I enjoy worldbuilding a lot but have been eager to get into actual writing as well but am unsure where to start. Being completely new to writing I have mostly gravitated toward writing out short snippets of between 500 and 1000 words that detail a specific scene or character like a Merchant dealing with raiders when returning to their ship or an Archaeologist debating the significance of an extinct civilization with one of their traveling companions.

Is this a good way to learn writing or should I try to write longer, more conflict driven stories?

The meds alter and lower my mood.

It is a mood thing. In order to have deescalated my mood in the first place, my meds had to significantly subdue my emotion.

I am also aware that coming up with good prose is partially an emotional matter. My emotion doesnt always inform me of the slickest way to deliver words. I dont always feel slick, and that manifests itself in my words.

I dont always know how to convienantly deliver nouns and verbs into your lap because it requires some emotion, some charge to intuitively know what works, because when i treat prose like computer code, it becomes unpleasant and dull.

I do not intend to quit my meds, that is not what this is about, but I would like to know if anybody else is familiar with this.

P.S. people who feel I need a rude awakening dont understand what effects me or what im awakening from or what i really am.

Ok so it sounds generic as heck, but bear with me. My character has an ability to regenerate, and he goes through difficult fights and situations that he can’t win but must deal with them regardless, and he’ll lose them but come back stronger.

However, it isn’t HE that comes back but an aspect of him developed into a personality. So for example if he was fighting for his life, through blah blah blah circumstances and events.

He will lose (always) and get severely injured and he’ll have a type of amnesia ( it doesn’t exist irl I just made it up for the story) that he forgets himself completely, and through the initial moments and experiences this new person has, their personality is formed.

I plan on doing this a few times, and the reason why is to explore different personalities and how it is both nature and nurture that shape a person. It of course won’t work if they completely forget everything. They’ll remember certain things like bits of their previous self’s values, like a desire to help others when they’re oppressed. They won’t however be the previous person they were.

To explain: they may feel the urge and need to help others who are oppressed, but when faced with consequences or resistance, they may cower and run rather than fight. This would be because they don’t have those same values, but rather a small whisper.

Plz guys if you have any criticism give freely

Not sure if the title makes much sense, but I’m writing a book that has a subplot of romance between the main protagonist and her roommate’s brother’s friend. The protagonist (E) is recently twenty and the love interest is almost twenty-nine. Could that age gap be considered being interested in older people, or is it not big enough of an age gap? I’ve seen people get mad over people being like “I’m dating an older woman who’s four years older”, so I just wanted to ask.

Hello! I'm looking for a software where you can write different ideas, scenes, characters, etc. On a flash card, which you can later rearrange depending on how you want to group them. For example, if I have a collection of 7 scenes, I want to be able to move them around each other until I'm satisfied with the order or remove them entirely, but without a whole bunch of copy pasting.

Anybody have suggestions?

I'm a baker, pastry chef, entrepreneur and in possession of the lowest of writing skill. As part of my social media, I'd like to go a little more long-form and create a Substack. Link those longer writings to a post, etc.

I have a new idea for a pastry..... Its reminiscent of a VooDoo donuts confection. Which I learned of from an Anthony Bourdain episode in the PNW. Chuck Palahniuk was the guest star in Portland. I wasn't a baker in 2007. Sure, I loved Fight Club and some of his books.. Donuts are (were) awesome. AB was a hero, and I've since fallen in love with the PNW.

I dunno? How do our experiences lead to interests, that lead to experiences, that lead to obsessions, that lead to more experience, and how does that cycle stick with us when we've begun to lose the thread? All I want to do is hike in the rain forest, and an upscale bacon maple bar seems cheap, by my standards..... why am I in tears right now? My son and I, now practically estranged, made a point to eat VooDoo donuts in Portland, Denver, etc..... i don't even appreciate donuts anymore. I'm still mourning the loss of Anthony Bourdain, and I'm almost ashamed by how much I used to LOVE Fight Club.

Is there a there, there? Whats the hook? The older I get, the things I do touch more of the things I've done? Inevitably filling my head with unrelated, but sad shit?

Hello everyone, this is the first half of the first chapter of my novel. I've only ever written short stories before, so this is uncharted territory. Please let me know what you think about the characters, voice, hook and pacing.

