I get an error message saying it is not possible to change an existing publication going from static to flowing layout, but I need to do exactly that.
What is the most straightforward solution for this? Do I really have to delete the publication and reupload it in the EPUB format? Is it even possible?
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: Re: How do you transcribe a person's tone (i.e. someone whose speech is rude and/or attacking)? I've been having great difficulty with transcribing an individuals "tone" in my meeting notes!! For
I've done legal transcription for a number of different jurisdictions and I've never seen a style guide that permits this. It's either verbatim transcription or minor edits to correct false starts, messy construction and that sort of thing.
There have been many times I've felt that tone was important to the meaning, and I feel your pain... but it's just not done in the legal sector. As an impartial third-party seeing an example of what you're attempting, I think it damages the credibility of the document if you show your value judgements in there.
Maybe you could mark for your own notes the exchanges that need elaboration or explanation, so if it comes down to argument, you have something to argue (or introduce an audio clip as evidence).
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: Re: Will including maps at the end of my novel keep readers engaged? I am writing a fictional historical novel. The setting is in another part of the world, nearly 100 years ago. I would wish
Mary Stewart's Arthurian legend quintet would be decidedly less engaging without its maps on the inside front and back covers.
It shows Hadrian's Wall, which Merlin eventually rebuilds. The Salisbury Plain, containing Stonehenge, which he also rebuilds, and shows its proximity to everything else in the story; the dead end that a trip to Cornwall would be; where the Isle of Man is; the titular Crystal Cave in the middle of nowhere lending itself to the life of a hermit; etc.
The map is not fictional, but it brings to life a story of fantasy, and whether it had ever existed or not, it does now in my mind. I read these books thirty years ago but I can still point to this map and tell you where everything happened. Without it, they'd just be names of places and this westerner wouldn't understand why I can't visit all of them in two days on the (not so tiny) island of Great Britain.
(source)
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: Re: How do I balance immature levity and flaws and character growth? I am working on a series where one of the intended primary draws is character drama and growth. I have an ensemble cast of
I can't tell you how to write but I can condense this entire question:
Why was Tasslehoff Burrfoot the (second) most enjoyable character to read about in the entire Dragonlance series?
Tas, like all kender of the Dragonlance series, could be compared to a 5-year-old child; he is utterly irresponsible in any task that is not of the utmost importance, and often takes things that do not belong to him, which to a kender is "borrowing" and not stealing.
Like all kender, Tas is completely without fear for himself. However, Tas is different from other kender in that he does know fear, not for himself, but for the people that he cares about.
It's a question of when do you want to complete their charter arc. "As they learn from their mistakes they seem to be less spontaneous, less interesting, and overall less proactive."
Once he's old and wizened, he still 'steals' stuff from his friends, but he's learned that if he leaps before he looks, he might find himself in trouble and knows that his friends will jeopardize their own safety to save him. He's no less interesting, he just can't be compared to a 5yo anymore; arc complete.
"the plot is no longer about internal character development but external conflict" - between the Chronicles trilogy and the Legends trilogy, that line becomes blurred. But it is not until six books later that Tasslehoff's character arc is complete, which is spelled out for us in no uncertain terms in the last chapter of the last book.
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: Re: How do I write LGBTQ+ characters for a romance story, as a non-LGBTQ+ person, without using potentially offensive stereotypes So today, some of my friends challenged me to write a short story
I see two options, which depend on the "world" your protagonists live in.
In a perfect world, being attracted to a person of the same sex is accepted and nobody bats an eyelid about it. It's just a matter of fact, and then your story is just like a regular heterosexual relationship (or attempt at one): A has a crush on B, does B reciprocate? (Option for love triangles).
Some books, in particular some set in the future or in fantasy world, just take this approach. You have characters that are in a homosexual relationship that are discussed so matter-of-factly that you could just not notice the "homo" part of it.
You can have fun with that using otherworldly or ambiguous names, though in English (and probably many other languages, to varying degrees) you would then need to avoid any use of third person pronouns, which is probably difficult beyond a few pages if they are the main protagonists, unless it's all dialogue between them. You could then have a reveal at the end.
If however your characters live in the current real world, then you have to deal with the prejudice of people around your characters (of even that of your characters). People may not like it (not like it much, not like at all, hate it, want to kill them for it, it could even be illegal...). The subject of the attention may not like it. Or even the person in love may be torn between their education/religion/upbringing/culture which tell them it's a no-no and their feelings which tell them it's yes-yes.
