Questions tagged [planning]
Questions about planning your work: how much, how far, or whether to.
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professional email help
I'm a new writer dealing with a publishing house. It's been a couple of months since we last exchanged an email about edits. I'm thinking that we are towards the end period and getting ready for a ...
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The Dread of Planning a Timeline
I'm working on the second draft of a novel series, and I already have 800 pages written. After re-evaluating the characters and most of their arcs, I've started planning a timeline for each book in ...
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How can I make a character death that's relevant to my book and hits really hard?
I'm writing a stand-alone fantasy novel about a bunch of kings. The protagonist is a girl I am basing off of a female king from Sweden in the 1600s. I am planning on killing off one of the other kings,...
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How do I write a major character from scratch?
I've designed loads of characters, most remaining in my head, some being written down on paper and others even having the honor of being in a book/short story. I'd like to pride myself by saying I'm ...
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How do I turn my Imagined-Daydream-Fantasy-Book into an Actual Book
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I love writing and I love reading. I also love coming up with all sorts of books/films in my head so that if I'm bored in real life, I can just dive into my imaginary book/films to entertain ...
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Fictional settings & fictional towns - how to be realistic with geography for a realistic setting?
I've been writing a short story - and the setting is semi-important to it, it's not just a backdrop.
It's historical fiction of a sort - the 2000s is the era it's set in. Would this qualify as a ...
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Is it morally right to base a novel on a tragic historical event?
I'm writing a historical fiction based on a historical tragedy where many people died. It's a very specific setting and situation, but I'm not using the names of any of the real people involved in the ...
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In a superhero story, is it better to make all the superpowers come from one source or multiple sources?
In my world I had a idea for four power sources for superhumans. The four power sources were mutations, magic, technology, and skills. Mutations are genetic based superpowers. Magic users get their ...
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What do I do when I have a novel already in the planning stage and get a new plot idea?
I have been planning a murder mystery novel for a couple months and just need to get a few more specific details planned and then I’m ready to write.
But I was laying in bed one night just scrolling ...
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How to fill Major Gaps in a Plot
As stated in previous questions, I am still in the Skeleton Stage of planning. I have a fairly developed first few chapter as well as a few key scenes much further along in the book (not that I'm ...
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What are examples of overused tropes in dystopian fiction?
I'm writing a Dystopian Novel and am in the initial plot-planning stage. I'm trying to ensure that I avoid the major tropes and have researched examples of this, however the examples I have found were ...
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Is the reasoning for lack of communication with the outside world too contrived?
I am planning to write a story about people working with this organization are shrunken and sent to make 'first' contact with a civilization of cockroaches. Things go sideways at 200 MPH though as it ...
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Is my story too much like Harry Potter?
Is my story too much like Harry Potter?
My story is set in a magical world hidden within our own, and it has many magical version of things we do.
It has wands but I have decided to change it and ...
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Advice for planning long comic book arcs and subplots?
It's common in traditional superhero comics for there to be a number percolating subplots, that may be developed over one or several years' time. For example, a standard issue may have about 20 pages ...
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How do you plan for a story with multiple overlapping arcs?
How do you plan for a story with multiple overlapping arcs? In One Piece, you have one big story arc, and then multiple arcs within it (2 layers), but I am wondering if it's possible to have a story ...
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How do you properly plan for a very long story?
How do you properly plan for a very long story? I was thinking about One Piece and the fact it's still ongoing, and I am wondering how the author was able to plan for such a long story. Writing a ...
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How do I save my story?
I've written a dystopian story ~3000 words long. The story stemmed from a dream after having a dystopian unit and reading The Giver by Lois Lowry. When I started writing, it just seemed to flow, it ...
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Writing About A Personal Experience, Without Any
I don't want to get into the details of everything for the sake of time. An upcoming personal essay requires me to talk about how I feel about nature and how I feel as if it has defined me. This would ...
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How to advance a plot whose conflict is the social quirks of the unbalanced protagonist?
I am a beginning creative writer seeking advice.
I am not asking for people to write my story for me; I have a story idea where the conflict revolves around the unbalanced protagonist's social ...
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How can you write an "unambitious" story?
All of my attempts at writing devolve into overthinking plot, characters, and motivations, and the result is always burnout. I've yet to go deeper than a handful of chapters into a book.
Perhaps "...
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Story Planning Software
Because of the size of the task, I find it hard to start planning a story. I think that software for planning stories would help me, but I couldn't find any free software for this purpose. I need one ...
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How to properly make a character hateable?
My story is an epic fantasy that, while it satires and mocks tropes, also still has consistent characters and worldbuilding. In the story, there is a group of minor-antagonists who compete with the ...
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How do you make a super villain's plan smart enough to outwit genuinely intelligent heroes but still have the heroes win?
Even if they are not super-geniuses, many villains are portrayed as cunning, charismatic, and manipulative, staying three steps ahead of the heroes at every turn.
But creating a good villain plan is ...
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What do I need to keep in mind when writing a "pilot" episode for a series?
I've been working on a series. However, the series is very long and incomplete, so it's difficult to get feedback on it from others.
So I’ve been considering writing a “pilot” episode. A short story ...
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What are ways to get plot ideas or plot in general?
I keep scrapping the plots I have, as I deemed them to be uninteresting or complicated. At first I just have some characters for fun, then I learned the importance of characters in a plot.
