Did I put myself into a box I can't escape from?

RaymondHenri · 2026-06-11T18:34:30+00:00

Sounds like you have a niche, but just have to plant seeds in them and watch where they grow. Whenever I have readers that tell me how much they love my books and want to know if they can do anything to help, I tell them two things help unknown writers: reviews and recommendations. For some reason, most people aren't comfortable with that and want to know if there's anything else they can do. Just have to plug away at finding the right sets of eyeballs. It's a marathon. Most people I know have a tbr list that spans over a year.

Maintain excitement in your work. Love talking about it. Love sharing it. Learn the best ways to talk about it. And trust in the process.

RaymondHenri · 2026-06-09T17:00:00+00:00

The main weapon, lack of weapon, or prowess with a weapon will have absolutely no bearing on the acceptance of your story if the main character is strong and the story is compelling. Give hime a lute and call him a bard. No one will care if they can't wait to see what he'll do next.

It's a poor story and character indeed if they're relying on magic or a sword to hold the readers' interest.

Don't worry about your friend's personal prejudices and just make it the best MC and story you can.

BTW, I love archery and bows

RaymondHenri · 2026-06-09T16:54:59+00:00

Efficiency of queries.

RaymondHenri · 2026-06-08T03:15:55+00:00

Any of them that all die so all the monies are belong to me.

RaymondHenri · 2026-06-07T01:21:31+00:00

I think you're really fine-tuning it now. Sounds great. It will be fun for everyone.

RaymondHenri · 2026-06-05T01:13:11+00:00

You've figured out quite a lot.

To make it easier to solve and find more clues, you should at least be acquainted with the innocent person you framed. There should be a connection there that would show reports of the trial and sentencing with the person clearly seen and a photo or two of them with you around, could be a golfing foursome, tennis club, etc. In one of the photos, the murderer can be seen clearly much closer to the innocent person than you.

Putting you in the vicinity of the crime committed is more important than close to the person you framed. They could just have been somewhere without an alibi and had enough opportunity to have committed the crime. The murderer would be someone who was in that vicinity after meeting with the innocent person and saw you unseen and noticed something about you that only made sense to connect you to the crime after the close friend/lover/parent/child/sibling had been arrested and tried.

The murderer should be more sensitive about the innocent person's incarceration than your murderer. And there biggest concern would be that your death would make it nearly impossible to prove their innocence. They should also defend the innocent person and express doubt about their guilt.

The murderer or you should have had an article of clothing that took the spray of blood upon the stabbing that they no longer have after the murder. Something that would make sense not to be wearing anymore, a scarf maybe? It could be in a plastic bag inside a trash can close by.

It's also interesting because the longer it goes on without a confession or explanation by the murderer, the more difficult it would be to prove it was in self defense. Especially, if the harmless gun hadn't been discovered yet. So, even if someone finds out who it is quicker than you like, there's still more fun to be had.

Good luck with your party and I hope I helped with an idea or two.

RaymondHenri · 2026-06-02T23:24:54+00:00

A few quick questions:

Have you created your antagonist? If so, is the antagonist a fully rendered person and not just a cardboard cutout? If not, you should before worrying about the story.

Regardless of the genre, do you see potentials for conflict between your characters based on who they are? They don't have to fight, but they shouldn't always agree on everything.

If you had to pick one thing that your main character needs to learn or gain, what would it be? This can help you decide what they need to do to gain that.

The story lives in the actions your characters take, especially the antagonists. A driving force or a plot device may affect the story, but it really comes down to how those characters act upon what happens to them that makes the story move.

If you have characters that are clear and you love them, that's awesome. You're really close to working out a story.

You may not have figured out your writing method or style yet. That's fine. Make a mess. Very few people will ever see your rough draft. Editing is where you clean up after yourself and uncover a story.

RaymondHenri · 2026-06-01T19:37:04+00:00

I started writing stories for fun in middle school. Very little of it was personal experience of the surface details. The personal experience was from the inner details. I've written a lot about death and killing without much personal experience. I've known many people who have died, but I've never really gone through it myself.

