Posts tagged fiction
So in my story, theres a character (name's Tris) in love with a girl, but she died. Her name was Lais. Later when he's older, he saves a little girl who looks the same as the girl who dies. He ad...
I've been writing some fantasy. Now, inevitably because its a big piece of fantasy, its all very involved with the world, culture, story and general bits. Personally, I'm really enjoying writing it...
When can I go from thwarting, to destroying? For example, say the protagonist was working towards a goal, but towards the end they killed the people they had spent the novel with, as they became s...
I'm trying to write a newspaper article inside my work of fiction. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to write ages and dates in this article. I took journalism in college, and I know that if I am su...
The story I'm writing is all about discovery, so 95% of it needs to be unknown by the reader at first. But I just don't know how to make a short description of it, for example when telling to a fri...
So, I'm in the process of writing a Sci-fi novel, and I use a website to upload chapters before I complete it. On the website, I use chapter titles simply because "RE Lavender has just updated Fac...
I've recently been struggling with a very strange problem in my writing: I can't find the main conflict in my novels. This has inspired quite a bit of thought and reflection on exactly what a main ...
Like totally chronological (starting in the beginning of the world's story events and going on to the future), or in the present-past-future order, or another? Is there any specific time order be...
I am a beginning writer. I would like to write a science fiction / fantasy book that is critical of psychiatry, including diagnosis inflation, the influence of Big Pharma, and the field's de-empha...
I am currently writing a science fiction/fantasy quadrology and would like to eventually expand on it. I have an entire world built around it and I would like to know the best way to introduce it. ...
I'm writing a war story, and it's dark. However, I find that every scene turns out to be depressing because of it. Readers will be overwhelmed. Are there ways I can induce hope/shine the light in t...
I have a character that I want to give a huge slap across the face to. If I absolutely hate this character, does that mean my reader will hate him too? Is it good to purposely include a character ...
I had a discussion with someone who claimed she'd once read (though she couldn't remember the source) that men can identify and empathize with male as well as female protagonists, while women ident...
So I was thinking, and I've been wondering if some ideas are so overused readers don't get the 'thrill' of reading them anymore. I'm really into last-man-standing type novels, I love them. I've wr...
I'm asking this on Writing.SE because I'm doing a short presentation on "What is an anthology," and I'm not sure how to answer the question "Why is X an anthology and Y is not?" Merriam Webster de...
Is it a good idea, to make the protagonist pull themselves together at a point in a work of fiction. I've been writing a novel, and for practically the entire first half the main protagonist has be...
Some fiction titles put a small block of text listing relevant setting details like the scene's time, date, and location between chapters' section headings and bodies. Heres an example: Chap...
I learned early on (as most writers have) "show, don't tell," which I agree with for the most part. However, I've found many situations in writing when I'd start to write a statement in tell, catch...
I have been looking for a writing software, but while I have seen a number of mentions about how this or that program helps you keep track of characters, I haven't seen any mentions of ones that ar...
How do I know, when I'm writing, which perspective I should write in? I almost always write with a 1st person narrative because it makes it easy to get great immersion in with the characters. Is i...
I'm attempting to write one or two chapters with one of my main characters in a jail cell. It's important to the character development that he is isolated for an extended period of time, antagonize...
I am a novice working on a historical novel with four viewpoint characters. Three of them will be involved in subplots connected to the main plot, and each character will have a character arc and w...
I have some good, true travel stories. Things that involve guns, explosions, and all kinds of other good stuff. I want to write them down, but I'm having trouble envisioning how to present the st...
Main question There is a claim that I heard from a few persons (none of which were native speakers of English), which goes as follows: In English non-fictional writing, the most important aspe...
I've written several chapters of a (fiction) story. I wasn't happy so I spent some time reading about fiction, and trying to figure out what was wrong with it. I came to the conclusion that, whil...
I have a particular character in my story who I feel is great. He's a retired monster hunter who settled down with his wife for his later years. He's all-around friendly, respectful, empathetic, wi...
I was recently taught about the Hero-Journey template Instead of the Hero leaving the Ordinary World, can they remain and the Ordinary World changes and/or warps (possibly along with the Hero)? An...
So I'm writing a science fantasy WiP and I'm unsure how to introduce the characters and their background, day-to-day life if that's all going to change after the inciting incident. So in question...
In a story where there is only one character doesn't talk to anyone don't know where he is and is narrating his story
Many of my characters, main, side, and recurring all have a suite of magic abilities. So will them constantly using magic be annoying? Will it make the magic stale? What tips should I follow and wh...
I'm writing a short story with androids and cybernetically enhanced humans who have access to neural interfaces. Essentially, they open up some kind of computer terminal, but it's via internal sens...
My mom says that my books are really good and that people will enjoy them. I know parents say things to their kids to keep their hopes and dreams alive, but I want to know: How do you know if your ...
I wasn't sure how to phrase the title, so it may be a bit confusing. Feel free to edit it if you can phrase it better. This question may be better suited for Worldbuilding SE. However, it is abou...
What if a chapter is incredibly depressive, dark, with intense language. And the next reads almost like a dialogue from a Seth MacFarlane comedy. Or even better, what if the tone switches occur bet...
I've given some thought to this, and I decided that I want to either make or find a theme to my fantasy novel before I really get into it (as I have started a couple pages already). I did some rese...
The story: Centuries ago, humanity have been incorporated into an alien hive mind, spread by a bacterial-like infection. The "bacteria" infects the blood and brain and allows the infected to join ...
I've played with the idea of a multi-book fantasy story for years, where a female and male protagonists' lives intertwine with one another, the series running from 12-22 years old for them. There...
In my current writing, I've been having some trouble with the plot, specifically with going from an outline detailing what I need, to an outline detailing how I get there. I think the problem (or a...
Nobody in my story knows the actual name of one of the characters. She calls herself 'tina. She always writes it 'tina and gets irritated if people write it Tina - it's short for something, but nob...
In my action/adventure story, the two main protagonists are rescuing the injured victim and escaping the dungeon. (Or jail cell. Or whatever.) Once the protagonists have rescued the victim, I want ...
I wrote a novel called Animal Suicide. It's a mix of romance and dark humor. It's about a girl who, after a weird incident, postpones a pill overdose and starts researching about the topic of anima...
In writing a screenplay, I created a bunch of scenes, with about twice as much material in total as I needed. So the job was to cut things down to size. In so doing, I found that a number of scene...
In my screenplay, I have my female protagonist wear Prada, and perhaps drop other hints of her character, but not act like Miranda Priestly for the first two acts, until she gets a promotion at the...
Example: Three months had passed since she started to avoid me. Three months had passed since she started avoiding me. Right now, what I do is to search for the phrase with the most resu...
When is OK to omitting pronouns and possessive adjectives in fiction? Examples: She called me that weekend while I was cleaning my apartment. She called me that weekend while cleaning my a...
My story is of a fantasy world where the wars of several species have all been fought, lost, and the protagonist is writing his journal from inside a jail cell. The writing he does can't be erased....
What I've found in most books I've read is that the protagonist is "normal" and/or "average" (at least in the beginning). I believe this is because most readers should be able to relate to the prot...
The structure looks like this: Chapter 10 (...) And so Cath began telling me her tale. Which turned out to be grimmer than I'd expected. Chapter 11 "I've been suffering fr...
Example: The cat was lying on a cat bed, barely visible under the blankets, an IV wrapped around one of her front legs. Judging by the triangular shape of her head, her black nose ears and ...
Disclaimer: This is a new question, not an extension of my other questions concerning twists. When I develop fiction, I start with a premise and a theme. I have a general idea of where I'm headed...
