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@dekreel Tricky question. I have a bully in my current novel who plays a fairly small role, but it was hard to figure out how to write him without making him feel cheesy. This is what I’ve found
First, recognize that a lot of bully cliches are cliches for a reason. These things are true in real life, so they should be true in a book. This isn’t to say that some of them aren’t true, but a lot of them are.
Next, you’re already on the right track making him not be physically violent. That’s true to life. In movies, bullying is kind of like this: Bully walks up and says something mean. Hero punches bully or bully punches hero. Big fight. In real life, bullies are more prone to use verbal abuse. I did this and wasn’t entirely sure whether it was accurate (It is for girls, but I wasn’t sure about for boys) but then my dad said something about it and apparently I was right.
A good bully in a book is Draco Malfoy. He’s sneaky and self-obsessed and uses trickery and bluffing and general better-than-you attitude to get Harry into trouble. I’m sure I can think of other literary bullies but I’m having trouble right now…
Basically do what you’re doing, and take some of the other advice people have given 😀
Silence! Silence everyone, for the king's speech!
I don’t outline at the beginning of a novel unless it’s a novella or something else short that I need to stay on track with. Once I’m several chapters into a full-length novel I start outlining five to ten chapters ahead, which allows things to move naturally. In a series I do that with the first book then do ‘skeleton outlines’ of the next few books – being the main six or eight or someodd events that drive the book. So basically I let my books write themselves and then fix any weirdness when I edit 😀
Silence! Silence everyone, for the king's speech!
I 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!
@ariel-ashira @sam-kowal @valtmy Thanks so much for your help!! After all this feedback I’m probably going to go back to the previous version of the first chapter and see if I can improve it a little so I like it better (it’s a version my friend likes). It’s shorter and establishes the characters and relationships better. On that note, the reason I didn’t like that chapter is because it isn’t in the same tone as the rest of the story. Do you think that’s a problem?
Thanks again for all your advice!! 😀
Silence! Silence everyone, for the king's speech!
@skredder Thanks so much for your feedback and encouragement!!! Do you feel it would be better if it was shorter and had a little more conflict and/or humor?
Silence! Silence everyone, for the king's speech!
@that_writer_girl_99 Thanks for your input! I suspected she was right, I was just kind of hoping she wasn’t because I’ve written the first chapter of this book at least twenty times. That’s the way of writing, though 🙂
Silence! Silence everyone, for the king's speech!
@dekreel You already have some of my info, I noticed 🙂 But if you could change my fur color to reddish (I saw some very cute red squirrels a while ago and love them…) and add that my personality is ‘easily distracted, excitable, loves shiny things, and enjoys a little excitement now and then’ 😀 This is a cool idea, by the way!!!
Silence! Silence everyone, for the king's speech!
@warrenluther04 Cool! I love it 😀 Can’t wait for more!!
Silence! Silence everyone, for the king's speech!
@kaymart This is really good! It asks a lot of questions really well, and definitely makes me want to read more. You did a really good job drawing the reader into the story.
Silence! Silence everyone, for the king's speech!
@notawriter I tend to run on inspiration too, but when it doesn’t happen, what I do is sit down and write about it. If it’s a plot issue, I like to split it up into different ‘plot layers’ that have to do with different characters, story lines, etc. and write out everything I know about each one. For world building, I recommend making an atlas of your world – it’s super fun and useful at the same time. For characters, write scenes about them in different situations.
Honestly the best way to brainstorm is to sit down with a piece of paper and start thinking about your world/story. Then just write everything that comes to mind until you start figuring things out.
That was a lot of advice I hope some of it was useful 😀
Silence! Silence everyone, for the king's speech!
@dekreel Dare I say the best yet? 🙂 I loved it! You have a real gift for humor writing!! 😀
Silence! Silence everyone, for the king's speech!
@kaymart Welcome! I hope you like it here 😀 I just recently came out of a dry spell myself. I went for weeks without writing, but now I’m relieved to have come out of it and am writing as strongly as ever. I hope the same happens for you 🙂
Silence! Silence everyone, for the king's speech!
@dekreel I am sorry I haven’t read this! I couldn’t because of internet troubles 🙁
This part was funny and sweet, too 🙂 Better than ever!!! Keep up the good work 😀
Silence! Silence everyone, for the king's speech!
@warrenluther04 I’m sorry I haven’t been keeping up! We’re having internet problems right now, so I’ll have to be a little sporadic for the rest of the week. That said…
AAAH! Cliffhangers!! Who did they see???
I love it 😀
Silence! Silence everyone, for the king's speech!
@dekreel I’m going to start a blog soonish too, and I would say the main reason to have a blog as a writer is to publicize your work. That does sound kind of selfish right off, but if you think about it, your blog is basically just serving the end of spreading whatever the themes of your work are. Hope that made sense 😀
Silence! Silence everyone, for the king's speech!