If you want a realistic example, look at what unis did during the pandemic.
- online only classes
- mask requirements
- closed/limited campus
There is no need for fiction because this was like… 1-2 years ago.
If you want a realistic example, look at what unis did during the pandemic.
There is no need for fiction because this was like… 1-2 years ago.
I agree with the comment above. Really hard to give general advise. My best super general advise is to read a lot. Reading gives you inspiration and an idea of what your writing should look like (assuming you are reading good writing or what you want your writing to look like).
After that, you need to start. Asking specific questions here with what you need to get over a hurdle is way more helpful. Additionally, having something written allows for feedback to be given on stuff you have actually physically written (which helps as a reviewer).
I see, yeah fighting a pointless fight is not usually smart. You are correct that there is a maturity aspect that is relevant as well. Although I thought that was pretty uhh… obvious. Anyway, this point would still fit into the saying because it wouldn’t make the mature person angry. They would brush it off and thus not be a donkey.
I used it that way, but I’m talking about when scenes like this exist in a show, movie, or book/story intended to be serious. They might not all be that bad, but it takes a lot of work to make a “predictive” character that is believable. Because the author knows exactly what is going to happen (or rather can make anything happen) the predictions usually get too specific.
In a comedy, this is hilarious and good fun. However, if you are trying to write a gritty action story, this is just bad. Realistic predictions in combat need to be more general to work.
Things like predicting an overall strategy is entirely possible. Predicting what door someone will enter a building through (provided that there are a limited number) is also possible. Knowing exactly where/when someone is attacking is not. Sometimes these scenes are really cringey when a MC claims to have predicted things like:
exactly where someone is going to shoot
exactly where a blade will strike them before starting a fight (often to put hidden armor only in that one spot)
the exact words someone is going to say before they say them
the exact minute and second that an enemy is going to do some particular thing
the exact steps, route, or attacks an enemy is going to use with 100% accuracy
every detail of a “secret” plan
I’ve seen this type of thing a surprising amount recently. The hero gets stabbed, but doesn’t die because he taped a coin in the spot that the knife hit. He then stands up and says, “Ha, I knew you would stab me there!” I’m all for a character that uses is brain, but there is a limit to what someone can predict or guess…
Saying or not, people are just offended too easily these days. I’m not disagreeing with anyone or saying that it’s okay to be offensive or rude, but some people just need thicker skins.
Also, the saying (like everything) has an element of truth to it. One saying is rarely 100% accurate or true in all cases. However, if someone says something you know to be false about you, and there is no other reason to disagree with them, then one can easily ignore the statement. That is where the saying comes from, and I believe that your counter argument is that there are sometimes other reasons to publicly refute what someone says.
Oh! Lmao. Thanks for the translation.
Sure, you can use that exact sequence if you want.
I do agree and I believe I said so in my post. My point was more of a joke than to disagree.
Ahh… this makes more sense. I thought of it as male lead vs female lead. Lol.
This is very true. I just thought it was funny that it read that way.
I literally can’t read your response. Sorry, I’m not talented enough to master English, so other languages are completely out of my reach. However, I’ll just assume that it says something like, “Wow, I completely agree with everything you said.”
While I agree with all of you, for the sake of asking, is it better when a female lead does the traumatizing? To me it seems like an awful subject either way. Maybe it hits different when the female can sexually assault some poor guy though? Just asking because of how you phrased your answer.
Bad or lazy writing. Do I need to say more? Haha.
Honestly, I think the thing that is killing me right now is the “genius” or “predictive” character. You know, the guy that knows everything that’s going to happen and makes the perfect counter plan. It’s best (by best I mean worst) when there are two or more of these characters fighting. Here is an example:
“Muhahaha, I’m evil and I knew you would attack me, so I used a spell that made anyone who attacked me die!”
“I’m the hero, and I knew you would use that spell, so I made your henchmen attack you while using an illusion spell to make you think that it was me attacking you!”
“Well, I knew you would try to trick me, so I used a bigger illusion that made you think that I killed my henchmen when he is really right behind you!”
“Ha! I knew you would do that too, so I put a lion behind me that is eating your henchmen!”
