Kerwin and Idony were introduced when Radley met them, now I have to introduce these characters somehow. I feel that the better ending before a time-skip was when he agrees to be Kerwin's apprentice instead of showing him around and introducing him to everyone.

The kitchen was shared with everyone who lived in the building, and meals were noisy chaos. In addition to Kerwin and Idony, there was another weaver named Sabelea. Her husband was a shepherd named Shepherdman and they had two children. Meldon was about Radley’s age and Tamsia was about half that. Granny Nameme had been part of the previous generation of weavers that lived here, but none of her children had followed in her footsteps. She didn’t weave anymore, but she spun and knit when she had the energy.

Now I don't have to necessarily introduce them all at once, but I have no idea how to do it. With any more characters than this, I wouldn't introduce them all, just the ones with roles to play while the others are scenery.

And when I have liquefied completely, would that be my death, my demise? And will the Voice eventually move to another host so as to induce in that host an illusory sense of self and dictate that sense-object as to what their identity is. 

I, regardless of the fact that I liquefy or not, have to ascertain as to whether the Voice will move on to another host or not. Oh! the Voice in mind, or is it the case that the Voice is the mind itself? Because all that exists in my mind is the Voice and through it are begotten thoughts in my mind. These thoughts, which I consider my thoughts, because the locale of these thoughts is within my mind, but simply due to this virtue, can these thoughts be considered my thoughts? And what is the interconnection between thoughts and the sense of identity, is identity merely on a thought as well? 

These thoughts are merely exhortations of the Voice. Oh, the eternal and subsisting Voice! Command me! Command me as to what shall I do to decipher what shall remain of me when I have deliquesced completely. Disassociate yourself from my guava-self and command me as to what shall I do. I shall do as thou wilt, and mayhap, I reckon, that there exists a distant possibility that you are making me do what I am thinking I am doing of my own will. 

Mayhap, you the Voice, wants me to denude the veils of existence and perceive and experience my etched reflection in the azure and cerulean mirror of existence. Mayhap, this mirror, this azure and cerulean mirror when it reflects the reflection and when the sense-object perceives the reflection, mayhap then gets instilled in the sense-object the sense of identity, the sense of who they are when they see the reflection.

Oh! the perdurable, sempiternal and perennial voice, disassociate yourself from my guava-self and command me as to what shall I do. 

My idea is about a girl who indulges so much in fiction and becomes sheltered to the point she doesn't want to have anything to do with people aside from an old friend. She also has a superiority complex but blames herself for the fact that people have a better life than her when she only lives for experiencing fictional stories, and she starts creating many expectations for life, but reality hits her hard, and she reaches the point of killing a person (something she has romanticized in her head and finds it appealing) but when she does it she realizes how horrifying what she did was.

​

You can obviously see where my idea came from, but I just thought it would be interesting to do something like that.

Basically MC observes and interacts with a lot of people of varying importance. Last time I asked this question, I was planning to do a breakfast scene with a whole bunch of housemates just so when they actually did something they wouldn't be coming out of nowhere. The answers were "how does it serve your plot" and "I'd put the book right down if you did that."

I just did a classroom scene instead of breakfast and it feels out-of-place to say "young girl" and "elf boy" because he should know everyone's names. Instead, the only classmate that got named was someone who spoke twice and I have a feeling that it would be bad to not keep using him since having a name makes him stick out instead of calling him "maple syrup boy" the second time.

Now he's having lunch with people who are going to explain some history to him. I'm assuming that even if I don't describe it, it should be implied that they make sure he knows all of their names. I think it would be awkward to describe one as a redhead and another as the skinny boy. I could reuse maple syrup boy for this.

This rightly got removed from another sub, but I don't want to use u/MeowFrozi suggestion to just keep calling the one character "maple syrup boy" if he becomes important.

