I find myself more comfortable working with past tenses because of things like dialogue tags
But I believe to pull the most out of an action scene -for example the last two scenes here- you would have to use present tense because it's more immersive, but that would get me into the rollercoaster of mixed tenses
What should I do
Firstly, protagonist exceptionalism
Most media make protagonist exceptionalism and don't let them make mistakes, or they are the only person left from a lineage of ancient gods or something
Like Naruto where he is a hokage that is the son of a hokage that is the reincarnation of a demi god
Or tanjiro who is a descendant of what is essentially the god of demon slayers
Or Luffy who is a reincarnation of the sun god
My protagonist makes mistakes
Big ones
He loses evidence to his recklessness and isn't special in any way (except being smart maybe)
And most importantly, doesn't have plot armour
He is just your average Joe who was unfortunate enough to be thrown into this hazard that is called my story
Secondly, kids exceptionalism
In most media they treat kids as a red line
They either don't hurt them or cut the scene (I know full metal alchemists exist)
That's not how real life is
Like in spiderman building and dipries are falling and people dying and he get to that one stupid standing kid and saves them as if there are a dozens out there literally squashed
In my story, my protagonist straight up accidentally shot his daughter in the head
Thirdly, antagonist exceptionlism
In most media, the villain loses and then gets the saddest backstory imaginable then turns them badass or make the audience forget the atrocities they did or even feel empathy
In my story
The antagonist yes has a sad backstory
But I made it in a way that the person who experienced the sad backstory and the person who is killing are essentially two different personalities in two different times of the same person
Making it that the audience can't decide weither to feel empathy for them or feel disgusted by their actions since they are technically two different people
And conflict creates argument
And argument creates engagement
Lastly, female exceptionalism
In most western media, I see them trying to force out female characters to be perfect and strong at everything without any kind of vulnerability
Ray from star wars is a giant in This
In this aspect I would put the blame more to western media than to all media, because at least in demon slayer we have Shinobu who recognizes her own physical weakness and renovates things with her sword
In my universe the antagonist is a girl who kills for fun and so smart that no one literally can out smart her
But she at the end loses to being just A bit careless with her emotions
A little summary: In a world after the civilization came back from a devastating war, people has to rely on special equipment to survive, little did they know, these tools would be the very tool the most mischievous serial killer knows to man would use to kill them all
In this draft I worked on pacing, tenses, grammar, dialogue tags and prose
Note: I'm NOT a native English
Like I know they can't swim and like a hammer in the sea
But for example, can kid use his ability to create a submarine to save his crew. It doesn't require him to actually "move" to use his ability
Iam writing my first book and iam using this section of my book to fix all my writing problems, then I will use it as a temblate for other sections.
“Sooo, what are these “XIN files” you were talking about? the unsolvable mystery you said?” looking very intrigued by their conversation.
Rusako sighed and started to show Sekada the files: “bodies have been found around the city for years now with absolutely no lead to the killer.”
“no weapon, no fingerprints, no links, nothing, just a body and a pool of blood in a dark alley.”
“I mean, it’s hard but not impossible, just follow the chain of events and you will surely find something here or there.”
“That’s what I told myself the day I took this case.” he said before bringing out four pictures out of the files.
“The image on the left is an image of a body that we found a week ago, and the image on the left is also of a body we found but 2 years ago.”
“now look at these other two photos from the last time they were found alive, notice something.”
Sekada looked closely at the the four images as he felt a chill going down his spine from the terrifying sight. “Their…. masks….”
“Yes, somehow none of the XIN files’ victims has a compatible body and mask, sometimes you find the body with the last victim’s mask, sometimes you find it with a guy that died a year ago, sometime it’s a woman’s mask on a child, sometime we even find bodies with masks of owners we never find the bodies of!” Rusako Said looking annoyed as ever while throwing the cases’ photos on the table like worthless paper.
“But…. how? no one can take another person’s mask off by force, let alone wear it!” looking terrified but somehow even more intrigued.
“And here is your answer, we are literally investigating an impossibility with no clear chain of events to follow.”
“Imagine seeing your cousin’s body with your dead grandma’s mask who was found wearing your lost roommate’s mask, which one do you follow for leads and clues, the mask or the person wearing it?” Rusako said with a tone that is the closest he has gotten to an emotion.
“Trust me man, it’s some kind of cult shit,” Actic said.
Rusako pinches between his eyes. “Not this again……”
Sekada looking at the case files and photos while thinking deeply. “…...can you give me this case?”
Rusako looks at Sekada dead in the eye and from top to bottom as if he is mocking him for even thinking about it. “Go away kid, trust me when I tell you this is way out of your league, you will only get me and yourself in trouble.”
“I mean it’s not like you are doing any progress, and you look like you hate it yourself,” shrugging his shoulders in mockery.
Rusako, very irritated by Sekada’s statements. “My hatred for it is none of your concern. now shut up before I call your brother.”
“So, I was right, you really didn’t make any progress.”
Rusako pauses for a minute impressed by Sekada’s response but at the same time annoyed to the brim, “so what? You are basically telling me, an experienced detective like myself can’t figure it out, but you can?”
“Why not? Has anyone got hurt while investigating it? You look fine to me.”
“Not yet, but I’m not ready to hold the responsibility of your ignorance if something goes wrong!” Rusako snapped while tapping Sekada on the chest.
