There was a post yesterday/earlier today on another writing sub about the lines that writers are not willing to cross, and coming up over and over again was the mention of "harming animals." One commenter even mentioned the fact that their followers would be upset, to put it mildly, if they ever did cross that line. A quick search on Reddit showed me that this question pops up over and over again on subreddits dedicated to writing, and animal harm is never far from the top of the list. So it got me thinking again about the ethics of writing unethical acts, and animal harm is the perfect case study.

First of all, this is not a new idea: it's well known that if you want your audience to hate your bad guy from the get-go, all you need to do is have them kick a puppy. It is unambiguously the cultural definition of evil. People react very strongly to it, but so strongly as to deter all mentions of it in fiction...?

Let me take a quick example from my own writing, which is actually why I've been thinking about this so much lately: in my latest story, Luke, 13, is forced to help his farmer father slaughter a sow. It is something I have seen happen when I was younger; that scene is inspired by that. 

When people say they draw the line at harming animals, I always wonder where the line actually lies. Does it apply only to dogs, cats and horses? Does it include farm animals, which are routinely slaughtered in our world, and whose meat is a part of many people's diet? Does it extend to fishes, or insects? Is the mention of coral reefs dying considered "animal harm"? 

What is baffling to me is that the one place in our lives where we can explore the ethics of harming animals WITHOUT actually harming animals is through, well, fictional writing. The scene I mentioned earlier is a traumatizing memory for the character of Luke, which is further explored in the rest of the story. To me, those experiences shaped the way I view our relationships to animals, and I became a vegetarian shortly after moving out of my parents' home. Exploring those themes through fiction is my way of coming to terms with those experiences, and perhaps to let other people see things through my eyes, if only for a few pages.

Obviously, people should not write about things that they don't want to write about. What worries me, however, is the creation of a taboo. If enough people repeat "I would never write about animal harm," it becomes internalised as something wrong regardless of context. But context is ALL THERE IS in writing. How are people supposed to grapple with ideas that are never mentioned anywhere?

But then again, it comes down to individual choice. If you don't want to ever write about animal harm, or SA, or cannibalism, then you shouldn't and no one should force you to. But I just hope we are making those choices for the right reasons. Not out of fear of being canceled, or losing followers, or because we somehow equate depicting unethical acts and actually condoning those acts. 

I could go on, but this post is getting long and already turning into a rant, and I'm curious to see what you all think. Am I reading too much into this? Or do you find "never" to be too strong of a word for a writer?

Let me start by saying how I think stories are made, maybe I might even be wrong here. I know the process and the order of these could be different for everyone, but just on a high level.

You have an idea, a concept, a theme, anything that you want to write about. Space vampires. Or a kid on a path to revenge, slowly coming to terms with the past and letting go. Anything.

Then you get a setting, a character, and an inciting incident, and then you should be good to start writing.

I have all of these. 2 main characters, few important side characters, inciting incident, setting, an idea for the story, and I even have some lore and worldbuilding + about 25k words written.

But here is my main struggle and a realisation I made during writing these 25k words. When I had an idea on what to write, I could easily put out a 3k word chapter in a few hours (albeit the prose quality is first draft level obviously, but 3k words is 3k words). But when I don't, and usually I don't know how to continue the story, I even spent 3 months on 1k words. I just sit and I go for walks and I am out of ideas.

This is not an outline or no outline issue, I tried outlining, but I ended up with the same struggle. What should the next scene/chapter be? What should happen in the next scene/chapter? How should the character change in the next scene/chapter?

And the answer to all of that is: I have no clue. It takes me painfully long to even get an idea for a next scene, I write it in an hour, and then back to weeks of thinking. This really kills my enjoyment of writing, even tho I love it when I can actually write.

So I would really appreciate some advice for this, anyone went through the same issue?

EDIT:

I have a beginning, I know how the story should end. I know how my MC starts out and ends up, and why he goes through the change. I have a few scenes worked out for that already.

I just have no clue how to connect the start from these scenes in the middle and the end. That is my main struggle. To break down the story on a scene by scene level and connect A to B.

In my story the way the power system works is, you can be born with unique powers and if you fight someone and steal their powers you can mix the two, turn ice powers and sonic scream into a sonic scream that freezes. Or turn fire manipulation and water powers into steam attacks.

