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[writingquestionsanswered]

Struggling with Feedback That's Missing the Point

triplecreature asked: I'm in a creative writing course in university and we're doing workshops where we review each other's poems and short stories. I'm conflicted because I don't want to be closed-minded about constructive criticism, but sometimes I feel like the feedback I get is missing the point. For example, the instructor indiscriminately marks up any "abstract" line, even if it's emotional sentiment or would break the structure/line scheme to remove. She's also biased against heavier topics because they're too depressing and said I can't make poetry about characters/conversational perspective. My short story got negative feedback from my peers because my protagonist wasn't inherently good or bad. They felt it his grey morality "didn't make sense." I don't want to be arrogant so I feel bad for struggling with the criticism I get. How do you gracefully approach a situation where you feel uncertain or misunderstood by feedback you get?

Here's the thing...

Reading and writing is a very, very personal thing. We all develop very strong opinions about what we do and do not like, and sometimes people confuse their own preferences as being universal truths. Abstract poetry doesn't seem to resonate with your instructor, and unfortunately she's choosing to interpret that as a problem with abstract poetry rather than a personal preference.

Having said that, it's really important that we not take negative feedback too much to heart. It's always worth analyzing where the feedback is coming from and whether it's more likely to be feedback based on a personal preference or actually credible feedback.

When you get critical feedback from a single person or a few people that feels off to you, you can generally disregard it, especially if it conflicts with the majority feedback. For example, if three people says your morally gray protagonist makes no sense, but ten people don't have that issue, you can probably assume your protagonist is fine. If you give your story to six classmates, and all six of them feel the morally gray protagonist doesn't make sense, it's worth considering why all six out of six people feel that way. Are they saying it doesn't make sense because they expect a character to be either good or bad, or are they saying it doesn't make sense because something you laid out in the story is conflicting with the idea that this character is morally gray?

Ultimately, it's up to you to decide whether or not to listen to feedback, but especially in a creative writing class, I wouldn't take the negative feedback too much to heart. If it's one person's opinion, smile, nod, and thank them for their opinion. If it's five people with the same opinion, take some time to consider whether there could be some merit to what they're saying. In any case, don't take it personally. ♥

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[writingquestionsanswered]

Here to add more information! How do I draw a character slowly spiraling from the horrific events in the story?

Character Spirals

You will need to think about each event and how it affects the character. How does that event make them feel? How does it change their outlook on the world and their beliefs about themselves and others? How do these changes lead to choices and actions that further the spiral?

Happy writing!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[writingquestionsanswered]

I'm having trouble coming up with a name for a character, I want something casual, a name you could see a real person having, but I also don't want it to feel like I just chose a random name out of a hat

Casual Character Name

What qualifies as a "casual" character name depends on your story's setting. A casual, realistic name in 1930s Brussels would be quite different from a casual, realistic name in 1700s Hawai'i.

When you say you don't want it to feel like you chose a random name out of a hat, I don't know if you mean you don't want it to feel that way to yourself, or if you mean you don't want the reader to feel that way.

Either way, you can avoid feeling that way by simply not choosing a random name out of a hat. In other words, put effort into your choice. Find something that means something to you, is relevant to the story, or makes sense for the setting.

There are oodles and oodles of name lists available online. You can search for lists of names from particular time periods and locations, you can search for lists of names starting with a particular letter or matching a particular theme. You can find lists of names inspired by book characters, historical figures, Greek gods and goddesses... you name it. Try looking for lists that feel relevant to your story, like names that fit the time and place of your setting, or names that fit a theme in your story. For example, if you're writing a dark fantasy, you might look for a list of gothic names. Or, if you were writing a sci-fi style western, you might look at names that were popular in the 1800s American west.

The links below will help you through this process. :)

Guide: Naming Characters Choosing the Right Name for Your Character

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hi, I was wondering if two brothers can rule different states or provinces? Currently, I’m writing an original story where I was inspired by the Tang Dynasty, ancient Japan as well as Persia.

Brothers Ruling Different States/Provinces

This is kind of a tough question to answer but I'll do my best. My lens is via Europe, so we'll go from there and see where it gets us.. :)

First, it's worth starting with understanding the division of territory, both in your inspiration locations and your own story. Monarchic states (such as a kingdom) were sometimes subdivided into smaller administrative territories with appointed rulers who managed the territory behalf of the king and were subordinate to him. In Europe, these would be things like duchies (ruled by a duke), county (ruled by a count), barony (ruled by a baron), marches (ruled by a marquess). I'm not sure what the equivalent would be in Ancient China, Ancient Japan, or Ancient Iran. In Europe, things like states and provinces were colonial territories, which were ruled by an appointed governor. In an Empire, typically the absorbed territories would continue to be ruled by their usual ruler, it's just that they would now be subordinate to the emperor who ruled over a collection of territories.

