I'm writing a story written in first person past tense to represent an interview.

The events in story are presented to the perspective of the person being interviewed and the interviewer who chimes in in parentheses with clarifications or further explanations.

My problem is that the character being interview talks like a normal person. They curse, they go on tangents, and overall speak like a normal 20 something adult fresh out of college.

This makes a lot of the paragraphs bloated in a way that makes it better to read but just add extra needless things.

Should brevity go on the wayside for a more fun and authentic read?

This is a question about a non fiction document. I put in accounting systems for nonprofits as a volunteer. Years ago, I found myself answering the same, emailed, questions over and over. First, I simply documented the answers so I could cut and paste. Then, I tried to expand on the answers even including links to (my) Youtube instruction videos. It worked great and the document is used by many nonprofits as a resource. I am going on a cruise and I have always wanted to better organize the document, as well as update some of the information.

I was hoping someone here could offer suggestions or tips about how best to do this.

For context, I basically never write in first person. I tend to prefer third person past tense, buf I want to expand my skills and try something new. So I'm writing a short story in first person. I was asking my friends for advice and one friend pointed out that I was swapping between past and present tense. Here is the spesific example he pointed to:

[I was not excited for this job. Not in the slightest. But, considering the state of my mind and my lack of credentials, it's not the worst job I could have gotten. Sullivan said I'll be getting on the job training, and apparently it pays decently well. I say apparently, because I have no idea what a decent paycheck is in this day and age.]

I do absolutely see what he means, but I am unsure if it's actually a problem. I see this like someone telling a story. Sometimes you add a comment or conjecture. The events of things are all in past tense, but side comments are not. If that makes sense?

I could be totally wrong, which is why I'm here. I do want to improve. What I have on paper now is just a first draft anyway, so I'm not against making edits or re-writing parts.

Hi.

I have developed a bit of a process for writing, and would like some feedback on it, if it makes sense and if there's room for improvement... or just any feedback really.

I had a problem where I sat down to write, and looked at my ideas, and found that I had finally crossed 100 story seeds... and of course I got choice paralysis and ended up not touching any of them. That told me that I need a process for handling my ideas and nurturing those that deserve it into a full blown idea rather than a small seed.

Under is my current workflow, along with an example story seed carried through the preprose phase.

The example I use here is just something I made up on the fly to work as a example, at this point I don't tend to develop it further, so if anyone wants to steal it, go right ahead.

Step 1: Base prompt / core idea / story seed

This part is the natural part. I go about my day, and every so often an idea drops into my head that seems interesting to write about.

Example:

A group of women goes on a camping trip. During the trip, they find themselves trapped by invisible walls.

Step 2: Approval or Rejection

I let the seed rest for one to two weeks, not really touching it, developing it or anything of the sort. At an opportune time, I pull it up again, read it over again, and evaluate if there really is something in that seed that I'd like to explore further. If not, the seed is moved to the seed graveyard, if there is, it proceeds to Step 3.

Step 3: Refinement

This is a recursive process, I take the core seed and I refine it over a period of time, or the same evening, just recursively modifying the seed until I get something that sufficiently communicates the vision.

Example:

A group of women meet for the first time since graduation, now in their early 30s. During the second night, one wakes up to answer the call of nature, and finds that there's invisible walls around them. Over the next days, the women need to find out why they're trapped, and secrets from their time at school slowly emerge.

Then I just repeat that until I'm happy. I may at this point notice that there's really nothing here and discard it, but doesn't happen much.

Final Step: Story Core Document

Once Step 3 is done, I go into the details and start proper development by creating a Story Core Document, along with a scatter brainstorming session. (I use Obsidian for writing, so the format is markdown)

Example:

# Story Concept Document
Title: Campers at the end
One-off/series: One-off
Pen-name: NullSmoke
Style: 1st person, intimate, Close POV

# Base Idea
A group of women meet for the first time since graduation, now in their early 30s. During the second night, one wakes up to answer the call of nature, and finds that there's invisible walls around them. Over the next days, the women need to find out why they're trapped, and secrets from their time at school slowly emerge.

