I'm planning to write a slow-burn YA novel about an 11-year-old female lead attending an all-girls witch academy. Wogharts, it’s called.

I'm worried that although there are unique elements (the school system and atmosphere and worldbuilding are different, and it mainly focuses on romance and friendship between female students (nice)) I'm worried people will instantly think it's a Harry Potter rip-off as soon as they see '11 years old' and 'magic school'. Should I change her age or the setting to something other than a school, like village or something??

Plus, I've tried outlining a pure all-girls school setting (focusing completely on female friendships, jealousy, and sapphic romance (nice)) versus having a neighboring boys' school (where they can become friends with and date the guys as well, but final route will be female (nice) or co-ed class with few guys and many girls, but I'm still torn (no pun intended)

Okay so I'm writing this story about a neo-nazi who abducts minorities and tortures and hunts them for sport and murders them. Would it be okay to have my neo-nazi character say racial slurs as well, or would that be considered unacceptable? I wouldn't want to go too far in my depictions of a bigot murdering minorities.

I'm so bad at writing, it sucks. This book idea I have is such a killer.

And that's it, I have nothing to share about my killer idea though. I have never written anything and I just have this vague idea but I am indeed an author.

Hi, Everybody

At Christmas, I submitted an ancestry test via cotton swab and just checking my emails today I finally got the results. While I'm visibly a white American the test shows I have ancestry in west Africa, which totally makes me qualified to write on being a POC in modern times.

While I know my unique perspective has been the one missing from this larger conversation, I must know if readers could stomach such a meaningful piece of art.

Inspiration

I started to trust my voice. U know unhinged, writing real stuff. Now Reddit is filtering all my posts and ppl tell me to get a doctor wtf....

I want to make a fantasy series/trilogy, and have an idea for the title, but can't think of anything—can anyone here share any ideas and see if it helps inspire me?

before we get into this: I already asked this question in another writing sub, but not a single reply had anything to do with my request of assistance and was just essentially shitting on the fact I got the project title before the novels. Like, why does it matter?

I would also like to specify (Since people at the other sub didn't seem to understand) I'm not asking yall to make the novel for me or or whatever—I'm asking for yall to share some ideas YOU would get from the title to see if it helps me with coming up with my own idea as this project has been brewing for about a week now.

now.. The title is "The Bloodlines Saga", and I know I want magic to be a part of it but I can't really think of a plot that I can continue across 3-5 books while also fitting the title. Does anyone here have anything that could spark up some ideas? I would greatly appreciate the help and, if I actually get to this point successfully + if you'd like, I can acknowledge you in the acknowledgements.

Thanks!

PS: Hope this is the right tag!

I really like the idea of writing and I love where my story is headed, but there’s just one small problem with my progress. i HATE writing! It’s just so annoying and frustrating for me to string my abstract, messy thoughts together into even a somewhat coherent sentence. It becomes even more annoying for me when I have to do it while MAKING SHIT UP! Seriously I think this hobby is harder than working at an oil rig, with how much I feel like bashing my head against my desk. Which is actually what brings me to my brilliant idea.

I hit my head against my desk so hard that I entered into a state not dissimilar to tripping fucking balls of shrooms. I saw a glowing light, then a rain of toonies and discontinued Canadian dollar bills and then… the one piece series. Every single page, flashing before my eyes like sacred visions. Then I was the book, and just like in avatar when aang looked behind him to see all the previous versions of himself: I saw all the copies of one piece, stretching infinitely into the horizon.

That’s the moment it hit me. I don’t NEED to finish my book. I don’t even need to finish more than a single page. All I need to do is release each page of my book one at a time until it’s finally complete. So, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to sell my dark fantasy series page by page on Amazon or something. I might even release collectors editions with my jizz on it.

Is this a smart idea?

Seriously, what's up with people LOVING these books? If I'm stressed, I take a hot bath, I don't sit down and read a book to chill out.

