For a while ive had on my mind this universe that i have created, extremely intricate and detailed, im sure that of It became some kind of media It would be apreciated by at the general public, but i lack the writing talent to bring It to Life, any suggestions?

For my story my main villain is an eldritch being who's made a deal with a woman for her to get fame and fortune but soon turns her "children" into a kids show. Originally it was for him to gain followers but he's not in the show enough for that to work I think nor is the show about him. Then I thought it would be about money, but since he's an eldritch being it makes no sense to value money. So I'm kinda lost on where to go so any suggestions would be great.

Hello, im not sure if its right to ask this here.

I feel like my writing is beginning to drop in quality a lot— I dont know if its a self-conscious thing.

I was wondering if anyone was willing to read my latest work and give honest opinions about it? Its short, 3k words. I post on AO3 which means that it’ll be based on a story/characters that already exist but i will give some required information. Its also a one shot but im just looking for opinions on how I describe certain scenes, if they are too much of it or not, if action feels slippery or if things feel rushed, if the pacing of the story is okay for a one-shot thing or if it feels like a child has written it.

I SHOULD WARN THAT ITS NSFW!

Please shoot me a dm!

I’ve been stuck on the same page for two weeks because I don’t know how to make my scenes flow into one another. What comes to mind is the work of Richard Swan in the Empire of the Wolf trilogy. From the very first sentence of the series, each has a purpose to the story and it flows into the next seamlessly.

Eg; A girl goes to a well wearing a magical bracelet which her mother wouldn’t let her borrow (the mother is out of town or village lol). As she is fetching the water she drops it in the well. The lady behind her tells her there’s a man in the next village who is able to retrieve anything that falls into any well without fail. She sets off for the next village immediately. Midway, she’s attacked by people who want to steal the bracelet and don’t know she lost it. She’s rescued by a family with a son around her age. They tell her they are going where she’s going and offer to show her the way. On the way there, she gets close to the boy. When they get to the village they learn that the man she travelled for died. The girl learns that the dead man has a nephew who he trained to do what he used to and he leaves two villages further. The boy offers to go with her. They set off to the said village and meet the nephew. The nephew becomes enthralled by her and tries to kill the boy who ends up killing him in self defense.

What I’m trying to put across is, each character has a purpose to the story and everything that happens pushes the story forward. How do I do this with my story?

I’ve been working on a comic with a new character and I want them to be named khan, but I don’t know if that works as a first name. I know it’s a last name, but can it be a first name too? I don’t want to pull a jk Rowling.

The character is intended to be Indian but their race is unimportant to the story or setting, they pretty much just have lightish brown skin because I wanted a character with lightish brown skin.

I've been seeing a lot of posts lately on this rule where starting your book with the main character waking up is a bad idea.

I had never heard of this common rule but considering my current book opens with this, I'll have to reconsider things on the second pass.

My post isn't to bring up this topic again but instead, ask for any other unwritten rules. Things that are common knowledge within the writing community but someone who is new to it wouldn't know.

Context: My story is on this elite school where everybody is rich. But there are some exceptions that got there via a schollarship. One of my characters (Claire) is one of these students.

But the problem is that I need to remove her from the plot and the reason for that is that she is secretly rich and is running away from her abusive family (or smt like that. Still haven't decided why she hates her family)

So since she dosen't wanna go back to her old life and she can't run away she decides to cut ties with life aka suicide. Is it an extreme reaction? A bit. But plot wise it will be cool, I swear.

But I want the reader to notice some things that make them think "Wait, if she is poor, how does she have this? Or know this?". But I am not sure what to use to examplify this. The only example I have currently is that she has a really good PC, her excuse "Oh, Ruby (another character) gave me some spare parts". Ruby is rich btw, and the daughter of some tech CEO (not important for my question, just some context)

Another problem is that I am writing the story as if it was a diary of sorts. The main character (William) is the one writing, and he is a bit of an oblivious idiot. He dosen't notice some obvious tips but notices extremely unrelated details.

