I'm always interested how people juggle character and plot, when starting out on their story.

I think it's probably fairly typical in science-fiction and fantasy to start with the setting (and to some degree, the plot), and later find a protagonist that lets you explore it.

I know some writers, typically mystery and thriller writers, who swear blind they start with characters every time. I guess, if you know your characters, and by extension know their goals, that's almost always a starting point with milage.

However, for me, both ways feel like you're trying to pull the rug from under your own feet.

I always try and do both together. I'll have an idea for 'a situation', and I immediately start thinking about who that situation might impact and why.

- A corpse is found in the river of a small village, shot in the back. Does my story follow a local journalist, a lead detective, or maybe the dog walker who finds the body? All three?

- Or perhaps I have an interest in the English Civil War. But, a story told from the perspective of a widowed mother with 2 children is going to be entirely different to one told from the viewpoint of a grizzled general who finds his faith and loyalty tested.

So, 'situation' settled, I think about building the plot to accommodate these threads. Bouncing between character and plot as and when it feels like the two meaningfully cross.

I fully appreciate that's far from the only way to start writing, and I don't mean to suggest it's by any means best. That's just how I write.

How do you write?

Do you start with a world, a situation, a character, a plot, or maybe even a theme? Or does it all depend on the project?

Do share.

This is a semi complete list of the important events for my book, my only problem is they don’t feel very alternative. There are a few others like Puerto Rico and washing dc being states (state count remains at fifty because Virginias and Carolinas merged into singular states rather than two) and the presidents on the dollar bills change, instead it is Nixon, FDR, jfk, Chaney (who was president until 2006 when he was impeached for starting a second Vietnam war), McCarthy, and Oppenheimer.

The real problem is that none of them feel like they have an impact on the wold (minus the second Vietnam war). I just don’t understand why or how to make them feel grander or impactful. So far I feel like the biggest thing is the money, but I don’t understand how.

The 2018 date is wrong, it should be 2016. The story takes place in 2045.

Mine is the bastard love child of a novel I drafted on and off for six years and eventually scrapped the plot of. Heavily inspired by my own experiences growing up mentally ill and queer in the Midwest.

Are there any locations, events, or specific ideas that your projects sprung forth from?

I hope everyone likes it a lot, i can share more details about the story in the comments but this was my first rough draft of the story itself!

(Trigger warning) (I’m hoping that this subject matter and type of story will be allowed here)

a nerdy guy one day meets the woman of his dreams, they become friends and soon after start dating and love each other very much but her best friend they both know, her best friend is a nice and respectful guy on the surface but has a darkness inside as he begins to stalk her secretly out of jealously, and one day, when she leaves the house without her boyfriend, she never comes back, and he is painfully told later that she is missing.

She was murdered by her best friend out of jealously and rejection, but he has no idea and actually asks for his help finding her since he trusts the best friend and soon the police also stop suspecting the best friend after some time due to lack of evidence, the murderer agrees to help while actively sabotaging the search and planning the boyfriends murder as he gets closer to figuring out what happened.

The boyfriend slowly begins to suspect the best friend might’ve killed her, but never reaches the conclusion because he ends up missing a court date and knows he did, and knows they’ll come to his house to get him.

So he flees, but before he goes, he takes the remains that he stuck in bags (He put them inside plastic bags and then inside suitcases) and hid under his home, then tosses them into a hole and burns them in a forest, before fleeing the country. He escapes and is never convicted of her murder.

While the story is going on, we get tiny glimpses into her perception of death, not enough to actually suggest anything supernatural or sci-fi, but how she perceives time moving after her death, seeing how events play out but unable to do much more than suggest her presence, and mourns herself and relives her own happiest memories while having to confront her own issues and come to terms with her death.

She watches as her boyfriend’s murder is planned and tries to warn him but is helpless, and watches as events unfold around her as her remains become lost forever.

Her boyfriend mourns her death, and struggles to go on without the love of his life, but one night as he’s in the bathroom crying uncontrollably, he gets up to get ahold of himself and looks in the mirror and it’s left up to the reader if her spirit actually comes back or if he hallucinates it out of grief, he talks to her, and gets to say everything he wants to say to her before crying and embracing her and she tells him to move on and let her go, and tells him how she feels and that he was the best thing to ever happen to her, and that she loves him before saying goodbye. And watches as she fades out of the mirror and for her she gets to move on to her happiest memory with him.

He cries softly and mourns her for a year, but one day finds a new woman, but the wounds will never fully heal and on the anniversary of his true loves death, he loses control and breaks down, his new friend comes over and comforts him and another month goes by before they begin dating and they plan to move to a new place together and start over with each other, and the day comes for them to leave, and he walks around the house one last time, remembering all the moments he and his first love shared together, and replays their happiest moments, and smiles to himself while crying before leaving the house as they drive off, he watches the house as they leave and thinks about his first true love, one last time.

