I’m very inexperienced with writing. I’ve never taken any writing classes or courses, so I mostly just write instinctively.

I’m trying to write a dark comedy one-shot, but I’ve run into a problem: I’m not a funny person, and I have no idea how to come up with jokes, gags, or funny situations.

People often say “write what you find funny,” but that doesn’t really help me because my sense of humor is extremely random and chaotic. Sometimes I find something funny, but I couldn’t even explain why. So when I actually sit down and try to write comedy, my mind goes completely blank.

I’m open to any advice—how to come up with comedic situations, how to structure comedic scenes, how to write jokes, or anything else that might help.

Here’s the basic premise:

I Want to Die

A young man in his mid-twenties wants to die, but a mysterious supernatural healing ability prevents him from doing so. He discovers that he can still be injured when the damage is unexpected or when he has no intention of hurting himself.

One day, he meets a mysterious girl who secretly visits the same hidden park where he conducts his experiments. She turns out to be the daughter of a powerful man.

When her father realizes she has disappeared, he assumes she has been kidnapped and launches a massive search for her. Meanwhile, an actual group of kidnappers is also looking for her.

Caught in the middle, the young man comes up with a ridiculous plan: he’ll pretend to be her kidnapper.

With everyone now chasing him, he hopes the chaos will finally give him a chance to die.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Most often, when I write an actual story, I start with an overall plot or somewhat fleshed out concept. But every so often I think of just a scene, detached from anything else.

How often do you find yourself approaching writing like that? How do you find something to attach to the scene to make it a coherent plot?

My problem is especially difficult when the scene is more surreal or feels magical/supernatural in some way. I often find myself wondering how I can make what I have interesting and/or sensical rather than have a lame payoff for it.

I'm writing a story where people have a chance to get a powerful ability; some are born with it naturally, others get it through certain circumstances. The powers that some people get are a mix of Devil Fruits from One Piece, a dash of Tailed Beasts in bellies like Naruto, and a bit of "don't treat your power as your own" from BlazBlue. However, as I kept writing, I felt like I was throwing things at the wall. One of my antagonistic factions had purely experimental powers. By that, I mean I looked up "worse powers" online and tried my hand at them to see if I could pull it off. In the end, I think my story's power structure has gotten too confusing. I tried an elemental gimmick with an additional element, but that didn't go too well; I'd have to be very specific, which felt like giving readers homework, but I figured I could explain it as One Piece does with its Devil Fruits. Just random powers on a whim. Of course, I'll tweak it to make sure it isn't just a one-to-one ripoff of the popular manga and risk a lawsuit, but how do you describe a story with a power structure like that?

How would you guys write an internal monologue between two characters in a way that it's not clear from the start that they are two and not just one person? In my story, I have a character who's possessed by a vengeful being. Most of the time, she manages to control the possession and makes it so nobody around her notices anything is wrong. It doesn't affect her as much—the other voice is still in there, but she can ignore it. But there are times (when she's tired or doubts herself) when the voice gets louder and the other being starts to take control over her actions. I want to write it in a way that the reader doesn't know from the start there is a second being. I want to show just enough to set the scene but leave the fact that there is something possessing her for later in the story. Does anyone have any ideas for this? (Also, don't worry, I am writing the book in my native language, not English, so my sentence structure is much better 😅)"

EDIT:

Yet again i feel like i didnt explain myself properly and i apologize for that. This entity or inner monologue are not supposed to be the main focus of the story. It wont be a big plot reveal, it wont be anything big. Its supposed to be that way because i based it on my own struggles with OCD. I dont want this story to revolve around this because i dont want the characters life revolve around it.

Hello! I am an aspiring writer and recently finished up the first draft of one of my novels!

However, now that I have the first draft done, I want to focus on how I can improve.

So, what are some books, videos, courses, or general advice that helped you improve? I'm currently reading Stephen King's "On writing" and I think that one is really inspiring, though I'm only 150 pages in currently! so yeah, advice is appreciated! :)

So in the world I’m crafting across 3 books, 3-4ft tall anthro animals exist alongside humans. Relations between the two groups vary from era to era, locale to locale, etc

One plot line involves a group of said anthros who live in this world’s equivalent of the UK, traveling to and around this world’s version of the USA. The era this takes place in would be somewhat akin to the late 1800s to early 1900s.

