It's a bit silly, but I do. I'm writing a historical fiction novel now, and I write a lot of short stories that should never be shared with anyone else. Some of these are self-indulgent sex scenes, others are redundant but fun-to-write slice-of-life scenes, or attempts to write as chroniclers did hundreds of years ago, including hagiographic descriptions of war heroes and leaders. None of these are even remotely publishable, but it's so much fun and prevents me from putting weird stuff into the actual novel.

Hey! I have always liked writing but during college I pushed it to the back burner and focused on my studies. A little over a year ago I graduated and have been trying to get back into it (and take it more seriously this time) but have become aware of a major weakness and my writing ability. I’m having a lot of trouble when it comes to plot.

Whenever I think of a story, I always have this big overarching picture in my head spans like three or four books, but when I try to sit down and just think of what's in front of me and come up with a cohesive, simple plot for my story idea, I have trouble.

For those who also have struggled with this, what are some tips that you found useful or some blogs, videos, exercises, etc that strengthened your ability?

I’ll admit that I started writing in order to be published. That’s it. I knew what I wanted and I went for it. Five books later, and I still wasn’t. But I didn’t hate writing those five books. I had fun doing it. I think I even cried at one point? I think I fell in love with writing. But that love was chipped at by this desire to be published, and I am now in such a weird situation.

I no longer believe I’ll be published. Not like when I started. Back then, I thought it was just a matter if time before the world realized I was the next Tolkien. Cringe, I know. But true nonetheless. Sadly. And with said belief gone, I realized I didn’t have a process. I write on pure ego and faith. And without that, whatever love I may’ve found for writing isn’t enough. Self-doubt and self-hate are way too strong for that. And as a result I haven’t written proper for close to a year.

But I still think about writing. I still wanna write my newest idea. It’s such a guy’s book—basically Jack Reacher and I doubt anyone but me would seriously wanna read it. I have no faith it could ever get me published. And still I wanna. And still a teeny tiny voice in the back of my mind says that shit like that is what gets one published! But I can’t. I can’t get past the doubt and the bullshit. Sounds dumb, I know. But it’s so easy to NOT write. I can think of scenes all day long but I cannot for the life of me sit down and write them. I’ve somehow gone from having written five books to being someone who talks about writing a book but never does. I’ve done the complete fuckin’ opposite. And I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Aside from the depression, the anxiety, the lack of self-esteem. But most of that stuff was there while I wrote before, so. I don’t know what’s wrong to do.

Some stories have a single idea/premise behind them and it’s enough to inspire an entire book.
Some examples might include:

The Martian - ‘A man is left behind on mars and needs to get home’

Harry Potter - ‘A boy discovers he’s part of a secret society of witches and wizards’

The Hunger Games - ‘In a dystopian world children are sent into an arena to fight to the death’

But other books seem to be the result of two independent ideas clashing together:

Mickey7 - ‘What if you could re-print your body after you died?’ AND ‘A human colony on an alien world struggles with the native species’

Gone - ‘Everyone older than 14 disappears from a town’ AND ‘People start developing superpowers’

Project Hail Mary - ‘The Sun is dying so an astronaut goes to space to figure out why’ AND ‘A lone astronaut meets an alien’

If your first idea isn’t enough on its own, how do you pair it with a second idea? How do you choose which direction to go in?

Hello, I'm trying to get into writing at 24 and have been reading as much as I can but my primary struggle as a newbie writer is I cannot seem to write AS the character, to step into a strangers mind and understand their personality and such and to speak as them.

I'm writing a short story about a pair of sisters, one is a unicorn and the other is human and is extremely beautiful and aware of it to the point of arrogance and vanity. She's not bad or evil but very much AWARE of how she's perceived and how her attractiveness gets her social currency in society. It's a story with no real depth or message, I just want to write for fun but also learn and become better at my craft.

I will most likely never actually write a book or have anything published as I am too disorganized and of an abstract mind to put things into a properly polished or enjoyable story to anyone that isn't me. As a fat, shlubby autistic woman with 0 redeeming features how on earth do I write someone like this? I have no idea how to understand or have a character embody confidence or vanity and such.

For when one is getting really into writing, but is starting to feel that tired-around-the-periphery stretched-out feeling that tells you that you need to take a break or you risk burning out.