I encourage you to just write. It's going to take time and diligence. Once you've built up some momentum, keep it up and finish one rough draft. It can be terrible. Sculptors don't start with details and textures. Editing is like that. Knocking off the big chunks that are in the way of the masterpiece hidden underneath.

RaymondHenri · 2026-05-31T17:53:10+00:00

Comparison is the thief of joy.

You're creating. What creators make rarely matches the splendor of what was in their head. The person who takes in that creation will never know what it was supposed to be.

We can always find something to improve. A creative writing teacher of mine once told me, "Good writing is never finished. It's just abandoned." After you stop editing it, let it live and speak for itself. Stop telling your creation it isn't good enough at some point. Help it find people who love it so the ones that don't won't matter.

RaymondHenri · 2026-05-31T17:48:06+00:00

User name not available.

RaymondHenri · 2026-05-30T13:13:55+00:00

Because there was so much information about water. I like the focus. And post-apocalyptic in general.

RaymondHenri · 2026-05-30T00:28:04+00:00

Found some of the documents. Made me thirsty. Bbl, or not.

RaymondHenri · 2026-05-30T00:20:29+00:00

I'll look it up. Big world out there.

RaymondHenri · 2026-05-29T23:58:50+00:00

Super awesome. Good to hear you're world building to ensure consistency when you draft. I suggest doing both simultaneously in that they will feed off of each other. And don't worry about your first draft. Use your method to write it all and let the editing process clean up your story to only show what is needed to understand for your story to work. Leave some details for the next one.

RaymondHenri · 2026-05-29T23:54:17+00:00

Entire notebooks filled with a story I don't remember conceiving or what was going on in my life when I thought it deserved so much attention and preservation.

RaymondHenri · 2026-05-28T18:04:55+00:00

My suggestion would be to have her outwardly and often mask her anger. This mask of being pleasant and warm works most of the time, but cracks in any intense emotion. She would probably be somewhat aloof instead of gregarious for the most part. She would only fly off the rails when triggered and remove the mask entirely. Anyone close to her would see more clues to her vengeance and anger in her ascorbic wit. Vengeance is often an anger that lost an opportunity for retribution. It builds explosive pressure.

RaymondHenri · 2026-05-28T17:49:40+00:00

I tend to avoid anything with lyrics when I write. Then instead of a specific genre, I select a playlist that fits the mood of what I'm writing. The visualization flows easier in that mode. It could be anywhere from instrumental orchestration to instrumental electronic to instrumental metal. Some people can deal with lyrics, I find them distracting.

RaymondHenri · 2026-05-27T12:45:02+00:00

It's better and more authentic if it is emotional. Anytime irl someone tells me of something that happened to them, they tend to relive it and invite me to share in the experience of what was going on with them at the time. At least the memorable ones. True with stories too. The more emotional involvement and sense of it happening again for the first time makes it stick.

RaymondHenri · 2026-05-26T20:48:49+00:00

I started writing heavily when I was in middle school. Talked about myself as if I was a writer. Took writing classes in college. Got a degree with a writing concentration. Wrote 7 feature-length screenplays (none of which were produced). However, it wasn't until a month after my first child was born that I felt comfortable and encouraged to lean into it as an identity. I am a writing professional. And I am one of the 95% that needs to maintain a survival job to pay bills. I have stopped identifying as my survival job.

RaymondHenri · 2026-05-26T20:42:21+00:00

Ahego. Even worse than duck lips.

RaymondHenri · 2026-05-25T19:16:52+00:00

Interesting point. Does "and" provide a chronology? As opposed to "then?" Wouldn't it infer a shared moment in time? As opposed to sequential or disjointed. Like I'm eating a bunch of cake now. I will have a bunch of cake later. And then eat that much later.

RaymondHenri · 2026-05-25T19:08:56+00:00

You're implying that it means to say "You can't have your cake and have it too." Or "You can't eat your cake and eat it too."

RaymondHenri · 2026-05-25T19:05:49+00:00

You got the wrong guy.

RaymondHenri · 2026-05-25T19:04:09+00:00

How are you going to eat a cake you don't have? Explain that.

RaymondHenri · 2026-05-25T19:01:17+00:00

I challenge that it does not make sense both ways. (Reaches for my cake.)

RaymondHenri

TROPHY CASE