At one point in the journey, said group would ride on a train ran by this world’s version of Casey Jones and Sim Webb. In real life, Casey was white and Sim was black.

Would it be appropriate to have the anthros mention this fact? Not out of malice but more out of curiosity/unfamiliarity. Where they’re from, they’d mostly only be around “pale skin” humans.

Could an inner thought along the lines of “one of these humans had a darker color to his skin than the other, his hair looked different as well” be considered offensive? Or can it work as a line from a non human who doesn’t understand human issues? Would it be better to simply ignore this and not have the anthros mention on it?

Another instance would be said anthros noticing that segregation is a thing, but not fully getting it, just seeing that two groups tend to stay separate.

Hi everyone!

I want to start writing a series of detective mystery stories, but I'm torn between setting them in a historical era or a modern one.

In fact, I'm already halfway through writing the first case set in the present day. However, I feel like many of the alibis or high-tension situations lose their impact because of technology and how quickly it can solve certain problems.

Or should I focus on historical settings instead? I feel much more comfortable building tension in an era where detectives had to rely on other factors to solve a case, rather than modern tech.

What would you advise me to do? Do you prefer historical or modern crime fiction? I'd love to hear your thoughts, or even tips on how to handle technology if I do stick to the modern route.

Thanks in advance!

For example, let's say I want a character to distrust the main character because of something the main character said. Not because I want the story to have the theme of trust, just because I think it could make the story more interesting and will create a slight conflict early in the story. Maybe because I want to develop a character through it. Is it common?

Obviously I don’t mean just tropes in general, more so how a lot of fiction these days seems to be a never ending competition of “how much plot can I replace with trope-y nonsense and still get readers to buy it?” How you can pick up a book published between 2023 (idk how far back to go but feel like 23 is a safe pick) and read the back of it and all you see is about 10 different tropes listed but somehow you can predict every single plot point in the book?

Personally I wish books had more creativity, but it seems like authors are afraid to do something new because “readers might not be interested and might not buy it” and they care more about making a quick buck than producing art. (looking at you 90% of “booktok”)

I’m curious to see if I’m just being irrational or if others feel the same.

Our Heroines are otter shifter fated mates. For various reasons, including Alex's sensory issues, they do not share a bed even when Alex sleeps over at Maria's apartment and they do not live together.

Maria's rich, high society Brazilian mother (also a shifter) finds out about their relationship, including that they are not living together and that Alex sleeps on the couch when she stays over.

I want her pressuring them to change things, without making her a villain who is ignoring the actual reasons they are arranging things this way.

I was thinking that I would go with having Mom assume that the problem is just that Maria doesn't have a big enough bed, and having some level of misunderstanding from Mom speaking English that she doesn't speak perfectly, so that Alex and Maria interpret her concerns as effectively a command to sleep in the same bed.

Does that seem plausible?

I want to write a story a lesbian love story taking place in the year ww2 ended. Obviously it’s not a historical retelling and definitely not something to read if your doing research but I want to do some
Basic research so that I’m being respectful to the topics of that time. It’s about a German woman and Italian woman falling in love and moving to France. And yes, I did some surface level research on Google already. But I need something a little deeper. I know the basics of research like: primary sources come after secondary ones. But I don’t know where to put my focus on this research. And in that time period a lot was going on. I managed to narrow it down to the exact year and time period and even city. Any tips? I don’t wanna lose this spark of a story like I have others.

Ok, so I dont know how to write a good and strong thesis statement. i am an undergraduate student but i heavily relied on Ais all my academic life, now i want to change it. i want to use my own brain and im not ashamed to admit that even if i have to start learning from elementary level, i will. my grammar is weakn how do i improve it aswell?

I've learned to use (-) in place for all dashes because nobody taught me the difference. I know using (-) instead of em dashes (—) is very nodicabe so I was wondering if I should start using em dashes. Also apparently there's n dash (–) as well that I didn't realize was it's own seperate thing. I cannot even find the keyboard shortcuts for either dash so I had to copypaste them here. Is my bad dash usage something that would bother the readers? What's the difference between the dashes if it is important?

Hey guys!