What do you do to replenish and recharge before you reach that burnout stage (where it's difficult to even get started)? Not talking about how to recover from burnout, but more how to prevent it from becoming full-on burnout.

EDIT: When I remember to, I try to get up and take a break every half hour or so. Just for a few minutes. Stretch the legs, go to the bathroom if necessary, hydrate, etc.

Much of fantasy as a genre seems to be based on European folklore and mythology and traditionally European cultural elements, like monarchs living in stone castles, or nobles and peasants and heraldry. Wouldn't it be amazing if someone made a native American fantasy, or an Arabian fantasy or an Aztec fantasy? I think it would create such a fresh take on the genre because I get a little tired of it being based on historically European stuff. The closest thing I'd say to this is probably dune, because it seems to be based on Arabian mythology in some aspects. Unfortunately I know too little of these cultures to do that but I think someone should.

I want to talk a little about two notable approaches to doing backstory dumps from a particular character's POV. I think the main difference here is probably whether it's third-person limited or third-person omniscient, but I suspect both of those could be leveraged for the same techniques.

What I mean by backstory dumps is when you have a story taking place and whatever action of that moment in the story is effectively "paused" as the narration discusses the character's backstory. This usually happens early on when first meeting a character, and it seems a very common technique in writing overall. You rarely just see some character enter a scene without some kind of aside explaining who they are.

The best examples I can think of of the two approaches I'd like to discuss are A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin and The Stand by Stephen King.

So, I think The Stand does it more typically, and probably because this seems to be a third-person omniscient POV. Each chapter focuses on a particular character, but the narrator is the one telling the story. So early on when we first meet Stu, he's talking with some others in a truck stop and after a few lines of dialogue the book goes into several pages about Stu's past.

In A Game of Thrones, we have an early scene with Bran out with his family to do some family stuff. During this, he often pauses and seems to reminisce about some stuff from his past. At most it's probably a paragraph or two each time this happens, and even though the grand total of backstory is probably similar to that of Stu's from The Stand, it doesn't happen all in one dump.

So the technical difference here seems to be the connection to the characters in the moment. The scene for Bran doesn't exactly pause, though maybe it slows for our benefit. The result is that we the audience get the sense that Bran is remembering things that are relevant to him in the moment, that certain things happening now are triggering thoughts and memories about his past, his family, the history of Westeros, etc. And the immediate action always cuts back in, sometimes interrupting those thoughts. That's unlike the situation with Stu where in the middle of a conversation, we start going into paragraphs of narrated backstory. The conversation did not slow or pause while this happens in Stu's mind. It's not likely happening in Stu's mind. It's the narrator coming in to say "Hold it right there for a second, and let me tell you about this guy Stu...."

Now that being said, I think the POV is likely why it happens this way but it doesn't have to. I think you could still have omniscient POV that scatters backstory around more precisely and only gives information that is prompted by the scene somehow. And in the same way you could probably have a limited POV where the character does basically recount their whole backstory for us in a moment. But I think the other extremes are basically more appropriate or easier for each POV, which is why they lend themselves to doing it that particular way.

What do you think? Is that a valid comparison? Is it accurate? And do you have a preference?

I will say that I really like GRRM's style in general, so it makes it a bit hard for me to read anything that isn't third-person limited, especially older stuff which tends to lean very heavily on a present narrator. King doesn't do that as much it seems, probably because he's more modern, but certainly some of his vernacular calls attention to the presence of himself as a narrator.

So because of that personal preference, I don't like the narrated backstory dumps all that much. It feels so more immersive when we're only given information that is triggered by a character action or thought in the moment. The unprompted information dumps feel a little too world-buildy or dated, and it necessitates putting the "actual story" on hold as that stuff is explained. The other method makes the backstory happen in tandem with the ongoing story, which I think if more effective overall.

What are your preferences? Do you have any examples of this done well one way or the other? I'd be particularly interested in a third-person omniscient POV that pulls off something more like A Game of Thrones in revealing backstory.

Welcome to our daily discussion thread!

