Anyone else struggle with this, the story is a novel so I’m worried about going off script completely. Does my outline need revising or should I just start winging my story past a certain point.
So, for context, I'm in my late thirties and have been reading and writing for literally my whole life. But I have an...I guess kind of a big problem. I don't know what makes a story a story. When I'm writing, I often times end up feeling more like I'm just writing a sequence of events. Like...I explore the interior voices of characters and the consequences of things and all of that, but still...it just feels like things happening. And I mean...maybe that is a story, in some ways, in itself, but it doesn't FEEL like a story. So, just to try and get an answer once and for all so I can move on without feeling I'm doubting myself...what the hell IS a story, anyways?
I'm reading a sci fi book right now where there is A LOT of exposition and it's getting very boring.
Which is odd, because I do actually quite enjoy the ideas being explored, but in this context I just can't wait to get to the next chapter (or if I'm honest, to just finish the book).
I've been trying to put my finger on why exposition sometimes works and why it doesn't, and the best answer I can come up with is - good exposition still feels in character for the person expositing, bad exposition is when someone just monologues information the author wants you to know.
Morpheus in the Matrix still speaks in his voice and with his own trademark mystique when he tells Neo what the Matrix is. In Jurassic park, the lengthy descriptions of the science make sense as they're told by a cartoon strand of DNA in the context of a 'ride' for children. Inception still sounds like Leo's character when he explains the dream world, he uses idioms and mannerisms only he would use. Basil Exposition, ironically, is always Basil Exposition when he explains the next plot point to Austin Powers. I could go on...
Exposition is important for any high concept piece, to help being the reader or viewer up to speed.
But in a dull book, characters switch, and suddenly feel like they're just reading an essay penned by the author on their own big ideas or rules of their world. I think this is very easy to slip into, and something I'm trying to be increasingly conscious of when writing in this genre.
Anyway, be keen to hear other people's thoughts on exposition and if you agree.
I'm writing a story set in the 16th century. My characters are soldiers. There is one issue I'm not sure I have successfully resolved yet, and it's the fact that violence against civilians was so normalized during those times. My characters have to eventually do things that would be considered war crimes nowadays, like looting villages. I don't want my main character to become completely unlikeable, but I also don't want to turn him into a modern-day progressive either. I read accounts from the Vietnam war, and even in the modern era, with much better guardrails against such violence, it's extremely rare that someone actively resists once his unit starts massacring civilians. The best that could be expected is to remain largely passive.
What do you feel is the right balance between the character being part of such atrocities vs his conscience waking up that doesn't leave him unaffected by the violence he witnessed and even participated in, but doesn't feel anachronistic either?
So far, my solution is that he dissociates, does what he needs to do, tells himself that it's normal, but deep inside he doesn't believe that it should be normal.
Edit: Maybe likeable is not the right word, but someone the reader can empathize with. I think I have to tell a bit more about the story for people to really be able to answer my question:
The MC is an Ottoman soldier, a Janissary. While they were the elite of the Ottoman army, they were also slaves who were conscripted as children, so he didn't really have a choice. As a 19-year-old, he is going on his first campaign to Vienna, and in the beginning he is very enthusiastic about it. He is a frequent target of his comrades because of his shy and quiet nature, which he tries to suppress. He meets a girl he likes, but when she actually talks to him, he just blushes and drops the pitcher he is holding, unable to say anything, which he is very embarrassed about, and he decides that he will become the hero she deserves. But it soon turns out that war is 5% heroic deeds and 95% crawling in the mud while his friends around him are dying from dysentery, and that 5% heroism also comes with a steep price. Nevertheless, he is obsessed with proving to everybody that he is a real man, setting unrealistic standards for himself.
The campaign is a disaster, and he returns home feeling not as a hero, but as someone who went through the most harrowing experience of his life. He meets the girl again, and the "hero of Vienna" once again just stammers and sweats. But she explains to him that she always liked him, but not because he was a tough soldier, but because he blushed and dropped the pitcher. She never cared about his war, doesn't know where Vienna is, and doesn't really understand the concept of a holy war, she just wanted a guy who looked at her the way he did. Back in the barracks, he is brutally punished for sneaking out at night to meet this girl, but now that he has experienced, for the first time, being accepted for who he really is, he feels as if he has conquered the world.