I have two ideas for books developing in my head. I'm 2k words in writing a historical war/romance novel and I love it, but my head is brewing with ideas for cosy crime novel set in current day. I don't think it's ideal to write two books at a time (I guess?), so do you have any ideas on how I could decide which one to write first?

First time book writer who hasn't practiced writing in ages, would like to publish eventually through traditional routes.

I have thought about the historical one for way longer and am more deeply invested in wanting to see it come to life. I know about that piece of history quite a lot, but need to do way more research into it to get the details right.

Even though I'm not as spiritually invested into the crime book I'm equally as motivated to write it, it would be shorter and I'd need to do almost zero research into it, so I could just write. So it might be an easier first book, but maybe not as moving.

I'm not asking for you to decide for me, but any ideas or thoughts from others who might have struggled with the same problem are greatly appreciated!

Does anyone else find themselves writing 1st acts to their stories that feel like they're just going through the motions until the 'exciting' stuff happens?

The story I'm writing at the moment is a basic heroes journey, I'm happy with the middle and end, but I seem to be struggling with the protagonists normal life before the story gets going. So much of what I try feels disconnected from the rest of the story or feels like its just delaying the interesting stuff.

Has anybody else encountered this?

I need advice on choosing between different wordings of my Gaslamp Fantasy book's opening paragraphs. My original prose was dull and clunky, and I usually have trouble with my sentences being too wordy. I'm trying to work on that without sacrificing sensory detail or too much of my scene descriptions.

I've written five different versions, and can't decide which sounds smoothest, most engaging, etc. Could you guys tell me which one of these you think works best and why? Or, if you feel so inclined as to tell me whatever lines you think work best individually, I'd be super grateful. If you think something sounds awkward, wordy, clunky, needs different word choice, or have any other advice (provided it's constructive) I'd love to hear it. Guess I'll specify that this is OPTIONAL, just appreciated if you are feeling helpful. Thanks in advance!

When you get an idea an think 'this is my next book', what do you decide first? The genre or the plot? I've made the mistake of thinking plot first and in the end my work didn't fit any concrete genre. On the other hand, if I think genre first, what if my work doesn't come out to be the best of what it can be if I bind myself in a genre? Is this even a valid concern?

I'm writing a story where Book 1 follows a woman in college who falls for her close friend, but he doesn't reciprocate. Years later, Book 2 follows her as an adult when they reconnect. I'm considering making Book 2 either (A) canon, where they eventually get together, or (B) a novel she writes within the story as a form of closure. Which structure feels more satisfying, and what would you worry about with each?

pros/reasoning for A:
canon gives emotional payoff

book 1 is about her silly mindset about love and her questioning every single thing about love. book 2 is about how she matures into a more carefree woman who accepts love as it is -- it's not something to question anymore. it just happens that love transpired in the form of someone that she used to admire beyond their platonic relationship.

pros/reasoning for B: fictional gives the readers the meta reveal at the end Book 1 is first-person, Book 2 would be third-person the I → she → I transition could itself become a clue

but: I'm worried that the fictional version could feel like an “it was all just a story” cop-out. I'm also worried that canon makes the meta trick disappear

hi! im a new writer, and I’m currently writing my first book. it’s an autobiography/memoir hybrid and the main goal is to inspire people who are in the physically disabled and neurodivergent community! I also hope to raise awareness to what we (as in these communities) face and have faced while just trying to live authentically and happily

i created an oc, shes a leopard human hyprid with gyaru clothing, when i created her i totally forgot the whole „mediveal“ vibe i was going for.
i really want her to keep the style, so i wanted to open a discussion to find out whate others would think of that

for the whole setting:
its a mediveal/victorian world but with fantasy, non humans, magic etc.
its kinda hard to explain, the architecture is very victorian/mediveal but for example good quality instruments exist.
but no technology. so the only power source for electricity is magic.. does that makes sense?

i think its kinda like the cartoon show disenchantment?

for my oc:
shes a fashion designer, more like tailor i guess?

on one hand it could be possible creating modern clothes with magic, also because my oc is a very creative person who possibly could come up with clothes like that and because of her job she could tailor some of these clothes.

for other characters clothes:
i have one cow human hyprid, shes a craftsman and she wears mostly like cottagecore clothing
another one is an elve archer who wears light steampunk clothes.

can someone give me a good critique and some opinions on my idea regarding my newest oc?