I only have ...
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Are filler chapters/episodes unnecessary?
I was considering the use of filler chapters in my story, to flesh out the character's problems and daily life. These don't necessary progress the plot, but they do help the characters' relationships ...
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What should I do when I keep thinking that a concept of a character is boring?
The thing I usually focus on in my story are the characters. They are the ones I can do, but at the same time not. I had a concept of a character but I sometimes think that they are too generic. ...
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Cleaning up a crime scene and its evidence
If a crime scene is cleaned up well, what possible evidence would still be found if they managed somehow to clean up the blood, discard the murder weapon, and hide the body?
Is it possible for a ...
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How do I decide my characters' relationships?
When I want to make character relationships, I include the theme of family/siblings, be it in a good or bad relationship. I want to use it to help deepen the characters and the plot.
I have trouble ...
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How do I make and decide whether a story should be a sequel or prequel?
I have lots of inspirations that I can make into stories, but I face this one question a lot: Should it be a prequel or sequel? Here's the thing: I'm an amateur writer, but I do have lots of potential ...
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Avoiding tedium and trivialisation from repeated events
I'm writing a sci-fi novel set on Earth in the recent past. In the novel, an alien giant robot destroys numerous cities in North America.
The first such occurrence, New York City, receives a lot of ...
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What should I do if I have similar concepts for characters but different roles?
In one of my previous questions, I asked about how to get solid concepts. This one is similar but I'm asking what to do if I have two characters with similar concepts but whose differences make it ...
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When do you have to kill a character?
We all know that a character dying is very common in the world of fiction. I'm struggling to find reasons to kill a character. One reason I know of is killing a character, when their whole potential ...
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How can I make my story's worldbuilding magical but not too far from realistic?
I was trying to do the world building first since I have lots of decisions that I can't make when I'm creating a character. I'm not sure whether to make it all magical or realistic. I want both.
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How am I supposed to use bad luck as a disadvantage?
So when I was thinking of a character, I tried my best to not make them a Mary Sue. We all know Mary Sue is the number one horrible character. As such I came up with ideas of characters that I can ...
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How do you get solid concepts and stop scrapping ideas?
As a young writer, I usually write when I have the time; after I finish my homework or school. I find it difficult to get a solid idea. For starters, the first thing you need for a story is concept or ...
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How do you decide to include a character if you have other characters similar to them? Or when they feel not complete or appropriate for the story?
I had an idea for 2 siblings, an older brother and a younger sibling. The older one is a somewhat arrogant man, but loves his younger sibling. The younger sibling has a puppet that talks to them or ...
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How to plan for splitting a novel into a series?
I have been working on a first draft of a theological science fiction novel. I am about 1/4 of the way done. I have an idea for how it is supposed to end, plus much insight into the middle point (...
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How far is too far with escalating sexual content?
I am writing about a main character who begins the story as a virgin, and over the course of the story escalates her sexual behavior from 1 on 1 heterosexual sex to prostitution and then to what might ...
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Writer's Block Over a New Draft
A while back, I finished my first draft and decided to make huge changes in the protagonist. I went back to replanning the entire story I have been familiar with for two years.
How I plan the plot ...
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Is it a good idea to make the actions of my antagonist reasonable?
I'm a good way through writing my fantasy story, and up until now, my antagonist has been portrayed as being a megalomaniac, and my protagonist (and myself) have believed this to be true.
However, I ...
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How do writers in spy fiction overcome problems by naming countries accused of heinous crimes?
I am thinking of writing a spy thriller, and I am in the process of forming an outline. The plot in my mind involves 3-4 countries and would involve accusing some countries of heinous crimes, as an ...
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Software to track multiple protagonists, bios, and timelines
This will probably be hard to explain so I'll list off what I'm looking for.
Software that allows me to have more than one main protagonist. My story has five main characters and the POV switches ...
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How to decide how far my antagonist is willing to go?
in my short story the antagonist is someone confident and street-smart who is hiding their gambling addiction from a friend staying with them, as they are looking to take advantage of their friend (...
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Mapping relationships between topics in a non-fiction series
I am working on a series of episodes that will be made into individual videos to explain different technologies and how they interrelate at different levels within a specific application domain (the ...
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Visual collaborative platform to plan a book
I have searched and found some tools for writing, but I need a platform to be able to plan a book - can anyone point me in the right direction? This is for a group of people who want to plan and ...
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Can a work of prose have multiple purposes?
In school and from books, I was taught that every prose composition must be planned before it is written and that the first step of planning a composition is to define for it a single purpose, whether ...
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Help! I have a strong concept, but a million decisions to make! How do I finish my first draft?
During the lockdown, I wrote 60,000 words of my children's fiction book. It wasn't a consistent process and as such, it has many inconsistencies and obsolete scenes.
At the moment, the draft looks ...
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Aside from military, how do I write strategy in seemingly ordinary settings (something going on beneath the surface)?
The question says it all, but the only results I'm getting are battlefield scenarios that wouldn't translate well into the themes of my own story--which is more about escape, scheming, tactics, ...
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Developing Voice for a Third Person Narrator and Multiple Characters
I'm currently working on what I hope to be a near final draft of my first ever novel. Something I've struggled with through this writing process is developing a voice for my narrator as well as my ...
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