Oh no!

sadron said:

I have dilemma!

I feel my story is boring and about politics of moon elves. I don't know what to do? Either fix something or make completely new story about them, but I had planned so much.

Maybe it's because long break and I can't get to stick on it.

-sigh-

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Moon elves? Hey, no problem at all. Just let the politicians have some extramarital affairs and so on. If the elves are handsome, describe it in detail.
That should be sufficient to make the story less boring...depending from what kind of people are supposed to read the story.

Do you think your story is boring, or do other people say that? You should never write something you regard to be boring...it is no fun to write boring stories.

I hasten to add, if you think your story is boring, chances are it is. Sounds harsh, but really, if it's a chore to write, it's hardly going to sizzle on the page for your readers.

I agree with Garpy. If I thought my story was boring, I'd scrap it. Probably not what you want to hear, but if you think it's boring and you wrote it...chances are other people would be even more bored by it.

politics in sci-fi/fantasy can be fascinating, esp. if it obliquely comments on our own human politicians... Take away all the explosions/love stories/inter-generational angst, and Star Wars is mostly about politics.

Stage a bloody coup!

Moon elves? What are moon elves? Write the story so I can find out, eh?

If you find it boring, then either you need to find a way to spice it up, or you need to drop it. Considering you've got moon elves, I vote for spicing it up. Throw in some disasters for your moon elves to deal with. Incurable pandemic / terrorists / earthquakes & volcanoes threatening their world / anything else that catches your fancy.

You're using moon elves, huh? I hate to ask, but are you writing for the Forgotten Realms setting? Because if not, I hope you're doing something really original with them.

Moon elves? I want to know more!!!!!!!

To spice up politics, just add violence!
War is diplomacy by other means.
Civil war is politics by other means.

In my WIP, I've got some politics going on. I've got a number of big families fighting for control over various city offices. One family is almost entirely in control of the city's police. In order to block them, another family managed to get one of my main characters, a member of a very minor family which is no friend of theirs, appointed to be a police captain of a key district.

Sound boring? Not from the point of the guy in the hot seat. The people who control the police keep trying to get him out of the way, one way or the other. He gets no help from the family that put him there, because they don't like his family anyway, and think that this is kind of funny. His own family is more of a liability than a help to him.

So, to keep politics from being boring, you have to humanize it, and raise the stakes.

What? Our politicians are moon elves? Once again, the Weekly World News scoops the national newswires.

have the moon giants war on their tiny asses

That's all any fantasy novel is about these days. They're all about politics.

Handsome Roguish Man: We must attack now. The Grogsnargs are gathering, and the Orb of Chaldeans cannot handle that many black souls in its presence.

The King: But we are peaceful! We must wait.

Handsome Roguish man: The time for peacefulness is over! I will teach the reader that sometimes it's okay to be violent! We must do it for the Orb!

The King: Very well. We will go to war and have many battles.

The Sneaky Fellow: (wringing hands) Yes, yes, it's all part of my plan. I will become Senator and get big pensions and many nubiles. Mwahahaha!


That's basically all fantasy. And people like it because they keep buying it.


I think you're probably fine. It's your own work, so you will never get the same effect as a reader. It's like trying to tickle yourself. There was a reason you wrote it in the first place. You thought it was cool. Maybe it still is and you've just read it too many times.

If it's boring then find a way to weave the politics into the background. Make a story that follows t he politics but the reader isn't looking at it like a political rally. Star Wars was used as an above example. It's true, it's all politics, but it has a story and characters we love and care about on a dangerous and exciting set of missions.

Finish what you started.

Many people never complete their mss because they got bored midway or they started to doubt themselves, etc. It's all natural. But there's much to say about finishing any projects you started, even if they turn out to be crap.

Finish. The. Book.

DWSTXS said:

have the moon giants war on their tiny asses

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I vote for this one!



My sides hurt now.

sadron, politics are ALWAYS boring. It's the mechanizations of the people WITHIN politics that are interesting. But the actual cautious negotiations, the final paperwork---those are deadly dull.

What you need to do is personalize the politics. Think about the situation in Kenya right now. A coalition government has just been formed. I'm sure the actual negotiations and the final paperwork are hideously long and carefully veiled to sound nice. It's the "closed door sessions" that happened BEFORE the negotiations that I would have loved to listen to.

So let us listen.

It's only important for YOU, the author, to know the entire history/backstory of the moon elves. Readers are smart. Give them the barest details, plus how your people plan to manipulate the other side, and the story will be suitably fascinating. For example, you can have an elf king talking with his defense minister:

King (reading a letter with suitable horror): "They want access to the oceans under the Sea of Tranquility."

Defense Minister (leaping to his feet and banging on the table.) "We can't do that! They'd be close enough to bomb our harbors. Now, if it's WATER they want, how about Lake Moonquest? It's on their northern border, rather than their southern, but it has the best asteroid carp fishing anywhere. My hometown is the shore city of Glurbis, and we don't even like carp. But the giants LOVE them and they might give us access to their ruby mine nearby."

Etc., etc. Seeing the back and forth on one side can tell you a lot about the politics without actually reciting it.

But maestro is right. Even if you don't think it works, write it anyway. Don't give up just because it gets tricky. That's the road to stagnation.

Good luck!

If that makes sense. Just make it personal to the characters

Good luck then.

My last book takes place on the moon and has lots of politics and mutants and gorillas. It's not the least bit boring.

Our writing is always what we make it. A little positive thinking can go a long way!

Right with Cathy C.

The only thing more boring than politics would be trade embargo tariffs or whatever the hell Lucas used as his driver for his "prequel" Star Wars series.

Just ask yourself, "What Would Joss Whedon Do?" and take it from there.

My gold piece is on a surprise invasion of poison-farting tree ogres, hell-bent on grabbing up moon elf condos, jobs, and stealing their wimmin.

johnzakour said:

My last book takes place on the moon and has lots of politics and mutants and gorillas. It's not the least bit boring.

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Gorillas on the Moon. That rocks!

Unless, of course, it is Gorillas in the Mist fanfic. That would suck.