forum Use this as an outlet !

Started June 03, 2020 by @stolenbrocoli group

tune

thank you for the input ! i'll probably go with that one. but there's lots of time between now and the end so we'll see how it goes

I changed my entire plot based on a drawing I made and because I wasn't very good at drawing unique facial features 2 characters looked almost exactly alike so I decided they were related and that's what the whole story is about.

ooh i feel that. sometimes i'll change the plot or add to it just so i can have a certain chapter name.

so i'm planning on ending my book at kind of a high point (and by that i mean super dramatic and maybe kind of sad) and then starting the second book in the POV of another character. but my problem with this is i dont know where to end and where to start.

Spoiler - click to show.

so my current MC's goal is to find his mom, who was kidnapped several months before.
my first option: along the way him and the people he's traveling with get in a bit of an altercation with some people (i honestly haven't figured out who it'll be yet) and the brother of MC's love interest (presumably) dies. and this is where i kind of want to end it because it's kinda the MC's fault that the brother died. and when i pick it up in the next book, it's gonna pick up in the love interest's POV. but this doesn't really work because at the point they get in the altercation, they still haven't found MC's mom, and it doesn't sit right with me that his character arc won't be finished in his POV.
second option: everything mentioned above happens, but it stays in MC's POV. the thing with this is that love interest's brother "dying" is part of her arc (but they find him later on). and she also has to deal with the betrayal of one of her best friends being the reason her brother died. so i have the same problem as before; part of her arc won't be shown in her POV. i was planning on ending book 1 when they eventually do find the mom.
third option(and looking like the best one right now): i kind of do both…like the first book ends when MC find's him mom and the second book starts when love interest watches her brother die (kind of like a recap). my issue with this is that the whole purpose of backtracking so much is to get love interest's emotions in full, and it's backtracking a lot. there's lots of time between bro's death and finding mom.. the only way this might be able to work well is if i were to have them separate at some point shortly after bro's death.

so what should i do?

I'm team third option, that sounds interesting

I just finished my first draft! _{now to start on a nightmarish amount of edits.}

Bro that's awesome!

so i have a big problem with planning ahead while i'm writing (like so far ahead that i'm barely planning on what's about to happen). and i'm trying to work on the protag's arc(s) in my second book (i'm 4 chapters into the first lol), but it just doesn't feel right to me. all i have so far for her arc is that she's going on more of an emotional/survival journey, but i'm not sure if that's enough?

I have a great idea to torture a character but I have no idea how to write it and now I angy

Like just general writing skills or what?

I have no inspiration, I have a loose idea in my head, but I can't write lmao

geez this thread is deaddddd. but anyone else just HATE their main character for some reason??

I forgot about this thread….

geez this thread is deaddddd. but anyone else just HATE their main character for some reason??

I have love/hate relationships with some of them. I love them at times, but hate them at others. Lol

geez this thread is deaddddd. but anyone else just HATE their main character for some reason??

No, I love my sweet boy. He's so cute, but at the same time so eager to punch bullies in the face.

yea i guess i don't necessarily hate my MC, but i gotta say i strongly dislike him. my emotions toward this boy border hate and rage.

also i think i'm gonna move this thread to General Writing, it just feels a lot more relevant there.

Literally the entire point of my novel is that the main characters kinda suck. I hate and love them equally.
Also LETS BRING THIS THREAD BACK I've been banned from ranting to my friends and sister about book ideas

I've been banned from ranting to my friends and sister about book ideas

RANT AWAY!

YIS 🙏 🙏

SO. I'm doing this story, right. It revolves around a few of the royal families of this fantasy world I came up with. As the story goes on, you find out more and more that each of the main characters are actually horrible, terrible people with serious mental complexes and very few redeeming qualities. The entire point of the story is SUPPOSED to be a look at how power, luxury, and wealth affects people, and the dangers of living life completely for yourself (as well as kind of calling out toxic and unhealthy tropes in YA stories, but that's more just a personal vendetta I wrote into it.) It's not the most profound thing I've written ever, but that is supposed to be kind of the moral to the story- as well as it just feeding my desire to write toxic people who are absurdly rich and powerful. Idk man.
ALL THAT SAID. I've gone and gotten attached to two of the characters and I kind of don't want to end their story badly, even if they are also frankly pretty awful people. Do y'all think it would mess up the moral of the story if two of the characters didn't have tragic endings? To be fair, they're also the only two characters who kind of represent the working-class type citizen who had to fight their way to the top, so I COULD possibly justify giving them a happy ending as opposed to the people who just have everything handed to them in the story. At least that's what I'm telling myself. Thoughts?

Me: Writes an angsty LawLu oneshot
Me:
Me, a month later after not writing any other oneshots: Let's do it again

SO. I'm doing this story, right. It revolves around a few of the royal families of this fantasy world I came up with. As the story goes on, you find out more and more that each of the main characters are actually horrible, terrible people with serious mental complexes and very few redeeming qualities. The entire point of the story is SUPPOSED to be a look at how power, luxury, and wealth affects people, and the dangers of living life completely for yourself (as well as kind of calling out toxic and unhealthy tropes in YA stories, but that's more just a personal vendetta I wrote into it.) It's not the most profound thing I've written ever, but that is supposed to be kind of the moral to the story- as well as it just feeding my desire to write toxic people who are absurdly rich and powerful. Idk man.
ALL THAT SAID. I've gone and gotten attached to two of the characters and I kind of don't want to end their story badly, even if they are also frankly pretty awful people. Do y'all think it would mess up the moral of the story if two of the characters didn't have tragic endings? To be fair, they're also the only two characters who kind of represent the working-class type citizen who had to fight their way to the top, so I COULD possibly justify giving them a happy ending as opposed to the people who just have everything handed to them in the story. At least that's what I'm telling myself. Thoughts?

Okay, first off, that sounds like a great story! Now, in regards to the characters that you like…. I know that it's a trope, but could you fit in some sort of a redemption arc for them or something? Perhaps they can come to realize that even though they're part of the working-class that their lives aren't actually all that bad? Have them take pride in their work.

Me: Writes an angsty LawLu oneshot
Me:
Me, a month later after not writing any other oneshots: Let's do it again

I can relate to this since I have a bunch of incomplete fanfics! I start one, work on it for a while, get an idea for another one, and repeat.

Okay, first off, that sounds like a great story! Now, in regards to the characters that you like…. I know that it's a trope, but could you fit in some sort of a redemption arc for them or something? Perhaps they can come to realize that even though they're part of the working-class that their lives aren't actually all that bad? Have them take pride in their work.

Thanks!
And as for the 'pride in their work thing' they DO take pride in it, the issue with the characters (and all of my characters tbh) is that they're just too darn power hungry. These two just happen to like power AND other people sometimes, so I guess that makes them kinda redeemable??
…It doesn't, does it. Oh well.