Second, it's also worth understanding how the rule of monarchic states is typically determined and passed down. Most monarchies have been patriarchal meaning that they pass primarily from father to the oldest son. If there are no sons, the crown would pass from grandfather to oldest grandson. If there are no grandsons, from brother to next oldest brother. If there are no brothers, from uncle to oldest nephew. You get the idea. The leaders of monarchic states and colonial territories would be appointed by the king. So, theoretically, a king could potentially make a pair of brothers dukes with their own duchies... but they're not really rulers so much as managers on behalf of the king. A king could also make two brothers governors of different colonial states, provinces, or territories, but again, they're not really "ruling" these territories so much as governing them on behalf of the monarch.

Now, does it work the same in Ancient China, Ancient Japan, or Ancient Iran? I have no idea, but my guess is it's probably similar even if the specific words, subdivisions, etc. are different. If your story is an obvious analogue of one or all of those places, you may want to do some further research to see what you can learn so you can figure out how best to do it. If you're writing fantasy, you've got some more wiggle room. But, in the best interest of simplicity, I think going the route of having the monarch award two brothers each with the leadership of their own monarchic state would be a good route to go. And if you need these monarchic states to be rivals in some way, you could probably achieve that by creating some conflict between them that makes them rivals even though they're subjects of the same crown.

I hope that helps!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[writingquestionsanswered]

I wrote a book, but my novel is dragging way too long. What's the best way to determine what needs to get cut?

Fixing a Dragging Novel

#1 - Make sure your conflict is clear.

Every story should revolve around a conflict. The action of your story is created by the protagonist's attempt to resolve that conflict by pursuing a goal. Sometimes when stories drag, it's because there is no conflict or because the conflict is weak, leading to a meandering plot. (see: Understanding Goals and Conflict)

#2 - Consider your novel's structure.

Even character-driven novels have structure, meaning there are typical story beats and plot points that need to occur. As with plot-driven and combination stories, there are many different potential structures you can use. You can also follow a structure loosely (taking only what works and discarding what doesn't) or combine what you like from multiple structures. What matters is that it works for the story you want to tell, and that it helps you hit the natural points of a good story.

#3 - Consider your balance of action, exposition, and dialogue.

Stories should maintain a relative balance of action (things happening), exposition (explaining things), and dialogue (characters talking.) Ideally, every scene should have a relative balance, depending on the needs of the scene. If you have a scene that's 80% exposition, 15% dialogue, and 5% action, that scene is really going to drag. And if the next scene is 65% dialogue, 25% action, and 10% exposition, that scene is probably going to drag, too. That doesn't mean you need to have a 33% balance of all three, but you want to make sure that one doesn't completely overwhelm the others unless it's absolutely necessary.

#4 - Consider your pacing.

Even when you balance action, exposition, and dialogue, some scenes will have a slower pace and some scenes will have a faster pace. If you have too many fast-paced scenes in a row, or too many slow-paced scenes, the reader gets bored which makes the story drag. That said, it's a good idea to vary your pacing to create a relative balance between fast and slow. If you've had a couple of fast-paced scenes, stick in a slow-paced scene or two to allow the reader to catch their breath. If you've had a slower-paced scene, try following it up with a faster-paced scene to liven things up.

#5 - Make sure everything pulls its weight.

Every bit of everything that happens, every bit of info given and things explained, every conversation, every scene... all of it needs to be there for a reason. If you're writing a story about researchers going to Skull Island to find King Kong, you can't have a whole scene on the boat taken up by a high stakes card game unless things happen during that card game that are critical to the reader's understanding of the characters or plot. Things can't be there just for fun, or because it's cute, or to give the characters some interaction. Everything has to contribute to the plot in some way. If you have a lot of things happening that don't really matter in the story, it can make your plot drag. That said, go through your story and look at the things that happen. Ask yourself if you can remove that moment, event, or scene without it affecting the overall story. If you can, or if a few minor changes would make the removal work, it's a moment, event, or scene you can think about cutting.

