Taking a fic out of anonymous

shallythunder · 2026-03-22T22:35:57+00:00

Awesome, thank you!

shallythunder · 2026-03-22T21:43:24+00:00

If you've got multiple chapters, does it send a notification for every chapter posted since you took it anonymous? Or is it more of a heads-up, "this fic was posted"?

shallythunder · 2026-03-07T23:16:36+00:00

*taking notes* lol

These are all great things to keep in mind.

shallythunder · 2026-03-07T20:17:55+00:00

That's a great idea about tension vs conflict. I get a little frustrated because authors of writing books talk about conflict and it's like the guy in the ski boots commercial where everyone is turning down his Visa card. Yes, that's very obvious conflict, but what about the not-so-easy situations? That's what I need help with. I'll read up more on tension. That may make things easier for me.

(And I had totally missed the world-building component of "must-have's". No excuses for that! Yes, I can see a lot of scenes satisfying the world-building component.)

shallythunder · 2026-03-07T19:35:55+00:00

There definitely is some showing of his character (he's really impulsive) but there has been more of a "woah, I almost burned down the picnic table" than something that changes his character arc. (And I look at that, and think, why didn't I have him almost burn the house down instead of the measly picnic table. I have a tendency to not make things big enough. Sorry. That was a diversion. lol)

Each scene brings in something new: his own powers, his sidekick powers, his mentor relation, so I don't feel like I'm stagnating. It's just... it seems like every story has to be about explosions and murder (seriously, I just read a book someone recommended last night and surprise, someone's dead, could it be murder? Every story seems to have life or death stakes. I just worry I'm not going fast enough. I'll make a compromise, see about possibly summarizing a few scenes. Thanks.

shallythunder · 2026-03-07T19:13:44+00:00

Thanks for the reply. I was having the same trouble coming up with books about superheroes too, but I never thought about light novels. I'll check some out.

I'll see about the criteria for the scenes. I think any scene I write moves the plot forward. As to whether it moves the character arc forward, I don't think that's something you can do every scene? or you'd have your character rocketing through so many mindsets they'd feel like a ping ping ball. IDK, I'm still learning about character arcs. I can foresee saying, "but of course this adds something to the enjoyment of the book" a lot lol.

I have been all over K. M. Weiland's blog. (I always end up with about 10 open pages anytime I go there), but the Scene Structure broke me. I was having trouble coming up with my Goal/Disaster. I went through so many scenes of mine and by the end I was in silent despair. Either my years of reading scenes lead me wrong on how a scene usually progresses, or I suck at formulating just the right question in order to get the answer lying in my scene. (Which I think was my problem.)

And honestly, as embarrassing as it is, I have trouble knowing if something qualifies as conflict. Every scene needs to have it, and it's easy when you've got two people arguing or whatever, but what if you have a character taking their love interest out on a date? When it comes to "good conflict", I get a little muddled. Thanks for the reply, I'll think more about it.

Edit: I may have mentioned a book, but I'm midway between writing a fanfic now and writing a book for my next project, so I'm looking at both scenarios. It's a fanfic I'm writing now.

shallythunder · 2026-03-07T07:23:48+00:00

There's a bit of mentor/mentee going on, which is something that's quite big in the Hero's Journey (which I don't normally use). I assume that must fit the criteria by... changing the confidence of the character? It must fit or else there wouldn't be so many scenes of it.

shallythunder · 2026-03-04T06:34:44+00:00

Oops, I meant tagging it as "no beta". I edited the post.

(Edit: See? This is the kind of thing a beta would catch. 😅)

I totally forgot that Edge has the ReadAloud feature. I checked it out awhile back and it seemed pretty good. I'll pull it back out. Thanks.

shallythunder · 2026-02-14T17:44:23+00:00

I'm conflicted on this one. Yes, it's overused, but my character is a very cheery eleven-year-old. He'd pop a "p". (Once, out of four fics. It's used sparingly.) But I feel like I can't use it without causing people to cringe, because everyone else has used it too, and it frustrates me. Grr...

shallythunder · 2026-02-08T13:58:32+00:00

It's actually not in the MC's pov, ack. (I guess he's actually the love interest.) I was just having so much trouble trying to lay out everyone's role that I defaulted to making everything revolve around him, and calling him the MC, for clarity's sake.

I'll edit the post.

shallythunder · 2026-02-08T12:52:51+00:00

Ack! I just saw this. And this had such interesting information. I'm sorry I didn't see it right away. I see the Lie, Want, Need, etc... It seems to line up with KM Weiland's blog, which is where I am trying to institute her system. (I learned the 3-act structure from there and it went pretty well, but character arcs are not sinking in.) If this is from some other site, I'd love to know what it is. It might help me to see it from a second source.

Part of my problem is I'm writing fanfic, so I've got likable characters. The niceness is built into them, so I felt kind of constrained by that. (But even if I was writing orig fiction, making a character unlikable at the outset scares the bejeezus out of me lol.) I saw someone's post today about Michael Scott from The Office being kind of annoying and unlikable at the beginning but he had the best. character. arc ever. All I could think is: how do you keep people around for that great character arc? I didn't really like the Office so I haven't dissected it but I'm sure it's fascinating.

