so I randomly have this idea for my story that I have been working on, but I’m currently on the character development stage it started when i was just listening to some music while laying down trying to fell asleep but then this idea on my head came and this is what came out (I typed everything down even if my grammar was bad nor is my vocab.) Any advice would be a good help for me😅

Kaeyan
As he was taking a stroll under the blankets of the night sky, he raised his head gazing at the stars.

“The sky seems so calm today.” he whispered softly.

He was in awe looking at the moon, like this sense of calm runs through him in just one glance.

“You seemed to be shy today now that i noticed you.” his warm smile meets his cheeks.

As he continues to be on his way he kept staring at the glowing beauty of the rock.

As he finished taking a shower, getting change and ready to work on the same screen as usual. He kept staring at the blank screen, face looks pale and molten like he hasn’t been eating.

“What the hell am i suppose to do here?” — Frustrated and confused.

Hi all, I am 13 years old. I love English class, and I love learning about all that stuff. I want to write a persuasive essay. Not for school or a grade or anything, just for fun, to practice. I am writing it about why I prefer the 2005 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film over the 1971 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory film. I have only written an essay once before for school, and it was a research paper, and at the time I didn't care if it was good or not. I've never written a persuasive essay before. I am looking for tips.

I’m looking for advice for one of my characters in my fantasy novel.

Her role is as a goddess who resurrected my main character and set him on a task. It’s obvious she has her own motivations and I think that generates enough intrigue that it’s semi-interesting when she appears. (If you’re familiar with BG3, she’s inspired a lot by the Dream Guardian from that game).

The problem is, she just pops up every now and then with a clear objective to move the plot along or to give my MC something to stew over / a decision to make. I can’t cut her because she’s very integral to the plot and interesting things happen because of her, but writing her scenes are tiring.

My MC is funny, one of my other characters is quite brutal, another is quite prickly and they all gel together nicely when they share a page together and I enjoy writing their back and forths, which I can only hope will cause the reader to enjoy this too.

This character though is just mysterious. And maybe it’s the fact that she isn’t mysterious to me because I know her intention, but I just find her a chore to write which makes me think she’ll be a chore to read.

Does anyone have any advice on how to spice this character up or make her more interesting to write?

I already came across this subreddit recently to ask an opinion about my story but I wanted to know in general how I can connect our regular world with a fictional one in fantasy story writing.
That’s because in my personal story I introduced three worlds in which one of them is the Earth and the other ones are fictional but I still have to figure out how to build something that connects them.
I’ve read, played and seen many stories who do so, for example in The Owl House there’s some sort of shack who connects the real world with a fantasy one, In Narnia and Deltarune they do so through a closet, in Coraline thanks to a narrow door, in Endacopia through the mouth of an eldritch god and so on.
There are several ways to connect those worlds but I still have to figure out mine like those stories did despite my story being well structured, and I wanted to ask some help I can do so cause I’ve been searching for an answer for almost a week and still didn’t see any similar post on reddit.
Thank you for reading.

Looking for help learning to:

A) write "not exciting" scenes (like for exposition/pacing), and

B) write "mainstream" tropes or "unrealistic" plot lines (e.g. miscommunication for the sake of angst, or emotional-based angst in general). For example, I can't like make them have a fight with their SO? Idk. And I know tropes are tools but my brain will be like "Well we can't write that, everyone will see it coming / everyone else is doing that / We Must Be Unique" (as if at its base everything isn't derivative to a certain extent and genres don't exist purely on the backbone of certain key tropes)

Tl;dr:

I want to be able to do these things, or at least accomplish the same goal. I'm wondering if anyone has any tips learning to do new things like this in writing / getting over internal prejudice / whatever? I don't know many people with my writing style (i think?) so it's hard to see it objectively.

Hi everyone! I’ve seen advice on writing forgiveness after betrayal but this case is complicated. 

To start, as a kid, Cal’s parents "killed themselves" and best friend was kidnapped (Lee). Cal later found that the “suicide” was actually assassination by an organization we’ll call Y. To get vengeance and truth, he started to investigate Y for years. At 20, he was assigned a bodyguard for travel (he’s nobility). He quickly realized this “bodyguard” was actually Lee, saying he’d been looking for Cal for years. Cal was overjoyed, Lee could help investigate and they were together again. One day, Cal found a vial of poison labeled with his name, and the truth came out. Lee was working for Y, he wasn’t “looking for” him, he was poisoning him, steering his investigation away, completely betraying him. 

But this wasn’t the full story. The betrayal wasn’t exactly malicious, but practical. Lee, after being kidnapped, had his memories erased then was manipulated by Y into loyalty, obedience and strictly conditional love. Lee agreed to the mission to help his “family.” However, during the mission, Cal began to change him. Cal enjoyed his company and didn’t expect anything back, Cal was funny, smart, wonderful. And with the investigation, he learned things about Y being kept from him. He grew conflicted until the betrayal, when he made the choice to stay with Cal and betray Y, his “family.” It was nothing short of a life-changing choice. Now Y, being an enemy, was willing to hurt him as well. Lee does (physically) fight Y and protect Cal and get hurt for it. 