I hope that helps!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[writingquestionsanswered]

hi! how you doing? i was wondering if you had any advice to draw a line between show and tell? like, i know that, in many cases, showing enriches a story more than telling, but i was afraid i wasn't conveying the message i wanted by showing, since what i am trying to communicate is pretty obvious to me as someone that has the whole picture of the story, but i wonder up until where it still makes sense to a third party, and then i usually start telling to fill that gap

Have a look at my post: When “Telling” is Okay ♥

Happy writing!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking | ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[writingquestionsanswered]

I’ve been reading some craft books and online posts about the world building because my story is an urban fantasy set in present day US, in a fictional town, and theres not a secondary world where the fantasy happens, it’s all in the real world, except the magic is a secret that only certain people know about, but all of the resources I find about world building only talk about fantastical worlds that exist by themselves and not the kind of more subtle world building that I’d have to do. Do you have any tips?

Guide: Creating a Fictional Town in the Real World

Step 1 - Choose Your Location - There are two ways to go about choosing a location for your fictional town. One is to go the "Springfield U.S.A." route, ala The Simpsons, and be vague about the specific location (borough, parish, district, county, region, state, or province) and instead give a broader geographic region... "the East Coast," "the Pacific Northwest," "Central Canada," Northern Scotland," etc. The other option is to go ahead and put your fictional town in a specific location. Just figure out where (for example, somewhere outside of Des Moines, Iowa) and go to Google Maps, click on satellite view, then start zooming in on big empty areas. Choose a place big enough to fit a town. Yes, in reality it's probably farm fields, pasture, or someone's property, but that doesn't matter. You don't have to actually show it on a map. It's just a plausible spot to build your town. Now you can measure how far it is to other places, you know what highways to take to get to it. You can even do street view to get the lay of the land, see what the landscape looks like and try to envision the buildings there. You can also use what's there to create parks, popular recreational areas, and anything else your town needs.

Step 2 - Choose Your Inspiration - Even when you're creating a fictional town, it's still a good idea to use a real town (or two, or three) from that general area as inspiration for your town. For a fictional town in Des Moines, I would zoom in on the map to find a nearby town of similar size... like Elkhart, then I can take a look around to see what it's like. Just looking at the map, I can see they have a couple of churches, a couple baseball fields, a very small main street/downtown area with a couple shops and restaurants, a post office, a few different neighborhoods, and a cemetery. This would be a great model for a small fictional town outside of Des Moines. And, as I said, you could look at a couple other sand combine them. Once you have your inspiration town/s, you can walk around on Google Maps street view, go to the town's web site, watch a tour on YouTube (if one exists), or look up pictures in Google Image search.

Step 3 - Start Planning - This is the really fun part! First, you might want to draw a basic map of your fictional town using your inspiration town/s as a guide. This doesn't have to be a pretty map... just a basic line drawing to help you envision where everything is. Think about some of the basic things this town might have, like the ones I listed in step two, and any other things you might want your town to have, like maybe a library, a hospital, a city hall, school, and maybe a movie theater. It might even be helpful and fun to put together a collage of pictures to represent your town so you've got something in mind as you write about it. You can even choose representatives for specific locations in your story, like your MC's house, school, and their favorite hangout.

Step 4 - Naming Your Town - Start by looking at the kinds of town names that surround your town. Look for common naming conventions... suffixes like -ton, -ville, -dale, -burg, -wood, -field, etc. Words in a particular language, like a lot of French-inspired town names, or towns with geographical terms (lake, hill, valley, river, canyon, gap, etc.) My guide to Naming Locations has additional tips.

Step 5 - Populate Your Town and Give it a History - Last but not least, make up a little history for your town, again, using surrounding towns as inspiration. Who founded it? When was it founded? What's the town's main industry? What are the people like in this town? What jobs do they have? What do they do for fun?

Here are some other posts that might help:

Five Things to Help You Describe Fictional Locations Setting Your Story in an Unfamiliar Place WQA’s Guide to Internet Research Happy writing!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[writingquestionsanswered]

hi! i'm on the third chapter of a story i'm writing, where it's set in 🇵🇭, my homeland, in the year 2164. language-wise, english has taken over the nation, almost replacing tagalog as a default, and i'm stuck on how my main protagonist can assert their national identity using a language that's nearly gone out of use without sounding too forceful or overdone in dialogue. do you have any ideas?

