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Summary of my book

She was dating Michael, at that time would have been the former headmasters son. Michael is fairly young being around 50 himself to be a headmaster (at least I think)
Around 50 is about average age for a headmaster, I would think. Considering that retirement age is 65 or so. He'd have probably started as a teacher, likely in his mid twenties, if the track for becoming a teacher moves at the same pace in this witch school as it does in the real world. If he became headmaster by the time he was 30, that would be young, though not impossible. More likely, he'd have become headmaster in his late thirties or his forties. Unless you want to paint him as an exceptionally young headmaster, in which case he could've been headmaster by the time he was dating Jess.

But in your next paragraph, you imply that witches are immortal. If that's so, do they age at the same rate as everyone else, or do they freeze at a certain age? Or grow up more slowly? In that case, their schooling could easily last a lot longer than ordinary schooling does, and it could take a lot longer to reach a high level in your career, such as a teacher becoming headmaster. Around 50 wouldn't be young for a headmaster in our world, but if this witch school typically doesn't see a headmaster under 100, that would be different.

The school isn't in "another world" it's in the u.s.a just hidden from mortals and located in the mountains. There is a town though, not far from the school. Students live there while they attend. They have dorms and such. Staff members live their as well. There is also a hunters Academy which students can enroll in after they graduate. Michael at the time had already graduated from the hunters Academy but was still living on campus in the housing units with Jess. This isn't in my book right now it's just the back story.
So, a Hogwarts-ish kind of premise? Or rather, what Hogwarts would be if the students and staff lived in Hogsmeade instead of on campus, and Hogsmeade were a muggle town.

If the school is hidden from mortals, what do the mortals think the students and staff are doing in town? There's no way they wouldn't be noticed. Do they have a cover story about belonging to some other kind of school? Being a program for at risk youth? Something like that?
 

MiaC

Troubadour
About the town, i didn't really think much into that as i havent really said much about it, kinda just was mentioned theres a small town near by. I was comsidering making the school located inside a town or near a town thats only for witches. But idk, i still got some stuff to work out so its as interesting and "logical" as possible.
 
I've wrote up half of it pretty much but stuck now cause I feel I need to go back and revise everything before I can go on.
I would keep writing. Push through it. As Rosemary Tea sais, the danger is that you simply keep revising the same half story. Finishing stories is a skill and it takes practice to do it and even more so to do it well. It's common for me to get the same feeling somewhere in the middle of a novel. I feel like the whole thing sucks and I should just throw it out the window and take up a different hobby. But I just keep writing. And when I reread afterwards, it's not actually as bad as I thought. And then I rewrite it and it becomes decent. And after another rewrite I'm actually impressed with what I wrote. It's a very common feeling, so know you're not alone.

What I do do, is to make notes of what I think needs to be rewritten (and then pretend I've made the changes as I go forward). This will give me a list of changes I need to implement on the first rewrite. Some of these can be quite major as well. I've had one novel where I actually changed the race of the protagonist (and everyone around him) from dwarf to human halfway through the book.

Of course, everyone is different and has a different process. So find out what works for you. Just know that there is a danger in going back to rewrite when you're halfway through a book.
 
Based solely on this summary, I can tell you that this is absolutely something I would read. Witches, vamps, and faries are my thing. I would 10/10 read something with that summary on the cover.
 

Stevie

Minstrel
Just my opinion, but omniscient third POV is tough to write well. In her book on writing, "Steering the Craft," Ursula K LeGuin describes it as "... the most versatile, flexible, and complex of the points of view - and probably, at this point, the most difficult for the writer." It's also, as far as I can gather, very much out of fashion, so a tough sell in traditional publishing to boot.

Nothing wrong with limited third, if you're a new writer.
 