The classic (and overused) twist is of course that the subject of the attention initially says no quite vehemently (cue violence) before ending up in a torrid relationship (cue sex scene).
Depending on the environment, all of this may play a significant role in your story, or just be a somewhat background story. It's up to you to pick which one you want, mostly based on whether the main plot is overcoming this toxic environment (love prevails, cue Romeo & Juliet), or something else entirely.
If your "stereotypes" are related to all of this (afraid of being identified as such, need to hide, violence ensues, etc.), then it's perfectly OK if that serves your story.
If your "stereotypes" are about being camp, effeminate, flamboyant (for guys), or butch (for the ladies), or having an apparent compulsive sex drive or non-stop sex life, or whatever other cliché, well, there are some LGBT people who are, and some who aren't. Like there are straight people who are and some who aren't. Some of your characters may exhibit some of those traits. You probably want to avoid all of them having such traits (especially all the same), but then it may be part of the story (or not) that some have some of them, to varying degrees.
In some cases, the outwards presentation of some people is just a reaction to their environment. Once you get over the stigma associated with your sexuality, you may well go over the top, or have a need for a feeling of "inclusion" in a "community". Others will just barf at that last sentence. So some stereotypes have a reason, and their presentation may be justified in the story. But don't overdo it.
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: Re: As a writer, how can I avoid exposing myself as a non-native English speaker in my texts? I am a Japanese student learning English, and one of my current goals is to learn to write texts
There are only two ways to accomplish this:
Listen to and read LOTS of English to grow accustomed to how we say things. Can take years to reach the goal of being undetectable, but it won’t take nearly as long to get to where the average reader doesn’t notice.
Get a native speaker who is both a good writer and has linguistic training to help you edit what you’re writing.
But like someone else already said, if your writing is comprehensible, don’t worry about it.
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: Re: Current events may have ruined a name I was going to use In the middle-grade series I'm working on, there are two organizations: one led by the antagonist, and one that opposes them, which
Corona in Latin means halo or crown.
The coronavirus was first documented in the 1960's.
Toyota manufactured the Corona from 1957 to 2002 - for 45 years.
Corona has been used in botany for oh, I don't know how many years. As it comes from Latin, I would imagine hundreds.
By the time it's all said and done, I doubt that this coronavirus outbreak will seriously blacken the reputation of a word with that much history.
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: Re: Which tool to use for creating visual illustrations in poetry book? I am working on ebook that is a collection of poems. I want to create illustrations according to poem (similar to something
For me it all depends on the content of the poems.
If it's classically philosophical poems, you might want something sober, reflecting the general style of your poems.
If it's more experimental poetry, you might want abstract art or photography to illustrate your thoughts and feelings while writing the poems.
But after all, it's your art, your poetry, your work. Feel it out and see what you want.
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: Re: How do we succintly describe a boxing match? I am writing a short story, and the boxing match which comes after 2/3 of the story is likely to exceed the length of the entire story, so how
You can look to the manga Hajime no Ippo for a case study on the subject... it is basically all about boxing matches which are described in great detail. Focus on the characters, and understand that boxing is not just two men (or women) punching each other. Every punch that you throw is an opening for your opponent, and it drains your energy a little bit more. Are they experienced boxers? Most amateur boxers are surprised at first by how much faster they run out of energy in a real fight compared to when they were training.
Boxing is a game of chess, where you need to think one step ahead of your opponent. The only difference is that there are no turns. You can throw or block as many punches as you are physically capable of, but each punch is harder to throw than the last.
It should be obvious that punches are being thrown in the boxing match. so to that effect, avoid: he threw a left hook. I swayed back and came back with a swift straight to the body, catching him off balance so I could finish him with an uppercut.
try not even describing the punches so much, because fiction is at its core all about the characters:
This guy has me beat at every angle. I know that for every punch I throw I'm going to take two in return. He's bigger than me... so how can he move so quick? He steps forward and all of the sudden I'm on the ground. The referee asks my if I can still fight--I guess I managed to haul myself onto my feet. I don't remember that. Stop the fight I think, but on reflex I earnestly lock eyes with him and smile, trying not to let on that I have a concussion, and say "Good to go, sir."
