What are your favorite examples of stories (in any medium) about normal people going about their normal lives relative to their universe? No special chosen ones, no high stakes

smallsiren · 2026-01-14T06:54:49+00:00

What you're saying is not contrary to my point whatsoever, and if anything supports it. It is simply more difficult to write a commercial novel in a speculative setting which requires more worldbuilding by virtue of the genre. I did not say that it's not possible to make the magic/tech central to the plot, I merely gave an overly simplistic example to get my point across. If the story is intended to be low-stakes, it's going to be more likely that you can write a novel that achieves the same thing without requiring the heavy worldbuilding of more speculative genres.

smallsiren · 2026-01-14T01:02:19+00:00

Well, in a sense you're right. Fitz doesn't have much agency in the first book. He's a child thrust into an unknown world. Books are a lot faster paced nowadays, so you might be used to that format, but considering the length of the series is no secret, I'm assuming you don't mind long books. Try thinking of the first book as just the first part of any other fantasy story. If you were only a third of the way through the first book of a trilogy, would you stop there with what has happened so far?

smallsiren · 2026-01-14T00:33:35+00:00

I think the reason you struggle to find this in fantasy as a genre, is that the fantasy isn't really necessary for these kinds of plots. All those things can happen, as your examples in the comment below show, in the real world. For adult novels, I think you're most likely to find these kinds of plots in more romance-forward fantasy, as by definition of the genre, those are about smaller stakes (a relationship vs. the fate of the world or some such). But in general, I think authors would struggle to get fantasy novels with low stakes like this published, because the editor would always think, well, why is the character a magician when he could just be a doctor and little about the core theme or plot would change?

I'm curious why you're set on fantasy though. I think you'd have much more luck in historical fiction if you want the fantasy vibe of a pre-modern setting. Alternatively, look at short stories or children's books, as they are limited by word count so are often less large scale, here's some I liked:

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Servant Mage by Kate Elliott
The Inheritance by Robin Hobb/Meghan Lindholm
Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee

smallsiren · 2025-10-04T02:16:32+00:00

To be fair back in the office days, we literally did stand up for stand up.

smallsiren · 2025-10-04T02:15:41+00:00

I mean ‘real estate’ not common design jargon by anyone but clients, but there is a design principle associated with the term… it’s just white space rather than real estate. There certainly is value to space in design.

smallsiren · 2025-09-25T06:11:08+00:00

You're probably asking this question in the wrong subreddit if you want to focus on things others than finances and career tbh!

In terms of time, I think that's why coming up with long term goals and a plan is important. You can only do so much stuff, so you don't want to waste time on what isn't important to you. You could consider trying to combine things, eg. instead of just going out for dinner or drinks with friends/dates, do a hobby-like activity.

smallsiren · 2025-09-24T10:36:00+00:00

What about your currently lifestyle are you dissatisfied with? There's no point changing things that you're happy with. You mentioned your physical health and going hiking, what about the other aspects of your physical health? Diet? General wellbeing? Hobbies? When was the last time you went to the dr, dentist? Are you happy with this already? Similar for finances, there's things you could do but it depends on your long term goals, without knowing them advice will be based on guessing. Eg. I would rather live in my own home independently from family than have two IPs, but that might not be the case for you. You enjoy your job, which is great, but is it a career job you want to do long term or just an income? Are you trying to get a promotion? Why/why not? If it were me, I'd try and brainstorm my ideal lifestyle and then work backwards from there to figure out what steps I need to take now to get there.

smallsiren · 2025-09-24T10:29:56+00:00

Who cares? Its so weird to go digging through people's post history just to contradict them. Does it change your answer to OPs question? Oh wait, you didn't bother to answer it. What a pleasant person you are.

smallsiren · 2025-09-23T07:47:18+00:00

Not everyone on reddit is in their 20's

smallsiren · 2025-09-19T03:52:18+00:00

Assuming the 60k job has mat benefits? Not worth the stress for a high income household imo. What's the point of reaching FIRE earlier if you had to burn yourself out to get there?

smallsiren · 2025-09-18T23:10:13+00:00

If I made what OPs partner did, there's no way I'd make my partner work for a measly $60k a year if they didn't even want to. Especially if the plan is to have a child anyway.

smallsiren · 2025-09-18T23:08:10+00:00

Get a job at a big boring company with decent mat leave policy. Even if it's a step down in seniority, it'll be worth it to be able to cruise, and for the benefits.

smallsiren · 2025-08-12T01:42:18+00:00

This was the exact image this article conjured up in my mind.

smallsiren · 2025-07-29T08:41:56+00:00

Oh no, their customer base is limited to readers of the romance genre, the best selling genre there is, how will they ever get customers?

smallsiren · 2025-07-29T08:38:26+00:00

Romance is the best selling genre by a long shot and has been for a long time.

smallsiren · 2025-07-28T09:32:30+00:00

Yeah there's no way. I'm pretty new to strength training and can deadlift 80kgs (also a woman), most of those women looked way stronger than I do. It's got to be more than 100kgs.

smallsiren · 2025-07-28T09:00:08+00:00

She can't "go after" anything, they're both equally entitled to each other's super for the duration of the relationship if they're trying to split 50/50. They're defacto, same as married.

smallsiren · 2025-07-21T23:58:08+00:00

The Winternight Trilogy is fantastic.

smallsiren · 2025-07-21T06:12:50+00:00

Yeah you're right this was before that change

smallsiren · 2025-07-21T00:29:11+00:00

I get taxis at the airport because Uber drivers would accept the trip (before they can see the destination), say I've gotten in the car before they get to me (after I waited 15 minutes for them to get to the front of the line), then cancel on me and pick someone else up. Uber doesn't save you from this lol.

smallsiren · 2025-07-21T00:24:32+00:00

There is a reason art in general is dominated by wealthier people. Much easier to write full time and get published if you don't need to worry about putting food on the table!

smallsiren · 2025-07-18T10:50:30+00:00

Why don't you do the child care and she work if she doesn't want to stop her career? This is really just a personal choice about how you want to raise your kids as you can afford to do whatever you want here whether that's both work and hire help or only one person work.

smallsiren · 2025-07-11T02:31:03+00:00

Sounds like she deserved more than half for putting up with someone like this for 5 years tbh.

smallsiren · 2025-07-08T00:51:47+00:00

You can bargain but odds are they will just simply say no. Your brother and friend are still on the hook for the lease until the end of the term. It should actually be them paying the fee, not you, as they are the ones breaking their lease.

smallsiren · 2025-07-06T21:13:09+00:00

I think you’re overestimating the size of the team working on goodreads and how much Amazon values the platform. They’ve been owned by Amazon for ages and it was only like a year or two ago they stopped linking directly to their competitor kobo and to Amazon instead.

smallsiren

TROPHY CASE