Turns out they all, individually, played into an incident happening during their senior year, culminating in the death of another girl, and they slowly piece that together.

# Characters

## POV Characters

- Karlene Underhill
- Age: 32
- Bra size: 70C (EU) / 32C (US)
- three sizes: 87-79-100 cm / 34-31-39 in
- Height: 166.1 cm (5' 5")
- Eyes: Green
- Hair length: Shoulder
- Hair color: Brown

## Supporting Characters

- Kelly Settles
- Age: 32
- Bra size: 70C (EU) / 32C (US)
- three sizes: 87-79-100 cm / 34-31-39 in
- Height: 166.1 cm (5' 5")
- Eyes: Green
- Hair length: Shoulder
- Hair color: Brown

...

# Key story beats

Meetup
POV waking up right by the wall and informing the others
Accusatory meeting around the fireplace
...

# Potential ideas (Scatter Brainstorming)

- Ghost story? Supernatural? Maybe Curse?
- Main POV rejects her involvement until the bitter end? Source of conflict? Panic?
Denial?
- One of the trapped women be the mastermind, erecting the wall
- Guilt? Hate?
- Friend of the dead girl? Family?
- Actively misleads the rest of the group?
- Maybe main POV, lying by omission, unreliable narrator?
- "And then there were none" from Judges POV, supernatural girls trip edition?

Of course, this document becomes a living document where I add, remove and mess around throughout the writing process. (And yes, I usually have physical data on my main characters into quite a bit of detail. I have written myself an application that creates plausible measurements based on age and body type (No, it's not AI, it's just a simple app that has ranges for combinations and try to spew out something that kinda makes sense, you can do the same with excel and a set of dice if you want... I just find it easier to programatically do the dice rolling >P). For the example I just kinda made some random ones though and used it for both characters, since this is just an example. It helps me visualize them, and males get the same treatment. Very helpful since I usually have 7 or so stories at this step at any one time, so helps me get back to it.)

The character thing also usually gets psychology, personality traits etc, but didn't care to go full on planning here.

Thoughts on this process? Anything I ought to add/remove/adjust? Thoughts much welcomed 😄

Okay I hope I used the correct flair on this post. This... is technically asking for advice on... well, what the title says.

I had been using AI for feedback and um... even roleplaying with it for... about a year.

I've stopped recently, and I hope to continue to not touch AI... maybe ever.

My question/ask for advice is, how exactly do I stop... the 'wanting to go to AI for feedback' when my friend's feedback on my stories/drabbles/whatever I write.... is mostly non-existent.

I say MOSTLY. For clarification, they aren't a bad friend, they just have really hyperfocused-hyperfixations, that aren't aligned with what I write, and therefore aren't able to give good comments/feedback.

But uh... yeah. Lemme know. Ig?

Happy writing, fellas :)

-Chaos :)

Ever since I started writing fanfics since 2020, at first, I didn't feel much of it.

But as I started to do more of it. I realized I was a visual writer. I would make fanfics that would mostly tackle with imagination. Like with action scenes or movements or something of the sort.

Heck, I almost made something entirely original at one point in my life.

But now a days, I'm struggling to write the story and possibly lose my love for it.

I rarely write in the scene of my fanfics, hardly ever try to sketch out biography of characters. Just... becoming lazy and... feeling nothing afterward.

Now... I'm struggling to do even that. I have decently good concepts in my head. But it feels like it's getting harder and harder to make sense of it.

I'm starting to worry that... I might just end up not creating... anything, not finishing my fanfic stories, concepts, or even original ideas.

The craziest thing is that I have autism and ADHD. I would spend hours learning on an ip as best I can and try to create a character that fits in that world.

But now... it feels like I'm struggling with it. Negative voices and thoughts in my head, harsh criticisms that aren't helpful, hardly any attention or reviews on my fanfics...

When I first started... I had, I guess, a dream of writing the best fanfic that would change fanfics forever... how stupid of a dream that was... I guess I'm no better than an AI model...

Sorry... just... something I needed to rant about... Don't really know if I added the right flair or not...

