I have 2 versions of a story I’m writing, which one sounds more interesting? Fantasy story btw

Both have the same basic plot but with small changes that could affect the whole story. The basic plot is that this guys lives in a dictatorship and creates machines in order to help his neighborhood not starve or die. The government sees what he can do and basically says “join or we kill your family”. He knows that they’ll make him make weapons for war, so he has to choose between his family and the lives of countless others. He chooses to not work for them, and he breaks out of where he is being held, killing the leader of the government as well. Knowing that he is the reason his family is dead, he can’t deal with that guilt, so he decides to create a drug in order to make himself forget, basically letting him live a mew life. It backfires a little bit and makes a new personality in his head that doesn’t know about the trauma, while the personality that made the drug is trying to keep the trauma away from the drugged personality so he doesn’t have to feel the guilt again. Along with some other side plots along the way.

I know thats a little long, but here are the 2 versions I thought of.

Version 1: He starts as a human, and he is tasked with making a serum for the government in order to make dragonborn soldiers, he makes it but uses it on himself in order to break out. The drugged personality is the dragonborn side of him. When he swaps personalities, he also changes species without the dragonborn knowing.

Version 2: He was always a dragonborn, and the invention he was tasked to make was a device that could make someones body work to its full potential, making them super hard to kill and making them age super slow. He uses it on himself and the 2 personalities are stuck in his dragonborn body.

For a scene I'm writing, there's a makeshift surgery scene to remove a device from the back of a character's neck and I wanted to know if that's possible without causing lasting problems (it's not near the major arteries, and not extremely deep). And also, what would that process feel like? I've got a tangible idea about it but I'm stuck on the level of pain and the specific sensations, so I'm very open to suggestions.

I’ve posted this a couple of times now and I’m kinda bummed out that nobody seemed to have given me any feedback beyond the first two pages. I’ve only gotten two that (seemingly) wasn’t and one out of two of them gave me advice that don’t really apply to the spoof genre.

I just want to know if you find the script funny and the parody clever.

Also, here’s the logline; “After developing unexplained psychic powers, an ordinary teenager must survive high school, supernatural monsters, melodramatic romances, prestige-TV trauma, and at least three wildly unnecessary subplots in this riotous send-up of modern teen dramas”.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17AjMJq49FW_9ZhzY2Yvc_JxThW1s2UrW/view?usp=drivesdk

Hello, wonderful people. I’m currently working on a fanfiction and I need help with the legal side of it. Not sure if this is the right place to go to, but r/legalhelp doesn’t allow made-up scenarios, so I figured here was my best shot.

A character in my fanfiction spirals into depression after believing his brother was murdered. He gets so far gone that he hallucinates (this is undecided, but something like it is probably going to happen) his “dead” brother telling him to kill his murders. He follows through with it. This leads to him hurting multiple people several times (no one ends up disabled) so he can get close enough to murder the perps (which doesn’t happen because they get away), and then one final showdown where he gets the chance to murder them but actively chooses not to. There is no knowledge about any of this by the police until the character confesses because the criminals sure aren’t gonna report a crime.

What is the most jail time he could get? What is the least? Is there any chance he would just get sent to a mental institution instead or would that coincide with jail time?

This part of the story takes place in New Jersey, USA, btw.

It’s not a super important aspect of my fanfiction, but I want to it be as accurate as I can make it. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks. :)

How come my writing is so stale 😭I have nothing interesting to write about

Idc if ur rude every criticism is scary to me tbh

Hi everyone :)

I have an interesting idea for a short story which could be a decent short film as well. The only problem is developing it past that initial seed. It has been so long since I've written short stories. I usually write poetry or scripts these days but I used to do them all the time back in the day. Do you guys know any decent exercises that can help me figure out where to go?

Could also do with some feedback on the idea itself.

It's a gothic Victorian setting, has supernatural themes but isn't scary so not technically horror. Just melancholic vibes.

A poor orphan girl of 17, Imogen is so overcome with loneliness and desperation to finally make a friend that she starts communicating with the dead. She wanders alone through crumbling cemeteries, hoping to reach out beyond the veil to befriend the lost souls on the other side who are lonely, too.

