u/TheCounciI

I'm writing a short story about a world where, when something really bad happens to someone, there's a slight chance they'll turn into a Terror, a monster that's a twisted version of a human. This phenomenon is pretty rare and only started recently, so people still don't take it seriously. Most of the story is told from the perspective of a man who discovers his wife is cheating on him and becomes a Terror. I want to add a bit from the perspective of the woman who cheated.

To clarify, it would be relatively short, just so the reader can understand, at least partially, her actions (even though she cheated on him, she tries to prevent her husband from becoming a Terror, risking her life in the process). So I thought of presenting only the conversation that convinced the wife to cheat, and later, how she experiences, from her perspective, the husband (that she still loves) becoming a monster because of her.

The idea is that it's a combination of self-sabotage (she doesn't believe she deserves to be with him), the fact that they've been together since high school (she doesn't know who she is without him), and a toxic friend who convinces her to cheat. I have thought about the kinds of arguments a manipulative person might use, but I have a hard time understanding this way of thinking, and as a result, I'm not sure what arguments she could bring to such a situation.

I'm writing a short story about a world where, when something really bad happens to someone, there's a slight chance they'll turn into a Terror, a monster that's a twisted version of a human. This phenomenon is pretty rare and only started recently, so people still don't take it seriously. Most of the story is from the perspective of a man who finds out his wife is cheating on him and how he becomes a Terror. I want to add a bit from the perspective of the woman who cheated.

The idea is that it's a combination of self-sabotage (she doesn't believe she deserves to be with him), the fact that they've been together since high school (she doesn't know who she is without him), and a toxic friend who convinces her to cheat. The problem is, I cut toxic people out of my life pretty quickly, I don't know how they think and what arguments they can bring to such a situation.

Every once in a while, and it is really noticeable against Uut the Screamer, the forward dash triggers, and it makes me dash forward and then immediately do a short dash backward for no reason. It drives me insane. I manage to get between his beams, but then it goes back, and I get hit even farther back.

Does anyone know how to fix this?

Basically, my story takes place in a world similar to ours, but 60 years ago, Awakened began to pop up, which caused quite a bit of chaos, leading to the destruction of several cities and even the regime change of several countries.

I want to create a global terrorist organization, made up mainly of people without powers, and I'm not sure how to make them threatening. The idea is that there are many who claim that Awakened are a threat that needs to be destroyed before they kill or enslave ordinary humans. And to be clear, they have good reason to fear. There are cults and countries ruled by awakened around the world that treat ordinary people as second-class citizens at best.

So far, I have thought about a drug that causes the awakened to lose control of their power, but that is the only idea I have.

After years of studying and working, I got a job that has a relatively large amount of free time with only short bursts of intense work. So I decided to go back to my hobby of writing, this time in a slightly more serious way. The problem is that I have so many questions and have no idea how to get started.

How do I describe places? For example, how can I describe a mini colosseum without using the words 'mini colosseum'? In addition, when I was young, I wrote a short story about people visiting a city that turned to stone (including trees, animals, and humans). How can I describe it without repeating the word 'stone' every few sentences? Are there tools for this?

How do I write info dump about the world without it sounding info dump? I mean, I understand that the first or second chapter in books/novels usually has a big info dump, but they don't write everything down. So how do one spread it out later in a story?

How can I avoid sounding like a robot or an AI? Years of studying exact sciences have given me a tendency to describe things dryly, as if I were reading from a list. How can I bring life and emotions into my writing?

Speaking about AI, how okay is it to use AI? I obviously don't mean whether it's okay for AI to write the story, but what about grammatical corrections or spelling errors I may have missed? And will it make my writing sound like AI?

And last but not least, where can I publish what I write to get constructive criticism? Are there specific sites? Specific format? Subreddit?