Originally the story I started’s supposed to be a love letter to the superhero genre a traditional good vs evil story. But I realized when I made characters I put more effort into the villains rather than heros. So I’m deciding to rebrand it to a villain centered story.
To make the audience root for the villains, i made the hero’s just straight up villain murderers, they still are heros to the public but they don’t have killing rules. Some just say screw the public, they want a paycheck, putting minimal effort into hero work sometimes getting people killed. For the villains, some are not really villainous, just people who don’t fit the hero look by the public and are shunned.
This is my first story I am taking seriously, I don’t know how to write villanous characters that stay likable but at the same time if i make the villains too sympathetic it kinda feels like they arn’t even villains in the first place. Just oppressed heros.
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So last year my job was pretty decent in hours, but now Im working four 12 hour days in a row. At night I'm exhausted due to both the work and heat and by the time the weekend rolls around, I gotta catch up on housework and try to recover before doing it all over. Essentially i can't find any time to write because i stay whipped. I've tried writing after work but my brain says derrrrrr and I go to bed. What are some strategies y'all have.
How do you feel about restarting an idea? I have an idea that I'm about 15,000 words into, which...I know, it's the soggy middle, but I also feel like I made missteps along the way, and I kind of think I want to change the setting drastically, and so I kind of got the idea in my head that I would take the premise and the heart of what I already wrote and use that to just...start over from the beginning. Think of it like a roguelike run: You run, you lose, you gain some power permanently, and you run again. I feel like starting over would give me the foresight to now know more about the story and which aspects of it are most interesting, if that makes sense. So how do you feel about this practice? Do you think it's a good idea or a terrible idea?
There was a post yesterday/earlier today on another writing sub about the lines that writers are not willing to cross, and coming up over and over again was the mention of "harming animals." One commenter even mentioned the fact that their followers would be upset, to put it mildly, if they ever did cross that line. A quick search on Reddit showed me that this question pops up over and over again on subreddits dedicated to writing, and animal harm is never far from the top of the list. So it got me thinking again about the ethics of writing unethical acts, and animal harm is the perfect case study.
First of all, this is not a new idea: it's well known that if you want your audience to hate your bad guy from the get-go, all you need to do is have them kick a puppy. It is unambiguously the cultural definition of evil. People react very strongly to it, but so strongly as to deter all mentions of it in fiction...?
Let me take a quick example from my own writing, which is actually why I've been thinking about this so much lately: in my latest story, Luke, 13, is forced to help his farmer father slaughter a sow. It is something I have seen happen when I was younger; that scene is inspired by that.
When people say they draw the line at harming animals, I always wonder where the line actually lies. Does it apply only to dogs, cats and horses? Does it include farm animals, which are routinely slaughtered in our world, and whose meat is a part of many people's diet? Does it extend to fishes, or insects? Is the mention of coral reefs dying considered "animal harm"?
What is baffling to me is that the one place in our lives where we can explore the ethics of harming animals WITHOUT actually harming animals is through, well, fictional writing. The scene I mentioned earlier is a traumatizing memory for the character of Luke, which is further explored in the rest of the story. To me, those experiences shaped the way I view our relationships to animals, and I became a vegetarian shortly after moving out of my parents' home. Exploring those themes through fiction is my way of coming to terms with those experiences, and perhaps to let other people see things through my eyes, if only for a few pages.
Obviously, people should not write about things that they don't want to write about. What worries me, however, is the creation of a taboo. If enough people repeat "I would never write about animal harm," it becomes internalised as something wrong regardless of context. But context is ALL THERE IS in writing. How are people supposed to grapple with ideas that are never mentioned anywhere?
But then again, it comes down to individual choice. If you don't want to ever write about animal harm, or SA, or cannibalism, then you shouldn't and no one should force you to. But I just hope we are making those choices for the right reasons. Not out of fear of being canceled, or losing followers, or because we somehow equate depicting unethical acts and actually condoning those acts.
