Posts tagged creative-writing
So, in my post-apocalyptic novel, the world was caught up in an international war (basically WWIII), and all the world's nuclear superpowers launched their warheads and killed much of the global po...
Let’s say I’ve created an outline, have explored my characters properly, and have properly broken down each scene to an appropriate level of detail. I know the story, I know the pacing, and I know ...
I'm increasingly having to write User Guides as part of my job and I need routes to make this into a more interesting exercise. Hence, I was actually looking for something completely different whe...
This is not quite the same question as Writing Diversity because it's not my intention to focus too much on diversity for my story, nor am I struggling with new ways to represent more cultures/mino...
I am currently writing a character that represents Lust and is a demonic entity... but to tone it down for a YA audience. I thought of trying to make them "Love-based" instead, but I always envis...
I'm writing a storyline for a game where the forces of evil have humanity cornered. Truly everything seems lost, that is, until our main character decides to step in. Let's call him Bob. The Chosen...
I have this scene in my novel that I'm trying to write. There is this character who is on the boat, rowing. I don't know how to describe the sound of the oar touching the water as he paddles. The ...
I know there's a lot of questions regarding this topic, but none of them delved too deep into if there's a different level intimacy between the two perspectives. People have told me that FPP in a...
I am writing a fantasy novel set in the Middle East. For multiple reasons related to both plot and atmosphere, I'm using flowers and flowering trees a lot in both descriptions and dialogue. Trouble...
I had a story in mind that basically came from a true historical event in the 1930's. I won't be using real people for the characters but the main storyline is somewhat based on what actually happe...
Where can I find (preferably free) online resources, such as How-To-Write or styleguide articles and blogs, about writing a litRPG book? LitRPG, or Literary Role Playing Game, books combine elemen...
I have the following sentences: Anyone can use stock footage. and Only you know how to use it correctly. I am wondering if it makes sense to combine them as such Anyone can use st...
I have the following sentence: Once they realize they have no chance of defeating you, they'll end up joining you. I feel this sentence may come across as a bit "cocky" because I would want t...
If you are introducing a new character and a new location, both are going to be involved for a while, which description should I put first? The character becomes close friends with the protagonist ...
Posting on a question about word frequency data, I read an excellent answer from @DPT about avoiding words that become so frequent, they're problematic. In a snippet of that answer, they wrote: ...
A "fish out of water" character can serve as a reader proxy: whether it is a wondrous view, an unusual custom, or what have you, the character experiences and responds to them, and through him - th...
Game books like Choose your Own Adventure, Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf series were very popular in the past. They are a series of single-player gamebooks. Typically, beginning at the first sect...
Say I am writing a (mostly) realistic fiction book. The entirety of said work is mostly what a person would expect from realistic fiction with the world being almost entirely similar to our own, po...
In the story I am writing, I have a character who is working on a project and will present it to a group of judges who will mark it in a sort of examination. The project is a source of stress for t...
I am a blogger and sometimes I find articles with similar content or an idea coincidentally similar as mine which is not published at the time of reading that similar article but which I have writt...
I have characters who have to use false names. Should the narrator use their real name or false name? For example, if person A was being called Adam when their real name was Archie, person B would ...
Context: I’m currently writing a novel that has a built in prologue. I’m unsure if I should use the prologue as the first chapter. It involves the main character being sent away by his parents for ...
Is it better to save each chapter in a separate word document or all in one document? ^ was my first question. I am 10 chapters into editing the book and I'm finding myself a loss of words to des...
I’m writing a paper and I have these sentences that are a bit problematic. I feel they generalize a bit and could be rewritten in less words. I’m kindly seeking suggestions on how to improve the be...
My book is about a girl who is a compulsive gambler, and I'm trying to write a scene where she is playing a board game with an old dude who also has a gambling problem (eventually, she wins). My di...