Character Using Endangered Language in Identity

Actually, I think there might be a pretty good analogue to this already... Colonization has typically attempted to stamp out Indigenous languages, but the effort has been more thorough in some places than others. In the Americas, many Indigenous tribes have almost completely lost their Indigenous languages... not just to the point of many individuals not knowing them, but to the point that these languages need to be reconstructed by Indigenous linguists. So there's a big push going on among many Indigenous groups to re-learn the language. When Blackfeet actress Lily Gladstone spoke her native language at the recent Golden Globe awards show, it was a powerful show of Lily's Blackfeet identity, even though very few people watching (including many with Blackfeet ancestry) could understand what she was saying. And the beauty of it is that it not only brought the spotlight onto this beautiful language, but it inspired others to learn and/or become fluent in their own native languages. So, I think having your character speak Tagalog in moments of importance like that would be one way to do it. You might also have them teaching others to speak it and advocating for people who know it to speak it. Something else you can do is work it in more subtly, like maybe when they're annoyed they mutter to themselves in Tagalog, or maybe they have a tendency to use Tagalog motivational quotes, idioms, and phrases. My post Dialogue Scenes with Language Barriers has some tips for translating for readers who might not know the language.

Happy writing!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[writingquestionsanswered]

Idk if this is a silly question or not, but oh well lol

So I wanted to ask, do you have any tips for describing tattoos? One of my characters has this large tattoo on his upper back and neck of many different flowers and since the tattoo is actually pretty important to him n his family (it's something that him and any heir of the family company gets on their 18th birthday), I do want it to make sure it actually gets mentioned lol

Describing a Fictional Tattoo

1 - Find Inspiration - If you haven't already, look at some real tattoos to find inspiration for this fictional tattoo. Even if you have to mentally combine two or three different tattoos, being able to look at actual images of what you need to describe can be helpful. This is also a place where AI image generators can be a helpful too, just remember that such an image would just be for your own personal reference and not something you would share with readers. If you can afford to, you might even look for an artist taking commissions who can listen to the description of what you're imagining and bring it to life. And as long as you get their permission, that might be something you could actually share with readers.

2 - Learn the Lingo - As with most things, there's specific lingo that goes with tattoos. From artistic techniques (e.g. stippling and gray wash) to location types/styles (e.g. full sleeve, half sleeve, lower back), to artistic style (e.g. blackwork, watercolor, black and gray) knowing the lingo can help you describe the tattoo. You may also want to learn the words associated with the tattoo imagery, like if the tattoo features a bird, flowers, and nautical objects, you would want to know the type of flowers and bird, and what the nautical objects are called.

3 - Get Descriptive with Colors - If the tattoo features colors, get creative with their description. On a dark and scary tattoo, words like "blood red" and "night black" certainly evoke an image. On a pretty, delicate tattoo, words like "blush pink" and "baby blue" evoke lighter imagery.

4 - Consider Emotional Descriptions - Be sure to think about what the character/s think about the tattoo. What does it mean to them? How does it make them feel? What does it make others feel?

Happy writing!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hi! So, I've only ever written short 1—3k one-shots and it's part if my new year's resolution to finally write a longfic. I already have an idea of what I want to write, a complete rewrite of one of my favorite shows' horrible seasons, but I have no idea hoe to outline a big story or what to do! Please help a gal out?

Fan-Fiction: Embarking on a Longfic

Start with a brainstorm... if you haven't already, sit down and do a big ol' brain dump about what happened in the horrible season and what you'd do differently. List every single thing you would change and how you would change it. Think about how each change will ripple through the story and affect other things.

Make some decisions... re-writing a bad season can mean everything from sticking with the original season arc but making changes here and there, or creating a whole new story arc. You might even decide to cover some episodes but not others. Look back at your brain dump and figure out what you're going to do the same and what you're going to do different.

Create an outline... there are all different ways to outline, but one of the simplest ways is a beginning to end summary. For a TV show, you can think of each episode you want to keep (or the event in the episode) as a chapter, then summarize each "chapter" to create an exhaustive beginning to end summary. You may need to do a little planning and plotting as you go to fit things together if you stray from canon a bit. If you create a whole new season arc with all new events, you will need to do some old-fashioned plotting.

Additional plotting... once you have your beginning to end summary, you might want to flesh things out further by making a timeline combined with a scene list. This can help you layout when things need to happen, and then you can do a short summary of what needs to happen in each individual scene.

You can head over to my Plot & Story Structure master post for more help with plotting and outlining. Happy writing!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[writingquestionsanswered]

okay so you’ve talked about mentioning modern day items, products or media in books before, but i wanted to ask about those same things but outside the US or the such as products from (insert third world country here) that ppl in the UK or The US would probably never hear of, because they aren’t locals who grew up in the area like someone like myself has.

