Posts tagged fiction
To clarify: There are two parts to the book (or I might split them into separate books), one with my main protagonist, and the second is a prequel, showing the protagonist's father's story. Bot...
The novel I'm writing is third-person limited POV in style. This means that the narration's coverage is limited to what the POV character can observe, think, feel, while others' thoughts, feelings,...
So, I'm likely finished with my idea in form of a novel, but now comes the difficult part with the rewriting. That's when I thought: What are the general Stages of writing? Of course I know the O...
Some stories feature random events that bring about drastic change either to the characters or to the setting. A lottery draw, some gotcha that grants a special skill. Most of the times I find on...
While writing my story this has come up in my mind a lot. I have been planning and foreshadowing this major plottwist near the end of my story. But the effects of it might change my world utterly ...
Presumably, like all trite sayings, it's a bit of an exaggeration since a story has to be at least interesting. (I mean, it would take amazing talent to write simply about someone sleeping and make...
I've been writing an autobiography about sexual abuse that happened to me throughout my childhood. The abuser was the dad of a famous singer. Once I was old enough (18) to leave home and file charg...
Seeking comp titles for my WIP. Can you recommend books that meet one or more of these criteria? Soft sci-fi Space setting with fantasy feel Speculative fiction about species that has advanced te...
I am writing a novel and it goes something like this: In the first half of the novel, the protagonist knows who is doing the killing, but they are trying to make sense of it as in "how are they doi...
I'm thinking of the crawl sequences at the beginning of Star Wars, that just give you the background information straight up, and then start the excitement. I've just been wondering if putting a pr...
I was wondering what kind of advice do you have to avoid info dumps in fan fiction? Granted this can usually be avoided in fan fiction by sticking to what is known. But when you work with au's or o...
Here is my situation: I am Egyptian, my native language is Arabic but I don't want to write in Arabic I want to write in English. Would a literary agent from an English speaking country agree to w...
In other words, if the writing is poor or not good enough but the editor likes the story, then a revision is requested. I'd like to add that part of the reason for asking this question is because ...
The response will either be an evasion (we will come to that later), or it will be . . . Is the above (or similar) parenthetical redundant? (I couldn't find a suitable tag for this question...
WARNING: MULTIPLE TV TROPES LINKS In my three-part series, The Ragnarǫk Cycle I plan having my protagonist and deuteragonist to undergo a character arc. The protagonist, Joseph Norton to put it l...
So, I have not gotten anything published yet, but I have had plans for future novels including the one I am most way done with at the moment. As for the Details: It's going to be a multiverse exist...
My trilogy features two important characters whose identities I wish to keep hidden. The first is the series' deuteragonist, who is heavily implied to be Jeanne d'Arc (yes, THAT Jeanne d'Arc), who ...
When I use dialogue within the stories I write I have a bad habit of writing dialogue after dialogue without indication as to who is talking. An example is when I do this in a story “Arden! Dar...
I kind of like the style of writing the thoughts and feelings of many of the characters, most of which aren't the protagonist. The problem arises when some of these characters are hiding a certai...
I sometime express my personality too much in my more creative fiction. When I get going, I include slang words and phrases that sound fascinating and are comprehensible to me, but may not be inter...
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 ...
I’m considering writing a piece of business fiction to discuss some agile and testing principles. Given the wide number of books in this area it seems most appropriate to have characters discover t...
Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy is when the audience is put off by the incredibly dark nature of a fictional work and won't care what happens next, lose interest or want all the characters to die ...
I’m looking to eventually share my book online for others to read. I was paging through Wattpad and it just isn’t necessarily the place I’d like my work to be. Just reading through a few random sto...
So, I'm writing a novella about this guy named Peter, who is an actor living in LA. In the fall, he comes back to his hometown, a small town in New Jersey, after a gap of three years. He has a larg...
I'm working on a science fiction universe in which time travel exists, in a very limited form, but it's useless, at least it's the intention that it be useless. To that end time travel, on the rare...
Writing historical novels takes time and motivation to research and study if you want to write something valuable and serious. Why are so many so-called "historical novels" with very little histori...
I am writing a book about an amnesia patient. I do not know much about amnesia, which is quite shameful, but I want to know how to write this book in a way that does not make it cliché. My protag...
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...
Dialogue is my favorite thing to write. I tend to use a lot of dialogue in my writing, which sometimes results in long, talky passages -- a bit similar to this question about breaking up exposition...
I don't think that I've ever read a book about a character was sat down and explained to them that they are magic, supernatural, etc. Every time I've read a book, they only discover they are magic,...
When writing in 1st person POV, if your story's universe or your main character uses made up values of measurement or doesn't have a term for something like eyeliner or traffic lights, how do you c...
I have multiple characters who do things... over and over again, in different timelines. But I have no idea how to reveal this to the reader. Any suggestions?
Alright, I can't figure out how to write a scene. I have a character that has never revealed the fact that she can turn into animals, not even to her family. If the character is planning to tell he...
I know the logic behind volcano openings and why they’re problematic (they set the expectation that that level of action and excitement will continue; they’re a hard act to follow; they make a prom...
My triller has an Antagonist who is classified as a sociopath and narcissist. He becomes infatuated with my MC who is an Ex-Army sergeant making a living in close protection services. He sees that ...
In a story I'm writing, the villain has his motives for his attitudes. However, he is very mentally disturbed, which makes the logic of his motives be kind of illogic to other people (including the...
I'm trying to refine a name for my main character and characters in general but I will be focusing on my MC for the example of this question. My question is: What criteria would make a name hard fo...
When should a writer kill their protagonist off? Inspired by a question about character lifetime and another about what makes the death of a character satisfying for the reader, I have begun to wo...
I have recently discovered that the plot and cast of characters of my novel is so unbelievably complex that I am the only one who can actually understand it. I have too many characters, with too ma...
I've been planning a story that follows two characters. At the end, one character (let's call him Joe) goes back in time and appears at the start of the book. I intend to explore themes of determi...
I have repeatedly come across the comment that experienced writers are able to put their topic sentence anywhere in a paragraph, but I wonder what that looks like and how they are able to do this. ...
My question is: How much can one deviate from the topic sentence before transitioning to a second paragraph becomes a better idea? For example, if a topic sentence consists of an assertion, then ...
On another site, I wrote a critical review of a book that featured a "King Frederic II" of France who reigned between 1777-1819. I pointed out that this was a particularly unfortunate time to confu...
I asked this question in World-Building but it seems better fit for Writing. I ask for a few reasons. Despite the specific arguments against speculative fiction within Quranic tradition and protes...
Something I have been thinking about recently is how to write a character who is an artificial intelligence and not have him feel human. Specifically an AI who is designed to think faster and bette...
I have a character in my story who has the habit of making philosophic observations about life and the functioning of things, or his opinion/vision about something. Although most of his observati...
I have an Ancient Roman theme with the names of my characters, however someone pointed out to me Valerian is already a scifi character's name. Are the french comics (which spell it with an accent o...