“Exactly as I planned! My henchmen is a werewolf that eats lions!”
“Perfect, since I predicted that, I poisoned the lion!”
“That’s why I made an antidote that cures your specific poison, which I predicted even though there are millions of poisons that you could haves used!”
“Checkmate, I made a better poison that can’t be detected and isn’t poison until you take an antidote for my other poison, it will kill your henchmen when you try to cure the other poison!”
“Nooooo! How did you know to do that?”
“I locked eyes with you two episodes ago and just realized it from your smile.”
Hope you get the idea… it’s horrifying to read stuff like this. For some reason it seems popular with both heros and villains right now.
Can I say that I like anything well written? It’s generally true. If I have to pick a genre, then I like fantasy and romance. Good fantasy and romance though, both genres can get really bad really fast.
Logical fantasy is actually one of my requirements for being good. Not everything has to be explained, it is fictional after all, but the world is more immersive if it’s consistent and has rules I can understand/follow.
As for the sub-tropes I’m not extant sure what counts, but I love stories that involve self sacrifice. A character that gives something up for those he cares about resonates with me. A lot of super hero stories have some from of this.
Things I don’t like are OP main characters, annoyingly strong plot armor, mindless harems (like when every girl loves the MC without a good reason to), and bad characters (especially villains). If there isn’t a reason for something or thought behind it, I’ll usually not like it. Oh, your villain is evil for no reason? Dislike. Wow, your MC magically became the strongest warrior in the world because he was reincarnated with a “cheat”? Dislike.
Granted, anything can be done well. For example, there might be a way to make a well-thought-out and interesting overpowered MC. One punch man comes to mind. The stories is focused on his boredom because he is too strong rather than being about him fighting crime. That changes things. I haven’t actually seen that anime, but a friend recommended it to me as something that is good so it’s on my mind.
Anyway, this seems like a fun thread.
Even if you have a perfect plan, nothing will happen exactly as you think it will. This trope is difficult because you need to show intelligence without having it seem unrealistically scripted. That being said, a hero that does random or unexpected things would certainly throw this villain off. Like an anti-hero who doesn’t feel the need to save everyone, he just wants to beat the villain.
This anti-hero would confuse the villain and be hard to plan for because he can’t set the usual traps that a pure hero that’s trying to save every person while fighting would fall for. It’s like the bus scene in spider man. Drop the hero’s girlfriend off a bridge in one direction and a bus full of people in the other. The anti-hero says, “Screw all of them! I’m going to punch the villain really hard!”
That would really throw off your villain. He might even get defeated easily when his plan doesn’t work at all. However, he might have some sort of contingency for if the plan fails that allows him to escape and try again. The details are really up to you.
Another option is to have a hero that is just so superior in skills that a plan doesn’t matter. If the plan does go perfectly, but the hero is just stronger than expect and breaks through, then your villain is in trouble. He also would be in trouble if the hero somehow bypasses or sabotages the plan. Hmm my bomb isn’t exploding… now I have to fist fight this guy with super strength. I know the villain is smart, but he can’t have unlimited contingencies…
This is one of the areas this trope can get really cringe. Don’t make every plan very specific and perfect without a single unexpected failure or twist. That just doesn’t happen. He can’t know (for example) exactly where the hero will step. The general area the hero will enter might be possible to guess, but he can’t just put a shoe shaped piece of tape and catch the hero… no one is that good at predicting. He would have to plant something with a wider area of effect to cover like a door or hallway (as an example).
That all makes sense. I’m not sure how perspectives have changed in novels over time in general elsewhere, but I can see that all making sense.
The narrator is typically the author unless it’s first person perspective or a framed story as well. I think that’s almost always the case… It doesn’t have to be, but it’s relatively rare that people decide to write in third person with a narrator that is not them (unless it’s a framed story or story about someone “telling” a story).
Huh… this is an old thread… It was an interesting one for me though.
This is a nice history factoid! I haven’t studying old Asian writing. Has this changed recently? As discussed earlier in the thread, third person omniscient POV is hard to pull off. First person is easier, in my opinion.