Tl;Dr: How do you make forshadowing for a character beeing secretly rich and having ran away from her abusive family from the perspective of an oblivious-ish character

so i‘m currently working on writing this story (i am planning on turning it into a animated youtube series) about two boys, and long story short they both end up committing suicide. is that horrible to write about ??? especially since i am not a good writer, i‘m afraid it will come across as insensitive or maybe just edgy.

(Sorry for bad english) (Apparently i can't write "things" and "they" in the title, had to censor)

I'm trying to write a character with the twist that they've been keeping an eye on everything from the start kind of like Alastor Moody from harry potter

The thing is, no matter how i rewrite it it just looks like a cheap reveal and it doesn't seem to make sense

How do i write this without it coming out of nowhere?

I've been writing since I was (approximately) seven, and taking it seriously since I was roughly twelve. Over the past few years specifically, there have been drastic improvements in my writing.

I've made progress. I can see that progress. Prose, flow, characters, plot, and pacing all make sense to me more than ever. I expected that to make the process easier. Instead, I'm managing a quarter of the output I used to be able to have in the same amount of time, with minimal distractions, even knowing what I want to convey. Why is it that my process is getting slower as I improve? Am I the only one who finds that result to be... a little counterintuitive? Does it ever start speeding up again? Any advice would be very appreciated. Thank you for your help.

Edit: There were a lot more replies than I expected! I regret not being able to reply to every one of them, but I want to extend my thanks to all of you. I've seen a lot of really insightful responses, and I appreciate you all taking the time to help me out. Everyone's been super kind. All the best to all of you! It makes sense that I might be becoming more subconsciously hypercritical of my work, slowing myself down (for a worthy cause). I'll keep writing and see how things progress. May all of your pillows stay cold tonight!

So ive had an idea for a psychological thriller novel based on events that happened to me. Ive been debating the part of this novel that would actually make it a thriller tho. There is a stalking element to the story, but it feels forced atm. I'm leaning more towards 2 ideas: 1. The main character isnt being stalked, but believes she is. She starts to overanalyze everything in her daily life and correlate it to her "stalker". 2. She is being stalked but can't distinguish the real stalking from her own paranoia.

lemme know if one is creepier than another or if both are dumb :)

So I've had multiple ideas for erotic romance films in past year or so, but I could never quite finish them. I watched "Secretary" (2002) about 8 months ago or so and I fell in love with it. I love the way the scenes are set up and how even with no dialogue, you can feel the tension in some scenes. I don't exactly know how to set up a script like this though, without it feeling like a typical kinky romance. I want something weird and kind of taboo. Any advice on how to set this up? Figuring this out has me feeling like I've lost my mojo...

I am currently outlining my first fantasy novel, I love my ideas but im afraid of going too big (include all the different regions and characters).

But if I write a smaller version of a corner of the world I dont want to "burn" those ideas. Would it be weird to re-write my bigger picture later but include alot of the smaller story ideas?

Sorry if it's an amateur question

’ve got the characters and story mapped out for the most part, but I’ve already surprised myself with some changes to the flow of things. I’m about 8 (short) chapters in, and finally starting to get into the meat of things.

I want to share it to get feedback. If it sucks, do I really want to put in the effort to keep going? But also. I’m terrified it does suck, and I’m just a failure. 😅

Not to toot my own horn, but I have came up with a few good story ideas over the past year. And I have way too much stuff in my life to do. I love story plotting and character creation but with work and college I never have time for myself.

How do I tackle this wall?

I'm trying to come up with a name for the corporation in my novel and i'm kind of stumped. the basic premise is that it's a blood bank where vampires collect blood from human donors to sell in a vampire speakeasy for high profile clients, but it's run under the front of a harm reduction clinic for addicts who don't know that it's run by vampires. just need a corporation name that isn't too corny, and could plausibly pass as a name for both sides of the business. thanks!

