Hello all, I am a beginner writer who wants to learn the craft. I am an experienced story teller through role playing games like D&D. I can take critique well and I am preparing to begin a horror-romance novel. I want to know if this combination will work
Welcome to the forum. Horror-Romance can certainly work. Do you have a fully formed idea, or are you currently working it through in your head?
Is it the kind where the protagonist falls in love with the monster or the people hiding from the monster fall in love with each other? Or something else?
Well, kind of like the protagonist is the monster (Murderer) who falls in love with a potential victim and becomes a yandere from anime.
That was fast! Writing a novel requires a lot of persistence and patience. I would make sure you have those before you embark on such a task. Perhaps mess around with some short stories first?
It's not that I just need to let the story ferment for a while before I begin, and the story idea changed entirely from what I had posted
I used to write horror, but I found recently that I have lost the knack for it. That is why I shelved this project for a later time
Hello Duncan, Since you claim to be brand spanking new as a writer, I'll give you the first step I suggest to writers before they starting grinding out with work. - There are five points you should have figured out before plotting. They are as followed. Lead: Your MC. Try to use nouns and verbs when you describe your MC and a single-well-picked adjective. Objective: What is his or her goal? It should be a physical goal that serves to satisfy a spiritual goal. Conflict: What stands in his or her way? Knockout: What would victory look like? What would defeat look like? Situation: With as few words as possible, what is your character's life like before the start of the story? A little bit of Background info works here. A note on irony: Either the goal or the conflict (or both) should be Ironic in terms of your MC. An example of this would be "A serial killer who tries to save someone's life." A note on the Spiritual goal: While you need to know what the spiritual goal is, you don't need to state in the logline. Spiritual goals are mostly for subtext and theme purposes, not so much for plotting. A Note on Groups: A group counts as one character (in terms of plot) if they all share the same physical goal. What separates this cast of characters in terms of character development is that they each have a different spiritual goal; however, if you have a few main characters each with a different physical and spiritual goal then you must do the five points for each character. - Doing this will help you develop ideas for your story. I wish you the best of luck, -OJB.
Thank you OJB I shall take these tips to heart, and I have done other things similar to your method already.
