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Stuck on a plot point? Need advice about a character? Not sure what to do next? Just want to chat with someone about your project? This thread is for brainstorming and project development.
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I'm considering putting aside my current story and starting a new one. It's currently at <5k words, and while there are some more things I need to add, it's not gonna be anywhere near 30k. Should I put it on hold and try to write a different genre?
If it’s something you feel that you need to do, then there’s no reason not to do so. There are no rules.
Make it a short story
Need help with a subplot backstory, why would a guy reject a kiss in high school but develop feelings years later?
This is a subplot in my debut novel but it's actually pretty important because this side character is going to be a potential protagonist/companion in the sequel.
So, my MMC is investigating the closest friend in his love interest's life and discovers this guy has been friends with her since high school. MMC suspects this friend is platonically in love with her (which is correct). Here's how their dynamic played out:
The girl was the younger sister of the super popular girl in school. This guy was also one of the popular kids, they ran in the same circles. At some point in high school the girl developed feelings and kissed him (they were already friends at this point). He didn't take it seriously, maybe even embarrassed her about it. She decided her feelings were stupid and cringe, mentally friendzoned him, and moved on completely. Years pass, and somewhere along the way HE starts developing feelings for HER. They're still close friends to this day and he's been carrying this torch in silence.
Here's my problem: As a woman who went through her own chaotic teenage years, I can totally buy the girl cringing at her own feelings and friendzoning him after being embarrassed. But why wouldn't HE have felt something during that first kiss? He was a popular guy sure, but we're talking about high school, everyone's a walking hormone. If a cute girl who's already your friend kisses you, how do you just... not care?
There's a gap here I can't figure out. What makes a guy feel nothing when she kisses him, but then develop feelings later when they stay friends? And why would he keep it platonic for years without ever telling her?
Open to any and all suggestions here. Tysm!
ok. so, the closest friend being investigated IS NOT the same as the guy who rejected the kiss, right ?
Let me clarify with names...MMC (let's call him Max) falls for a girl (Sarah). Sarah's closest friend (Tom) has been friends with her since high school. Max figures out that Tom is in love with Sarah, he just doesn't know that Sarah used to have feelings for Tom back in the day.
So the problem I'm stuck on is why didn't Tom care when Sarah kissed him in high school? They stayed friends after, and at some point later he started developing feelings for her. And why has he been hiding these feelings from her for years instead of just telling her?
My stories based on something like Jurassic Park — It takes places hundreds of years in the future where people found signs of extraterrestrial life on Saturn’s moon, Titian. It’s through the eyes of an exobiologist who is invited to the pre opening of a theme park/resort to tour the alien city found there. The longer he’s there, the more evidence he finds to suggest that the government along with the faces of the park wiped out the aliens rather than them simply going “extinct” as they say.
Anyways, the main thing im stuck on is a name for the place. The tour actually goes through the abandoned city, and im messing with the idea of even having the buildings be turned into places the people can stay in. The point is that a place that should be heavily preserved is marketed and commercialized.
i'm thinking Othrys.
Othrys was like a mountain range where the Titans lived and where Cronus and his siblings gathered during the war with Zeus.
If you set up that the aliens of Titans were like 3 times taller and bigger than normal humans, it could work.
That’s so cool, I think I might use that!
And I literally wrote a closed off segment the other day to use for later, basically getting an image of the aliens appearance and features, and I wrote that it was at least 10 feet tall, which I could easily change to be taller as the imagery for the actual city really emphasizes it’s massive scale.
Great !!
Happy holidays ! lol
Hi all I’m currently writing a piece of work for school and my topic is in regards to permafrost. I need an analogy that I can write at the beginning of the paragraph that’s short and will allow the reader to understand what I’m talking about. All I can currently think about is eating watermelon in the winter and it not being as good cus it’s not in season and nature/ice follows the same pattern where the ice will be different depending on location.
Any thoughts?
You could do the Sun/light where it's light and then dark depending on the time/place, except in the poles where it's continuously light for 6 months? That's all I can think of, sorry, but good luck!
Hi thanks a lot I really appreciate it! I think it’s a great analogy and I’ll try to integrate it. Thanks again!!
So I am writing about artificial intelligence (without using LLMs hohoho). Initially it was going to be about the training of a "village" of digital docents for a living history museum, AI that would embody various historical personalities.
However, likely due to that premise, a few weeks ago I had a dream that I was in fact the simulation of a mediocre writer that an LLM is using to embody "lived experience." Meaning the major advantage human writers still have is that LLMs have so many sources in training (all the sources!) they often "average down" their prose, so that while the prose LLMs generate may be competent and sometimes approach beauty, often it's just a mishmash of good/ok bits and nothing is truly ever striking. They have not gone through a "lived experience" moment to moment with all its memory, emotion, knowledge or lack thereof, and random observation through a limited/developing perspective.
So in the dream I had, my entire life is just one of many countless iterations of an LLM building a specific context to improve outputs. A life ultimately disposable once the work is done and the next prompt comes through.
Of course I have added this premise to my story with the addition of a journalist come to document a village of AI inhabitants, but I can't shake the feeling now that once I finish this book I will, just like Aureliano II, cease to exist.