best thing to do is read your dialogue out loud and see if it sounds decent. beyond that just share with people and ask them to rip it apart and see what they say.
Most plotlines are cliche when you look at them in isolation. Execution matters more.
yup. Even if you can't avoid the cliches that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Things become cliche for a reason. What matters is executing an interesting take on the story.
Personally i view subverting a cliche still using the cliche just in an interesting way.
He doesn't really need to be likable, you might want to go for captivating instead. Someone you can't ignore or look away from. You want them to want to see what happens to this guy, wonder if he gets what's coming to him or not. Just a glorious bastard. Have him chew on the scenery and just be amazingly horrible. Lean into that shit.
Yeah, I think I'll eventually go down this route. I was thinking about the reason why I love tv shows like Breaking Bad and Bojack Horseman is because the protagonist are a problem within their own stories. I think I was just overthinking things when I should have trusted the vision I wrote in the first place.
If you don't ever question what you're doing you might miss something obvious. Heck, it might be worth it to see what a scaled back version would look like. There may well be something in there you might want to keep.
Here's a super short summary of what I am going for: the protagonist is a college dropout returning to live with his older brother, who he has a rocky relationship with. At one point he steals some money from his brother when he volunteered to help clean his house (since he's not bothering to look for a job). At another point, his childhood friend has been making new friends and has been getting into the music business. The protagonist gets a little jealous about his progress and pays someone else to sabotage his friend's progress by hurting one of the new friends and making sure his music studio is destroyed.
I'd say keep away from edgy and go with petty if you're too worried. It's easier to go too edgy than it is too petty, in my experience anyway.
Try to think of it in terms of smaller chunks (chapters, or even pages) instead of a book, which is an intimidating amount of work for most people, even if you've written one before.
I was like you earlier this year. Take a deep breath and relax. Don't think about everything all at once and just focus on the idea you do have. Know that it will take time to finish and that you're not going to be a master class writer straight out the gate. Read some books and write everyday. Don't stress out on it being hated and just make the best product it can be in your eyes.
The best piece of advice I ever received is to accept that the first novel you write actually won't be any good, and that every writer needs to produce at least one bad novel before they can write a good one.
Try focusing on creating something you want to read instead of worrying about if anyone wants to read it?
I want to say that should fall under fair use. Now if you appropriate parts of the plot to the movie into your own work that's where you'll definitely wind up in trouble. But just mentioning it should be ok.
woot some real competition for me next year :P
i feel like the more interesting one to read is probably the 2nd one
Ideally both I think?
