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1500 questions
24
votes
13 answers

Software for developing and organizing characters

I'm looking for a software that helps me develop and organize the characters for my novel. What I want: something like a filesystem, with a file for each character it should have or allow me to create categories like name, gender, age, backstory,…
user5645
24
votes
10 answers

How do I overcome a lack of motivation to write at home?

Late October I decided to take the plunge and attempt NaNoWriMo. I haven't done much writing in some time and thought it would be a fun attempt to jump back into things. So far it's been pretty fun getting back into writing about something I hashed…
Tim
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24
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10 answers

What is Literary Fiction?

I keep hearing about literary fiction, and how it is so much better than genre fiction. What exactly is literary fiction?
Elizabeth Schechter
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24
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9 answers

Is it okay to kill off a main LGBT love interest?

I'm a young writer and have only recently figured out about the "bury your gays trope". I'm writing a book and the main character is a lesbian and gets a girlfriend. Shortly there after the girlfriend gets killed for some plot important reasons. The…
Strawberry
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24
votes
12 answers

In a series, do the stakes have to be higher than in the book before?

Imagine you have a series of books: Book 1 through Book 6. Do the stakes in book 2 have to be bigger than the stakes in book 1? The same question applies with each book in relation to the one before it. I know you don't have to, but would it be best…
Wyvern123
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24
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3 answers

Want to publish unpublished work found in an auction storage unit

I started buying storage auctions in the middle of this year. In the third one I bought I ran across an unpublished manuscript for a fiction book U Boat treasure by Charles Hand. He has no published works besides a boar hunter magazine, he was not…
Rocky Pal
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24
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6 answers

How do discovery writers hibernate?

I am 20% outliner and 80% discovery writer, (I know many will object that this is not possible) meaning, I have a very brief outline of what is going to happen in the end and then I go on filling the story in discovery writing way. At the moment I…
The White Cloud
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24
votes
14 answers

How do I present a future free of gender stereotypes without being jarring or overpowering the narrative?

My story takes place in a relatively near future setting where gender stereotypes have become a thing of the past. Unlike a recent question on another site, physiological sex-specific traits are still very much present in society, but they no longer…
Robert Columbia
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24
votes
8 answers

How much character growth crosses the line into breaking the character

(not a duplicate of Character Development - How much is too much? because that one is more about "overreaction" to smaller events.) TL;DR: How much can a character change without becoming unrecognizable? How can you indicate character growth…
April Salutes Monica C.
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24
votes
14 answers

Do I really need to have a scientific explanation for my premise?

So, in my post-apocalyptic novel, the world was caught up in an international war (basically WWIII), and all the world's nuclear superpowers launched their warheads and killed much of the global population. Ambient radiation from the nuclear…
user34214
24
votes
11 answers

Is it bad to have no gender variety?

The majority of stories, movies, shows, comics, and other media I've read or seen have a pretty even split between men and women, and that's fine, I don't have a problem with it. But if I want to write a story that's centered around two girls…
user34214
24
votes
12 answers

Problems Blending Sci-fi & Traditional Fantasy?

I have been cautioned against blending: Traditional fantasy elements Such as magic systems and exotic, less plausible creatures (on a scientific level - magic tends to explain away these beasts) Traditional sci-fi elements Such as advanced…
DVNO
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24
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7 answers

Character is an expert on something I'm not

My OC Edward, who I thought of quite a while ago but haven't done anything with, is a professional cyber spy and hacker. He's employed by an organization (in the future, of course) that is basically trying to curate all the data in the world,…
user34214
24
votes
6 answers

Explaining made up card game

In my book I've made up a card game where I've already thought out the rules. Now I want some of the characters playing this game. My questions are: Should the reader know the rules? If I want to explain these rules, where is better to do so,…
programmer23
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24
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5 answers

I feel suddenly disconnected from my writing. Time for a break?

I’ve been working on a first draft of a project since January and have been steadily working on it for hours a day every day since then. Basically spending all of my free time on the project. Now for the past week I’ve felt a sudden disconnect from…
JennyDee
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