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On Super-Powered Characters

Anonymous asked: ‘I’m trying to write a story where a few characters have supernatural abilities. Is is better to decide their abilities first and then write a plot accordingly or choose their abilities corresponding to the events of the plot?”

Before giving any character a superpower, ask yourself, why does this character have this ability? I’m not asking this to sound like I’m against characters with superpowers, because really, I love reading about people with superhuman talents. I grew up on werewolf fiction, trust me. I’m not above it. 

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Have Plot, Need Characters

Anonymous asked: “Hi Lizard, I came across your Have Characters, Need Plot post and it was great! My problem is the opposite though, I have a story I have a plot, but I somehow don’t have the main character!”

So, this is actually something I’ve been struggling with a little myself lately. I showed someone a chapter of my novel and they said that while it wasn’t a bad start, the protagonist is boring, especially in relation to all of the other characters. 

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Staying Inspired with Your Work

Anonymous asked: “Hi Lizard! I haven’t been writing for a few months. I got really burnt out because of this fandom I wrote for. I took a break, but now I want to start writing again, this time original fiction, but I’m struggling. I don’t really know why, but maybe I just had things that motivated me when writing fan fics, like I’d know where I could post my stories and that they’d get at least some readers.” 

So I don’t have any personal experience writing fan fiction, but from what I’ve gathered, inspiration for fan fiction is kind of an engine of its own.

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Writing with Teen Angst

Anonymous asked: “How do I make a main character’s death sad, but not too angsty?”

I don’t really associate character death with angst. With a teen protagonist, angst will be there, but it’s more likely to bring out the extremes of existing emotions.  

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Embracing the Changes

During National Novel Writing Month, there isn’t a lot of time for second guessing yourself. You’ve got to write 1,667 words a day on average to make it to 50,000 by the end of the month, but sometimes you have a realization, like - wait, a second, this book would actually be so much better if I made the HUGE ENORMOUS CHANGE. I’m talking today about why you should go with your gut, especially in the first week. 

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When You Hate Your Novel

Anonymous asked: “Hi Lizard! I have a huge problem: in the middle of my first draft I’ve realized that there are parts of my story I don’t feel passionate about, or just don’t work, and I would need to go back and change it all and start over again. The point is that I feel like a failure leaving the first draft unfinished and starting from scratch. What should I do?”

So it’s kind of a funny thing. This morning a friend of mine asked me if she should put aside her novel to work on another one. It’s never an easy decision to put a novel aside for later, but in this case we talked it out. 

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Writing a Dialogue-Heavy Scene

magicallynormal asked: “Hi Lizard, I was wondering, what do you do when everything you write feels disjointed? I have trouble working in dialogue and description and emotions and when I try, it feels like I’m just trying to connect things with with a few extra words in between.”

Oh, I’ve been there I practically live there. But really, that is a very familiar feeling for me. I start with dialogue and can just get carried away in the conversation and lose track of the rest of the scene. It’s a natural thing I think actually. 

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[boneszzjunkie]

Describing Character Appearances

Anonymous asked: “Do you have any tips on how to describe characters effectively? I always find myself dumping a paragraph on their appearance the moment they appear which often really halts the action.”

Even in great manuscripts, character descriptions can come off pretty clunky. Some writers will get pretty creative to minimize that aspect of it, but it’s usually there to some degree no matter what. Though character descriptions might bog down the writing to some extent, I know they’re necessary. As a reader, I would feel that something is missing if a character wasn’t adequately described. With that said, descriptions do not have to be long, just long enough to help the reader picture him or her. 

There are a few ways strategies to describing characters that can help avoid that long description dump at the first sight of a new character:

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On Writing Relatable Characters

“Good evening Lizard, I hope you can give advice about this. If I’m going to write a story about a teenager character how I can make teenagers readers identify with her? I am an adult and when I was a teen I was kind of wasn’t too teen I was more like a troll, so how can I write good teen character?”

I want to start this off by saying there isn’t just one way to write a teenaged character. That might sounds a little obvious, but it’s easy to forget just how much wiggle room there is. 

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On Switching Perspectives

“Hi Lizard! I’ve heard that switching perspectives could help unstick a story, but when is the best time to switch perspectives? When does it become confusing?”

I generally don’t recommend switching perspectives in a novel. The main reason is that unless there is a specific reason to tell more than one perspective, it may muddle the story or make it so that you’re writing two separate stories in the same novel. If the separate stories are not especially connected, it can make the novel feel lopsided or distracted.

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Writing More than One Plot Line

“How many plot lines are too many?”

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The World isn’t Ending: Writing Fiction Without Major Tragedies

“I always hear advice like “in order to keep the plot interesting, imagine the worst thing that could happen and do that to your character" or some variation of that. My question is: do I have to? Can the plot be interesting and engaging while things are either going right or the character not dealing with tragedy?”

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Mending Your Plot Holes & Preventing New Ones

Hi Lizard. What do you do about plot holes? I see a big plot hole in my work in progress right now, but I don’t know how to fix it. Should I just go with it or do you have any advice on mending the hole?

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Let’s Talk About Plot

So this has been a highly requested post as of late, so I thought I’d spend a little extra time talking about plot. What is it? How does it work? What constitutes plot? I get these questions a lot and the more I think about it the more insanely philosophic the conversation starts to get, but I’m too pragmatic to get into that here. Let’s get to the root of it.

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[boneszzjunkie]

Slam a huge chunk of ice as big as a jawbreaker in their mouth and see them choke and drown while they violently trying to vomit out the ice that was dislodged in their throat

Choking someone with bear hands can leave lots of evidence.. be wise and resourceful

Ice melts = no murder weapon

[boneszzjunkie]

Rose's dumb ideas #50

One night while out on a camping trip, the MC gets hit by a car and is knocked unconscious

When they come to, they find themselves in the trunk of the car that hit them. They overhear the people in the car talking about how they think they killed the MC and how they're going to hide their body so they don't get caught

They try to get the people's attention, but then hear them saying they'll have to kill them in order to cover it up if they are still alive. So, when they get the opportunity, they make a run for it and escape into the woods

Now, while both injured and being chased, they have to make their way through the wilderness to find help before they get caught or succumb to their injuries

[boneszzjunkie]

31 Phobia Prompts

Legend has it, if you get through all 31 prompts, you master fear itself…

Thalassophobia - fear of the ocean

Acrophobia - fear of heights

Brontophobia - fear of thunder/lightning

Nyctophobia - fear of the dark

Pyrophobia - fear of fire

Autophobia - fear of loneliness

Philophobia - fear of falling in love

Claustrophobia - fear of small spaces

Astrophobia - fear of stars/space

Athazagoraphobia - fear of being forgotten

Atychiphobia - fear of failure

Somniphobia - fear of sleep

Eisoptrophobia - fear of mirrors

Aerophobia - fear of flying

Entomophobia - fear of insects

Neophobia - fear of new things

Necrophobia - fear of others dying

Thanatophobia - fear of yourself dying

Arachnophobia - fear of spiders

Cryophobia - fear of ice/coldness

Glossophobia - fear of public speaking

Cynophobia - fear of dogs

Trypanophobia - fear of injections

Agoraphobia - fear of open/public spaces

Taphophobia - fear of being buried alive

Chronophobia - fear of time passing

Galeophobia - fear of sharks

Kinemortophobia - fear of zombies

Metathesiophobia - fear of change

Phasmophobia - fear of ghosts

Free space! What scares you the most? What’s a fear you think is unique or funny? Fear of long words? Clowns? Dirt? Snakes? You choose!

If you’re stuck, look up these phobias and do some research! Some of them can manifest in unique ways.

Good luck!