Posts by Lauren Ipsum
"Strong and independent" does not have to mean "behaves in a masculine way." Strong can simply be "has healthy self-esteem and doesn't rely on third parties for her self-image." Independent can s...
If your givens aren't working, change your givens. If Vampirella McExplosia is dominating every scene she's in, then she's too big for this story. Save this draft (so you aren't putting a stake in...
I found a very elegant reduction of alignments in a Tumblr post: I figured out a simple guide to the alignment chart last night: Lawful: Rules matter more to me than individuals. Chaotic: Indivi...
Both are useful. Someone who is genre-savvy will already know the rhythms and tropes of the genre, and can advise you about extra things to add, or say "This theme has fallen out of favor in the l...
1) Why doesn't Mr. Id have a POV scene until later in the story? It's your story. Give him an arc. 2) Instead of Porthos, Aramis, and Athos, think of Kirk (ego), Spock (superego), and McCoy (Id). ...
Add other characters who also fit all the "not replaceable" chosen-one requirements. You could have several heirs, a highly trained merc squad, a prophecy which covers all first-born daughters conc...
Don't write it in. What readers do in their own fan responses is on them, not on you, and you can't prevent people from shipping anyone they like. But if you don't want canonical romance, just......
The point of "subsequent drafts" is that for 99% of writers, the first draft is weak. That's completely fine. The purpose of the first draft is to get the damn thing on paper. You can't edit an emp...
Monica's excellent answer provides you with the how, but I'd like to touch on when, since you asked "how soon is too soon?" The rough answer is "It's too soon if the villain hasn't earned it." Y...
I think it depends on how you're going to access it — that is, what you will need it for. Is your story a huge era-spanning saga? You may want to list things chronologically. Is your story heavi...
A sentence can indicate who is speaking without being attached by a comma. “Yes, but I mean no.” Steve stumbles over his words. “Not the come home part.” In this instance, Steve stumbles ove...
You might find Scrivener to be useful. Scrivener is a writing program which allows you a lot of control: organization, nesting files inside folders inside folders, tags, summaries, highlights, link...
It's a bit dicey. You'd have to have a good reason for it. If Preston's POV is in the present, but Paola's POV is in the past, is the story happening in Preston's time? Is Paola relating things ...
Give him his own arc. (I am amused that the gender here is the reverse of what's been a problem for a long time, but the advice applies to any character of any gender.) In the 2017 Wonder Woman f...
You're working in the wrong programs. I haven't used LibreOffice, but Word is a word processing program. It's not a layout program. Write your stories in Word or whatever. Write them in two sepa...
The Bechdel Test has three rules: It has to have at least two [named] women in it Who talk to each other About something besides a man Some people who try to apply it use "man" in the romantic ...
The purpose of the Kansas section is to establish the Real World before embarking on the Quest (to use the terms from the Hero's Journey). The Real World is the place which the Hero (gender/age/nu...
When it serves the plot. That's really the only reason you do anything in a plot-driven story. If the death serves the plot, do it. If it doesn't serve the plot, then don't. Don't do it for shock...
I am a fan of questioning your givens. You don't want to kill anyone? Fine. But what plot point is served by having your characters physically injured? Does it remove them from the action? Have ...
Change one of your givens. Either change the plot to fit the character or change the character to fit the plot. It depends on which one is more important to you.
Just because you can understand how the villain got that way doesn't mean you have to agree with the villain's actions. Most people can understand how Black Panther's Erik Killmonger turned out th...
Watch Thor: Ragnarok and pay attention to Jeff Goldbum's Grandmaster. I think he's the kind of archetype you're looking for. You want someone who is not actively malicious, but so self-involved as ...
To create a plot, you have to ask three questions of your protagonist: What does the protagonist want? What is stopping the person from getting it? What will the person to do achieve his/her goal...
It's been mentioned on this board before, but rules which arbitrarily declare any part of a language off-limits are ridiculous. They may be meant to give guardrails to new writers, but all they end...
First off, the easiest way to have your bad guy be less invincible and more defeatable is to make him less invincible. He's your creation. Don't give him so many benefits. Take away some of the phy...