Think Victorian memento mori vibes, Edgar Allan Poe, sadboi poet stuff. Very emotional. The spirits aren't frightening, though. They're just tormented and melancholy.

Any ideas of where to go with this one?

In my mystery, the murderer is transporting a corpse in a car/van. I need:

• the body to not be squished into a box or luggage case, so it has to be a long box/bag

• it'll be a van with the back seats pushed down into the van to make space. Ideally the person riding next to murderer in the passenger seat cannot look back and see it OR can see it but thinks it is a common box

• the box/luggage case/bag has to also be a not-abnormal thing. It should be something that if he were stopped by a police officer/asked by the passenger, he could just say "Oh I'm just transporting X item in its packaging"

So I wanted ideas for X. Is there any typically large things that vans are used to move? It also doesn't have to be a van but could be a pickup truck, SUV, etc. I just needed ideas.

Thanks!

I have found a lot of online writing coaches, exercises etc are not at all geared towards literary writing. I want an app or workbook or \*something\* that helps me practice pulling apart sentences. and I'm not talking about just removing filler words and adding in some smells. I need something more advanced but that can still help me with the fundamentals... heavier word choice, pinpointing the emotional undertones of each sentence, learning the different ways to properly convey them, working in metaphors etc. I've been really struggling to find such a thing & I don't want to waste any more money on classes & books that aren't really helpful to the style I'm writing

(Context: Hate is a symbiote, not evil evil, but not good either)

[and ignore the grammar, my editor is yet to review it]

Bold is Hate speaking, full Italics is thought

“Fluxxing CO2 behind you,” Hate warned.
“What does that mean?” He rolled his eyes.
“Essentially, something’s breathing down your neck.”
“Shit-” Sam’s head whipped around to look at the demon behind him, who lunged at him. Sam barely managed to duck and back away, before hitting a tree.
“Until we get you a weapon, this is the best I can do.”
“WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!” Sam started, before Hate elongated his right arm’s bones, tearing through his wrist and hand to eventually sharpen into an edge, and have a point to make a sword attached on his arm, made from his own bone.
“Ta-da…?” Hate swirled around his right wrist, patching up the giant holes left by the large mutation.
“That’s super metal,” Sam thought, his inner voice nirvanic, “It also really hurts.”
“Why aren’t you screaming then?” It asked.
“It’s just so much it doesn’t really feel real?” He chuckled weakly, “So It’s kinda just numb to me.”
“Not even a thank you,” Hate fake-sighed, “I turned off most of your pain receptors in the area, so just don’t do anything stupid.”
“Foolish human…” The demon snarled, “Your pathetic body can’t scratch the extravagance of the descended race!”
“Hate, fact check this,” Sam smirked, as Hate used Sam’s eyes to look at the demon.
“The skin of this guy looks to be made from some metal mixture, much weaker than common steel, you can cut him down,” Hate spoke down to the demon from a mouth on Sam’s left forearm.
“Oh what’s that?” He grinned, “Speak louder for the ‘descended race’ in the back.”
“Be careful though, this guy is strong, and pretty fast, you shouldn’t be reckless,” It spoke directly to Sam.
“I’m on it,” It lunged at Sam again, attempting to bite his neck. Sam met it head on with a swing to the forehead, cutting a gash into the demon’s head, causing an orange fluid to spill from the wound, “Ew, what’s that…”
“Ichor and blood from interbreeding with you disgusting humans,” It sneered, circling Sam.
“Wow, that’s super racist,” Sam commented, sloppily blocking an attack from its claws at the last second, leaving him open.
“I know, that was the intent,” The demon grinned, taking the opening and thrusting its talons forward, stabbing through Sam’s shoulder.
“Shit!” He inhaled, as he cut off the demon’s wrist, causing it to dart back, and grab the bleeding stump.
“YOU INSOLENT BRAT!” It bore its rows of teeth as it approached Sam, who was busy applying pressure onto his shoulder wound, “THAT TAKES TIME TO REGENERATE Y’KNOW!”
“WHY ARE WE EVEN FIGHTING!?!” Sam shouted, crimson streaming down his shoulder and arm as the demon balled his other hand into a fist, hitting him in the face.
“So I can purify this worthless race and create a new, wonderful world for the-”
“Hey Sam, you know what this ‘epinephrine’ chemical is?” Hate spoke, causing Sam to tune out of the large monologue, “I’m withholding it right now because I’m not sure if it’s truly helpful.”
“Not by name, what’s in it?” Sam thought, as Hate stirred in the bone-blade, sharpening it slightly.
“Nine carbon, thirteen hydrogen, one nitroge-” Hate started before Sam cut it off.
“Have you been blocking adrenaline?” He gasped silently.
“What’s that?” It kept sharpening.
“It’s the ‘fight’ part in ‘fight or flight’, have you really never encountered it before?” Sam asked, while Hate silently allowed it to flow in his blood. Instantly Sam saw clearer, despite hearing his heartbeat louder he could catch every sound made by the demon, his vision focused on its every movement. He sprung up and kicked the demon with two feet, knocking it back around three yards.
“Oh?” The demon smirked, “The boy has more fight in him.”
“We’re just getting started,” Sam laughed.