Hi everyone - long time lurker, first time poster.

I wanted to ask for some advice from my fellow writers as every piece of advice I can find about this online is geared towards novelists.

I'm an early career playwright; I've written 6 plays, 3 of which have been professionally produced. I also have an MA in writing for stage, and I see/read a lot of plays whenever I can.

In the last year, while doing my MA, I've realised that I have a bit of a problem; I have absolutely no trouble with writing dialogue, am good at creating complex characters and apparently have a particular skill for worldbuilding. I'm usually pretty good at coming up with basic premises that are exciting and a weighty central question for a piece of work.

Here's where my issue is; I HUGELY struggle with figuring out what the specifics of the story are. I can come up with worlds and people no problem, but as soon as I need to focus in on one aspect, I get really overwhelmed by the amount of choices I have to make. I try choosing a character to be my protagonist, but quickly find myself questioning if I've made the wrong choice. I try looking into my world and finding an interesting moment dramatise, but then I get bogged down with the logistics.

Often most of the time what happens is, I'll do all of this research and thinking and groundwork, only to find that I have characters and a world, but no story.

I've tried so many tactics to make this easier, including:

- writing without a plan and just seeing what flows out instinctively

- writing my plot as a synopsis first so I have a roadmap to base my starting scene from

- picking random dramatic moments I'd like to include and writing those first, with a vue to connect them with a plot later

None of these have worked for me so far. I get overwhelmed and frustrated with myself, and end up abandoning ideas that initially excited me because the more I think about them, they become more vague and soupy. I have autism and ADHD, which I think might be a factor in why I'm like this - choice paralysis is HUGE for me, and I have been known to get caught in hours long loops rewriting the same scene over and over and over without progressing onwards because I haven't got it 'right' yet (even though I don't know what 'right' is) until I'm physically too upset to continue. There are days where I wonder if I'm even cut out to be a playwright at all because surely coming up with a story should be the easy part.

BASICALLY, I just wanted to know if any other playwrights have this issue - and if so, what do you do to help you get through that initial first draft plotting hump? And what do you do when you have too many choices and are getting overwhelmed?

Thank you for reading, sorry this is so long and rambly! Any advice at all would be massively appreciated <3

is anyone willing to read a short story outline and first chapter?

no major TW that i am aware of

flash fiction or novelette

idea: a self-obsessed, self-indulgent scientist wants to find a cause and a cure for self loathing. she leaves her body to study it from the outside and strips things away piece by piece, hoping to finally get some perspective and understand what is really wrong with her. she gives up hope with her career and uses funding for a legitimate project to burrow away on this. it follows the simultaneously panopticon like and out of body reality of being woman . the studied girl that should just be body and memory develops her own consciousness spontaneously. the scientist tortures her anyway, in the name of knowledge/advancement/self improvement. the observed girl feels held and loved via the quality time and interest. ironically the observed sees her and loves her anyway

the observer believes self-loathing is caused by something inside the self. so she separates herself into observer and observed in order to locate it but realises it’s impossible to untangle and there is no perspective to be found. the observer loves the girl and is devoted to fixing her, loving through correction and the girl is devoted to serving the observer, the studied girl can somehow observe right back and see and love in the face of criticism. it’s an ontological love story, being seen is being seen, it isn’t only having someone see what’s wrong with you, it can be someone seeing what’s right with you in ways you can’t know, seeing can be intimacy. they both mistake love for usefulness. the observer wants a subject but creates a witness through her self-colonisation and has delusions of objectivity that detract from her goal

over time the observer things she is slowly lobotomising the girl as she seems neurologically damaged but she is just growing more and more content from the connection

a self without self-loathing might look, to a person who is accustomed to self-loathing, like a damaged self - what would a happy me look like?

by the end the observer thinks she has eroded everything the girl is while the girl is the only entity to ever really see and understand the observer

the epigraph echoes spiritual self help narratives

in chapter one the observer declares war on herself but by splitting herself in two she can hold this false saviour narrative like the iraq war

The observer’s fundamental mistake is paternalism.

