New answers tagged fiction
1
Depends on what you mean by the word "publish" but for these purposes, I'll assume as a book for the purposes of profit to yourself.
For your first question, Yes you can, so long as the Clans, Apprentices, and Warriors are not similar to the the ones featured in Warriors by Erin Hunter. Avoid similar names, similar customs, cultural values, and ...
1
The first one, I think so. If you're doing cats as well then you might have some trouble. You can definitely write, although publishing might be a problem.
For your Zootopia one, you have the same problem. If you're just taking the setting, then you can probably get away with it but get too close to the original and you get trouble.
But fear not! For the ...
-1
Its a little more nuanced than just saying its "wrong." Coyyright law recognizes fair use. Yes, the hook from "My Sweet Lord" was found to an infringe the song "He's so fine," but this does not mean you can't repeat certain lines of a song in a novel. Use in a novel can be considered both transformative and de minimus. And ...
1
Part One of Two: Protagonists and antagonists, heroes and villains.
There are two sets of terms for writers to remember in this context:
one) protagnists and antagonists.
and:
two) heroes and villains.
Almost every work of fiction involves at least one protagonist who the audience is intended by the writer to more or less identify with, who struggles ...
0
Absolutely! Many authors have already done it before. I think that writing your memoir as a novel makes it more engaging. Many authors have already done it before, such as the book "Educated by Tara Westover.
1
What you are writing is described as an autobiographical novel. There have been many, so they are indeed all right.
9
Here is the traditional view: The protagonist wants something (which may be to avoid a "bad thing"). The antagonist is whoever or whatever is standing in the way of the protagonist getting what they want. It could be a person (including internal weaknesses of the protagonist), it could be an organization ("the System"), or it could be ...
11
An "antagonist" is just someone who gets in the way of the protagonist reaching their goals. Someone can be an "antagonist" without also being a "villain". (And even villains often have some good qualities, or well-intentioned motives or logic behind their actions. The majority of "bad" people aren't just "evil ...
1
I was reading this question because I needed a way to describe, uh, boobs as well, and since I’m a really careful person, I did it in the most subtle way I could. Hope this helps you or anyone else looking for the answer—
Next to him, a girl teetered nervously on her toes, looking like she hadn’t eaten a proper meal in months, but her thin fingers were ...
1
You have correctly identified your issue: Your prologue has cannibalized your main story. A prologue should generally be brief, otherwise, your reader may grow invested in it to the point that they reject the switch to the main narrative. I've read books by very good authors where the extended prologue was great, but I barely even made it through the rest of ...
answered Nov 12 at 20:14
Chris Sunami supports Monica
51.4k4 gold badges76 silver badges180 bronze badges
0
So if there's 18000k words that's slightly under 2/5ths of a novel (50,000+ words). I'll say right now that by 1/5th in, I'm ususally getting into some meat and potatoes. (Hell, my novels are broken into short stories with the same principal characters and several events acting in a serial fashion from chapter to chapter. 10,000 words is easily decently ...
3
I know this is an old question, however there have been more recent replies so I figure it's not terrible of me to add one more on.
I'm not a published author yet, as I'm still working on my novel. But I'd like to contribute my opinion as an avid reader. I'm sick of seeing the hate for prologues. I love them, so long as they are gripping and add to the story ...
4
Think of it as a continuum. The more literal the description, the closer you bring the reader to the raw sensory data of the scene. The more metaphorical the description, the more deeply you are in the POV of the main character and/or the narrator.
People almost never experience the world directly --it would be too overwhelming and confusing. So we ...
answered Nov 11 at 14:59
Chris Sunami supports Monica
51.4k4 gold badges76 silver badges180 bronze badges
3
Journeying is a central part of my novel.
A good, traditional theme from the Odyssey to Tolkein.
However, it gets really boring really quickly to describe them walking through the same landscape for a few weeks.
Well, then your job is to make it interesting. There's an entire genre devoted to making travel interesting: nonfiction travel writing.
Travel is ...
6
In addition to summarising the entire journey (examples provided in @Ceramicmrno0b's answer), you could also include several smaller time skips connected by significant events described in more detail. You'd summarise the first leg of the journey, then, for example, describe the scene of how they almost got spotted by scouts and little Timmy, previously seen ...
10
Just say that they walked for two weeks, but throw in a few interesting tidbits about the journey. The longer the journey, the more details you add. Don't just write;
"Alright, to mount death we go!" I said. We walked for two weeks, arriving breathless from the travel, blahblahblah...
Write something along the lines of;
"Alright, to mount ...
2
It depends on your writing style. Assuming you are writing with a character's voice (the narrator voice is filtered through the viewpoint of your protagonist as opposed to being separate) then you would want to use your character's observations, thoughts, etc. to set up and accomplish this.
Examples:
My voice seems to echo, and I realize that as I speak one ...
1
Hmm, that's a good question. Now that I think about it, I feel like my story also has the same problem!
So I think that to make your characters talk differently. Let me give you a example. Let's have a poetic girl, a average girl, and the cool girl. The poetic girl's greetings might sound poetic, the average girl might greet someone with a casual "hi, ...
2
It sounds like you've tried being both a planner and a "pantser". Planners tend to do a lot of upfront planning, while "pantsers" tend to write "by the seat of their pants". Neither approach is wrong, so long as it feels natural to you and helps you achieve your goal of finishing the novel. Stephen King is known to be a "...
7
There are many different processes, and none is "right" or "wrong." They just work well for different writers. You need to find the one that is a good match for your own strengths and weaknesses. There are a few writers who can just dive in and intuit the structure. But the majority of writers do at least some planning and outlining.
If ...
answered Nov 3 at 16:21
Chris Sunami supports Monica
51.4k4 gold badges76 silver badges180 bronze badges
6
You should go next where you should have gone to begin with:
What does your story have to say?
Many authors appear to be of the opinion that a series of pointless anecdotes vaguely connected by some plotline and told about some random characters that they like will somehow make a good story.
A good story starts with the author knowing what concepts, ideas, ...
0
How a human refers to the AI reveals how willing they are to accept the AI's sentience. If the human views the AI as a pure mechanism (in the same category as a cellphone), the person would probably use "it". At the other end of the spectrum, if the person fully accepts the AI as a sentient entity (as I accept all account-holders here on SE to be ...
4
Sounds like you have already have a decent start from your few drafts. From there, I would polish it up and add detail and then call it good.
If I'm understanding the question wrong, sorry but here's the answers to your questions;
The next step should be writing your story, following the plot outline you made and making sure everything flows well. Some ...
2
It honestly depends on the writing style.
Does the character clear their throat a lot? If so, I'd suggest writing out, "ahem." If not, I would go with, "[character] cleared their throat."
If your character clears their throat a lot, a good example of how to write that would be Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Professor Umbridge ...
2
I personally would use the first option, but either would work. I think that some readers would read the dialogue, and instead of substituting ahem with a small cough or something, might just read it as ahem. Maybe every few times combine the two into:
"Ahem, " he cleared his throat, "I'm not sure. "
Just to make it clear that ahem = ...
2
It could be. Depends what you do next with it.
Don't get me wrong, so far this sounds like it could be a great beginning for your story. However, instead of worrying about whether or not this is a good beginning, try focusing on just writing the whole story.
Presumably this is your first draft. At this point, don't think about the wording or chapters or ...
Top 50 recent answers are included
