Questions before starting to write a fiction

#1
Hello, I use this thread to introduce myself as well as I never posted (my bad).
I am an avid reader of epic/fantasy novels/fictions, mainly medieval settings, low and medium supernatural (/magic).
I’ve read many fictions from here, I really like this site despite (maybe it’s not the case anymore) having only a few finished fictions. The main reason I never posted anything here is I’m more of a lurker, I didn’t even subscribe before I’ve read four or five fictions, and I left for a while because the number of interesting but cancel fictions discouraged me from reading here.
The positive point is that it made me craving for published novels and I found a lot of happiness from it. I’m now pumped up and interested again in reading fictions here.
 
Now, the part where I made the post for:
 
            I require your help because I am currently trying to write a fiction, I have the main idea of what I want to do and how, and the motivation. The problem is I am not much of a writer, and not a native English speaker (I won’t post it for a while as I have to check grammar, conjugation, etc... once I finish writing a chapter, I will wait to have few chapters in advance to compensate).
 
            Before starting on the mains questions I have, I want to ask one small: currently I try to write in a style I like, which is a semi-subjective omnipotent narrator. To precise, the narrator is mainly neutral but is influenced by the main character of the sentences(/chapter) in the phrases. For example, if the character thinks highly of himself, I add adjectives such as “generous” to actions he do if he would think it is generous from him to do so, even if objectively it is far from being generous.
The question is, is it a bad idea? I fear to lose the potentials readers by doing so, making them doubt or confusing them about the narrator.
 
            Other question, one of the mains, is the redundancy of the character’s names or pronouns. In the first chapter, the narrator goes back and forth to two characters, but the more I read myself, the more I wonder if someone else aside me would directly understand which character is designated by “he”, “him”. Should I change the writing to put stop going back and forth between to characters or… is there a way to still do this without confusing the reader? Using the names make it even more redundant, have the same two names repeated every two sentences is not very appealing.
 
            Another question. To make you understand, the main protagonist and antagonist(s) are immortal and the interest is their interaction with the world and their own immortality. The beginning being the introduction to a new world until the main protagonist is accommodated to it, the next arc having chapters spaced by months/years to show the effects on the characters of this immortality. After that, the plot will be set and it will come back to the main protagonist to a normal pace. I have the main idea of how to make the “plotless” (firsts arcs) interesting, but it’s from my point of view. I wonder if the reader wouldn’t be tired from reading something where the protagonist wanders pointlessly (aside from understanding the world he is in).
 
            I’m nearly done with my questions, here one of the lasts: while I am writing the firsts chapters, I expand the background of the world, I know I won’t publish the chapters before a few months as I have to do both and I don’t want to rush either. I want to polish the background of the world because, as explained in the previous question, the understanding, and so the consistency of the world is the main interest of the fiction. If you know both authors, I want to have more of a Robert Jordan world, where the world seems detailed in its history from the beginning, opposed to David Gemmell (I bash it here but I like his books) Drenaï’s setting where the only moments where history is important it’s when the main characters or ‘easter eggs’ (previous or incoming main characters) are.
The problem is I want the reader to discover this extensive world with the main protagonist but I also want to show the main antagonist, making at least two main characters, despite the latter having knowledge of the world. Should I stop myself from writing the main antagonist side for the first act? If I still write it, how could I write it without explaining the world but not losing the reader but confusing him with unexplained things?
 
            Last question; do you have recommendations, things to think of while writing this fiction? A similar fiction or novel that I could read to have a guiding line, either in how not or how to?
 
Thanks for reading, I hope it’s not too text heavy for five questions.
Sorry for the errors, I quickly checked but I'm pretty sure few phrases or words are wrong or not easily understandable.

RE: Questions before starting to write a fiction

#2
Hello, and welcome.

I'll try to answer in a quick and efficient way, and since I'm in a similar situation to you (not native/started writing my story recently), what I'll say could be both helpful and unhelpful.

1) You are right to keep some chapters in advance. The worst thing you can do is rush and leave plotholes and mistakes because of a schedule. I don't know how long you plan on making your chapters, but yeah wait until you have between 5-15 ready ? It depends on you, on the release schedule you aim for, and how fast and comfortable you are, in the end.