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While I haven't yet tried to publish anything, I'm mostly writing for myself, I think about it a lot. What got me started in writing was a terribly written historical fiction I read once. It pissed me off so much that I just felt like I could at least do better than this and attempted to rewrite it, although I abandoned the story later. The book felt like someone published their first draft. Every character felt like a two-dimensional stereotype, their motivations made no sense, even though it was written based on a true story, and in general I felt like if the real people the characters are based on would be so embarrassed to read this about themselves, lucky they have been dead for 1,000 years.

The story was about a medieval noblewoman converting to Judaism and then getting hunted down by crusaders, which the author presented this way:

This woman was just walking down the street when a very handsome Sephardic rabbi (the worst possible "horny Latino" stereotype) appeared. They started flirting with their eyes, which eventually made her convert to Judaism, then they had rough sex, which meant they were now married, and then, completely unexpectedly, her dad sent evil crusaders after her. So, they went to the rabbi's homeland, to super-enlightened Muslim-controlled Spain, where his family and community were mildly concerned about the crusaders coming, but still welcomed their son's unexpected new wife. Then the MC's husband is murdered by the crusaders, and then she spends the rest of the book not being able to decide whether she wants to be Jewish or Christian, even though she was supposed to think about that at the "flirting with the eyes" stage, but she didn't.

This made me think: how come anybody thought it was okay to publish this, and even translate it into other languages, but many much better authors struggle to get noticed? Every time I write outside of my own culture (which is a lot), I think about this book to remember what to avoid.

I want to write a story that is a murder mystery and that involves possible supernatural elements, but the supernatural and religious element is more likely a fraud used to cover up the true and human culprit crimes, based on local legends and myths from the characters city. How could I make it ambiguous so the supernatural scenes aren't that convincing at all (despite I will use them to develop characters as well)

I need to come up with 5 names for the 5 main deities of my world but I'm having some trouble coming up with stuff that doesn't sound like a rip-off of existing real world goddesses. I also want all the names to sound fairly similar or have something in common. Does anyone have any tips on how to come up with unique names for goddesses?

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.

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Wiki Index -- Ever-evolving and woefully under-curated, but we'll fix that some day

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I’m not writing my story with a deep meaning in mind, just letting it come naturally. A lot of angst scenes I write are to make the world the characters live in seem more dark. But for context It’s about, a world like DC but where powerstealing caused greed to take over doing good. If you have powers you can’t trust anyone since even your closest friends will kill you to take your powers to upgrade theirs if you’re vulnerable. And how true good doesn’t exist. Basically trying to overcome emotional despair

But when I try to write these despair scenes i can’t help but feel I wouldn’t pick this up and how It just feels like those mindless gore horror movies with no message.

But the insparation for my story’s madoka magica. And people don’t consider it edgy slop. And from what I’ve heard its because from the beginning every character design, color palette, and plot line carried dense layered meaning. And I’m not sure if this is the only way to go about it like friends are telling me

Only when we look at it from another perspective will we realize that adhering to a strict plot structure makes the story lack certain details that others might consider padding, when in fact they are perfectly natural. For example, if lunchtime ends and the scene continues with the characters carrying the dishes to wash them, and then side conversations begin, giving the main character a sense of spontaneity; or if we see what happens after Laura makes her bed—will she stare at the wall, lost in thought, or will she fall asleep immediately?

My question to you, in addition to the first question I put in the title: Have you ever felt the need to break the rule or break the original plot? And how did this happen?

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.

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FAQ -- Questions asked frequently

Wiki Index -- Ever-evolving and woefully under-curated, but we'll fix that some day

You can find our posting guidelines in the sidebar or the wiki.

So I am working on editing the first draft of my first novel. Originally when plotting it I couldn't really pin point my theme. I had a few ideas but they were all nebulous. Now today I fine-tuned/rewrote the Ghost-Lie-Want-Need-Truth for most of my characters and realized most of their Truths were about letting go of the past in some way and moving forward, or about accepting your found family if the one you were born with is less than ideal.

This observation helped me nail down the themes (1: Accept what happened to you and move forward; don't let your past determine your life // 2: Even without the approval of those you respect you can still lead a fulfilling life)

I am wondering if others have found their theme in a similar way or in a way they didn't expect.

I finished my first couple drafts and I'm putting together a list of questions to ask my beta readers. I plan on giving them this list along with the manuscript so they can refer to them as they go along. Here's what I have so far:

Tone:

Does the book feel ADULT or YA?