“Then let me give it a try. If anything goes wrong without me figuring anything out, you can have your headache back.”
“Why do you want to have my “headache” so bad?” Rusako said in the loudest tone he has spoken with yet.
“I mean you said it’s safe and unsolvable, so it looks to me anyone who solves it, specially if it’s a new recruit like me, would be hitting the jackpot.”
Rusako halts for a minute, thinking it over for the first time in this conversation.
Sekada notices his opponent’s defenses is starting to crumble, “I tell you what. if I don’t solve it, I will buy you dinner for 2 weeks.”
Rusako gives a sigh, but not a sigh of tiredness, but of relief, as if he has been holding a mountain all his life and he just now letting it rest. “Alright kid, you win, you have a deal.”
“just wait here so I can get you the rest of the files.”
I don't know if is should my book in my native language or in English
In one hand English makes my novel opened to pretty much anyone around the world
But my English is excellent conversational English
Which is according to some of my friends years off the minimum for lecturircy English, specially that I don't exactly read books because I have got the attention span of a fly
On the other hand my native language could make it 100% grammatically correct
But I don't think it would get the recognition I was hoping for
And if I made it my native language then translated it to my native language, it might get a bad reputation, not to mention it would probably take double the time
So I have been working on my own novel and I want to ask people of this subreddit whether to do it in Arabic or in English
And I can't get a real answer unless they themselves see it which is on a link drive
أنا شاب ١٩ سنة و عندي فكرة رواية لكن ما ادري اكتبها عربي لإني اخاف ما الاقي جمهور ام اكتبها انجليزي و أواجه جبل من الأخطاء الإملائي
(the second one is my original idea)
The second is being critisized for being "info dump"
And the first one I just don't.....feel it
Any story or a character that doesn't have an end is doomed to fail at some point
Let's take comics for example, we got spiderman, the guy literally never catches a break from the writers that it became a meme, and all in the name of character development, like untill when will his character develope, and in what direction because if you look at it spiderman never truly develop, the only thing that changed in him is he is now more broke
The biggest real character development happened to better was marrying mj, he actually developed, he grey up ,which marvel fumbled in the worst way possible.
We got a glimpse of what could have happened to Peter if no reboots happened to him and we got two iteration, one where better literally grew old and died on a space ship which was beautiful to read, the other is spiderman last stand
I would take any of these two stories as endings for spiderman and keep his legacy than to watch the whole cycle of pain he is going through over and over and over again that it becomes comical
On the other hand we got invincible
A comic that has a fully fledged story, in this story the world actually remembers mark's pain and suffering, and it helps him move forward
That's how you do actually character development
Even with the debatable power scaling
Now in anime we got dragon ball
The problem with mascot character too is that at some point you will run out of ideas
Like write now the entire plot is fixed, a new threat appears, Goku gets humbled, then someone unlocks a new transformation and low-diffs the enemy
It was fun at Z, at least it served some kind of character development like Vegeta in the Buu saga and Gohan in the cell saga, but at some it gets too repeative and pointless.
Zamasu? A one time villain that literally did nothing to the story, and they should have had trunks deliver the finishing blow, not some "oh, I have a button that summons god!" Type of thing
Beerus? He might be the last real development to Goku and Vegeta, he was used as a goal that Goku and Vegeta and reaching for, problem is that goal is literally moving, like mathematically speaking Goku should have surpassed Beerus by now, but if we made Goku the strongest or even close to the strongest of the universe how can we ass pull character to face him
Goku was originally supposed to be 70% Beerus by the BOG but they retconned it in super
TOP, after it ended it literally did nothing to the story except introducing more transformations
That's one of the reasons I would take dragon ball GT ending any time of year than..... whatever they turned Goku to.
Then we got one piece,
One piece sure is long, longer than dragon ball, dragon ball super and dragon ball Z combined
But unlike dragon ball, it's aiming somewhere, it's going somewhere, main characters actually lose, and get back up and lose and get back up again and gear 5 wasn't an ass pull, it was literally setted up from long before, and the stories don't get repeative, you get villains with different motivation, different goals, different ways of achieving said goals not just "oh I'm so powerful I will kill you now!"
You got doflamingo who is a fallen celestial dragon who tries to over throw the world government while doing criminal trades with the emperors
You got CP0/9 who are literally the FPI of the one piece universe whose Job is to protect the image of the WG even for the cost of innocent lives
You got moria who is a griefing captain who is basically "what if Luffy gave up on kaido"
Not to mention one piece NEVER forgets what happens, Robin still has buster call PTSD from her childhood, Luffy still remember ace dying
Even the villains still remember like luuci
Now with games (I will sum it up with this one because iam tired of writing)
We got sonic and Mario who are literal meant for thier perspective love interests, but we always get the good ol' response "they are just friends"
Like bro fr? is just settling down abit too much development for these guys?
Well we also got kratos, a character who also settled down, and had a kid! But guess what? It didn't change that much, his game is still enjoyable!
Like imagine Luffy vs blackbeard and Blackbeard tries to negate luffy's nika form
Obviously Luffy has the superior haki
So can luffy's haki technically nullify dark dark fruit's nullification?
I tried using my farm without the stand because it kept getting in the way of the hit and would break anyways and I didn't find any major difference
He could have sent Saturn crashing into the red line or something, and if he didn't have the "will" to do it, Bonnie could have told him to considering she got the absolute authority
Two card combo