Writing Stack Exchange
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1500 questions
16
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6 answers

How do I balance immature levity and flaws and character growth?

I am working on a series where one of the intended primary draws is character drama and growth. I have an ensemble cast of five characters who more or less share the role of main character equally, though there is a clear viewpoint character. I am…
user2352714
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6 answers

How to get feedback about the quality of one's fictional writing from friends unbiased by the friendship?

It is a little strange to ask, but are there ways to get feedback from friends about the quality of fictional writing (whether they liked it, not more objective aspects like spelling/grammar/etc.) unbiased by the friendship that is likely to bias…
Daniel Wessel
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3 answers

How do you avoid the problem of a collaborative work having separate voices?

I've not done collaborative writing before, but I've read several works, and sometimes the text strikes me as having a split personality: some parts were clearly written by one author, while others were written by another. (Note: I would give…
Craig Sefton
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5 answers

How to refer to siblings who are friends?

Two of the MCs in the novel I'm working on are half-sisters, and also great friends. Currently, when referring to them, I alternate between using "sisters" and "friends". A Beta-Reader pointed out that it doesn't seem clear whether they are siblings…
Morkelpower
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4 answers

Confusing writing in order to show how character is falling asleep - is it OK?

Generally, writing something confusing is not good. On the other hand, a writer should show rather than tell. (Generally.) What I'm trying to do is imitate the way one's thoughts get all muddled while falling asleep. The settings: Character being…
Yehuda Shapira
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16
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7 answers

Subverting the emotional woman and stoic man trope

In my post-apocalyptic story, the split of male and female main/supporting characters is 50/50. The girls and women in the story, Eris, Marina, and Ezrith, display very little emotion--Eris represses her emotions so that they only come on rarely…
user34214
16
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9 answers

I feel like most of my characters are the same, what can I do?

If I think about the characters I came up with in my mind so far, I usually get a pretty big list: (Gyvaris (ENTJ), Martha (ENFJ), Adam (INTJ. It's hard to describe that you're constantly seeing dead people from the future), Anon (ISTP) Anon…
Mephistopheles
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7 answers

How to start a book off?

I have been working on my book (on and off...) for about 6 months. I have a good bit planned out with the plot, story line, and characters. I even have a small idea on how to start the story but somehow it never seems to be right.... So is there a…
Mina Presley
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6 answers

Should you avoid redundant information after dialogue?

Should we avoid repeating redundant information after a dialogue and is there a way around this? Sometimes, you feel prompted to write the description of an action that follows a line, but that also seems to be redundant, and it leads to some pretty…
user36239
16
votes
4 answers

What's it called when the bad guy gets eaten?

Is there a specific name for the plot device in which the story's "Big Bad" has a cunning plan to use some monstrous being to further their diabolical machinations. This may be something summoned from elsewhere, brought back from banishment after…
Ash
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How important is it for multiple POVs to run chronologically?

The way I am currently designing a story with three distinct POVs. An issue I am running into, however, is that one of these has much more to do in the first third than the other two while having less to do later. Because of this, I am considering…
Weckar E.
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What is the art of designing names?

If you read names from popular novels you feel like the names define characters. They fit perfectly to the personality of character. For an e.g. Harry Potter, Robert Langdon, Jason Bourne, etc. I have a character who is a professor of psychology, is…
The White Cloud
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Does every chapter have to "blow the reader away" so to speak?

I amended some of my chapters so that they're more intriguing and engaging for my readers. But there's one particular chapter in which one of my beta-readers stated, "It's intriguing, but it doesn't blow me away like the first two chapters did,"
Dawn Kelli
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5 answers

How to make a setting relevant?

One piece of feedback that I got on a story I wrote is that my settings feel irrelevant, or that the entire book could have been a phone call. I am not sure how to go about fixing this. The characters, for example, are in an office, or a restaurant,…
mprogrammer
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5 answers

How to write a vulnerable moment without it seeming cliche or mushy?

So, I have a kinda loudmouthed character who's always the first to fight and first to go on the offensive (This is a fantasy, so she fights a lot.) But, later in the story, she comes across someone she truly fears, and finds that she must fight that…
Kale Slade
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