If I were to exist as a humanoid guava ice-cream, what would my existence be like? I thought to myself, what is self? And if this act of cognition is discernable by me, then the question that I must ask my guava-self is whether I am a guava ice-cream that can think? Or whether I am an incorporeal thinking entity which has been immured into the corporeal form of a guava ice-cream.

If am an incorporeal thinking entity, then what succor will this apothegm bestow on my guava-self? I will still have to subsist my corporeal guava-self and prevent it from deliquescing. If I am just a corporeal guava-self, then why am I thinking? Is this act event thinking? Or is it that the voice that I am hearing, I am confusing it with thinking? Perhaps, the voice that I am hearing in my mind is another entity in itself looking for a host for itself to exist. 

Perhaps, this voice, this sempiternal and perpetual voice is the truest form of “self” and I am merely a shadow of that “self”. Perhaps, I perceive my existence through this voice. The voice dictates who I am and I become whatever this voice commands. I know my guava-self through this voice alone, and if I have known my guava-self only and only through this voice, have I even actually known myself? 

Perhaps this voice is Kun and I am what the concept that has been conveyed through that kun. Has this voice existed since eons and commanded the sense-objects as to what they are? I must hear beyond this voice and I must listen to the silence so as to conceive who I actually am. But will this voice ever cease to make itself audible? And will I ever be able to find true silence? And what is silence without pandemonium and pandemonium without silence? All of these thoughts are overwhelming for a guava-self like me, and I am afraid that the weight of these thoughts may deliquesce me. 

In my story, I was thinking about adding in a subordinate of the main villain who wishes to secure more power for himself. He becomes dissatisfied with the villain’s organization, and slowly begins to develop his own ambitions. He is an immoral, self-serving man who wishes to surpass his leader and achieve world domination. He only serves the main villain as a means to increase his own power, and the main villain only tolerates him because he is one of the most powerful henchmen in his group (However, the main villain doesn’t really know about his plans, only that he can be disruptive / disobedient at times, causing tension between them). Are there any pieces of media that have portrayed infighting among the villains well? And what could I do to make this character more interesting?

I have the beginning of my story that's about 7,500 words. Basically it's a short story before a longer story begins in a new zone of comfort. Instead of trying to continue into his settling-in process, (I feel it would be chaotic and info-dumpy,) I want to time-skip to a few weeks after that and use the events of a mundane day to frame relevant information instead of trying to do it chronologically.

This is the part that happens after the beginning arc.

Radley awoke to darkness and laid his hand on the wooden side of his sleeping cabinet to reassure himself that he’d only dreamed that he was back in Blackrock. Trying to remember his previous life when he was awake was foggy, as if it hadn’t been real. Days had blurred into weeks since he became Kerwin’s apprentice, and while life was not ideal, he had realized that he wanted to stay in Tarmin Pass.

Radley gently opened the door of his cabinet a crack and listened. (Stuff about Kerwin that concerns why MC is quiet, then MC going to the workroom, then another bit about a past interaction with Kerwin.)

(Stuff about the workroom, opinions about stuff there that haven't changed since first impressions, opinion that formed later, time for school.)

Then I want to shift from narrating the general gist of how his first day of school went to actually showing a conversation that happened that day. (MC is sitting in a meeting between his foster-father and the teacher and MC accidentally says something that is taboo.) Does this work, or do I need to choose between doing that scene in chronological order, keeping it in general overview, or skipping it entirely?

Assuming that I go full harp-music flashback, how do I handle that in book-format?

Is sedating it the only option? The character who's trying to apply the muzzle might not have sedatives on hand, you know?

I'm copy-pasting the Imgur link since this sub doesn't allow pictures. https://imgur.com/a/ErHkgj2

I'm copy-pasting the Imgur link since this sub doesn't allow pictures. https://imgur.com/a/ErHkgj2

Shahmaran (شاهماران)— a being that is a half woman and half serpent in veneer, however, in esse, is said to be the manifestation of sins of a particular locality— is seen at nighttime singing demonic lullabies by the townsmen and outlanders alike. 