The ref nods gravely, and the round picks up again right away. While my opponent rushes in to overwhelm me, I'm still looking the ref in the eyes. No... Why? I think to myself. I squint my eyes shut as I prepare for the blow that that will finally retire me for good, and I picture the disappointment and pity on the faces of my friends and family ringside.
My trainer is yelling at me from the corner "On him!"
I ease my eyes cautiously open, and I see my opponents sweat as steam, condensing quickly in the cold stadium air. I see blood trickling down his face from the cut on his eye I gave him in the fifth round. I must have opened it further. He thrusts a veined, enormous arm directly at my face, and I'm too tired to react in time. It connects and I feel--nothing.
There's no power behind it. I can see my girlfriend through the bottom ropes. She's jumping up and down with the most excited smile I've ever seen her face. "You got him baby! One more shot!" She screams, her white-knuckled fists pumping back and forth. The loose-fitting ring on her finger catches the light.
I've got to get that resized for her before it falls right off, I think. Suddenly that becomes my priority, and I move towards her. But there's a man in the way. I try to stumble past him towards Karen, but he grabs hold of me, as if for support.
"Get off of me," I scream, and thrust my shoulder against his chest. He looks either confused or terrified, and he makes to clinch again. He leans forward to grab me, and I swing clumsily forward. I'm so surprised by how easily his head snaps back under my fist that I stumble forward, only managing to stay upright by supporting myself on the ropes.
Looking down over the ropes at my girlfriend, I'll never forget her smile in the instant between when she saw that I won, and when she realized that her face
was spattered with blood.
The medical team had already taken out my opponent's mouth guard, and starting stuffing cotton against his nose to stem the bleeding........
etc. etc... So, set up the circumstances surrounding the fight, and set the final scene of the fight for the protagonist to deliver (or receive) the finishing blow, the climax of the scene--that one punch--in detail. That's my take on it, as a boxer, avid reader, and someone who claims to like writing but rarely does. Haha! Hope that helps, I had fun writing this reply.
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: Re: Is this a tacky ending? Would you consider a worldwide vote on if the character succeeds to be a tacky ending to a story? The means for the vote to occur are in place, but is it a satisfactory
I would not do this. At all. This has been done several times in the past, and I don't recall any of them having a satisfactory feel about them.
One that still is spoken about in comic book circles is the death of Robin. Yes, one of Batman's Robin's fate was left to a telephone vote, and by a slim margin he was killed.
Your writing is your work, and it should not be left to anybody else.
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: Adding related “documents†to a story I’m writing a fiction novel set in the future where a dictator creates an act that sets the laws and punishments of the land. Part of that act,
I’m writing a fiction novel set in the future where a dictator creates an act that sets the laws and punishments of the land. Part of that act, a title of it, is a dress code.
I’m interjecting portions of it into the narrative of the story as different subjects and violations come up, but I’d like to give the readers a look at the entirety of the documents.
Since it’s a bunch of legalese, if I put them at the beginning no one would read past them. So would I be better served to include them somewhere in the middle or attach to the end where after reading the story the reader might think they’d like to read it and it would put the entire “world†in a better perspective?
Each is about a page to page and a half.
Thanks for your thoughts!
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: Re: I can't get out of the research phase out of fear of missing out One of the aspects I love about fiction writing is doing research. When I settle on an idea, I tend to go look for similar
First: I apologize if anything I say makes light of or dismisses mental/emotional distress. As someone who struggles with AD(H)D, someone telling you the equivalent of, "Get over it," is not helpful.
That being said: perhaps at least some of the anxiety is fear of failure masquerading itself as FOMO. You don't want to fail, so you latch onto reasons to not write, legitimate or otherwise.
For your specific scenario: sure, there may be "better" stories to incorporate that you haven't discovered yet. But those stories already exist; if I wanted to read them, I'd go read them. You are presenting a different story that, while it may share elements or pay homage, is nonetheless a different story.
If and when you find something "cooler" down the road, incorporate it into the next story. I'm sure any writer would tell you that going back and reading previous works would highlight numerous different ways that something could've been done "better". But letting perfect be the enemy of good only serves to stifle your expression and creativity.
Short answer: get out there and write.