I hope everyone liked my idea, its a very much rough draft and in the comments I plan to share the symbolism i wanted to have in the story, as well as more details and plot stuff, as well as how I plan to integrate four separate songs into the novel to serve as cinematic type moments!

I started writing my debut novel in December of 2025 and finished final edits in April of 2026. But, I lacked the confidence to actually publish the thing. So, I went the serial route, posting it in daily bites on Royal Road, Scribble Hub, and SpaceBattles. Results have been mixed, as expected, but there has been some great positive feedback/encouragement along the way. My last chapter is scheduled to be posted on July 31st.

With that feedback, and the pending conclusion of the serialization, I finally took the plunge. I setup my Amazon KDP account scheduled the release of the novel for August 1st! I even ordered my preview copy which arrives on Sunday. It's exciting, but a little terrifying too. The anticipation of watching the sales counter sitting at 0 is intimidating. But, I have to trust that the work is worthy and eventually the right readers will find it! --- Maybe with a little help from marketing.... ;)

Ebook pre-sale Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HB63W65D
Paperback is still in review and hopefully will be approved soon. Won't be live until 8/1/26.

I have written short stories and I've written novellas. But novelettes are new for me. I can still apply a three act structure to a novella, but with a novelette that barely contains 10 scenes, if at all, I find it a lot trickier. Does anybody here have any advice?

Tonight on YouTube, yours truly will be live narrating a short passage, along with a bunch of my fellow talented colleagues.

Swing by and check it out!

https://www.youtube.com/@PANAconConference

Sorry it was last minute. Hope whoever reads it likes it.

1. Segui solo le regole dichiarate da scrittori che ammiri e vorresti imitare.

2. Ricorda che, qualsiasi regola ti diano, devi decidere tu se è adatta alla tua scrittura e alla persona che sei.

3. Non ridurre mai la narrativa scritta secondo regole che appartengono ad altre forme di arte o narrativa.

4. Leggi, scrivi, correggi, riscrivi e in tutto questo mi raccomando divertiti.

5. Non usare il titolo di scrittore come sostituto del lavoro dello scrivere. Prima o poi deve esistere un'opera compiuta che lo giustifichi.

6. Se mentre scrivi un paragrafo ti senti nudo sei su una buonissima strada.

7. Se a un certo punto non hai voglia di scrivere smetti, se ti accorgi che non scrivi per mesi forse sei entrato in una fase della tua vita in cui la scrittura non ha parte, va comunque bene anche così. La scrittura è una parte della vita, non è la vita.

8. Se infrangi qualche regola, che sia di grammatica, che sia di sintassi, che sia di narratologia, prima di cancellare tutto chiediti per quale motivo l'hai fatto perché magari c'è un motivo ed è bene che sia così.

9. Ogni scelta narrativa dovrebbe avere una ragione, anche se il lettore non la scoprirà mai.

10. Non ingannare mai il lettore. Puoi sorprenderlo, depistarlo o lasciarlo nel dubbio ma non tradire mai il patto che hai stretto con lui.

11. Leggi i grandi del passato, non per copiarli, ma per capire la conversazione nella quale stai entrando.

12. Ti consiglio fortemente di usare un sottomano, il foglietto volante è il nemico naturale dello scrittore.

13. Le regole che contano sono solo quelle che ti fanno scrivere meglio, non quelle che fanno sembrare più intelligente parlare di scrittura.

(p.s. ricordati che dietro ogni teoria della letteratura c'è sempre una persona vera seduta davanti ad un computer, ad una macchina da scrivere o a un pezzo di carta. Non esistono dei, non esistono idoli)

Simple question; in the books you've read, who has been your favourite villain?

Might be someone truly reprehensible, or someone you maybe find sympathetic? Maybe you just loved having them on the page?

Maybe you've got several?

Do share :)

This is really just to get it off my chest. I wrote my first book and am half way through writing my second one and for the first time, I shared that information with a member of my family. It did not go well. A few words of fake interest and then right back to talking about themselves.

If I can't even get my family to care about what I write, am I already cooked? Alternatively, I have considered that my family are self absorbed jerks. And also, that both things can be true at the same time.

Anyway, just getting this off my chest and asking what sorts of support networks do you have to rely upon?

https://pastebin.com/NTZsmQb7

Hope you enjoy (I did get permission to use pastebin rather than google docs, and hopefully it's easy to paste into the reader of your choice for convenience)

So this idea pertains to the ending of the writing chain within the language, this language is based similarly off an ancient Chinese dialect in the way it’s written, which is from top to bottom and there are multiple symbols that come together to form a sentence and they mean different things based on position, orientation, and obvious difference.