2) I'm not sure what style you are talking about. Is it 3rd person ? Limited (to one character's pov) or omniscient ? I imagine from what you said that it will be a mix of some sort ? Your narration will be biased according to the character it speaks of, if I understand correclty. I think it's good ? In any case you don't have to worry too much about the readers, some fics here are written with inconsistent/incoherent povs and it doesn't seem to stop people for reading.

3) Names and pronouns, yes, that can be annoying when you have two characters of the same sex. Maybe use their traits add variety ? It works with their jobs, vocations, mental state, and many other. The blonde man, the old guy, the tall boy, the angry knight, the proud wizard, the idiot noble and whatnot.

4 and 5) I think no matter how you plan to make this work you have to avoid info dump via narration. That's the worst you can to to the reader. Make it smart and sneaky, through dialogue, anecdotic events, hints, etc. It's the old 'show, don't tell'. It's even easier in your case since you have a character new to the world, and one who's used to it. In the first case you can show the reader about the world with your protag being surprised, confused, asking questions (you don't have to provide answers ; a character wondering things to himself and making a few guess - educated and accurate or not - is much better than some random inn-keeper blurting half the world's history). In the second case you have the antagonist who can think/describe the world as his every day life, the way you'd describe yourself laying around in your room or going out to do groceries. Many many things to show in an innocent way. Then it's up the reader to piece the world together. You have to be cautious in what you show. Too obvious or info-dumpy and it'll be heavy and boring, too crypting and most people will drop it or think there are plotholes.
You don't even have to have an obvious plot to make a story enjoyable, especially in the beginning. Hell, you can do ten or twenty chapters of smart worldbuilding, only dropping hints of plot, and if done well it'll still be really interesting. Exploring a new world and can also be a plot.

6) I'll leave the recs to the others because I don't have anything that comes to mind right now.

Well, hope that it helped. Sorry if there are mistakes, I'm lazy tonight.

RE: Questions before starting to write a fiction

#3
Woah that was a fast answer, thanks!

I’m not pretty sure how long I want a chapter to be. For example, the first chapter, done to nearly ¼ of what I want to introduce in it, is 1.300 words long. I suppose in the end it should be 4.000 to 6.000 words. I hope it’s not too much. I want to post it bi-weekly once I’m okay with the setting, once I know I won’t have the blank page problem because I don’t know how to introduce things.

Yeah sorry if it was confusing; it’s a third person omniscient but influenced by the main character's way to see the world. When I say main character I mean the character that is the main character for the sentence/chapter. Not sure if it’s more understandable.

I’m stupid, I didn’t think about using the traits.. I wanted to avoid describing too much and because of that I have little to use to designate them for the moment. I will use that latter; I don’t want to overwhelm the reader with useless information for now. Truth is I want to describe the less possible in the first chapter as it begins with the main antagonist, I want to keep the interesting things, traits, and others for when the protagonist discover them.

Your answer for 4 and 5 is interesting, that also I didn’t think of. In my head I wanted to avoid to give too much information to the reader (in comparison to what the protagonist knows), it’s one of the thing that I don’t appreciate in novels: when you know something that the protagonist doesn’t know, should know, and need to know. The problem is if I do as I wanted to do, at a certain point it will be info dumping. You're right I should use the antagonist's side of the story to hint the background or the important information.

Again, thanks for the answer, it was useful!

RE: Questions before starting to write a fiction

#4
To start with, don't explain to anyone that you aren't a native English speaker.  If it's a problem, we can tell after reading the first sentence.  So there's no reason to explain anything.  Reading is all about showing your reader.  Show your reader your writing skills and if they're any good, they'll stand by themselves.  

As for your first question, what it comes down to is the final rule of writing.  If it works, do it.  What I mean is, if you screw up any perspective of writing then it's going to sound terrible.  Write a chapter, review it once and ask yourself if it works.  

What I really recommend though is that you don't bother with the forums here at all, we're all amateurs making it up as we go along.  There are professional guides all over the internet explaining how to do each perspective.  