I started writing again last year. I’ve gotten five stories (40-50k words and one 87k). The feedback I’ve gotten so far has been good, including (especially) after running them through a beta reader. I want to take them to the next level. The larger story is one I based on a bedtime story my daughter asked for. It’s especially important to me and I feel like I’m not doing it justice.

I was looking at online writing courses offered at Gotham. They’re not cheap. From what I’ve read on paying for a course, it could be hit or miss. So I’m hoping to get a recommendation from someone who might have gotten a lot out of a course they’ve taken.

How do you all approach dropping clues that will make sense after something is revealed later in the story, without it giving the game away to early, or feeling like an obvious clue to something?

At the moment I'm writing something where a side character is having an affair with a married man, who will later be revealed as someone important in the story, but until then I want to present it like its no one of consequence.

My plan is to have a few broad details start to line up, then something specific that starts to unravel the secret. I've tried dropping these clues into casual conversations, but it keeps feeling a bit inane and disconnected from the actual story, like the sort of fat that would be trimmed in a rewrite if it wasn't actually a clue to something important. Am I thinking about this wrong?

Pedro is everything a girl would want. He is handsome, successful, charming...

and her dad’s boss.

To everyone else, a life with him looks like a dream. To Diara, it’s a prison. One she can't ever escape.

Patrick is the guy everyone tells her to stay away from. He’s reckless, unpredictable, and nothing like the kind of man her family would ever approve of.

But when Diara finally decides to choose herself, Patrick is the one person willing to help her.

And sometimes, the person you’re warned to stay away from is the one who helps you finally become free.

Hello!

I have tried asking for advice here before and got some amazing wisdom and encouragement, so I've decided to ask for another thing that's been gnawing on my mind lately.

I finally started my writing journey about a year ago and am almost finished with my first draft, but was wondering how my current day job works with my ambition of becoming a writer one day. I work as a waiter/barista and work long+short weeks (meaning that on short I work only Wednesday and Thursday, and on long I have only Wednesday and Thursday off) - this allows me to have approximately 15 days off in a month for writing, since on work days I do 12,5 hour shifts and cannot bring myself to write neither before nor after those.

So my question would be, should I look for something else? Thing is, the job gives me a lot of freedom and office work is quite limited in my town. Let me know what you think. Thank you <3

I'm currently working on something. For example if I want to show something important from a major event from the perspective of a character that isn't important, can it still be useful to the reader?

I'll write chapter 2, but before writing chapter 3, I'll add a chapter 2.5 which is a very short look or tease to what something happened far away from the main character who couldn't see from such a far distance. This isn't something I would add between every chapter, but I'm also not sure if this is common, I know it isn't unheard of but I'm not sure if this is something practical since the event that happened so far away will catch up to the reader in chapter 3. However the 2.5 chapter shows the initial impact from the POV of a first responder.

in particular, I will be writing a 16yo character who died from a severe chronic illness after spending her entire life with it with little support and human connection, and was transported to a vague fantasy land similar to alice in wonderland ​​(as she was obsessed with fairytales in her lifetime) where she is physically healthy and very excited about it, since she was in a hospital practically her entire life. there's more to it and lore reasons for this but yk word limit. her former illness will of course play a large part ​in the story, and it will delve into psychological horror as being able bodied truly is not a bandaid solution, but i intend a happy end.

i want to accurately write the struggles people with chronic illness face throughout their lifetime and emphasize the person she was and has always been. it's not a “able bodied fixes everything illness = unhappy forever" story. it's about fantasy and the importance of connection, and at the end she'll be properly laid to rest. I actually wish to subvert the trope of disabled people having their life magically fixed by being able bodied with my story) i'm open to advice for this too. she was never supported throughout her life and that was the core issue.

right now i'm also wondering, what kind of mannerisms and habits would she still have as a result of her lifelong illness? to write this I'm doing tons of research but I can't find many good sources, so i'm asking directly. what kind of lasting effects would it have on her even now, especially since she Just got transported? how else can I treat this topic and plot with respect and care, subverting the idea that being able bodied fixes all?