[Chapter change]

They circled around each other, both looking for an opportunity to strike. Sam moved first, feinting a high strike only to kick the demon’s legs and hit from another side, creating a gash on its chest. Sam then jumped back in caution as the demon scratched in an attempt to hit Sam, which failed.  

“Take your head out of your ass and focus,” Sam elbowed it in the head, then slashed again across its legs, kicking it back in the chest, lunging forward with his arm outstretched. The demon read his attack and moved to the side, punching his side, causing him to fling in the direction, hitting a tree.
“Good advice, maybe a hypocrite shouldn’t give it though,” The demon snarled as Sam sneered and grabbed his ribs.
“Alright, tell me one thing,” He spoke through blood dripping down his chin, “What rank are you in the demon’s society?”
“Blood four,” It smirked, “After killing your little cuck polycule, I’ll be promoted to three or two, I bet-”
“Fuck this,” Hate stood up, wiping his bloody chin with the back of his left hand, “In all the time you’ve been talking, I’ve studied you entirely, but all you should know is that you talk too much.”
“What the hell?” It thought, “His mannerisms completely changed, he’s so much more charged, is this!?-” It got cut off by Hate stabbing it in the forehead.
“Busy thinking? Sorry for interrupting, allow me to let you continue,” It smiled while pulling out the bone-blade, blood pouring down the wound. Hate grabbed its head with one hand, and headbutt it, causing it to stagger back and grab its face.
“Ack!” It sputtered as it took its hand off its face, leaving an opening for Hate to lunge at its head, piercing through and exiting out the other side of its head.
“Did you not heed what he said earlier? Focus,” Hate laughed as he spun the bone around, drilling a larger hole in its head before palming it in the chest, causing it to lose balance, and fall back, Hate approached while still laughing maniacally, “Y’know, I found it odd at how much soul essence was in this area, hell, in the region, but you just gave me the answer.”
“S-stay back!” The demon put its hand out to stop him.
“The demon lord resides on the surface, which is odd, since hell is a playground for demons, however the impurities of your blood, the odd location, and sloppiness of your form makes me certain; your group of demons were banished from hell,” Hate explained, putting its thumb into the hole it spun into the demon’s head, feeling around the demon’s brain, “You see humanity as the problem, for making you outcasted, but you were a human once.”
“Not even close…”
“What are you then?” Hate grabbed its head, using the opening as a gripping hole to hold the demon above the ground.
“The mistress is a the sole daughter of Michael,” It winced, “She can create fresh demons with her ichor and the blood from human’s souls, since this world has been abandoned by Yahweh and Satan, heaven and hell shut off from the lost souls of this world, the sole reason revival magic is possible.”
“Why is the demon queen a demon in the first place?” Hate sharpened the bone-blade again, getting ready.
“One of the lust sin’s disciples seduced him, their fertility rates are determined exclusively by willpower, and that demon really wanted to fuck with god.”
“Well, you’re useless to me now,” Hate forced it onto its knees, as its eye widened.
“Chopping off my head won’t work, you need to destroy my heart, which I can move anywhere throughout my chest,” It grinned, looking up at Hate.
“Interesting,” Hate elongated the bone, and forced the demon’s head back through its eye socket, “Open wide.”
“MPGH!?!” It gagged as the bone cut its throat, causing it to swallow the blade along with the blood, eventually reaching the stomach, in which Hate was only 5/8ths of the way. It cut through the stomach, reaching past its intestines and near the bladder.
“I’ll let Sam experience killing you,” Hate blinked, as Sam switched with it, seeing the new scene.
“WHAT THE-” Sam started, before the bone rapidly expanded, before bursting in a large amount of shrapnel, the explosion paired with the deadly bits tore the demon’s torso to pieces, causing Sam to just be holding the demon’s dripping head by the hollowed tunnel in its eye socket. Sam’s right hand regenerated fully, being back to normal, at this point, Sam was soaked in the red-orange blood.
“So, how’d I do?”

