Zodiac Clichés (And Other Nonsense)

Poor World Building

#5: authors don't give enough context at the beginning of scenes.

This one doesn't just apply to zodiac stories. It applies to all amateur books on Wattpad, along with a few professionally written books that I've read (shocking, I know).

Once I was reading a professionally written book, and throughout the whole story, I didn't really know what was going on. I couldn't tell if it was a teen/realistic fiction, or some kind of sci-fi novel. It was just frustrating the whole time and it was really boring to read, as well.

In one zodiac book I read, it seemed okay at first; a few of the zodiacs were depicted in their houses, ready to go. There were two different scene changes in that first chapter, and both of them provided enough context for me to know that the setting was switching from house to house. However, when I read on to the second chapter, I didn't know where I was for the first few paragraphs. I didn't realize that the entire setting had shifted until the POV switched, like twice!

That's what I want to touch on today: seamless scene changes and proper world building.

In the description of your story, introduction, and in the first chapter, make sure that the readers know exactly what the idea of the story will be. When you go through and edit, you can cut stuff out to make it less repetitive, but just make sure that the readers know what the heck they're getting into.

At the beginning of every chapter, and every scene, disclose the current setting, describe that setting in detail (make sure to list all of the characters that are present in a given scene). You also want to use this description to further bring the readers into your story. After that, you can finally begin the action and dialogue.

I know that this was more of a writing advice chapter than a rant chapter. I want to do a bit of both, so that if you're here for the rants, you can get that in other chapters, whereas if you're interested in writing advice, you've come to the write place!

If you have any requests for clichés you want me to cover, leave me a comment or a PM!

5/5/20