Questions tagged [narrative]
A narrative is an account of events. This tag should be used for anything related to story-telling, including elements and principles or structure.
13 questions from the last 365 days
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How to avoid wasting reader investment with a thematically disappointing ending?
I'm drafting a story around chasing dreams and facing the possibility of said dreams being a lie in the end. For this, I have a main character doggedly chasing a goal that's extremely hard to achieve ...
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Ramifications of having each chapter be a different 'episode' in a novel?
I was thinking about how readers would feel about reading an episodic story that instead of having a different story per book, having a different story per chapter. Not an anthology, but like same MCs,...
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Which option would best fit my episodic series?
So I have this base idea of this story about a vampiric, tentacled monster(s) that put people into a dreamworld/illusion/matrix called Reveries so they can feed on their blood. It also follows a man ...
- 325
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Portraying synesthesia in prose
How can an author effectively portray a character with synesthesia, where their sensory perceptions are intertwined, without confusing the reader or disrupting the narrative flow? What techniques and ...
- 253
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How to Write an Involuntary Secret Reveal
I am trying to have my character's secret discovered, they are currently in a hospital, and hiding injuries under their clothes, a couple of which have reopened. They are underaged so they are at ...
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How to plot a memoir?
I have a fair amount of material (incidents, characters, places) that would perhaps amount to a memoir or Bildungsroman. But readers, including myself, seem most attracted to narratives with a plot. ...
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Are there any theories as to what makes a story's premise good or compelling?
John Truby, in Anatomy of Story, says you shouldn't write a story that doesn't have an exciting premise.
But what makes a premise good, bad, boring, compelling, or exciting?
This is what Truby says ...
- 160
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How/when do you reveal a big secret to the reader using first person or third person viewpoint?
How and more importantly when do you reveal a major secret about the character?
My character is a mythical species, highly valuable for both intel and magical properties, however she is humanoid and ...
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How do you show the audience that the 3rd person limited narrator is deluded/wrong?
My character's home, both her family and society, are toxic, but in a way that she doesn't realise. They manipulate and essentially brainwash the inhabitants. It's not an evil place just a little ...
- 902
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How to make a fiction more visualizable by readers?
I was reading through Agatha Christie's novels and I found that she literally made me visualize everything in the plot.
How does she do that?
- 115
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I need help writing a scene or experience about air being knocked out of you
How would you write a scene of someone trying to breath again after getting the wind knocked out of them?
I am trying to describe the experience and how your body reacts physically while your brain ...
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How do I keep a villain's menace after they've suffered so many defeats?
I've noticed in many long-running stories that it's common to have a villain who's a genuine menace to the heroes become impossible to take seriously after they've gotten defeated or died so many ...
- 505
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Can I write a story based in a world without humans?
I have this world I'm building that I want to write a story on, but there's absolutely nothing human in the world.
It's entirely built around elemental creatures including the protagonist.
