r/writingadvice

My main character is living in a realistic steampunk world where exploitation of the poor, the difference between the poor and the rich, economy and all things in between is beyond saving. He lets things happen around him with little care finding everything inevitable and that some things are meant to happen. He gives most of his money to charity because he doesn't need it for daily expenses but still refuses to do anything personally.

How can I make this character anything but annoying? He just feels like he is destined to be hated for his hypocrisy for giving away his money but not his time.

He doesn't care what others say, do or their method of justice. He works for the church which handles paranormal cases but he is fine with his captain murdering all that is suspicious while being against it himself calling it again inevitable. He also doesn't say much when others load their work on him and is fine because he just doesn't have anything else to do. He doesn't care when his choices aren't respected or when his sentences are cut in half as well. He follows every order but does complain every time even though he always does them.

This comes from the fact that he doesn't see himself as a human because he isn't(very long explanation)

So what can I do to make this character somewhat likeable until the reveal?

So I’m doing an Elder Scrolls rp with someone atm, mostly for funsies, but also to practice my writing

My character, Sillia, just got her left leg impaled by an antler while hunting for food.

My other character Verminah is a Dunmer, so being from Morrowind where Elks aren’t really prevalent, she doesn’t know how to treat this. Both my role-play partner and I headcanon that restoration magic is much more complex than portrayed in game, you have to know the anatomy, and you can absolutely mess it up. If you don’t know what you’re doing.

Verminah is a Priestess of Azura, so while she doesn’t know how to heal this particular wound, she still knows a bit of restoration magic, but she mostly knows how to heal burns. So she cauterized the wound and healed the burn to ease the pain.

So Sillia was carried back to camp where my rp partner’s character Hriskarr, is a much more experienced healer, as he’s a Nord from Skyrim, and can actually heal the internal damage. Which is how my character survives the whole ordeal.

I told my role-play partner that I’m considering having Sillia be disabled from this, because disability representation is simply not done enough, but since there’s a lot of adventure and fighting, I do need my character to be able to fight still. I was thinking I was going to give her a limp, and she needs to ride on a horse a lot. I don’t want to just write her out of the story.

Anime and manga have become a huge part of modern storytelling culture, so I’m curious how much they’ve influenced other writers.

For me, I can definitely see influences from multiple anime/manga storytelling styles mixed with Western dark fantasy in my own work.

Do you think anime has affected your writing, character creation, pacing, action scenes, or worldbuilding?

So, i have been writing a "book" for like half a year now, it's about an antropomorphic raccoon detective, i'm too lazy to elaborate beyond that tbh. The question is, how can i just go beyond mainstream depictions of animal races in a human context? Like cats being fancy and dogs being street animals, i've tried diverting from the "general view" by adding different species and just fleshing out the politic and economic reality of the world, but i still feel like i have created a black and white perspective of the social world instead of several shades of grey to have every race fit in each one of them, but i have just changed one part of it (changed the roles of the raccoon and the dog, raccoons becoming a marginalized kind through all their history). Any tips?

P.S: Sorry if i had any spelling mistakes or just ortographic errors, english is my 2nd language.

So quick recap for those who haven’t seen my previous post, Sillia got impaled in her right thigh by an Elk antler

I want to give her a permanent limp for disability representation, also it would help with her character arc too if she had to spend some time with her people, the Orcs, re-learning how to fight. As I want her to convert to Deadra worship(Malacath)

Hriskarr, my rp partner’s character, specializes in restoration magic tho. So I’d imagine he’d be able to heal it fully

So I’m thinking some bone damage, what do you guys think I should do?

I know, it’s a relatively simple question, but I’m about to explain.

So I was role playing with my rp partner, and my character had her leg impaled by an antler while hunting.

So our two other characters hear her scream, and my other character decides to cauterize her wound.

I didn’t know what to type other than

“AHHHHHHHHHH!” She screams

That just kinda sounds boring to me, and I’d like to know how I can improve

I’m really struggling with this problem and can’t figure out how to fix it. I have a naturally purple-y prose writing style, which I think can be a strength if I can learn to rein it in. But that’s the problem! Every time I write I can’t figure out how to control my prose. I’ve been told I need to exercise more precision, more restraint- but how do I develop that instinct to know when to pull back and when to let go? I’m naturally a very emotional writer. When emotional scenes are happening I’m feeling them too and allowing myself to get swept away in how the character is reacting and experiencing.

I guess my question is - what can I do? I’m a big reader and just got back into it over the last year (classics as well as contemporary), I practice writing m, but even the latest attempt was so purple and melodramatic. Any advice you can give?

(callous means emotionally hardened, insensitive, or having a cruel disregard for others)

So I’ve been writing this story with a callous main character but I don’t really know how I should write so I don’t turn people away from reading the story.

Basically, my character is often upset because of things others say or the way they treat her, so to cope with that she says mean things to those people and in astrange way, the fact that they feel the same way they made her feel makes her feel better.

I think I need help with that. She's not a "bad girl" and I don't want her to seem like a jerk, especially that she's right and just copes with that in this way.

Im a new writer. I did write a few poems and one book.

I recently discovered theres other types of writing thats not a poem or book and im really interested in trying them out. Micro fiction,Flash fiction, short stories and Epistolary fiction.

I have done some research on them and honestly I cant really grasp the concept properly. I was hoping to find someone who does write these that would be willing to help me out.