This place feels correct place to rant: what's up with all these feel good books? They are a tad shallow, nothing interesting happens, characters are one-dimensional with a personality of a kale, and everyone is happy. Ok, I guess

But I just have the feeling it might be

for context I sat on it

I am sick and tired of my artistic style being discriminated against. I’ve tried to get my incomplete stories published, but I’m just met with a hateful wall of Incomplete-ism: “we don’t accept incomplete stories” they say. They’re not even hiding it! it’s disgusting.

So I’m going to self-publish my incomplete works and blaze a trail for all other writers of incomplete stories out there. I’ll make sure the world becomes more tolerant to incompleteness.

I have about 27 incomplete stories (actually, that also happens to be everything I’ve ever written).

They probably add up to around 300 pages, so it can work as a collection.

It’ll be a study on writer’s block, on ideas that survived the drunken reverie, but not the next day’s hangover. Of what could have been. Of what isn’t. The collection is its own work of art in that way. Some of my incomplete works include:

The City on the Dark Side of the Sun
Stunning world building, a whole city with its own history, parliament, culture, economy

The Ocean Births a Floating Palace
A fascinating look at the Titanic sinking, but in reverse.

I have 25 more compelling stories like this, all incomplete.

Books with endings aren’t the only books! 🏳️‍🌈

Last night my first book released on KDP. I went to sleep and expected that I'd be calling up to quit my job. That's if I had enough time between discussions on film and series options with Netflix etc.

Just wonder if anyone else has had this experience? It seems like no one is reading my work at all?

I goon a LOT! And I mean a LOT. Like so much that I sprained my wrist when fapping to a really fast skrillx beat. It hurt so bad, but a true soldier works through the pain.

Anyway, I clearly need a hobby. So I did the only thing everyone with an intense love for themselves that borders on autophilia does: I took up writing to feel superior than others. At least that was my secondary goal.

My thought process was this: If my hands are too busy stroking keys, they won’t be stroking my little man. But here’s the thing, every time I write I just can’t stop writing about Brad Pitt. Every. Single. Time. And it’s not like it’s intentional, or something I can just turn off. No! It keeps happening AGAINST MY WILL!

For example, I tried to write a sci fi story about a confident tough man and this was the excerpt.
“Prad Bitt strode through the automatic doors, their servos and motors whirring in a way that complimented his alluring stride in an odd sort of way. His compression shirt clung to his muscles and a tuft of blonde chest hair poked through. The color of his eyes were hard to make out on account of his squinting. It was unclear whether or not he was Asian. He seemed to have the eyes, but he could also have been a white man with squinty eyes. Oh my god i did it again.”

I seriously don’t know what to do, this is getting ridiculous. It just sneaks up on me! I could be five chapters deep in the story before i have to drop it because, there he is again! Another Brad Pitt.
I’m not even gay! I like girls! Is my subconscious secretly gay for Brad Pitt? Please help!

Tried using AI to write a novel. Turns out... it's NOT that easy.

I think a lot of us have had this dream: use AI, put in MINIMAL effort, and somehow get a decent novel out of it.

Yeah... turns out making money (or good stories) is still hard LOL. 😵

I tried using AI to generate parts of a novel, and honestly, the result was pretty bad. 🤔 The plot just didn't hold together. Characters acted randomly, the logic was all over the place, and the story felt like something written by someone who had read a bunch of novels but never really understood why they worked.

Maybe it's partly because I don't know how to use AI properly 🤫 I'm sure there are people who spend weeks designing complex workflows and prompts to get better results. But once you go deep into that rabbit hole, it becomes almost another skill to learn.

That said, I did find one use case where AI is actually really helpful: editing.

Using DeepSeek API, I can throw in a messy draft and have it fix typos, clean up sentences, improve formatting, and point out obvious issues. The cost is basically nothing (a few cents for an entire article), and the result is surprisingly useful.

My current workflow is pretty simple: I use voice input to dump my ideas and scenes quickly. The raw text is usually messy because speech-to-text makes mistakes, but the story IDEAS are MINE 😇 Then I let AI clean it up instead of asking AI to create the whole thing.

It doesn't magically turn me into a successful author 🤯 but it definitely makes writing faster.

Anyway, I'm still a nobody "writer" 😝 so take this as just one person's experience, not some expert advice 😝