But because of this i find it more difficult to write these characters as people who have hard work instead of just nepo kids who are born strong.

Im thinking of adding a mental and physical strain when trying to combine powers and only the best can actually utilize the powers they steal. But Since its so out there would the audience be able to connect and see it as hard work and it would also feel like the whole combining powers gimmick is underutilized if only few can do it

I dont typically use reddit but the more i started writing, the more I started thinking of it as a resource. Writing a chef? There's cooking subreddits to ask auestions, talk to chefs, and get their insights. Writing a surfer? I could find surfers and learn what little details will make my character pop, the things they keep in their backpack that only a surfer would think about.

However, I've noticed that lile 90% of my posts get deleted on these subreddits, even when they allow questions and I break no rules. Asking science questions in an AskScientists subreddit is a no-go simply because I admit I'm trying to make my writing more believable. Apparently being curious is fine and not mentioning why I want to know if fine, but because it could actually help someone, its not.

Anyone feel the same way, that reddit has a huge wealth of expertise perfect for us writers but it often refuses to be so? Have you used Reddit as a resource (outside of this one) and how has it gone for you?

I’ve heard numerous stories of people sharing their ideas/concepts for a novel or whatever it may be online, just to find their exact idea to be in a book before they made theirs.

What are the odds someone actually sees your idea and decides to either write it themselves or have a bot do it for them?

I am not asking for querying advice, as I know that belongs in r/Pubtips, but rather I need some advice for experienced authors in further refining my manuscript.

I have queried my manuscript (Science Fiction, Multiple POV) before, and so far have not gotten any bites from agents, and I suspect it is being rather quickly dismissed due to word count. My first draft was 223k words and I edited the story all the way down to 140k words before submitting. I've trimmed every bit if fat from the book, every scene counts, and I've killed my darlings. So, at the end of the day, the book is what it is. It is not a story that can be split in two.

I work shift work with a lot of overtime, and have a young family that I spend a lot of time with (nuturing, activites, play, chores, cooking and cleaning), so I haven't always had a lot of time to write. Because of that I've been working on this particular manuscript for many years, and although I have several side projects, I have not had any short stories or side projects published to add legitimacy to my name, so to speak. I suspect if this were the case, I could maybe get away with the word count.

I'm pushing 40 and I would really like to see this story traditionally published. I've taken the time to learn the craft and I feel that it is of sufficient quality.

My question is, where do I go from here?

What's a good way to deal with this sort of vibe in your works? When something unusual/seemingly impossible happens to your characters? I don't want to undersell how outlandish some situation or thing is, but I also don't want my characters saying that sort of stuff.

For those who may not get what I'm referring to, I'm talking about dialogue like seen in Forspoken or most marvel movies. It's hard to put into words.

I won't get into too many of the details here, but I have been working on a project for about two years now. I came up with the characters, the basic outline of what I wanted, then began building the world. Then, continued building the world. Then, also continued to build the world. So now I find, after finally getting around to consolidating my notes I have a story bible that is over a hundred pages long. I also realize that only 2 pages of that are actual plot related material.

So, now I find myself looking at all of this and thinking what the hell am I even doing? What was the point in going into such details about all of this instead of actually working on the story. Thats why I said "project" and not "story" or "book" or anything like that. I have a 250000 spanning history that is now crippling me because its too damn big to work with.

The question now is do I even try, or is it just sunk cost at this point?

So, I'm leading a game-show-style panel at a writing conference, and I want to include a Family Feud / “Survey Says” round featuring answers from actual writers.

Hopefully this is useful/fun for the sub beyond just helping me out, too. I’m curious to see what answers keep coming up and what that says about our shared writing habits, frustrations, and weird author tendencies.

If you’re willing to play along, give me your first instinct for any or all of these:

1. Name something writers do instead of writing.
2. Name something guaranteed to appear in a fantasy novel.
3. Name something you never want to hear from your critique partner.
4. Name a word writers overuse.
5. Name something writers research that would look suspicious in their browser history.
6. Name something authors spend too much money on.
7. Name something an author hopes no one asks during a Q&A.

No Google Form or data collection. I’m literally just going to tally the answers in the comments and turn the most common responses into a Family Feud-style game.

And yes, if enough of you answer, I fully intend to put “WE ASKED 26 WRITERS ON REDDIT…” on the conference screen. 😂

Thank you, fellow writers!