I thought of a cool backstory for a character. Basically on their home planet they were tortured for entertainment in some type of messed up game show. I want to encounter this character after he already escaped his home planet but somehow reveal his backstory after the reader gets to know him first. Any tips to pull this off without just shoehorning in explanatory dialogue? One idea I had was to bring them back to where it happened and maybe that could act as a natural trigger to get him talking about it. Any other ideas?

I'm starting to imagine a fight scene where my protagonist just beats down on a group of people and speed blitzes them with nothing but a pair of chopsticks in his hand. I really want to make this happen. How can j make my protagonist train to become that strong in the most realistic way possible?

Hi, I’m not exactly a serious writer (too busy at the moment to invest much time) but every few months or so I’ll come up with a fun/interesting idea for a story or character or setting and try to run with it just for fun. The problem is that I’m a little rusty (I used to write a lot years ago but not so much now) and I struggle putting my words on the page, so I’ve been reading way more to remind myself what I actually like in a book. But then I always seem to come across something that’s similar to my own idea, and it’s like it scratches the itch and I kind of lose interest or motivation so I just move on to the next idea, and of course I can’t finish anything that way. I just tend to get caught up in the other writers’ ideas and lose sight of what made mine any different, I guess, so it’s almost like I don’t “need” them anymore. This has been a problem for a few years now and I’m getting a little fed up

Does anyone else have this problem? Should I stop reading things with similar ideas or in the same genre, or is this more of a problem with the way I approach my own writing?

Thanks!

My MC’s a teen hero who forms a rebellion against his dystopian government with the help of other heros. His mentor Rafa, is one of the most powerful heros yet he doesnt stop his government mostly due to fear of being a wanted criminal. He has more power than them yet doesn’t use it

Most of what he does at first is just what anyone would do. He scolds and goes to extremes to stop the rebellion in order to keep his mentee safe. He doesn’t care about the the citizens, just keeping someone he personally knows safe.

Near the end is when he does cross bad person territory, as he sells out the rebellion excluding his student to try to protect just the Mc. And eventually when the Mc is captured, he watches frozen in place, being too scared even now to save his student.

But in the beggining, i don’t have much else for how to make him morally gray and not just a responsible adult trying to stop a a dangerous rebellion plan

For background, in my book, I’m trying to write a twist antagonist to the main character and the other side characters of my book. But at the same time, I want to subtly hint at them being an antagonist at the very start, but not too obvious for it to be flagged as foreshadowing by the reader, and only seen once they go back and re read…and my main idea for this is to write the side character in question’s reactions, and their tendencies in a way that would hint at them evolving into the antagonist I’m envisioning.

So, my question is, Is there any other great ways to hint at a character being an antagonist?

I'm looking for help getting my flame reignited on my fantasy project. I poured countless hours over a few years building a world setting for my fantasy concept and flew through the first ~60,000 words of my first planned novel. Then life hit. My laptop died and it was several months of saving before I got a new one, then as soon as I had that my wife and I were shopping for a house, a few months later and were finally settled into our new home and I finally feel like I have time again but it has been over 6 months now since I've done any work on my novel and I've been beating myself up about it. A few times in the last week I've opened up my document, stared at it for 30 minutes then closed the laptop without being anything. How did you find the spark to get back into your projects after life took you away for an extended period?

I'm writing a short story where two characters in two very different environments accidentally swap places. (Not quite a "Freaky Friday" plot, they don't swap bodies) Leading up to the moment, both characters are doing almost the same thing in their respective universes before experiencing a moment of convergence that triggers the swap. I'm not writing a screenplay but I can see the moment in my head like it's on screen; the two characters' moods escalate in their respective environments, then when their emotions are about to explode, both characters appear on a split screen as they yell the same line in sync with one another, then a flash of lightning fills and they both pass out. I'm struggling to capture that part in a sufficiently impactful way that makes it clear right away they are speaking simultaneously. Any tips for writing that perfectly in sync moment?

Hi,

I'm relatively new to writing and, as such, I was hoping for some advice or tips on how to outline a compelling antagonist or antagonistic force, and how to base the subsequent protagonist off of them. Or should I do it the other way around? It seems like a lot to juggle between major and minor/supporting characters. I wanted to make an "antagonist" whose species is inherently evil, but is born in a world where evil like that doesn't exist freely. The protagonist will try to help the antagonist overcome their inherent evil. As you can see I have a bare bones concept but from there I can't figure out what to do. Any help is appreciated.

I just bought a binder of sorts to keep all my notes together, instead of a bunch of papers with random reminders. It has 4 tabs, so I was thinking of organizing information/thoughts about the book I'm writing. But, as a beginner, I don't know which categories would work the best. Like, should a whole “tab” be dedicated to the main character, pacing, or timeline, etc.? For some further explanation, the book is a Y/A fantasy novel with one main character and a love interest.

I'm writing a domestic/psychological thriller and am just over a third through my first draft. I'm already taking lots of notes for my revision passes because I'm realizing earlier sections could be more propulsive.

For people who read/write thrillers, what creates that compulsive "just one more chapter" feeling? Not just cliffhangers and twists, but the subtler elements.

Also. How do you avoid or catch yourself from being too explicit or repetitive with your themes/thesis? I struggle to trust my subtext.

Feel free to give any examples of thrillers that do these things well!