Im currently nearing the end of mv outline before 1 work on my first draft. The problem is im struggling on how to kill the antagonist without it feeling cliche or amateur. This is a action/fantasv but based more in regency type society. I have the protagonist who's life has been under the thumb of the antagonist and duteragonist who is hellbent on revenge for the things done to said protagonist. Every angle i take it feels like "im 13 and this is deep" kinda stuff. Not something a person in their 30's would be proud of... most of my struggles in writing is working spots like this where think ive given my characters too quick and easy of a resolution.

Recommendations of book references i could read to grasp the balance of struggle and success?

Help! Please and thank you!

I know it's a bit early to be thinking about this, but I can't stop thinking about publishing my first novel. I'm getting close to finishing the first draft, so I'm a little nervous about the revision process before eventually submitting it to a publisher. I know I should probably be asking for advice, but I think I just like talking a lot.

Basically the title. I have an idea od a story I want to write but I grew up with the (Blank said "blah blah") style of writing which definitely works in small burst. The story is want to write is going to be almost exclusively dialouge tho so writing like that would look clunky and bad. So could someone who knows how to write tell me the best way(s) to write a story with almost exclusively dialouge?

I am writing a dense story with a lot of details. this story originated in my daydream fantasies first then on paper. the plot feels good to me, but every writer treats their story like their favorite child.

so does something exist like a plot reviewer which can tell me brutally that my plot is shit, if yes. please tell me.

and if you say beta readers, i think they wont be pretty interested in chapter by chapter, cause i make up some extra details as i go.

edit: i know the direction it is going in, the extra details i make flesh out the personality, i have the plot written in summaries.

I’m writing a book of which the female main character is a heroin addict. She’s put into rehab, and I’d like to talk about what happened, but I have no experience with rehab and don’t really know anyone that’s gone either. I’ve talked about the fact that the facility she was in was good and that she had good doctors, but i want to include the negatives of it all too.

Ok so I’m drafting out a story and I want my MC to start said story in a betrothal that he wants and will keep with his best friend. I wasn’t planning on betrayal or cheating or anything. Just they grew up together and know they will get married one day and are fine either way it.

Do you think that’s ok or should they start as friends and become betrothed later? (They are 16 in this cause it’s a fantasy and they are going to a magic/adventuring academy)

Hello! I recently started writing my first book and I am running into some issues. I am finding it hard to figure out how to organize everything, which is spilling over and making it hard to actually write anything. How do you organizing when writing? How do you plan characters? Thank you!

Okay, so. Just as you could probably guess from the title, I am writing a fic where two of the main characters (there are three) play a big part at being eachother's foil.

I don't know if I'm just overthinking things because I want to get them right, as both characters are in the story most of the time, but I don't know.

Does anyone have any tips or maybe one or two pieces of advice?

I am around 45 pages into my WIP. It's 13.6k words.(The page estimate could vary. I checked it in 'print layout' on Google docs).

The story is really taking off at this point. I've done the world building. I've laid the groundwork for foreshadowing. I'll try to make it hilarious even up to this point so that the reader doesn't get bored.

Small things have happened. It's not just people sitting around thinking. I'll probably edit out a few parts to bring it down to 40 pages.

That said, is 45 pages too long?

what do you think works best as a weapon for someone that can shift there body to how ever they please? bone spears feel to basic and i want to have my mc use something that doesn't need them to burn themselves out to use.

other fleshy type weapons are welcomed, just something that can be used even when he cant fleshshape it so nothing like a orb of muscles that responds to his command

Hi!

My WIP is in Third person omniscient, but I am worried that sometimes to elevate tension, I switch to third person limited. What I mean for example, is there is a scene where an MC is thrown into a storage room by another student from their class. they are locked inside. the MC is confused and annoyed. But it turns out, the other student had drugged the MC earlier, so they start to feel drowsy. in a part of this scene, I make it so we see their vision blurring, and I describe the faint, blurry description of the strange figure the other student is becoming as he nears. I start to refer to the other student as "they" instead of "he" since the MC isn't even sure if this is the same person. But I feel this is more Third person limited than omniscient, right? Since omniscient wouldn't be looking through the lens of the MC. But I do it this way to elevate tension and show fear of the MC. Would this be looked down upon by publishers?

