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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/9363
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

When you're done the outline, send it to me. If it's good, I'll steal it. Haha, just kidding, but seriously don't work for a year on an awesome detailed outline and then show it to just anybody on an online forum. That's a job for people you'd trust with a big envelope full of $20s and $50s.

For starters, search for books/movies with similar thematic elements, and make sure you're not staking a claim on a worked-out mine.

Too many characters: You can have lots of bit characters, and they won't get fleshed out (at least, not in one novel). That's OK. But you can't have more than a few main characters in a novel (or in the 1st novel in a series). Otherwise, something has to give. Characterization, description, or plot must suffer. Or the book will get unbearably long. (When did you last read "War and Peace"?) It's OK, though, to gradually flesh out bit characters, and introduce new important ones, in a book series. (The Harry Potter series is an obvious recent example.)

All about the delivery: Maybe some artsy types only care about the delivery, but 99% of readers want both content and delivery.

Original score: 1