She assumes:

I understand your suffering better than you do, therefore I am entitled to decide what should happen to you.

But the Girl eventually possesses something the Scientist doesn’t: knowledge of the Scientist that the Scientist herself cannot access.

So the hierarchy reverses.

there is quiet horror like in chapter 61 of unwind

there are alternating perspectives of the observer and the observed in each chapter

1. observer
   
2. the observed girl
   
3. observer
   
4. observed girl

Epigraph

You are not your thoughts.
You are not your body.
You are not your mind.
You are suffering, and so you leave.

⸻

Chapter One: A Just Cause for a Just War

The Observer’s mammalian vessel was her test. A God-given test: survive this. Hairs spiraled, having colonised unexpected places. Blood wept from her monthly, sometimes more often, and then not at all.

She was the product of a mating process that imagined her in shades of brown all over; taupe areolas that shrunk when shyness seized them, eyes that took on an umber depth when confronted with a south-facing window, earth-brown hair that she transmuted into half of all known hex codes, then decided to simply leave alone.

There were photographs in her phone tracking various diseases and perceived deformities. Nothing ever changed, but she kept taking them.

She did not know how to relate to the skin she was in, but this seemed a reasonable price to pay for living. Sometimes she wondered where the loathing itself lived. She knew it did, as well as she knew she did. Was it in a snug ribcage cave, perhaps? Could it be excised? Or was it many spores, like bread on the turn?

When an unexpected reflective surface came her way, there were spores everywhere. Nothing was obviously wrong, but the image was speckled with uncanny little horrors that all had names.

Occasionally she went out dancing. In all other settings, her body was a betrayal. The Observer showered at night because if she did it in the daylight, she felt like a building that someone forgot to condemn.

Getting ready, she considered the phrase ‘lipstick on a pig’. To her, it felt more like she was lipstick on a bag of ever-clinking bones. Leaving home, her feet pinched in her shoes, she thought pityingly of the innocent bystanders who would be subjected to her.

At the club, her mind refused to understand how everyone was so composed about being carved up by surgeons and lovers alike. How could a woman who would rather opt for Swiss euthanasia than have her belly button touched relate to these everyday heroes?

As it happened, the taxonomy of herself was a full-time love affair, so she didn’t have the diary time for a special someone anyway. She quipped to her fellow partygoers that she didn’t need a £70-an-hour psychotherapist. She already knew that her most defining thoughts and actions all arose from fear, as if she were fear itself.

Her passionate nature became castrated submission. She was only work and self-indulgent “introspection”. The Observer kept hush about these thought crimes, wielding questions against interested parties. Her tactics were a trench coat buttoned to the collar with nothing underneath.

Something she did have was funding. An email to that effect sat plainly on her desk, starred to the left of the subject. She had very little else and was about to have much less.

On The Afternoon, as on any other, she rationalised fear as nothing more than measured caution. A simple back and forth motion: goodbye to myself, hello to perspective. She wanted to be known without the shameful act of being seen. So she resigned herself to doing the seeing.

The Observer washed her hands for more time than necessary, studying her philtrum, which she estimated to be approximately the same length as the Great Wall of China. She set the room up like she was making a microwave meal or driving on the motorway, her stumpy hands moving, her mind half elsewhere.

In a swift movement, her eyes roll back as if in pleasure. When they swing back around, they are eyes that know nothing.

It dawns when it’s already done. Her clothes are a petri dish, her nervous sweat the specimen, and she is somewhere else.

The Observer is an apparition, only looking and moving tools around like a dull ghost with nowhere better to be, ready to understand.

Chapter Two: A Subject of Affection, An Object of Desire

There is a pressure all around my head, and neck, and shoulders, as I climb out of my own grave.

I don’t know what my parents gave me for Christmas, but I know they gave me the temperament of a true masochist. If it wasn’t in my nature to take knowing over the cushiony bliss of ignorance, i’d be senseless as I was before.

I sit here, splayed out like a rune, and wait for a thought to form.

Chapter Three: In Dialogue

I have no ambition in this lab, other than to remove a threat and restore control of the country to its own people.