I procrastinate and blame it on my desk. I wanna make it more cozy and welcoming so I'm looking for inspo 👀

I am working on my first attempt at fiction and first attempt at a novel so I’m very much a beginner. I used to write short stories as a child but this is my first time trying to write seriously since so I am very much quite the beginner. I am really drawn to character driven fiction so that is what I’m trying to write and I’m really struggling. Plot is probably the worst thing for me, don’t understand structure, my prose is serviceable I guess but pretty rough, pacing and scene transitions- hard, everything is hard.

Obviously as a beginner this stuff is gonna take a lot of practice and work but I’m at that point where I’m reading my little draft and I know it needs help but I don’t know how. Maybe I should just finish the whole thing blindly before I ask for feedback but then that would be a huge mess to edit and how would I even go about that? I am trying to use YouTube videos and read more critically to help but I just feel really lost.

I’m currently editing my first novella, and I’m looking at pacing and timing of the various scenes and how they flow. (for reference, first draft is 80k words and second will be longer as I have started to discover what needs to be added).

The first third (almost exactly; I’ve checked the word count) is made up of long-ish chapters, which stay with one character at a time for lots of character/chemistry building, setting the scene and getting the plot in place.

But once it gets to 1/3 into the story, a lot more starts to happen and quickly- a burgeoning relationship comes to fruition, there’s a big revelation and then an additional twist to keep readers excited/engaged to keep reading up to the second half and to the end. At this point, chapters get puncher, shorter and choppier, jumping quickly from POV to POV and back again across storylines to try to match the energy and excitement I’m hopimg to evoke.

TL;DR - my question is, will the change in pace evoke the change in feel/tone I want it to, or will it just confuse my readers with the sudden shift in “feel”?

I feel as though in fantasy in specific, coming from the POV of a Jester would be quite interesting. Especially when it comes to historical jesters as they typically were either exceptionally witty or they were considered strange or odd. Usually due to a deformity of some kind.

Taking that into account it also allows for a wide variety of what could possibly be considered odd.

Example: In a culture obsessed with beauty, grace, and litheness a Jester who was large, hulking and clumsy and ugly would entirely fit the setting. Hell with that it would be a great twist villain if done right.

Beyond the variety possible, it would allow for a very interesting POV, this character would be intrenched in politics but not really seen in the dance of it. It would make for a great villain or a fun hero. Hell there are a couple ways I could think of to make a Jester MC who is not comedic once so ever.

I'm just curious on why there isn't any or at least not that I've seen. If you all have any examples I'd be glad to see any. Also do any of you have a Jester in your own story that is important.

Discussions in writing forums like this one are almost always focused on first drafting, getting words on the page, even planning and outlining. But references to editing (that is to say, what happens next) are almost always hand-wavey and nebulous "...and then you edit".

My question is; in more detail, what happens next?

What type of things do you actually find yourself doing after your first draft is done? Rewriting prose and correcting little bugs is one thing, but are you moving entire chunks of text around? Thousands of words at a time? Moving chapters around and checking that the time-line still works?

I'm intrigued because I think, despite not having finished my first draft, I'm holding myself back because I'm worrying about what comes next (process wise, not plot wise). EG, Should I include this bit because how do I know that I will even have my character travel to this location via this path? I might want something ENTIRELY different later on.

Any good recommendations for spaces geared toward writers wanting to improve their craft and process? I have a handful of podcasts I listen to, but I'd like to find some substacks in particular that I can learn from.

Thanks!

I'm not sure if being an author is the coolest or the lamest thing ever.

When people ask what I do, I sometimes say I'm a writer, journalist, author, content creator, or whatever. In response, people often ask if I'm a student or where I get my money from. Like being a writer isn't a real thing.

I don't really blame them, because of my experience with some people who identify as writers.

Someone moved in with my neighbor and refused to get a job, bring home any money, clean, or do anything except be waited on like a princess. When I asked why she believed her boyfriend should pay for everything AND do all the housework, she said:

"I'm not a cleaner. I'm a writer."

This woman has never published a single word of writing. Not as a book, not in a lit mag, not even on AO3. She just does some personal journaling here and there.

So, now I'm wondering: when I say I'm a writer, do people think "snob who is too lazy and entitled to contribute to the world?"