I could go on, but this post is getting long and already turning into a rant, and I'm curious to see what you all think. Am I reading too much into this? Or do you find "never" to be too strong of a word for a writer?
In my story the way the power system works is, you can be born with unique powers and if you fight someone and steal their powers you can mix the two, turn ice powers and sonic scream into a sonic scream that freezes. Or turn fire manipulation and water powers into steam attacks.
But because of this i find it more difficult to write these characters as people who have hard work instead of just nepo kids who are born strong.
Im thinking of adding a mental and physical strain when trying to combine powers and only the best can actually utilize the powers they steal. But Since its so out there would the audience be able to connect and see it as hard work and it would also feel like the whole combining powers gimmick is underutilized if only few can do it
Let me start by saying how I think stories are made, maybe I might even be wrong here. I know the process and the order of these could be different for everyone, but just on a high level.
You have an idea, a concept, a theme, anything that you want to write about. Space vampires. Or a kid on a path to revenge, slowly coming to terms with the past and letting go. Anything.
Then you get a setting, a character, and an inciting incident, and then you should be good to start writing.
I have all of these. 2 main characters, few important side characters, inciting incident, setting, an idea for the story, and I even have some lore and worldbuilding + about 25k words written.
But here is my main struggle and a realisation I made during writing these 25k words. When I had an idea on what to write, I could easily put out a 3k word chapter in a few hours (albeit the prose quality is first draft level obviously, but 3k words is 3k words). But when I don't, and usually I don't know how to continue the story, I even spent 3 months on 1k words. I just sit and I go for walks and I am out of ideas.
This is not an outline or no outline issue, I tried outlining, but I ended up with the same struggle. What should the next scene/chapter be? What should happen in the next scene/chapter? How should the character change in the next scene/chapter?
And the answer to all of that is: I have no clue. It takes me painfully long to even get an idea for a next scene, I write it in an hour, and then back to weeks of thinking. This really kills my enjoyment of writing, even tho I love it when I can actually write.
So I would really appreciate some advice for this, anyone went through the same issue?
EDIT:
I have a beginning, I know how the story should end. I know how my MC starts out and ends up, and why he goes through the change. I have a few scenes worked out for that already.
I just have no clue how to connect the start from these scenes in the middle and the end. That is my main struggle. To break down the story on a scene by scene level and connect A to B.
Piers Anthony has written an amazing book with copious notes on the writing and editing process: But what of Earth? : a novel rendered into a bad example
It's a real case study and full of humor and vigor. Here the quote I thought would be of interest (note: He calls copy-editors "copyed" for short):
>I know from my own experience that the frame of mind used to edit a book differs from that used to write or rewrite it. Editing is a critical process, while writing is a creative process, so that though one copyed may in this case also have been the Writer, I choose to distinguish between them. It's a Jekyll and Hyde case: the writer is a nice guy, while the copyed is an arrogant little tyrant. This is of course true of every writer who edits, not merely this one; check with any writer for confirmation.
Welcome to our daily discussion thread!
This is the place to discuss anything writing related! Got silly questions? Brainstorming ideas? Need help with research? As long as rules 1, 3, and 5 are followed, this thread is your oyster!
Please refer to the monthly threads for sharing your work and for self-promotion.
---
FAQ -- Questions asked frequently
Wiki Index -- Ever-evolving and woefully under-curated, but we'll fix that some day
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I’ve heard numerous stories of people sharing their ideas/concepts for a novel or whatever it may be online, just to find their exact idea to be in a book before they made theirs.
What are the odds someone actually sees your idea and decides to either write it themselves or have a bot do it for them?
I am not asking for querying advice, as I know that belongs in r/Pubtips, but rather I need some advice for experienced authors in further refining my manuscript.
I have queried my manuscript (Science Fiction, Multiple POV) before, and so far have not gotten any bites from agents, and I suspect it is being rather quickly dismissed due to word count. My first draft was 223k words and I edited the story all the way down to 140k words before submitting. I've trimmed every bit if fat from the book, every scene counts, and I've killed my darlings. So, at the end of the day, the book is what it is. It is not a story that can be split in two.