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: Re: Which should come first, speech or speaker? Example: I said "Go Away" versus: "Go Away", I said. Which should come first? I am writing medieval fantasy and stumbled across this problem.
Rather than a definitive case of one always being correct it's more situational based on what you're trying to achieve and also whether the preceding text gives the reader enough information to know who is speaking without a leading tag (or indeed any tag at all)
Let's look at some examples:
Bingley shook his head and slumped back in his chair. "Go Away!", said Bradford, a pained look on his face.
We've got an explicit dialog tag here - it works after the speech in this scenario because we don't have to wait particularly long in the reading to be able to attribute it. And it by waiting until after the dialog you can keep the pacing up, the "Go Away!" feels more immediate after the slumping back in the chair.
Compare that with:
Bingley shook his head and slumped back in his chair. Bradford said, "Go Away!", a pained look on his face.
Here the dialog tag only serves to separate the two actions, it's only slight but you lose come of the connected feel.
The post-dialog indication as to who's speaking works in this exampel because the line of dialog is short and snappy. On the other hand if you're dealing with much longer chunks of uninterrupted speech then you need to let the reader know who is doing the talking before the dialog. It doesn't need to be an explicit "x said" line - just some context to let the reader work it out.
For example:
Bingley shook his head and slumped back in his chair. "It is this fate, I solemnly assure you, that I dread for you, when the time comes that you make your reckoning, and realize that there is no longer anything that can be done.", Bradford said, pained look on his face.
It's not immediately clear that it's someone else doing the talking - we were after all just paying attention to Bingley, and the dialog is quite long so if the reader mistakenly assumes it's Bingley doing the talking then it's more jarring when they get to the end and discover it was actually Bradford.
Compare that with:
Bingley shook his head and slumped back in his chair. Bradford's face took on a pained look, "It is this fate, I solemnly assure you, that I dread for you, when the time comes that you make your reckoning, and realize that there is no longer anything that can be done."
In this version we haven't explicitly stated that Bradford is saying it, but he is the last character we are looking at contextually so it feels natural to assume that they are the one talking.
You can make it more explicit if needed, eg:
Bingley shook his head and slumped back in his chair. Bradford's face took on a pained look, and his voice was strained "It is this fate, I solemnly assure you, that I dread for you, when the time comes that you make your reckoning, and realize that there is no longer anything that can be done."
So while there isn't a straightforward "always do this" rule - hopefully this gives you a a better idea of where to indicate a speaker. A good check with this is to have a beta reader read just the passage in question - if they feedback that it's hard to follow who is saying what then you need to work on more explicit declarations of speech or better contextual focus.
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: Re: Finding the right insults As a non-native Anglophone, it can be a bit more of a challenge to do creative writing in English. Thesauri have helped me a lot, improving sentences like "Sokka caught
Insults are a tricky part of vernacular to manage since they often vary widely not just by country but by region, the age of the people using them and time period. There's often some overlap but assuming the setting of the story is Earth as we know you'd have to research the specific sort of insults common to the setting.
And err… when the setting is not Earth? Or when it is anywhere outside the Anglosphere, and featuring characters who are never actually speaking English? Having Germans with full English dialogue still say dummkopf feels a bit off. To be honest, the majority of my writing takes place in those settings because I know specific English vernaculars are too easy for me to mess up.
When not on earth - well, at that point you get a great deal of freedom to define your own set of insults. If you're aiming to use one's the reader is familiar with then it becomes more about using the vernacular that your intended audience would share.
The scenario of a German (who is nominally talking in German but in an English text) is slightly more complex - where there is no obvious direct equivalent actually interspersing the odd German word (such as "dummkopf") is not as jarring as you'd expect. In fact it can actually serve as a nice little nudge to the reader to remind them that while they are reading English the character is actually speaking German.
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: Re: How do I decide what is the best POV for my fantasy novel? How to go about determining what is the best POV to use for my fantasy novel?
There's no universal "best" POV for Fantasy (or indeed most genres), there can be a best for your particular story and that can be because of many factors.
If you need to keep the readers knowledge of the world and events the same as a particular character's then 1st person or 3rd person limited are the obvious choices, if you want the readers to know more than any one character (or even all the characters put together) then 3rd person omniscient makes sense.
If you're particularly strong at writing in a given POV then use that - it's better to have something well written in a given POV even if another might have suited the story better.