Mentioning Less Familiar Products or Media

I'm not sure about the context you're referring to, because I've talked about it in a few different contexts in the past:

Timelessness - Specific products, businesses, services, and media have a tendency to "date" your story, meaning that they act as a timestamp that lets the reader know when your story takes place. For some stories that's not an issue, because you want the story to be rooted in a particular time period. For example, maybe you wrote a coming of age story set in the 1980s, so you mention products, media, businesses, etc. that were popular in the 80s. But let's say you want readers to feel like the story is current, whether they read it in a year or ten years from now. In that case, you wouldn't want to mention products and media popular today, because ten years from now those things will no longer be popular. This is true regardless of your story's setting, where you're from, or where your target audience is from.

Legalities - You generally want to avoid portraying real businesses, services, products, and people in a negative light, because although the likelihood is probably slim, there's always a chance they could sue you for harming their image and negatively impacting their income. This is true regardless of your story's setting, where you're from, or where your target audience is from.

Relevance - The products, businesses, services, and media should generally reflect the setting of your story, regardless of where you--the writer--are from, regardless of where the target reader is from. If you're Nigerian and writing for a Nigerian audience, and you set a story in New York City, the products, businesses, services, and media mentioned in your story should reflect the NYC setting. If your story is set in Nigeria and is written for a western audience, the products, businesses, services, and media should reflect your Nigerian setting. Even if most westerners won't be familiar with those goods and services.

I hope that answers your question!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[writingquestionsanswered]

Is it possible to make a comeback after you've disappointed your readers? I write fanfic and my recent story was very OOC. I didn't realize it until after it was posted. I know I let my core readers/fandom friends down. I feel awful. I don't want to give up fanfic but at the same time I know I messed up big time and can't blame anyone for not wanting to read my work anymore.

Fan-Fiction: Making a Comeback After Disappointing Readers

It'd definitely possible to make a comeback after disappointing your readers, but it depends on exactly what happened. If whatever you did constitutes a major betrayal of trust, like incorporating something triggering your readers wouldn't normally expect from you or representing harmful belief or attitude, that could be harder to come back from. But I think it's possible, especially if you do the work of listening, apologizing genuinely, and putting in the time and effort to do better. If what you did isn't that major... like maybe you unalived a beloved OC or wrote an AU featuring a disliked pairing, that's probably not going to be hard to bounce back from. Ultimately, it's up to you to keep posting and understand your engagement might be lower (or maybe nonexistent) for a little while, but odds are it will pick back up again.

Happy writing!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[writingquestionsanswered]

what about tips on how to write more cynical humor?

Writing Cynical Humor

There's no magic trick to it. I wish there was. If you don't yourself possess the gift of cynical humor and you don't know anyone who does well enough to replicate it, the only option left is to get to know cynical humor by immersing yourself in it. Watch TV shows and movies that feature cynical characters. Read books and short stories that feature cynical characters. Look for interviews with notable people who are known to have cynical humor. The more you expose yourself to it, the more you understand what qualifies as cynical humor, which makes it much easier to replicate. You can also try reading up on cynicism as a personality trait and see how what you learn applies to humor.

Happy writing!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[writingquestionsanswered]

Any tips on how to write a historical fiction? Like working out the historical placement, economy and the political state of the country, the situation of royalty etc. Love your blog!

Historical Fiction vs Other Historical Subgenres

I wonder if you're meaning to ask about writing "historical fantasy" or "alternate history" rather than historical fiction. Here's why...

Historical fiction is set in a real place, in a real, recognizable time in our history. For example, Melissa de la Cruz's Alex & Eliza follows the lives and marriage of Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler, real U.S. historical figures who were featured in the recently popular musical, Hamilton. If you want to write historical fiction, fleshing out your setting's economy, political state, situation of royalty, etc. is a matter of researching your setting in that particular time. My post Researching an Historical Topic has some pointers that should help with that kind of research.

Historical fantasy can be one of two things: typically, historical fantasy refers to stories set in a real place and time in our history, but with the incorporation of fantastical elements, such as in Marie Lu's The Kingdom of Back which is set in 18th-century Europe and follows Mozart's older sister, who gets involved with a stranger from a magical realm who promises to make her musical dreams come true. Historical fantasy can also be set in a fictional place that heavily resembles a real historical time and place and incorporates magic, but since the emphasis is as much on the historical feel of the story as on the fantastical elements, it's historical fantasy rather than just fantasy. Here, too, fleshing out your setting will come down to doing research, then making your own decisions about how to plausibly differentiate your imaginary setting. You may find it easier to do this after you've fleshed out your plot and understand the needs of your story.