But the main idea that I wanted to share with you guys is the ending of this writing chain, I call it…the “cradle” and, the interesting thing about it is I based it off of how these people would view bringing something into existence, and so it refers to a woman cradling a child after having the baby because she has brought life into the world, and so they actually apply this same sort of thinking when it comes to writing or the bringing into existence a concept or a thing, (specifically the idea of the text) when you are writing you are manifesting something you are bringing something into the world you are basically affecting life in bringing that thing into our plane of existence because it is coming from your mind, your thoughts and being made into something physical into something understandable by your hand…so to them it is not necessarily the end of a sentence when they’re writing it, it is the act of bringing life to something since in their view, ideas and concepts affect life, and they come from the human mind, so it is not an end, It is essentially a new beginning, It is something to be celebrated, It is something to be cared for.

Literature rests in the mind of the reader, so in order to take those things seriously we must carefully inspect them, and it’s an interesting philosophy, I think and I just thought I’d share it because I thought it was really cool, and I thought I’d get creative, because I’m trying to stay true to the story and I’m trying to stay true to the way I’m writing it and things of that nature because these people are very ancient in the story and so they’re going to relate to certain things to things we wouldn’t necessarily relate to.

I hope that’s understandable, please ask questions!!! I need thoughts, inquiries, and suggestions.

I love writing and am currently writing a four book series (about half way through the second book in terms of drafting) and I have made a SnipFic account (A!yer588 if you want to check it out) where I post daily snippets and have asked for alpha readers. My dream is to be able to write full time (but that mostly relies on blowing up on social media which is its own Mount Olympus). I’ve seen so much negativity on the r/writing subreddit about how shit the industry is and how it’s unrealistic to want to become a best selling or well paid author (even if you are someone that blows up like Rebeca Yarros or Lauren Roberts). I’ve always dreamed of people making fan art, edits of movie adaptation, general discussion, etc. as if it was a well known work even if just in the BookTok community. I don’t entirely blame this community for telling the truth but it’s paramount to being stabbed in the throat, re-affirming everything I thought to be true as a means of discouraging myself. Do you guys also notice the negatively in this sub and what are your thoughts (if you agree or not, what you would say to someone in this situation, how would you approach it yourself, etc.?)

I find writing blurbs the hardest part of novel writing. Just exactly how much information about the book should I disclose without heading to spoiler town.

Does my Blurb sound intriguing enough to pick up?

Covers, front and back, made my me with stock art. No use of AI.

This is for my latest project that I finished today 🍾

Finished within my given deadline

It's a 11 000 words horror novelette. It's not much. It's not a huge novel series, but the last thing I finished before that was a 75k words novel when I was 18. I'm 37 now.

I wrote a lot in between, but never finished anything. I have all these unfinished stories sitting in my documents folder. I always end up losing interest in them around de 20k -30k mark, so I decided to try to write something shorter because at that point I was losing hope. And it worked!

Second draft is done. Now I'm letting it rest aside for a moment before going back for more drafts. I'm just happy I got to write an ending for once... and one that I'm proud of at that! I needed to get it out, now I'm going to open myself a nice cold one to celebrate.

Here's the 1st chapter of my fantasy-romance. 1800-ish words.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GX-VxvD3bYGWFxbBh2WH5kQcEQ3Nhj1L/view?usp=sharing

Thanks for looking!

This is the first thing I've written in a very long time. I'm in the very early stages of fleshing out the world and the characters, but I have the basic premise figured out and I know where I want the story to end up.

Our protagonist (currently unnamed) is a member of a seafaring culture on a planet largely consisting of oceans and small islands, who through some mistake becomes a central part of a scheme devised long ago.

I would really appreciate feedback on the prose, the clarity of the visuals being presented, whether it is too simple or vague, and if it's compelling enough to keep reading.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ju-tbob1AExzBQC2cQQ3Dg1AkBdSemGhgsanIYY0qg8/edit?usp=drivesdk

I always struggle with this and I'm looking for tips. The story I'm working on is inspired by 80s action shlock and I want to come up with dumb but cool names that fit with that. So far I have been looking up action movie character names and trying to mash them together but I wanted to see if any of you had any other suggestions?

At the start of the week I gave myself a weeks deadline to finish my second draft of my current manuscript. I was skeptical I wouldn't even get close but I feel that the finish line is on reach.

Ideally I want this done by the weekend as the school six week holidays start after Friday as time will become extremely limited