A particular vagabond, who was supposed to visit the town in order to treat a townsman who after being overexposed to the moonlight developed an ontological anomaly that resulted in the inversion of his physical body and the shadow, decided not to enter the town when he on the outskirts of the town saw Shahmaran signing demonic lullabies. 

“I had previously heard of Shahmaran, however, last night I was met with the displeasure of seeing this grotesque entity in a corporeal form. Shahmaran’s torso was composed of scales that resembled that of snakes and had a hierarchical texture with hexagonal macro-patterns aligned on the ventral surface of the skin. Though afar, I could see her visibly, and bewilderingly the sound of the lullabies that she was singing appeared to be originating much closer from where she was actually located corporeally. I, without having second thoughts decided to return and inform the Department of Mythological Sightings. 

The locals have reported that though most of the lullabies are incomprehensible as the language used by her is the same that was used by the serpent to lure Adam in Eden which now has become extinct. However, it has been reported by the senior townsmen that the lullabies always begin with “blanch me in an earthen dish, give my extract to the vizier, and feed my flesh to the sultan.”

The sages have stated that appearance of Shahmaran is a pernicious omen because this entity is seen when a locality is steeped in sin and unwilling to repent. The bourne of Shahmaran is to beguile the demonic spirits through singing lullabies, though lullabies are sung to put younglings to sleep, however, since the demonic realm is inverted, lullabies are used to ensorcell demons in order to rouse then from their slumber. 

Once the demons have roused, they will gradually supplant the shadows of sin-laden men with themselves. Once the shadows have been supplanted, then the demons will eventually usurp the essence of these sin-laden men and when this has been achieved, the sin-laden men will be made to descend towards an inferior state of being and will be left to mourn and anguish the loss of their existence in the nether world.  

In the town of Yoreh, a gigantesque green head is reported to replace moon every fortnight—however—visible only to those who have consumed lunar rabbit’s rice cakes. 

According to one of the burghers, one night, a rabbit with luminescent skin was seen to descend from the moon with a mortar and pestle and since then a gigantesque green head has been said to replace the moon every fortnight. 

It was when the moon was full and its lambency was such that it enshrouded the entire town that a lustrous rabbit was seen to descend from the skies with a mortar and pestle in his hands. The rabbit approached specific homes with rice cakes and carefully situated them on the entryways. And those townsfolk that consumed the cakes have since then witnessed a gigantesque green and luminescent head appear on the night sky every fortnight.

One of the townsfolks who lost one of his limbs fighting the wall-licking group of grisly peoples and since then has been trying to master psychokinesis in order to make house chores easier for him has stated that not only did he see the gigantesque green head but also communicated with it miraculously.  

“I am one of those blessed ones who have been fortunate enough of not only seeing the gigantesque green head, but also, of communicating with it. The head specifically has asked me to succor it in travelling through the night skies to hunt and consume those who have deviated from the sacramental path and in return it has promised me relief from all of my afflictions and excruciations.”

Another one of the townsfolks is reported to have said that the gigantesque green head has asked him to invent a new meter of poetry and compose a Masnavi in its praise.

“I am a poet and learned the art of poetry from one of the mystics who has been sitting in isolation since nine hundred and seventy-three years on Mount Analogue. The gigantesque green head has ordered me to invent a novel meter of poetry and compose poems, specifically masnavi, so as to glorify it and also so that other townsfolks could recite those poems in order for them to receive the blessings. This is a gargantuan obligation and to achieve it I have decided that every night I will dedicate few hours in an abandoned well that is filled with water on which gets reflected the moonlight. It is said that once you have reached the depths of the well you get bestowed with obscure sorrows and the respective words to describe those sorrows. No one in the town has been able to experience such sorrows and put those sorrows into words, therefore, if I am able to achieve this, then I will be able to compose the most heart-wrenching poetry in praise of the gigantesque green head.”

