Posts tagged storyline
I have an idea for the beginning of a story. I have the setting, the protagonist, and the events that set the story in motion, including the inciting incident and the first plot point. I have, in s...
I'm interested in the elements of how a good story is compiled. When in high school, I was exposed to Shakespeare plays where the stories were divided into different acts. While I was reading thr...
I see that the 3 Act structure can be applied over almost any story, from Hamlet to Mulholland Drive, from The Matrix to Rocky. Story structures like 3 Acts, or 4-5 Acts, always feature a Character...
I'm writing a story where a secondary story-line (it's about a companion of the main character) is basically about a fire mage and an ice mage. It fits well in the story and the fire/ice elements a...
So I am still in the primitive stages of creating my own world and story, if I even do it that is. I am still trying to get a feel for where I want to go with it. The biggest issue would be that,...
I'm writing a story about fictional beings who have the power of the four elements. Only very few, very rare people posses the power of all four elements while most only have one. My main character...
I fear that the question sounds vague and confusing, but I can't conjure up the words I need to say exactly what I mean without going into detail. I thought it would be interesting to have two sto...
It is very hard for me to ask this without an overwhelming amount of information on how the plot goes, so this is just a warning of what's ahead... I am writing a fictional story which begins with...
This my most serious writing endeavor ever. I've gotten much farther than I've dreamed of getting. So far, I've been chugging along writing everything in the order that I imagine it being written i...
I have often noticed this in many books and movies (mostly mysteries) that information is kept hidden from the reader. Like the character goes to some place and returns but what happens in between ...
I'm mulling over a story that doesn't follow the standard story template of: Hero (or anti-hero) Hero has problem (or is problem) Hero fights problem Hero succeeds (or problem succeeds and all th...
I'm working on a short novel that has two main stories. These stories belong to relatives from different generations, but of the same age. So, although the book spans through 20-30 years, I'm more...
There is a character in every story. Special One. It becomes the center of the story. i.e. the Main character. The author takes special care of them. Provides them wise thinking. Good luck. A cha...
I’ve always been writing, but never wanted to write something in a world I create. I already know what direction I’ll be taking my fleshed-out characters, but I’m still wondering whether or not I s...
I've written about 15k words of my story now and the plot is developing nicely. Perhaps a bit too nicely. I have about a dozen of named characters which all have something interesting to do in th...
Apologies for the difficulties I've been having, and leaning for help here. Every step seems to be its own stumbling block. Question: All else being equal, is a positive desire/goal/motivation (of...
I would like to know whether there are any tools that would help an author write a branching storyline. Usecases may for example be: campaigns for Pen and Paper games visual novels Choose Your O...
When you have your audience go through your work, whether it's written fiction, a movie, a video game or whatever, you want them to ask themselves certain questions, which you want to answer as the...
I started writing my novel and finished the first draft. I sent it to my dad who gave me some pointers so I started a new document to 'flesh it out' But that document has run away with me, and now ...
Everyone remembers the Death Star and how it was supposed to be the most potent superweapon in the Star Wars-verse. Then in the Expanded Universe, they needed to add tension to the series since the...
Almost every day I come up with new titles and rough ideas for new books to write. I e-mail them to myself, happy and longing to write them down. I have published two books, and I know I can write....
We are used to stories being about conflict. There can be an antagonist, or a hostile environment, or even an internal problem (like depression), but conflict is there. The story arc involves deali...
I'm writing a novel about an obsessive character who is bothering the people around him but just will not or cannot accept that a change must come. When is the most effective time (or if not - the...
This question is a followup to my earlier question. Continuing the dialog with my one critic, I wrote back that I believed that certain "foreshadowing" was necessary. Then I added something like, ...
Is it okay to have two characters who had an argument to patch things up offscreen, or do readers explicitly need to see how they made up? None of the two characters in question are the protagonis...
I'm writing a war sci-fi novel. At the start of the novel, my MC really wants to get into a particular unit, let's call it Space-Marines. His struggle through the training serves to showcase his hi...
I'm writing a war (sci-fi) novel. The MC dies in the end. It's not as thoroughly depressing as "All Quiet on the Western Front", but Remarque's work is definitely one source of inspiration. Now, p...
Training montages and arcs are typically viewed as backstory, something that ends in the prologue, or shows up in flashbacks. They show us a piece of information about the world or a character. Th...
Perhaps the "classic" example is Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. Early in her journey through the land of Oz, she acquires the slippers that she needs to take her back to Kansas. But she doesn't reali...
I need help with the concept of my story: My protagonists live in a mild dystopia. Think of your own country today ;-) They have the opportunity to kill about 20 persons, which will cause a fundam...
I was pondering a lot on the issue with copyrights on plots. Is having an identical plot infringing someone else's copyrighted work? I am fully aware that the character names are copyrighted and c...
I've heard quite a few complaints about character deaths being used to further the plot. They say it's boring and overdone and mention that there are plenty of other ways to get to the same point w...
Towards the beginning of my story, my character is forced to leave home. I'm hoping this scene will be rather eventful and emotional and specifically don't want it to be meaningless to the reader (...
TL;DR: How do you approach to writing? What part of the work do you enjoy the most? And how do you keep the motivation up? I often ask myself if I really like to write. I mean, I have a lot of i...
"Reaching an end to his path, Eric found a locked door, the lock was a combination of 4 numbers, and above the doorknob a script explaining the lock : 'finishing four circles, a lost day is found' ...
Some stories tell well from beginning to end, all in a neat little line...and some don't. When can a story be improved by using a different order in the telling? Off the top of my head, I'd say...
Many writers eventually come to a point in their writing where they don't know what to write. They have a certain status or state of affairs that the narration has reached and another state that th...
I've noticed that my novel is missing a really strong inciting incident and I can't think of anything strong enough to suffice. The only inciting incidents I'm familiar with seeing in nearly every ...
I have an interesting plot ready, although there are a few missing blocks which I cannot develop. Story: A girl is a daughter of a druid. Druids are humans who live in the forest protecting anima...
I'm trying to write a story of transformation, in which an extremely introverted and non-confrontational person goes through a traumatic experience, and in the finale takes a stand in defense of th...
Think action movie. Think two heavily-armed men - one chasing the other over rooftops, down through buildings and into the mean streets of a crowded city. Think big guns, explosions and other loud ...
So I'm trying to write a story about a vampire couple who are on a quest, to become human again, it is set in a medieval style era. It is somewhat of a romance but I don't want it to be too cliche...
After reading the book Of Mice and Men from John Steinbeck, I realised that I saw this typical combination of a small bright guy with a big strong not so bright guy in many movies... Ex: The dalton...
How do you write out the second build up without killing the essence of the masterpiece? What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Medias Res?
The novel I am writing hinges on an orphan boy, who is not evil, but merely frustrated and angry with the world and how it is treating him. I need him to do something or cause something to happen t...
I am writing a story about a war, and there is this particular character whom they are a traitor to their own side. The traitor's identity is to be unknown until the Resolution part of the story in...
My question is if you run into characterization vs. plot conflicts, or unlikeable characters, do you do major changes to your characters to fit the plot or do you make major changes to your pl...
My main characters finally met. Officially... They still don't know who the others are, and are from different cultural backgrounds, too different for the others to seem normal. Although they ar...
So, I've been thinking about my story, and suddenly I got inspiration for the continuation of the chapter (I'm not even sure what chapter it should be). So, basically, I ended with progressing 3 ch...
I'm writing a book (only a hobby, but I hope I can publish it one day). I've started writing a while ago and setting was somewhat of a near-future of an alternative reality. In my book, political ...