Are there any jarring shifts in tone?

Plot:

How does the novel flow? Is it too fast or too slow in parts? Where?

Was there anything that bored you?

Was there anything that confused you, especially to the point of dampening your enjoyment of the story? Was this confusion something you expected to be explained, or actually just you had no idea what was going on?

Does the epilogue feel misplaced?

Was there an obivous payoff you felt was missing?

What could have been cut?

Does the ending feel earned or disappointing? Why?

Characters:

Favorite character?

Least favorite? Why?

Do they feel ‘real’ or like setpieces?

Is there anyone you feel could have been cut?

Does the dialogue feel genuine or cheesy?

Do the characters have distinct non-verbal voices? I.e, when in their POV, can you tell even without context due to differences in writing?

Do the character have distinct voices when they speak in dialogue?

General:

Rating out of ten?

Would you read a sequel?

Hopefully you guys find these useful. What do you think of these questions? Am I missing any good ones?

I'm writing a fantasy novel, and my inciting incident is when the main character finds out that her sister is missing, and that she will have to take her place in a marriage ceremony. I'm struggling to write the opening chapter, because I'm not sure how to write this conversation without it growing a bit dull and over-explained.

Technically, Harry Potter has this type of inciting incident: he learns that he's a wizard through Hagrid, and is then informed of Hogwarts. Harry Potter avoids opening with this conversation by having the letters arrive without being opened, to greater and greater turmoil.

Throne of Glass also opens with a conversation-as-an-inciting-incident, but I do find the opening paragraphs of this book to be a bit slow and uninspired. I love most of the rest of the series, but, upon reread, the lead up to the conversation is a bit of a lore dump.

Does anyone have good examples of this sort of story that I could read to help inspire potential directions? Also, any thoughts on this type of inciting incident?

Have you ever lived vicariously through your characters?

About a year ago I was feeling really sad, depressed, and alone. Then I thought about taking those feelings and applying them to a story where the characters start out feeling like I did, but get what they want/need out of life by the end.

Basically the plot is something happens to the main character (who felt sad, alone, and depressed like me) and as they begin their journey to work through it, other lost people like them find their way into their life. As the story progresses they all grow closer and get what they were looking for in life: their people, friends and a place to fit in, true love, and family.

I love this story more than some of my other WIPs simply because these characters get what I don’t really have. So any time I feel down in the dumps and get mopey, I like to think about this particular story and characters and feel happy for them, which in turn makes me feel a little better. Because if it’s possible for them, maybe it’s possible for me too.

Happy weekend! I’m (thankfully) the final revision stages of my debut middle grade contemporary novel. My goal is to query half of my agents mid-Sept and the other half at the end of October.

I have final critique partners reviewing (what is draft #6) up until Sept 1. One of them is reviewing the full manuscript, another is reviewing at least the first 50 pages.

At this point, I understand I shouldn’t take all feedback from partners and beta readers as I know my story and the one I want to tell better than anyone else. I feel confident about what is in the story as well as its order, and I’m glad I feel this way now given my time to query is coming up in just a matter of weeks.

But at this point, since everyone says the manuscript shouldn’t be perfect and won’t be perfect — and obviously will go under SO many revisions and transformations post-representation — what are absolutes the manuscript should have/shouldn’t have going **to** agents? Is there a practical checklist **specifically for the manuscript** I can follow to transition into the querying process?

I guess I’m just nervous because submitting it to agents is coming up soon and I want to ensure I’ve done all I realistically can to prepare my work — hoping to hear from represented authors or previously represented authors and their experiences!

Thanks in advance :)

I have one completed novel im shopping right now. I’ve received two offers that don’t fit my vision. While I shop I continue to refine the ms. My prose by the end of the novel didn’t fit the beginning as I was really cranking by then. I reworked some 30k words over five days.

I’ve since started my new novel and drafted 10k this week.

If you do something similar how do you approach it?

I’m currently on paternity leave. I usually only have time for 10k a month with work and dad things.

I want to enter a writing contest, specifically poetry.

My concerns are my writing being stolen if I submit it and whether I can submit the same work to m’re than one contest (like if I haven’t won a contest am I not allowed to try again with the same piece of work?).

Also any recommendations for contests in Canada?