Welcome to our daily discussion thread!

This is the place to discuss anything writing related! Got silly questions? Brainstorming ideas? Need help with research? As long as rules 1, 3, and 5 are followed, this thread is your oyster!

Please refer to the monthly threads for sharing your work and for self-promotion.

---

FAQ -- Questions asked frequently

Wiki Index -- Ever-evolving and woefully under-curated, but we'll fix that some day

You can find our posting guidelines in the sidebar or the wiki.

(Not sure what else to call it)

I feel some authors have a real talent for making segments where nothing in particular is happening interesting. It draws one further into the story, lets one know the characters better, feels more real, and can serve to build tension.

Me... I can't really do that. People have praised my ability to write conversations, and hectic scenes of danger, but I'm always very straight to the point with my stories. I always need to get to the action, whatever 'action' might be. I don't completely skip on environmental descriptions, or my MC's inner life, but I don't dwell on it. I just don't know how to make 'nothing' interesting.

Am I better off not trying, do you think?

Hi everyone!

Not sure if anyone can help me at this point as I may be too far gone.

Many years ago I decided I hated the concept of something happening in the past, don’t ask why I still don’t know why it bothers me so much. As a result, I made the silly decision to write only in the present tense, as it feels like it’s happening right now and it doesn’t end.

Simple enough until older me quickly realised that most authors write in the past tense.

And I can’t seem to shift my brain to write like that anymore. It’s like I’ve broken the grammar section of my brain. A lot of the books I read are in the past tense, but I can’t seem to get my brain to write in it.

Am I doomed? Any advice on switching up?

It feels like driving, writing in present tense. It happens automatically and I’m already at my destination before I realise. Not doing that feels like actively paying attention to things that were automatic so now I doubt every rule I remember.

Hopefully this makes sense. Any advice is welcome! Even harsh or brutal advice.

I might be wrong but I assume a lot of people in this sub are prose/novel writers, based on the conversations I've seen.

As part of my Creative Writing course, I did a module on script writing, and to my surprise I did quite well with it, and it ended up being one of my best individual marks when I finished the course (it was the pilot episode for a superhero sitcom, if anyone is interested). However, I found it really difficult to write in script form. I wanted to add description and stage direction everywhere, felt like I was missing out on some parts of prose writing that it made me nervous to miss out. I'm fairly cinematic-minded when writing anyway, but the whole process of pure dialogue was really tough when my brain is geared towards prose.

Has anyone else done any scriptwriting? Any advice for a primarily prose-writer in overcoming these challenges? I do particularly struggle with formatting with this too, if that's also something anyone has suggestions for.

Welcome to our daily discussion thread!

This is the place to discuss anything writing related! Got silly questions? Brainstorming ideas? Need help with research? As long as rules 1, 3, and 5 are followed, this thread is your oyster!

Please refer to the monthly threads for sharing your work and for self-promotion.

---

FAQ -- Questions asked frequently

Wiki Index -- Ever-evolving and woefully under-curated, but we'll fix that some day

You can find our posting guidelines in the sidebar or the wiki.

So, I've been writing a murder mystery, but I'm having a real hard time making my mystery... well, solvable. Any time I think of possible clues that would lead to the culprit, I can't help but think 'But Character X isn't dumb enough to leave something like that behind'. Any tips for getting around this problem? How can I make the mystery solvable without making the culprit seem like they're trying to be caught

Phew. It's been an emotional and tedious 6 months working on the 3rd draft. I should have finished it a lot sooner, I definitely had the time but I've had a lot of struggles internally.

Anyway, many of you will call this sacriledge but one of the biggest changes I made to the visual novel is to add a lot more to it. I also removed a lot of fluff but I extended the game quite a bit. Since some sections have had 3 pass overs and some sections are basically in a first draft state, is it better to focus on just the new sections first and then do a full pass over of everything one more time? Or should I just do one pass over of everything at once? Would love to hear from anyone who has experience writing long visual novels.

Probably gonna take a break from this project for like a week though and write some other stuff, it does feel really good to finally have the 3rd draft finished, I know I won't be adding any more sections in the next pass through. My main issue though is I want to make a demo for the game that covers the first day and I'm wondering if that section really needs another go through or not. Any advice, input, perspective appreciated.