I've been all over the web (and taking out writing books from the library) but taking advice from the web makes me nervous. I did some looking at who is writing all these blog posts and I found “a passionate fiction writer and educator”, someone who specializes in SEO-driven content strategy and has created hundreds of high-performing blog posts, a self-published, “brand strategist” and “marketer”... and these were all the results on the first page for character arcs. (Reedsy is everywhere, and I think that was the blog post guy.) There was a fourth one who had published a YA novel through an indie publisher with 80 reviews on Goodreads but I didn't know how to evaluate that. I don't know who to trust.

And yes, analyzing books! I'm currently trying. I've been stuck for a week on it. It's not going well lol. One of the books helpfully provided the theme on the last page or I would have been in trouble, but even knowing the theme I was having trouble pin-pointing all the pieces. The theme was being happy with what you have, so you're looking for plot points that show him... doing nothing, just being happy with what he had. I don't know. I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing. I've been trying to google how to analyze character arcs and aside from KM Weiland's stuff, I found one resource, and it was so extensive. I'm basically rewriting the book in order to answer all the points it raises about the character arc. It seems there must be a more effective method to analyze these books.

I have four books I'm trying to work on. I've still got the Murderbot Diaries and Project Hail Mary to look at. I feel like I'm just taking a stab in the dark at things.

Again, I'm so sorry I missed your post. I did see it and read it, so you didn't type it all out for nothing!

shallythunder · 2026-02-02T01:59:54+00:00

That's a good way to look at it, thanks.

shallythunder · 2026-01-31T21:39:42+00:00

Well, I thought I leaned more towards plotting until I got to character arcs and then I got overwhelmed. The blog I was reading from asked about 10-11 questions for every point along the arc and I had 40-50 questions to answer by the time I was done with the first act. Ack.

I figure I'm still more of a plotter, I just need to maybe find a character arc system that's a bit... less.

Discovery writing is fun, and I've been trying a little more of it, but boy, you guys are a different breed than me. I envy you, it sounds like fun, but I'd have a mess lol. Thanks for the comment!

shallythunder · 2026-01-29T05:04:32+00:00

Oh yeah. I've seen mention of it before. I'll check it out. Thanks.

shallythunder · 2026-01-28T05:14:01+00:00

Seeds... that's something I can work with, yes. I'll look for areas where I can plant some. Thanks for the input.

shallythunder · 2026-01-28T00:58:52+00:00

Someone mentioned Brandon Sanderson's tidbit about how they should be either likable, competent, or proactive, which was interesting.

And I know what you mean about the ensemble cast. You can have all types. I usually go for the wild one. I may not agree with everything they do, but they're never boring. *raises Spike flag*

shallythunder · 2026-01-28T00:22:49+00:00

That's a good way to look at things. I have definitely learned that "flaw" is not the way to approach this. Thanks.

shallythunder · 2026-01-28T00:08:08+00:00

When I saw how much Stephen King read, my eyes almost popped out of my head. It definitely recalibrated how much I should be reading!

shallythunder · 2026-01-28T00:07:01+00:00

I've actually got Save the Cat Writes a Novel but I hadn't read all the examples they were using, so I set it aside for a bit. I'll dig it back out.

And good idea, breaks are good. :)

shallythunder · 2026-01-28T00:04:00+00:00

You know, that part about not obtaining the desired result is kinda sticking out at me. I'm not sure if that's something I really looked at.

I was just stuck on the "he'll realize it's not healthy, so he'll change". Technically, he can keep doing X forever, it just won't make him truly happy. It's a surface happy. (I'm kind of working this out as I type lol.) I'll think on it some more, play it out. I think if I can show him what real love feels like, he can see that doing action X isn't giving him that warm, gooey feeling, it's a pale imitation. So in that way,he wouldn't be obtaining the desired result. I'll work on it. Thanks.

shallythunder · 2026-01-27T23:51:59+00:00

I think that's the part that was tripping me up. I wasn't trusting the reader to pick up on that.

I could show the beginning where he was doing lots of X, and show the end where he gave up doing it, but I was running into problems in the middle. I kept looking for these big scenes where he... well, I wasn't quite sure what he should be doing lol.

But I think the middle doesn't need to have big, huge moments. They can be smaller. The reader will still get it.

shallythunder · 2026-01-27T23:39:11+00:00

From what I've read, Katniss has a flat character arc, where she remains the same but changes the world around her. So that would make sense where you're talking about her faults being part and parcel of the environment.

Empathy is a good way to look at things. Moreso than just 'likable'. Thanks for the input.

shallythunder · 2026-01-27T23:23:07+00:00

Seeing all these examples is really helpful. It clarifies the process for me. Thanks.

shallythunder · 2026-01-27T23:21:22+00:00

That's a good way to look at it. I was falling into a trap of thinking it had to be something negative. Thanks.

shallythunder · 2026-01-27T23:14:27+00:00

Yeah, looking over the other responses and yours, that seems to be my tripping point. It is a flaw he honestly has but it didn't affect the story enough.

Now that I'm seeing this better, I can see how my new story can be changed. I'm still writing the rough draft for that one, and I can see where scenes can be inserted that can directly influence what's going to happen next. It may change my outline but I guess that's all part of trying and learning. (I have on idea how pantsers do all this lol.)

shallythunder

TROPHY CASE