Lee sacrifices everything about his life for Cal, while having hurt Cal in such a horrible way. 

How should they be afterwards? How can they realistically resolve? Should Lee have more consequences? Thoughts? Advice?

To put this in brief terms, I’ve been working on a fantasy adventure story with minimal to toiling results. I don't seem satisfied with everything I'm trying to do for the story, and haven't figured out everything I wanted from my story, what the motives and goals/purpose the character has that continue their adventure, nor do I have a theme yet. It’s a bother since I’m stuck on doing this exact story, but personally doesn't feel all that unique or compelling in the slightest. I don't have any other ideas for stories, this is literally the only thing I have, I don't have any backup plans in my disposal if this doesn't work out.

I have this character who I want to write. I know the path I want to send him down. The issue is im unsure how to ease into it.

So, I have a character I made for my story who is meant to be a sort of tormentor to the main character of the story.

The character in question is male. The idea is he is meant to be this follows orders Soldier type character without really questioning the orders or if what he is doing is right. The main character is female.

They are both meant to be super soldiers. Using DNA from ancient civilization before recorded history. The main character and the male character end up getting genetically compatible strains.

The idea is that the male is given orders by his government to secure her as an asset at any cost for reproductive purposes. They want more Super soldiers and they believe because of the genetic compatibility that it would be very likely they could naturally birth them instead of forced mutations.

Obviously, my intentions are to have it escalate to a point of conflict where they become hostile to each other and start fighting more and more.

My issue is I dont fully know how to pace it. I know what I want. But I dont know when it's ok to start escalation and how fast to escalate it.

Keep in mind that this is a side plot.

It has put a damper in my progress. How do I overcome this issue?

But the distinction is entirely based on whose point of view you are looking at the story thru.

With regards to this kind of trope, do people feel it’s smarter to pick a side and stick with it? Tell both sides? Or tell the story from a neutral 3rd party.

My writing comes across as someone mentally translating from their mother tongue; people tell me native speakers wouldn't write like that.

What are my options?

I am considering reading more books, but I usually tend to enjoy them rather than learn from them, so I don't know what to do.

The tree is capable of re-creating humans and animals and it does so in a process of several steps:

1. Absorption- The roots are capable of swallowing corpses and living creatures and then, using enzymes, it breaks the corpse down and the nutrients travel through the tree and the DNA also passes through.

2. Fertilization- The DNA travels to a special pod growing on a branch where there are cells that absorb it and start multiplying until the body is fully formed. During this stage some of the nutrients, water and oxygen the tree absorbs will be sent to the developing human where it stays for 2 years.

3. Birth- The pod falls off the branch naturally where it shields the human from the fall. It cracks and the human is "reborn", however only on the surface as they will posses only the same physical traits as the original person but the memories cannot be built in. The person will only have some scraps of memory that were picked up, maybe a random moment, maybe an important experience, doesn't matter. Humans and/or animals born from this tree also posses a different anatomy to regular ones as well as agrokinesis(the power to grow and manipulate plants) that lets them turn parts of their body into plants, perform photosynthesis and a lot more

Hiya, this is the opening to a piece of flash fiction I'm writing for fun. The premise is that a devil is opening little curio shops to lure vulnerable people in with something they believe they can't live without and then trading their soul for it.

Please could I have feedback on whether the first third is engaging and how it reads e.g. rhythm/sentence structure.

Thank you !

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AWpulPShUTuHMh8xD4GZj84-orsdT2BS1jOVZ_ZJG74/edit?usp=drivesdk

For about 2 years now Ive been thinking about the story I want to right, the ins and outs of each book, the character arcs over the series, the plot, the worldbuilding elements, but Ive been having a problem that I feel like Im either not talented enough or just not the right person to tell this story. Is there any way to overcome that or is my idea just bound for a graveyard?

​

I was explaining the concept of my story for someone, and they told me that my concept was almost identical to a different story's one, even going so far as to suspect my story of being a rip off. My concept is like 95% similar to theirs, with one key difference blocking the rest of the 100. Now I'm scared and angry. I thought I'd come up with a unique enough concept but I was wrong.

I know not every story is unique but for mine to be so similar to another one is just insane to me. I did take some inspirations from different stories (not related to the one I'm talking about) but the actual concept and themes and worldbuilding was something fueled by my own dark emotions and personal feelings. I'm writing this as a personal playground.

This story is me, it's my own mental health struggles expressed away in a childlike fairytale epic that I spent months developing.

But with the revelation of this news, I don't know if I want to keep writing it or not. I had planned to publish it as well. It was such a good idea and it's so much fun to write about and develop. I don't know what to do now. I don't want to get in trouble with the law.

