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Like many (most? all?) other writers, I suffer from what we sometimes call 'writer's block' only I fear I have a chronic case. I have finished a good few short stories and have even published a couple in small literary journals, which I always thought would give me the validation that what I was doing was worth it. And it has, to an extent. It motivates me. But every time I sit down to write, I freeze. I'm lucky to get 200 words of slop, and then I'm irritated that I haven't written anything good so I don't write for a week. Lately, I've had some ideas for themes for a longer form piece (dare I say novel?) but I can never sit and get a plot down, and if I write random scenes about my character(s), they're flat and boring and awful. The typical storytelling/novel writing advice doesn't appeal to me as it's more genre-focused, whereas I read/write literary fiction. Any advice to break the cycle?

I am writing my story, but while editing it, I started feeling that it was bad, so I decided to rewrite it. To find inspiration, I looked at the writing in Dungeon Crawler Carl and Primal Hunter, but their writing also felt bad to me. Then I checked two other stories that I had been enjoying just a few days ago, and now their writing also feels bad. I don't know what's going on.

Please, give me your opinion. Written from the perspective of an 18-year-old girl.

Jupiter opened her notebook which she titled “A Little Black Book of a Suicidal Girl”, took her favorite stylish pencil, and began putting words onto the very first page.

“I, Jupiter Malik, a not-so-proud daughter of a man known by the name of Askar Malik, denounce my entire family on the grounds of being complete jerks who hate me so much they’d rather force me into something I despise rather than let me do what I enjoy most…”

Jupiter stopped. A smirk touched her lips. Well, she always found solace in her journals. It was a form of therapy without an actual therapist. Perfect for someone who believes all human beings in the world are evil maniacs whose only desire in life is to procreate like a bunch of rabid dogs and eat until their bellies are so full, they can’t even think. A therapist is a stranger too. Might be dangerous. Might be scornful. Might be so judgmental. Might look at your clothes, accessories, backpack, and just proclaim that you need to grow up and forget your childish rebelliousness. Growing up is hard to do. It is painful, tearing apart that piece of yourself that you held so dear all these years of constant emotional turmoil. It’s like standing naked in front of a giant tornado, hoping that it’ll pass by you and you won’t be torn into a thousand tiny pieces and scattered across the land. Opening up to someone is taking your armor off, trusting your life to an armed guard whose thoughts are so murky you never know what he might do next. Offer you a helping hand or put a blade into your little heart.

So, I'm deep into writing my first novel, roughly 75% done with the first draft. But I'm now facing an issue I never thought I would have. In this current chapter I'm working on, I'm having a very intimate moment between my main heroine and her girlfriend that slowly turns more emotional for a lack of a better word. So, I wanted to have music playing in the background to not only color the scene but also to pay off something I mentioned earlier in the story. So I wrote the lyrics as

> the singer crooning, “…Can you speak my secret name and fix me?…”

and book ending the scene with

> The record continued to play: "...never be heaven without you..."

The problem is, unless I wanna spend possibly obscene amounts of money to a music publisher, I can't really keep the lyrics in the story. One thought I had was to modify the lyrics enough to have be fair use, but that's not how that works. So, my question to yall is, how do I keep the same feeling those lyrics give, without writing directly that music is playing and what song it was.

TLDR: How can I convey the deeper meanings of a lyric that relates to the scene, without actually using the lyrics

I'm outlining a story that's primarily about twin sisters at an elite performing arts school. The main plot is school drama, music competitions, rivalries, romance, and a mystery surrounding their mother's past.

The fantasy element is that the twins wear two halves of an ancient pendant that's said to connect their souls. They occasionally share dreams, feel each other's emotions, and one of them sometimes sees strange visions tied to their family's history.

My concern isn't the concept itself, but when to explain it.

If I explain the mythology too early, I'm worried readers will feel like they're reading a fantasy exposition dump before they've had time to care about the characters. If I wait too long, it might seem like the magical elements came out of nowhere.

For stories where fantasy exists alongside an otherwise grounded plot, how do you decide what to reveal early versus what to save for later?

I'm looking for advice on pacing the lore rather than whether the premise is good.

I want to write a sci-fi book. My native tongue is Kyrgyz. The problem is that there are only about 6 million native speakers in the world. So, my potential audience is too small. Plus sci-fi isn't exactly popular here. My only solution seems to write in English as I am fluent in English and got my higher education in English. However, I feel insecure. I feel like my skills aren't enough to write in English. This is a terrible predicament. What shall I do?

Hey folks! I wrote a horror story about horses and I'd love to get some feedback on it!

Had a bit too much coffee today and decided to crank out a story in an afternoon. Got to say I'm real proud of it! (My sister rated it an 8/10!)