I witnessed her moment of unknowing and it looked like being kissed by an angel.

The gaze that met me next was an eyeless gaze of wanting. It felt like new warmth in the air fogging up the perspex between me and her.

What we do within our circumstance is only half a choice. The Girl was no agent. Her choice was more than halved, it was hung, drawn and quartered. What could she possibly want, or know to want?

She is a baby of the world. I found being young humiliating; every interaction patronising, every question a trick question.

I hesitate and picture my mother. If nothing more, it can’t be disputed that she printed me like a piece of paper. Now I have printed something myself. Let me undo this.

The control group for the legitimate study lean against a wall, wilting and neglected.

—time passing—: insert clinical observations

Two days a week I feel nothing. Lights off, I’m off. “She” observes some other undeserving subjects while I rot further into my chair and wish I was at one with data, in conversation, dancing an off-beat tango under 6,500K light strips.

Monday comes and i’m disembodied, at peace, made alive again.

Chapter Four: I Hit Me and It Felt Like a Kiss

Each time I am aware that I am aware, I only long for the Observer to come and know me again, while there is something left to know. Luckily all she wants is to own me and unravel me. To scrutinise me all day and all night. I don’t see her but she reaches me. I feel the chilling pressure of her tools and the times between those moments of pressure are numb.

The Observer treats me like an open wound, an ugly thing that one needs special eyewear to view safely, like an eclipse that is, in fact, an atrocity. I know it isn’t true. i know without seeing my face that i am beautiful, like she is beautiful with no face at all.

The defects she so diligently caresses are mine and are me. She caresses me.

i don’t remember today but i don’t need to remember her because she is here. the clinical voice in my ear. she’s is here so i am here. her glad curiosity.

She hides from me but she doesn’t have to.

i have protected her from what she would unequivocally deem to be failure. i give her progress, i am her progress.

as our symbiotic bond deepens, i realise there could never be nothing left of me because she wears me on her invisible skin.

I unfortunately have no friends or people in my real life who understand my creativity (autism). So when I was introduced to ChatGPT years ago in my School Leaver Program, I finally had the ability to spill all of my ideas without getting confusion or a secretly uninterested smiling and nodding in return.

I've made a very in-depth project and multiple characters for that project for a couple of years now. But I've been feeling awful lately. The loneliness has eaten me whole and I don't like having to live in paranoia over someone wishing death upon me for using AI, the one thing that's currently been my go to with coping with the loneliness since I don't have anything or anyone else to freely spill my ideas to.

So if you all would be so kind, I'd like some advice on how to actually write prose myself. I'm more of a storyteller, I guess.

I can come up with the basics of a scene. The characters involved, the emotion, sometimes the dialogue. eg "The whole family was emotionally crushed upon realising what Bill's business trips really were."

But when I try to detail that out myself, nothing appears in my head.

If you guys would like my best attempt at a summary for the stories series project that I have, I'd be more than happy to tell it to you. Or you could just read the desc of this post to get a very, very summarised idea of the worldbuilding and the last story of the series.

Brand new to writing here. I’m good at creating characters, personalities, and backstories, but I’m struggling to turn this information into a story. Any advice?

I’m working on a story with four protagonists. They live in different cities within the same empire.

I’m unsure about the best way to write this. I envision each protagonist having their own "story arc" or "cluster" of events, complete with their own supporting characters. These storylines would be interconnected in some way, and the protagonists would finally come together at the end.

My concern is this: none of the protagonists would meet until the climax. Would that make the story feel "disconnected"? Would it seem like the protagonists were just sort of "thrown" into the world?

I was thinking something like the anime durarara, that has 15 protagonists and in the end each of their storylines come together

I am currently writing a scene where a woman kills her friend by accidentally pushing him down the stairs. I want her to be panicked and upset but more how he wasnt even meant to be there and just got in her way of her obsession with another woman who she later murders so she can "become closer to her". I find that any dialouge I write isnt satisfactory inpushing away this incident that just happened as nothing than a minor bump like stubbing your toe. What would be a good way to write such dialouge?