I work shift work with a lot of overtime, and have a young family that I spend a lot of time with (nuturing, activites, play, chores, cooking and cleaning), so I haven't always had a lot of time to write. Because of that I've been working on this particular manuscript for many years, and although I have several side projects, I have not had any short stories or side projects published to add legitimacy to my name, so to speak. I suspect if this were the case, I could maybe get away with the word count.
I'm pushing 40 and I would really like to see this story traditionally published. I've taken the time to learn the craft and I feel that it is of sufficient quality.
My question is, where do I go from here?
Everyone's talking about the fake iceberg method lately and hinting at more world than you built,well cute trick but doesnt solve the problem, which is that you build so much real world you cant remember it either.
I found this out mid way through my third book and a reader asked why my antagonist hated the protagonist. I hd written the scene but idk i could not answer the question so ig two years of names, grudges and rules are living in a part of my brain that apparently has a lease.
So I went the opposite direction of the iceberg trick for now and instead of implying depth I didnt have, I started logging what I had written like just capturing what showed up on the page after the fact so every charac, place and thread gets pulled out of the draft itself instead of a doc I forget to update.I do this with mythril rn because i face a bit problem maintaining spreadsheet current past chapter six but what matters is building the record from what you wrote (and not what you meant to write)
Wanna know if anyone else has had same issue and feels like a rite of passage past book two
I'm not sure if being an author is the coolest or the lamest thing ever.
When people ask what I do, I sometimes say I'm a writer, journalist, author, content creator, or whatever. In response, people often ask if I'm a student or where I get my money from. Like being a writer isn't a real thing.
I don't really blame them, because of my experience with some people who identify as writers.
Someone moved in with my neighbor and refused to get a job, bring home any money, clean, or do anything except be waited on like a princess. When I asked why she believed her boyfriend should pay for everything AND do all the housework, she said:
"I'm not a cleaner. I'm a writer."
This woman has never published a single word of writing. Not as a book, not in a lit mag, not even on AO3. She just does some personal journaling here and there.
So, now I'm wondering: when I say I'm a writer, do people think "snob who is too lazy and entitled to contribute to the world?"
I dont typically use reddit but the more i started writing, the more I started thinking of it as a resource. Writing a chef? There's cooking subreddits to ask auestions, talk to chefs, and get their insights. Writing a surfer? I could find surfers and learn what little details will make my character pop, the things they keep in their backpack that only a surfer would think about.
However, I've noticed that lile 90% of my posts get deleted on these subreddits, even when they allow questions and I break no rules. Asking science questions in an AskScientists subreddit is a no-go simply because I admit I'm trying to make my writing more believable. Apparently being curious is fine and not mentioning why I want to know if fine, but because it could actually help someone, its not.
Anyone feel the same way, that reddit has a huge wealth of expertise perfect for us writers but it often refuses to be so? Have you used Reddit as a resource (outside of this one) and how has it gone for you?
What's a good way to deal with this sort of vibe in your works? When something unusual/seemingly impossible happens to your characters? I don't want to undersell how outlandish some situation or thing is, but I also don't want my characters saying that sort of stuff.
For those who may not get what I'm referring to, I'm talking about dialogue like seen in Forspoken or most marvel movies. It's hard to put into words.
So, I'm leading a game-show-style panel at a writing conference, and I want to include a Family Feud / “Survey Says” round featuring answers from actual writers.
Hopefully this is useful/fun for the sub beyond just helping me out, too. I’m curious to see what answers keep coming up and what that says about our shared writing habits, frustrations, and weird author tendencies.
If you’re willing to play along, give me your first instinct for any or all of these:
No Google Form or data collection. I’m literally just going to tally the answers in the comments and turn the most common responses into a Family Feud-style game.
And yes, if enough of you answer, I fully intend to put “WE ASKED 26 WRITERS ON REDDIT…” on the conference screen. 😂
Thank you, fellow writers!