New answers tagged plot
3
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Is there a good way to subvert expectations?
Foreshadowing is generally what separates a good twist from a bad twist.
A bad twist comes out of nowhere, makes no sense on cannon, and defies previously established lore or logic. It's all shock and ...
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2
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Accepted
Is there a good way to subvert expectations?
If you're going to subvert expectations and have a positive audience response, you need to do two things: reveal that you're telling an even better story than your audience thought you were telling, ...
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Is there a good way to subvert expectations?
This isn't an easy question to answer.
Any attempt to answer it will have to address two aspects: the qualitative and the qualitative.
With the first, you're looking at how well expectations are ...
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0
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Can you make a story compelling enough for a large audience if every character is evil?
I can already think of two shows that pull off the "everyone is evil" trope well. Inside Job and Helluva Boss
In Inside Job everyone works for an evil Illuminati style shadow government. In ...
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1
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Accepted
Can you make a story compelling enough for a large audience if every character is evil?
Is it possible? - Certainly. Is it easy? - Probably not. Generally the audience is looking for someone to root for - and that can either be because they align with the character's aims, goals or ...
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Can you make a story compelling enough for a large audience if every character is evil?
I doubt that a large audience would be interested in a story where every character is evil. Let's start by asking ourselves why a story is liked by a large audience simply because there is something ...
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2
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How to find the right starting point for your story?
Really good question.
Your characters will have their own story lines.
Your narrator will follow their own.
And then there's the reader's story line.
What keeps readers reading? In fiction, it's ...
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2
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How to find the right starting point for your story?
Write as much as you can. If you feel like going into the backstory, then write a bunch of it and see how it turns out. Your first draft isn't your final draft. If you write way more material than ...
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2
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How to find the right starting point for your story?
Past or Plot?
Characters have lives outside the story. They are rich with anecdotes and memories. They all had childhoods, and bad jobs, and love affairs.
Good writing is often about showing the ...
- 25.1k
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Is a constantly changing world bad?
Having multiple worlds is generally pretty standard fair in both sci-fi and fantasy.
Star Wars, for example, has a few key worlds that usually remain central to the plot but you are generally ...
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2
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Is a constantly changing world bad?
There's nothing inherently wrong or bad about the idea, and several stories across various media have been very successful with the entire premise being that the protagonists travel from world to ...
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1
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Accepted
Should you make all information available so that your readers know everything that transpired at the end of the book?
(Full disclosure, I have not watched any Evangelion)
What you're describing is a problem that frequently happens with Serialized Media. Usually when you're writing for something that needs a episode/...
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3
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Can authors retell their own stories in different ways?
Sure. There are multiple recent examples of authors having done this:
Stephanie Meyer wrote Midnight Sun, a retelling of the first Twilight novel from Edward Cullen's perspective
EL James wrote Grey, ...
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29
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Accepted
Is there a method to determining how many books long your series needs to be?
I would first point out that beginning writers with no commercial success will approximately never sell a multi-book series.
The rule for a multiple-book story is relatively simple: The first book ...
- 94.1k
8
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How "resolved" do things need to be at the end of the first book of a trilogy?
End on a status quo.
I suggest your book should end on a status quo (land the plane). Do not begin a new conflict that will go unresolved.
A logical place to 'land the plane' is to end with the ...
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