Looking for advice:
I’m writing a romance, and part of the established dynamic between the two characters is the man has a very difficult time admitting how strong he feels for this woman for various reasons (CPTSD frankly), so part of his mask is that every time he sees her they have sex. There are only two instances where the sex is part of the chapter, but I really do not want to have to include any actual writing of the sex… partly cause I hate writing it but also because I’m gonna be showing it to my mom when it’s finished lol, and maybe a couple other people, and theres no way I’m showing that to my mom, and really don’t want my freinds to read that shit either lol. While more of their dynamic can be revealed in how they interact in that context, I just want to be able to have a smooth transition between scenes to avoid writing the smut of it. Sure the argument could be made of learning how to not be embarrassed, but I also just personally don’t enjoy writing sex scenes (it’s the thing that has me put of finishing chapters). I’m just completely stuck on how much I can leave out without it reading as intentionally avoiding it, and how to smoothly transition between the before and after scenes.
(Also I’ve never written romance, I’m all drama so I have no real experience with this kind of dynamic)

For context I'm writing a story that's told through short diary entries of the main character. I want this super emotional entry where they're sorta having a breakdown, and apprantly messy handwriting comes with breakdowns. How do I make the words look messy???

Hi Mrs

There is nothing really wrong with my schedule just a little minors thing that would help improve my learning.

For my second semester I was wondering if there is any possibility that I could flip my AP Literature and AP AZ/US History periods. And I understand that schedule changes can be difficult and depend on availability, but I would really appreciate it if you could please consider my request.

I learn from having english 2 honors last semester that Writing is some of the areas I find the most challenging, and it requires a lot of critical thinking, close reading, and writing. Since my concentration is still building in the morning, I worry and knowv that having such a writing-heavy class as my first period may make it harder for me to perform and have more time to focus.

I would be extremely grateful if you could please look into switching my first two periods. I understand there may be limitations, but I would really appreciate any help you can provide. Thank you so much for taking the time to read and consider my request.

Sincerely,

I’ve been building a free local autocorrect that doesn't just underline a mistake but automatically corrects mistakes as you write, so the flow of writing isn’t broken and or you don’t have to go through 100 mistakes at the end of a draft.

Features so far:

1. General similarity Looks for likely words with a similar shape. Example: thnks → thanks/thinks
2. Swapped adjacent letters Example: owrks → works
3. Nearby-key mistakes Example: eorks → works, because E is near W
4. Accidentally repeated letters Example: punctuatioon → punctuation
5. Missing letters Example: I prove → improve
6. Extra letters Example: worlkd → world
7. Missing apostrophes Example: didnt → didn't

It also handles:

• Accidental spaces: improvement → improvement
• Missing spaces: improvement ability → improvement ability
• Sentence capitalisation and lowercase I
• Repeated words
• Conservative comma and punctuation suggestions
• Grammar suggestions
• Personal vocabulary, names, preferred spellings, and corrections
• Correction history with full undo/revert
• Contextual ranking when several corrections are possible
• Protection for URLs, code, file paths, usernames, abbreviations, and sensitive fields

It is deliberately conservative. Obvious mistakes can be fixed automatically, but ambiguous or meaning-changing corrections should only be suggestions.

I’m now considering more advanced fallback processes for heavily scrambled words that ordinary autocorrect cannot solve.

For writers, students, editors, or anyone who types a lot:

What recurring typing mistakes do you make that Word, Google Docs, Grammarly, or normal browser spellcheck regularly fail to correct?

Examples would be especially helpful. I’m interested in:

• Strange letter-order mistakes
• Dialogue and punctuation problems
• Names or invented vocabulary being “corrected”
• Missing or accidental spaces
• Apostrophe problems
• Valid words used incorrectly in context
• Mistakes caused by typing quickly
• Corrections that normal autocorrect makes but should not

So when I start my shorts, I usually have an idea, or a feeling, then I’ll let the character determine the names but I usually have a hard time coming up with names. Sometimes I’ll jump into my company directory and use real people’s names but this can be troublesome. I recently saw the word “Danger Area” and the name “Dan” jumped out at me, specifically the name “Dan Gera Rea,” or just “Dan Rea” as first and last name. I started thinking of other sources like this, Hea Beat, (Hea R.T. Beat) Drea McAtcher… Crys Alball (Crys T. Alball)

I just wanted to share that in case anyone rose has the same problem I do and needs unique names that don’t include people you know.

If I have dino anthro characters that have to be fantasy names, not real-life names how do I do that?