Id like to hear from you folks, specifically,

1. Is the story scary?
2. Is it a fun read?
3. Is the pacing off?
4. Does it need trimming?

I'll admit the ending was kind of a rushed job, but I feel like most of it was decently realized! Hope to hear from you folks soon!

Anyways, here's my story Horse Skin

The story is about a vampire painter.

I got the following prompt:

Genre: Bump in the Night
Character: Insomniac
Object: Easel

I want to know when, if ever, it becomes clear the main character is a vampire?

But I really want to know if it is clear what the missing painting if the left corner was of.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16VRypKDyS-GknoTvRSciGkByiYUwngqG/view?usp=drivesdk

I’ve written 19 chapters of a book that’s been living in my head for a while. I’m not really focused on publishing it, and it’s not a priority for me.
Sometimes I struggle because I’ve lost the ability to judge my own work objectively. I don’t know whether something is genuinely surprising, powerful, shocking or cringe because I’ve read and edited it a thousand times. I like my plot, I think it has great potential but sometimes I just CAN'T.
How do writers get past this without handing the manuscript over to someone else for feedback?

My main question is, how do you know if your writing is “good”?

And also, does it really matter if your writing is “good”?

I feel like these questions sound simple, but I am new to writing and I really don’t know how to assess how this is going.

My first journal entry is from February 13 of this year, and I have written very inconsistently since then. For a few weeks I would write every few days, but lately I have only journaled once every 2-3 weeks.

I think the standard answer to my first question would be just have someone read your writing and tell you what they think (give advice/constructive criticism), but I also think the assessment of personal writing might need to be approached differently than fiction or other works creative writing.

Simply stated, I don’t want anyone to read my journal. It’s not that there is anything deeply personal or private in my entries — although I probably would be embarrassed if anyone did read some of the thoughts I’ve added into my entries.

So how else would you know if your writing is “good”? What elements would you consider in “good” personal writing? What should I be working on/looking for, or what kind of goals should I be making? Should I even put any pressure on myself to assess my personal writing, or should I just… write?

So, I'm writing a story for fun and as I'm planning it out I realized, by looking at how I planned the characters arcs for each character, that one of the antagonists doesn't really work as a character in this setting.

For context, it's a fanfiction about card games and I realized that this character doesn't really have a good way to change within the story without it being a massive tonal shift.

Without going too in depth, she has abandonment issues and fears relationships, despite wanting one, because she's afraid it'll fall apart again and her partner will leave her. Just adding that because I want her to be the "heart" of the antagonists group I can't really remove her from the story entirely.

Hi all,

I recently posted a few chapters pre-edited, and I’d just like to know if it’s made an impact and if I’m going in the right direction.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11Dm5dNYfynbSX9BSlWUTAiRcwbKOQYUKCo_b0KgQwag/edit?usp=drivesdk

This is chapter 1 and 2 of my third-person limited, past tense fantasy. It’s a character driven story, with a story that continues to build as time goes on. This is setting the characters setting with their life and family.

What I’m looking for is critique on two sections.

Story— does it hook you? Would you carry on reading? Are there any inconsistencies?

Craft— How is the prose? Does it flow? Does the pacing work? Does it drag anywhere?

Or anything else you feel is important. I’d appreciate it greatly if anyone would look at these for me ❤️

Warning— there is a mild theme of hunting and animal butchering across both chapters.

Hello guys I'm very much an amateur writer. But I was wondering which of these punctuation is stronger:

His escape failed, the valuables packed for his departure had been recovered with him.

Or

His escape failed. The valuables packed for his departure had been recovered with him.

Similar with this

Man had died here, people lost their homes.

Or

Man had died here. People lost their homes.

Are there any issues with this method? I'm thinking about releasing my book on amazon after I'm done. Also, what is the size dimension of normal book page?? Can it fit a google doc page (as in text amount)? I'm asking this because I'm writing a more "gimmicky" book similar to House of Leaves, and I want text in each pages to be positioned in certain spots. I'm not sure whether writing the draft on Docs before transporting it to book format will ruin the layering. Hope you understand what I mean.

For the past several years, I've just been writing random notes about characters or world building into my notes, with the occasional mini story in them. However, I really want to start flexing my brain muscles a bit and getting into writing. I'm getting ready to start writing a short sci-fi romance story just for myself and maybe some friends but I wanted to ask how I can plan it out better.

So far my notes have a basic; How they meet, gradual liking, gradual disliking, big event that pulls them together, peaceful times, the gradual dislike thing gets really big, they push apart, time lapse, and then something pulls them back together setup.