Calling all gifted writers, would you tolerate 'modulate for' in this paragraph? "Dr. Tom wants the best for everybody who asks him for help. Despite his impressive skills and the physical interve...
In my novel, I intend to have the protagonist eventually join the group that killed his family and of his antagonist, and this will set the plot for a more massive arc of what I hope will be multip...
Say, I mention the following equation in a novel/short story: (Direct Cost / (100 - Desired Profit)) * 100 How should I format that in narration? In capital letters? Italics? First variab...
I have seen two similar terms, historical fiction and creative non-fiction. I'm writing some stories that are set during a real time in history, that might mention real events, real people, but tha...
Let's look at two characters who are generally considered to be iredeemable: The Diamond Authority (from Steven Universe): The extremely childish leaders of the race of spacefaring lesbian magical...
I'm writing a story where my lead character has two forms and he swaps between them frequently. I'd like to know the advantages and disadvantages of various kinds of triggers for the transformation...
Bathos is a storytelling technique that consists in the rapid succession of 2 “moments” with conflicting tones. This trope occurs when a serious moment gets followed by a gag. One of the many, many...
In my post-apocalyptic story, the split of male and female main/supporting characters is 50/50. The girls and women in the story, Eris, Marina, and Ezrith, display very little emotion--Eris repr...
If I think about the characters I came up with in my mind so far, I usually get a pretty big list: (Gyvaris (ENTJ), Martha (ENFJ), Adam (INTJ. It's hard to describe that you're constantly seeing...
Should you only use colons and full stops in dialogues? I thought about using a semi-colon in one of my dialogues, but I had second thought about it, because when we talk, we don't really different...
There is a problem as stories progress (especially in never-ending web novels) where the cast of characters keep growing. Some webnovels I follow are in the hundreds! Is there a technique for auth...
How do we distinguish how a character pronounces a word and how it is spelled in a dialogue? For example, some people pronounce words in a different way than they should, how do you show that in a ...
Characters (and people) get angry at all sorts of things that might not make sense to the outside observer: Marty McFly and the word "chicken," words that are terrible slurs to one population but t...
If you look up the exact definition for "pyromancy" or "necromancy" they refer to divination using fire and the dead, respectively. However, if you were to ask a layperson what those words mean, t...
Recently we have seen multiple questions on various aspects of political correctness. They have sparked some measure of disagreement, which is what I wanted to examine here. To what extent should ...
I admire the writing style of many other writers and I try to emulate them, but most of the time it doesn't turn out how I want it to. Is this because it's not uniquely my own style, but rather for...
I know a lot of books do it (Harry Potter, LOTR, Wheel of Time). It's even part of the "Hero's Journey". However, my book starts with the "inciting incidient" i.e. my main charatcer begins her firs...
In my novel, Matt goes to the club in Moscow and starts walking towards a Russian mafia. I have written the following line; Christoff was sitting in the club balcony with his acquaintances. As...
In my novel, at the point where the MC meets her would-be boyfriend, Rufus, I have added a small backstory about his job. Later on, the story is almost entirely focused on the MC and what happens t...
In my novel, Matt's girlfriend Ella gets kidnapped and Matt is held responsible by the kidnappers. As it wasn't for ransom but as a revenge of something Matt did. And then Matt storms into my MC's...
I have a hard time coming up with original worlds and plots, but I need a portfolio of original work. Any thoughts on how to come up with ideas?
In a story I am about to write the best friend of the protagonist is a good, caring and benevolent person, lets call him John. The antagonist is not really a bad person but because of the circumsta...
So far, all of the fiction I've written in my life has been short stories given as writing tasks in school. However, I've always enjoyed reading/watching/experiencing fiction and for the last few y...
How important are the author's mood and emotions while writing a story or describing a scene? For example, while writing an erotic scene, is it important for the author to feel the same way as the...
So, I've been working for about a month now on my latest novel but have come across some issues in regards to recollections of past events. I'll outline what I mean, because that's a bit general.....
