Posts by wetcircuit
I'll give another option: 8) Split a major (sub)plot in half, and move the 2nd half into to a later book. It will definitely take some re-writing, but your 1st book seems overloaded. The temptat...
A character's name starts with a hard G, as in Gary. Another character (dismissively) calls him by his first initial "G", said with a soft G, as in gee whiz. I've been using the letter G, but it'...
Do you want the most stories, or the least stories? The ad infinitum of plot lists is probably the book Plotto: The Master Book of All Plots by William Wallace Cook. It's a manic collection of (of...
Arguments, discussions, disagreements In my script I have a lot of "arguments" – loose definition: long discussions where characters disagree about what to do. These arguments don't escalate to ...
Save the cat All the standard tricks will still work. Readers can like the protagonist through some simple actions that show he he is a kind person. Allow him to help someone in need, show a kind ...
I'm going with a frame challenge. Not all reveals are a "twist" A twist is new information that changes the meaning of earlier events. This is done by writing 2 plots with the same events. The MC...
You need a major twist earlier in the story. The promise to the reader is that there is a debate about the strange events, and that things don't always turn out as they appear. That makes your end...
Author talking points and author background might give a reviewer or journalist something to write about. 1st-time fiction authors are – publicity wise – a dime-a-dozen. If there is a way to talk ...
My question has been provoked by the fact that I have a very spicy joke for a specific situation in a sci-fi story and I'm not sure how readers would react to that. I'll stick to this spec...
It tells us nothing The phrase Gary Jules 'Mad Mad World' has no emotional resonance with me whatsoever. It is not shorthand for "a specific emotional state". Popular music is not a universal ex...
Inanna's Journey and "girly" heroes There are traditional "girly" heroes – often they take the pattern of Inanna's Journey. Rather than "leveling up" like a plucky male hero, Inanna's Journey is a...
I have an ambiguous script situation, 2 co-protagonists begin gaslighting the MC. They each have ulterior motives which they don't say. The reader is intended to infer the lies through contradictor...
Acknowledging that the top answer cautions controlling another person is abuse, and abuse is never cute, I'll try to suggest ways to minimize the issues. Avoid Blame: The lover is not at fault an...
You might want to present the in-story text as a parable which means the story has a teachable message, rather than words like "mythology" or "religion" which imply a spiritual calling. the rol...
I occasionally write short essays about classic films, and have been thinking about converting them into video essay for YouTube. What I observe are 2 very different types of essay – I'm not sure ...
Orson Scott Card described 4 types of story he called M.I.C.E. The goal is not to exclusively write 1 type of story, but to be aware which type your story is, and then work to include some of the o...
What are the recognizable tropes to a "train heist", or more broadly the action sequences where a protagonist boards a moving train in order to stop it? My protagonist is the unreliable guile her...
Hero-always-wins is a trope I wouldn't call this a plot twist. A twist is a reveal. It changes how events earlier in the story are perceived. This is subverting a trope. The trope is an expected...
Allow me to introduce you to a game-changing author who at age 19 wrote a morally complicated "pot boiler" about a privileged jerk who plays god then abandons his responsibility. This novel has eve...
My guile heroine's character arc is almost entirely sex and manipulation. I tell (not show) she was a sex worker in the past, it's left ambiguous (likely) that she still is. She has powerplay scen...
Science Fiction is a "big tent" genre, and we all know it when we see it. Even if we argue about the specific tropes – and what might make something lean heavily towards another classification (sci...
This question is about genre and reader expectations. I'm not trying to change my story to fit a mainstream genre. I have already taken steps to broaden it's appeal, but it's too late to create an ...
How best to keep these occasionally polarizing aims balanced without creating reader whiplash? This is character conflict and it's a good thing I think it's not about which character is "wi...
Yes. It's your main character, who is a bully, and wins. There is nothing ambiguous about this. 95% of people are already well aware of it. This is only a story to the children of wealthy people...
Some people need to like the MC, yes. And they don't seem to change their mind just because the writing is good or the situation is original. Me, I need consistent characters that have believable...