Everything you said is true. However, I tend to shy away from it because I don’t know how to create that perfect balance. Perspective switches are hard in general because there is no good/set way to alert your reader that it is happening unless it is done at the start of a new chapter. In my opinion, you can create the same effect in the synopsis without dropping the reader into a scene.
I do like stories that start with an impactful/shocking scene as the “first chapter” or “first scene” and then flash back to show us “how we got there.” This technique is easier to pull off (in my opinion) and is an easy way to add a great hook to the beginning of a story. It also naturally avoids the problem of scaring away readers with boring explanations before they are invested into your story… but that is another topic.
Edit - Keeping a scene in this blurb would also be easier if it didn’t switch to first person. By using “I” and making a character the narrator there is huge shift for the reader. If the scene was in third person with the same narrator, then this would read a lot better. That change of perspectives from third to first really threw me off.
Hmm, I can try to help. Sorry about the delay, I haven’t been on this app since before the holidays… haha.
A good synopsis has to tell the reader what the story is about and build interest while remaining short. To fix yours up a bit, I would combine some of these sentences into 1-2 paragraphs that are more consistent in their format.
I think your problem is that you start by describing the idea of your story and then jump into a random scene without context. Personally, I would just describe your story (focusing on the first question you ask) with the theme being, “Read the book to get an answer.” Also, I would end with that question because it is pretty powerful/engaging to me.
Here is what I would write (I didn’t read your book, so some things might need to be changed to match the book better or more details can be added):
Fair as a maiden, Maya didn’t know what she was getting into when she followed Veronica, her lover, into the Underworld. A criminal organization that’s fueled by sex drugs, and cash from the rich, Veronica hid the Underworld from the naive Maya for over a year, but that is about to change.
They say innocence is bliss, but what happens when innocence is corrupted?
You can change things up, but the idea is to tell the reader what your story is generally about in the first paragraph. The second paragraph asks a loaded question and screams, “Read the book to get the answer!” However, actually typing the sentence ruins the effect. You want to imply that.
Is there a reason I’m the only one singled out for this? I feel like this is abuse. Right now I don’t have time to review your story. There is quite literally a foot of snow falling on my driveway that needs to be cleared before I’m trapped at my house… wait, wouldn’t that be a good thing? Either way, I have to say no to your request.
Is there a reason I’m the only one singled out for this? I feel like this is abuse. Right now I don’t have time to review your story. There is quite literally a foot of snow falling on my driveway that needs to be cleared before I’m trapped at my house… wait, wouldn’t that be a good thing? Either way, I have to say no to your request.
I see that your practice sorcery… as interested as I am in this black magic, we are really getting off topic as to how to write a memorable character lol.
I think teacherman is correct here. It’s not about “female actions” vs “male actions,” he is talking about character design. I know men and women can do all of the same things, but they have physical and mental differences.
All characters need a high level of thought to be believable, but if you are writing a character who is the opposite gender as yourself, there is some specific work that might need to go into making them more like the other gender. That is not to say that your women characters need to be weak or dainty, but they probably won’t stand up and pee on a tree… you know?
A common play on this that rather like is the classic “let’s ask for directions” scene. The female character wants to stop and ask for directions, but the male character claims he knows exactly where he is going. Perhaps it is just my life, but this is so true from what I’ve seen. Male pride says, “You need to figure this out yourself!” The female brain says, “Asking for directions makes it more likely we don’t get lost.” Both characters could be hacking their way through a jungle with a machete or riding in a fancy carriage with this scene still applied somehow. It isn’t based on the actions. This is a difference in how men vs women tend to think.
This happens to me a lot. It’s like after a week my previous writing expires. The advice I got was to do everything from start to finish in phases.
If you plan the whole story, then write a rough draft without ever going back and editing, and end with editing the whole thing at once, your story should be finished faster. This will also allow you to to know when whole story before you begin editing things, so your book is more cohesive. That helps it be less likely that you hate a part of it later on too.
Of course, this means that you can’t publish a chapter until the whole book is written. Around here the approach seems to be to just publish a rough draft, delete any bad reviews, and never fix anything. It’s all up to you as the author.