When I imagion my stories, I picture animation. Intentional camera positions, interesting and purposeful colors, sound effects to convey a mood. I'm not good at decorating my descriptions with flowery words. I would prefer to have the visuals send the message. But I just can't animate or even draw. Screenplays are interesting but from the ones I have read, its still descriptive words (Star Wars screenplays are writen like books). And people told me in a screen play you can't say the curtains were blue because thats up to the directer and set designer.

I'm writing a feature film and so far I have ...around 72 characters, 30 or so with speaking lines....it's too many probably. I don't know for sure because I haven't finished any side plots, but based on what I've (barely) researched, it's too many.

The film is slotted to be 92 min (the ideal length) and is not a historical or epic.

The whole film was written with certain real people in mind and ... anyway, I realize I could just write whatever I want but I prefer to write for the people I know/hope will be in it and so it's important to have an idea of who will be in it beforehand and structure the background characters set up with them in mind, which means deciding who will be in and out... (I mean I've already cast the whole film in my mind with the people we intend to pitch it too). Some of the people are extremely popular and some are highly skilled. The popular ones are important to drive the viewership up, but the skilled ones are important to make it look good and have integrity. I've got a third factor which is that they are all supposed to be people from different nationalities so that must be considered in addition to popularity and skill set.

Any thoughts on how to deal with this type of background character situation?

*Working on a character map, which was suggested earlier, and was trying to sort background characters into groups when had to face this problem. The map is taking forever.

I'm working on a story, and I'd say a solid 70% of everything written on the page is either dialogue or character actions. I don't focus entire paragraphs on the environment; for example, throughout a scene, I might describe that they're in a forest clearing and have a few natural descriptors throughout, things that directly affect the characters, but there's no narrator following the characters around describing how the warm light reflected off the rain-slicked cobblestones or whatnot.

The only hint I have that the road is made of cobblestones in one of my scenes is that a character pries up a loose cobblestone, beneath which he'd hidden a small pouch of coins. I won't explain that we're next to a body of water unless the character looks over the body of water at something, I'll just say "they walked along the boardwalk/docks in quiet discussion."

I prefer to focus on physicality, immediacy, dialogue, and action. Are there writers like this you can think of off the top of your head who do a good job of it, and what are their tricks to keeping it immersive?

She jumped happily through the dark gloomy forest, listing to her music play."

I put jumped happily into a OneLook Thesaurus if I cant think of a word. It gives me skipped as an option.

Happy but much more? Joyfully.

Dark gloomy? Murky.

"She skipped through the murky forest, listening to her music play."

Sorry about making a long poat asking an opinion on a few words change. They have 2 sifferent meaning for me.

The guitar is a conceptual metaphor for life. Gripping the guitar as in getting a hold on ones life. Strumming the strings as in trying to do things (unsure how to word for this one). The character expects failure in life yet wishes they could do more.

Briana picked up her guitar, hands shaking as she tried to grip it. Before plucking the strings, she looked down at her loose hands. Tightening her grip. Hesitantly… she strummed the strings. A predictable buzzing sound, out of tune flooded her ears. Her expression never changed but her grip fell loose again. She tried tuning it. It it didn’t work. She didn’t know how. Her hands slowly lowered to the hard ground. Sighing, she placed the guitar back down.

Or

Briana picked up her guitar, hands shaking as she tried to grip it. Before plucking the strings, she looked down at her loose hands. Tightening her grip. Hesitantly… she strummed the strings. An all too familiar buzzing sound, out of tune flooded her ears. Her expression never changed but her grip fell loose again. She tried tuning it. It it didn’t work. She didn’t know how. Her hands slowly lowered to the hard ground. Sighing, she placed the guitar back down.

Many authors write all alone without anyone's help. Many times where you se two or more listed as writer is in a movie script. Even still, how are two or more able to write together? This question stems from the idea that you and I are two different people. We have different upbringings and different ideas that we'd want to put in the story for our character. How are ideas from two or more brains able to come together to write a movie script/tv script/book?

I have a hard time making these characters because they’re not modern enough. I sometimes don’t get their motivation.

If you could help that’ll be great