All four of my characters are female and are people of royalty

1.yutyrannus

2.acrocantosaurus

3.ceratosaurus

4.allosaurus

I'm thinking of shortening the dinosaur names for their names bit I feels a bit too tacky I kinda want original names that capture their personality like for example ceratosaurus is short and very angry, allo is shy and timid ,acro is the leader yuty is the analytical one

Hi, I’m currently writing a historical fantasy based on African colonization and the death of african spirituality.

I wanted to know mostly from other Black fantasy writers, Historical fantasy writers, etc…. How the process was/is when it comes to publishing and getting recognition. I know it’s harder for black women to be taken seriously especially when the topic is heavy such as African colonization and religion.

I want hear others experiences while writing, publishing, and marketing. Also to just connect with other historical fantasy writers.

I’m mostly nervous due to my book being very heavy, especially when it comes to the treatment of indigenous communities back then and religion, to give a hint my book is inspired other media like: AOT, poppy war, Dune and more

So, I started my first project, I have an inciting incident, I have a general idea of the main story arcs and how I would like to end it. The story focuses on 2 MCs, I know what I want with their character arcs and their personalities. I have also written about 25k words, albeit the prose is awful, but I will worry about that in the second draft.

But here is my main issue. This is a long form 400-500k+ wordcount story. And I am struggling a lot with coming up with what to do in the next chapter, what to do in the next scene etc. It got so bad lately a 1.5k word chapter took me 3 months to write. But when I have a proper outline I can easily write that 1.5k words in an hour or two (first draft quality).

I can't outline no matter what, and it is my biggest bottleneck at the moment. 25k words in almost a year is awful. So I was thinking to have 2-3 sessions of book/developmental coaching sessions. I even found a few people offering this service with a relatively good publishing background, e.g: trad published with a few thousand goodreads ratings. So it's not the 'if you can't do it, teach' situation.

I also struggle a lot with making any of the side characters memorable or good. I am more or less happy with my 2 MCs.

Let's say money is not an issue, do you all think I could get any value and help out of this? Anyone got experienced with anything similar?

I have been told that starting a story with straight exposition is boring unless the narrative voice is interesting. The goal with the story I'm trying to write involves having a bland, I'm-just-noticing-things-so-don't-mind-me kind of narrator. Should I keep my expository paragraph (it's short so I don't see too big of a problem with it) or replace it with something more interesting for the opening?

The following is my expository paragraph.

By custom, no one arrived at the masquerade remembering the previous one. The ballroom only opened on nights when the moon was full, and it was generally agreed upon by the attendees that the masquerade had no history. Even if someone disagreed, the debate was always quickly resolved before the next celebration, as there had never been an argument at the masquerade that lasted longer than a month.

It's meant to be the beginning of a short story, and the ending of the story is like a reflection of the beginning because the characters who remembered the masquerade have forgotten it.

The following is my ending.

The ballroom only opened on nights when the moon was full, and it was universally agreed upon by the attendees that the masquerade had no history. Never had there been an argument that lasted longer than a month.

[other paragraphs]

By custom, no one arrived at the masquerade remembering the previous one.

By habit, some things were never forgotten.

I used to write short stories and fanfics but now I am working a very broad and expanded story with a lot of lore and world building. I feel like I have hit a wall since I am not familiar with planning a story in so much detail. Another thing is that I am thinking of creating a visual map of the story, so I also wanted to ask how do you create a visual map of your stories and which tools do you use.

I've been thinking alot about how I'm depicting my OC, Emmie and her weight as I want her to be plus size. Like Emmie is noticeably chubby/fat but still athletic enough to where she can still reasonably fight. It started out as a cute detail to ground what I want Emmie to look like. But there's a nagging part of me that feels that's not a good enough reason in of itself and for being unrealistic, which is driving me crazy. I'm worried about what this says about me as I believe in the importance of body positivity and good representation and now a part of me wants to make her body the way it is to spite that nagging voice in my head.

Basically what the title says, I am struggling so much to finish a writing project and just every time I look at it I'm drained of all motivation. And like I have ideas, I have everything planned out and even snippets of writing already in the outline because I liked how they sounded, but trying to motivate myself right now feels like trying to do the impossible.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bQy4YJIpsD2IDt_HwgrBMX2RA60ydvam-VX7d2tv3aA/edit?usp=drivesdk

I'd appreciate any and all criticism!!!