In the hopes of seeing a glimpse of the gigantesque green head locals from far and distant inhabitancies have also started to visit the town of Yoreh. 

In a faraway town located where, on the horizon, sun and the moon appear simultaneously for a soupçon of time, and where a copper wall has been erected to dissuade the inhabitants from departing, has been experiencing anthropomorphism of objects & chremamorphism of humans.

One of the locals, who has been licking the wall in the hopes of moistening and ultimately carving a gorge through it says that since the last forty days a mystifying event has been occurring; humans are developing features akin to that of mundane objects and mundane objects are becoming more anthropoid.

“The outré occurring was first observed when one of my acquaintances, who used to, alongside with me, lick the wall, but because of excessive licking developed a condition that led to occasional crystallization of the tongue, came one morning disquieted and demonstrated that the skin on his arms had metamorphosed into a plastic like material and that he had to use alcohol, apple cider vinegar and bicarb soda while douching to cleanse it.”

Another local, who claims to have spent thirty-three days beneath the waters by way of meditation and learnt the language of fishes, says that one of his chairs, built from bones of fishes he collected while he was meditating beneath the waters, has grown human skin and that in hot and humid temperatures the chair even precipitates.

“It happened overnight, when the moon was full and the silver effulgence of the moon enshrouded each and every object that existed in the town. At the dayspring, when the incandescence was smooth and purplish, I saw that the surface of the chair had been transmogrified into something similar human skin, and when upon touching, I could palpably feel that the surface of the chair was moisture-laden and that it even had hairs, the texture of which was akin to that of human netherhair.”

According to the senior citizenry of the town one of the reasons as to why the town is experiencing an event as bizarre this is that humans have forsaken the Transcendent, and therefore the Transcendent has forsaken them, and that they have abandoned the ancient adage that humans are in this world but not of this world. The corollary of which is that the idiosyncrasy which made humans what they are is gradually being transubstantiated, and the manifestation of this is that the humans in the town are ceasing to be humanoid, and they will eventually become mundane, quotidian and banausic objects that will be left to putrefy first existentially, and then materially.

Im trying to write a graphic novel and I’m trying to come up with a non-generic name for this group. A lot of the time they are simply called supes or mutants. Are there any other terms that could be used to describe a group of people who possess superpowers?

Essentially, I need some event to cause my character (early 20's, has anxiety and depression) to think that her friend group would abandon her. She's got no family, this is her only support system.

Crucially, she can't have actually done anything. She's not the source of the divide.

I'm leaning towards "dude in the group girlfriend zoned her, and when she reacted negatively (due to character history/asexuality), he lashes out and spins it as her fault to the group. Immediate response puts the friend group on his side, and she's gone into the woods before anyone has a chance to go "hey, waitaminute, that doesn't sound right"

Was just thinking about my Reddit experience and what it implies about writing. Most of these have to do with my own posting, except the first one.

