Posts by Arcanist Lupus
You're unconsciously limiting yourself within your rules I decided to go to a baby name website and find some real names that fit your restrictions. Anna Amber Amy Audrey Alice Adele Angel Ali Ap...
Portray the emotions of your viewpoint character. In general, when using a limited viewpoint you should only be describing the details that your viewpoint character notices. And how you describe a...
The Comprehensive Rules of Magic is a reference document that holds all of the rules and possible corner cases found in Magic. It is NOT meant to be read beginning to end; instead it's meant to ...
The problem isn't offense, the problem is harm Words have power. The more people that your words reach, the more power they have. So it becomes important to consider the harm they can do. Perpet...
The most important rule is to match the stakes with the promises you've made to the reader You most emphatically do not have to constantly raise the stakes to make a compelling story. As your ins...
Build on the bones Integrate the body of the evil god into the setting of the story. Its ribs support the pillars of the great church. The crystals formed of its magic are scattered through the ...
To add a bullet point to Liquid's excellent list: Creating an appendix permanently locks your worldbuilding As long as your worldbuilding only exists in your mind and your notes, you are free to c...
Legends are defined by the cultures who created them Legends reflect the values of their culture. Sacred hospitality and the inevitability of fate were popular themes for the Greeks. The Norse E...
Research is vital if you want your story to succeed emotionally Imagine that you're writing a story about a horse race. Your protagonist's horse is in second place, just barely behind their arch-...
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. - Arthur C Clarke There's a reason that science fiction and fantasy are frequently shelved together - separating the two...
Ask an expert. Obviously, research is an important first step. But there's only a finite amount of research you can do, and without intimate knowledge of the subject, you have no way of knowing w...
Write first, ask questions later. The best way to understand your story is to write it. This means that sometimes you need to put words on the page before you know where those words will take you....
Short answer: No, you do not need to kill the villain. Long answer: The hero's journey is an archetypal path that many stories use to show the growth and progress of their main character. This ...
My two favorite depictions of nightmares in fiction are the Nightmare Song in Iolanthe and Harry's nightmare in Sorcerer's Stone: Perhaps Harry had eaten a bit too much, because he had a very s...
Write from their POV This is basically the same solution as everyone else has provided, and can actually be combined with most of them. Pick a scene - be it an out of world interview, or a scene ...
Find a style guide and stick with it. Style guides are more than just comments - they cover all parts of your code from how you name your variables to how you structure your code. Good style guid...
Story is driven by conflict. Conflict is driven by character desires. Conflict is a struggle between a character who wants something and the things that are preventing them from getting what they...
You're looking for a random story generator There are lots of those on the internet. The first one I found Plot Generator. It gave me quite a few prompts that weren't child-suitable, but I hit g...
It depends on your character arcs Switching POVs to a secondary character is actually incredibly common in romance series. Each book completes the romantic arc of a single couple, and then the se...
The thing about originality is that originality is judged from the reader perspective. A reader will only consider a story a retread if it's similar to one they already know. You see this effec...
Find good Beta Readers It would be lovely if you had the time to become an expert in all the various different facets of life which are involved in your story. But you don't. Nobody has time for...
There's a concept that I'm rather fond of regarding story resolution called "promises to the reader" The idea is that every story promises things to the readers, and failing to fulfill those promi...
Killing a minority character isn't a problem in itself. The problem is that western media (particularly film) has a long tradition of killing of minority characters and leaving white protagonists t...
Fake swear words are a staple, particularly in otherworld fantasy and science fiction. But most of the fake swear words that I can think of are real words, just not ones that are typically used as...
