Writing help?

Question

My ex-boyfriend treated me as a piece of trash for five years. I married another man that really loves me, but I cannot forget the other and feel anything for my husband. Is this a good book?

Answer 1

Well, maybe. There's got to be more to it than that. For one, you need a good explanation for why someone would get married when they couldn't feel anything in the first place. My first thought was- how or why did you get married? It might be better to play the angle of not being able to open up or commit in a relationship rather than get married and not feel anything. Little more believable. But if someone treated you like trash for five years, why stay? You need a good explanation for that, too. Was it a family/social thing?

Most people wouldn't stay for five years with someone who treated them like trash so there had to be something good, too, to make someone stay and take it that long. What was it? Most the time, when talking with women who were in abusive relationships, the part that made them stay for so long was that on occasion he acted like a decent human being and it was this intermittent reinforcement that kept them there.

My suggestion is to do a plot outline and get an idea of where you want to take this story. You'll need to have all the who and why figured out once you put it to paper.

I just start writing and figure it out as I go. I have friends or family read it and that helps me locate the issues. What parts do and don't work. If you don't have that luxury there are a lot of online writer groups that will critique it for you.

Good luck and I hope I helped some :)

Answer 2

It is very current theme--why do women love the men that abuse them?
The challenge of your writing will be to make the plot and characters believable. I think building a book around the characters makes a better book than plotting first. Plotting first forces you to mold the characters round the plot, while characters will make the plot believable and natural.
You have a theme, now you have to let the story tell the theme. Tolstoy was a great writer but his books are so long because the constant authorial intrusions (essays and sermons and other didactic tools). A novel is not a lecture.

Undoubtedly you already know that, but I just wanted you to focus in on the craft of fiction.

Answer 3

I think the only thing that would make me interested in reading this book is if it were a serious exploration of the main character's motives & the ambiguity of her emotions. A book about how the root of our emotions can be so elusive and how difficult it can be to know what we "should" do would be good. A plot-driven story about a woman who cheats on her husband with her POS ex-boyfriend would not be worth reading, in my opinion.

Answer 4

Yeah, it really would, but it depends on how you present it. You should really consider doing the whole point of view thing. Like, tell the story from the lovestruck man's point of view and the skeptical girl's point of view. If you want to make an even more powerful, but challenging, novel, you can try the ex-boyfriend's point of view without making him look like a complete jerk.

Best of luck with your book!!

Answer 5

Maria, dear...ENOUGH ALREADY!!!

In the past six days you have posted this same question 12 times.

Someone will ultimately report you for violating Yahoo! Answers Community Guidelines - Don'ts (#20. Post the same question excessively.)

Answer 6

Anything will be a good book. It is not so much as what you write but how you write that matters more. So, go ahead and write and submit for reviews.

Answer 7

Wonderful!!! But, add some more suspense, drama, and action in it!!!! Then it will be called: "Your mAsterpiece!"
Good Job.. and Good Luck!!