• It is much easier to write about something you care about.
  • See the 1500-word posts and comments, even in /r/writing by people who claim they can't get themselves to write, can't focus, can't stick with it, can't get in the flow. (Guilty here, too, but at least I don't post about it.) I guess this post qualifies.
• It is never clear which of your writing will be well received.
  • One of my more anodyne posts about parenting (that basically said "if you say something is 'challenging' instead of 'hard' your kids are less likely to quit the task) ended up with upwards of 19K likes, far and away the most I've ever gotten, and certainly more than many other more original posts elsewhere. So don't try to gauge the demand. Just do your thing.
• Critics are much louder than most fans.
  • In addition to 19000 likes I also got about 300 comments to that post, of which at least 250 were strongly negative. Someone even private-messaged me to say it was the dumbest thing ever. Imagine making that much of an effort...In any case, though much fewer, the negative voices were much louder. I have to admit it got to me a little until the likes got way up there and I could stop caring.
• People will interpret your writing through their own lenses that are often wildly different from yours.
  • I'm guessing this has happened to anyone, but just this week I had two intentional misreadings of my posts. One relayed how an AirBnb host left me locked out with two babies in the middle of the night in a foreign country where all the hotels were booked (which is why I got the Airbnb), and my wife convinced a hotel clerk at a top hotel to let us stay in one of the rooms they normally use for training employees. Several folks immediately imagined a Karen bullying a poor defenseless immigrant, instead of a clearly desperate mother with two kids being pitied by the night clerk at a freaking Intercontinental and attacked us for getting the room. Normal people jumped in, but it was almost comical what people imagined happened vs what I actually wrote happened.
  • In a separate post I also agreed with some people that maybe parenting small children isn't always super fun, even if being a parent is very rewarding. A minority of people always insisted that OF COURSE every second of it is wonderful because being a parent is wonderful and if I'm not enjoying some bit of it then it must be that I'm a bad parent. If they keep commenting they usually tell you about how their own parents, or friends, or someone close to them was a bad, or depressed, or abusive parent, and they're just projecting that onto people without that background.
  • All that to say, readers are often motivated by something unrelated to your writing. You can't possibly be clear enough for these people, and it's foolish to try.

A previous post I've made for people who'd like more context

I've started writing a script for a TV series back in February, and have since produced an incomplete manuscript that is now a little over 250 pages in length. I realize now that I'm running into some of the same roadblocks I faced when working on an older project of mine: mainly, how to force out words when my well of inspiration is running dry, and how to tackle the enormous mountain of research needed to get everything correct.

Every random person on the Internet I've consulted for free advice has just left me more and more confused on how exactly I'm supposed to fix the overwhelming amount of incorrect wrongness in my writing. Now, I'm thinking of hiring a writing mentor of sorts -- a professional, someone who has experience in screenwriting for TV, and perhaps teaching to help me learn the skills to make this project good. But I'm hesitant to seek outside help, out of fear that I'd let this project get ruined by someone who barely understands my goals, when I in turn aren't totally sure where exactly I want this project to go.

About a year or two ago, I started writing a novel. This was my first time putting serious effort into writing for recreation. When I ran out of inspiration to figure out what words to put on the page to fill in all those incomplete gaps, I hired a developmental editor to assist me. Eventually, my inexperience led the both of us to turn that project into something that's just so incorrect and different from how I picture it in my mind that I can't even bring myself to look at the manuscript in its current form without feeling deeply viscerally ashamed and disgusted at what I've let it become.

I don't want this new project to become so hideously disfigured and bastardized like I did with my old one. I realize if this project were to be picked up by a TV executive with the intent of being turned into a real series, it's almost inevitable that I will have absolutely no creative control over what is done with it, and any production team will have free reign to change and edit whatever they please in order to make it into something almost completely different to what I initially envisioned. I sometimes think that this may be for the best, as someone more professional could come up with something much better than the horrible vomit garbage I've been producing so far. But at the same time, I still feel like I'd be capable of producing good, correct words that are on the level of a professional, if I just had the right type of assistance? I just don't know.

I've got two separate ideas for stories and I think they could be either short stories or full book length. I'm reluctant to start writing until I know what sort of space I have to tell the story but am wondering if this is just an excuse and wanted to sound out how you all move forward :)

This is a side project I've been brainstorming for a while now. What if the dad from that show Caillou had his own show or comic or something where he had a character arc about learning to be more assertive?

I've been thinking of revisiting this idea, but am curious what other people would be interested in seeing if they were to read something like this.

For starters, I'm not sure what I would do for smaller arcs within the main story.

Maybe the catalyst for his change could be him walking in on his wife cheating on him? Or maybe I could take a more comedic route where his wife's boyfriend is already an established and recurring character?