MiaC

Troubadour
I think 3rd omniscient works better for my book. It is tough but I like that I can work with so many different POV, I think it enhances the story. And I have two main characters, twins. One does hold more spot light over the other but eventually, they will be of equal importance. I have considered switching to 3rd limited but with what im writing, I just feel 3rd omniscient is better.
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
I read your summary, and IMHO, it's fine. There's definitely a story there to tell. But just like any other story, the key is always in the execution. I mean, there's an author I've read that has the most amazing back cover summaries on their books. I read them, and I'm completely stoked to jump into the book, but the stories themselves are, in my opinion, very mediocre. They have none of the life of the cover text and don't live up to the promise of those summaries.

(At least from the ideas I've thought up so far) so im just curious if having these separate scenes without the MCs being present is okay?

I don't even know if anyone can give me an answer to this or if it's just up to me to figure out if I should have it in there or not lol.

But in the end, the drama between them effects my MCs and the setting for the second book. I'm like on the fence though about it for some reason, like when im looking over what I've written their scenes just feel like out of place for some reason. I'm not sure why. But I can't think of how to revise it or remove it because I feel it's important and needs to be put in the book. I don't know lol. I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually, I hope.

It's perfectly fine to have secondary plots from the POV of other characters, and without the MC present, as long as they have relevance to the main plot. Sub-plots should support the main plot in some way. If you're having doubts, try figuring out a way to distribute the work that those scenes do to your main characters and see how that feels. Maybe, try finding a way to including the main characters in the sub-plot. If you don't want them directly involved, they could be listening in on the conversations of these secondary characters, or they could have been hooked into the mystery of this sub-plot and are looking into it themselves. Or maybe consider consolidate things and tell the story of that sub-plot through the eyes of only one character instead of three. You don't have to write the whole thing out, just sketch out the changes in point form and see if that does anything for you. It's one of the things I do when I run into issues to explore the "what-if" of changing this or that.

I mean what do you think you gain from telling the tale of this sub-plot through the eyes of three people vs only telling it through the eyes of one or have it be revealed to one of the main characters as a mystery for them to uncover?

There's no right or wrong answer to this. There's just the question of if you can make it work or not. And sometimes, the only way to find out what works is to try to write it out and see what happens. If it doesn't work, then at the very least, you eliminate one avenue that you know doesn't work for you. Keep trying and eventually something will click.

There's some issues I need to work out. Just kinda overwhelmed. I don't plan on giving up though, regardless, I enjoy to write

When I wrote my first book, I definitely felt overwhelmed, too. It had 6 POV characters. I didn't realize it at that time, but that many POV characters is a huge undertaking. The more POVs you add, the more complex thing can get. It can be like throwing another ball up in the air to juggle. There was much banging of my head on to tables. :p

In regards to your story, if you consider how many words you might need to explore these extra scenes, it could potentially cut into the number of words you have to explore your main characters and the main plot or add a significant amount of words to the overall length of the story. Broadly speaking, assuming a 100k word novel, with an average scene length of 2000-2500 words, you only have 40-50 scenes in which to tell the whole story. Obviously, you can make the book longer, but just be aware these are some of the things you may have to deal with.

One time I planned a book with one POV to be around 100k, but along the way I gave another character a POV, because they had a backstory/sub-plot that totally related to the main plot, and I wanted to explore that a bit more. After all was said and done, the main plot to the novel took 90k words. The sub-plot took 25k.

In terms of being overwhelmed, for me, I found, after struggling with my first novel, that leaning on story structure helps me keep organized and helps me from getting overwhelmed when I write. I found structure allows me to break the story down into digestible chunks that I can focus on. So if you're feeling overwhelmed, consider breaking your story down into smaller chunks using your story structure of choice. This allows you to see and work on the story from a god's eye view or from a ground's eye view without getting lost.
 

MiaC

Troubadour
Thank you for your reply. I've said many times now I feel like banging my head on the wall. Lol. I have like 10 characters all together i think but right now POV are only from 5 i think. And its not all the time, only when i feel its important to let it be known how they are feeling or what they are thinking. I might be able to add something of the main plot into these sub plots. Like have them talking about what's going on within the main plot but also having their sub plot going on as well. I think i do do that actually already in some of the scenes but not all of them. I could add more, but would have to think about it.
 
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