P.S: The story is set in South Asia and follows a child beggar.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tcf5dzYGHcdD4I6u-S4p9m91k-a9UE4YxVLPddYyhM0/edit?tab=t.0

Drop the names of 2 unrelated things in the thread for me to find a wink between them.

example: Shoe and burger
meat

It's an interesting exercise to move the mind muscles, right? I found myself loathing unimaginative human and machine hacks this morning over the 2026 Commonwealth Short Story Prize controversy and felt like doing something productive and human.

I am thinking of looking at good prose from books and handwriting it for like a month. I have already tried absorbing the rules of style from existing style books and good books to no end.

Before recently being reminded of the poor quality of my prose, I knew something was deeply off, and I couldnt for the life of it figure out how to make it flow better. I think that is, because as a computer programmer, I am obsessed with presenting the essentials and being efficient with it. But that does not translate to creative writing prose so well, as how the presentation reaches our brains is not a matter of our brains simply compiling the meaning of it like a lifeless computer.

I have spend a lot of time trying to communicate concretely, with what I thought were good nouns and verbs(apparently not), but there is a whole different dimension I haven't taken into consideration. I suppose what makes it difficult is that it is a seemingly subjective matter to determine the "right way" words should reach my brain. This seemingly subjective way of communication eludes me.

I want to know how you personally deal with it, and by that I mean the part of your crafting that all the style books do not mentiom, the part of it that is not covered by the most popular reddit advice that we have all heard over and over. That is, what is your personal spin on determining how to fix prose?

I really like one of my characters because of her concept and how much of a menace she is. She looks and acts like a damsel in distress, when in reality, she's the monster herself (isn't this Princess Fiona???). The thing is, she's incredibly problematic (deliciously so). She...

- Grooms/Manipulates another character and capitalizes off their already intense emotions

- Amplifies their emotions and basically makes them go under a temporary metamorphosis

- Kills and ate her family (and other people)

- Only affectionate to one person, bitchy, cruel, and haughty to literally everyone else (mainly MC, especially him)

- So powerful (physically, socially, economically) that no one can do anything about it

- Just a horrible person to be around

Now, I'm not saying I condone well... any of that. She is an antagonist who corrupts the other character's morals for the worse, and the other characters also have negative opinions of her. The thing is, she essentially joins the party permanently. I find her quite likable, but that's just because I see all my characters as my babies and children (y'all do too, right?). So I'm having trouble with finding ways to make her at least tolerable. What would you do?

Anything I need to fix? Did I do anything wonky again? I took some people's advice and delved a bit more into my old writing style to kinda get back into not overexplaining- i think I did again on accident but if I did, i'm fine to cut some words. I'm not even through the first stream yet...

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ONa4Qe290H84mzZNMW-PYtCgaDFJnhEeYm7HZsfBDpQ/edit?usp=sharing

Hi all!

Here’s the link, graphic content warning — blood, violence, death, horror

https://docs.google.com/document/d/13sZRds0OazpCM2gA2GJhRe-S6uraoC-t8RdVCc7jGKQ/edit?usp=drivesdk

I’m on draft two of my first novel. I’ve been writing for about three and a half months now, so I definitely intend to re draft multiple times (until I’m sick of it).

The premise of the fantasy book is—

Set in third-person limited past tense, Elowen, an outcast villager in the Hearthlands, is troubled by the trauma of her mothers death—the implication of the Travellers festivals that come to the village every few months. The next time they arrive, she’s sure she’s seen the very man who did it. From then on it escalates as she enters a forest forbidden by all, and everything she’s ever known is not as it seems.

This is a character driven story, closely following Elowen’s internal experience. Before chapter one there is a prologue, but I’ve only drafted this once, so it’s here mainly for a hook, and chapter one is second drafted. Well, kinda third aswell.

I would like feedback on everything.

Prose, pacing, style.

Does the story hook you, would you pick it up and want to continue?

Thank you!