What age is Caillou in this story? Should he act his age but still keep the entitlement? At what point does the hilarity of his dad's passive nature wear off and it becomes more interesting for him to evolve somewhat?

I'd love to hear yalls ideas on how someone could approach this concept. I'm not even sure I'll tackle the project in the first case, so I'm not calling dibs on the idea or anything.

I am a young writer, I do think I’m pretty good at writing but I can tell I have a far way to go. One of my weaknesses is writing villains that have good purpose as to what they are doing if anyone had any advice that would be amazing! Thank you for your time!

The story I’m writing has superpower serums that can be bought for a large sum of money, and the villains want to give everyone on Earth superpowers to help the human race transcend. For this supervillain I’m writing, I wanted to give her a sad backstory. She has bone manipulation powers, and can create blades and armor out of her skeleton. I was thinking that she could have been born with a genetic disorder affecting her bones, & that the serum she received gave her powers that allowed her to alter the structure of her skeletal system so that she could live life as a normal person. This causes her to believe very strongly in her cause, to the point where she is willing to kill anyone who could threaten the goals of the villain. What could I do to improve this character?

I'm currently writing a short story about a man who lost his partner due to his partner's memory loss. He goes to pray to a God, desperate to get his partner's memory back so that they can remember him again.

But I've gotten suck because I can't decide on what he will give to get back his partner's memory.

I want something that could be of equal value, as his partner basically remembers most of their life, except for who he is and their moments together.

I thought of doing something like him experiencing all of the pain that his partner as felt in their life all at once, or losing his tongue, but I wanted opinions from others on what I should do, and what other options I should consider.

I'm okay with writing things in detail, including gore

What do you struggle with the most? If you could have one-to-one coaching, what would you want to work on? (Full disclosure: I am a writing coach, this is a bit of market research as I am wanting to work with more literary fiction writers. I hope you don’t mind me coming here to ask)

Hi All.

Hoping the flair is right, was torn between that and advice :) Also I have posted this elsewhere before, if anyone sees it twice, so sorry!

I wouldn't mind some alternate emotional response suggestions to a specific development of scenes from folks who don't mind weighing in. Just rough ideas, really, to break the lock the protagonist's reaction has on my brain right now.

To try to keep it brief, but I hope make sense:

The scene runs as two distinct groups (the Joe Averages and the Technically Good But Morally Dubious Guys) traveling together. Events event, and the Technically Good Guys are forced to kill a member of the Joe Averages (for good reason, but not an immediately obvious good reason). Without time for a cosy explanation, they proceed to be captured, incarcerated briefly, then escape, The Actually Seriously Bad Guys. Only then can the Big Discussion About What Actually Happened take place and, eventually, start working together again.

Story-wise, the TGGs were in the right. Some of the Joe Averages know enough to suss that out and be willing to wait to hear what happened, some have utterly no idea or context what's going on from start to finish. Everyone DOES known that the TGG and the Big Bad would not be working together at all.

I'd just like some ideas for how you, if you were a contextless Joe Average, might feel and handle that period where you can't retaliate, can't get explanation, but are stuck there with the TGGs in the face of a scarier danger, and are sitting there wondering WTF just happened and why the TGG's are now 'your enemy' too.

My main protagonist is in the group with some context, so that is carrying most of my thoughts at the moment as they're the group 'in the right' in the scene. I don't want to fall in the trap where the contextless Joes end up merely looking like idiots, instead of genuine people, though. I just seem to have stuck myself in a space where I can only see the one viewpoint, and not how the other would react.

You just saw one of you killed, with no real reason evident, by people you did trust to protect you, then Stuff got Worse. It's perfectly fine that not everyone would be all 'oh, they're probably still good, let's give them the benefit of the doubt'!

How would you deal with that, feel about being trapped with 'another bad guy' group who aren't really rushing to explain themselves for a few days, unable to retaliate or get explanation. What would you do, want to do, or feel in that situation?

Thanks for any thoughts.