Your second question is a bit more technical and I can give a bit more of a definite answer to.  Read it over carefully, and if it feels like the identity of the speaker is obvious, then just say "he/she" otherwise, say the name.  For example, if it's only two people speaking and one of them calls the other by name, the speaker is self-evidenced and doesn't need their name affixed.  

Your third question, I actually find the plotless parts of a story interesting as it has to do with a characters growth and the discovery of the world and characters.  Once the plot gets going, I usually drop the story.  

Fourth question, I may be biased in this, but I hate fictions which give me multiple main characters.  They're hard to write and I recommend against it.  There's a tonne of small tricks you need to keep track of what's going on and even experienced writers screw it up all the time.  

Lastly...  read everything.  Bad fictions are often more educational than good fictions.  Learn what the professionals say and dissect novels as you read them.  Try and understand what the author did well and what he F'ed up on.

RE: Questions before starting to write a fiction

#5
I feel like most of your questions have been answered but about the chapter length: healthy chapters hover near the upper end of 2k going up to 5k words but it's up to you how long you want them to be. I'd recommend aiming for that number though.
About the second perspective of the antagonist, I'd recommend against that for now because it might get a little hard to handle. (trust me, I'm speaking from experience) If you think you can manage it, go for it! Just remember that multiple POVs have their own issues concerns and things to watch out for.
Most importantly, remember to have fun! Good luck!
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RE: Questions before starting to write a fiction

#6
Thanks for the answers, it helps.

As you both recommended, I think I won’t write the main antagonist POV for a while, at least until I’m comfortable with the setting and the writing, or maybe not at all. In fact, I wasn’t really motivated to do two POV but I really want to give the main antagonist an interest and deepness(?). Not motivated for the reasons I gave in my second past, not because it would be forcing myself.
The problem is if I only do the main protagonist POV, as the first part of the story is discovery, the reader would be let in the dark concerning the changes happening meanwhile. Which is important for the third part of the story, when the plot really emerge.
Maybe I should post it as a second fiction and update both weekly instead of one bi-weekly, so those interested by the setting, the world, would read both, and those interested only by the character development and world discovery would read only one. It wouldn’t be too much added work as I originally planned to write it.

While I’m at it, because I saw you were interested by the development of the character and discovery of the world, DarkD, I really want to know if you have some advises concerning this type of story. I know the big no is information dumping but after that I’m in the dark.
(Edit: ) I precise because when I've read my post a second time I wondered if it would be clear; I know world discovery and character growth is in nearly all stories, the point is I want to let the main protagonist in the world without indications, help, or anything. You'll easily understand that the protagonist will have few problems, language and culture being the main ones.


Similarly, you are both against multiple POV, is there a reason or it’s just you don’t really appreciate it? WhoCares spoke about issues, what would they be?

Again, I know it’s a redundancy as I already said it at the beginning of the post, but I want to put an emphasis on it, thanks for the help.

RE: Questions before starting to write a fiction

#7
It sounds like you're describing a more expansive form of third person limited POV, the kind I most often write with. I don't believe there's any problem with this whatsoever - third person in some form or another dominates the writing industry, and most people, if not all, should be able to understand a third person POV in the manner you described. If they can't, it's probably due to other parts of your writing and not your POV.

Onto your second point, managing multiple characters of a similar gender isn't an easy thing to do. I think the epithet idea is a good one, but you have to be careful not to be jarring with it. Hearing "The ragged knight" five times in ten lines is more wearing to readers than "Samell". Try and mix names, pronouns and epithets into a sentence - if in doubt, I usually go with a name, but try and use pronouns where possible. They feel more invisible to me than a less commonly used word.

Example:
Sammel gasped for breath, breaking free from the water. He wrapped his hand around a pole, hauling his drenched self out.
"Pierce!" he called. "Throw me something that floats!"
But before his comrade could react, the drenched knight was pulled beneath the churning surface by whatever horrors lurked beneath the depths.

I used a form of "he" four times in those two sentences, but only where a single character was "in play", or when it was clearly paired with a name or moniker - i.e. "the drenched knight was pulled before his comrade could react", if you simplify that sentence.
Also note that when I used a moniker, it matched with another phrase earlier in the paragraph: "drenched self", "drenched knight". Ideally you wouldn't do this - replace "drenched" in the second example with "drowned", for example. Or just take the first "drenched" out entirely. Just be aware of how many times you write a certain phrase or similar group of phrases.