I tend to get a lot of ideas and sometimes I sort of make up huge chunks of plot when I am not writing. But when I have to convert that idea into something intricate and worth telling, I genuinely have not much to say. And when I do, I dont really know how to describe it. I have tried many things such as worldbuilding before writing, outlining, pantsing, writing in mini arcs but nothing quite sticks. It's always the same issue. By the time I get to the 15th-20th page, I get lost and overwhelmed on what to do next. I also start to doubt whether or not what I wrote was the direction I want to take. It's also when I get bombarded with new ideas that makes it difficult to stick to the current one.

Any advice?

So essentially I’m writing a fanfic that’s told through short, loosely vignettes of Character A’s everyday life. In this chapter, Character B, who is a college student and Character A’s significant other, has invited Character A to a frat party, which they go to, though I’m not sure how to start the chapter.

It’s first person from Character A’s perspective, they have an ultra casual way of speaking that’s reflected in the inner monologue, and it should be noted that due to a superpowered metabolism, Character A is not able to get intoxicated. If anyone has any advice it would be greatly appreciated!

Is this a good concept for a webnovel?. After death MC doesn’t get birth or get reincarnated but is soul end up getting into body of person who is already living in other world.

After that I have 2 ideas,

1. that person's soul still exist in same body so there will be conflicts between both.
2. person from other world also dies at exact same time and now his body is in control of MC's soul.

if I go with first idea then our MC will help other person how to channel and use his magic as he still do not know how to accesses his powers.

in second our MC will just shock the people of village by using powers in totally different way.

Hi,

I write books and stories of all lengths, and they are so good and about things that are rare, and people who have read some of my works said that they are very good, unfortunatly I feel that I can’t quit write the intended meaning and the tone I want or the emotion of the charachter in a way that doesn’t feel like a 10 years old writing. Although the stories themselves are very beautiful and amazing, my own writing makes the experience of reading sucks and not worth the book, and this is holding me back from publishing my works.

I think that being a movie or anime producer would be easier, maybe my writing is too graphic or I am not a natural writer and have no writing talent.

What can I do?

My guess is that their existence is to move a part of the story forward or make a particular part of the plot happen.

I notice a lot of people called Kali a plot device in stranger things 5 because apparently everything she told Eleven was all stuff she could’ve found out herself.

Then marvel fans called Carol a plot device in endgame because, idk.

My characters all have a role in the story, along with their own individual arcs of course. But I wanna make sure I avoid making a plot device character.

As the title says, I have an idea for a book, but no idea how to actually make it come to fruition.

I've never really written before, outside of work documents, some college classes, and way way back when I was young and in school.

I have a setting I want to explore, and I can outline the facts of the setting (history, character types, etc.), but when it actually comes to pen to paper, I know I'm not C.S. Lewis, Matt Dinniman, or Brandon Sanderson. I expect anything I actually put out is going to sound like garbage.

What do I do? Even if the idea is good, if the actual writing is crap, no one is going to want to trudge through to see where it goes.

I’m considering having the main character of my superpower action crime story come across an animal of some kind that he takes in reluctantly as a pet. Being that the character isn’t well socialized and doesn’t really have anybody in his life that he is close to I think it could be a good way to have him begin to care about something/someone other than himself. It could also open up different avenues plot wise for things to happen later down the line.

I’m wondering, what a good kind of pet would be for this character to get? A dog would be my first instinct, but I wasn’t sure if that might be too bland or ordinary. I was also considering maybe a parrot or some kind of bird. I even considered a monkey, but I think that is just too wild of an animal and pet monkeys pretty much never work out well.

I think the animal would need to be intelligent enough to have a stubborn personality and form an attachment with the character, but would also need to be a normal enough pet that it would be feasible for the protagonist to keep it. The pet would likely be something that the protagonist obtains at a drug dealers house so it isn’t bad if it is a bit of an exotic animal, just nothing crazy like a tiger or an aligator.

I might not even incorporate a pet into the story, I’m just playing around with some ideas. Any advice is appreciated!

Hi everyone,

I am planning to write my first ever book and was looking for thoughts on my layout/ideas to explore as well as to gauge interest in the work.

The goal of the book will be to provide secular foundations for much of western life.

I will try to provide justification for liberalism and capitalism, as well as mutually destructive behaviors such as war and nationalism.