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: Re: Can I reference events of a different fictional work in my fictional work? Let's say I'm working on a fantasy series called MyWork, that is set in the present in a small town in the US.
I think that you should ask yourself if you really need to do any of those four items in your story. Each of your items is a form of borrowing from another author's work. I'll ignore most of the legal stuff because the other answers explain it better than I can.
As has been stated in other answers, it's legal to do this if the work you are borrowing from is in the public domain. And some authors do this.
In the case that the borrowed works are not in the public domain, then you are opening yourself up to legal action, such as a lawsuit. This can be extremely expensive to defend against, even if you are in the right.
It is my personal opinion, but I don't like writing fanfic. I also don't enjoy buying a book and then finding out that the author has written something I cannot unexpectedly appreciate without reading (or watching) other works.
I'll try to go through your list and explain why I consider them dangerous. The main thing I find is that you have given control, to one degree or another, of your writing. My comments are mainly applicable in the case of works under copyright, however, even public domain stories can be written into new series (there are many such about Sherlock Holmes).
Mentioning that the events of IW take place in the same universe as
YourWork.
This can be dangerous because you have lost control of your setting. For example, let's say that your works are set in the city of New York. Then imagine that the author of the borrowed work releases a sequel in which he destroys New York in nuclear fire. This means the sequel you're writing will now have to be modified or tossed.
Have a character in YourWork (YW) reference events from IW.
This is a weaker version of your first point. It might even be legal if the events are close enough to the real world events that your readers don't notice. It still is giving some control to a third party.
Have a character in YW somehow in touch with character from IW,
without mentioning name of IW character.
To me this doesn't add anything to your work. If the reader can't figure out who the IW character is, then you run the risk of alienating that reader if he finds out. Essentially this could be thought of as laughing at the reader ("I know something you don't know!")
Have a character in YW somehow related to a character of IW, without
mentioning name of IW character.
Again, if the reader cannot figure it out on his own (in which case why bother to hide the name?), you're just laughing at the reader. And again, you've added nothing to your work if the reader doesn't know the relationship.
These are strictly my opinions. I don't write fanfic.
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: Re: How do you get over the fear of exposing yourself in writing? I really feel like writing, in all its forms, is a very nice way to express myself especially since I'm an introvert, but I'm
@Yostina , I truly hope you find a way to conquer your fear. I was absolutely terrified the first time I forced myself to hit the post button. I was so sure of the only two possible results. Either I was going to be told to go away and never come back or worse yet, there would not be a single response. My grammar isn't perfect and I have had a love affair with commas my entire life.
I was floored by the amount of love, support and encouragement which flooded my inbox. I wrote from the heart and my words touched people. Start slowly allowing a tiny peek inside the real you. You never know who will find your words and how deeply you may touch their lives. If your soul feels a need to write, you likely have great stories to tell. I wish you the best and I look forward to watching you grow.
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: Re: Using footnotes in fiction: children's book which can be enjoyed by adults I would like to write a children's story which is appealing to both children and adults. However, the world in which
I don't think this is the right way to go about it.
I have to say I'm not a fan of explanatory footnotes in fiction, it's far too much of an immersion breaker. In fact I'd go so far as to say they are flat-out awful and should be avoided wherever possible. It's a mental load having to go down to the foot of the page, read something that necessarily breaks the flow of what you were just reading and then scan back up the page to where you were and try and pick up mid-flow.
It's jarring and unpleasant as an adult who is used to doing just that (I've read far too many scientific papers over the years not to have had lots of practice) - asking a child (who is likely to be a significantly less experienced reader than an adult) to do so, and to assimilate the new information at the same time feels like a great way to suck all the fun out of reading your story for them.
If you are finding that your primary intended audience don't know the words you are using frequently then you either need to find a better way to introduce what those words mean in the story itself or you need to find alternative words.
As for how to go about introducing the vocabulary of the "world" to the younger reader an
audience surrogate can be extremely useful here. Have a character that is going to have a similar knowledge level of the world to the reader and have those "in the know" explain what these terms mean. The reader then learns alongside the surrogate character.
If you're trying to have the story appeal to both younger and more adult readers then you need to keep the accessibility of the story aimed at the younger end. Adults can easily skim quickly through the explanations of any terms they already know with minimal disruption to the experience.
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