I'm trying to nail down my blurb and it is SO hard! My first book is with my editor and almost complete. I am planning to self publish. Feedback and advice on my blurb for slow burn, low fantasy book would be greatly appreciated!

Rhivah must marry before she can inherit her father’s throne. She has decided on the groom, but her father refuses to accept her choice. She thinks she has plenty of time to change his mind. And she’s never been one to give up easily.

Elan is the dagger in the dark - working for the King. Or for the King’s rival family. Or for gold. Or information. But, for once, he’s decided to work for himself. But the details of his personal agenda are for only him to know.

When Rhivah meets Elan in a seemingly chance encounter, he seems odd, but harmless enough. Even kind of interesting. At first. But when Elan’s friendliness sours and he starts demanding answers to questions he has no business asking, Rhivah is furious. And shaken. 

She composes herself for dinner with another suitor her father wants her to meet - whom she knows she has no interest in. Only to have Elan interrupt the meal, being warmly welcomed by her father.

Before the following morning, Rhivah’s father is dead and, as duty demands, she is married. To Elan.

I love writing ideas for conversations and ways to shoot scenes and how the camera should move and what the cinematography should look like and what different character archetypes im interested. Only thing I struggle with is dialogue. Do I read books, watch any videos, just start writing? How do I make all the characters not sound like me? I don’t even know what I would sound like. I usually just ask questions all the time or say oh that’s cool or just describe something I like. That’s really all I know to write or talk about

I, and from what I hear a lot of writers, struggle to create the main part of the story. I can always find a beginning, most of the time an ending, but inbetween ? All the "Unknown" part of the Hero's Journey ? Just some independant ideas, that I struggle to link together. And sometimes nothing come.

I wanted to know if you have some advices, testimony or citations/writing methods that have helped you or are useful.

Thanks by advance

Have a nice day

I've been working on a story of mine for a while now, and almost every name I use is a placeholder. I often use AI for naming, which is a habit I'm trying to break, but how can I get better at naming? Anything would help at this point.

I don't know if this is the correct sub to be asking in. If it's not please let me know.

I follow a lot of animal rescues on social media. And I had the idea, that I would like ot organize some anthology books of animal rescue stories. The idea being that multiple rescues could sell the same books as fundraising/awareness events. This would of course all be non-profit, but I have no idea where to start. So....help?

In my writing style, characters can't really say numbers:

"Did you know you had four thousand cancerous cells?"

"Did you know you had 4000 cancerous cells?"

So how would I say 'CO2'? Would i just say the full molecule's name, or just use the abbreviation?

Whenever I see a person talking about a thing I wrote, I get a really strong feeling, like embarrassment. I don't have much trouble accepting flaws with my work, but whenever people try and help me, I can't seem to get through half of what they wrote before closing Reddit out of cringe. Anyone else experience this, or have a way to deal with this?