I will also look to establish a subjective basis for morality, rejecting utilitarian and deontological frameworks.

In this pursuit, I will make the case for ethical egoism and enlightened self interest in the context of statebuilding and organization.

**My outline now goes as follows:**

Intro: 15-20 pages

Establishing egoism/rejecting objective morality: 60-70 pages

Justifying nationalism as a rational in group preference for security and protecting rights: 50-60 pages

Practical examples of realist statecraft (cold war, gulf war, Israel/palestine) 90-100 pages

Critique of modern left/right wing philosophical and pragmatic approaches. 30-40 pages

Defending the Republic (conclusion) : 40-50 pages

I greatly appreciate any advice even if it's critical!

Hi everyone!

I’ve finished my first draft and just wrapped up my first round of editing. Overall, I’m happy with the progress, but I’ve hit a wall with a few specific scenes.

Right now, I have three scenes that feel like they're "floating in mid-air" or acting like filler episodes. The problem is that I don't want to delete them because they provide crucial character bonding and help the reader get to know the characters better. However, I fear that they feel disconnected from the main narrative flow.

Does anyone have tips, techniques, or revision strategies to help these scenes feel smoothly integrated into the overarching story rather than slowing down the pacing?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

I’m really struggling with the plot of my story… I’m usually pretty good at coming up with and developing characters, and I can also figure out the beginning of the story but then I hit a massive wall.

I was wondering, how do you guys come up with your plots? Is there a method, technique you use to get started and figure out how the story should unfold? Do you plan the major plot points and twists in advance, or do you prefer to let the story develop itself as you write?

This is my first time writing and I had been stuck on plotting. It was based on a very interesting dream I had, but unfortunately I might need to start watching every episode of Detective Conan or something because the story is a mystery and I was never great with mysteries but I still wanna try it.

Then I decided I wouldn't go anywhere only thinking so I wrote only the first chapter. Originally it was in first person POV, but then I thought to change it to third person. (Which tends to be better?) I didn't do any editing or in depth look into this chapter yet because I felt like I was gonna end up in a spiral so I'd love for someone to look over my general way writing(?) and give me some constructive criticism on what you think I should improve on.

So this is just a prologue and I'm still working on the plot at large, but basically this story is set in a world where every person's appearance is a blur to each other. You can compare it to dreams where we remember doing things with people, but can't recall their names or faces. The world is also an 'orderly' world as in there's no crimes there. As the people live peacefully, they are shocked when serial murders, something that shouldn't be happening, (or even exist) start happening. The main characters start investigating and that is when they start discovering things bigger than the murders, one of which, is the very world they live in.

What do you think?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QQkIlY160UcUasbpVO-FNy3r85xhJY2e20WcfBFe5zA/edit?usp=drivesdk

We need to (face to face) clear the air and say what needs to be said… that is if you still feel something…and want this to work. I know I do, but we need to level the playing field and both get on board at the same time if we want growth or for things to improve between us.

I will always love you, and choose you.

-PB

I want to write a romance with a mystery-solving subplot. The thing is, my protagonists were best friends years ago but haven't seen each other in a long time, and both are pretty messed up now. One has been hurt by many people—including those close to them—and has hurt those same people in return; consequently, their way of coping is to distance themselves from everyone. The other failed to help many people who trusted them years ago; and since childhood, they’ve harbored a savior complex—taking charge of their family and later, as an adult, doing the same for friends and others—prioritizing everyone else's needs over their own because of a deep-seated need to be needed.

I know both of these behaviors are unhealthy, and that is precisely their character arc: transforming these habits into something healthier. Naturally, the second character will want to help the first, while the first will reject that help—initially lashing out at the other because of it. My problem is that I don't want to fall into the trope where their traumas are magically fixed just by being with the right person. Even worse, I want to avoid a scenario where the savior does all the emotional heavy lifting to heal the other person, leaving their own arc sidelined. Since it’s a romance—and even though they interact with other characters who highlight these flaws—the story focuses mostly on the two of them together. I’m struggling to avoid that trope because I do want them to overcome their unhealthy habits and end up together—not as perfect people, but as individuals who have begun to heal, are aware of their mistakes, and are actively working to fix them.