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@cassie-hartfinh, oh wow, congratulations!! *throws pine needles.* And yeah, I’m with Jess. Time travel is scary. *hides behind pine tree.* With a lot of thought and careful planning, though, it’s very enjoyable to read! @northerner Ugh, the password thing is no fun, but congratulations on your word count! *throws more pine needles.*

@sarah-vdh Ooh, cool! I like the idea of her being sent to earth to be kept safe. That’s a twist I’ve never seen before. Your themes all seem to tie into each other as well, which is good. Trust and loyalty are definitely themes in my WIP as well, but probably not the main one. Oh, and I like your signature. *nods wildly because she actually got the reference for once.* I have the same experience every time I start a novel. So many ways you can mess up, so many wrong paths you could take, so many chances for treasure that could be lost, so many opportunities. Writing is such an amazing journey…*trails off into motivational speech*

@j-a-penrose Hmm, resources. Kingdom Pen will always be my g0-to place when I need to research something, because there’s almost always that exact article that I needed (and I just gotta say that I love the character type videos). If not, I’ll check K. M. Weiland’s site, but Kingdom Pen usually has what I’m looking for and uses more examples from literature and less from Marvel (which I know nothing about except for random bits I pick up from my friends). My favorite books on writing so far have been Beate Not the Poore Desk by Walter Wangerin, Jr. and Writing the Heart of your Story by C. S. Lakin. I’ve also just started Outlining Your Novel by K. M. Weiland and it has been very helpful so far (especially the workbook). Suddenly outlining is fun and not an “inverted staircase,” as she calls it. 😛

Question: I’m debating whether the first scene in my WIP should be a prologue or a 1st chapter. I’d rather it not be a prologue because they just seem to have a bad reputation. They’re often an almost random scene about a character that’s already dead in the actual story that you don’t understand until the end of the book. They usually seem tacked on like an afterthought…a cheap way to add suspense. Too many fantasy novels that I’ve read have one, and nearly all of them were ones where I put it down thinking, “Meh.” Just thinking about writing a prologue like that is making my picky writer’s brain scream, “NO!” Is it just me, or do other writers have this attitude towards them as well? My scene is more directly related to the plot than most prologues are, but it’s set 14 years before the rest of the story and the protagonist doesn’t appear. It’s showing the antagonist’s side of the protagonist’s ghost, and the protagonist is mentioned but not by name. The scene also introduces the theme and motif, sets the tone for the story exactly the way I want it too, and has the hook (which also contains the theme and motif and ties in with the title). I’m having trouble deciding. Any advice? I’m not sure if introducing the protagonist immediately in the first chapter is a rule that’s acceptable to break.