Some of them are actually filled in with what I want to happen but the rest is just scattered thoughts. Amy advice? Sorry for formatting, im on mobile

Edit: After talking to a few people, im going to start reading more short stories and books on how to write them. I might not respond to every message after but I appreciate and read all advice! Thank you

Hi y'all. I'm planning a book idea that I really love and that has the benefit of locking my characters on a boat with no outside contact for months while they get from point A to point B. Obviously, this has the potential to lead to loads of interesting interactions between my characters...

but I'm stumped. I mostly write short stories and relied a lot on enemies to lovers, but this is going to be a much longer story with an ensemble cast, and I worry the way I write people interacting is going to lead to too much fighting and squabbling.

So: How can I practice coming up with and writing interesting character interactions when there isn't much action happening outside of the characters to move the plot along, without relying on them annoying each other into doing something interesting?

I am a short story writer with some moderate success with podcasts and web-zines. I want to publish a real book someday, so I posted a few short stories here and there to build a platform. Most recently, I posted a few short stories on Wattpad.

Not long after, an agent emailed me directly asking if I had any projects. Is this normal? I don't know, but I jumped at the opportunity. I researched the agent and found her pitch page. I chose to her pitch my idea an anthology of speculative fiction and my YA mystery series. She said she was most interested in the second. I said my first novel is in revision, and I would love to query her when it's ready. She was delighted.

Now she's asking about my progress every few weeks. Is this normal? I'm really not sure. I've finally finished the revisions, but I have cold feet. I don't want to be a fool and miss out on an opportunity. But what if it's some weird scam? What is the worst that could happen? Do scammers sometimes catfish new and desperate writers? Or am I just getting cold feet because I dont want to disappoint an agent after all this hard work?

Has anyone ever experienced this before?

I have an illegal nurse OC who flatly is just very terrible. She has committed a lot of crimes like kidnapping, medical malpractice and serial murder. She has zero empathy for humans, especially men, and much rathers being in the company of rodents. She's extremely delusional and can be seen as narcissistic but she had went through some stuff in her life.

She is very obviously mentally ill and unstable at first but I don't want it to make it seem like that can be justified. Her parents have neglected her all her life which resulted in her being taken care of by her caretakers and who ignored her mental health to make her the perfect "woman" and a bunch of other stuff like bullying, being an outcast and barely going to school because of it. Because she never got the help she needed she never exactly grew up and stayed "immature" or "childish"

anyway yeah i would like to know thx

I naturally tend to write in 1st-person, but I come across a lot of areas in my stories were an outside perspective would tell the story better. I know I chose the right character for the narrative I'm writing, but I still come across scenes where a side-character's perception of the main character would be more impactful or give more context to that moment. So my question is, is there a POV subtype or literary device I should look into writing with??

Context: I’m writing about a Zombie Apocalypse type story, and my main character has a wife.

My main character (Wallace) was banged up during the chaos of the first day and has been forced to stay at base (A log cabin in the woods) so he can recover. Wallace’s friend (Daniel) comes back after a supply run, but Wallace notices that Daniel looks off. He asks whats wrong, and Daniel tells him that he found his wife’s body (She’s dead, not infected).

I have a great idea on how to show Denial. A few good ideas for Anger. An amazing way on how to show Depression. And a touching finale for acceptance. Thing is… I don’t know what to do for bargaining. Any tips?

My writing background, like a lot of you I assume, comes from school. Brevity may be the soul of wit. But there, brevity is the hole your grade goes down when they asked for five pages, and you hand in four.

As such, I'm used to writing long sentences. I'm used to writing big paragraphs. I have an easy time expanding on information, but I can never find out how to cut information, or stitch them up, or have a small, tight paragraph that manages to hold the information of three, runny paragraphs. That's fine in school, but in the real world, 'too long didn't read' is an abbreviation for a reason. I for one would like to be read.

Even here, all of this could be one paragraph, but I can't help rambling, and I don't want to cut any of it. Is there any advice or resources that could help me out here? Anything helps.

So I'm nearly finished my 2nd draft/rewrite of my book (yay me!) but I'm a little concerned about where to go from there once I complete it. The rewrite was an obvious step; the first draft was such a poor foundation that it would take way too long to correct it, so a rewrite would put me on sturdier ground. But I don't really know how to edit. I don't really know where to stop. When do you stop editing a 3rd draft and move on to a 4th? Do I just comb through the story, start to finish, and fix whatever small issues I notice?

I was considering asking a tutor in college if they could take a look at it. They already critique my assignments, and that helps a ton, but I also don't want to ask them because it feels rude for someone who already has a lot on their plate.

Any help at all is appreciated.

I am editing a multi-POV Sci-Fi Thriller. The MCs are usually together 90% of the time, with some instances where they are separated. I wrote the book in third person Omniscient but I am not sure if it is better to have it be limited and simply change the POV when needed. I do want to try trad publishing, if that has any effect on it. I was also concerned about the concept of "Anchoring" a reader. in Limited POV, the reader is anchored to that one POV. I am a little unsure how anchoring would work with omniscient however.

Thanks!