Alternate history imagines a historical place and time in our world but with a major difference, like what if the Titanic sailed through a time portal into 1970s New York. Or, what life in 1920s Los Angeles would have been like if the U.S. had lost the Revolutionary War and the king and queen had come to visit some of their American Dukes and Duchesses. Fleshing out an alternate history setting will require research of the real time and location as well as some educated brainstorming about how things would be different.

Fantasy stories are sometimes set in settings or worlds loosely or somewhat heavily based on our own. In Leigh Bardugo's Grishaverse, Ravka is loosely based on early 1800s Russia, and in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, Westeros is loosely based on early-medieval Britain. However, because the emphasis is more on the fantastical elements than the historical similarities, these stories are straight up fantasy rather than historical fantasy. Much as with the other examples, here fleshing out your setting requires research of your inspiration setting as well as brainstorming to determine what you want to change.

Let me know if you have questions about whichever specific one you want to write!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[writingquestionsanswered]

Hi, I'm starting up a fantasy story that involves characters of different races - gorgons, werewolves, sirens, etc. Do you have any helpful tips on how to plan out their different ages? I want them to all be basically young adults, but I also want to make sure I'm not writing that they all age like a human would. Hope my question makes sense!

Aging Supernatural Beings

There are honestly no hard and fast rules for how to age supernatural beings. People have been writing fantasy for ages, so there are a lot of conventions in place, but you don't have to follow them.

Some supernatural creatures age like humans, it just takes a lot longer. So they may look and act like human children for the first hundred years of their lives, then look and act like human teenagers for the next hundred years, etc. Other supernatural creatures age like humans until adulthood, where the aging rate tapers off, and they may appear to be between the ages of 30 and 50 for a few hundred years. Then between the ages of 50 and 80 for hundreds of years beyond that.

You can research the specific creatures you want to write about to see what genre conventions exist, but you also have some leeway to tweak things to make it work for your story.

Happy writing!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hidden Faerie City

Anonymous asked: I'm planning to write about a group of supernatural strangers who work together to defeat an unknown supernatural creature. I'd like to incorporate places that aren't part of the human world, like another dimension that only supernatural creatures are able to see. For example, like a secret "city" that is home to the faeries in a forest that only the supernatural creatures can see, but something like this would exist for different supernatural creatures in different parts of the world. I'm trying to figure out how I can do it?

There are a couple of ways you can go about this. One way would be to have it so this city just exists there, in the middle of the actual forest, but humans are unable to see it. If they were to walk up to it, they would bump into people and buildings they can't see, but they would never get that close to it due to magical protections in place that keep humans far away.

The other way you can go about it is to have this city exist in a twin dimension... a dimension that looks exactly like that world, but exists on a completely separate plane. Then, you would have some sort of magical portal in the forest that leads to this city in the other dimension. So, for example, maybe there are two trees standing close together, growing out of a mossy boulder. But, a supernatural creature passes between them, the faerie city suddenly appears before them. But if a human passes between the two trees, nothing happens. They just walk between two trees.

I hope that helps!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[writingquestionsanswered]

I hope you have a nice day!

My question is that I'm trying to write a story in a historical environment, and I have their roles figured out and some main plot elements, but I have no idea how to start writing, figure out what happens exactly and connect the events with story

Fleshing Out Historical Story

Remember: stories revolve around conflict. It can be an internal conflict (inside the heart/mind of the protagonist/main characters), an external conflict (in the protagonist's world), or a combination of both. This conflict turns your characters' lives upside down, presenting them with a problem that they must resolve. The action in the story is made up of the things your character must do in order to resolve the conflict. The climax is the moment where they try to solve the problem once and for all.

So, the first thing you'll need to decide on is a conflict. What's happening in this story? What big problem turns your main characters' lives upside down which they must now resolve? What must they do in order to solve this problem? What will be the "final showdown" where they face off against this problem once and for all and either succeed or fail in resolving it?

Once you know that, you have an actual plot, which is much easier to flesh out than a bunch of random plot points. It will also be much easier to start writing the story. All you'll have to do then is figure out what the "normal world" of these character looks like... what scene would best illustrate what their lives are like (and who they are) before the problem arises? What "inciting incident" brings the problem into their lives and turns everything upside down? What do they decide to do about it and why? This is going to be the beginning of your story. For more help, see my Plot & Story Structure master post.

Happy writing!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here