Home Page › Forums › Fiction Writing › Critiques › Novel Idea Critiques › How should I continue this?
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April 3, 2018 at 3:53 am #69948
I have a problem.
I tend to start off writing well but I have trouble deciding how to continue my stories. This causes me to get stuck and saps away my motivation to write. For my WIP, I have been trying to see if outlining will help but outlining is hard when I’m not sure how I want my story to go.
So just to try something new I’m putting one of my old projects here. I’m still playing around with the outline for my current WIP so I might ask you guys about it another time.
I hope you guys can offer some fresh perspectives as to how this story should proceed. This is supposed to be an epic adventure/romance story with a strong parodic element. I do like what I have so far but my concern is that I’m may be too ambitious since I don’t know how to resolve or reconcile many of my plot threads for this. Let me know what you think and what you expect or hope to see happen in this story. That should help me refocus my writing.
Warning: a lengthy read ahead.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EUrAz-zdtJyRUHvtYf9wlFxKOLT2uzacWNfqOID_jL0/edit?usp=sharing
Just tagging some people who might be interested.
@introvert_girl @rochellaine @dekreel @mnvalentine @anyoneApril 3, 2018 at 10:59 am #69958I don’t know how you usually work – whether you’re a heavy planner or not – but at this point in the story, I think you should probably just keep going in the way you are now. I would expect, from what I’ve read so far, to see the prince trying to control other people’s relationships a lot and eventually suffer from it and learn better, and to see him meet the girl and become interested in her human flying machine project and eventually fall in love with her. Maybe just for fun, he meets her when she’s disguised as a boy and pretends not to know she’s actually a girl.
However, even though that’s what I expect to see happen, I think it could be cool if it was another girl who comes onto the scene who he falls for, perhaps one of the heroines of one of his love stories he’s trying to manipulate until he falls in love with her, and a platonic relationship with the flying machine girl which serves to add to the prince’s learning experience.
I also think that the rules of fate should turn up a lot and should drive the story to its conclusion – possibly also to their destruction.
I hope that was helpful 😀
Silence! Silence everyone, for the king's speech!
April 3, 2018 at 12:06 pm #69968@valtmy I’d love to read and give my feedback. I may not have the time for a couple weeks, though. I’ll put it on my to do list. 🙂
And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.
April 3, 2018 at 12:44 pm #69973Hmm… yes maybe that will work. I was planning on having a more sweeping epic but maybe a tighter story might suit the premise better. Thanks!
Sure no problem.
April 3, 2018 at 2:48 pm #69980@valtmy, I don’t have time now, but I will later
WIP - Decisions
Kapeefer til we're old and greyApril 3, 2018 at 3:43 pm #69982@valtmy I read it, and I like “the rules of fate” thing you have intertwined throughout the book. Maybe a cool twist would be having the rules of fate apply to everyone but him if he tries to manipulate them for his interests?
The Kingdom has been torn asunder...
http://www.encircledbygrace.com/April 3, 2018 at 4:59 pm #69989@kaya-young I pictured the Rules of Fate as more of someone’s silly idea of what they should be, or what generally happens as a sort of “poetic justice,” not some actual rules of the universe. @valtmy is that correct?
By the way, I thought it was very funny and cute. 🙂 I like it.
"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
April 3, 2018 at 5:21 pm #69991@rochellaine Hmm, I guess it could be that way… I just thought it was part of Valtmy’s worldbuilding and “the rules of fate” were real?
The Kingdom has been torn asunder...
http://www.encircledbygrace.com/April 3, 2018 at 5:26 pm #69992@kaya-young Yes, I guess it could be. 🙂 I assumed since the guy wrote them, that they were his ideas of how the world ought to work, but they could be the actual rules and he just discovered them.
Are you writing right now? There are so many people on hiatus right now I couldn’t think who to tag, but I’m on Writers’ Corner and so far have written the sad amount of five small words! 😀 So will you join me and push me along?
"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
April 3, 2018 at 7:56 pm #70009Glad you liked it!
My original idea was a sort of Man vs God thing. It draws upon the belief that our lives are ruled by “Fate” that was prevalent in ancient China.
Basically the setting is a story world where “Fate” appears to cause lots of silly love stories to happen and the “Rules” are basically just all the cliches in romance novels and shows ever.
The emperor hates this “Fate” because (1) he is trying to run an empire and a lot of the conflict that comes with love stories prevents him from doing that smoothly and (2) one of the love stories involved his father and resulted in the his parents’ unloving marriage and his father’s neglect of him during his childhood. Since the emperor is a smartass, he aims to resolve all the love stories with minimal amounts of drama.
But of course, Fate strikes back at him for messing around with the love stories… by changing genres and suddenly they are in an adventure story which I actually have lots of ideas for. It’s just that I have trouble figuring out how to resolve a lot of my plots without deux ex machinas so I’m seeing if there are other ways I can continue the story.
April 3, 2018 at 9:50 pm #70026@valtmy Cool! This story is sounding really intriguing! You could create some super dramatic scenes with “Fate” and “Rules”. Maybe you could start to change genres by making the rules of Fate overarc into politics, family relationships and such?
What a fun story. 🙂 🙂 🙂
The Kingdom has been torn asunder...
http://www.encircledbygrace.com/April 4, 2018 at 3:49 am #70062Yep that was the plan. That’s why I introduced plot points such as the other members of the imperial family, the history of the empire, the assassin etc. because they will be relevant to the ‘adventure’ part of things.
But not everything was linking up and making sense. That’s why I have been stuck on this story for a long time and I am considering a complete overhaul. If I go with my original concept, this project will get very big and ambitious and I’ll need a very detailed outline before I am comfortable with continuing it but detailed outlines are not really my thing.
But yes this story (and my WIP which has a similar tone) are very fun. I enjoy writing them very much so I would hate to abandon these projects just because I can’t figure out how to proceed.
May 1, 2018 at 2:17 pm #71860@valtmy I’m available to read through this now, though it wouldn’t let me access it.
And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.
May 2, 2018 at 2:05 am #71922Oops sorry. I put away the file and closed the link for this project because I wanted to keep my focus on my WIP (which I’m thinking of getting some reviews for as well). But I’ll still like to know your thoughts this! The link should be working now. Thanks!
May 2, 2018 at 4:29 pm #71935General impressions: I really liked it, and find the premise/laws of fate to be very intriguing.
Some things I would expect or be interested in seeing moving forward:
– Juqing and Wanyu meeting
– The relationship between Wanyu and her father or Wanyu and her teacher/his family and the other students (how do they react to finding out she’s “responsible” for the Emperor closing their school?)
– More about the laws of Fate and Juqing’s Father’s beliefs about Epic Love Stories
– More about what Juqing and what Wanyu believe about these things
This is just a thought to get some ideas growing, but I think it would be interesting to see the Emperor believing it Fate that Juqing and Wanyu have an Epic Love Story, whilst Wanyu perhaps believes it all to be nonsense? Whether or not it is, or what Juqing would think, I can’t say. But I can see the Emperor and Wanyu having an interesting dynamic going forward.
Let me know if you ever need more feedback on this project. I’d love to read more. 🙂And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.
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