Moving on, I would say that you should try to make everything at least a little interesting for your character. He doesn't have to interact with anyone - but don't make him bored. Chances are, if your character is bored by everything that happens to him, your audience will end up bored too, unless you play it off extremely well.

A good way of making the antagonist someone who knows about the world, but not explaining the details to readers straight away, is have the antagonist not explain anything. Just because a character is a rocket scientist doesn't mean they will preach rocket science to anyone they meet.

Or if you do want the antagonist to be explaining things to the protagonist, just explain little details as you go and string it out. The audience doesn't need to know everything the protagonist experiences - sitting down and having language lessons at camp in the evening is probably not high on their list of priority scenes. Then you can have the protagonist discuss the contents of his lessons when they become relevant as revision, and show that to the audience.

Or if you don't want the antagonist speaking to the protagonist, but do want to give a little of the knowledge inside his head to the audience, just give a few details. When he sees a capital city, he can say "Ah, Minas Tirith. The City of the White Tree." (to steal a rather famous example capital) That would show a little of his understanding to the audience, in the form of some outside expression of knowledge. Or perhaps he would bow his head to merchants after dealing with them. Little displays of local custom that only an insider would grasp.

Regarding the "second fiction" idea, don't do that if at all possible. You should never assume that your readers have read anything except for earlier parts of the same book, and fictions like those often cater towards readers of the other work. If you want, post two plot "streams" on your fiction page, one detailing the MC, another detailing your antagonist. I would generally recommend against even this, as taking away attention from your MC is not a great idea and a good antagonist usually has an element of mystery until his time arrives, but it can be done.

The reason why people caution against multiple POVs is because it can confuse readers as to which person is talking and acting. This isn't so bad in 3rd person, where people's names are mentioned with actions instead of "I", but it can be a problem, especially with quick POV shifts. Other potential issues include spreading attention between too many characters, leaving all of them undeveloped, drawing the plot in too many different directions at once, especially if characters are frequently far apart and not interacting, and leading to some disbelief if said characters are acting together and the audience feels they shouldn't be. It's often hard to peer into two people's souls and say, "Yes, these people should be working with and trusting each other".

I think that's all your questions answered for now. The only thing is one of my own personal thoughts.

Be careful with immortal characters that they don't lose sight of their own goals and humanity. That can throw the audience off. It's not so bad if the audience can hear their thoughts, but if the characters' goals become beyond reach for a mortal, the story can get disconcerting. My advice would be to maintain some emotion and "life" in the character - they should still be human, even if they do live forever. Whether that be love for a person, a love of nature, some sort of nervous tic... the little details, habits, quirks and interests are what will make them human, even if their minds work on a scale beyond a human one.

Edit: Damn, 950 words. That was longer than some people's chapters. If only I could be this productive about actually writing (which I'm supposed to be doing right now...)
My (Science) Fiction - Desolate Stars.
And historical - Out of the Motherland.
Go to a new fiction. Review it. Help the little guys.

RE: Questions before starting to write a fiction

#8
Wah, that was a long answer!

I appreciate the examples, it’s really useful. I think with that and the previous answers I’ll be able to sort it out and do something correct.

I see your point concerning the two POVs, I suppose I should give up my initial idea. I wanted to make the antagonist as important as the protagonist, to give him more depth by showing how he think and why he do the things he do, to make him less manichean than he would appear if he is shown only when perceived by the protagonist.
Maybe I should cut out some parts of the first chapters. I aimed 4k to 6k words long as I wanted to show one of the two mains character, the problem is: if I don’t write his POV, then it could appear as a useless info-dumping as we won’t see him again for a long time.

For the immortality part, I don’t think I’m heading the wrong direction, I appreciate your recommendations but I may have badly explained the starting point. At the very start the characters aren’t immortals, and beside this ‘cheat’ they have nothing more that could separate them from others characters. I want to put an emphasis on emotions, and life, the fact you pointed that out is reassuring.

Thanks for the answer, again something that help!