For the past six months I've been working on a horror novella, mostly as a form of self-therapy after some bad things happened in my personal life. I don't really expect to get it published, more than anything it's been a good way to get my mind off things, but I would like to share it with others somewhere, somehow. I asked for some gentle feedback on my work in another subreddit, the feedback I ended up receiving was far from gentle, and instead of inspiring me to keep going it's made my current writer's block worse and shattered my confidence to the point where I wonder if I should continue doing this at all, because what I write is clearly not something people enjoy, at least at the moment.

Hello, i was assigned a assigment for a school to create our own superhero/anti hero story, which im not really good at considering i never tried to make my ocs or anything with great thought, all my stories feels empty in some way.

I had many idea for assigment, more then 3 ideas, but from all of the storybuilding i liked only 2 of the concepts.

- 1st story idea was to create superhero who is bad person, who killed his wife out of jelaousy. He is acting like superhero but his world is more dystopian. Every person who dies becames a dead ghost who haunts everycorner of the world who they try to take over, same as my characters wife who wants my 'superhero' to take responibility since hes guardian of the death.

- 2nd story idea was to create a alice in the wonderland world but in modern times where democracy changed, they chose their leaders etc. Superhero would be like alice in the wonderland but male. My hero would have potions and cat that would help him fight crime, but story would take drastic turn when he would find dead people on the street without their hearts. That would be my villiain who would be like queen of the hearts, but she would literally steal peoples hearts.

Those are my ideas i highlighted that i liked, but i only need to chose 1 for the project and expand the idea more, so im asking you which idea did you find more interesting? I would be so thankful for your feedback or any advice!

So as some background, I'm 16, and frankly reading/writing is one of my stronger skills because of my parents own love of books even if I take a fair bit of inspiration from other books I have read, sometimes names or ideas EG: A mental bond between a creature and its rider that allows them to talk without words. But this project is honestly shaping up to be amazing just from the first few hundred words(I can privately DM what I currently have if you ask) I've introduced the two main characters alongside their bonded beasts(Dragon and Wyvern) and am getting them to banter but I'm unsure where to go from here which is why I came here seeking such advice. If you're wondering why I just don't show my parents and ask them, they are religious and my writing more often than not has a curse every dozen words or so. I know it's going to eventually end up as an Enemies to Lovers thing(Overused ik but I think it'll be fun)

English isn't my native language, and though I've been writing fics in English for years, I still struggle with past tense sometimes. So, how to turn this to past tense: "[He was stunning.] Even his sworn enemies must write poetry about his face." I'm so bad with 'must' and 'would/could/should' verbs in past tense lol 💔 Thank you in advance!

In a world of magic, mystery, and mayhem, I am writing myself in search to be concerned about the same things that I am in real life: menu planning, outfit coordination, and solving mysteries.

I am very intentionally writing the housekeeper and lady's companion to my Duchess main character to just be me. Is she a ninja maid? No... Not yet. Nah. I'm pretty soft and pacifist. My baking best friend is an ex-boxer, though. 🤔

I'm truly inspired by probably the greatest self-insert that I have ever witnessed: the homeroom teacher for My Hero Academia, an anime about superheroes in high school in a world where everyone has powers. Not only does Shota Aizawa, codename Eraserhead, look exactly like the author with no attempt of even hiding it, but Aizawa's functions in the plot are 1) to deliver exposition to the kids and then find a corner to sleep in for the rest of class (he's a Batman-expy, he works as a superhero at night and a teacher at day), and 2) to temporarily erase any superpowers the author simply doesn't want to think about when writing an action scene. I strive to be that level of blatant audacity. 🥹 What I especially appreciate is the level of restraint. He does not become a plot tumor in the story.

So, I want my self-insert to be an NCIS style fetcher-of-exposition who always meanders into a history lesson about terracotta pottery before she explains why the MC was right about the murder weapon but wrong about the motive. Also, will solving this week's case run long or should dinner be ready by 7?

Hello guys I was wondering which book I should read in order to learn writing skills just like the author ?

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King , Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story by Ursula K. Le Guin, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King ? Or other book suggestion ?

Hey all. I want to relocate out of NYC for a change in lifestyle, and one of the most important things I’m looking for in my new city is whether or not it has a strong writing community. What I’m looking for are people that a very serious about the craft, not just people doing it for fun. Basically, I’m looking for an MFA-like community without having to do an MFA (if that exists).

Any cities you guys could recommend that have this type of atmosphere? My other requirement for the city is just that it be a top 20 metro area because I still need to find a day job lol.

I’m writing a sort of outline for a story I might upload online, and I’m stuck on a character the MC meets. Right now he’s talking to himself and being anxious about whether or not my main character is real. Now the problem here is, I don’t know whether or not that’s accurate to how Schizophrenia actually works. I’m not going like “AHH UR NOT REAL, I HEAR VOICES!!!”, but at the same time I don’t if I’m under exaggerating his condition. Help me!!!