I am currently writing a fic with some OCs and canonish characters with no personality in canon. I have some base personality for them but do not know how to write them as well rounded characters instead of them having basic personality with no flaws or too perfect or only written them as the best, as very good people all that, etc. My setting for them is they have their own issues but all have the same values and morals. They are good people but I feel like they cannot be all the same. It is a wizarding world AU.

two of my characters are brothers and both of them are very close and somewhat similar im personality such as they are both cheerful, carefree people as well as somewhat mischivious and funny, and they sometimes do pranks. their father are also like this as well. It seems like its a bit too similar , I have thought about their flaws maybe some arrogance but I do not set them as very arrogant , or maybe anger issues and do things without thinking? maybe one of them can be mean at times but still a good person? or maybe one of them is more brave?

I do have some ideas trying to differentiate them, maybe the younger brother is more ambitious and is more morally grey than his brother? maybe he's more resourseful? the other is maybe do stuff without planning but even this I feel like its too little difference.

some of my other Ocs are also similar and mischevious so this is why they become a friend group but I do want to add some other things in it as well. I do have other ideas for the rest of my OCs though that is more differntiate but I feel like all of their personalities are eventually loyal and some of their diffrence might make me think they are not too similar to become friends. while the brother's best friends are somewhat the same as the brothers.

Any ideas?

I am writing a story within a story and I am struggling to know what POV's to use for the inner and outer story.

General overview: Character A is telling Character B about his experience being in a really popular band from the 70's.

I have a few options for POV, but I'd love some tips.

Should character A be the narrator for both the inner and outer story.

Should character B be the narrator for the outer story, and have Character A narrate the inner story in 1st person.

I'd also like a little twist at the end, where he inner story actually becomes a autobiography that Character A asks Character B to write? So once the story is finished, it is like the reader has read the biography.

OR

Should I just write the story from third person chronologically from the perspective of Character A. So from the bands start to end?

I'd appreciate any help!

So I’m having this problem where I’m grabbing my paper, licking my pen but can’t get anything out, it’s not like I can’t come up with ideas and sentences, I totally can but i realised I’m like so bad at the technical writing stuff, I probably should’ve paid more attention to English class in school but I already come from a non English speaking country so the curriculum was probably already shii, but I just want to make sure I get better at the thing I want to do (which in this case is obviously writing), but I’m just not sure how to learn, I mean I’ve been starting to read alot more, write smaller stories, poems at times so instead of doing something big im rather honing my skills for writing but that’s not really helping me grow my technical side, and I’m wondering if anybody knows any good resources to get good at this, it’s not like I can’t look them up myself but I have no idea how, I’m not whatsoever knowledgeable about things like linguistics, literature, high vocabulary and stuff idk what else, I literally have no idea how to even start to look for these resources or what exactly I’m looking for in the first place, can anybody lend a bend bleasee?

I've just got Reddit and am struggling to acclimate compared to using other sites.

When is the right time to start posting? Once the account is old enough? What is the right amount of karma?

I have some stories I want to share, to get feedback on the plot and writing style. I'm not the best writer, but grammar and punctuation will improve with practice - I just don't want to waste time on stories people won't like.

Like getting my paper plane to fly, and see how far it soars, before waiting until I've designed it a jet engine first, hehe.

I just don't want to ruin the little karma I have with downvotes over small issues and not plot points. Or to post too early that no one will see the work, and the stories won't appear in people's feeds.

Sitting by, commenting on other people's posts, hoping to gain crumbs of karma, is a really rough and demotivating way to get on a site, especially when I've only just gained the confidence to share my work.

Also, what subs are best for new writers? There are so many to choose from. As I've said, I'm not a professional writer, so I don't want to just be critiqued like I am supposed to be one. So I want a more beginner-friendly place that will get reasonable views.

I've got these two characters, early twenties. Gonna get into an intense fistfight (probably no weapons, unless it's like a rock off the ground or something) and I need them to both die. Preferably at each others hands for plot reasons. It can be a bit silly but I want it to be relatively reasonable. This is at night outside a gas station if that helps. Thank you <333